Leatherback Turtle Feeding 
79 
mented with photographs deposited at the North Carolina State Mu- 
seum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh. 
DISCUSSION 
Perhaps in some years leatherback turtles congregate with 
Stomolophus jellyfish along the coastline of Topsail Island, North 
Carolina, during May and early June. The feeding observation at 
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, further suggests that leatherbacks 
could appear whenever cabbagehead jellyfish appear in abundance 
along the Carolina coast. 
Further searches for turtles from the ends of fishing piers 
should be conducted elsewhere along the Southeast coast to docu- 
ment peaks of occurrence. Stomolophus meleagris occurs from 
Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, to Brazil (Schwartz 1979) and is 
found in North Carolina from May to November. It enters sounds 
and waterways when salinities are similar to that of the ocean 
(Schwartz 1979). One large leatherback encountered in the Neuse 
River near New Bern, North Carolina, on 16 November 1975 
(Schwartz 1977, Lee and Palmer 1981) might not be atypical if it 
was associated with its jellyfish prey. Leary (1957) reported numer- 
ous leatherbacks within a dense school of Stomolophus meleagris 
off the Texas coast on 17 December 1956. 
Stomach analyses have shown that leatherback turtles feed pri- 
marily on medusae, siphonophores, and salpae (Bleakney 1965, Eckert 
et al. 1989). Direct feeding observations include accounts of adults 
feeding on Aurelia off the coast of Washington State (Eisenberg 
and Frazier 1983) and on Rhizostoma octopus off Great Britain 
(Penhallurick 1991). Morgan (1989) and Penhallurick (1991) reported 
leatherbacks associating with Rhizostoma pulmo, R. octopus , 
Cyanea sp., and Chrysaora isoceles jellyfish off Great Britain. Col- 
lard (1990) reported seven leatherbacks in areas of maximum abun- 
dance of jellyfish and other gelatinous forms in the eastern Gulf of 
Mexico, and Lazell (1980) linked leatherback movements with the 
abundance of Cyanea sp. jellyfish off New England. 
Eckert et al. (1989) and Eckert (1992) hypothesized that the 
daily diving patterns of leatherbacks are closely related to the abundance 
of jellyfish and other zooplankton in the deep scattering layer. For 
example, shallow dives would be more likely during the night when 
the jellyfish were closer to the surface, and deeper dives would be 
more likely during daylight when the prey could be 300 m or 
more deep. 
On several occasions the leatherbacks passed close to live bait 
fishing rigs (mackerel rigs) at Salty’s Pier and did not attempt to 
