Green sea turtles get their name not from the colour of their shell — which is usually brown or olive — but from the greenish colour of the fat inside their body, caused by all the sea grass they eat. They are mostly herbivores as adults, grazing on sea grass meadows and algae in shallow, calm waters.
Female green sea turtles return to the very same beach where they were born to lay their own eggs — even if that beach is thousands of kilometres away. They remember it using Earth's magnetic field, almost like an internal compass. They dig a hole in the sand, lay around 100 eggs, cover them up, and return to the sea. The eggs hatch after about two months.
Palau takes turtle protection seriously. Hunting turtles is not allowed, and protected areas around the reefs and beaches give them places to feed and nest safely. Visiting schoolchildren sometimes get to see turtle tracks on beaches in the morning — the marks left by a mother turtle that came ashore in the night.