1. Long -lived Thermal constraints Surface area:volume Small - bask Left-right shunt! Large Size (8’ long leatherback!) Thermal inertia 37 degree BT in 29 deg water Counter-current exchange of heat in flippers

2. Most aquatic and sea turtles carnivorous (jellyfish, sponges, molluscs) Terrestrial tortoises often herbivorous Green Sea turtle herbivorous - sea grass

3. Mating - Males have penis - internal fertilization Tortoises call to attract mates, male-male fights All turtles Oviparous!

4. 10- 100 or more eggs/clutch several clutches/season All turtles lay eggs in soil

5. Female sea turtles come ashore at night to lay eggs - Why?

6. 28-130 day incubation Group needed to dig out and to survive race Race for the sea Often at night Orient by 1) light, 2) wave motion 3) magnetic Exercise & imprinting

7. TDS (Temperature Dependent Sex Determination) Fig 10-9 % Male Loggerhead sea turtles at different temperatures

8. Young turtles drift with plankton, probably join currents in Atlantic Conservation challenges: Long Life, low repro, slow devpt Loss of breeding sites, harvest, development Captive breeding? Helping young to water to avoid predators?

9. See Figure 10-11 for an astonishing movement from Brazil across the Atlantic to Ascension Island How do they do it? Olfaction? Magnetic orientation? Loggerhead trans-Pacific migration