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October 27th, 2017
How and when did turtles get their shells?
What are their shells useful for?
Do turtles have other adaptations that help them survive?
Sea Turtles
Sea turtles have a few adaptations that help them survive. However, these adaptations make them very slow on land.
Sea turtles are very strong and fast swimmers due to a few adaptations
Sea turtles' forelimbs are long, paddle-like flippers. This helps them swim faster.
Sea turtles have limbs that are not able to be drawn in due to the shell. Shell adaptations needed for retractile limbs impede rapid swimming.
Sea turtles' lung capacity exchange is just a liittle over 50%. This means that when turtles breathe, they only breathe out a little over 50% of the air they breathed in, so they still have oxygen left in their lungs.
Sea turtles are not bothered by all the salt water around them.
Sea turtles have no need for a freshwater source. They can get that water from their diet and from metabolizing seawater. Sea Turtles have special glands for metabolizing sea water that are located beneath their eyes whhich get rid of salt.
Sea turtles and other marine reptiles and sea birds have a salt gland underneath their eyes. This is how the body gets rid of salt. Sea turtles use it for getting rid of slat from the salt water they drink. When turtles come ashore, they look as if they are crying because they are emptying their salt gland. The "tears" from the salt gland also halp turtles keep sand out of their eyes when they are digging their nests to lay their eggs.
Sea turtles have to face challenges like competition in order to survive, find a mate, raise young, and find food.
Turtles are mostly creatures that are alone and not really together.
Sea turtles are a little violent in terms of finding a mate. They fight each other for a mate most of the times. However, after a male has found a female, he clings on to her shell to say that she is his. This often causes the female to bleed because the turtle's claws rip the skin underneath the shell.
Sea turtles mate with many other sea turtles. One female can mate with a lot of other males because she needs enough sperm to fertilize all her eggs. This keeps the diversity going in the turtle population because of different traits in a clutch of eggs that a female lays.
Sea turtles sometimes have a hard time with food.
The full evolution of sea turtles is still unknown, but there are a few parts that are important in the story.
It is known that turtles most likely have come from lizards. About 260 million years ago, they looked like fat lizards with big flanks and stocky legs, and with ribs that were very wide, broad, and flat. It was the size of a human hand. This creature was called the Eunotosaurus and even though it looked like a lizard, it is the easliest known turtle around.
The fossils of the Eunotosaurus were often found near ponds and river banks, but during the time when South Africa was dry. It was assumed that the Eunotosaurus dug underground to avoid drought and to escape the unpredicting enivronment above and live in a more stable environment underground.
The shelves evolved from bony scales that are called osteoderms which are responsible for the armor of crocodiles and armadillos. These scales are fused with the ribs and backbone to form a protective covering. The shell evovled from the ribs, expanded, and then connected with the back bone. This shell was for digging and the arms were stronger and had thicker bones than the hind legs as if to serve as an excavator.
Sea turtles adaptations develop over time.
The adaptations developed by slight mutations from lizards. For example, the legs kept on getting fatter and fatter and fitness helped the turtles to dig better to live in little niches underground and survive. These mutations were formed by adaptation because the lizards survived better with these mutations through the process of natural selection and how the shells and stronger legs helped it survive.The variation in the population of lizards created the population of Eunotosaurus which then evolved into turtles. After a long time, there was reproductive isolation and the lizards and Eunotosaurus could no longer reproduce to make offspring because they were too different from each other.
A possible way the Eunotosaurus evolved to the sea turte was that when the ponds and river banks of South Africa started filling up with water, the Eunotosaurus found it easier to live in the water and then became sea turtles with more adaptations. When the females lay their young, they used their shells and arms to dig.
Given that there are more deserts in Africa, there will probably be less water and at some point, the turtles will have to go live back on land. With this, the salt gland adaptation will be lost because the turtles will not need to use it anymore because they can get there water from water sources without salt. This is what I predict will happen in the future to sea turtles.
Sea turtles are very cool and have evolved from lizards. They have some interesting adaptations and they have been useful to them since 260 million years ago when they were Eunotosaurus and were still evolving from lizards.