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1media/olive ridley turtle laying eggs courtesy of welovecostarica.jpg2019-04-07T23:37:28-07:00Sam Henrickson5cd0ff97c337b26d01e84db58bdb9506b40fff7a3351910Ritualsplain2019-04-20T20:52:46-07:00Sam Henrickson5cd0ff97c337b26d01e84db58bdb9506b40fff7aIn animals, another example of knowledge passed on overlaps with rituals necessary to complete both an individual life cycle and to further the Ultimate Perfection of the species: mating rituals. Fall season sees a phenomena called the salmon run. This is when salmon swim upstream through rivers from the ocean where they migrated for the summer to lay their eggs (and then immediately die). The reason for their return to the spawning grounds (which they find using both the Earth's magnetic fields and their own sense of smell) is simple: they cannot afford to waste time searching for rivers that are both suitable and have other fish there.
The salmon die after they mate because they usually cannot continue eating once they have returned to the freshwater streams after having done most of their growing and maturing in the saltwater oceans, and they expend almost all of their energy getting upstream and then laying or fertilizing the eggs. Instead of refusing to return to the spawning grounds altogether and living a happy life swimming around in the ocean, the salmon return dutifully to the mating grounds when it is time to fertilize and die in order to further the species, though (at least in the case of Pacific salmon) at the cost of their own lives.
Alternatively, female sea turtles, who are famed for returning to the exact spot they were born and hatched in order to lay their own eggs, use the unique magnetic signature of the coastline to orient themselves home after years exploring the sea. The males, however, mate at different coastlines, and the reason for this is to keep the genetic pool mixed up and to prevent a weakened species through inbreeding and the amplification of negative traits. Since the males have different immune genes depending on where they are born and their genetic makeup, by mating with females of different beaches, the offspring of these rituals have a much higher chance of having stronger immune genes and have a lesser chance of being doubly inflicted with a genetic deformity.
This is especially crucial to the attainment of Ultimate Perfection because of the Loggerhead's low birth rate-- less births mean less chances for something closer to Ultimate Perfection to come of the coupling, so the turtles must remain wary of their genetic makeup. The females go back to their own beach and the males find new ones in a self-organizing manner: this way, there will be no confusion as to who came from where and what genetic incapacities to look out for in individual members of the species.