The Loggerhead (Caretta caretta) 



Morphology ; The loggerhead is a relatively large, hard- 

 shelled sea turtle, adults being 80-100 cm in carapace length and 

 about 100-150 kg in weight. Adults of the species are easily 

 identified by the very large head, rather triangular in shape 

 when viewed from above. In old males the width of the head may 

 exceed 25 cm. The shell is somewhat elongate and posteriorly 

 narrowed, with a strong "hump" or thickening near the posterior 

 end; in subadults, there may be a strong pointed tubercle on each 

 of the vertebral scutes, but these disappear with maturity. A 

 row of five costal scutes occurs on each side of the carapace 

 (contrasting with the green turtle and hawksbill, which almost 

 always have four pairs of costals) . Adults are dorsally red- 

 brown, and ventrally pale yellowish. However, the hatchlings, 

 which vary from light to dark brown, tend to be comparably 

 pigmented dorsally and ventrally. 



Distribution ; (1) Foraging areas. The loggerhead occurs in 

 the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans (including the 

 Mediterranean, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico) , but is very 

 unevenly distributed. In the western Atlantic, foraging 

 subadults and adults are commonly found in waters of the 

 southeastern United States, as well as Cuba, Yucatan, and 

 associated areas. The immature animals (from hatchling to about 

 30-35 cm, at least) appear to be open-sea animals, drifting with 

 the Gulf Stream and the north Atlantic gyre up the eastern 

 seaboard of the United States and across the north Atlantic. 

 They may take up residence for a while in the waters of the 

 Canary Islands, Madeira, etc., then re-cross the Atlantic with 

 the Equatorial Current, passing offshore from the Lesser 

 Antilles, and finally reaching waters close to where they 

 originated. This life-history outline is in part hypothetical, 

 but it does account for the observed distribution of the various 

 size-classes of the loggerhead in the north Atlantic. 



(2) Nesting areas. The nesting areas of the loggerhead are 

 almost entirely outside of the tropics. In the Atlantic, by far 

 the best nesting grounds are on the eastern coast of Florida, 

 with lesser amounts of nesting north at least to North Carolina, 

 and on the gulf coast of Florida. Some nesting occurs in Cuba 

 and Yucatan also, and also in Caribbean Colombia, especially on 

 the Santa Marta peninsula. Moreover, nesting grounds are found 

 in Brazil, especially in the State of Espirito Santo. However, 

 nesting is extremely rare to non-existent in Central America 

 south of Belize, in the Guianas, and in the Antilles with the 

 exception of Cuba. 



In the Mediterranean, nesting occurs in Greece and Turkey 

 and in several countries of North Africa. In the Indian Ocean, 

 the loggerhead is rare in most areas, but it does nest in 



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