Sea turtle Facts

About the sea turtle

Seven sea turtle species exist today: leatherback, green, loggerhead, hawksbill, flatback, olive ridley and Kemp's ridley. Five are listed as threatened with extinction worldwide. The flatback lives only in waters off Australia, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. Most species have hard shells, but the leatherback has a leathery one and sits in a family of its own.

Size ranges widely. The Kemp's ridley, the smallest, reaches about 60 cm (2 ft), and the green turtle grows to roughly 120 cm. The leatherback dwarfs them both at 1.4 to over 1.8 m long and 300 to 640 kg. Males and females are the same size, but adult males have long tails while females have short ones. Young turtles give no outside clue to their sex.

Did you know?

• The name Chelonioidea comes from an Ancient Greek word for tortoise.
• Their skulls have bony cheek regions, a trait that resembles the earliest known fossil reptiles.
• Sea turtles belong to the order Testudines, the same group as land turtles and tortoises.