Sea turtles are reptiles, so that means that they are cold-blooded animals.  A cold-blooded animal’s body is the same temperature as its surrounding temperature.  This means their body does not have a warming or cooling mechanism to help them to adapt to a variety of temperatures.  So, if it were 80° outside, his body would be 80°.  Sea turtles are one of the largest species of turtles.  The Leatherback is about eight feet long, and weighs up to 1,500 pounds.  The smallest sea turtle grows to be 28 inches long, and weighs nearly 100 pounds.  Scientists believe turtles live longer than any vertebrate animal.  They can live to be 200 years old.  Turtles lived 185,000,000 years ago.  All sea turtle species are endangered.  They are killed for meat and leather.  They are ground up by dredges, run over by pleasure boats, poisoned by pollution, strangled by trash and drowned by fish line and net.  Sea turtles breathe oxygen.  Sea turtles swim by beating their flippers, just like birds flapping their wings.  They can go up to 20 miles per hour. Their bottom shell is called the plastron, and their top shell is called the carapace.