The Life Cycle of a Sea Turtle

  I am learning to: write an explanation

Did you know that sea turtles have survived since the late Jurassic period? That was 150 million years ago. Sea Turtles are reptiles and they can not put their head hands or feet in their shell so they always have them poking out. There are three stages of a sea turtle, The eggs, baby sea turtles and adulthood. First it begins with the egg stage.


Eggs:
What looks like a ping pong ball and is white and leathery? Sea turtles eggs! We are starting off with the egg stage. The mother of the eggs would squirm to a spot with lower dunes to lay her eggs. Once she has found the spot she would dig a hole and lay her eggs. After she has laid her eggs it was time to cover it up with sand and walk back to the water. She would lay roughly 110-200 eggs. The eggs take about six weeks to hatch and they would be small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. When the little eggs hatch there next stage is to survive being a young sea turtle.


Baby Sea Turtles:
This next stage is baby sea turtles.Once a baby sea turtle hatches it crawls out of the hole and squirms to the water but on the way there are threats and predators. The baby sea turtles try to make it to the water but 50% will die.Some of the predators are crabs, seagulls, raccoons and much much more. The ones who make it to the water will find a patch of floating seaweed and settle there. About 50% who rise to the surface will die and end there life cycle.


Adulthood:
At adulthood you would have lived for around 80 years and you have to wait another 20 to survive to breeding age. Roughly 20% of adult sea turtles will survive without human interference and only 1% will survive with human interference. After they have finished their life cycle they repeat it again.


Today lots of Sea Turtles die every year with pollution such as plastic bags, plastic containers, oils, food packages, plastic water bottles and much much more. There are only seven more species of Sea Turtles left and six of them are endangered. So if you have plastic, instead of throwing it into the water, throw it in the bin.