Green Sea Turtle

Chelonia mydas · Reptile

Green Sea Turtle
Green sea turtle off Moorea, French Polynesia · Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

A large sea turtle of the tropical and subtropical seas of the world, up to 1.5 m long and usually 68 to 190 kg, named for the green fat beneath its shell. Adults graze seagrass and algae in shallow bays, lagoons, coral reefs and salt marshes, the only aquatic turtle that lives on plants when grown, and the females crawl ashore at night to dig their nests; some live to 90. Its fat, cartilage and flesh, the calipee, went into turtle soup, a popular English and American dish of the 19th century, its skin was tanned for handbags, and the first visitors to the Cayman Islands, which Columbus named Las Tortugas, caught them for fresh meat on long voyages.

Danger
Harmless
How it is met
Alone, by day
Size
Large
In winter
Leaves for winter

Where it lives

Sandy Shore, Coastal Shelf, Coral Reef

Gives

Calipee, Green Turtle Egg

Sources

Open it in Biomes — MGS Toolbox