[13] In 1868, Marie Firmin Bocourt named a particular species of sea turtle Chelonia agassizii,[14][15] in honor of Swiss-American zoologist Louis Agassiz.

C. mydas has a dorsoventrally flattened body, a beaked head at the end of a short neck, and paddle-like arms well-adapted for swimming.

The differences in mitochondrial DNA more than likely stems from the populations being isolated from each other by the southern tips of both South America and Africa with no warm waters for the green sea turtles to migrate through.

[43] The turtles can also be found throughout the Indian Ocean; the east coast of the African continent hosts a few nesting grounds, including islands in the waters around Madagascar.

[53] Major nesting sites are common on either side of the Arabian Sea, both in Ash Sharqiyah, Oman, and along the coast of Karachi, Pakistan.

[18] Analysis of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA of 15 nesting beaches,[58] however, has demonstrated that there is not only no significant distinction of this population but that it would be paraphyletic to recognise it.

[59] Three possibilities have arisen from their unique characteristics: agassizii is a separate species from C. mydas, it is a subspecies of green sea turtle, or it is simply a color mutation.

[25] Green sea turtles, Chelonia mydas, are classified as an aquatic species and are distributed around the globe in warm tropical to subtropical waters.

In these protected shores and bays, the green sea turtle habitats include coral reefs, salt marshes, and nearshore seagrass beds.

The coral reefs provide red, brown, and green algae for their diet and give protection from predators and rough storms within the ocean.

Barnacles attach to the carapace, and leeches to the flippers and skin of the turtles, causing damage to the soft tissues and leading to blood loss.

The greatest disease threat to the turtle population is fibropapilloma, which produces lethal tumor growth on scales, lungs, stomach, and kidneys.

These include a sandy beach, easy access for the hatchlings to get to the ocean, the right incubation temperatures, and low probability of predators that may feed on their eggs.

By doing this, the green sea turtles are able to improve their reproductive success and is why they are willing to expend the energy to travel thousands of miles across the ocean in order to reproduce.

[81] After mating in the water, the female moves above the beach's high tide line, where she digs a hole 28–56 centimetres (11–22 in) in depth with her hind flippers and deposits her eggs.

The farm's initial stock was in large part from "doomed" eggs removed from nests threatened by erosion, flooding, or in chemically hostile soil.

A ki'i pōhaku (petroglyph) of a green sea turtle (or honu) can be found on the Big Island of Hawaii in the Pu'u Loa lava fields.

This symbol mirrors the real life of the green Hawaiian turtle as it will swim hundreds of miles to lay its eggs at its own place of birth.

More dangerous are unintentional threats, including boat strikes, fishermen's nets that lack turtle excluder devices, pollution and habitat destruction.

[23][105][106] In addition, at least in the Southwestern Atlantic (Río de la Plata, Uruguay), exotic invasive species such as the rapa whelk Rapana venosa, were reported massively bio-fouling immature green turtles, reducing buoyancy, increasing drag, and causing severe injuries to the carapace.

[109] In addition there are indications that global climate change is affecting the ability of green turtle populations in Australia to produce males due to their temperature-dependent sex determination and the rising temperatures in the northern Great Barrier Reef region.

[112] The geographer James J. Parsons' book titled The Green Turtle and Man played a special role in the conservation movement to save the species from extinction.

[119] In 2001, Nicholas Mrosovsky filed a delisting petition, claiming some green turtle populations were large, stable and in some cases, increasing.

[120] In 2004, the IUCN reclassified C. mydas as endangered under the EN A2bd criteria, which essentially states the wild populations face a high risk of extinction because of several factors.

Rule 68E-1) restrict the take, possession, disturbance, mutilation, destruction, selling, transference, molestation, and harassment of marine turtles, nests or eggs.

A specific authorization from commission staff is required to conduct scientific, conservation, or educational activities that directly involve marine turtles in or collected from Florida, their nests, hatchlings or parts thereof, regardless of applicant's possession of any federal permit.

[134] Captive-bred turtles released from the farm as hatchlings or yearlings with "living tags," have now begun to return to nest on Grand Cayman as adults.

[135][136] On February 19, 2012 the farm released the first 2nd-generation captive-bred green sea turtle equipped with a Position Tracking Transponder, or PTT[137] (also known as a satellite tag).

In addition, as the shape of the island had changed over time, the spread of the beaches outwards had led to greater risk of inundation of the turtle nests.

Between 2011 and 2020, a collaborative project by the Queensland Government, BHP (as corporate sponsor), the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Great Barrier Reef Foundation, and Wuthathi and Meriam traditional owners, reshaped the island using heavy machinery in a way that gave the female turtles a smoother passage and reduced the risk of nest inundation.