Carapace of caretta caretta

One of the most beautiful animals we can meet in our seas is the Caretta caretta common turtle. It is a reptile of ancient origin, dating back to about 300 million years ago. This turtle is the most abundant species of the Mediterranean and is the only one that can reproduce along the Italian coasts.
It has an elongated body, protected by a heart-shaped shell, called carapace.
Like all reptiles, it prefers temperate waters, which is why it makes real migrations.
Like man it is equipped with lungs to breathe, but is able to accomplish long apnea, which can last even hours.
Environmental degradation, deriving from human activities, nowadays seriously threatens the survival of this species: both on land, where overbuilding and exploitation of the beaches affect the possibility of nesting, both at sea, where turtles are exposed to many dangers.
Sea turtles have an exceptional ability to find the beach where they were born. The young, in fact, are able to store the chemical-physical characteristics of the sand, as well as other environmental characteristics, which allow an imprinting of the area of origin, in which they return to lay even after long migrations.
The nest is a 60-70 cm deep hole, which the tortoise digs through the rear fins. Here 80 to 140 eggs are laid, white and as big as ping-pong balls.
At the end, the turtle carefully covers the nest, in order to guarantee a constant incubation temperature and hide it from the sight of predators, and returns to the sea.
The eggs have an incubation period ranging between 45 and 65 days. When the shell is broken, the babies take two / three days to get out of the nest. They head towards the sea as night falls in order to escape the numerous predators (crabs, birds, small mammals, etc.).