Tubular Turtles

Terrific Turtles

By F.C. and E.A.

18/8/25

  Turtles are terrific. In this essay, we will be talking about multiple different species of turtles, what their lifestyles are, and all about their habitat surrounding them. 

  Turtles can live anywhere, from Australia and Tasmania, all the way to North and South America! They can swim in the water like a fish, but then can also come onto the beach to nest. Turtles can survive in coastal waters and coral reefs. Turtles eat algae, seagrass, fruits, berries, even sponges and jellyfish! When experiencing a drought, turtles go into a ‘dormant period’, where they will bury themselves under ground until the river/lake/ocean fills up again! 

  After the mother turtle has laid the eggs, she goes away, and about two to three months later, the babies hatch and come to the ocean where they will spend most of their lives. Once the babies have grown up and are ready to have babies, they will come to the same beach where they hatched, and they will give lay the next generation of turtle eggs! Most sea turtles hatch in a large nest on a huge beach. 

Even though it is a ginormous ocean, and there are more than 1,000 marine turtle hatchlings on the beach, researchers, discoverers and scientists have estimated only around 1 in each 1,000 make it to adulthood.  There are many factors that make this estimation legitimate, like how long it takes them to reach maturity. A different animal- let's say a seal- could have a shorter maturity, and their survival rate would be higher. There are many dangers that hatchlings and juvenile turtles face as they grow up, from predators like birds and seals to marine plastics like rubbish and nets. There are so many more dangers that the babies and adults have to look out for than seals.

  Baby sea turtles can grow to be ginormous. Wales amazingly hold the world record for the largest marine turtle ever found. In 1988 a leatherback was found ashore measuring 2.5 m long, 2.5 from flipper to flipper and weighing over 900kg. That's more than 140 stone! The smallest turtle, the Kemp’s Ridley, measures around 70cm long and weighs up to 40kg. 

  Most leatherbacks reach 180cm long and weigh 500kg. That’s over 10 times heavier than the Kemp's Ridley!  People often think that turtles are crying when their eyes are always watery, and they look like fountains. They are actually getting rid of the excess salt in their eyes. The salt gets in their eyes from swallowing salty seawater. They have a gland called the ‘salt excretion gland’ near the corner of their eye. This salt excreted from this gland can have a salt concentration twice that of seawater! Did you know that turtle shells are made of over 50 bones fused together? They’re literally wearing their bones on the outside! Turtles also have light, spongy bones that help them float. Sea turtles don’t have teeth, but they have a beak-like mouth to grasp their food. Their beak is made of keratin, which is the same stuff your fingernails are made of.

  Green sea turtles are unique among other species of turtles because they are primarily herbivores and enjoy snacks like seagrasses and algae. Eating all these greens gives their cartilage and fat a greenish color, and that’s where their name comes from. The saying is true: you are what you eat! These vegetation-loving turtles love to go ashore on a beach, to bask in the sun. Green Sea Turtles have a typically smooth, heart-shaped structure that varies in color from olive-green to brown, grey, yellow or black and is rarely pure green. 

  Hawksbill turtles are mostly found on coral reefs where plenty of their favourite food, sponges, live and grow. The shape and sharpness of their beak enables them to get food in small holes and crevices in coral reefs. Hawksbill turtle shells are called carapaces, and they have beautiful, intricate patterns of marbled amber, brown and yellow colors, with dark streaks and they feature a distinctive serrated, jagged edge due to large, overlapping plates called scutes.

  Loggerheads enjoy feasting on crabs, conchs, whelks and horseshoe crabs. They also spend 7 to 15 years of their lives in the open ocean. After all that swimming they then migrate to nearshore coastal areas where they continue to grow and mature. With satellite tracking, researchers and scientists have discovered that loggerheads in the Pacific have a highly migratory life stage. Hatchlings enter the ocean from nesting beaches in Australia and Japan. Some of these individual turtles undertake a trans-Pacific developmental migration across the Pacific Ocean to feeding grounds off the coast of Baja in California, Mexico, Peru and Chile. That journey to those feeding grounds is nearly 8,000 miles! Loggerhead Turtles have a reddish-brown, large, and somewhat heart-shaped, with five coastal scales on each side of the carapace.

    Leatherbacks eat an array of soft-bodied invertebrates such as jellies. These species of turtles are highly migratory and some swim more than 10,000 miles a year between nesting and foraging grounds. They are also wonderful and accomplished divers with the deepest recorded diving , reaching nearly 4,000 feet and that is deeper than most marine creatures. They have a spiny lining in their mouth and esophagus called a papillae to help them to trap and consume their main prey species jellies! Leatherback turtles have a leathery, teardrop- shaped carapace. 

  These majestic marine creatures have so many intricate species that blow your mind when you think about them. They have wonderful habitats in the ocean and enjoy swimming in the immaculate ocean. They also have interesting lifestyles like how they reproduce, how these majestic animals survive, and what they are made of. We hope you enjoyed and found out some new turtle facts in terrific turtles!