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How do female sea turtles dig and cover their nests?

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Illustrations of ten representative chelonians, including spiny softshell turtle, Galapagos giant tortoise, green turtle, alligator snapping turtle, Blanding's turtle, common map turtle, eastern box turtle, eastern painted turtle, spotted turtle, and eastern mud turtle, each labeled with its common and scientific name. A scale bar at the bottom shows size comparison. — turtle Turtles (order Testudines).

Female sea turtles perform an arduous, instinctual process to nest on land. Once a female selects a suitable site, she digs a chamber using her hind limbs in a slow, steady, and alternating pattern.1

As one hind limb supports her body, the other moves under her tail, using a semicircular twisting motion to spade into the soil and flip it outward. This continues until the hole reaches a depth equal to the length of her outstretched hind limbs.1

After positioning her tail over the center of the nest, she deposits her eggs. Once the clutch is laid, she reverses her digging motion, using her hind limbs to drag the loose soil back into the chamber to cover the eggs. After the nest is filled, the female departs, leaving the eggs to incubate in the sand.12