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The Mysterious Australian
Flatback Sea Turtle
The Flatback sea turtle is quite different from the other five hard shelled sea turtles and much remains unknown about how these creatures live. They have a slightly comical look to them from front on. I am always reminded of a pie dish when I see one from that angle. Take a look for yourself with the image to the right...do you notice the similarity? A Different Turtle There are more differences than just the shape of the shell.
* The shell is covered by a layer of skin. If you scratch the back of one of these turtles with your nails, you can draw blood.
* The scales on their flippers are softer than other species. This presents problems with tagging them, as the tags are usually put through the flipper scales. With Flatbacks, these tags get pulled out of the skin by the weight of barnacles that grow on them. This makes Flatback populations very difficult to do long term studies on.
* The eggs they lay are much larger than those of the other hard shell species, a bit bigger than a golf ball. They are the same size as eggs laid by the giant Leatherback turtle.
* They lay less eggs per clutch, about 50 is average. The hatchlings are, like the eggs, much larger than those of other species except the Leatherback.
* They only nest on northern Australian beaches, and have been recorded swimming and feeding only on the Australian continental shelf.
Distribution
Young flatbacks are thought to live in the mangrove thickets that line the beaches across a lot of the north of Australia. Their dull, muddy colour would certainly help them hide there, as the water in the mangroves and the surrounding beaches is often murky. Flatback sea turtle hatchling remains are also frequently found in or near sea eagle nests, again suggesting that they live close to shore.Adults live on jellyfish, sea cucumbers and soft corals and can grow to about a metre in length. The weight of an adult female can be up to 90 kilos. The adults are the only sea turtles that do not migrate to a different part of the world between nesting seasons. It's not known how long they live but it is thought they take at least 25 to 30 years to reach maturity. While it's assumed for most turtle species that the adults are pretty much free of predators, this does not seem to be the case for the Flatback. I have seen many, many nesting female turtles with shark bite damage. The notch at the rear of the shell of the turtle shown above is from a shark attack. I've seen an adult female Flatback running. She was heading back to the water after laying eggs and I ran towards her to catch her, as I was tagging turtles for research at the time. She raised its body off the ground, and moved with considerable speed on its four flippers until she got to the water's edge. The turtle was in the water before I and another researcher got a hold of her. I did not know until then just how powerful they were as swimmers. Despite both of us holding onto her shell, the turtle was able to pull free of our grip and swim away from us. Estimates of the numbers of adult Flatback sea turtle females still alive vary greatly, but the number cannot be more than 50,000. They are classed as Vulnerable, and need to be protected. At the moment precious little effort is being put in to ensure their survival.
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