Sea turtles have been gliding through Earth's oceans for over 100 million years, long before dinosaurs disappeared. Gentle, ancient, and endangered, they play an outsized role in keeping marine ecosystems healthy.
Here are the facts worth knowing about these remarkable reptiles, from their magnetic sense of direction to just how long they can really hold their breath.
There are seven living species of sea turtle: green, hawksbill, loggerhead, olive ridley, Kemp's ridley, flatback, and leatherback, each with its own habitat and distinct traits.
Sea turtles are long-lived animals, with some species estimated to live 80 years or more in the wild; the longest-lived sea turtle in captivity, a green turtle named Myrtle at the South Carolina Aquarium, has been cared for since 1937.
Sea turtles migrate thousands of miles each year between feeding grounds and nesting beaches, with species like the green turtle returning to nest every two to three years.
All seven sea turtle species are considered threatened or endangered, mainly due to habitat loss, pollution, entanglement in fishing gear, and poaching.
Sea turtles can sense the Earth's magnetic field and use it like an internal compass to navigate the open ocean and find their way back to their natal nesting beaches.
Sea turtles help keep marine ecosystems in balance, grazing on seagrass beds to keep them healthy and controlling jellyfish populations by feeding on them.
During nesting season, female sea turtles crawl ashore at night, dig a nest chamber in the sand with their rear flippers, and lay a clutch of eggs before covering it and returning to the sea.
Every species of sea turtle is protected by law in most countries, including the United States under the Endangered Species Act, making it illegal to harm, capture, or disturb them.
Sea turtles can slow their heart rate and hold their breath for a long time; while actively foraging they typically surface every 20 to 40 minutes, but resting or sleeping turtles have been recorded staying submerged for several hours, with one loggerhead documented at around seven hours while overwintering.
Sea turtles are widely used as a symbol of ocean conservation, helping raise public awareness about plastic pollution and marine habitat protection.
A female sea turtle typically lays between 50 and 200 eggs per nest, and may lay several clutches in a single nesting season.
Sea turtle eggs generally incubate for 45 to 70 days, and the temperature of the sand during incubation determines the hatchlings' sex, a phenomenon called temperature-dependent sex determination.
Leatherback sea turtles, the largest of all sea turtle species, can weigh over 1,500 pounds and dive deeper than 3,000 feet in search of jellyfish.
Only about 1 in 1,000 sea turtle hatchlings is estimated to survive to adulthood, due to predators, disorientation from artificial lighting, and other hazards on the journey from nest to sea.
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