Leatherback Sea Turtle

Lore & Background

Leatherbacks range more widely than any other sea turtle, from Alaska and Norway in the north to Cape Agulhas and the southern tip of New Zealand. They feed in colder waters than other sea turtles, following the jellyfish they eat. Estimates put the number of females nesting each year at 26,000 to 43,000, a steep fall from the roughly 115,000 estimated in 1980. The WWF estimates that only about 2,300 adult females remain in the Pacific population, the most endangered sea turtle subpopulation.

Reader's Guide

Adults typically measure 1 to 1.75 metres along the curve of the carapace and weigh 250 to 700 kg, and their front flippers can span up to 2.7 metres in large animals. Seven ridges run along the back, which is dark grey to black with pinkish-white speckles above and paler below. In place of teeth they have points on the upper lip and backward-facing spines in the throat that stop prey escaping. They are among the deepest-diving marine animals, recorded at depths of up to 1,280 metres, and they are the fastest-moving reptiles.

Did You Know?

• The lute and luth names compare the seven ridges on the turtle's back to the strings of a lute.
• Wild leatherbacks may spend as little as 0.1% of the day resting.
• Adult leatherbacks have been found with core temperatures 18 degrees Celsius above the surrounding water.

Decline in Malaysia

The beach of Rantau Abang in Terengganu, Malaysia, once hosted the largest nesting population in the world, with 10,000 nests a year. Human egg consumption was the main cause of its collapse, and that subpopulation has effectively been wiped out. Conservation work begun in the 1960s incubated eggs at artificial sites that ran too hot; since sea turtle sex depends on temperature, nearly all those hatchlings were probably female. In 2008 only two turtles nested at Rantau Abang, and their eggs were infertile.