57 Totally Awesome Facts About Turtles | Legacy Facts

# The green turtle is named after their fat and cartilage greenish color and not the color of their shell.

# Turtles, being the adaptive creatures, can survive in almost any conditions.

# Antarctica is the only continent on which turtles do not live.

# Although most species are found in south-east America and South Asia, they can still be found in other parts of the world.

# Sometimes sea turtles may end up in the European Arctic, but in Antarctica, you will not find any.

# All tortoises are turtles, while not all turtles are tortoises.

# The leatherback is the largest species of sea turtle. It can reach 2 to 3 meters (6 to 9 feet ) in length and 3 to 5 feet (1 to 1.5 m) in width. They could weigh up to 700 kilograms (1500 pounds).

# Turtles have three ears: one on either side of their head, and one on their nose.

# Sea turtles have no visible ears; instead, they have eardrums covered by skin.

# Turtles can see well underwater, but nearsighted on land.

# Just like your bones, the shell of a turtle is actually a part of their skeleton. It consists of more than 50 bones which include the rib cage and the spine of the turtle.

# Turtles start out as mostly carnivorous and eventually become omnivorous.

# The green turtle is the only sea turtle that is truly a herbivore and is fond of eating seagrass. They prevent the seagrass from overgrowing and harming other ocean life by trimming it.

# Hawksbill sea turtles live in coral reefs where they feed on sponges. Without the hawksbill sea turtle, sponges would overgrow and suffocate the delicate and slow-growing corals.

# The hawksbill sea turtle is named for its jaw. It has a strong raptor-like jaw and beak that's perfect for crushing, biting, and tearing food. They will eat 1200 pounds or 544 kilograms of sponges every year on average.

# The organs of a 100-year-old turtle are indistinguishable from those of a young turtle.

# Turtles shed tears, but not for being sad. They have glands that help empty excess salt out of their eyes, making it look like they're crying.

# Some turtles breathe through their butts.

# Turtles usually can hold their breath for 30 minutes.

# The loggerhead turtle is one of the turtle species that has been observed at staying underwater for 10 hours.

# Green sea turtles can remain underwater for almost 5 hours. Their heart rate slows significantly in order to conserve oxygen. Between heartbeats can elapse as much as nine minutes.

# During winter, turtles will hibernate underwater for months, breathing through the tails.

# Turtles have a built-in GPS system. Sea turtles can detect the angle and intensity of the magnetic field of Earth, and they use it to navigate thousands of miles. They're capable of finding an island right in the middle of the ocean.

# Turtles can drown.

# Some turtle species can climb trees.

# The leatherback turtle is able to swim at speeds of up to 22 miles an hour.

# The Leatherback sea turtles can travel more than 10,000 miles every year.

# During the mating season, the male painted turtles use their long front claws to tickle females on the neck and if the female allows him to tickle her, they are mates.

# Every turtle species lays their eggs on land.

# Leatherback turtles will travel thousands of miles only to lay eggs. They'll travel back to the same beach they've been born on, and lay their own eggs.

# River turtles usually lay eggs near to where they live and eat on the shore.

# Most turtles sex is determined by the incubation temperature of the eggs. Small temperature changes can cause dramatic changes in the sex ratio. If the eggs are incubated below 28°C, then all turtles are male. Above 31°C, every egg develops a female.

# Only a few hatchlings survive to adulthood. The estimates range from one in 1000 hatchlings to one in 10,000 will survive to adulthood.

# Sea turtles can not retract their head and flippers into their shell as compared to their land relatives.

# There is a giant softshell turtle which spends 95 percent of its life buried and motionless under the sand of the river, surfacing twice a day to breathe.

# Male sea turtles are disappearing from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and elsewhere, due to global warming. Temperature determines the sex of a sea turtle. Warmer weather produces female turtles.

# Turtles belong to one of the world's oldest reptile groups of beating snakes, crocodiles, and alligators.

# The earliest known fossils of sea turtle are around 150 million years old. About 65 million years ago, dinosaurs went extinct.

# The oldest fossilized specimen of copulating vertebrae animals originally comes from two turtles mating in a poisonous lake.

# These creatures are cold-blooded and have an extremely long life span. At the grand old age of 188, the oldest ever recorded turtle, named Tu'i Malila, of Tonga Island passed away.

# Turtles are related more closely to birds than to lizards and snakes.

# Hawkbill and leatherback turtles think that jellyfish are a delicious snack, which helps to keep the populations of jellyfish in check. Unfortunately, plastic also looks like jellyfish, and as a result, many turtles are dying from eating plastic.

# Six of the seven species of sea turtles are threatened or endangered as a result of fishing gear entanglement, loss of nesting sites, loss of feeding sites, poaching, and ocean pollution.

# Even a small piece of plastic could be fatal to a turtle. Small pieces could get stuck in their stomach, preventing them to swallow. Plastic can also trap gas inside the body of the turtle, causing the turtle to float. That leads to starvation or makes them an easy target for predators.

# Each year in Baja California, poachers kill over 35,000 sea turtles to feed a demand for turtle meat on the black market in the United States and Mexico.

# Eating sea turtles is illegal in most countries, but for health reasons, it is a good idea not to eat them. Sea turtle meat may contain toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and other pollutants. Sea turtles also have a variety of bacteria which can cause serious illness.

# The 23rd of May is celebrated as the “World Turtle Day.” A day to bring attention, increase knowledge, and respect for tortoises and turtles.

# The first successful circumlunar mission by the USSR was manned by Turtles.

# Butterflies in the Amazon will drink the tears of turtles to provide necessary sodium in their diet.

# A turtle in Kenya has adopted a hippo that was abandoned after a tsunami.

# A man and his 150-year-old pet turtle went in a barrel over Niagara Falls in 1930 and survived the initial fall, to only suffocate after being stuck under the falls for 18 hours. The turtle survived the entire ordeal.

# Pet turtles in the United States must be at least 4 inches long so children can not fit them in their mouths and contract salmonellosis.

# Riding or sitting on a sea turtle is a 3rd-degree felony in the United States. A Florida woman was arrested after an image of her sitting on one appeared on Snapchat for molesting a sea turtle.

# In China, people carry live turtles as keychains. The turtles are kept in sealed containers with water and key rings attached.

# There is medical code for being struck by a turtle.

# In the 1980s, in an attempt to clean up corpse pollution, India released 25,000 flesh-eating turtles into the Ganges river. The turtles were raised on dead fish so that they would not develop a taste for the living, as they ate almost everything. The $32 M plan failed due to mismanagement and corruption.

# In Jurassic Park, the sounds of the velociraptor are actually turtles having sex.

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