Sea Turtles

"Free photo Life Animals Sea Animals Green Sea Turtles Turtle - Max Pixel", by Max Pixel, licensed under CC0

Sea Turtles are reptiles remarkably suited to life in sea. Their hydrodynamic shape, large size, and powerful front flippers allow them dive to great depths and swim long distances. These front flippers are long, narrow, and winglike, their hind flippers are shorter. Although Sea Turtles can remain submerged for hours at time while resting or sleeping, typically surface several times each hour to breathe. There are seven species of Sea Turtle: green Sea Turtle, Hawksbill Sea Turtle, loggerhead Sea Turtle, Olive Ridley Sea Kemps Ridley Sea Turtle, leatherback Sea Turtle, and flatback Sea Turtle. Sea Turtles are among oldest creatures on Earth and have remained essentially unchanged for 110 million years. In most Sea Turtles, top shellor carapaceis composed of many bones covered horny scales, or scutes. Unlike their terrestrial relatives, they cannot retract heads into their shells. Smallest Of Sea Turtles Are Two Species Of Ridleys, Weighing In At 85 To 100 Pounds As Adults. Leatherbacks are biggest and can grow to 2 000 pounds. Most Sea Turtles grow slowly and have lifespan of many decades. Mating occurs roughly every two to years in shallow waters. In summer, ancient reproductive ritual begins when female leaves sea and crawls ashore to dig nest in sand. She uses her rear flippers to dig nest hole, then deposits 80 to 150 eggs that look lot Ping - Pong balls. When egg - laying is complete, turtles cover eggs, camouflage nest site, and return to ocean. Nesting turtles may come to shore several times in nesting season to repeat process. As is true for some other reptiles, temperature of Sea Turtle nest determines sex of hatchlings. Warmer temperatures produce more females, cooler temperatures result in more males. For this reason, conservationists and wildlife managers turtle eggs in their original location whenever possible so that sex ratios are determined naturally. After incubating for about months, eggs begin to hatch. Hatchlings range from 1. 5 to 3 inches in size, depending species, and emerge from nest as group. This usually occurs at night, and hatchlings use bright, open view of night sky over water to find their way to sea. After their first frantic crawl from their nest to ocean, male Sea Turtles never return to shore again, and females come back only long enough to lay eggs. Artificial lights on beachfront buildings and roadwaysoften called light pollutioncan distract hatchlings on their way to ocean. Because of this danger, many beachfront communities have adopted lighting requiring lights to be shut off or shielded during nesting and hatching season. All Sea are threaten or endanger. They face uncertain future due to threats of many kinds, including pollution and encroachment of coastal development on their nesting beaches.

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