Green Sea Turtle:
Scientific Name: Chelonia Mydas Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Reptilia Order: Testudines Family: Cheloniidae Genus: Chelonia Species: C. Mydas Habitat:
Green Sea Turtles have an ocean water habitat and nesting habitat. After the turtles hatch, they head to the waves of the ocean and rarely come back to land. Green Sea Turtles stay in shallow waters off-shore until the breeding season. They will travel long distances, even across oceans, to return to their preferred breeding site. In the nesting season, females emerge onto the warm beaches around the world to lay their eggs. |
Niche:
Adult Green Sea Turtles are herbivores. Their primary food source is seagrass and algae. Juvenile Green Sea Turtles are omnivores.
They eat a wide variety of plant and animal life, including insects, crustaceans, seagrasses, and worms.
They eat a wide variety of plant and animal life, including insects, crustaceans, seagrasses, and worms.
Nesting:Green turtles nest at intervals of about every 2 years, with wide year-to-year fluctuations in numbers of nesting females. Nests between 3 to 5 times per season. Lays an average of 115 eggs in each nest, with the eggs incubating for about 60 days.
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Size:Adults are 3 to 4 feet in carapace length (83 - 114 cm). The green turtle is the largest of the Cheloniidae family. The largest green turtle ever found was 5 feet (152 cm) in length and 871 pounds (395 kg).
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Average Lifespan:
Green sea turtles live very long lives. It takes at least 20 - 50 years to reach sexual maturity and a healthy
individual can expect to live 80-100 years or even more! A lot is still unknown about the life history of green sea turtles.
individual can expect to live 80-100 years or even more! A lot is still unknown about the life history of green sea turtles.
Natural Disaster: Climate Change:
A Climate Change is a change in global or regional climate patterns. Because sea turtles use both marine and terrestrial habitats during their life cycles, the affects of climate change are likely to have a devastating impact on these endangered species. A rise in sea level will impact sea turtle nesting beaches. With melting polar icecaps and rising sea levels, these beaches would begin to disappear. An increase in nesting beach temperatures would also have an impact on not only the Green Sea Turtle, but all sea turtles in general. Because sea turtles are reptiles, they rely on the temperature of the sand in which the eggs incubate to determine the gender of the hatchling in a nest. Typically, the eggs in the lower, cooler, part of the nest would become males, while the upper, warmer, part of the nest would become females. If the nest temperatures were to increase, there would be more female than male hatchlings, creating a significant threat to genetic diversity.
New Evolution Species:
Turtles, like all reptiles, have no gills, and must surface to gain air periodically. They can stay down underwater for a long time because they have a more efficient way to use oxygen. Since the water level would rise, because of the climate change, the turtles' shallow water and nesting habitats would, in a way, disappear and the turtles would have to be able to survive longer in water. To adapt to the climate change, the turtles' front and hind fins would get bigger to "paddle" in the water more efficiently. Their necks would also grow a little longer because they would need to grow gills. They would grow gills so they wouldn't have to come up to breathe air as much because they would have to adapt to the high water level.