![]() Adult leatherback seaturtles are also prized for their skins. Some people make the eggshells into trinkets. Humans have long sought seaturtles and seaturtle eggs as food. When the weather is warm, more females hatch males usually hatch when the weather is cooler. As with most turtles, the outdoor temperature during their incubation (ing-kyuh-BAY-shun), or the period of time before the eggs hatch, determines whether the egg will become a male or female upon hatching. ![]() A single clutch may contain up to 250 eggs, but 90–130 is more common. The round eggs are leathery and range from about 1 to 2 inches (2.5–5 centimeters) in diameter, or width across each egg. The females of almost all species wait until nightfall to dig their nests and lay their eggs. Members of these groups clamber onto shore to make nests near one another. In some cases, the female turtles will gather offshore in groups. Rarely, a seaturtle will nest every year. Scientists believe that if this shift in the numbers of males and females continues, it could have an effect on the survival of this endangered species.įemale seaturtles typically produce several clutches, or nests, of eggs in a season-sometimes seven or more-but they do so only once every two or three years. The warmer temperature meant that the young ridleys were mostly females. One study of olive ridley seaturtles found that trawling delayed the arrival of the female turtles at their nesting sites, and the females laid their eggs later in the year, when temperatures were warmer. For turtles, the danger is not in accidentally collecting them but rather in disturbing them as they move from feeding grounds to nesting sites. In this kind of fishing, a device scrapes the seafloor and collects animals that live on the bottom. Trawling is a type of fishing business that many scientists believe is dangerous to marine life, including seaturtles. When the winter months arrive, many turtles migrate (MY-grayt) to warmer tropical waters, but some drop down to the muddy bottoms of coastal waters and bury themselves there to survive the coldest temperatures. The distance between the two places can result in a trek, or journey, of 190 miles (306 kilometers) or more, one way. Usually, the feeding grounds are in temperate waters, which are neither very warm nor very cold the nesting areas, on the other hand, are in tropical waters, which are very warm. ![]() An individual seaturtle may travel hundreds of miles to go from its feeding area to its nesting site and back. Perhaps the most famous behavior of seaturtles is migration (my-GRAY-shun). Sea grasses make up the majority of its diet. The green seaturtle is the only member of the family that is known to prefer eating plants. Their diets are made up of a variety of marine, or sea, animals, including fishes snails and other mollusks (MAH-lusks), or animals with a soft, unsegmented body covered by a shell barnacles and other crustaceans (krus-TAY-shuns), or animals with a soft, segmented body covered by a shell and certain sponges and sea urchins. Most seaturtles are primarily meat eaters. They are more common close to shore than far out to sea, and they feed and nest at sites along the coastlines on continental shelves, or shallow plains forming the borders of continents. These turtles live in saltwater from the tropics to areas with mild climates well north and south of the equator, the imaginary circle around Earth that is midway between the poles. Seaturtles inhabit all the oceans of the world and the Mediterranean Sea. The leatherbacks have a carapace that measures 6 to 7 feet (1.8–2.1 meters) in length. ![]() The largest members of the family, the leatherback seaturtles, tip the scales at half a ton (454 kilograms) or more. Unlike many other turtles, they cannot retract, or pull back, their limbs or heads into their shells. Seaturtles are excellent swimmers, gliding through the water with sweeps of their large, broad, and powerful front limbs, which look like flippers or paddles. The lower shell, or plastron (PLAS-trun), is a bit smaller than in most turtles and attaches to the upper shell by tough but flexible tissues called ligaments (LIH-guh-ments), rather than the bony bridge common to land turtles. Their upper shell, or carapace (KARE-a-pays), is quite flat rather than highly rounded. The seaturtles are large animals that live in the ocean. LOGGERHEAD TURTLE ( Caretta caretta): SPECIES ACCOUNTS SEATURTLES: Cheloniidae GREEN SEATURTLE ( Chelonia mydas): SPECIES ACCOUNTS
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