Loggerhead Sea Turtle

The loggerhead sea turtle is a large marine turtle found in temperate and subtropical waters across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans, named for its unusually large head and powerful jaws, which allow it to crush hard-shelled prey such as conchs, crabs and other invertebrates that many other sea turtle species cannot exploit as effectively. It has a reddish-brown shell that can reach over a metre in length, and adult females return to nest on the same beaches where they themselves hatched, often traveling vast distances across ocean basins over the course of their lives. The species undertakes one of the most extensively studied migratory life cycles of any sea turtle, with young loggerheads from Florida beaches known to drift across the entire North Atlantic on ocean currents before eventually returning years later as adults. Loggerhead sea turtles face significant threats from bycatch in fishing gear, coastal development affecting nesting beaches and plastic pollution, and the species is classified as vulnerable worldwide.