Leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea)

Facts
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Reptilia Order: Testudines Family: Dermochelyidae Genus: Dermochelys Size: Length: 1.6 m (carapace of average female) Weight: 300 - 600 kg (average female)

Status
Classified as Critically Endangered (CR) on the IUCN Red List 2007. Listed on Appendix I of CITES and Appendix I of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS or the Bonn Convention).

Description
The leatherback is the world's largest turtle; the largest recorded individual weighed a massive 916 kilograms. This turtle earned its common name because it lacks the typical bony plates on its carapace. Instead, its shell is flexible and covered in a thin layer of leathery skin. This turtle is dark in colour with white and pink spots. Leatherbacks are easily recognisable by the seven narrow ridges running the length of the carapace, and by their particularly large front flippers. Females also have a characteristic 'pink spot' on the top of their heads.

Range
Found throughout the world's oceans with the widest distribution of all the turtles, the leatherback has been recorded as far north as Alaska and as far south as the tip of South Africa. These turtles often undertake long-distance migrations, between feeding grounds in temperate waters and nesting beaches in the tropics, sometimes surpassing 7,000 kilometers over several months.

Habitat
Adults are truly pelagic; they are strong swimmers inhabiting the open seas. Mature females prefer to nest on sandy tropical beaches with deep-water approaches, although shallow water beaches are also used in certain regions. Very little is known about juvenile leatherbacks in the ocean, although recently some small individuals have been found concentrated in waters off western Africa.

Biology
Adult leatherbacks feed mainly on jellyfish and other soft-bodied species. They are exceptional amongst reptiles because they are partly able to maintain an elevated body temperature via thermal inertia and a specially organized blood supply system in their shoulders. These features
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allow leatherback turtles to travel to cold waters and to dive to depths greater than 1,000 meters in search of prey. To nest, females emerge at night on nesting beaches to lay their eggs. Using their rear flippers they excavate deep 'boot shaped' nests into which roughly 100 eggs are laid. Around 20 percent of the eggs in each nest are small and yolkless. Individuals return to nest every few years, but within one season a female can lay four to ten clutches of egg . The sex of the hatchlings is influenced by incubation temperatures: hotter nests produce all females; cooler nests produce all males.

Normal diet
Jellyfish and planktonic tunicates. Occasionally fish and other animals associated with jellyfish.

Normal lifestyle
The carapace has the texture of hard rubber, and is raised up into seven longitudinal ridges. The Leatherback is ecologically unique among sea turtles in its truly pelagic mode of life, although sharing with all sea turtles the necessity to nest on land. A powerful swimmer, inhabiting the open seas, individuals of this species are only rarely sighted away from nesting beaches (with the exception of those encountered in the few known regularly-frequented feeding areas), and ecological observations are correspondingly sparse. In at least some parts of the range regular migrations occur into cool temperate waters to feed on seasonal concentrations of jellyfish. Mean number of fertile eggs ranges from 66 to 104 on different beaches, typical clutch comprises c 85 eggs. Females may re-nest at 9 to 10 day intervals, four to six times per season. Some females have been known to re-migrate at 2 or 3 year intervals.

Threats
Several populations of leatherback turtles in the Pacific have plummeted in recent years, principally due to accidental capture in fisheries and the over-harvest of eggs. Other threats to leatherbacks worldwide include habitat loss, accidental capture in fisheries, boat strikes, and ingestion of discarded plastics, which leatherbacks mistake for jellyfish.

Conservation
International trade in leatherback turtles and products is banned under Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), and the turtle is protected throughout most of its range. Many conservation projects have been set up on nesting beaches, with specific management protocols tailored to each location. The attachment of Turtle Excluding Devices (TEDs) to shrimp nets can help prevent the accidental capture of turtles and the US government has recently set up Leatherback Conservation Areas in the north Pacific that are offlimits to long-line fisheries during certain times of the year. Despite encouraging signs of stable or increasing populations in the Atlantic, conservationists are concerned that extinction of other populations is only a matter of time. Recent estimates have suggested there are no more than 2000 breeding females in the eastern Pacific, making this population extremely vulnerable. The Leatherback is nominally protected by legislation in most countries where nesting occurs. Listed on CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) Appendix I. Many significant nest beaches are within protected areas. While adults are
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widely protected by law, collection of eggs is permitted or controlled in some areas. In Trengganu State (Malaysia), for example, a Dermochelys hatchery, now run by the Fisheries Department, was set up in 1961. Adult Leatherbacks are strictly protected on the nest beach, but virtually all eggs laid are gathered by licensed egg-collectors. The Fisheries Department buys back a proportion of the annual egg harvest for transplantation into the hatchery at Rantau Abang. Usually more than 10,000 eggs (sometimes several tens of thousands) are incubated each year, with around 50 per cent hatching success. The project is currently incubating about 10 per cent of the eggs laid on the beach. Fees paid by egg-collectors for their license contribute towards the cost of running the scheme. The project may serve to some extent as a model for other areas and species, in that it combines species conservation through preserving adults and a proportion of the annual egg output, with local utilisation of eggs as an important and valued food resource. Tourism provides a further economic benefit. However, it is suspected that the percentage of eggs bought for incubation may be too small to ensure the continued survival of the population at current levels. It has been pointed out that killing breeding female Leatherbacks is damaging on both economic and biological grounds; the adult female is thought to take a long time to mature, but once mature, is potentially able to lay many eggs. A female only has to nest in two seasons for the monetary value of her eggs to exceed that of her meat.

Glossary
Bycatch: in the fishing industry, the part of the catch made up of non-target species. Carapace: the top shell of a turtle. In arthropods (insects, crabs etc), the fused head and thorax (the part of the body located near the head) also known as cephalothorax. Pelagic: inhabits the open oceans.