Hello Myrtle

Sea turtles are some of my favorite animals. My interest, some might say obsession, with them goes back a long way. To me, they embody some of the most fascinating characteristics of the natural world. Of course, because of this, it’s actually difficult to decide what I want to write about them. There are way too many potential stories to choose from. For now, I’m going to introduce you to the catalyst for my interest in these creatures.

The picture above is Myrtle, one of the stars at the New England Aquarium in Boston. Myrtle is a green sea turtle, Chelonia mydas. She has lived at the Aquarium since 1970 and they estimate her current age at approximately 80 years old and her weight at 500 pounds. As I mentioned in my first post, the Aquarium was one of my favorite places to visit as a kid, and Myrtle was one of the major reasons why. Part of this was because of her size, but another was her coloration. Green is still my favorite color, but back then I sometimes took that love of green to extremes. In fact, it was so long ago and I was so young, it is difficult to tease apart which came first, my love for animals like Myrtle, or my love for green.

Myrtle isn’t just big. She’s big even for a sea turtle. Many larger reptiles, including monitor lizards and crocodilians as well as turtles, can continue to grow throughout their lives. Given her age, it makes sense that she has grown so large, even on a diet that consists mostly of lettuce and cabbage (green turtles are the vegetarians of the sea turtle world). I have seen her eat an entire head of lettuce in a few bites. That diet is how they got the name green turtle; they develop a layer of fat that gives their skin a green coloration.

Despite her size, Myrtle can be just as graceful as her smaller relatives. When people think of turtles, the word ‘slow’ often comes to mind (think the tale of the Tortoise and the Hare, “slow and steady wins the race”). Sea turtles contradict that thinking, as they are well adapted for a life spent almost entirely in the water. Their front limbs have been modified from legs to flippers, which act like giant paddles to propel them through the water. The rear limbs are like giant mitts and are most often used as a rudder for steering rather than propulsion. The swimming motion of sea turtles is so fluid and easy it can be mesmerizing to watch.

After slowness, when people think about turtles, they picture a turtle hiding from danger inside its shell. However, sea turtles don’t have that option. As part of their adaptation to the ocean, they lost the ability to retract their head and limbs. This leaves them more vulnerable to attacks from predators. One way that sea turtles overcome this is the same reason that attracted me to Myrtle and attracts many people to sea turtles in general: their sheer size. Even if a predator could take down such a large individual, it may not always be worth the energy invested.

You may have noticed that I refer to Myrtle as ‘she’. This is not a guess. Myrtle is indeed a female sea turtle (as a child, I always thought of her as the mother of the others turtles in the Giant Ocean Tank, even though they weren’t the same species). Like most turtles, the sex is often difficult to figure out simply by looking at an individual. There are ways to determine this by looking at the internal anatomy, but this is invasive and is often not done with captive animals unless otherwise necessary. However, one good way to tell with green turtles is the length of the tail upon reaching adulthood. Males generally have much longer tails, while Myrtle like most females has a short, stubby tail.

If you look back to the top image, it gives you a very good picture of how old Myrtle really is. While her size is one indication, that photo also shows a bunch of the scratches and scuff marks on her shell. Those could have accumulated from any number of things, including brushing up against the large fake coral structure in her tank. She’s been through a lot, and maybe that’s why she’s so interesting.

Myrtle helped jump-start my interest in sea turtles, but I didn’t really start looking into them in an academic sense until 8th grade, when I had to write a paper and give an oral presentation on a topic of my choice (the only guideline was that the topic had to have some important impact on society). I chose to do mine on the decline of sea turtles. Sadly, while it has been over 15 years since that project, many sea turtle populations are still struggling and six of the seven species are listed as Vulnerable or Endangered by the IUCN (the flatback sea turtle, Natator depressus, is listed as Data Deficient, meaning we don’t have enough data to determine its conservation status).

Since that time, I have been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to study sea turtles up close and personal in several locations, including nesting beaches in Costa Rica and Ghana. There are a lot of reasons why I was able to do so, but part of it can be traced back to a big, beautiful turtle living in a giant ocean tank in Boston. I hope she has many more years to come of inspiring young people and getting them interested in nature. If I can do half the job that she has, I’ll consider it a fitting tribute.

This definitely won’t be my last sea turtle story. I find them way too cool to not share more about them, but I also need to make sure I don’t get carried away with myself. From now on, I plan to post sea turtle story tidbits every two or three weeks to keep things fresh and varied. After all, these are Nature Stories, not just sea turtle stories.