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UNDERWATER GUIDE TO MARINE LIFE 



Identification: The shell, familiarly known as "tortoise shell," is heart-shaped 

 and is a beautiful mottled brown, reddish, and yellow, as are the head and 

 flippers. Old animals have the shell pattern obscured by encrusting algae and silt. 

 The shields of the carapace are imbricated like shingles on a roof and can inflict 

 cuts. The head is small with a hawklike beak. 



Habits: The range of habitat is more extensive than is the case for the green 

 turtle. Muddy or sandy bottoms or reefs are inhabited. Still, it stays in shallow 

 coastal waters. In food habits, it is omnivorous, but no careful scientific study 

 of this turtle has been made. It is known to eat the Portuguese man-of-war, keep- 

 ing its eyes closed to avoid the tentacles. It lays up to three hundred eggs in 

 summer. The authors found it fairly easy to approach. If the swimmer hovers 

 above one in the water, waiting until the turtle is about out of breath, he can 

 dive straight down on it and catch it with his hands. Care should be taken to 

 avoid the beak since hawksbills will occasionally bite. Large ones can give a 

 swimmer quite a ride. The shell and eggs of this turtle make it commercially 

 valuable, and though it is not depleted to the extent of the green turtle, care 

 should also be taken to avoid decimation. 



F;'g. 185. Loggerhead turtle (left') and ridley turtle Cright'). 



LOGGERHEAD TURTLE: Cavetta caretta 



Weight: Rare over 300 pounds today. Reliably recorded to 900 pounds; doubt- 

 fully reported to 1,600 pounds. 



Distribution: The tropics north to Nova Scotia and southern California. Most 

 common in warm waters but is found out of tropics more than other sea turtles. 

 World-wide in warm seas. 



Identification: The shields on the back are not imbricated. The plastron is 

 heart-shaped, broadest under the fore-flippers, and brown to reddish in color. 

 The head is large. The shape of the carapace separates it from the ridley. 



Habits: This turtle is a confirmed wanderer over the whole area of the conti- 

 nental shelf and rarely to the open sea. It is often seen basking on the surface 

 over waters of moderate depth. It nests, or used to, north to Virginia. This is 

 not a commercially valuable species. It is pugnacious and will bite savagely at 



