THE RE-ENTRANTS 307 



times. It feeds mostly on bottom invertebrates like crustaceans and molluscs and 

 also eats jellyfish and fish. 



Ridley's (kerip's loggerhead): Lepdochelys oUvncea 



Size: Recorded to 28 inches in carapace length. The smallest of the sea turdes. 



Distribution: Shores of the Gulf of Mexico, eastern coast of Florida and north 

 to Massachusetts and England in the Gulf Stream (as young). Not in Caribbean. 

 Baja California to Chile. 



Identification: The carapace is nearly round, broadest at its middle, and is 

 gray in the Atlantic and olivaceous in the Pacific. The head is large. 



Habits: This is one of the true mystery animals of the sea as Carr (1955) so 

 excellently points out. Though it is not rare in its range, very little is known of 

 it. It prefers shallow, protected waters (near mangroves on the East Coast) and 

 is most abundant in the Florida Gulf coast waters. Its food seems to consist of 

 crustaceans, molluscs, and sea plants. Its temper is exceptionally short, and 

 handling one can be risky business. 



The West Coast ridley turtles are known to breed on beaches in summer in 

 the normal sea turtle fashion, but the Atlantic species is not known to breed 

 at all! This is Carr's "riddle of the ridley," and it can easily tax the imagination 

 of the best of us. It seems more than logical that turtles should breed, but no one 

 has ever seen the eggs, nests, copulation, or a pregnant female of the Atlantic 

 ridley. No one has ever seen a young one of under a few months old. Some 

 people think that the ridley is a sterile cross between a green turtle and a logger- 

 head and, like the mule, is at the end of the road, but this, as well as numerous 

 other suggestions, appears to be ill-founded. Probably on some obscure beach 

 somewhere this turtle breeds. Where? When? No one knows, but the proba- 

 bilitv is that this occurs in the Gulf of Mexico. The breeding of the ridley is not 

 the only strange thing about this animal. Its very name is a mystery. The origin 

 of the odd name "ridley" is not known. And why isn't it found in the Caribbean 

 where suitable habitat is apparently plentiful? Again, no answer. 



LEATHERBACK SEA TURTLES: Family Dermochelidae 



One must resort to superlatives to describe the leatherbacks. They are the 

 most aquatic, most powerful, the fastest, largest, and among the rarest and most 

 peculiar of all the turtles. They are placed in an entirely different suborder from 

 all other turtles, Athecae ("no shell"), because they have greatly reduced both 

 plastron and carapace and have a leathery skin over their massive bodies. The 

 black skin of the carapace has seven longitudinal ridges. The unclawed flippers 

 are huge, and it is said that these turtles can travel at remarkable speeds, but 

 thev have never been clocked. There is one species. 



LEATHERBACK SEA TURTLE (trunk turtle) : Derviochelys coviacea 



Weight: Recorded to 1,200 pounds. Probably reaches 1 ton. 

 Distribution: Tropical seas. Recorded north to Nova Scotia and Vancouver. 

 Identification: Same as for the family. 



Habits: Very little is known of this pelagic turtle. It comes into shallow water 

 seldom, preferring the open sea. In the summer it breeds on sandy beaches as 



