On The Verge Of Destruction, The Ancient Leatherback Sea Turtle Has My Vote As The Most Amazing Ani

By Author: Victor Krumm
Total Articles: 17
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The leatherback sea turtle may be the most amazing animal on earth. One of just six remaining species of marine turtle, it left its four-footed land forebears more than one hundred ten million years ago, developed flippers, and populated the Seven Seas---before there were Seven Seas.

The world was a very different place way back then.

Although humans look around at the world and think that the big mountains and long rivers we see today have always been there, nothing could be farther from the truth.

For example, today's mighty Himalayan Mountains were not mighty at all when turtles first entered the oceans. Indeed, there would be no Himalayas for sixty five million more years.

Antarctica was connected to Australia when the earliest leatherbacks took to the sea and would not uncouple from it for about 30 million more generations of these sea animals.

South America remained near West Antarctica. Another eighty million years would pass before Antarctica would turn into the frigid continent we see.

The South Atlantic Ocean was still forming. In fact, not only were there ...
... no Seven Seas way back then, there were not seven continents, either, only two supercontinents.

This ancient time spawned these ancient sea turtles.

When the forebears of today's leatherbacks turned to the ocean, there were no birds in the sky, no lions, tigers, or buffaloes because there were no birds or mammals at all on earth.

The awesome Tyrannosaurus Rex would not terrorize the planet for about four hundred thousand centuries more. Yes, you read it correctly: 400,000 centuries.

Your biology teacher may have told you that whales and porpoises originated from land animals and went to sea long ago. Very impressive! Except to a sea turtle. Why? Because leatherbacks were swimming the world's oceans for more than fifty million years before those mighty leviathons---which are closely related to hippopotamus---evolved, left the land, and entered the oceans, too.

These are the largest of all sea turtles and can weigh nearly two thousand pounds, They were here long before the first dinosaur, survived the greatest mass extinction the world has ever experienced, and flourished. But, it is not their species longevity---amazing as that is---that warrants the title of most amazing animal on earth.

Consider this: we all marveled , and deservedly so, at Michael Phelps' 200 meter freestyle world record time. But, in the time it took him to go that distance, a huge leatherback, weighing about as much as the entire offensive line of a professional football team, would pass the thousand meter mark---more than a third of a mile ahead of Michael.

In fact, this sea turtle is listed in the 1992 Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest reptile on earth!

It would be a fairer race if the world's fastest man ran alongside the swimming turtle. At 100 meters, the race would be very close and maybe won by a nose---by the human. At 400 meters, it'd be a blow-out---for the turtle.

Not only can this ancient being swim five times faster than the fastest human on earth, it may also be the world's greatest long-distance swimmer. One of these giants was monitored by researchers migrating 13,000 miles---one way.

Besides its incredible speed and stamina, it is the deepest diving sea turtle on the planet, regularly diving some 4,000 feet deep into the ocean. For perspective, America's extraordinary nuclear submarines are allowed to operate in a maximum normal operating depth of about 1,600 feet because they'd crush under the sea pressure at about 2,400 feet. Man's best technology and strongest metal and composite materials are no match for the diving ability of this ancient reptile.

There is also the incredible fact that leatherbacks are found not only in all tropical and subtropical waters on earth but have been seen as far north as the Arctic Circle, in Alaska, near Quebec, and Norway, and as far south as the Cape of Good Hope and even below New Zealand, in waters as cold as 40°F. Yet, even though they are, like all reptiles, cold blooded, they remain toasty warm because they can maintain a body temperature as much as 32°F (18°C) higher than the surrounding water.

Disgracefully, in just three decades, man's rapacious greed and carelessness have decimated the numbers of this magnificent creature. Between 1980 and 2005, the number of leatherback sea turtles in Mexico declined 99% , a catastrophe for this species since that country had about two thirds of the world's total leatherbacks.

Mexico should not be singled out because, all across the globe, leatherback populations collapsed. For example, not long ago 10,000 leatherbacks nested in Malaysia each year. As recently as 2008, two leatherbacks nested on these once productive beaches.

Today, more than 100 countries and hundreds of conservation groups are fighting to stem the decline of this magnificent race but it remains to be seen if this most ancient of all creatures can survive your generation and mine.

Somewhere, Angels are weeping.
Victor C. Krumm writes from sunny Costa Rica in his beautiful Costa Rica Vacations site. Visit here to learn more from wonderful Costa Rica Eco Tourism opportunities.