Sunday, February 28, 2010

Project 2:

Turtles are one of the reptiles with hard shell.



Green Turtle
- known as chelonia mydas, binomial name
- named as green turtle because of its shell color.
- a large sea turtle of the family of cheloniidae
- spend most of their first five years zones within the open ocean.
- may live in the wild up to age 80.
- can be found in tropical waters throughout the world.
- migrate long distance between feeding and nesting zones

Appearance
- Turtle's plastron is hued yellow.
- Hatchlings green turtle's carapace change color from black to various color patterns.
- Juvenile's carapace change from dark brown to olive.


Juvenile green turtle

Adult green Turtle
- 20-50 years to be mature
- 1.5 metre long
- their weight up to 300 kg
- shell - 90 to 125 cm

Habitat
- three types depending on their life stage.
- lay eggs on high energy beaches.
- move to benthic feeding grounds in shallow, protected water when reach the length of 20 to 25cm.

Diet
- sea grasses, worm, change significantly depends on their body size.

Nesting
- nests between 3 to 5 years.
- Incubation take about 50 days.
- Lays about 115 eggs in each nest.

Threats
- Many illegal poaching of turtles because of the egg harvesting and foods, and also their skins and shell which are valuable.
- The pollution effects harmfully influenced the hatchlings of turtles.
- Disease "fibropapilloma tumors" killed many turtles and cause problem in many populations.
- Human development near the nesting areas of green turtles, eliminating the nesting beaches.
- According to the survey, only 1/1000 of new hatchlings or juvenile green turtles can grow up to become adult turtle, because juvenile or new hatchlings turtles are lack of self defense which may lead them to become the foods of predators like crabs, marlin and so on.
- Adult green turtle only predators are human being, or the large sharks such as tiger sharks.


References
http://www.cccturtle.org/seaturtleinformation.php?page=green
http://the-return.adamwilliam.com/green_turtle.asp
http://www.turtles.org/atlgrnd.htm
http://earthtrust.org/wlcurric/turtles.html

Documentary and References

The appearance of a green turtle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkCiyTK_8b4

Green sea turtle lay it eggs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPjIi0-mT6A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-07n8lsRUQ

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