SEA TURTLES
- Part 2

Sea turtles are reptiles, just like the other types of turtles. This means that they are cold blooded vertebrates. They have scaly skin, lungs, and a three chambered heart (amazing isn't it?). They lay eggs, and don't have any teeth, but they have a beak. They have eardrums, but you can't tell that they have ears like you can tell with us.

Sea turtles have shells with patterns (streamlined) decorated on them for swimming. They live in warm oceans world-wide, but are found primarily in the tropical reef habitats in the Caribbean and in tropical Australian waters. They basically perfer shallower waters, like bays, lagoons, and estuaries, though some of them do in fact travel hrough the open sea. They range from a variety of colors. They also have flippers instead of legs like us, so they wouldn't be able to walk. They eat jellyfish, mollusks, and flatbacks. They are primarily vegetarian.

Even the smallest sea turtles are large. Green Turtles are 30-44 inches long, and weigh between 150-400 pounds. On the other hand, they are in danger if there are predators around. Their shell doesn't protect them much. Since they are so stream lined, they can't retract their heads or flippers! Though this is true they can live as long as eighty years, if not more. During these years they spend most of it in the water.

The female does come out of the water to lay eggs, making sure she stays close to the beach where she herself was hatched. Most off them spend several hours at night time digging out a nesting area, which is to hold about 120 eggs. These eggs are about the size of a ping-pong ball. They usually do not nest every year. When the hatchlings emerge from the eggs at night, after the incubation period of about fifty-five days, they follow the moonlight into the ocean. This is where they will begin their lives floating among the seaweed, eating and growing!

- Stephanie, 13, Georgia