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Flatback turtles grow to be 31 to 37 inches 80 to 95 cm long and weigh pounds kg. Researchers used to believe flatback turtles were a type of green turtle. Click here or below to download hands-on marine science activities for kids. Home Marine Life. Fun Facts About Flatback Turtles 1. Learn More. Blog Saving the Mediterranean, one turtle at a time Blog Quantity or quality? When it comes to babies, healthy corals don't compromise Blog Watch: 9 fast facts about leatherback sea turtles Press Trump Administration Withdraws Rule to Protect Endangered Species Blog Rising temperatures are cooking baby sea turtles in their nests.
All species of sea turtles, except for the flatback sea turtle in Australia, are listed as endangered or critically endangered. Are flatback sea turtles omnivores? The flatback is an omnivore, feeding on a variety of prey including sea cucumbers, jellies, soft corals, shrimp, crabs, molluscs, fish, and seaweed. Accidental capture by fishing gear, which often results in death, is the greatest threat to most sea turtles.
They are also killed for their eggs, meat, skin and shells, and suffer from poaching and over-exploitation. Climate change also impacts sea turtle nesting beaches and eggs. They cannot retract into their shell like other turtles. Temperature dictates the sex of baby turtles. They can hold their breath for five hours underwater.
Even so, if an individual survives to adulthood, it will likely have a life span of two to three decades. In the wild, American box turtles Terrapene carolina regularly live more than 30 years.
Green sea turtles have finely serrated beaks that enable them to scrape algae off rocks and tear grasses and seaweeds. Loggerhead sea turtles have large heads and incredibly strong jaws that allow them to crush hard-shelled prey. Hawksbill sea turtles have sharp, narrow beaks that enable them to reach inside crevices on a reef. Flatback sea turtles have slightly serrated jaws that allow them to eat a wide variety of marine organisms.
Leatherbacks have delicate, scissor-like jaws, with two sharp cusps on both parts of their jaw that allow them to pierce soft-bodied organisms, like jellyfish.
Leatherbacks, along with a few other species, have an interesting — and slightly terrifying — adaptation called papillae that line the inside of the esophagus. For leatherback sea turtles in particular, plastic waste is incredibly dangerous. When floating in the water, plastic debris looks extremely similar to jellyfish, and leatherbacks often eat plastic by mistake.
These creatures must anchor themselves to a solid surface or get swept away by the strong tidal currents created by one of the world's largest tidal range s up to 5 metres in one day during spring tides. Watch a video of a particularly luxuriant such garden, located on a drowned reef platform discovered during our trip by sonar expert Iain Parnum. These communities provide habitat for many other creatures, which in turn provide food for fish watch the video - for example, a family of crabs living inside a large sponge see above.
From the sleds, samples were collected and frozen for later stable isotope analysis. This analysis will compare the chemical composition of each sample to that of samples taken from turtles collected during other field trips.
For example, if the isotopes found in a seapen are also found in flatback turtle tissues, this suggests that turtles could be eating seapens. Below are examples of creatures we collected that will be tested in this way. Clockwise from top left: crab, fish, seapen, cuttlefish, feather star, crab, jellyfish, octopus, nudibranch. Process of collecting specimens from the water column, from left to right: plankton net in the water with boat speed of 2 knots, retrieving plankton net, extracting the sample, preserving the sample.
We took samples from the water column in two ways: by using fine-mesh plankton nets , and by filtering water collected in bottles attached to an instrument lowered into the water by the ship's winch.
The sample from each of these tows was frozen for later isotope analysis. We found plenty of jellies and siphophores in the waters of our study area. Both of these are suspected food sources for flatback sea turtles. We measured the salinity, temperature and depth of the water prior to collecting each bottom sample with the sled using a CTD.
At the same time, we collected water samples at the surface and a bit deeper by attaching niskin bottles to the CTD see picture below.
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