Lyndie Malan, Australien
Info
The Flatback turtle (Caretta caretta) is a migratory, endemic species that can be found along all Australian states except for Victoria and South Australia. It is usually found in the Tasman Sea, the Coral Sea, the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Timor Sea and the eastern Indian Ocean.
On television, turtles are often shown grazing in seagrass meadows or feeding on algae in shallow reefs. However, they also eat algae, seagrass and other aquatic plants, but they are also predatory carnivores that do not shy away from fish and cephalopods, provided they can grab their prey properly and kill it with their powerful beak. .
However, the Flatback turtle is most often observed when the mating season begins and the females then, after an extremely stressful journey to a suitable place on the beach and the no less strenuous excavation of a nest, lay their approx. 50 eggs in exposed and warmer areas of Australia (in Queensland, north-east Australia), the Northern Territory and in the northern part of Western Australia.
The turtle mothers leave the incubation to the warm sand.
Depending on the temperature, the sexes develop; at temperatures above 30° C, mainly females develop, and below that, males.
The newly hatched mini-turtles, which have laboriously dug their way out of the nest to the surface and are now trying to get to the sea as quickly as possible, are in great danger.
However, only a few of the turtle hatchlings make it to the sea. Many of them have waited patiently for their hatching, and now start an incredible feeding orgy, with seabirds, crustaceans, reptiles and predatory mammals preying on the vast majority of the hatchlings.
Those that, after great effort and luck, manage to find their way to the sea are not less endangered, being preyed upon by predatory fish, crocodiles and (diving) seabirds in the wet elements.
So maybe one or two mini-turtles will remain from a nest, which after further perilous years in the oceans will find their
We have seen that even predatory species fall prey to other larger, faster predators. In addition to humans (bycatch in commercial fishing, pollution of the oceans, turtles mistake plastic for jellyfish and change miserably, the animals get tangled in gillnets and entangle themselves and drown), the main predators are crocodiles, sharks, foxes, dingoes, goannas, seabirds ( white-tailed eagles, haliastur, ospreys, herons, storks, pelicans), ghost crabs and rats.
Nature has organized the survival of the species so that the hatchlings of many nests come to the surface at the same time and die to the sea.
The more hatchlings emerge at the same time, the higher the chance that they will survive the journey to the sea.
Nature-loving people make up for some of the sins of others by releasing hatchlings directly into the sea or by raising them under supervision in the case of particularly endangered species, thus significantly increasing their chances of survival.
Synonyms: Chelonia depressa Garman, 1880 · unaccepted
On television, turtles are often shown grazing in seagrass meadows or feeding on algae in shallow reefs. However, they also eat algae, seagrass and other aquatic plants, but they are also predatory carnivores that do not shy away from fish and cephalopods, provided they can grab their prey properly and kill it with their powerful beak. .
However, the Flatback turtle is most often observed when the mating season begins and the females then, after an extremely stressful journey to a suitable place on the beach and the no less strenuous excavation of a nest, lay their approx. 50 eggs in exposed and warmer areas of Australia (in Queensland, north-east Australia), the Northern Territory and in the northern part of Western Australia.
The turtle mothers leave the incubation to the warm sand.
Depending on the temperature, the sexes develop; at temperatures above 30° C, mainly females develop, and below that, males.
The newly hatched mini-turtles, which have laboriously dug their way out of the nest to the surface and are now trying to get to the sea as quickly as possible, are in great danger.
However, only a few of the turtle hatchlings make it to the sea. Many of them have waited patiently for their hatching, and now start an incredible feeding orgy, with seabirds, crustaceans, reptiles and predatory mammals preying on the vast majority of the hatchlings.
Those that, after great effort and luck, manage to find their way to the sea are not less endangered, being preyed upon by predatory fish, crocodiles and (diving) seabirds in the wet elements.
So maybe one or two mini-turtles will remain from a nest, which after further perilous years in the oceans will find their
We have seen that even predatory species fall prey to other larger, faster predators. In addition to humans (bycatch in commercial fishing, pollution of the oceans, turtles mistake plastic for jellyfish and change miserably, the animals get tangled in gillnets and entangle themselves and drown), the main predators are crocodiles, sharks, foxes, dingoes, goannas, seabirds ( white-tailed eagles, haliastur, ospreys, herons, storks, pelicans), ghost crabs and rats.
Nature has organized the survival of the species so that the hatchlings of many nests come to the surface at the same time and die to the sea.
The more hatchlings emerge at the same time, the higher the chance that they will survive the journey to the sea.
Nature-loving people make up for some of the sins of others by releasing hatchlings directly into the sea or by raising them under supervision in the case of particularly endangered species, thus significantly increasing their chances of survival.
Synonyms: Chelonia depressa Garman, 1880 · unaccepted
