Thursday, May 19, 2011

Have you heard about leatherback turtle

The leatherback turtle is the largest living reptile in the world and heaviest turtle family. Grows to 2 meters and weighing nearly 900 kilograms where both male and female turtles were parents, teaching is the only sea turtle without a hard bony shell.
The life leatherback turtles is about 45 years, sometimes interrupted by fishing lines and nets. The largest, near Wales Treasury, short of a huge crocodile fourth dimension is the world's largest reptile measuring over three meters and weighing about 900 kilograms.
Leatherback turtles are known to exist since turtles evolved 110 million years ago.
With a pale white and pink spots on the top of the head, the black adult leatherback turtles are larger than other sea turtles. Their front flippers lack claws and scales and their back flippers are paddle shaped. The absence of a bony carapace (but covered with thick leather skin with a very small bony plates) distinguishes the work of skin of other sea turtles.
The back cover of the Leatherback turtle turtle with shades of dark gray to black spots and scattered white spots, while the underside is pale.
Leatherback turtles are known as pelagic animals coastal search. They love to migrate and is one of the most diverse species of sea turtles found in all parts of the world. From New Zealand, around the Cape of Good Hope in icy Norway and Alaska, leatherbacks have a global presence.
Subpopulation of leatherback sea turtles known to exist in Malaysia, the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, Africa, Caribbean, Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador, and in many other unknown places.
Leatherback sea turtle can grow in deep water (open ocean), but are located in waters off the coast near the country near the feeding place. Scientists tracked a leatherback in search of food for almost 13,000 miles in 647 days from Indonesia to the U.S.. They can survive in cold water with temperatures as low as 4.5 degrees C (40.1 ° F).
Unfortunately, there is a dramatic decline in population of leatherback sea turtles in the last three decades. Plants that female population is reportedly about 26,000 to 43,000 of the world as only about one in a thousand leatherback turtles survive to adulthood. Although the loss of the home nest eggs and illegal logging is the cause of premature death for some, many leatherback sea turtles also die under plastic waste and the looks of their favorite jellyfish.
Exploitation of marine turtles nesting in Asia have also contributed to the decline of the leatherback turtle sea turtle population. Their eggs, considered a delicacy in Malaysia and an aphrodisiac in parts of the Caribbean, has also contributed to their extinction. Significant reductions were also reported in Mexico and Costa Rica.
Harming or killing the leatherback turtles is now illegal. They are listed on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora.

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