The green turtle owes its name to the color of its fat. Its shell is olive brown, mottled with yellow. It is recognizable by its large rounded head, its blunt beak and the two large prefrontal scales between its eyes.
The adult male is recognized by its long tail, which protrudes 30 cm from the carapace.
Traveling thousands of kilometers each year, green turtles always come back to lay eggs on the beach where they were born, it seems guided by magnetic fields. The females hoist themselves up at night on the beach to dig a basin 2 m wide and 1 m deep in the sand where they deposit hundreds of eggs. They go back to the water before sunrise after carefully filling the whole. They start again a dozen times a season, but only lay eggs every 2 or 3 years.
The young turtles emerge from the nest all together and head immediately to the sea. It should be noted that the survival rate is low: 1 baby turtle in 1000 reaches adulthood (20 years). They are in fact the prey of birds, crabs and fish, whether on the sand or in the water.
Sexual maturity is reached between 8 and 15 years old, and scientists estimate that green turtles can live up to almost 100 years!