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Anatomy
Characteristics of Green Turtles are a typical adult is 3 to 4 feet long and weighs 300 to 350 pounds. They have dark brown, grey, or olive colored shells and a much lighter yellow-to- white underside. Their shells have 5 scutes running down the middle and four scutes on each side. Also how to tell males and females apart is males have a larger tail then females. These turtles are also characterized by there large, streamlined shell and non retractable head and limbs.
Reproduction
Green Turtles come ashore on sandy beaches to nest a few weeks after mating. Green turtles lay about 110 eggs oer nest. Females usually nesy during the warmest months of the year. Males mate females in foraging grounds, along mirgratory pathways, and off nesting beaches.
New hatchlings are highly susceptilbe to predation and very few eggs laid survive to adulthood. Female hatchlings roam the ocean until they reach sexual maturity around 10 to 15 years of age and they return to the same nesting area to breed again. Males in contrast spend the rest of their lives at sea, living mostly solitary for the rest of their lives.
Physiology
Green Turtles have their forelimbs and neck, forelimbs are modified into long, paddle like flippers for swimming, it also allows them to maintain speed while traveling in the ocean.
Green turtles can also stay underwater for as long as 5 hours. Their heart rate slows to conserve oxygen. 9 minutes may elapse between heartbeats.
Green Turtles are counter shaded with dark dorsal (back) and the light Ventral (lower-surface) coloration and they use this to camouflage from predators
Green Turtles also Regulate a variety of other organisms by simply eating them
If sea turtles went extinct, dune vegetation would lose a major source of nutrients and would not be as healthy and would not be strong enough to maintain the dunes, resulting in increased erosion. Once again, all parts of an ecosystem are important, if you lose one, the rest will eventually follow.
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