December 12, 2014 — Nearly all sea turtle species have been classified as endangered, with precipitous declines in many populations in recent decades. But new protections, particularly in the U.S. and Central America, are demonstrating that dramatic recovery for these remarkable reptiles is possible.
After they crawl to the water as hatchlings, earth’s sea turtles — loggerheads, greens, hawksbills, olive ridleys, Kemp’s ridleys, flatbacks, and leatherbacks — ply the seven seas, belonging to no nation. Males never touch land again. Loggerheads in the surf at Baja hatched under Japanese sand. Leatherbacks seen off California have traversed 6,000 miles of Pacific from nesting beaches in Indonesia. Some greens in Florida hatched in West Africa.
All seven species have traded ability to retreat into their shells for water speed. Forelegs that have evolved into flippers propel them faster than any human ever ran. The aptly named leatherback has even traded away its shell. Like dinosaurs, many of which were its contemporaries, it can heat its blood — “earth’s last warm-blooded monster reptile,” ecologist Carl Safina calls it in his book Voyage of the Turtle. It swims above the Arctic Circle and dives to at least 3,900 feet — deeper than sperm whales. The world’s heaviest reptile, it can weigh more than 1,900 pounds. The last natural land predator of adult female leatherbacks may have been Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Read the full story from Yale Environment 360