Title: Nasty Nature
Author(s): Nick Arnold, Tony De Saulles
Translation: Małgorzata Fabianowska b>Release year: 1996
Publisher: Scholastic
Why in Database: Another volume from the series “Horrible Science” that gets to our database. It contained several turtle fragments and six images.
Terrible turtle treks
Every year green turtles swim to Ascension Island in the Atlantic Ocean to lay their eggs. No one knows why they go there but the island has few large animals that want to eat the turtles. Unfortunately the island is only 13 km by 9 km (8 by 5.6 miles) in size and some turtles have to swim 2,080 km (1,300 miles) to get there. To make matters worse the tired turtles’ top speed is only 3 km (less than 2 miles) an hour.
2 Snapper turtles in eastern North America are quite at home in smelly stagnant ponds or stinking sewers. It’s a bad idea to go paddling in these places (as if you would!). Snapper turtles lurk in the shallows and they’d love nice pink toes for tea.
6 In the dry season there’s little food. What do you eat?
a) Other lions
b) Fish, insects, lizards, mice and the odd tortoise.
c) Bones buried for just such an emergency.
4 The bearded vulture is wild about bone marrow too. The villainous vulture drops bones from a dizzy height of 80 metres (262 feet) on to rocks until they break open. It has been rumoured to do this to unfortunate tortoises as well and even to enjoy dive-bombing mountaineers.
4 While we are on this grisly subject, our old friend the snapper turtle (last seen lurking in the sewers) enjoys scoffing unwanted bodies. So keen is the turtle that the police in Florida, USA use tame snapper turtles to sniff out corpses. Imagine what the turtles might get as a treat! And talking about dead bodies…
Animals that hibernate include tortoises, squirrels, dormice, bats and some snakes.
Author: XYuriTT
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