World Sea Turtle Day is celebrated on 16th June each year and this is a day to honour and highlight the significance of conserving this unique species. Sea turtles are very spectacular in their very own way. They are not only beautiful reptiles in the marine habitat but also show incredible perseverance and resiliency towards the ecosystem.
These are 5 things you never knew about marine Turtles:
Turtles don’t have teeth. Keratin is the main component that builds the sheaths on their upper and lower jaws. It fits onto the skull like a pair of false teeth.
Over 50 bones fused together to make the turtle shells and the shell grows larger as turtle size becomes larger.
"Lost years" is the term used to describe the first few years of a marine turtle’s life. The duration between the turtle eggs hatch, crawl into the sea, returning to coastal shallow waters to forage and nesting, remains a mystery to humans. However, there is some research in America, where the turtles end up in a current called the North Atlantic subtropical gyre.
Marine turtle species vary greatly in size. The smallest turtle, namely Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle, are measured around 70 cm in length and up to 40 kg in weight. Meanwhile, the leatherback can reach up to 180 cm and 500 kg in weight. That’s approximately 12.5 times heavier!
Under natural condition, a rough estimation has been made that as few as 1 in 1,000 to 10,000 marine turtle eggs will survive to adulthood.
