Home-site fidelity and homing behavior of the big-headed turtle Platysternon megacephalum

Site fidelity refers to the restriction of dispersal distance of an animal and its tendency to return to a stationary site. To our knowledge, the homing ability of freshwater turtles and their fidelity is reportedly very low in Asia. We examined mark-recapture data spanning a 4-year period in Diaoluoshan National Nature Reserve, Hainan Province, China, to investigate the site fidelity and homing behavior of big-headed turtles Platysternon megacephalum. A total of 11 big-headed turtles were captured, and all individuals were used in this mark-recapture study. The site fidelity results showed that the adult big-headed turtles (n = 4) had a 71.43% recapture rate in the original site after their release at the same site, whereas the juveniles (n = 1) showed lower recapture rates (0%). Moreover, the homing behavior results showed that the adults (n = 5) had an 83.33% homing rate after displacement. Adult big-headed turtles were able to return to their initial capture sites (home) from 150–240...