Sea turtles have glands near their eyes. The glands function is to produce salty tears. That way sea turtles can get rid of their excess salt intake.
Turtles are thought to have exceptional night vision.
Turtles have a rigid beak. Turtles use their jaws to cut and chew food. Instead of teeth, the upper and lower jaws of the turtle are covered by horny ridges.
Carnivorous turtles tend to have knife-sharp ridges for slicing their prey.
Herbivorous turtles have serrated-edged ridges used to cut through hard plants. Turtles use their tongues to swallow food, but unlike most reptiles, they cannot stick out their tongues in order to catch food.
Turtles are not strictly herbivores. All species are found to eat at least some meat which causes them to have powerful digestive enzymes.
Turtles swallow their food with very little chewing. Food particles are often whole or in fairly large chunks. The salivary glands of the turtle help to soften and break down the food to make swallowing possible.
Sea turtles are almost entirely aquatic and have flippers instead of feet.
Sea turtles swim through the water using the up and down motion of the front flippers to generate thrust; the back feet are not used for propulsion, but may be used as rudders for steering.
When female turtles come on land to lay eggs, they move very slowly, dragging themselves forward with their flippers.
When they need to lay eggs, they dig with their front flippers, flinging the sand behind them until they make a deep enough hole to lay eggs in.
The rigid shell means turtles cannot breathe as other reptiles do, by changing the volume of their chest cavity via expansion and contraction of the ribs.
Instead, turtles breathe in two ways. They employ buccal pumping, pulling air into their mouth, then push it into the lungs via oscillations of the floor of the throat. They then contract the abdominal muscles that cover the posterior opening of the shell, the internal volume of the shell increases, draw air into the lungs, allowing these muscles to function in much the same way as the mammalian diaphragm.
Food, water and other nutrients are ingested into two main cavities in most turtles, the mouth and the pharynx.
These two cavities are located inside of a turtles skull.
Sea turtles have the ability to take in oxygen through their cloaca. (Which is another name for their bum and the enterance to their reproductive system.) This special feature is used in extreme situations typically to keep the turtle alive when oxygen levels are low (example; deep sea diving, hibernation).
Only 10% of offspring make it to adulthood.
Female sea turtles can lay eggs up to 10 times!
Females can carry 100-200 eggs.
Juvinile sea turtles spend several years drifting with the currents, eating the small animals living in the algae.
The Leatherback has a light pink spot on the top of its head, directly above their brain. It is thought that this allows light to reach the pineal gland which may be used for migration. The pineal gland is an endocrine gland found in vertebrates which affects wake/sleep patterns and functions to signal day length. This, combined with a change in temperature, can signal a change in day length and season, which indicates migration time.