What Is The Most Amazing Animal On Earth? The Magnificent Leatherback Sea Turtle
Although you may not even have known it exists the leatherback sea turtle probably is the most amazing animal on the planet. It is one of only six remaining species of marine turtle, and uncounted eons in the past its forebears walked the earth on four legs. About a hundred ten million years ago, its legs and feet evolved into massive flippers and it began to populate the Seven Seas, or, more accurately, the sea, because the Seven Seas did not exist that long ago.
Mother Earth was a very different place way back then. The Himalayas of Tibet did not exist that long ago. Indeed, there would be no Himalayas for sixty five million more years. Antarctica was joined to Australia when the first leatherbacks took to the sea and would not uncouple from it for about thirty million more generations of these sea animals. South America remained near West Antarctica. Another eighty million years would pass before Antarctica would turn into the frigid continent we see. The South Atlantic Ocean was still forming. Indeed, not only were there no Seven Seas way back then, there were not seven continents, either.
They lived during the Age of Dinosaurs. Actually, they were here millions of years before the first dinosaur left its footprint. They were swimming the oceans 400,000 centuries before the awesome T Rex made its debut. Yes, you read it correctly, 400,000 centuries. This incredible species of animal outlived the dinosaurs and even survived the greatest mass extinction the world has ever experienced.
Perhaps you learned in science class that whales and dolphins were animals that used to be terrestrial but now are found in the ocean. But, porpoises and whales are mammals (whose closest relative is the hippopotamus) that did not exist until millions of years after the last dinosaur passed away. Sea turtles had already been swimming in the sea for fifty million years before these mighty mammalian leviathans first left land for the water.
Leatherbacks are big turtles weighing as much as a ton. This is not exaggerated because one, captured in Wales tipped the scales at 1,980 pounds. And, despite its size, this great creature survived the extraordinary and terrible mass extinction that brought about the destruction of the dinosaurs. For that reason alone it might be considered the most amazing animal on the globe. But, there is more.
Consider this: the world marveled, and properly so, at Michael Phelps’s 200 meter freestyle world swimming record. But, as fast as he covered that length, a huge leatherback, weighing about as much as the entire offensive line of a professional football team, would swim a thousand meters. In fact, this sea turtle is listed in the 1992 Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest reptile on earth!
This marine speed demon is also a marathoner of epic proportions and may migrate farther than any other creature alive today. One of these turtles was tracked by scientists migrating 13,000 miles.
Are you getting convinced this is the most amazing animal yet? Hold on, there is more. Besides being the world’s fastest reptile and maybe the world’s greatest long-distance marathon swimmer, it regularly does something Man has never accomplished. It can dive nearly 4,000 feet deep in the ocean. At that depth pressure approaches two thousand pounds per square inch. How much pressure is that? Well, it has been estimated that today’s best nuclear attack submarines would crush at about 2,400 feet. Even the world’s best technology and strongest metal and composite materials are no match for the diving ability of a one hundred million year old race of creatures we imagine primitive.
There is also another amazing fact. Except where Man has killed them off, leatherbacks swim all tropical and subtropical waters on earth. But, it is jaw-dropping that they have been seen as far north as the Arctic Circle and as far south as Africa’s Cape of Good Hope and even New Zealand where waters are as cold as 40 degrees fahrenheit. Yet, even though they are like all reptiles, cold blooded, they stay warm and comfortable because they can maintain a body temperature as much as 32 degrees higher than the surrounding water.
Disastrously, in literally the last three decades, this magnificent animal has been decimated in numbers and is in danger of extinction. In 1980, Mexico boasted two-thirds leatherbacks on earth. By 2005, its leatherback population had plummeted 99%, a catastrophe by any measure. In far off Malaysia, on beaches that once had 10,000 leatherback nests a year, there were two nestings in 2008. Never underestimate the power of Man’s stupidity, rapaciousness, and destructiveness. The Angels are surely weeping.
Today, more than 100 countries and hundreds of conservation groups are fighting to stem the decline of this magnificent being but it remains to be seen if this most ancient of all creatures can survive your generation and mine.
If you are considering a Costa Rica vacation, be sure to visit one of its world-famous sea turtle parks or reserves. Tortuguero National Parkis on its Caribbean coast and is home to the largest green sea turtle nesting on earth. Travel Costa Rica west to the Pacific and you’ll see the largest nesting invasion of olive ridley sea turtles on earth. Leatherbacks nest at many Costa Rica beaches.
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