![]() They can reach up to five feet and can weigh up to 650 pounds. Green sea turtles are larger than loggerheads. Loggerhead sea turtles have five scutes down each side of their shell, whereas greens only have four. It is possible to count the number of scutes on the shell to identify one from the other. Loggerhead and green sea turtles look similar as adults. Historically, they nested as far north as Virginia. These turtles nest as far north as Ocracoke Inlet in North Carolina and as far south as Florida. Tagged adults have been found thousands of miles from where they were originally marked. Loggerheads tend to travel great distances. Sailors seeing the head poke above the surface to breathe would often mistake them for logs, so they named them loggerheads. They may weigh as much as 500 pounds, but 350 pounds is more common. Some species have been known to swim up to 1900 miles in 23 days, against the current!Ī loggerhead sea turtle’s shell can reach 3-4 feet. Sea turtles travel many miles between nesting and feeding grounds during the year. Only the green sea turtle spends much time eating vegetables. Leathery projections line their throats and protect them from the sting of the jelly’s tentacles. A favorite food of most sea turtles is the jellyfish. Most sea turtles are carnivores, eating crabs, sponges, tunicates, clams and other mollusks. Their jaws are powerful and shaped like a bird’s beak. Like all turtles, sea turtles have no teeth. Because of their streamlined shape of their shell, a sea turtle cannot pull its head and flippers into its shell like a terrestrial turtle. To help them swim, sea turtles shells are very narrow and hydrodynamic. This allows them to move quickly through the water. Unlike terrestrial turtles, sea turtles have flippers instead of feet. Sea turtles are reptiles and therefore are ectothermic (cold blooded), lay eggs, and have scaly skin, claws and lungs. Other impacts to their populations include oil spills, environmental pollution, the eating of plastics, and marine debris from human activities.Although each of the sea turtles is unique, they share many general characteristics. Individuals can be caught as by-catch and get tangled in commercial fishing gear. Marine turtles face a range of threats, like climate change, unsustainable egg harvesting and the loss of coastal habitats. *All marine turtles are considered endangered species Threats Sexual maturity is reach at 10-19 years of age, and their full lifespan is uncertain past 35 years of age. Temperatures below 28 degrees will produce males, temperatures above 31 degrees will produce females, and temperatures in the middle could produce both sexes. Gender is based on the egg incubation temperature. In roughly 2 months, early in the morning, the hatchlings will emerge. Nesting season is mid-April to mid-July, and egg laying occurs during daylight hours, when 90 to 110 eggs are laid. ![]() Females reproduce every 1-2 years, and will lay 1-4 clutches during the nesting season, spaced roughly a month apart. Most females of this species nest on a single beach along the northeastern coast of Mexico: Rancho Nuevo, Tamaulipas. Nesting occurs above the high tide line on sandy beaches. This species forages for a wide variety of invertebrates, like crustaceans and aquatic insects, and will eat small algae and plant material. Juveniles can be found in shallow habitats in coastal waters or in bays and lagoons. Adults can be observed in water up to a depth of 20m from April until September, and in waters up to 50m throughout the remainder of the year. Ridley sea turtles are aquatic, inhabiting shallow, near-shore marine environments. They can be found in Atlantic Canada, but they are not considered a regular resident of Canadian waters. Juveniles have been found throughout a larger portion of the Atlantic Ocean and can be regularly observed along the southeastern coast of the United States. This species is restricted to the Gulf of Mexico and the east coast of Florida. SizeĪdults weigh 36 to 45kg Range and Distribution Like many other turtle species, male Atlantic Ridley’s have a concave plastron. Males have longer tails and a large, curved claw on their front flippers. The head is wide at the back with a hooked upper jaw. The upper sides and top of the head, skin and flippers are grey or white. The bridge (which connects the plastron to the carapace) and plastron are white. ![]() The smallest of the sea turtles, the Atlantic Ridley has a heart-shaped, keeled carapace, pale yellow-grey to grey in colour. Gaelic Translation: Turtar Kemp Physical Description
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