On the beach, a small turtle that has just broken out of its shell is struggling to climb to the sea. Suddenly, a long-legged crab ran sideways behind it from a distance, raised two large pincers to grasp the shell of the turtle, and despite its strong objections, "lifted" it and flew away. This poor little turtle had enough to eat for days.
The fate of this baby turtle is the fate of most sea turtles.
Although turtles can grow to more than 2 meters long, weigh nearly 1 ton (the largest leatherback turtle), and live up to 100 years old. But they are very fragile in their infancy, especially in the process of just breaking out of their shells and running to the sea, which is a life of nine deaths.
Since sea turtles have no gills, in order to avoid drowning baby turtles at birth, female sea turtles "meet" to lay eggs on the beaches of traditional breeding grounds from May to August every year, with about 50 to 100 eggs per clutch. After 45 to 50 days of hatching, thousands of baby turtles break through their shells and burrow out of the sand and rush to the sea.
And this has become a feast for carnivores.
Various seabirds and other predators gather on the path that the baby turtles must pass, and attack the baby turtles who have no resistance. Countless baby turtles died before they could see the sea. However, thanks to its huge numerical superiority, the turtle species has been able to survive the cruel natural competition to this day.
Although the predators are fierce, they are not enough to threaten the survival of the turtle population, and their biggest threat is "temperature". Because the sex of sea turtles is not genetically determined but closely related to the temperature of the hatching process, this leads to serious consequences.
In Florida, usa, due to the intensity and timing of heat waves exacerbated by climate change, the turtles born in the last four years are almost all females, which can be called the "daughter country" of the animal world. If one day no more male turtles are born, will they also have to drink the water of the "Zimu River" to breed offspring? #精彩的生物圈 #
