Sometimes referred to as the Lute Turtle, the Leatherback is the world’s largest sea turtle and the fourth largest of all modern reptiles, only outsized by three crocodilian species. Instead of a shell like most turtles have, this turtle’s carapace is covered with flesh and skin. Its flippers alone can grow to an astonishing 2.7 meters in length, and are capable of propelling the turtle through the water with ease and grace. Should you ever be so fortunate as to encounter one of these magnificent animals, you will be astonished; let’s take a peek at some of the animal’s most outstanding characteristics and learn more about its habitat.
Meet the Leatherback
One of the first things you’ll notice about the leatherback is the way that its dorsal surface looks. With seven distinct ridges that run from head to tail, its carapace is dark grey to black, with a few light spots in a scattered pattern. Like most other sea creatures, this turtle has a light colored ventral surface. Weighing in at an average of 550 to 1,500 pounds, and with a carapace that averages between 6 and 7 feet, these turtles are enormous. The largest ever seen was found on a beach in Wales, and weighed just over a ton. It was almost 10 feet long from head to tail.
While many turtles spend much of their time resting and grazing, leatherbacks are extremely active. Scientists believe that elevated activity levels help to keep them warm in cooler climates, and studies show that they spend as little as 0.1% of a twenty-four hour cycle resting – that’s just a little less than fifteen minutes. Recorded at depths as great as 1,280 meters, they are one of the ocean’s deepest diving animals, and while most dives take between 3 and 8 minutes, they sometimes will dive for as long as 30 to 70 minutes at a time. Capable of attaining a speed of almost 22 miles per hour, leatherbacks are the fastest moving reptiles on the planet, however they normally swim along at a modest one to six miles per hour.
Critically endangered, yet widely distributed, leatherback turtles can be found as far north as Norway and Alaska, and as far south as the southernmost tip of New Zealand and Africa’s Cape of Good Hope; it has been encountered in all tropical and subtropical oceans, and its range includes the Arctic Circle. Once abundant in Malaysia, where 10,000 nests could be found annually, the population at Rantau Abang has dropped so severely that only two nests were found there in 2008, and the eggs in the nests were infertile. This decline was caused because the local people were consuming all the eggs as a delicacy. Worldwide, nesting populations are estimated to have dropped from about 115,000 nesting females in 1980 to between 26,000 and 43,000 nesting females in 2008. Fortunately, the global community is working toward greater conservation efforts.
Diving With Leatherbacks
Leatherbacks preferred prey is jellyfish, and they tend to feed in cool waters across a broad range, while nesting in only a few places. They are commonly seen in Canada’s Gulf of St. Lawrence near Quebec, as well as in Labrador and Newfoundland, as well as in British Columbia, California, Oregon, and Washington. They can be found all the way south into Florida on the East Coast of the United States, and their largest nesting population, with 30,000 turtles visiting annually, is in Mayumba National Park, in Mayumba Gabon. In the Indian Ocean, you’ll find them from Sri Lanka to the Nicobar Islands; and in Malaysia, the population is so sparse that you may not see a leatherback at all.
Unlike most other sea turtles, Leatherbacks like sites that face deep waters, often avoiding coral reefs. Unfortunately, they have begun to die off from the consumption of plastic bags which they mistake for jellyfish, with the most notable die-offs happening around urban areas along the US west coast; Californians alone use more than 19 billion plastic bags annually, and a lot of those end up in the Pacific.
Due to the fact that Leatherback Sea Turtle eggs are considered to be a delicacy in Asian countries, and an aphrodisiac in some places in the Caribbean, and due as well to the fact that very few young leatherbacks survive the ten years it takes them to reach sexual maturity, these creatures must be protected if they are to survive. Healthy leatherbacks can live for forty years or longer, and it’s up to us to protect them. Do your part by using plastics judiciously, recycling, and choosing reusable shopping bags over disposables. If we all help just a little, the species may well make a strong comeback in the future.