Chelonia Mydas

The Chelonia mydas, also known as the Hawaiian green sea turtle, or as Honu here in Hawaii, have roamed the oceans for millions of years. Forty years ago this beautiful species was almost completely removed from this earth, but was saved by the U.S. endangered species act of 1973. These magnificent creatures can now be found in abundance in the coastal strand and open ocean biomes of the North shore in Oahu, Hawaii. The green sea turtles occupy different habitats such as; beaches for nesting, open ocean convergence zones and coastal areas for benthic feeding. Unlike other sea turtles, the Honu don’t only use the beaches for nesting, they use them for thermoregulation in the sun. These green sea turtles have behaviors and characteristics

However, they have bulky intestines that are needed for the digestion of vegetation, and symbiotic bacteria in the digestive tube that aids in breaking down cellulose. It takes around 3 to 4 hours before food leaves the esophagus, 8 to 10 hours before it leaves the stomach and another 20 hours for food to travel through the intestine. They are both herbivores and carnivores; they eat plants as adults and jellyfish and other invertebrates as juveniles. Some external characteristics of the green sea turtle are: the carapace, which is the dorsal portion of the shell that is covered in scale-like structures called scutes, the ventral part of the shell known as the plastron, and the lateral bridge which connects the carapace to the plastron. They are fully shielded by their shell for defense against predators and they only have a few openings for their head, tail and limbs. The green turtles are the largest out of the other hard-shelled sea turtles, weighing in at 300 to 500 pounds and 3 feet in length as adults. The baby hatchlings weigh around 0.05 pounds and 2 inches in length. It is hard to tell the difference between male and female, until they reach maturity. Once they’re mature, males have long thick tails, while females have smaller short ones. The body fat of the Honu is actually green and is why are also called green sea turtles. Other unique characteristic of the Honu are: they have salt

The odontochelys preferred a similar habitat to the modern green sea turtle, in the shallow waters along different coastlines. Unlike the ancient green sea turtles, the younger modern day green sea turtles venture off into the deeper parts of the ocean and the adults stay near shore. Some of the original structural characteristics before any adaptation changes are: the row of sharp teeth on the top and bottom of the jaw and the stomach shell. Scientist suggests that these physical features were from the different types of prey that they needed to catch and because living on land exposed their stomachs, so they needed more protection from rocks and animals attacking them from underneath. Common behavior of todays green sea turtles are to only stay on land to bask in the sun and to lay eggs. The Odontochelys spent more than 50% of their time on land due to the lack of food in the shallows of the water and because most of the food sources were on land. One of the physiological adaptations of the Odontochelys, was adaption of the partial hard shell on top of it’s back. The pressures of nature forced this species to evolve into the different sea turtle species because of vulnerability of its back and because of the changes in availability of food. The Odontochelys had to spend more time in the water to either to escape from land predators or because they could no