Diet
Hawksbills are omnivores. They eat sea grasses, sea urchins, barnacles, a variety of mollusks, marine algae, crustaceans, jellyfish, and small animals like fish. Hawksbill sea turtles favorite food is sponge.
Anatomy / Appearance
The hawksbill sea turtle is about 40 to 45 inches tall. The adults weighs about 101 to 154 lbs.The hawksbill sea turtle has four flippers and a hard protective shell
Life cycle
The normal lifespan of the Hawksbill turtles is about 30 to 50 years in the wild.
Reproduction And Young
Hawksbill sea turtles only meet to mate every 2 to 3 years. Females return to nest on the very same beaches where they hatched. The nesting season is mostly sometime between April and November. The turtle nest at night, laying 3 to 6 clutches per season. In Florida and the U.S. Caribbean, clutch size is approximately 140 eggs. The hatching period happens in 60 days. Nesting occurs on undisturbed beaches. They lay their eggs under or in the beach/dune vegetation. After the two-month incubation period, 2-inch hatchlings leave as a group. Hatchlings use the bright, open view of the night sky over the water to find their way to the sea. The Gulf and Caribbean coasts of the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico, is where the hawksbill sea turtles nest.
Behavior
In the ocean, Hawksbill turtles spend most of their time resting or sleeping wedged into coral or rock ledges. The turtles will feed in the upper layers of water at night. As night comes their dives become deeper as the plankton and jellyfish go to deeper water, away from the light.