What is an interesting fact about turtles?
Every species of turtle lays their eggs on land. For example, the leatherback turtles will migrate thousands of miles just to lay their eggs! They will travel back to the same beach that they were born on, and lay their own eggs. River turtles will usually lay their eggs near to where they live and eat on the shore.
What makes sea turtles special?
Sea turtles provide habitat for an array of “aquatic hitchhikers” like barnacles and other small crustaceans, remoras, algae, and diatoms. Because sea turtles undergo long migrations, they help to transport these species. They also act as sort of an umbrella for fish that use them as shelter from predators.
What do sea turtles do?
Sea turtles are an important part of the planet’s food web and play a vital role in maintaining the health of the world’s oceans. They regulate a variety of other organisms simply through eating them. For example, green turtles mainly feed on seagrass.
What does a sea turtle eat?
What do sea turtles naturally eat?
- Loggerhead: Hatchlings are omnivores (meaning they eat both animals and plants) but adults are carnivores, favoring crabs, whelks, and conchs.
- Green: Fully grown sea turtles are herbivores and like to hang around coral reefs to scrape off seagrass and algae.
How fast can sea turtles swim?
Leatherback sea turtle: 22 mphSea turtles / Speed
How do turtles help the environment?
Nesting sea turtles help beaches by depositing their eggs in the sand. Eggshells and unhatched eggs left behind provide important nutrients that nourish dune vegetation such as beach grasses, which stabilize dunes and help to prevent coastal erosion.
What is special about sea turtles?
1. They’re really ancient. The oldest known sea turtle fossil is at least 120 million years old, making sea turtles some of the oldest creatures on the planet. That means they shared the planet with dinosaurs which became extinct around 65 million years ago.
Do sea turtles drink water?
All sea turtles drink only seawater all of their lives. They have special glands behind each eye, called “salt glands” that they use to get rid of all the salt from the seawater.