Green Sea Turtle

The green sea turtle is named for the color of its fat and is the fastest swimming turtle. It is common in all warm seas and may sometimes be found, in summer, along the North Atlantic coasts of the United States and Europe. The male never leaves the sea; the female leaves only to lay her eggs. As many as 200 eggs are laid at night in sand above the reach of the sea. The young use an “egg tooth” to break out of their shells, immediately start moving their flippers to rise out of the sand in which their egg was buried, and then crawl into the sea and swim away.