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The baby turtles — which ended up beneath the tables of startled diners at the beachside restaurant — were probably thrown off track and lured through the eatery's lambent lights, related Antonio Colucci, who was called to back rescue the group.

"They saw the artificial lights and took the wrong passage," said Colucci, who works on a turtle monitoring project for the conservation group WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature).

"The diners were at primeval quite curious and then someone alerted the coastal authorities."

The stranded turtles, which had hatched onward a beach in the south Italian region of Calabria, were released into the sea.

Female sea turtles nest on beaches and their offspring instinctively head to the sea after hatching from their eggs.

(Reporting by Deepa Babington; editing by Robin Pomeroy)