The Life Cycle of a Sea Turtle

I am learning to: inform my audience through explanation.

Did you know that Sea turtles can live over a hundred years old and they have survived since the dinosaurs were alive so roughly 150 million years. But six out of seven species of sea turtles are endangered. Sea turtles have to face all these dangerous things that's why they have a big shell on they're back to protect themselves and is called “carapace”. Sea turtles have a life cycle just like us but since they are reptiles it’s a little bit different. It starts from eggs to young adulthood then to adulthood. First is the egg stage.

Once the Female sea turtle reaches the surface of the beach. She finds a place to lay her precious eggs, she digs a hole for them and covers it up with sand and should lay about 100 eggs. If your wondering what sea turtle eggs look like they should look a bit like a leathery ping pong ball and the size of a ping pong ball as well. After about two months the eggs should slowly hatch and about 50 are layed and approximately 20% don’t hatch, but they are ready to start a new life in the baby sea turtle stage.

The Baby sea turtles squirm to the surface at the length about five cm long! So it could fit into the palm of your hand. As they are in the water they eat all sorts of things jellyfish, shrimp the list goes on. And they are about to face some new challenges that are crabs, holes, raccoons, gulls, rubbish and other dangerous things. About 50% don’t survive even reaching the water. But when they reach the water they're are more predators waiting for them. First of all the baby sea turtles stay under a patch of seaweed or something that could protect themselves from rain, thunderstorms and they also may eat each other. Roughly 50% who managed to reach the water die. And the surviving sea turtles make it to be in the adulthood stage, I wonder what happens then…

The adulthood stage they grow from a dinner plate to a dinner table! In the water they find some new predators which some are great white sharks, tiger sharks, killer whales and also human interference (oil, plastic, nets, fishing lines, chemicals.) all effect the different types of sea turtles and make 1% survive or less They're shell can help them get more protection. About twenty years of age the come to the surface to start the life cycle again.

As you can tell a sea turtle is a great miracle they go through three complicated stages and not many survive, so let’s go back to when they are eggs the mother lays thousand eggs and 800 don’t hatch, when they're babies 40 don’t survive, and when they're adults 20 survive without human interference but 2 survive to breeding age with human interference. You could make a difference by just using reusable bags!