Continuing walking forward, Xiang Yang saw another huge eyeball on the beach.
This huge eyeball lying bare on the beach was a bit scary, but Xiang Yang had seen countless deep-sea animals with eyes bigger than this one in the deep sea, such as whales, squids, and even swordfish, which might be bigger than this eyeball.
Xiang Yang continued walking slowly forward while lamenting the tragic death of yet another sea monster.
After walking forward for a while, Xiang Yang suddenly discovered that the last section of the beach in front was covered with a large number of densely packed white objects.
"What is this?" Xiang Yang was stunned for a moment, then quickly quickened his pace and walked forward.
When he got closer and took a look, Xiang Yang was stunned. These white objects were round like eggs.
"That's right, it's small and the shape is right. It's clearly a turtle egg." Xiang Yang was extremely surprised.
These white objects are definitely eggs laid by turtles in the ocean. The number of turtle eggs here is almost piled up into a small mountain.
Xiang Yang looked at the sea in surprise, "So there are so many sea turtles in our Qinglong Bay?"
The temperature and humidity in the Qinglongwan sea area are very suitable for turtles to lay eggs, but before, Xiang Yang had basically never seen a turtle lay eggs in Qinglongwan. It turns out that all the eggs are hidden on this small deserted island. If it weren't for this accidental discovery, this secret might never be known.
"This is actually one of the important habitats for sea turtles." Xiang Yang was extremely surprised.
Unlike the very rare leatherback sea turtle, sea turtles are a very common marine creature.
Most sea turtles prefer to live in the upper layer of subtropical coastal waters and spend their entire lives in the ocean.
A few sea turtles like to live in shallow coastal waters. Some species of sea turtles live in food-rich waters in winter and make a long-distance migration during the egg-laying season.
Generally speaking, sea turtles have a diverse diet, including fish, cephalopods, crustaceans, mollusks, and seaweed, and sometimes they also eat garbage discarded by humans.
Speaking of which, sea turtles appeared on Earth more than 200 million years ago and are famous living fossils.
Xiang Yang picked up a turtle egg, then walked to the shore thoughtfully, squinting his eyes and looking into the distance.
Xiang Yang was very familiar with the habits of sea turtles.
Every sea turtle is actually a good swimmer. Their long front limbs act like paddles, making them well suited for life in the water.
Sea turtles have the habit of migratory migration.
When the sea temperature drops, sea turtles will migrate to warmer waters to resist the cold.
But sometimes the peak comes too quickly and the water temperature drops rapidly. The turtle's body temperature, physiological activities and buoyancy control cannot be adjusted in a short period of time, and it will freeze to death.
Sometimes these turtles will stay on the mud bottom for a long time, and their metabolic rate will decrease, engaging in hibernation-like behavior.
This is one of the few examples of hibernation found in marine life.
After years of research, American scientists discovered that the Earth's magnetic field is the compass and map for turtles to return home.
Scientists have long discovered that turtles can determine their direction through the Earth's magnetic field and the position of the sun and other celestial bodies.
But for migrating turtles, a sense of direction alone is not enough; they may also have a map to help them locate their geographic location and ultimately reach a specific destination.
The growth rate of sea turtles in the wild is relatively uniform, with an average annual growth of 10-15 kg, with the highest growth rate at 4-4 years old. In artificial breeding environments, they grow more rapidly, especially at 1-2 years old, with an average annual weight increase of 0 kg.
In order to adapt to the living environment in seawater, sea turtles have salt-excreting glands behind their eye sockets. These glands can excrete excess salt from the body through the edges of the eyes, and can also desalinate the seawater they drink and dilute it.
Sea turtles breathe with their lungs, but their chests cannot move. They breathe by swallowing air, and have to stick their heads out of the sea to breathe every once in a while.
But turtles can also live underwater for relatively long periods of time, relying on anal sacs to filter oxygen.
But at night, turtles need to float on the water surface to rest, and at this time they rely entirely on their lungs to breathe.
Although Xiang Yang was holding a turtle egg in his hand and looking at the sea, he knew that the turtles that had laid eggs would not return to this beach, at least not this year.
Sea turtles not only have a varied diet, but also have a large appetite, especially their young, which prefer carnivorous food.
With the current fishery resources in Qinglongwan, it is impossible to support so many sea turtles. After laying eggs, those adult sea turtles must have already crossed the ocean and no one knows where to swim to find food.
In the past, many people have seen turtles crying on land.
So, someone put forward a hypothesis.
Sea turtles have a memory of only seven seconds. After they lay their eggs on the shore and go into the sea to find food, they forget where they laid the eggs.
Turtles that can't find their children often cry loudly.
Actually, no.
When eating aquatic plants, turtles swallow large amounts of seawater and ingest large amounts of salt.
Some special glands next to the turtle's tear glands excrete these salts to keep the salt density inside and outside the body consistent, so turtles shed tears on shore.
A healthy turtle will lift its head to breathe at regular intervals. If you place it on the floor, it will try to crawl. Pull its forelimbs, and they will forcefully retract. Lift the turtle, and its forelimbs will flap up and down.
Xiang Yang turned around and looked at the turtle eggs piled on the beach.
These turtle eggs will not hatch in a short period of time, so Xiang Yang will not be able to see the turtles leaving the nest in a short period of time.
In fact, the scene of the little turtles returning to the sea is quite spectacular.
Newly hatched sea turtles will leave their nests, crawl across the beach and return to the sea regardless of the terrain of the beach or climate changes.
This is because the turtle's visual system responds positively to light signals, causing them to crawl towards the ocean where positive charges are concentrated.
Newborn turtles have many enemies, such as seabirds, large lizards, etc. They are often attacked by enemies on their way back to the sea.
The survival rate of baby turtles is very low, with only one or two out of a hundred surviving on average.
Once they reach adulthood, the only creatures in the entire ocean that can take the turtle's life are basically humans, apart from barnacles. Other marine creatures, no matter how strong their bite force is, cannot break through the turtle's thick shell.
It is worth mentioning that the reproduction method of sea turtles is also very interesting.
Sea turtles have the ability to identify their birthplace. Although they swim in the ocean all year round, when the breeding season comes, they will return to their birthplace to lay eggs even if it is thousands of miles away.
As more and more artificial buildings are built on the beach, a large number of sea turtles that must return to the beach where they were born to lay eggs are unable to find their birthplace and choose to remain sterile for life. (To be continued)