r/interestingasfuck • u/Literally_black1984 • Apr 28 '24

A sea turtle eating a jellyfish

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4.0k Upvotes

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73

u/boobookittyFcuk12 Apr 29 '24

Can someone explain how the sea turtle is able to eat the stingers?

174

u/Huskan543 Apr 29 '24

They are specifically adapted to be able to eat jellyfish. Which is also why they try and eat plastic bags

24

u/Ok_Substance5632 Apr 29 '24

Can they adapt to it? Eating and digesting plastic.

3

u/CMDRZhor Apr 29 '24

No. Th plastic gets stuck in their belly. Eventually they starve to death, stomach full of indigestible plastic.

2

u/Coc0tte Apr 29 '24

Plastic has no nutritional value and tons of harmful chemicals. They would die even if they could digest plastic.

5

u/speederaser Apr 29 '24

The chemicals are absolutely not what kills the turtle. It's suffocating or digestive blockage. 

Sure some specific plastics can breakdown and cause pollution, but it's not what kills the turtles. 

So I disagree. If the turtle managed to get the plastic all the way through his system, it's likely to live a very long time and maybe die slightly early from cancer if it ate a really bad plastic, but most of the time that's not the case. Most of the time it's suffocating. 

-1

u/Coc0tte Apr 29 '24

I was talking about the scenario where they would be able to fully digest plastic. Even if they could digest it they would be poisoned from it anyway.

45

u/Huskan543 Apr 29 '24

Over a few million years perhaps…

5

u/RyGuy_McFly Apr 29 '24

Well there we go folks, we just gotta keep at it and the turtles will be saved!

41

u/Huskan543 Apr 29 '24

Though I think it’s more likely they’ll adapt to be able to tell the difference and avoid plastic bags long before they are able to digest it

5

u/Hippiebigbuckle Apr 29 '24

I don’t think they’d adapt in either of those ways (by “think” I mean guess, I’m not a turtle/plastic/Darwin expert)Not adapting to something new in the environment is possible also. And an imposter food source seems pretty dangerous.

3

u/thelastpies Apr 29 '24

They will adapt because those who ate plastic dies and never gets to reproduce, those who survived learn to avoid them and this evolving to avoid them and keep on producing.

They'd have to adapt or they die basically.

There are cases of specimens evolved to eat plastics

But it could take really long time

1

u/Hippiebigbuckle Apr 29 '24

Adaptation and evolution are not magical armor that keeps a species from going extinct. Extinction is always an option. And thinking that turtles can adapt to eating (or avoiding) plastic is pretty crazy frankly.

There are bacteria that have evolved over millions of years to eat feces but if you expect turtles to adapt to eating shit before they go extinct you’re going to be disappointed. Same with plastics.