Reptiles, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 25, 2014

In Photos: Bones Reveal Ancient Sea Turtle

Fitting two halves (Image credit: New Jersey State Museum)What at first appeared to be an oddly placed stone, found in 2012 by amateur fossil hunter Gregory Harpel, turned out to be half of a fossilized sea turtle bone. The most amazing part: The other half was found more than 160...

Mar 25, 2014

Lawsuit Could Save Thousands of Sea Turtles (Op-Ed)

Amanda Keledjian is a marine scientist at Oceana, the largest international advocacy group working solely to protect the world's oceans. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. On March 1, the sea-turtle nesting season officially began in Florida, with the wondrous appearance of leatherback sea...

Mar 31, 2014

Florida Man Pleads Guilty to Poaching Sea Turtle Eggs

Florida may be the American epicenter of weird wildlife crime, where contraband lizards spring zombie-like from the ground and riding manatees or sick sperm whales is practically a native art. In the latest animal-related offense to hit the Sunshine State, a man plead guilty Friday (March 28) to snatching 316...

May 5, 2014

Animal Sex: How Sea Turtles Do It

Modern sea turtles have been around for more than 100 million years. Given the ancient reptiles' longevity, one might expect the animals to have a highly successful breeding system. So just how do sea turtles do it? Seven species of sea turtles exist today, including the leatherback, flatback, hawksbill, loggerhead,...

May 12, 2014

What Do Turtles Eat?

Turtles, like the humans who love them, are a diverse bunch. There are over 300 species of this ancient reptile, and each one has its own preferred diet. Some turtles are carnivores, while others follow a strictly vegetarian diet. Most turtles, however, are omnivores, eating both animals and plants. What...

Jul 22, 2014

Loggerhead Turtles Swim to Safety (Images)

Swimming to safety (Image credit: Oceana/Carlos Suarez)Oceana contributed these images to Live Science’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Loggerhead turtles are some of the most threatened animals in U.S. waters. From birth through adulthood, the sea turtles face a wide range of threats from humans: oil slicks, fishing lines and...

Aug 1, 2014

Tortoises Show Off Smarts by Mastering Touch-Screen Tech

Touch-screen technology has ventured into the world of reptiles. Red-footed tortoises have learned how to use the device in exchange for a strawberry, a new study reports. Researchers taught the tortoises a few touch-screen basics in order to learn about the animals' navigational techniques. The tortoises not only mastered the...

Sep 17, 2014

Amazon Turtles 'Talk' to Their Tots

Brian Horne is coordinator of turtle conservation for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). WCS manages the Bronx Zoo, the New York Aquarium and other sites, in addition to its global conservation work. Horne contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Turtles are popularly perceived as slow,...

Sep 19, 2014

Lonesome No More: George the Giant Tortoise on Public Display in NYC

NEW YORK — With head held high outside of his enormous shell, the giant tortoise proudly looks out from his rock-strewn box at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City. Just as in life, the painstakingly preserved reptile appears to extend his neck for a better...

Jan 15, 2015

Sea Turtles Use Earth's Magnetic Field to Find Home

Female sea turtles, known to swim thousands of miles before returning to their birthplace to lay eggs, find their way home by relying on unique magnetic signatures along the coast, a new study finds. For more than 50 years, scientists have been mystified by how sea turtles do this, said...

Feb 26, 2015

Beach Microbes Starving Baby Sea Turtles of Oxygen

This article was originally published on The Conversation. The publication contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. On a small stretch of beach at Ostional in Costa Rica, hundreds of thousands of sea turtles nest simultaneously in events known as arribadas. Because there are so many...

Mar 12, 2015

Photos of the Incredible Leatherback Turtle Rescue

Wildlife experts rescued a stranded leatherback turtle in South Carolina on March 7. The 475-pound (215 kilograms) teenage turtle was the first leatherback ever rescued alive in South Carolina. It took five people to lift the leatherback from the beach and bring it to the South Carolina Aquarium's Sea Turtle...

Mar 12, 2015

Rescued Leatherback Turtle Released Today in South Carolina

A huge sea turtle found stranded on a remote South Carolina beach over the weekend was returned to the wild today (March 12). The nearly 500-lb. (215 kilograms) leatherback turtle was rescued Saturday (March 7) on Yawkey-South Island Reserve, a barrier island near Georgetown, suffering from low blood sugar and...

Jun 24, 2015

Ancient, Shell-Less Turtle Sported Whiplike Tail

An ancestor of modern-day turtles, a shell-less creature with a long tail once puttered around an ancient lake, likely munching on insects and worms with its peglike teeth, a new study finds. Researchers found the first fossils of the 240-million-year-old creature in 2006, during an excavation of Vellberg Lake, an...

Sep 29, 2015

Rare Fluorescent Sea Turtle Glows Red and Green

Below the tropical waves near the Solomon Islands, nighttime divers spotted a psychedelic vision: an endangered sea turtle glowing bright red and green. The divers immediately began filming the creature, a hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricate), following it for a few minutes until it swam away. It was such a...