Threatened sea turtles

Often grouped in the family Chelonioidea, sea turtles 🐢s are characterized by a carapace more or less covered with scales. This family consists of 6 species, the green, loggerhead, hawksbill, olive ridley, kemp’s and flatback turtles.
The only marine turtle not classified in this family is the leatherback turtle, imposing by its size, its weight and its tough skin and not its scales.

Oviparous in nature, turtles lay eggs 🥚 and incubate them until they mature. They can have more than 150 eggs per clutch and several clutches per season; which, under normal conditions, compensates for the high mortality that prevents most turtles from reaching maturity.
Sea turtles are very imposing with a weight between 40 and 500 kg or even a height that can reach 1m80 ⚖️.
Generally located in tropical or subtropical waters see temperate.
Regarding their diet, it can vary from one species to another, but mainly it consists of cnidarians, jellyfish, mollusks, crustaceans or small fish.

Protected species since 1983, poaching is still a scourge difficult to fight.
But that’s not all, ocean pollution 🌊 taking a considerable place in our world. Turtles are the first to suffer from this scourge, ingesting plastic pollutants that lead to their deaths. It is an easy prey in its first days of life where it must return to the water of the beach where it is born. At this time of its life, it must escape from many predators such as birds.
But also in its last days of life where the turtle is often trapped in fishing nets. The decrease of the size of the populations of marine turtles is thus to be watched carefully.

The difference between terrestrial and marine turtles is above all physical with webbed legs for aquatic turtles and round legs for terrestrial turtles.

Have you had the chance to see sea turtles while traveling? Tell us about it !