Cheloniidae
| Cheloniid sea turtles Temporal range: Paleocene-Holocene, 58–0 Ma |
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| A green sea turtle, a species of the family Cheloniidae, swimming over coral reefs in Kona, Hawaii | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Testudines |
| Suborder: | Cryptodira |
| Clade: | Americhelydia |
| Clade: | Pancheloniidae |
| Family: |
Cheloniidae Oppel, 1811 |
| Type species | |
|
Testudo mydas Linnaeus, 1758 |
|
| Genera | |
| Synonyms | |
|
|
Cheloniidae is a family of typically large marine turtle that are characterized by their common traits such as, having a flat streamlined wide and rounded shell that has have almost paddle-like flippers for their forelimbs [1]. The seven species that make up this family are; the Green Sea Turtle, Loggerhead Sea Turtle, Olive Ridley Sea Turtle, Leatherback Sea Turtle, Hawksbill Sea Turtle, Flatback Sea Turtle, and the Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle.
Sea turtles, in contrast to their earth-bound relative, the tortoise do not have the ability to retract their heads into their shells. Their plastron, which is the bony plate making up the underside of a turtle or tortoise’s shell, is comparably more reduced from other turtle species and is connected to the top part of the shell by ligaments without a hinge separating the pectoral and abdominal plates of the plastron. Sizes among the seven species of sea turtles can vary, but they can tend to have, depending on the species. For example, the smallest turtle species in the Cheloniidae family, the Kemp’s Ridley only has a shell size of about 75 cm and a weight of 50 kg while the largest turtle species, the Leather back, has a shell of almost 2 meters in length and weighs on average 384 kg on average. All species have a distinct hardened shell except for the leather back, which actually has thick skin with some bone-like tissue infused into it .
Reproductive behaviors among the different species of sea turtles are similar, with slight differences in each of the species. The females come to shore and bury their clutch of eggs on beaches or sandy environments typically at night and well away from the high tide line of the shore. Most females nest only once every three to four years and most species have two to four egg lying time periods per nesting season, which is from Spring to late Fall. A common amount of eggs laid in a nest is often about 100 eggs per clutch. The incubation period of same turtles can range anywhere from 50 to 60 days and the development of the eggs is dependent on the temperature of the environment that they were buried in, with warmer climates bringing about an earlier emergence by the hatchlings. The timing of sea turtle hatching tends to be almost synchronous among the whole clutch of eggs, with just about all the eggs in the nest hatching within the same time. This is thought to aid the process of the hatchlings unburying themselves from the sand and most often occurs at night time. Interestingly enough, temperature has also been linked to the likeliness of hatching's sex, warmer temperature more likely to produce females and colder temperatures more commonly producing males.,.
...
Wikipedia