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These animals are amazing hosts.

Sloth fur is home to a whole ecosystem, or community of living things. Tiny animals burrow into a sloth's hair to eat delicious algae that often grows there. Hundreds of moths, beetles, cockroaches, and worms can reportedly be found on some sloths.

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These animals are amazing hosts. Sloth fur is home to a whole ecosystem, or community of living things. Tiny animals burrow into a sloth's hair to eat delicious algae that often grows there. Hundreds of moths, beetles, cockroaches, and worms can reportedly be found on some sloths.

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Sea Turtles 🐢 | Disney Animals | Disney Junior

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school.

Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under.

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online access fun thousands children great kids ebooks books

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school. Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under. Get Started

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school.

Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under.

Get Started

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online access fun thousands children great kids ebooks books

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school. Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under. Get Started

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Sea Turtles For Kids | All About Sea Turtles!

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school.

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online access fun thousands children great kids ebooks books

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school. Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under. Get Started

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Elephants for Children: Learn All About Elephants - FreeSchool

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Elephants and How to Save Them 🐘 | Mission Animal Rescue

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The EnviroKidz Learn How to Save the Sea Turtles

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* SEA TURTLES * | Animals For Kids | All Things Animal TV

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Instantly access Elephants plus over 40,000 of the best books & videos for kids.

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Watch How to Draw a Cartoon Penguin on Epic

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school.

Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under.

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online access fun thousands children great kids ebooks books

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Watch How to Draw a Cartoon Penguin on Epic

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school. Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under. Get Started

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school.

Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under.

Get Started

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online access fun thousands children great kids ebooks books

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Epic reaches 75 million kids in class and after school. Built on a collection of 40,000+ popular, high-quality books from 250+ of the world's best publishers, Epic safely fuels curiosity and reading confidence for kids 12 and under. Get Started

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When born, green sea turtles are only 5 cm (2 in) long. But they grow up to 1.5 meters (5 ft) in length and can weigh over 300 kg (700 lbs), making them the largest of the hardshell sea turtles.

The dorsal shell of the green turtle, or carapace, is wide, smooth, and brownish-olive in color. The underside of the shell, or plastron, is yellow. Green sea turtles are so named for the greenish hue of their skin. Their heads cannot retract into their bodies, despite the common misconception that they can. Reaching speeds of up to 56 km/h (35 mph), their streamlined shell and paddle-like flippers aid in their ability to swim quickly and with grace.

Green sea turtles are able to hold their breath for hours at a time. Because they are cold-blooded, the temperature of the water affects their ability to hold their breath. In colder water they can hold their breath for longer.

With features well-adapted to sea life, their agile mobility underwater does not carry over to their travels on the beach. On land they move slowly, laboriously pulling themselves along with their flippers. But in general, green turtles only venture onto land to lay their eggs. Females lay eggs every 2-4 years once they are sexually mature.

To reach their nesting grounds, green turtles migrate long distances, traveling back to the beaches where they were born. After mating in the shallow waters near shore, female turtles climb onto the beach and lay their eggs in a pit. They lay 100-200 eggs at a time and leave them alone for 2 months before they hatch. Once the baby turtles hatch, they must crawl to the water and avoid a multitude of predators, including birds and crabs.

Green sea turtles make their home in tropical and subtropical oceans worldwide. There are two types of green turtles, the Atlantic green turtle and the Eastern Pacific green turtle. It is debated whether these are subspecies or completely separate species. Each of the populations has its own feeding and breeding grounds. Atlantic green turtles are found throughout the Atlantic Ocean, while Eastern Pacific green turtles are found in the Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and Mediterranean and Black Seas. Over 80 countries in the world have green turtles nest on their beaches.

Green sea turtles feed on crabs, jellyfish, and other creatures as juveniles. As adults they become herbivores, primarily eating sea grasses and algae.

Conservation Status

According to the IUCN, green turtles are listed as endangered, and their numbers are decreasing. Green turtles are hunted and their eggs are collected by humans, a legal practice in some countries. Green turtles are also threatened by destruction of nesting areas and foraging areas in the sea. Sometimes green turtles are accidentally caught in fishing nets, further declining their population.

There are efforts to lessen the amount of turtles and eggs harvested in many countries. In addition, many countries are trying to protect the nesting and foraging grounds. They are protected under many treaties and laws.

What You Can Do to Help

Green sea turtles can use as many advocates as they can get. Make sure you do not purchase products made from this endangered species. Also, if you live an area that green turtles use for nesting, you can lead a community effort to protect the beaches they nest on.

Green Sea Turtle Distribution

Green Sea Turtle Resources

Blog Posts about the Green Sea Turtle

About the Author

P.A. Smith is a middle school Language Arts teacher. He is also a contributing editor of My House Rabbit.

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Green Sea Turtle Facts for Kids | Endangered Animals

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Did you know green sea turtles can hold their breath for hours at a time? Learn more green sea turtle facts at Animal Fact Guide!

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These beautifully colored sea turtles got their name because their oversized head sort of looks like a big log. Within their heads are powerful jaws, which loggerheads use for crushing prey like conchs, horseshoe crabs, and other animals with hard shells. These carnivores also eat softer foods like jellyfish and fish. Occasionally they munch on seaweed and a brown algae called sargassum, but not often enough for experts to classify them as omnivores.

Loggerheads live in oceans all over the world, except in the coldest seas. There are more loggerheads in the waters of the United States than any other species of sea turtle.

A loggerhead female generally nests every two to three years. On average, she'll lay eggs four times in one nesting season. Each time, she comes ashore and uses her front flippers to clear a spot in dry sand. Then she uses her hind flippers to dig her nesting hole and gently lay her eggs.

Those that remain undisturbed hatch about 60 days later. Hatchlings dig their way up through the sand toward the surface and wait just underneath the last layer of sand until nightfall.

Once cooler temperatures signal that the sun has set, the hatchlings pop the rest of the way out and scurry toward the ocean avoiding raccoons, crabs, birds, and other predators.

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These beautifully colored sea turtles got their name because their oversized head sort of looks like a big log. Within their heads are powerful jaws, which loggerheads use for crushing prey like conchs, horseshoe crabs, and other animals with hard shells. They also eat softer foods like jellyfish, fish, seaweed, and a brown algae called sargassum.

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When an elephant drinks, it sucks as much as 2 gallons (7.5 liters) of water into its trunk at a time. Then it curls its trunk under, sticks the tip of its trunk into its mouth, and blows. Out comes the water, right down the elephant's throat.

Since African elephants live where the sun is usually blazing hot, they use their trunks to help them keep cool. First they squirt a trunkful of cool water over their bodies. Then they often follow that with a sprinkling of dust to create a protective layer of dirt on their skin. Elephants pick up and spray dust the same way they do water-with their trunks.

Elephants also use their trunks as snorkels when they wade in deep water. An elephant's trunk is controlled by many muscles. Two fingerlike parts on the tip of the trunk allow the elephant to perform delicate maneuvers such as picking a berry from the ground or plucking a single leaf off a tree. Elephants can also use its trunk to grasp an entire tree branch and pull it down to its mouth and to yank up clumps of grasses and shove the greenery into their mouths.

When an elephant gets a whiff of something interesting, it sniffs the air with its trunk raised up like a submarine periscope. If threatened, an elephant will also use its trunk to make loud trumpeting noises as a warning.

Elephants are social creatures. They sometimes hug by wrapping their trunks together in displays of greeting and affection. Elephants also use their trunks to help lift or nudge an elephant calf over an obstacle, to rescue a fellow elephant stuck in mud, or to gently raise a newborn elephant to its feet. And just as a human baby sucks its thumb, an elephant calf often sucks its trunk for comfort. One elephant can eat 300 pounds (136 kilograms) of food in one day.

People hunt elephants mainly for their ivory tusks. Adult females and young travel in herds, while adult males generally travel alone or in groups of their own.

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When an elephant drinks, it sucks as much as 2 gallons (7.5 liters) of water into its trunk at a time. Then it curls its trunk under, sticks the tip of its trunk into its mouth, and blows. Out comes the water, right down the elephant's throat.

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Emperor penguins spend their entire lives on Antarctic ice and in its waters. They survive-breeding, raising young, and eating-by relying on a number of clever adaptations.

These flightless birds breed in the winter. After a courtship of several weeks, a female emperor penguin lays one single egg then leaves! Each penguin egg's father balances it on his feet and covers it with his brood pouch, a very warm layer of feathered skin designed to keep the egg cozy. There the males stand, for about 65 days, through icy temperatures, cruel winds, and blinding storms.

Finally, after about two months, the females return from the sea, bringing food they regurgitate, or bring up, to feed the now hatched chicks. The males eagerly leave for their own fishing session at sea, and the mothers take over care of the chicks for a while.

As the young penguins grow, adults leave them in groups of chicks called crèches while they leave to fish. There is a reason for the timing of emperor penguins' hatching. By December, when the Antarctic weather has warmed somewhat, the ice the penguins occupy begins to break up, bringing open waters closer to the nesting sites. Now the chicks are old enough to take to the seas and fish for their own food.

Check out the book Penguins vs. Puffins for more about these amazing birds!

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Emperor penguins spend their entire lives on Antarctic ice and in its waters. They survive-breeding, raising young, and eating-by relying on a number of clever adaptations. These flightless birds breed in the winter. After a courtship of several weeks, a female emperor penguin lays one single egg then leaves!

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All About Penguins for Kids: Penguins of the World for Children - FreeSchool

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Penguins for Kids: Interesting Facts - Different Types of Penguins for Children

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Three-toed Sloth: The Slowest Mammal On Earth | Nature on PBS

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It's a good thing sloths don't have to go to school. They'd never make it on time. These drowsy tree-dwellers sleep up to 20 hours a day! And even when they are awake, they barely move at all. In fact, they're so incredibly sluggish, algae actually grows on their fur.

Sloths live in the tropical forests of Central and South America. With their long arms and shaggy fur, they resemble monkeys, but they are actually related to armadillos and anteaters. They can be 2 to 2.5 feet (0.6 to 0.8 meters) long and, depending on species, weigh from 8 to 17 pounds (3.6 to 7.7 kilograms).

There are two main species of sloth, identified by whether they have two or three claws on their front feet. The two species are quite similar in appearance, with roundish heads, sad-looking eyes, tiny ears, and stubby tails. Two-toed sloths are slightly bigger and tend to spend more time hanging upside-down than their three-toed cousins, who will often sit upright in the fork of a tree branch. Three-toed sloths have facial coloring that makes them look like they're always smiling. They also have two extra neck vertebrae that allow them to turn their heads almost all the way around!

Some scientists think sloths developed their slow-motion lifestyle so they would be less noticeable to predators such as hawks and cats, which rely heavily on their eyesight when hunting. The algae that grows on sloths' fur also helps them avoid predators by letting them blend in with green leaves. They rarely come down from the trees. About once every week, they descend to go to the bathroom, slowly moving about by digging their front claws into the dirt and dragging their bodies. If they are caught by a predator, sloths turn from sluggish to slugger, biting fiercely, hissing, slashing with their claws, and shrieking.

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It's a good thing sloths don't have to go to school. They'd never make it on time. These drowsy tree-dwellers sleep up to 20 hours a day! And even when they are awake, they barely move at all. In fact, they're so incredibly sluggish, algae actually grows on their fur.

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Attenborough: Saying Boo to a Sloth! - BBC Earth

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You can watch the higher quality version here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipP8m8wlZF4 For more brilliant natural history shows, exclusive to YouTube, head over to our brand-new channel Earth Unplugged! http://www.youtube.com/earthunplugged In this amusing and entertaining clip from the BBC's Life of Mammals, David Attenborough looks at the life of a sloth.

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Hanging Tough Life Science Article for Students | Scholastic SuperScience Magazine

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Rescuers use a sloth sporting event to help save one of the world's slowest animals