You can't touch a sea turtle as they are protected by law and because touching them can frighten the sea turtle and cause harm to the sea turtle.
You cannot legally keep a sea turtle shell as according to United States law and many other countries laws it's illegal to keep, possess, buy, sell or import any sea turtle products including sea turtles themselves and shells or other body parts of sea turtles.
Sea turtles can and do smell and it's been shown through experiments that sea turtle hatchlings will react to the scent and smell of shrimp.
The adaptation helps the sea turtles to locate and find food in murky water.
The oldest sea turtle was found to be around 100 years old and washed ashore in the United Kingdom.
Although there are also reports of older sea turtles and several websites have listed an oldest sea turtle as being more than 400 years old.
Sea turtles live for 50 years to 100 years although some sea turtles are eaten by other marine animals and land animals before they reach adulthood or soon after hatching.
Things that sea turtles do all day are feed and rest off and on day to day.
During the mating season sea turtles tend to follow regular patterns between the nesting beach itself and offshore reefs and other rocky structures.
The thing that is so special about sea turtles is sea turtles have the ability under natural conditions to remain submerged underwater for hours at a time.
Sea turtles also even sleep underwater and most sea turtles will spend their entire life at sea and only return to their nesting beaches to lay their eggs.
A sea turtle can swim as fast as 22 mph when frightened although they mostly swim at a speed of around 0.9 mph to 5.8 mph in normal conditions.
Sea turtles have long flippers instead of webbed feet which helps the sea turtle to efficiently power their bodies through water.
A sea turtle can stay underwater for 2 hours without breathing before they need to come to the surface to breathe.
Although when sleeping they can hold their breath underwater for around 7 hours.
Sea turtles cannot breathe underwater although they are able to hold their breath for between 4 to 7 hours when under water and resting.
When the sea turtle is holding it's breath the sea turtles heart rate also slows down significantly to conserve their oxygen and around 9 minutes can pass between heartbeats.
Animals that eat sea turtles are large sharks, tiger sharks, killer whales.
Dogs, seabirds, fish, raccoons, ghost crabs etc tend to prey on and eat sea turtle eggs and hatchlings.
Sea turtles are not blind and they can sea really good under water although in the air they are shortsighted.
Sea turtles can also see violet, blue-green, yellow and near ultraviolet light.
Seat turtles are also not sensitive to light in the orange to red range of the visible spectrum.
Sea turtles sleep for as long as 11 hours a day and during their sleep they use just half the amount of oxygen they use during their foraging.
Sea turtles sleep on the beach or sometimes at the surface of deep waters or sometimes on the bottom wedge under rocks in nearshore waters.
Sea turtles have been found by divers to be sleeping under ledges in rocks and reefs.
Sea turtles sleep on the beach to regulate their body temperature because sea turtles are ectothermic which means they rely on the environment to regulate their body temperature.
Sea turtles and other turtles have 3 chambered hearts which are 2 atria and 1 ventricle with a sinus venosus that precedes the atria.
We cannot touch sea turtles as it can be stressing and harmful to the sea turtles and it's illegal in most places to touch sea turtles.
The reason why you can't touch a sea turtle is because touching a sea turtle can seriously injure the sea turtle and cause them to flee or even become aggressive and that uses of their needed energy that they require to perform their basic life activities.
Touching sea turtle also stresses them out and the bacteria on your hands can also be harmful to the sea turtle and in a lot of places it's actually illegal to touch or even harass a sea turtle.
A sea turtle can live between 50 years to 100 years and sometimes a few years or so longer.
However few sea turtles live into adulthood as they are sometimes the hatchlings of sea turtles are eaten by seabirds and fish.
Adult sea turtles such as the adult hawksbill sea turtle eats around 1,200 sponges each year.
Sea turtles which are also sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira.
The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhead, Kemp's ridley, and olive ridley.
Marine sea turtles are found in most of the world's oceans, apart from cold polar seas.
The sea turtles tend to spend their lives in relatively shallow continental shelf waters.
Once mature, male sea turtles never leave the sea, but female sea turtles come ashore to lay eggs – typically on the same sandy beach where they themselves hatched.
Some reasons sea turtles are important include.
Turtles help control their prey.
Turtle nesting helps beaches.
Hatchlings are an important source of food for many animals
They are important for coastal economies and native communities.
Green turtles grazing on seagrass is an important way to keep seagrass beds healthy.
Adult sea turtles also have a few predators, mostly large sharks.
Tiger sharks, in particular, are known for eating sea turtles.
Killer whales have also been known to prey on leatherback turtles.
And fishes, dogs, seabirds, raccoons, ghost crabs, and other predators prey on eggs and hatchlings.
When they are active, sea turtles must swim to the ocean surface to breathe every few minutes.
When they are resting, they can remain underwater for as long as 2 hours without breathing.
Sea turtles can sleep at the surface while in deep water or on the bottom wedged under rocks in nearshore waters.
Many divers have seen green turtles sleeping under ledges in reefs and rocks.
Although sea turtles have fewer predators as they increase in size, sharks and killer whales can predate adult sea turtles in-water, and jaguars and crocodiles have been known to predate adult female sea turtles as they climb ashore to nest.