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1. Turtles |
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That was all a Cousteau expedition team needed on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. |
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Cousteau scientist Jacques Constans and Australian park ranger Leigh Harris camped for one night as a full moon rose on a sandy beach and waited for the turtles. Every year, hundreds of huge green sea turtles climb on shore to dig nests and lay eggs on the same beach where they were born. |
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Out of the darkness, through the foaming ocean waves, high up onto the beach, came the turtles. Their shells glistened in the silver light of moon. They moved slowly and seriously. Once ashore, each female began to build her nest, a deep hole in the sand, twice as big as the turtle, 2-3 feet deep. |
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each big hole, the turtle dug another small hole. Then carefully, each turtle
pushed her egg tube into the hole and out plopped eggs like wet ping-pong balls
-- plop, plop, plop, plop, two or three at a time, until fifty to one hundred
fifty eggs lay clustered in the small hole. The last, smallest egg looked like
a big shiny pearl. The turtles flapped their flippers, covering the eggs with sand to protect them. Heaving finished their nests, the tired turtles crawled over the beach and slipped into the water that at last bore their heavy bodies lightly. Having finished their work, they could again swim and eat while the southern sun warmed the turtle eggs back at the beach. |
The team walked back and forth throughout the night, counting 878 turtles. As hundreds of birds flew overhead, the two men ducked, dodging shadows of the birds cast on the sand by the bright moon above. In about eight weeks, the eggs would hatch and the baby turtles would scramble across the beach, barely escaping the birds. They would dive into the huge ocean waves, barely escaping the fishes and sharks, hungry for a meal. A very few would grow up to come back one day, to lay their eggs and be counted on the moonlight beach, at the edge of a warm blue sea, by scientists who would be very happy to see them, knowing what hard work it is to be a green sea turtle! |
TURTLE FACTS |
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| Proper name | Chelonia mydas or green sea turtle |
| Size | More than 800 pounds. |
| Life span | Longer than most animals-- some to 150 years old. |
| Habitat | Warm waters of the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans and the Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas. |
| Food | Jellies, mollusks, crustaceans, fish. |
| Bonus fact | Sea turtles weep large tears to wash out sand and to get rid of extra salt in their body. |