102 
David S. Lee and William M. Palmer 
and water temperature was 30^ C. This information, combined with the 
fact there are few records from Bermuda, further suggests that this 
turtle is regularly associated with the shallow shelf waters and not those 
of the open sea. 
With two exceptions, all North Carolina records are from mid-April 
through mid-October, when offshore water temperatures normally range 
from ca. 20^ to 27^ C. We assume that an individual caught by a trawler 
off Ocracoke Island on 6 January 1976 was healthy, but the occurrence of 
one in the Neuse River on 16 November 1975 seems atypical and may 
represent a sick or injured animal. Charter boat captains consider this 
turtle a summer resident and do not normally encounter it at other times, 
even though much of their spring and fall fishing for migratory commercial 
fishes occurs in inshore waters. 
Three of four leatherbacks encountered by Lee were small (ca. 1.25 m 
carapace length), but boat captains insist that larger ones are common. 
Available photos of NC trawler-caught specimens show large animals. 
Schwartz (1977) provided weights for the seven specimens he listed, but 
did not indicate how they were determined. The label with a mounted 
1897 specimen at NCSM gives the weight as “800 lb.”, but this is 
believed to be an estimate. A weight of “427 lb.” accompanies a news- 
paper photo of a leatherback caught by a trawler on 24 May 1955. 
Because it is conservative and precise. We assume this figure is not an 
estimate. This individual appears to be as large as others in news articles 
reported to weigh “1000 lb.”, and perhaps as large as the “800 lb.” 
NCSM specimen. A beached animal found on 27 November 1979, which 
was struck by the propeller of a ship, measured 203 cm carapace 
length and apparently is the largest specimen recorded from the Central 
Atlantic, although few accurate measurements are available. Ernst and 
Gilroy (1979) provided carapace lengths for 10, and weights or weight 
estimates for 12, of the 25 records they summarized. These ranged from 
136 to 180 cm and 193+ to 500 kg. A 1952 South Carolina specimen 
examined by Schwartz (1954) was 61 in. carapace length and weighed 680 
lb. 
Lazell (1980) and others have suggested that the “Arctic” jellyfish, 
Cyanea capillata, is a major food of this turtle. Although Cyanea occurs 
in North Carolina waters, we are not aware that it ever reaches the 
concentrations recorded from cooler waters, and have never seen it in the 
course of our offshore surveys. Normally it occurs inshore, and there may 
be heavy local concentrations in May. 
Although the data are fragmentary, it appears that adult and subadult 
leatherbacks occur off the North Carolina coast from mid-April to mid- 
October and that in summer they may be relatively common offshore 
residents. Surprisingly, no peak periods of observed occurrence in spring 
