IN honour of International Turtle Day on 23 May, and considering the incredibly unique World Heritage Site nearby – iSimangaliso Wetland Park – is one of the few places worldwide protecting the beaching sites of sea turtles,
I thought it was time to share some fun facts about these marine animals.
• Turtles have been around for some 215 million years – dating back to the time of dinosaurs – and belong to one of the world’s oldest reptile groups. Older, even, than snakes, crocodiles, alligators or Donald Trump.
• The turtle’s shell is actually it’s skeleton. It is made up of more than 50 bones, including a rib cage and a spine.
• In addition to having existed as a species for a very long time, turtles can exist as beings for absolutely ages, with the oldest recorded turtle dying at the age of 188 years. The same age at which Mick Jagger is considering retiring from rock ‘n roll.
• Poaching, loss of habitat and the illegal pet trade means that 129 of some 300 turtle and tortoise species are vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. How anyone thinks they are going to outlive a 188-year-old pet turtle is beyond me. Get a rabbit instead.
• Although we mock them endlessly, Americans are actually correct in calling tortoises ‘turtles’, in that all tortoises belong to the order ‘Testudines’ or ‘Chelonia’. However, not all turtles are tortoises.
Tortoises are land-dwelling animals only. It’s confusing, I know.
• Turtles are ‘amniotes’ because they they breathe air and lay their eggs on land, although many species live in or around water.
• Temperature dictates the sex of baby turtles with warmer nests creating more females and cooler ones more males. Hence the issue with climate change and an increasing number of transgender turtles. (That last bit might have been fictional).
• You might find it hard to believe, but the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were not based on real-life characters. As an aside, Bebop and Rocksteady weren’t based on the lives of a real-life rhino and warthog either. It was all just made up.
• The Zululand-based iSimangaliso Wetland Park is one of only a handful of marine World Heritage Sites globally that protects the beach nesting sites of sea turtles. Within the park’s 220km shoreline, and beyond the boundary with Mozambique’s Maputo Special Reserve, is the southernmost African nesting grounds for the loggerhead and endangered leatherback turtles.
• Dr Zeuss named the character ‘Yertle’ in his well known children’s book, ‘Yertle the Turtle’ because the name ‘Yertle’ actually rhymes with the word ‘turtle’, thereby fitting into his iconic Zeussian rhyming narrative.
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