Sea Creature Spotlight: Sea Turtles

Thank you so much for coming to visit my new site! One of the ways I would like to share fun facts about sea creatures and ocean animals with you is by having a weekly 'Sea Creature Spotlight'. This week I wanted to tell you some facts about one of my favorite ocean animals, SEA TURTLES!

I have not seen a sea turtle in the wild, but I have had been able to see a few up close at several aquariums. The turtles at the aquariums I have visited have been injured animals that were rescued. These turtles, even though they are all better, can no longer live out in the ocean because they can't do things as well as they could before their injury, things such as catch food or swim. I even helped feed the turtles when I went on a behind the scenes tour of the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga.


Here are a couple of pictures of turtles that I have seen over the past year:

This turtle was at Gulf World Marine Park in Panama City Beach, Florida. Gulf Word Marine Park.

And this was one of the two turtles that I got to help feed at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, TN. 

I like sea turtles because I think they look neat and I like the way they swim. Now let's splash into some learning with these neat SEA TURTLE facts!

They have been around a long time: Sea turtles are believed to be some of the oldest creatures on Earth. Sea turtles have been around since the time of dinosaurs.

They can live a long time: Sea turtles can have very long lives. Some can live to be 100 or more years old.

There's not a lot of different kinds: There are only seven species of sea turtles. They are the leatherback, loggerhead, hawksbill, Kemp's ridley, olive ridley, flatback and green sea turtles.

The sea is their home: Sea turtles spend their lives at sea. Once male sea turtles hatch and head to the ocean they stay there the rest of their lives. As for females they also spend a majority of their lives at sea and  they only come to shore in order to make a nest and lay eggs.

They use flippers instead of feet: Sea turtles differ from land turtles because they have flippers instead of legs. This makes it where the female turtles have to sort of crawl when they come ashore to make a nest. Sea turtles have larger front fins than rear fins and these bigger front fins help them swim.

They lay a lot of eggs: Female sea turtles lay a whole lot of eggs, usually anywhere from 80 to 150. The female turtle crawls up on shore and uses her fins to dig a nest and lay a bunch of eggs. They call the nest of eggs a clutch. They lay so many eggs because the baby sea turtles, which are called hatchlings, have to make it from the nest to the ocean. Sometimes hatchlings are attacked and eaten by predators or sometimes they do not survive. Having a whole bunch of eggs helps to make sure that there are a lot of new sea turtles.

As you can see sea turtles are pretty amazing, which is why they are one of my favorite sea creatures!