Sea Turtle Research Paper

The biology of the sea turtle and facors affecting its population
Upon first sight of the great sea turtle it might just think that it is like any other turtle. The truth is that marine turtles are beautiful creatures spending a majority of their lives wandering endlessly through our massive ocean. These reptiles have the ability to do amazing things. Some of these things include evolving to a range of purely innate responses to the demands of a changing suite of environments and having remarkable navigations skills for their excursions that may last up to several years. Sea turtles have been in existence for more than 100 million years and researchers have been studying them for great deal of time. During the past 20 years however, the
Continued nuzzling on the neck and shoulder accompanied by nonaggressive ÒbitesÓ leads to Òbiting actions at one of the rear flippers.Ó If the female accepts she will turn toward him and assume a vertical position in the water (Bjorndal 30). The male will the attempt to mount the female and reproduction occurs between the male and female through sperm that is passed to the female though the males tail. The beginning of mating takes place in the water and then concludes on land (Ching 21). A sea turtle lives most of its life in the water, however the female will return to land to lay her eggs. ÒBiologist believe that nesting female turtles return to the same beach where they were born. This beach is referred to as the natal beach: (Gardner 2004). The female sea turtle will lay her eggs at nighttime, making her way up on to the land to find a good place to construct a pit for her offspring. The process of laying eggs is as follows: Òshe dug a pit for her body with her flippers. She nested in it and used her back flippers, like shovels, to scoop out a bottle-shaped hole. Now she drops about one hundred white, leathery eggs that look like ping pong balls into this hole. When she finishes she will cover the nest with sand and slowly go back to sea, leaving a trail behind herÓ (Jacobs
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