Chủ Nhật, 27 tháng 4, 2014

The survival of the sea turtles


Sea turtles are miraculuos. 
First, they've been around since the late Jurassic, roughly 150 million years ago. Cohort of the dinorsaurs, sea turtles have survived through the challenges of eons, existing still today, where many others have ended their evolutionary run. 
Second, throughout the centuries and up til today, every living adult sea turtle has overcome the odds, existing as a consequence of chance, skill and capability.
The gauntlet each sea turtle faces in the couse of its lifetime goes thus:
First, deposited as a clutch of leathery, ping pong ball-sized eggs, into a nesting pit dug by it's mother high on the beach. Of the 50 to 200 eggs laid, roughly 20% will never hatch. Roughly a month and a half after having been laid, the surviving eggs hatch, and the young turtles, each small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, squirm to the surface, emerging on the sand en masse and making their desperate dash for the sea. Along the way, debris, pitfalls, crabs, gulls, raccoons and other threats will claim roughly 50% of those who rose from the sand. For those that actually reach the surf, they trade one set of threats for another as they first face the repelling force of the waves, and then find a whole new host of predators awaiting them, various fishs, dolphins, sharks and sea birds as the young turtles come to the surface for air. For their first few days of life should they count themselves amongst living, the vurnerable turles swim frantically forward. Ultimately, they will often look to settle in a patch of flotsam, preferably a patch of floating seaweed. Now, for the next several months, they will seek to avoid those that would eat them, find that which they might eat themselves and not fall to the pressures of challenging weather or unfortunate currents.

Không có nhận xét nào:

Đăng nhận xét