the.com/hawksbill
a sea turtle that eats glass-spiked sponges nobody else dares to touch
means A small, critically endangered sea turtle with a narrow, pointed beak and beautifully patterned overlapping shell, found in tropical reefs worldwide.
from A plain English compound, hawk + bill, named for the obvious: the turtle's mouth tapers to a sharp, hooked point that looks like a bird of prey's beak, perfect for poking into reef crevices after sponges. Its scientific name, Eretmochelys imbricata, leans on Greek and Latin instead — eretmo- 'oar' and chelys 'turtle' for its paddling limbs, imbricata for the way its shell plates overlap like roof tiles. That same shell gave us 'tortoiseshell,' the prized material once hunted from these animals.
- diet
- eats toxic sponges that would poison most animals
- shell
- prized tortoiseshell drove them near extinction
- beak
- hawk-like jaw pries prey from coral crevices
- role
- keeps reefs healthy by clearing sponge overgrowth
- status
- critically endangered across tropical oceans worldwide
hawksbill sea turtle — critically endangered species (eretmochelys imbricata) found in tropical oceans worldwide, hunted for its shell
atlanta hawks — nba team founded 1946, based in atlanta, georgia