Turtle Facts From My Brain*
turtles are reptiles (therefore cold-blooded, therefore seek to sun themselves in warm places)
a turtle’s shell is made up of 13 plates
turtle is water critter; tortoise, land
THIRTEEN PLATES! Each and every turtle. How cool is that?
The mama sea turtle arduously drags her body onto the beach where she herself was hatched and in an annual ancient instinctual ritual, she digs a hole in the sand with her back legs (flippers?) and lays her (gooey) eggs. As the turtlings** hatch and attempt to crawl to the sea, thousands die in an ensuing feeding frenzy.
Once the giant sea turtle reaches maturity, it has few natural enemies (save MAN) and can live for over a hundred or two hundred years. Same with the giant tortoises.
Habitat Destruction and Environmental Degradation
I saw a giant sea turtle when I was snorkeling in the ocean in Hawaii. Yes, it was huge and beautiful and I can hardly believe it happened to me.
snapping turtle
oviparous (though some reptiles give birth to live young)
need wet places to lay their eggs (go turtle mamas, go!)
I drove my car home on 116 in S. Amherst on Friday. A turtle was in the middle of the southbound lane.
The turtle was in an apparent state of shock while car after car ran over it (not the wheels), not moving for at least the 4 minutes in which my car approached, I took in the sight, turned around about two blocks ahead, parked in the middle of the road (this is a busy street, peeps!), grabbed a towel, picked it up the turtle, put it in the grass away from the street….
Did the turtle crawl back into the busy road after I moved it? Don’t know.
*no, really, these tidbits are what I remember from any episode I’ve ever seen of Nature about turtles. Fact check me. Go ahead, I dare ya.
**turtlings is NOT a real word, but if you use it, I will know what you mean
Awesome, you turtle-saver, you 🙂 Most likely it didn’t go back into the road if you moved him off to the side he was headed for. My husb and I have moved many gopher tortoises off the road, and it’s illegal to even touch them, but there’s no way I’m leaving him out there to get run over by some bonehead who thinks that’s fun.
Also, I can happily say I witnessed a sea turtle drag herself up on the beach and deposit eggs. It was really dark and hard to see, but you could see the outline of her massive shell and hear the sand being pushed by her flippers. Slowly, she dragged back to the water. As she headed back to the water I gave her a light love pat on the shell. 🙂
Illegal to touch them must absolutely not override an intelligent and compassionate action!
Where did you see the mama sea turtle? I know they come to Florida, not sure about S Carolina or Georgia.
Thanks for coming by and commenting, I love that you left me a message on FB also.
Now that I helped that turtle, I won’t be scared next time. I understand some of them get to be HUGE, not sure I could’ve picked up a really heavy snapping one.
Happy Turtle-y Spring!
The sea turtle we saw was late at night on Englewood Beach, in SW Fla a few years ago. It was a very slow process and we stayed low and very still through the whole thing. Wish I could have been able to see it better, but lights disturb them so we kept our flashlights off. Pretty amazing.