Green turtles are large sea turtles that live in warm ocean waters. They usually stay in their home waters, close to the coast, but every few years they make long journeys back to the breeding grounds where they were born. Unlike most sea turtles, green turtles are herbivorous: they feed only on sea grasses and seaweed. Their young, however, will also eat crabs, shrimps and jellyfish.

Nesting

Females drag themselves up the beach—often the very beach where they themselves hatched out. High up the beach, out of the reach of the tides, they use their strong front flippers to dig pits in the sand. Each female lays between 100 and 200 eggs. She covers them with sand and returns to the sea.

Hatchlings

Three months later, the baby green turtles hatch. The hatchlings scrape away the sand covering their nests and then hurry towards the sea, guided by the sound of the surf. As they waddle across the beach, many of them are picked off by gulls and crabs. At the sea's edge, the surviving turtles wait for a wave to carry them away. In the water they are safer. There they can dodge the beaks of diving birds—but they must still avoid sharks. The young turtles search for rafts of floating seaweed. Here they can drift safely until they are big enough to swim in the open ocean.