the.com/green turtle
A reptile that turns vegetarian as an adult and stores its salad inside its skin.
means A large sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) of tropical and subtropical oceans, named not for its shell but for the greenish color of its body fat, which becomes herbivorous as an adult.
from The 'green' is a butcher's note, not a sailor's: the name points to the greenish cartilage and fat beneath the shell, prized for turtle soup in the 18th and 19th centuries. 'Turtle' itself is a tangle — likely an English reshaping of French 'tortue' (cousin to 'tortoise'), possibly nudged by 'turtle' the dove, an entirely unrelated word from Latin 'turtur.' So two turtles, one a bird and one a reptile, drifted into the same spelling by accident.
- naming origin
- Named for green fat, not its shell
- diet shift
- Carnivore babies become herbivore adults
- epic migration
- Navigates thousands of miles to natal beaches
- breath control
- Can sleep underwater for hours
- long lived
- May survive 80 years or more
chelonia mydas — species found in tropical and subtropical oceans worldwide, named for greenish fat under shell
tortuguero national park — costa rica's largest green turtle nesting site with 20,000+ females nesting annually