Leatherback turtle
The leatherback turtle known as the "King of Turtles" Known for their ability to cross the harshest oceans in the world - Great Europe and the United States - however, until today no one really realized how good this sea turtle is at sailing. A new study by British scientists found that giant female leatherback turtles can swim thousands of miles along a nearly straight path, traveling back and forth between feeding and growing areas.
When the leatherback turtle swims from its birthplace in Central Africa to South America on the other side of Europe and America, the road it takes is simply the shortest between the two places. In comparison, Even the most advanced cruise ships are inferior to it. How do sea turtles manage to swim thousands of miles along a simple, straight path? For biologists, this has always been a mystery. However, scientists believe that they rely on vision (judging the positions of stars and the sun) and the feeling of the earth's magnetic field to fly in the vast ocean. The findings were obtained through a study by the Center for Ecology and Conservation at Exeter.
After a few weeks of swimming in the waters around the hatchery, the prime leatherback turtles begin their journey in search of feeding grounds rich in jellyfish and other gelatinous foods. This process requires them to swim thousands of miles. A few years later, healthy female leatherback turtles will swim back to the beach where they were born, use their forelimbs to dig a hole on the beach, lay 150 eggs at a time, and then bury them in the sand. They can lay up to 1,000 eggs per growing season. After the growing season, they will crawl towards the sea without looking back and start returning to their feeding grounds. They will spend a few years accumulating nutrients to prepare for their next return to the nesting ground to lay eggs.
Over the past 30 years, the number of leatherback turtles in the Pacific Ocean has been declining rapidly. The number of leatherback turtles returning to a nesting site in Mexico to lay eggs dropped from 70,000 in 1982 to 250 in 1999. The reason for their shrinkage is not yet understood. But collecting eggs and hunting bears part of the responsibility. An important source of food for leatherback turtles is jellyfish, however they also eat squid and sea urchins. They mistake shopping bags for jellyfish and swallow them, and more than half of all dead sea turtles have plastic in their stomachs.
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