Green on the inside
It is named for the green fat under its shell, coloured by the sea grass it eats.
Open ocean
Green sea turtle
Chelonia mydas
A big turtle with a smooth, heart-shaped shell and long front flippers that work like wings.
- Size
- Shell up to 1.2m long
- Look for it
- All year round
- Where
- Warm seas all round the world
Rows after you with slow strokes of its flippers. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Sea turtle
Good to know
Six things about the sea turtle
Back to the same beach
A female swims hundreds of miles to lay her eggs on the very beach where she hatched.
A magnetic map
Turtles find their way across open ocean by sensing the Earth's magnetic field.
Warm sand, more girls
The warmth of the sand decides whether the eggs hatch as males or females. Warmer nests make more females.
A long breath
A resting turtle can stay under for several hours on one breath.
Older than dinosaurs' end
Sea turtles have been swimming the oceans for more than 100 million years.
The real thing
Photos of the sea turtle
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Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
Snorkel over sea grass or a reef in the tropics and you may meet one grazing. Leatherback turtles visit British seas in summer to eat jellyfish.
How to help
Take your litter home, especially bags and balloons. On turtle beaches, lights are kept low so hatchlings can find the sea.
Keep going