Green Turtles

Travellers will go to the Silver Series website to book a reef excursion on the SilverSonic or SilverSwift. These catamarans depart daily from Port Douglas and Cairns respectively.

Some will also click through to the gallery page and view magnificent images of marine life and corals. There are also bio's on fish and corals and the green turtle ....

Did you know that adult green turtles have a smooth, high-domed carapace, are olive green in colour, with occasional brown, reddish-brown or black highlights? Hatchlings have a black carapace with white margins around the carapace, flippers and on the plastron. Green turtles have one pair of prefrontal scales between their eyes.

Green turtles are found in tropical, subtropical and temperate waters around the world and appear to be the most abundant of the six species of marine turtle found in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area. However, they are found in subtidal and intertidal coral and rocky reefs and seagrass meadows of the continental shelf. Green turtles are principally herbivorous as adults, eating mostly algae, seagrass, mangrove fruit and jellyfish.

Two genetic stocks of green turtles breed within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, a southern and a northern stock. These two stocks are the two main management units. The southern stock has nesting concentrated in the Capricorn/Bunker group of islands, with an average annual nesting population estimated at 8000 females. The northern stock has nesting concentrated around Raine Island and Moulter Cay with an average annual nesting population of 30 000 females.