Whose mouth is small and nice? Bashny.Net

Do you know who owns this charming teeth? Now I would never have thought. But zhesh ...




Leatherbacks (Dermochelys coriacea) - the huge animal about two meters and a total length of 500-600 kg. Horny rim of the upper jaw between the three triangular forms deep grooves at the front, each side, one large protrusion in the form of a tooth, generally the sharp edges of the jaws without chipping. The forelimbs more than twice as long as the rear.

It is stiff dorsal shield slightly arched, rather rounded front and rear is pointed in a ponytail; This shield is divided into six fields, seven longitudinal ribs that adult animals are more jagged continuous strip of young same consist of a series of rounded cones. Breast shell is not completely ossified, he is soft and flexible, but also has five longitudinal ribs or keels. The head, neck and legs of young turtles covered with shields, that age gradually disappear, so that the skin of older animals almost smooth and only the head remains small plates. The color of these turtles are brown, with more or less pale yellow spots.



Leatherback turtle (the largest of living in the moment) becomes every year more and more rare, so this kind can be rightfully called endangered. Its permanent residence - all the seas of the torrid zone: meets like the Solomon Islands of the Pacific Ocean and off the coast of Arabia and the Black Sea, from Bermuda and the southern coast of North America, near Madagascar, but come to the shore and up to the seas of temperate climate, and reaches sometimes persecuted wind and storm, and can be, and love to change places, to the European coast of the Atlantic Ocean and to the North American States and Chile, which have repeatedly come across hunters. Some specimens are found in the Mediterranean Sea. Lifestyle Leatherback we know very little at all. Food it consists mainly, if not exclusively, from different animals, especially fish, crabs, and molluscs. After mating, they appear in large numbers in the Turtle Island from Florida; and, according to Prince von Vida, also in a large number at the sandy beaches of Brazil and is placed, like other sea turtles, their eggs.



According to the collected Prince von View reports, each female four times a year there is a laying on the ground, where for fourteen days lays from 18 to 20 dozen eggs. This message is confirmed, at least in part, the following story Tikkelya: February 1, 1862, at the shore Tenasserima, near the mouth of the river th, has been dogged by fishermen leatherback turtle, had been put up to 100 eggs in the coastal sand. When, after a desperate resistance on the part of the fishermen managed to overpower and kill a huge animal, in her ovaries it was even up to 1,000 egg embryos in different degrees of development. From this we must conclude that the ability to reproduce the Leatherback is very significant, and one can only wonder why it is so rare to observers. Probably most of them die even in adolescence. Just released from the eggs of the young turtles just crawl to the sea, but here it seems to threaten many more enemies than on land: a variety of predatory fish consume them in the set, so only because of its extraordinary ability to reproduce this species is not extinct completely .



From the above short message Tikkelya clear that the stories of previous writers about the power and ability to protect the Leatherback not exaggerated. When the above-mentioned catching a desperate struggle occurred: the six fishermen who want to master the huge animal had dragged them down the coastal slope and almost thrown into the sea. Only with the assistance came to the rescue to help other fishermen managed to overcome the gigantic animal, and bind it to a thick poles, but it took 10-12 people to bring a heavy burden to the nearest village. De la Von says that caught near Nantes 4 August 1729 leatherback turtle lifted desperate audible quarter of a mile in circumference cry when she smashed her head an iron hook.