26.07.2020, Animal Of the Week: Turtle

Hello Everyone,

This week I am investigating the turtle. They have long intrigued me and I hope you will learn a lot from this post. Enjoy!

Habitat:

The turtle is well adapted for aquatic life, with flippers and a streamlined body. Sea turtles only leave the ocean to lay eggs on the beach whereas freshwater turtles live in ponds and lakes, and climb out of the water more regularly.

Diet:

A turtle's diet varies according to the species. Some species are omnivores, eating a variety of plants and animals. However, others are more selective such as the hawksbill turtle, that eats primarily sponges and leatherbacks who eat mainly jellyfish. Some are also carnivore, like the loggerhead, and others herbivore, such as the green turtle.

Dangers:

Unfortunately, turtles are under threat. Nearly all species of turtle are classified as Endangered. Unfortunately, they are captured and killed for their eggs, skin, meat, and shells. Although in most places selling turtle eggs and shells are forbidden, it still happens. Turtles are suffering from being over poached. They face other issues too such as capture in fishing nets and sometimes mistaking plastic for food. Climate change has had an impact on turtle nesting sites, meaning they can struggle to reproduce.

I hope you have learnt a lot about these mysterious and beautiful creatures. If you would like to help save turtles you can make a donation to the turtle foundation here: https://www.turtle-foundation.org/en/donation/

Thank you for reading our second animal of the week post!

Image:

Sea Turtle, owned by Ale Art (on flickr.com), is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

Sources:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/facts/sea-turtles
https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/sea-turtle

Comments

Coral reefs

Hello! We would love to introduce you to the topic of coral reefs and especially coral reef bleaching, as it is a greatly ignored but certainly significant topic. Have fun! 5 coral reef facts 1. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on the planet and is 2300 km long! 2. Less than 0.1% of the world's ocean surface is covered in coral reefs. 3. At least 25% of all marine animals live there. 4. Coral reefs are often known as the rainforests of the ocean. 5. In 1 square kilometre of coral reef, up to 35 tons of fish can be 'produced'. The 5 biggest coral reefs in the world 1. Great Barrier Reef (near Australia) 2. Red Sea Coral Reef (near Egypt, Israel and Djibouti) 3. New Caledonia Reef (Pacific Ocean near New Caledonia) 4. The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef (near Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras) 5. Florida Reef (Atlantic Ocean/Gulf of Mexico near Florida) What is coral? Coral is actually made up of small anim...

Photo Essay || Iceland Series (part 1)

Hi Everyone! I recently went on a school trip to Iceland! It was such an incredible experience (and I'm going to sound cheesy now) but it was also incredible to do it with some of my closest friends! I saw so many incredible things and learnt so much, so I couldn't resist sharing a little Iceland mini series of posts, all about Iceland, both my experiences there and what I saw, but also the way it uses geothermal energy, and the animals, natural landforms and plants that are there. Today I'm sharing some photos of my trip. These are all photos I have taken, and are also the highlights so please bear that in mind as you browse these! I hope it is interesting and inspires you to book a trip to Iceland! The blue lagoon <33 landscapes.... Lost little farmhouses a...

Green Pets: Introducing my new house plant!

Hi Everyone! As you can tell by the title of this post, I got a new houseplant! It was a Christmas present but I chose it in a really sweet plant shop near me. It is called a Mind Your Own Business, in more technical terms a Soleirolia. It's latin name is Soleirolia soleirolii. Introducing Mr Darcy! I named it Mr Darcy because I love Pride and Prejudice and I thought it appropriate! It needs to have constantly moist soil and has to be watered by being put in a bowl of water, rather than with a jug. This is because it will get a hole where the water has gone down as it is quite delicate and the leaves are very fine. It's important to look up how much water your house plant needs and get tips from experts to help your plant to thrive. I talked to the lady in the shop when we were buying it and she told me about how to look after it. It is joining my two other house pla...

18.10.20 Animal Of The Week: Sloth

Hello, Sorry this didn't come out on Sunday as planned but this week's animal of the week is the sloth because the twentieth of October is Sloth Day. Habitat The sloth resides in Central and South America. It lives in the rainforests there and occasionally drops into the water for a bathe as, believe it or not, they are actually excellent swimmers! Diet Sloths eat leaves, twigs and buds which they find in the rainforest. As they don't have incisors they smack their lips together to make leaves more digestible. Sloths can survive on relatively little food as it takes a while for them to digest it. Sleep and Speed When you think of a sloth, you probably think of this slow, sleepy creature. They actually sleep for about 15 hours a day! Sloths have an extremely low metabolic rate (what basic calories your body needs to survive), which means they move at a slow pace through the trees. On average, sloths travel 40 yards per day ...

April Top Tips: ten tips for environmentally friendly travel

Hi Everyone! We haven't been very present on the blog again recently but we are back today with ten top tips for environmentally friendly travel. Most forms of travel over long distances (unless you are willing to put in a lot of physical effort) use fossil fuels and are generally not good for our planet. So today we will be giving you a few tips which although won't mean that your travel is 100% planet friendly, will be a good start to doing as much as you can. Your Green World Blog Team💚 1. Use trains and boats rather than planes where possible Planes are awful for the environment. They are, however, extremely practical and so easy to use, cheap...It's hard to avoid them! They are so quick too so you don't have to spend as much time travelling. However, they are really bad for the environment. For example, you could fly once to Edinburgh from Heathrow for the same carbon dioxide levels as driving to Edinburgh 336 times! 2. Fly...

Animals 46-50 in our '50 incredible animals' series

Hi everyone! Welcome to the final part in our '50 Incredible Animal series' where you can find out about animals 46-50. We started this series almost a year ago to celebrate our 50th post and it feels crazy to think that we are now nearing our 100th. To read all of the previous posts from this series, click here . Hope you enjoy it! 46. Spiny bush viper Spiny bush vipers, Atheris hispida, are a species of venomous snake native to Central and East Africa in tropical forests and shrubland. They are mostly solitary creatures but can climb trees, which is where they find the majority of their prey. Spiny bush vipers are carnivorous and feed on mammals, frogs and lizards, as well as birds. Independent from birth, Spiny bush vipers can have up to 12 'snakelets' at a time and are 15cm in length. Currently, there are no known threats to Spiny bush vipers, and they are categorized as Not Evaluated on the IUCN Red List. 47. Leafy sea dragon ...

Marine heatwaves - an ever growing threat?

Hi everyone, So today we're talking about marine heatwaves. We all know about normal heatwaves, they come almost every summer and are either a blessing or a curse depending on where you live. But today we're talking about marine heatwaves. They are increasing rapidly and have become a commonly mentioned topic. There are multiple definitions of marine heatwaves. Generally, they are considered a period of time with unusually high temperatures. Exactly how high and for how long changes depending on which definition you choose. The most common one definition is when the temperature is over the 90th percentile of the area's average seasonal temperature for at least 5 days in a row. For anyone who doesn't know what a percentile is, if you take a test and are at the 90th percentile then it means you are better than 90% of the people who took that test. So in our context, the temperature has to be higher than 90% of the seasonal temperatu...

Linking climate change and inequality - 'The Great Carbon Divide'

Hey everyone, Have you heard of 'The great carbon divide‘? It is often referred to as the 'carbon footprint gap' or the 'emissions imbalance‘, and produces frightening numbers. The great carbon divide describes the huge gap between the amount of carbon dioxide the rich versus the poor emit, and these numbers shocked even us. What does this mean? There have been many different studies, and all of them show terrifying results. One study from the Guardian and Oxfam, reports that the richest 1% of the world's population emit more carbon than the poorest 66%. The richest 1% consist of 77 million people, which may seem like a lot at first, but the poorest 66% refers to over 5 billion people! Africa, which is home to 17% of the world's population, only causes 4% of the world's emissions. This top 1% emitted 16% of global CO2 emissions in 2019, that's 5.9 billion tonnes of CO2. Modelling suggests that it would take someone who isn't in the top 1% about 150...

5 Environmental Movies and TV shows

For all the TV lovers, Recently I have been getting more into watching inspiring movies and TV shows, and I started a list of environment-themed ones I want to look at. I spent a lot of time just exploring and the ones below are the ones I found. I actually haven't seen most of them, but if you have watched any of these, post a comment to let us know what you thought of it and if you would recommend it. Have a lovely weekend! 1. Tales by light - 3 Seasons This series follows the Australian photographer Darren Jew in his travels and lets the viewer explore untold stories, not all of which are nice and pleasing to look at, but nevertheless important. I saw episodes 1 and 2 of season 3, they are called "Children in Need" and are very eye-opening. 2. Into the Wild - 2 hours and 22 minutes I haven't seen this movie, but it is about a young man giving up everything and exploring new ways of life. It is based on the true story of Chri...

Animals 36-40 in our '50 incredible animals' series

Hi, As you probably noticed, we took a break from this series, mostly due to having just too much to do. But we're back now with the last three posts. 36. The Pinocchio frog The Pinocchio frog can be found in the Foja Mountains in Indonesia. They mainly eat insects, although little is known about them. They are named because the males have a spike on their noses. They were only discovered in 2008, and this was completely by accident! It remained unnamed scientifically until over ten years later when it was given the name " Litoria pinocchio " . There is very little information about them but Wikipedia states that "the male Pinocchio frog inflates its nose when calling, and the nose decreases in size when the frog is calm and quiet," which I think is hilarious and so interesting! 37. Snub-nosed monkey Especially noticeable due to their curious looks, the snub-nosed monkeys can be found in the forests of central China and northern...

Green World

Search This Blog