Greetings, friends and scholars!
There are no good school supply ads this week, so I’m back with pictures of the awesome turtle I saw this summer, as promised.
We went to a wedding in Charleston, South Carolina on a private island. This island is a nature conservatory, which means that they try really hard not to disturb the animals so they can live happily. We went out looking for turtle trails REALLY late one night, and we found one! We named her Matilda.
Matilda is probably at least 150 years old, and she has probably been laying her eggs here on this beach for at least 100 years. She was absolutely huge! We measured her at 5 feet long and 2.5 feet wide. We had to wait in the dark for two hours until she was ready to lay her eggs, otherwise she would get scared and leave or possibly bite us.
This is my friend, Tammy, and her new husband, Walker. They were so excited to see this awesome turtle! You can see just how big Matilda is because Tammy and Walker are next to her.
When Matilda was laying her eggs, she went into a trance. She knows what it going on around her, but she can’t do anything except lay her eggs. We petted her very gently (something you normally cannot do with a giant sea turtle!) and took some pictures. We tried to make sure that we didn’t bother her too much because she had an important job to do — laying eggs!
After she buried her eggs, Matilda crawled through the sand back to the ocean and continued her life cycle. The people who work for the Nature Conservatory came the next morning and moved the eggs to a safer spot on the beach, where predators were less likely to find the eggs. Next year, Matilda will probably come back and lay more eggs just like before.
It was SO cool to see science in action in real life! We are going to learn about the life cycle of animals this year, and I have to say, it’s pretty awesome!
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