WWF(R) Facts: Marine Turtles

Common Name	Scientific Name	Habitat
Marine Turtles	Cheloniidae / Dermochelyidae	Open water and coastal

Having traveled the seas for over 100 million years, marine turtles have outlived almost all of the prehistoric animals with which they once shared the planet. Marine turtles appear to have the potential to reproduce abundantly: females can lay hundreds of eggs in one nesting season. But even under "natural" conditions, relatively few young turtles survive their first year of life. Predators such as crabs, foxes, and birds often kill the hatchlings as they make their way from the nest to the sea, and when they reach the shallows, many more small turtles are taken by fish. When humans harvest turtle eggs, disturb or degrade nesting beaches, the scales become tipped even more heavily against young turtles.

Marine turtles have survived the extinction of the dinosaurs and are still present in the world's oceans today. Marine turtles feed many species in the open ocean. The small turtles eat tiny animals that they find in the floating seaweed concentrations where they live. Fish, sharks and birds in turn prey upon the young turtles. The marine turtles fill an important ecological role by controlling prey species and themselves providing food to larger predators. The disappearance of marine turtles could therefore have widespread effects in open ocean and coastal ecosystems.

The green marine turtles, Chelona mydas, are born from eggs laid in nests beneath sand and coral. Six of the seven species of marine turtles are listed as Endangered or Critically Endangered, and the outlook is increasingly grim. In the Pacific, leatherbacks are heading for extinction, fast, and in the Mediterranean, green turtle numbers have plummeted.


For more information, contact your local aquarium and visit the WWF(R) website. Information on marine turtles is available at http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/finder/marineturtles/marineturtles.html.