Archie Carr was among the first scientist to recognize the plight of the Sea turtles. His voice was also the most eloquent in calling for them to be rescued from extinction. He did more to save the turtles than anyone else had at the time. Many of today’s sea turtle researchers either studied with Dr. Carr or with one of his students.

Archie Carr first observed sea turtles in 1947 while teaching biology in Honduras, in Central America, and it was love at first sight. In the 1950’s his pioneering sea turtle research in another Central American Country, Costa Rica, led to the establishment of Tortuguero National Park, an important turtle nesting beach. His work also led to the founding of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, established to study and protect sea turtles.

In the 1960’s, Carr launched “Operation Green Turtle” with the help of the United States Navy. The project distributed green sea turtle eggs to beaches all over the Gulf of Mexico in an effort to repopulate the Caribbean Sea with turtles. Carr tagged sea turtles so that he could learn more about their mysterious migrations. Archie Carr also recognized that is sea turtles were to survive; their habitat would need to be protected. That is why he became outspoken in his opposition to ocean pollution.
Dr. Carr spent many years as a professor at the University of Florida. He wrote 120 scientific papers and became known as the “father of sea turtle research.” Though he died in 1987, his legacy lives on in Florida’s Archie Carr national Wildlife Refuge, a 20 mile beach and sea turtle nesting site. Carr’s legacy also inspired the public to take up the challenge of saving the worlds sea turtles.

A large group of turtles drifting or swimming together in the open ocean is called a flotilla. Leatherback sea turtles rarely form a flotilla. Although, there was one case where about 100 leatherback turtles were seen in a 30 mile line in the water near a beach. In this rare case, they might have come together to feed, since there was a school of jellyfish, their favorite food, in the same area.

Some species of sea turtles nest in large groups called arribadas. This is a Spanish word meaning arrival. Arribadas of Kemps Ridley turtles were once reported to have hundreds of thousands of females nesting at the same time. Little is known about how sea turtles communicate with one another. When they are nesting, leatherback turtles make several different sounds. Some are like sighs and some are like belches.

Very little is known about sea turtle mating. Scientists are not really sure how mates find or choose each other. They also do not know if the mates stay together for a while or if they leave each other right away. It is known however that the only true social interaction occurs during courtship and mating. Scientists do know that the male will test the females receptivity by nuzzling her head and gently biting her neck and flippers.

Reluctant females may fold their hind flippers together. If the female is willing however, the male will mount her and grip the front of her shell with his forelimbs and curl his tail under his shell. The mating may take place on the ocean bottom, the surface or in open water. The mating will occur about 30 days before the female begins to nest.

Leatherback Sea turtles are the Godzilla of the Turtle world! They are the largest of all turtles. The largest Leatherback ever reported was found dead on a beach in Wales in 1988. It weighed an astounding 2,016 pounds ( 916 Kg). The length of its curved upper shell was 101 inches (256.5 cm). The distance between the tips of its outstretched front flippers was 94.8 inches (240.7 cm). Most Leatherback turtles are quite a bit smaller than this, although they are still very large. The adults usually weigh between 440 and 2,000 pounds. Their upper shell is usually about 61 inches long. Male and female leatherbacks are about the same size, but males have a longer tail.

The leatherback turtle is one of the most unique turtles alive, and this is not because if its size! The leatherback turtle also lacks a hard shell. It has instead a shell that is rubbery or leather like (hence the name). The carapace of the leatherback turtle is about 1.6 inches thick; it is made of tough oily tissue. It feels like rubber and has ridges. The large quantities of oil most likely has some function in avoiding the “bends” on deep dives. It may also help with insulation, allowing the leatherbacks to remain active and sustain a body temperature as high as 75 degrees in water as cold as 43 degrees, something a reptile is not supposed to be able to do.

Adult leatherbacks do not all have the same color pattern. Their leathery skin is mostly black with pale spots, which vary in number. Their belly is a patterned pinkish- white and black. The hatchlings are mostly black with stripes of white on their backs. They are covered with scales. The scales disappear as the hatchlings grow up. Their flippers are black with white edges.

Leatherback turtles are amazing divers! They are able to dive to below 3,300 feet deep, which is possibly the greatest depth for any air breathing vertebrate. Only the sperm whale and elephant seals may match or exceed the leatherback’s deep dives. So what draws them so deep? Well jellyfish is certainly a possibility. While it seems rather unlikely that such a large animal would subsist on almost nothing but jellyfish, but it appears to be the case.

A leatherbacks mouth is specifically designed for its jellyfish diet. First, the turtle sucks in its food by expanding its throat. To retain the soft food, the mouth contains numerous stiff, three inch spines that point backward and the six foot esophagus is lined with backward- pointing spines. The razor- sharp, notched jaws are also well adapted for cutting and holding soft prey like jellyfish. Their jellyfish diet is sometimes a problem, as they sometimes mistake discarded plastic bags floating in the sea for jellyfish. This plastic does a great deal of harm for the turtles as it cuts their skin and sometimes hurts them.

A hungry young leatherback may eat twice its weight in jellyfish in a day! The leatherbacks have also been known to graze as far north as Labrador and Alaska. Leatherbacks have been recorded feeding as far as 3,100 miles from their nesting grounds!

Another great thing about Leatherbacks is their amazing speed! They have powerful front flippers, yet they lack the normal claws ( they are the only sea turtle without them). Its head and carapace join smoothly together like a seamed barrel. This makes it easier for them to track through the water at high speeds.

Leatherbacks nest in Florida from April through July. The mating occurs prior to or during the migration from the cooler climates. You will be extremely lucky if you spot a Leatherback nesting, records report that only between 38 and 188 leatherbacks nests annually in Florida.

The Kemp’s Ridley Sea turtle is among the smallest of Sea Turtles, with a shell length of 24 to 30 inches. It is also among the most endangered and nests only in the Gulf of Mexico. So, it is very rare that you will ever see this turtle nesting. Although, it is possible that you may see one swimming.

The Kemps Ridley turtle has five pairs of costal plates on its back, and its carapace is often as wide as it is long. Adult Kemp Ridley’s weigh between 85 and 100 pounds. The carapace is dark gray or grayish-brown in the young, olive green in adults. The Kemps Ridley is considered to be the rarest and most endangered of all sea turtles. In the U.S the juveniles range from Texas to Maine but they are unknown on the pacific coast.

The Kemps Ridley is a carnivore and its favorite food is blue crabs. They also eat jellyfish, clams, fish, and mussels. It is estimated that it takes about seven to fifteen years for the turtle to mature. Both male and female Kemps Ridley will meet off the beach to mate. The females will remain just offshore and crawl onto the beaches only under certain conditions: high surf and strong winds from the Northeast between April and June.

When there were thousand of them, the females all nested on the beach within hours of each other, then returned to the water. These mass nesting’s are called arribadas (derived from the Spanish word for arrivals). They occur several times a season. What the mysterious cues are that finally lure the Kemp’s Ridley to the shore, and its significance, are not well understood. Today with only a few hundred females left, the arribadas are fitful and small, and many turtles nest singly. Furthermore the Kemps Ridley nests during the day, not at night as other turtles do.

A young sea turtle is called a Hatchling. A sea turtle never sees its mother or father. After the female lays her eggs she returns to the water and does not go back to the nest. Once hatched each young sea turtle is on its own. These hatchlings face many dangers on the beach and in the ocean. Once in the ocean, they will spend the rest of their lives there, with the females coming out only to lay their eggs in the sand.

The hatchlings break through their eggshells on their own, using a special tooth called a caruncle. This tooth falls out shortly afterward. The eggs are not hard-shelled like chicken eggs but are softer and leathery feeling. Amazingly, the temperature of the sand will determine whether a baby turtle will be male or female. The hotter the sand, the more eggs will be females, the cooler the sand, the more will be males.

Once they leave the egg, the young turtles spend up to forty eight hours underground absorbing their egg-yolk sacs. Then they begin to struggle toward the surface of the beach. At this moment they are the most vulnerable to predators on the beach. Fortunately nature has provided these creatures with some sort of protection. On a sunny day, they may get too hot and stop moving. When things cool down in the evening, they will start to move again. As a result, they will leave in the darkness, where it is safer.

As they enter the sea, these omnivores will feed on almost anything they can find.. In there early years, they swim quite a lot but are mostly swept around by sea currents in the open ocean. The sea turtles will not travel far from their feeding ground until they have reached sexual maturity. Since juveniles never leave the water during this stage of their lives, little is known about them.