World Turtle Day Poll & Get Interesting Facts About Turtles - The World’s Oldest Creatures

May 23 is world turtle, a day set to celebrate the relevance of turtles to this world. It is no doubt that turtles are pretty, prettier than most sea animals, the only problem and challenge they are facing is extinction, mostly due to the rapid and growing sea degradation caused mostly by plastic. One thing about turtles is that they are very astonishing animals. Everything about them is just marvelous. Here are some facts about turtles.

1. They Love Jellyfish

Most people think turtles are vegetarians, well, not so much. They savor and feed mostly on Jellyfish and believe that Jellyfish are incredibly delicious. This is a natural thing though as it helps regulate and control the population of Jellyfish particularly in the sea. The only problem with this is that plastics looks very similar to Jellyfish and turtles often mistake the plastic for Jellyfish which in most cases lead to their death.

2. They also love grass

If you love sea turtles, then you probably know that there are green sea turtles which are different from the brown ones. Green sea turtles eat a plant based diet which mostly consists of seagrass. This keeps the seagrass short, preventing it from getting tall and harming other marine creatures.

3. They cannot retract into their shells

Sea turtles cannot retract into their shells as they usually don’t have to protect themselves from other predators in the sea. When in the sea, the turtles are agile but when on land, the tables usually turn. Sea turtles hatch on land and this usually results in them being attacked by land based predators.

4. The sex of baby turtles is influenced by temperatures.

Thought gender was random? Think again. The gender for baby turtles is very much influenced by temperatures. When the nests are warmer, there are high chanced that the baby turtles born in the nests will be female while cooler temperatures usually result in males being born. With climate change coming and global temperatures balance, chances are, an imbalance is going to result with more female turtles being born as compared to males.

5. They’ve been around for very long

Sea turtles have existed for almost 110 million years. They probably saw the dinosaurs. They probably hid in the water to survive the catastrophic asteroid that hit and destroyed all the dinosaurs.

6. They can hold their breath for five hours

Turtles slow their heart rate to up to nine minutes in between heart beats in order to conserve oxygen. This helps them survive and stay under water for incredibly longer than usual periods.

7. They live to about 100 years.

Besides that, every time they nest, they release 100 eggs at once.

8. Dogs are their predators

If you have a dog, then getting a turtle as a pet is bad idea. Dogs dig up the sea turtle eggs when they bury them, usually in the sand destroying the eggs in the process.

9. They have an excellent sense of direction.

Sea turtles can detect the Earth’s magnetic field and they use it as a compass.

Conclusion

You can run a poll to celebrate world turtle day by creating a knowledge survey to help people learn more about turtles.

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