Skip to main content
Close

Green Turtle

Chelonia mydas

Photo by david14
Published on Project Noah
Zoom
NominateNominate for Wildlife Photograph of the Month
reportFlag Spotting

-16.7524, 145.976

Field Notes

Description:

If you want to hold your breathe for a long time it is best to move slowly and as little as possible. In other words; it is best to be cool.
Green turtles can hold their breathe for 4-7 hours. The world record for a human is 22 minutes (which means a turtle is approx. 15 times cooler than us).
A turtle is also cooler than us because their shell can protect them from land crocodiles that ran around 200 million years ago before the dinosaurs arrived.
and …
Pregnant female turtles will reduce the amount of stress hormone they release so they remain calm for their developing young.
They have green fat
They can create energy without oxygen but it produces lactic acid. To stop the acid from burning them they release calcium from their shell into their blood stream. This means that Green Turtles have liquefied rock in their blood, which is cool.
Turtles are cooler than us because they can feel the pull of magnetic north (they have iron oxide in their brain which is sensitive to magnetic fields).
They can swim in Alaska without wearing a wetsuit.
Only 1 in every 1000 survive so when you see a Turtle you are seeing ‘the lucky one’.
There was once sea turtles swimming around that had 4.6m wide shells
Even before they are born they look after the ones they love, they talk to each other in the egg and make sure that everyone is ready before they hatch and make a mad dash to safety
Green Turtles are also cool because Rob Toomey is their Guardian and to me Rob Toomey is as close as a human can get to being as cool as a turtle.

Species ID Suggestions

Comments (1)

Beautiful turtle, and great info. I love turtles :)
Photographed
PublishedApril 30, 2016

Accelerate our Mission to Photograph 
Every Species in the World!

Image
Butterflies icon

Wildlife Community

Wildlife Community

Join a worldwide community passionate about wildlife and nature!

Join Project Noah

Nature School

Nature School

Transform your green space into a curiosity-creating nature classroom!

Visit Nature School

Wildlife Game

Wildlife Game

Defend wildlife throughout the jungle in thrilling nature game!

Play Baboon