Green Sea Turtle

Fascinating facts about the Green Sea Turtle

• Green sea turtles can grow as long as a school bus, reaching 1.5 metres (5 ft) and weighing between 68 kg and 190 kg, but the biggest individuals tip the scales at 395 kg (871 lb) and measure 153 cm (60 in) across the carapace. Those giants dwarf the average adult, which typically weighs 68-190 kg and measures 78-112 cm (31-44 in) in carapace length. Their size makes them the second-largest sea turtle in U.S. waters, only smaller than the massive leatherback. This sheer bulk lets them dominate seagrass meadows, shaping the habitat for countless other marine species.
• A single nesting season on Florida's east coast can produce more than 37,000 green turtle nests, a record set in 2015. Females crawl onto the beach at night, dig a pit with their front flippers, lay up to 200 eggs, then cover the nest before sprinting back to sea. Each clutch hatches after 45-75 days, and the tiny hatchlings, only 5 cm long and weighing 25 g, dash toward the ocean. Such prolific breeding underpins the species' chance of surviving relentless threats.
• Green turtles start life as carnivorous hatchlings but switch to a herbivorous diet as they mature, turning the fat beneath their shells a vivid green. This dietary shift takes 27-50 years, during which their skull and jaw remodel to handle tough algae. The green fat is a direct visual cue of their plant-based diet, highlighting how feeding habits can reshape anatomy over a lifetime.
• The green sea turtle is listed as Endangered by the IUCN and protected under CITES Appendix I, making commercial trade illegal worldwide. Despite these safeguards, turtles die in fishing nets and from habitat loss caused by coastal development. International agreements, from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ASEAN's conservation memorandum, have curbed some threats, but the species remains on the brink, relying on continued global protection to survive.
• Green sea turtles can live up to 90 years in the wild. After hatching, they spend five years drifting in the open ocean before settling in coastal seagrass beds, where they may remain for decades.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Green Sea Turtle

On land, green sea turtles are much more awkward, using their flippers to drag themselves across the beach to reach their nesting sites. Female green sea turtles lay around 100 eggs at a time, which incubate in the sand for about 45 days before hatching. The sex of the hatchlings is determined by the temperature of the sand, with warmer temperatures producing females and cooler temperatures producing males.

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