World Sea Turtle Day is observed on 16 June every year to highlight the importance of Sea Turtles. Due to the excessive dumping of 8 million tonnes of plastic in oceans every year, these amazing creatures are under big threat. Now let’s know some facts about them;
7 Interesting Facts about Sea Turtles:
Here, I would like to share 7 facts that will prove how amazing these creatures are, and highlight why we must fight back against the plastic pollution choking our oceans:
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The initial few years of a marine turtle’s life are sometimes described as the ‘Lost Years’. That is because the time when the hatchlings emerge and until they return to coastal shallow waters to forage is incredibly difficult to study. These lost years they spend at sea which can be up to 20 years- largely remain a mystery to humans.
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Turtles do not have teeth. In spite of teeth, their upper and lower jaws have sheaths made up of keratin (the same material your fingernails are made of) that fit onto the skull like a pair of false teeth.
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The hard shell of turtle is made up of over 50 bones combined together- so they're literally wearing their bones on the outside.
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It’s speculated that as few as 1 in 1,000 marine turtle eggs will survive to adulthood. And if beaches are filled with litter, it can prevent hatchlings reaching the sea.
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Turtles like to prefer orange, red and yellow coloured food. When looking for a meal, they appear to investigate these colours more than others.
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Marine turtles have the capacity to migrate long distances- the record is for a female leatherback that swam nearly 13,000 miles over 647 days from Indonesia to the west coast of America.
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Female marine turtles always return to the same beach they hatched on to nest. This amazing ability of marine sea turtles to navigate comes from their sensitivity to the Earth's magnetic fields.
Even with all these amazing features and adaptations, 6 out of the 7 species of marine turtle are threatened with extinction, and the 7th is listed as data deficient. Plastic pollution is one of the major risks to these sea turtles. In fact, 1 out of 2 sea turtle has ingested plastic- often mistaking it for food such as jellyfish. Today, we all have a role to play in fighting back against the plastic waste choking our oceans.
“Wildlife- Save it to Cherish or Leave it to Perish”.
