What do you know about turtles? Have you seen? Where do they live?

Most of us have seen a tortoise in a zoo or a reptile park.

Some, India's coastal waters: the Olive Ridley sea Turtle, The Green Sea Turtle, The Loggerhead and The Leatherback.

 Compared to most tortoises, Sea turtles are huge.  Even the smallest species, the Olive Ridley Sea Turtles, weighs up to 35 kg when fully grown.  The largest of them all, the Leatherback, grows to a length of 2.2 m and each could weigh as much as 700 kg!

 Sea turtles live their life entirely in the Oceans.  But they still have a connection with land - they must come ashore to lay eggs.

The Olive Ridley Sea Turtle, however, are still commonly seen nesting on sandy beaches all along our coasts.

Arribada

In most parts of the world, Olive Ridley Sea Turtle come ashore alone to lay their eggs.  However, Odisha is one of only three places in the world where a phenomenon known as 'mass nesting' or Arribada takes place.  On certain nights during the nesting season, thousands of female turtles comes ashore simultaneously to lay their eggs on particular beaches.

Between the months of January and March, female Olive Ridley Sea Turtle come ashore at night to lay their eggs.  This is quite a problem for them, as a turtle's front flippers enable it to swim gracefully and effortlessly but are not very useful for moving on land.  The turtle has to haul itself laboriously onto the beach.  Then it chooses a spot well away from the high - tide line.  Here, it scoops out a nest cavity 45 cm deep, into which it lays about 100 eggs.  Each egg is in the shape and size of a table tennis ball.  Once all the eggs are laid, the turtle fills in the cavity, then it camouflages the nest by tossing sand on it using its flippers.  That done, it returns to the sea.  The eggs are left to incubate under the warmth of the sun.  In many places around the world, local people follow the tracks of the turtle to its nest.  They collect the eggs for eating.  Jackals, domestic dogs and pigs too dig up and eat the eggs by following the scent left by the turtle.  Those eggs that escape such people and predators hatch 45-60 days later.  The hatchlings slash open the leathery eggshell with the help of a tiny 'egg - tooth'.  This is like a razor blade at the tip of a hatchling's snout.  When most of the eggs have hatched, the hatchlings push themselves upwards through the sand and emerge on the surface of the beach.  From here they make a hurried dash to the sea.

Many of these tiny hatchlings, will fall prey to crabs or birds even before they reach the water.  Most of those that do make it into the water will also be eaten by many predators in the sea within the first few days of their lives.  In fact, scientists estimate that only one in every thousand hatchlings becomes an adult.

 After many years of swimming in the open ocean, the female hatchlings that have become adults return to the same beach where they were born.  They come there to lay their own eggs. 

They have some natural dangers. But, sadly, human activities  during the last few decades have put them in grave danger.