Green Turtles: Clawed White-Edged Flippers, Dark Uppers, Pale Lowers

Summary: North American green turtle habitats get pale lowers, heart-like horned dark uppers, horned uncurved upper jaws and two prefrontal interocular scales.

Green turtle (Chelonia mydas) skims Pacific Ocean floor off Hawaii; Monday, April 4, 2005: Brocken Inaglory, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

North American green turtle habitats regularly adjust to distribution ranges that allow acclimating to Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Ocean and Black and Mediterranean Sea coastal shallow and deep open watery life cycles.

Turtles, with green-colored connective tissues and fat, bear the common names Atlantic green turtles, black turtles, black sea turtles, green sea turtles and Pacific green turtles. They carry the species scientific name Chelonia mydas and the subspecies scientific names Chelonia mydas mydas and Chelonia mydas agassizi ("tortoise [of] wetness [for] Louis Agassiz"). Descriptions in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778) and 1868 by Marie Firmin Bocourt (April 19, 1819-Feb. 4, 1904) decide their respective taxonomies.

Atlantic and Pacific green turtle life cycles expect alternating two- to four-year experiences with coastal shallow waters spring through fall and with deep open waters year-round.

March through October furnish Atlantic and Pacific green turtle life cycles with nesting season months even though May through September function as primetime off North America.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature gathers Atlantic and Pacific green turtle subspecies into the gravest groups of global endangerment at all places and times. Calipee-, cooking oil-, cosmetic oil-, egg-, flesh-, flipper leather-, shell-hunting predation, fishing and shrimp boat nets, offshore drilling, pollution, shipping rates and trash harm green turtles. Offshore vegetation such as seaweed mats for hatchling itineraries from nesting beaches to coastal and open waters and turtle grass impel green turtles into life-threatening interactions.

Breeders, collectors, off-shore drillers, polluters and predatory crocodiles, ghost crabs, groupers, gulls, octopuses, raccoons, rats, requiem sharks and tiger sharks jeopardize North American green turtle habitats.

North Americans know of more Atlantic green turtles mating off and nesting on east coasts than of Pacific green turtles mating and nesting along west coasts.

Day-active females lay one to eight clutches of 100-some golf ball-sized, leathery-shelled, spherical eggs every two to four years in urn-shaped nest cavities late at night. Hatchlings migrate from their shells within 30 to 90 days minimally and maximally, and 50 to 55 days mostly, and mature within 20 to 30 years. Algae, crustaceans, fish eggs, invertebrates, jellyfish, molluscs, sponges and worms versus algae and sea grasses nourish flesh-eating younger and omnivorous (everything-eating) older juveniles and plant-eating adults.Brown algae, comb jellies, crustaceans, fish, jellyfish, molluscs, Portuguese man-of-wars, sea anemones, grasses, sponges and urchins, shrimp and squids nourish omnivorous (everything-eating) green turtles.

North American green turtle habitats offer season-coldest coastal temperatures, northward to southward, from minus 15 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 26.11 to minus 1.66 degrees Celsius).

Bay, lagoon and shoal grasses; beaches; coral reefs; ocean temperatures below 44.6 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit (7 to 10 degrees Celsius); salt marshes promote green turtles.

Twenty-eight through 60.25 inches (71 to 153 centimeters) queue up for broad, heart-shaped, horn-plated, unkeeled olive to brown upper-shells (carapaces) with mottled or radiating costal scutes. Adults reveal clawed white-edged flippers; four bridge scutes; four-paired costal scutes; horn-sheathed, uncurved upper jaws; two prefrontal scales between the eyes; white or yellow lower-shells (plastrons). Atlantic subspecies, juveniles, males and Pacific subspecies respectively support brown upper-shells unindented above hind-limbs; keeled shells; flattened tails showing beyond upper-shells; and dark upper-shells indented above hind-limbs.

North American green turtle habitats target heart-shaped, horn-plated brown-olive upper-shells with clawed white-edged flippers, four-scuted bridges, eight costal scutes, horn-sheathed uncurved upper jaws, two interocular scales and white-yellow lower-shells.

distinct population segments (DPSs) of green turtle (Chelonia mydas): NOAA, Public Domain, via NOAA National Fisheries

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Green turtle (Chelonia mydas) skims Pacific Ocean floor off Hawaii; Monday, April 4, 2005: Brocken Inaglory, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hawaii_turtle_2.JPG

distinct population segments (DPSs) of green turtle (Chelonia mydas): NOAA, Public Domain, via NOAA National Fisheries @ http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/turtles/green.html

For further information:

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