Green Sea Turtle

The green sea turtle is a large marine turtle found in tropical and subtropical waters worldwide, named not for the color of its shell but for the greenish tinge of the fat beneath it, a result of its unusually plant-based diet of seagrasses and algae as an adult, which sets it apart from most other sea turtle species that feed mainly on animals. It has a smooth, heart-shaped shell and can grow to well over a metre in length, and adult females return to the same beaches where they themselves hatched, sometimes decades earlier and often after migrating thousands of kilometres, to lay their own eggs in the sand. Green sea turtles play an important ecological role by grazing seagrass meadows, which helps keep these habitats healthy and productive for many other marine species. The species faces threats from habitat loss, entanglement in fishing gear, boat strikes and, historically, hunting for its meat and shell, and it is classified as endangered across much of its range.