Facts about Sea Turtles
Here are some fun facts about sea turtles!
There are seven species of sea turtles. Six belong to the Cheloniidae family, and one belongs to the Dermocheyidae family. The definition of a sea turtle is a turtle that lives in the sea. (quite obvious) The sea turtle superfamily is Chelonioidea, which includes all the species of sea turtles.
Family Cheloniidae:
Green Sea Turtle-Chelonia mydas
Hawksbill Sea Turtle-Eretmochelys imbricata
Flatback Sea Turtle-Natator depressus
Loggerhead Sea Turtle-Caretta caretta
Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle-Lepidochelys kempii
Olive Ridley Sea Turtle-Lepidocheys olivacea
Family Dermocheyidae
Leatherback Sea Turtle-Dermocheyls coriacea
The difference between the Cheloniidae turtles and the Dermocheyidae turtle is that Cheloniidae turtles have hard shells, while the Dermocheyidae turtle has leathery skin, hence the name.
Nesting and hatchling information:
Nesting females can usually lay up to 80 to 120 eggs at a time.
Usually, only 1 out of 10,000 eggs survive to adulthood.
The temperature of sand affects the gender of hatchlings and the speed at which hatching begins; hotter sand results in more females and faster hatching while cooler sand produces more males and slower hatching.
Females always nest at the same beach where they were born.
Sea turtle eggs are quite flexible, which allows many eggs to fit in one nest.
All the different species have different diets and different shell patterns.
Individual Species Cool Info:
Green Sea Turtles: Are thought to improve the health of sea grass, which they eat. They only take the tops of the grass, leaving the roots intact. This apparently has the same effect as trimming hair. The sea grass grows faster and healthier after a trim from a green sea turtle.
Loggerhead Sea Turtles: Are found in every ocean in the world. Their powerful jaws allow them to eat crabs, conchs, and whelks, all of which have hard shells.
Hawksbill Sea Turtles: Their sponge diet makes their flesh poisonous to humans. It kind of serves us right because we humans have hunted 80 percent of them to death for their beautiful, multi-colored shells, said to be the prettiest of turtle shells.
Olive Ridley Sea Turtles: Thousands of females nest at a time. This mass of nesting turtles is called an arribada. Kemp's ridley sea turtles also nest like this.
Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles: They nest only during the day, and are the smallest species of sea turtle, at only two feet in length.
Flatback Sea Turtles: This species only lives in Australia, and their hatchlings are larger than other species' hatchlings, though the number of hatchlings hatched at a time is lower.
Leatherback Sea Turtles: The oldest and the biggest of all sea turtles. They have outlived even the dinosaurs, and have been around for more than 150 million years.
Facts about the Pictures:
I wanted to do a Sea Turtle-kun page, which is why there is an oddly-colored boy in the left. However, one of my classmates found it very confusing, which is probably because I didn't explain it well enough. Here is my (not-much-improved) explanation.
Okay, so some writers and artists have a habit of personifying things, basically taking something like a country perhaps, then drawing a human and then calling that human by the country's name. They then take attributes of the country (ex. this country has a warring history) and "translating" it into a personality for the human (ex. since the country we're naming this human after has a warring history, let's give this human a bloodthirsty personality.) Japanese people who do this often put -kun (for a boy) or -tan (for a girl) after the country/species/etc.'s name. I quite liked the idea, so I tried to do it with sea turtles.
His skin, clothing, and eyes are colored green to show that he definitely isn't a normal human and also because sea turtles are usually green. The background is blue to model the sea because sea turtles are called SEA turtles for a reason. His scar is recent, made by the enormous impact humans have done to him.
The other pictures are of the seven species of sea turtles.
There are seven species of sea turtles. Six belong to the Cheloniidae family, and one belongs to the Dermocheyidae family. The definition of a sea turtle is a turtle that lives in the sea. (quite obvious) The sea turtle superfamily is Chelonioidea, which includes all the species of sea turtles.
Family Cheloniidae:
Green Sea Turtle-Chelonia mydas
Hawksbill Sea Turtle-Eretmochelys imbricata
Flatback Sea Turtle-Natator depressus
Loggerhead Sea Turtle-Caretta caretta
Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle-Lepidochelys kempii
Olive Ridley Sea Turtle-Lepidocheys olivacea
Family Dermocheyidae
Leatherback Sea Turtle-Dermocheyls coriacea
The difference between the Cheloniidae turtles and the Dermocheyidae turtle is that Cheloniidae turtles have hard shells, while the Dermocheyidae turtle has leathery skin, hence the name.
Nesting and hatchling information:
Nesting females can usually lay up to 80 to 120 eggs at a time.
Usually, only 1 out of 10,000 eggs survive to adulthood.
The temperature of sand affects the gender of hatchlings and the speed at which hatching begins; hotter sand results in more females and faster hatching while cooler sand produces more males and slower hatching.
Females always nest at the same beach where they were born.
Sea turtle eggs are quite flexible, which allows many eggs to fit in one nest.
All the different species have different diets and different shell patterns.
Individual Species Cool Info:
Green Sea Turtles: Are thought to improve the health of sea grass, which they eat. They only take the tops of the grass, leaving the roots intact. This apparently has the same effect as trimming hair. The sea grass grows faster and healthier after a trim from a green sea turtle.
Loggerhead Sea Turtles: Are found in every ocean in the world. Their powerful jaws allow them to eat crabs, conchs, and whelks, all of which have hard shells.
Hawksbill Sea Turtles: Their sponge diet makes their flesh poisonous to humans. It kind of serves us right because we humans have hunted 80 percent of them to death for their beautiful, multi-colored shells, said to be the prettiest of turtle shells.
Olive Ridley Sea Turtles: Thousands of females nest at a time. This mass of nesting turtles is called an arribada. Kemp's ridley sea turtles also nest like this.
Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtles: They nest only during the day, and are the smallest species of sea turtle, at only two feet in length.
Flatback Sea Turtles: This species only lives in Australia, and their hatchlings are larger than other species' hatchlings, though the number of hatchlings hatched at a time is lower.
Leatherback Sea Turtles: The oldest and the biggest of all sea turtles. They have outlived even the dinosaurs, and have been around for more than 150 million years.
Facts about the Pictures:
I wanted to do a Sea Turtle-kun page, which is why there is an oddly-colored boy in the left. However, one of my classmates found it very confusing, which is probably because I didn't explain it well enough. Here is my (not-much-improved) explanation.
Okay, so some writers and artists have a habit of personifying things, basically taking something like a country perhaps, then drawing a human and then calling that human by the country's name. They then take attributes of the country (ex. this country has a warring history) and "translating" it into a personality for the human (ex. since the country we're naming this human after has a warring history, let's give this human a bloodthirsty personality.) Japanese people who do this often put -kun (for a boy) or -tan (for a girl) after the country/species/etc.'s name. I quite liked the idea, so I tried to do it with sea turtles.
His skin, clothing, and eyes are colored green to show that he definitely isn't a normal human and also because sea turtles are usually green. The background is blue to model the sea because sea turtles are called SEA turtles for a reason. His scar is recent, made by the enormous impact humans have done to him.
The other pictures are of the seven species of sea turtles.