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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 76: Jul-Aug 1991 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Eight Leatherback Mysteries Our subject here is the leatherback turtle. Weighing up to 1600 pounds, it is the largest of the sea turtles. It is also the fastest turtle, hitting 9 miles per hour at times. But weight and speed are not necessarily mysterious; here are some characteristics that are: The leatherback is the only turtle without a rigid shell. Why? Perhaps it needs a flexible shell for its very deep dives. What looks like a shell is its thick, leathery carapace -- a strange streamlined structure with five to seven odd "keels" running lengthwise. These turtles are warm-blooded , and able to maintain ... temperatures as much as 10 F above the ambient water, just as the dinosaurs apparently could. The bones of the leatherback are more like those of the marine mammals (dolphins and whales) than the reptiles. "No one seems to understand the evolutionary implications of this." Leatherbacks dive as deep as 3000 feet which is strange because they seem to subside almost exclusively on jellyfish, most of which are surface feeders. Like all turtles, leatherbacks can stay submerged for up to 48 hours. Just how they do this is unexplained. Their brains are miniscule. A 60-pound turtle possessed a brain weighing only 4 grams -- a rat's weighs 8! Leatherbacks' intestines contain waxy balls, recalling the ambergris found in the intestines of sperm whales. The stomachs of leatherbacks ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 452 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf076/sf076b07.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sea turtles: from one end to the other Leatherback turtles are mysterious in several ways: flexible shell, warmbloodedness, etc. (See SF#76 for more.) Now, we add two more remarkable capabilities to their dossier. Precision navigation. The oily, flexible shells of leatherbacks have made it difficult for researchers to attach radio transmitters to the animals. Their very deep dives (over 1,000 meters) are also inimical to human instrumentation. But S.J . Morreale's group at Cornell have succeeded in attaching pressure-resistant transmitters to the shells on short tethers. This team was able to track female leatherbacks ... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 112: Jul-Aug 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Sea turtles: from one end to the other Leatherback turtles are mysterious in several ways: flexible shell, warmbloodedness, etc. (See SF#76 for more.) Now, we add two more remarkable capabilities to their dossier. Precision navigation. The oily, flexible shells of leatherbacks have made it difficult for researchers to attach radio transmitters to the animals. Their very deep dives (over 1,000 meters) are also inimical to human instrumentation. But S.J . Morreale's group at Cornell have succeeded in attaching pressure-resistant transmitters to the shells on short tethers. This team was able to track female leatherbacks ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 338 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf112/sf112p08.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 52: Jul-Aug 1987 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects New Vertebrate Depth Record S. Eckert, of the University of Georgia, has reported that a leatherback turtle fitted with a recording device dove to 1200 meters. This exceeds the previous record for air-breathing vertebrates (sperm whales). Leatherbacks also hold other records, being the largest of living turtles (over 600 kilograms) and the most widely distributed reptile in the world. They are also capable of maintaining their body temperatures sub stantially above the ambient water temperature, although no one has as yet claimed that they are warm-blooded. (Mrosovsky, N.; "Leatherback Turtle Off Scale," Nature, 327:286 ... 1987.) From Science Frontiers #52, JUL-AUG 1987 . 1987-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 303 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf052/sf052b09.htm
... Reptiles Evolutionary Stasis Vertical Flexure in Marine Reptiles Dinosaurs with Trunks Dinosaurs with Whale-Like Nostrils Web-Footed Dinosaurs BRF BODILY FUNTCIONS Parthenogenesis, Virgin Birth [BRA All-Female Species] Advantages of Female Promiscuity Survival of Freezing Tadpoleless-Frog Species Frog-Brooding and Tadpole Care Incubating Pythons Limb Regeneration Nursing of Young (Caecilians] How Are Enormous Prey Digested? Live-Bearing Lizards Warm-Blooded Leatherbacks Reptiles Never Stop Growing Giant Tadpoles That Become Tiny Frogs! Metamorphosis Enigmas Newt-Eye Regeneration Frogs without Tadpole Stage Live Birth in Frogs Infertile Eggs Laid for Food BRG GENETICS Green Turtle Populations Have Very Small Genetic Differences Homeobox-Gene Control of Body Plans Strong Convergence in Island Lizards [BRD] Chromosome-Number Effect upon Amphibian Development Frog Genes Jump between Species "Cryptic Species": Look Alike ... Discardable (Sometimes Autonomous) Tails Mimicry in Reptiles Sports, Terata She-Male Snakes and Lizards Sharp Differences within Some Frog Species Caecilians Are Just Vertebrate Bags of Fluid Salamanders with Ballistic Tongues Tuataras Have No Penis, Unique among Reptiles Lizard Color Changes with Temperature Caecilians Have Pop-Out Eyes Convergent Evolution among Island Lizards Some Lizard Eggs Luminous Snakes with Rudimentary Legs Night-Shining Eyes Hinged Teeth Grass inside Turtle Egg Lizard Mite Pockets Blind Batrachians Design and Purposes of Forked Tongues Gender Changes in Frogs Frogs and Snakes with Aerodynamic Surfaces [BRB] Receptacles for Carrying Eggs Young Reptiles with Lures Snake with Extra Hinge in Jaw Reptiles that Change Color Midwife-Toad Saga (Kammerer) Gecko with Velcro Feet Neoteny and Heterchrony All-Female Species [BRF Parthenogenesis, Virgin Birth] Giant Reptiles Tuatara Third Eye Salamander ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 214 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /cat-biol.htm
