Facts about Leatherback Turtles
- 09
Weighing up to 2,019 pounds, the largest leatherback ever recorded washed ashore near Harlech, Wales, in 1988, making it the heaviest sea turtle known.
- 08
In 2019, researchers tracked a single leatherback turtle swimming 12,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean from Indonesia to California in just 647 days, demonstrating extraordinary navigation capabilities across open ocean.
- 07
Leatherback turtles can survive in water temperatures as low as 40 degrees Fahrenheit, making them the only sea turtle species capable of inhabiting cold northern oceans.
- 06
A leatherback turtle's heart can weigh up to 1.2 pounds and beat only once every several minutes while diving, dramatically slowing its metabolism to conserve oxygen.
- 05
During nesting season, female leatherback turtles return to the same beach where they were born, sometimes traveling over 7,000 miles to do so with remarkable navigational precision.
- 04
Leatherback turtles consume up to 200 pounds of jellyfish annually, making them critical regulators of jellyfish populations in ocean ecosystems.
- 03
Leatherback turtle shells lack the hard bone plates of other sea turtles, instead consisting of a flexible leather-like skin covering 7 ridges that reduce drag during swimming.
- 02
Leatherback turtle hatchlings measure only two inches long yet migrate over 6,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean within their first year of life.
- 01
Temperature regulation allows leatherback turtles to dive deeper than 4,000 feet, making them the deepest-diving reptiles on Earth.