Sea Turtles : 101 Super Fun Facts And Amazing Pictures (Featuring The World's Top 6 Sea Turtles) , livre ebook
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English
Ebooks
2013
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23
pages
English
Ebook
2013
Vous pourrez modifier la taille du texte de cet ouvrage
Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus
Publié par
Date de parution
15 septembre 2013
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781630221461
Langue
English
Publié par
Date de parution
15 septembre 2013
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9781630221461
Langue
English
Sea Turtles: 101 Super Fun Facts and Amazing Pictures
(FEATURING THE WORLD's TOP 6 SEA TURTLES)
Table of Contents
What are sea turtles?
Green Sea Turtle (chelonia mydas)
Hawksbill Sea Turtle (eretmochelys Imbricata)
Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle (lepidochelys kempii)
Loggerhead Sea Turtle (caretta caretta)
Leatherback Sea Turtle (dermochelys coriacea)
Olive Ridley Sea Turtle (epidochelys olivacea)
What are sea turtles?
Sea turtles are amazing creatures. They are one of the few remaining animals who came from an earlier time. Their life span easily exceeds the average human life, and they have unique traits which distinguish them from other kinds of animals.
Sea turtles prefer to stay in deep waters most of the time. Their solitary nature has made them one of nature’s biggest mysteries for mankind. Still, scientists called marine biologists have been trying to find out more about these elusive sea creatures, and here are some of the things they discovered: Sea turtles are reptiles. They are the last surviving line from the large marine reptiles which roamed the Earth 200 million years ago! The species found today are said to have existed as early as 110 million years back.
Sea turtles are one of the few modern reptiles that can live in the sea, along with marine iguanas, sea snakes, and saltwater crocodiles.
Unlike their land relatives, sea turtles can’t hide inside their shells.
According to scientists, sea turtles today look the same as they did millions of years ago.
Sea turtles are cold-blooded. This means that their body temperature adapts to the temperature of their environment.
Sea turtles are often found in warm, tropical waters. When the water temperature becomes too cold for them, they migrate to warmer parts of the sea.
Their feet (called flippers) and upper shell (called carapace) make sea turtles excellent swimmers. They cannot breathe underwater, but they can hold their breath for several hours! This is why sea turtles are able to travel exceedingly long distances while migrating.
The beach or coastal waters where a sea turtle is hatched is called “natal beach.” As long as the natal beach is still fit for habitat, female sea turtles will return there during nesting season to lay her eggs.
Figure 1: A female sea turtle builds the nest where she will bury her eggs for incubation. Sea turtles can leave several nests every nesting season!
Figure 2: Female sea turtles crawling back to the sea after nesting their eggs. They will soon set off for a long journey called migration. Sea turtles rarely interact with one another, except during mating and nesting season. Females are occasionally seen together in groups during nesting, as shown in the picture above (Figure 2).
Adult sea turtles live almost entirely at sea. Usually, only the females ever return to land every 2 to 3 years to nest her eggs.
Sea turtles never change their nesting and migration patterns, making them easy targets of poachers and hunters.
Sea turtles “cry” when they are on land because they need to release the excess salt that their bodies have absorbed underwater.
A female sea turtle will only nest her eggs a few times every season before she migrates. Nesting is hard work for them, because sea turtles move more slowly on land and they are more easily exhausted.
