Coastal islands like the Golden Isles straddle two worlds:
that of the mainland, and that of the expansive ocean.
The character of
the places, the people and the wildlife are as tied to the water as
they are to the earth, and while the Golden Isles are home to an
amazing array of creatures, none symbolize that mysterious duality and
the Islands themselves like the enigmatic sea turtles who live off (and
occasionally on) the Georgia coast.
These ancient animals have been around for 200 million years, and live
for several decades, yet much of their lives remain inscrutable to
science. Five of the world's seven species of sea turtles live in the
waters around the Golden Isles, and in the ocean they remain for the
majority of their lives. They are hatched in shallow sandy nests on the
beaches, and once they make their slow, clumsy way from the nest to the
ocean, only the females return to land, and then only to nest and lay
their own eggs some 15 years later.
Of the five species that swim near the Golden Isles, only the
loggerhead turtle nests on the islands' beaches with any regularity.
They can often reach weights of up to 350 pounds, although specimens
weighing up to 1,000 pounds have been documented. The carapace (top
shell) is a reddish brown and the plastron (bottom shell) is a buttery
yellow. (Another fun turtle vocabulary word: scutes, or the plates that
make up the shell.) They spend the vast majority of their lives in the
water, eating jellyfish, sponges, seaweed, shellfish and other smallish
sea creatures.
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