Let’s talk about Sea Turtles! Have you ever been suspicious about this majestic animal roaming around the sea? Well here are all of your answers and all of the information you need about the splendid Sea Turtles.
Typically they live a long life of around 100 years and funnily enough that is also around the same number of eggs they lay every time they nest. For a Sea Turtle there is no place like home, and when a female is ready to lay her eggs she will return to the same place that she was born. Did you know that when a Sea Turtle nests the temperature of the water affects whether they will have girls or boys?
When the water is warm it leads to more females and when it is cooler it leads to more males. This is why Sea Turtles are at risk of extinction as climate change can greatly affect their populations by producing too many females but not enough males. We must take care of our waters!
Sea Turtles not only live a long life but it is believed that they have also been around for a very long time. Can you guess how long? Let me tell you, it is estimated that they have been around for roughly 110 million years! That means that they were also living on The Earth with dinosaurs such as the T-rex, that is awesome !
When a Sea Turtle gets hungry they can not stop themselves from indulging in some jellyfish, they think that they are delicious! Although it is helpful that they eat jellyfish it is also harmful for them, as plastic floating in the water often looks like a jellyfish and many of our lovely turtles unfortunately die from choking on plastic while searching for a tasty snack. They also are known as the lawnmowers of the water, their diets are typically plant based and they peacefully swim along and enjoy eating seagrass. This keeps the seagrass short and stops it getting tall which makes it less harmful for other marine creatures.
If you think that is impressive, wait till you read this! Sea turtles can hold their breath for a huge 5 hours under the water! They can slow down their own heart rate to last a whole 9 minutes to store oxygen, as well as this, Sea Turtles are known to have an amazing talent of being able to read the Earth's magnetic field, this helps them with their direction and they use it as a compass! They will never get lost with this grand skill.
Although the dog is known as a man's best friend, they are definitely not Sea Turtles best friends. Some of their natural predators unfortunately include dogs, they dig up and destroy their eggs that are buried in the sand. Other predators include seabirds, raccoons and ghost crabs who also usually find the eggs and eat them.