The answers that come to mind are sea grass and jellyfish.
But in the
reality it's more complicated than that - what do sea turtles eat
varies quite a bit between
speices.
Loggerhead on sea grass. Poster by AllPosters. Click on
thumbnail to buy
Loggerhead turtles
have
large head and strong jaws which enables them to eat prey with hard
shells - such as clams, whelks, conchs, as well as crabs, lobster,
mollusks and other crustacians.
But they also eat softer things such as squid, shrimp and jellyfish.
While the adults are carnivores, young eat both plants and animals.
Leaderback in the open water. By AllPosters. Click on
thumbnail
to buy
Leatherback turtles
on
the other hand eat soft food like sea squirts, tunicates and
particularly jellyfish. Their jaws are not good for hard shelled diet,
instead they have sharp parts that help them to spear and hold onto
jellyfish. They are also deep divers and live in the open water - an
environment well suited for catching jellyfish.
Hawksbill in coral reef. By AllPosters. Click on
thumbnail to buy
Hawksbill turtles
have
hawk's beak like jaws, which are suited to catching animals such as
squid and shrimp in coral reef - their major feeding environment, but
their particular speciality is sponges.
Green turtle eating sea grass. By AllPosters. Click on
thumbnail to buy
Green turtles
eat both
plants and animals as young, but once they are adults they turn to
total plant eaters. They eat mainly seaweed, sea grasses and algae, and
their jaws are adapted to that diet with sawlike edges that easily cut
plant material.
Olive Ridley. Poster by AllPosters. Click on
thumbnail to buy
Olive ridley turtles
eat plants
as well as animals, such as algae, fish, crabs, shrimps, lobsters,
jellyfish and sea urchins. Kemp's
ridley turtles eat only animals such as mollusks, shrimps,
fish
and jellyfish, but their particular favourite and speciality is crabs.
Kemp's Ridley. Poster by AllPosters. Click on
thumbnail to buy
Flatback turtles,
which
are only found in Australia, are both plant and animal eaters. They eat
sea cucumbers, sea weed, soft corals, mollusks, jellyfish, crabs,
shrimps and fish.
Note:
This site uses
British English, which is the English we use in Australia. You will
find words like "traveller", "harbour" and "realise", and they are all
correct in the language used in Australia.
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