37 Facts About Sea turtles

Sea turtles, sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira.

The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, Kemp's ridley, and olive ridley sea turtles.

Sea turtles can be separated into the categories of hard-shelled and leathery-shelled .

In general, sea turtles have a more fusiform body plan than their terrestrial or freshwater counterparts.

Origin of sea turtles goes back to the Late Jurassic with genera such as Plesiochelys, from Europe.

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Sea turtles can be found in all oceans except for the polar regions.

Sea turtles are generally found in the waters over continental shelves.

Sea turtles migrate to reach their spawning beaches, which are limited in numbers.

All sea turtles have large body sizes, which is helpful for moving large distances.

In 1987, Carr discovered that the young of green and loggerhead sea turtles spent a great deal of their pelagic lives in floating sargassum mats.

Sea turtles maintain an internal environment that is hypotonic to the ocean.

All species of sea turtles have a lachrymal gland in the orbital cavity, capable of producing tears with a higher salt concentration than sea water.

Salt gland functioning begins quickly after hatching, so that the young sea turtles can establish ion and water balance soon after entering the ocean.

Sea turtles are air-breathing reptiles that have lungs, so they regularly surface to breathe.

Sea turtles spend a majority of their time underwater, so they must be able to hold their breath for long periods.

Cold-stunning is a phenomenon that occurs when sea turtles enter cold ocean water, which causes the turtles to float to the surface and therefore makes it impossible for them to swim.

Sea turtles are the first biofluorescent reptile found in the wild.

Some support has been found for geomagnetic imprinting, including successful experiments transplanting populations of sea turtles by relocating them prior to hatching, but the exact mechanism is still not known.

Green sea turtles have a serrated jaw that is used to eat sea grass and algae.

Sea turtles are caught worldwide, although it is illegal to hunt most species in many countries.

In England during the 1700s, Sea Turtles were consumed as a delicacy to near extinction, often as turtle soup.

Walks to observe the nesting sea turtles require a certified guide and this controls and minimises disturbance of the beaches.

Sea turtles grass needs to be constantly cut short to help it grow across the sea floor.

Sea turtles maintain a symbiotic relationship with yellow tang, in which the fish will eat algae growing on the shell of a sea turtle.

However, the usefulness of global assessments for sea turtles has been questioned, particularly due to the presence of distinct genetic stocks and spatially separated regional management units .

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Additionally, all populations of sea turtles that occur in United States waters are listed as threatened or endangered by the US Endangered Species Act .

Sea turtles usually lay around 100 eggs at a time, but on average only one of the eggs from the nest will survive to adulthood.

One of the most significant and contemporary threats to sea turtles comes from bycatch due to imprecise fishing methods.

In early 2007, almost a thousand sea turtles were killed inadvertently in the Bay of Bengal over the course of a few months after netting.

However, some relatively inexpensive changes to fishing techniques, such as slightly larger hooks and traps from which sea turtles can escape, can dramatically cut the mortality rate.

Sea turtles are often consumed during the Catholic season of Lent, even though they are reptiles, not fish.

Sea turtles eat plastic bags because they confuse them with their actual diet, jellyfish, algae and other components.

The study that was in January 2018 Current Biology "Environmental Warning and Feminization of One of the Largest Sea Turtle Populations in the World", showed how baby sea turtles were being born female a lot more than being born male.

Sea turtles are very vulnerable to oil pollution, both because of the oil's tendency to linger on the water's surface, and because oil can affect them at every stage of their life cycle.

Sea turtles are believed to have a commensal relationship with some barnacles, in which the barnacles benefit from growing on sea turtles without harming them.

Sea turtles tend to live long lives, greater than 70 years, so barnacles do not have to worry about host death.

Sea turtles spend most of their lives swimming and following ocean currents and as water runs along the back of the sea turtle's shell it passes over the barnacles, providing an almost constant water flow and influx of food particles.