The Loggerhead Turtle

The loggerhead Turtle derives its name from its very large disproportionate head with very heavy strong jaws.

The shell or carapace is bony without ridges and has large, non-overlapping, rough scutes or scales - there are five lateral scutes. The shell/carapace is a distinctive heart shape and reddish-brown in colour, the under belly or plastron is a yellowish-brown. The hatchlings have a dark-brown shell/carapace with flippers of pale brown on their margins. The front flippers are short and thick with two claws, while the rear flippers can have two or three claws. Full grown adults can grow to three and a half feet in length and weigh up to three hundred and fifty pounds.

Loggerhead Turtles are primarily carnivorous and feed mostly on shellfish that live on the bottom of the ocean, horseshoe crabs, clams, mussels, and other invertebrates are a favourite diet, their powerful jaw muscles help them to easily crush shellfish.

Loggerheads prefer to feed in coastal bays and estuaries, as well as in the shallow water along the continental shelves of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Nesting takes place at intervals of two or three years with four to seven nests per season, each turtle lays approximately twelve to fourteen days apart and lays an average of between one hundred to one hundred and twenty six eggs in each nest. The eggs incubate for about 60 days.

Loggerhead turtles can be found in all temperate and tropical waters throughout the world.