Leatherback Sea Turtle
Dermochelys coriacea · Reptile
The largest living turtle, up to 2.7 m long and usually 250 to 700 kg, with no bony shell but a back of oily, leather-like skin; it roams the open ocean from the tropics to near-freezing northern waters, following jellyfish and diving deeper than 1,000 m. Females come ashore at night on soft-sand tropical beaches, up to nine or ten times a season, laying about 110 eggs each time. Its flesh is too oily to be relished and is sometimes toxic, but its eggs are a delicacy in Malaysia and an aphrodisiac in parts of the Caribbean, and in a few places oil is drawn from its body as a medicine and to waterproof things. A grown leatherback has been seen chasing off a shark and then attacking the boat of the people watching.
- Danger
- Dangerous if cornered
- How it is met
- Alone, day and night
- Size
- Large
- In winter
- Leaves for winter
Where it lives
Sandy Shore, Coastal Shelf, Open Ocean, Deep Sea
Gives
Leatherback Turtle Egg, Leatherback Turtle Oil
Sources
- Fermin Fontanes, Adam Farmer, Annamarie Roszko, Scott Flore, Kevin Hatton, Veronica Combos, Andrea Helton, Dermochelys coriacea (leatherback sea turtle). Animal Diversity Web, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology, 2007.
- Leatherback sea turtle. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2026.
- Tortue luth. Wikipédia, l'encyclopédie libre, 2026.
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