The leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea).
Leatherback turtles are the largest living species of sea turtles, an adult can grow up to 270cm in length and weigh between 200 and 700 kg. They posses soft, leathery skins with seven ridges on the back.
These turtles are thought to be carnivorous throughout their lives, feeding mainly on the jellyfish, tunicates and other soft bodied invertebrates which are abundant in the epipelagic layer.
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Leatherbacks seem to mistake floating plastic, either bags or sheets material, for the jellyfish on which they feed and eat the plastic which, in one study, has been found in almost a third of leatherbacks washed up dead on beaches.
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Female leatherback turtles can lay between 60 and 120 eggs, 5 to 6 times each year. The eggs are harvested in the Pacific area, damaging an already dangerously low population.
The largest leatherback turtle on record was a male, weighing 916 kg, stranded on the West Coast of Wales in 1988.
Leatherbacks can be found in the Pacific Ocean from the Gulf of Alaska to Tasmania and New Zealand although they can be found far from their Pacific range, including off the shores of South-West Britain.
The considerable bulk of these turtles and their low surface area in relation to their mass allow the large adults to maintain core body temperature in cold water which is several degrees centigrade above the surrounding water (by conserving the heat generated by muscular activity). This allows them to prosper in regions of the ocean which are too cold for other marine reptiles.
Endangered.
In 1987, it was estimated that 640 leatherbacks were captured by the US offshore shrimp fishery alone, about a quarter of these dying. Trapped in fishing equipment, many of the animals perish by drowning.
| | | | kingdom | Animalia | | phylum | Craniata | | class | Reptilia | | order | Testudines | | family | Dermochelyidae | | genus | Dermochelys | | species | Dermochelys coriacea |
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Costa Rica
Las Baulas de Guanacaste National Marine Park
Playa Langosta (on the San Francisco Estuary)
Although the Playa Langosta beach is closed during the bredding season of the leatherback turtles so that they can breed undisturbed and be studied, the beach is threatened by local tourist development (click here for more).
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