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Leatherback Turtle
- Colouration
- Dark brown, generally uniform, but sometimes spotted with yellow. Very large individuals are often blackish.
- Dimensions
- The Leather-back Turtle is the largest of living chelonians. Following are the measurements of a fine example received at the American Museum of Natural History; it was harpooned, while floundering, in a benumbed condition, off the beach of New London, Connecticut:
- Distribution
- Generally distributed in tropical and semi-tropical seas, but nowhere common; an accidental wanderer to the temperate coasts.
- Habits
- Approaching the beaches only to deposit its eggs, this sea giant does not seem to differ in its habits from the other marine turtles. It apparently subsists upon sea-weeds, crustaceans, molluscs, and fishes-if it is able to catch the latter. Agassiz explains that it breeds every year, in the spring, on the Tortugas, the Bahamas and along the Brazilian coast. In swimming it is very graceful and the massive flippers are employed in seal-like fashion.
Told from the other sea turtles taken off our coasts, by the heavy, ridge-like processes, seven in number, running lengthwise on the carapace. Instead of the horny shields usually present on turtles, the carapace is covered with a leathery integument; on large individuals, this soft covering is fully an inch in thickness and saturated with oil, like whale blubber. The front flippers are enormous; like the rear pair and the head, they lack the coarse plates of the other marine turtles.
Total length, snout to end of tail . . . . .6 feet
Length of Carapace . . . . .5 feet 1 inch
Width of Carapace . . . . .3 feet 1 inch.
Width of Front Flipper . . . . .1 feet 2 inch.
Strterh of Front Flippers, tip to tip . . . . .9 feet
Diameter of Head . . . . .10 inch.
Weight . . . . .715 pounds.
The Family Chelonidoe: Composed of two genera, each containing two species. Detailed descriptions follow: