Green Sea Turtle

Chelonia mydas

Description:

Back to my Poseidon grounds :) I find today Libertad having lunch at the manatee grass bed, photo take at -35 ft near a Coral reef . This is a local Green Sea Turtle that lives in this reef. The green sea turtle, possessing a dorsoventrally flattened body covered by a large, teardrop-shaped carapace and a pair of large, paddle-like flippers. Its range extends throughout tropical and subtropical seas around the world ,top shell carapace is smooth with shades of black, gray, green, brown, and yellow; their bottom shell plastron is yellowish white.

Habitat:

Adult green turtles are unique among sea turtles in that they eat only plants; they are herbivorous, feeding primarily on seagrasses and algae. This diet is thought to give them greenish-colored fat, from which they take their name.Adult females migrate from foraging areas to mainland or island nesting beaches and may travel hundreds or thousands of kilometers each way. After emerging from the nest, hatchlings swim to offshore areas, where they are believed to live for several years, feeding close to the surface on a variety of pelagic plants and animals. Once the juveniles reach a certain age/size range, they leave the pelagic habitat and travel to nearshore foraging grounds. Once they move to these nearshore benthic habitats, adult green turtles are almost exclusively herbivores, feeding on sea grasses and algae.

Notes:

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has repeatedly listed green sea turtles in its Red List as an endangered species.

Species ID Suggestions

10 Comments

Gerardo Aizpuru 11 years ago

Thanks Jeanette :)

Jeannette 11 years ago

Lovely :)

Gerardo Aizpuru 11 years ago

Thanks Sergio indeed this ones are like local ones we have 4 always stay around the same area at night they get shelter on the reef to sleep daylight they feed almost all day.the great part is that they eat the manatee grass that is an algae for areas ones in an area the grass is to small they move to another area next to this one that the grass is tall and live along the old area to recover but they have around 5 periods in a very big area of manatee grass. so a the end of 5 period they go back to the first place around 4 months latter and the grass is tall again. This turtles take care of their own habitat they harvest their own food. that´s the way i see it.