Turtles appeared on the earth as early as 200 million years ago and are famous "living fossils". According to Guinness World Records, the longest life span of sea turtles can reach 152 years, and it is a well-deserved longevity star among animals. It is precisely because turtles are long-lived animals in the ocean that people in the border areas still regard turtles as longevity mascots, just as mainlanders regard pine cranes as symbols of longevity, so people in the coastal areas also regard turtles as symbols of longevity, and they are called "eternal turtles". At present, there are eight species of sea turtles, four of which are native to China and mainly distributed in the coastal areas of Shandong, Fujian, Taiwan Province, Hainan, Zhejiang and Guangdong. The largest group in China is the Green Turtles.
Turtles often move in the upper layers of coastal waters along migration routes. They won't mature until they are 20-30 years old. Whenever the breeding season comes, they return to their hometown in droves. No matter how far the journey is, they can find their birthplace and lay eggs there. If the environment of the birthplace is destroyed, you may be infertile for life. Turtles can lay about 200 eggs at most, and at least more than 90 eggs. Although the number of eggs is relatively large, the survival rate of hatching is very low. When the baby turtle comes out of its shell, it must first walk out of the beach by itself and then run to the ocean. It is full of danger for young turtles to walk from the bunker to the seaside. Some young turtles fell into the sandpit and struggled to climb out of the trap. At the same time, some natural enemies, such as seabirds, kept circling in the air, and they regarded these young lives as delicious food. In the end, only a part can reach the ocean smoothly. These survivors will grow and develop in the sea and inherit the new breeding cycle. How the tortoise found his hometown is still an unsolved mystery. The spawning period of green turtles living in China's coastal areas is from April to 65438+ 10 every year. At this time, they quietly climbed up the beach from the sea one by one, dug a hole about 20 cm wide and 50 cm deep with their hind legs, and then began to lay eggs. The egg is white, about the size of a ping-pong ball. Because the maturity time of eggs is different, sometimes it takes several times to lay eggs. After spawning, the hole is blocked by sand. Under the sunshine, the temperature of the beach is relatively high, and it takes 40-70 days for eggs to hatch at natural temperature, usually about 50 days. The hatching of turtle eggs depends not only on natural temperature, but also on temperature. When the temperature is high, they hatch females, and when the temperature is low, they hatch males.
It is an interesting question how to keep the gender balance of turtles. Apart from being born and raised on land, turtles mainly live in the sea. They can not only breathe with their lungs, but also get oxygen directly from the sea with some special organs of their bodies. Their feet are paddle-shaped and suitable for paddling. Although turtles are clumsy on land, they float freely in the sea, and they are completely adapted to the marine environment. Turtles are big, active and eat much more than tortoises. They eat a lot of fish, eggs, shrimp, crustaceans, mollusks and algae every day.
Their teeth are hard and powerful, and they can easily crush the shells of mollusks. Judging from the living habits of turtles, the secret of their longevity is nothing more than eating more, moving slowly and being protected by a hard shell.
Turtle is full of treasures, with delicious meat and rich nutrition. Not only can you live longer, but it is also a tonic with high nutritional value, which can prolong your life after eating it. It is precisely because of the high edible and medicinal value of soft-shelled turtle that human beings indiscriminately catch and kill soft-shelled turtle. According to the estimation of relevant nature conservation organizations, in the 1980s, about 300,000 adult turtles were buried by human beings every year. In Indonesia, for example, the number of sea turtles killed in previous years was between 20,000 and 50,000. Every turtle breeding season, fishermen stay on the shore, wait for the turtles to land, suddenly run forward and turn them over one by one. Once the turtle turns over, it can't turn over, so it can only lie down and wait for death. Due to overfishing, turtles have never been seen in Bali in recent years. Some fishermen go into the sea to catch them when they can't catch them on the shore. This happened in Brazil in the past. The phenomenon of catching turtles and picking up their eggs is very popular, which makes coastal turtles face a desperate situation. No wonder some people say that although turtles live a long life, the average life span of this species has dropped to the lowest point because of human hunting, and the centenarian turtle has become a rare thing.
The decrease in the number of sea turtles has aroused widespread concern in coastal countries and invested a lot of manpower and material resources to save it. For example, since 1983, Brazil has been working hard to protect the sea turtle heads living near the coastline of 1000 km, saving more than 20,000 turtles every year, and then increasing year by year, and now saving more than 270,000 turtles every year. /kloc-since 0/0, the total number of sea turtles rescued has exceeded10.5 million; In order to stop the indiscriminate killing of sea turtles in coastal countries including Indonesia, the South Pacific Environmental Protection Organization designated 1995 as the "Year of the Sea Turtle" in an attempt to draw people's attention to the extinction of sea turtles. In Phuket, southern Thailand, a young turtle release festival is held every April 13 to help those newly hatched "elves" climb to the sea to prevent being hurt by other animals on the way. Our government has always attached great importance to the protection of turtles. 1985 In May, the first turtle nature reserve was established in Guiwan, Huidong County, Guangdong Province, and turtles were listed as national second-class protected animals. Although the area of Turtle Bay is only 0. 1 km2, it is an important turtle spawning ground, with hundreds of thousands of eggs at most. The tortoise looks clumsy, but in fact it is very human. In late July, 1995, a 770 boat of a navy unit was training in the South China Sea, and a turtle was found swimming around the boat. The soldiers fished it out curiously. It turned out that its leg had been injured and festered, and it took half a month of treatment to recover. The sailors wrote the word "put" on their backs with red paint and put it back into the sea. Unexpectedly, more than three months later, the turtle returned to the sailors, more than 60 nautical miles from the place where it was released. It is surprising why the turtle is so attached to sailors and how it finds them. People save turtles, turtles save people. 1987, a ship caught fire and sank off the coast of the Philippines. A woman wearing a life jacket drifted at sea 12 hours. Just when she was desperate, two turtles swam under her and lifted her out of the sea. She drifted at sea for two days and nights until she was found and rescued by the Philippine navy. In a word, the tortoise is a friend of human beings. It has lived on the earth for more than 200 million years. In order to make this famous "living fossil" live with us forever, we can't grab them and destroy their living environment.