Wonders of God’s Creation

The Long Trip Home First things first: green sea turtles aren’t green. They’re actually various shades of olive and black. They get their name from a layer of green fat under their shells—an apparent by-product of their all-vegetarian diet. After a baby green sea turtle hatches from its land-locked egg and makes its mad dash toward the ocean’s waves, it travels to feeding grounds up to 1,600 miles away. But the incredible thing is that, after spending about 20 years hundreds of miles away from the beach where they hatched, green sea turtles swim back to that exact same beach for mating season. After reaching maturity, males make the trip every year of their 80-year life spans, while females travel every two to four years. God designed these turtles to hatch with a desire to enter the ocean and travel to feeding grounds they’ve never visited, and then to return decades later to have offspring of their own. How? Scientists aren’t sure. It’s possible that baby sea turtles remember the exact chemical makeup of their native beaches and are somehow able to smell their way back. It’s also possible that the tiny bits of magnetite in their brains somehow lock onto the magnetic fields of their home beach, giving them an internal compass to guide them back. However God designed that mechanism to work, these turtles are true wonders of His creation.

Pictured: green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) Photos by James Capo Text by James Capo and Jeremy Lallier GOD