The green turtle is a large, weighty sea turtle with a wide, smooth shell. It typically inhabits tropical and subtropical coastal waters. Green Sea Turtle have often been observed clambering onto land to sunbathe. It is not named for the color of its shell, which is normally brown, but for the greenish color pigmentation of its skin. There are two types of green turtles: the Atlantic green turtle, normally seen off the shores of Europe and North America, and the Eastern Pacific green turtle, which has been found as far as from the coastal waters from Alaska to Chile. Green Sea Turtles can weigh up to 700 pounds (317.5 kilograms). Green turtles are one of the largest sea turtles in the world.
Their heads or small relative to their large shell and body. Unlike other turtles, their necks are non retractable, and extend from a heart-shaped carapace that measures up to 5 feet (1.5 meters). Typically, males are slightly larger than females and often have longer tails. Both have flippers that resemble paddles with webbed toes, which make them well suited and graceful swimmers. Unlike most sea turtles, adult green turtles are herbivorous, feeding on sea grasses and algae. Nonetheless, juvenile green turtles, will also eat invertebrates such as crabs, jellyfish, etc. While many sea turtles warm themselves by swimming close to the surface of shallow waters, the Eastern Pacific green turtle will take to land to bask in the sun. They can occasionally seen sunbathing alongside seals and albatrosses, it is one of the few marine turtles known to leave the water other than at nesting times.
Green turtles, like other sea turtles, undertake lengthy migrations from feeding waters to nesting grounds, normally sandy beaches. The mating cycle occurs every two to four years and normally performed in shallow waters close to the shore. To nest, females leave the sea and choose an area, often with other their mothers, to lay their eggs. They will dig a pit in the sand with their flippers, fill it with a clutch of 100 to 200 eggs, then covering the nest, and returning to the sea, leaving the eggs to hatch on their own after about two months. The most dangerous time of a green turtle’s life is making the journey from nest to sea. Multiple predators, including crabs and flocks of gulls, frequently prey on hatchlings during this short dart for life. Green turtles are listed as an endangered species. Despite this, they are still killed for their meat and eggs. Their numbers are also reduced by boat propeller accidents, fishnet-caused drowning, and the destruction of their nesting grounds by human development.