Animalia > Chordata > Testudines > Dermochelyidae > Dermochelys > Dermochelys coriacea

Dermochelys coriacea (Leatherback Sea Turtle)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

The leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), sometimes called the lute turtle or leathery turtle, is the largest of all living turtles and is the fourth-heaviest modern reptile behind three crocodilians. It is the only living species in the genus Dermochelys and family Dermochelyidae. It can easily be differentiated from other modern sea turtles by its lack of a bony shell, hence the name. Instead, its carapace is covered by skin and oily flesh. Dermochelys is the only extant genus of the family Dermochelyidae.
View Wikipedia Record: Dermochelys coriacea

Endangered Species

Status: Vulnerable
View IUCN Record: Dermochelys coriacea

Attributes

Gestation [2]  60 days
Litter Size [2]  105
Litters / Year [3]  5
Maximum Longevity [2]  30 years
Migration [1]  Interoceanic
Speed [4]  1.409 MPH (.63 m/s)
Water Biome [1]  Pelagic, Coastal
Adult Weight [2]  925.946 lbs (420.00 kg)
Birth Weight [3]  46 grams
Female Weight [3]  821.226 lbs (372.50 kg)
Diet [1]  Carnivore
Female Maturity [3]  13 years

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Biodiversity Hotspots

Prey / Diet

Predators

Carcharodon carcharias (Maneater shark)[5]
Corvus ossifragus (Fish Crow)[5]
Epinephelus itajara (Jewfish)[5]
Ocypode quadrata (Atlantic ghost crab)[5]
Orcinus orca (Killer Whale)[6]

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Calycodes anthos[7]
Cricocephalus albus[7]
Enodiotrema carettae[7]
Glyphicephalus chinensis <Unverified Name>[7]
Pyelosomum renicapite[7]

Range Map

External References

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Myers, P., R. Espinosa, C. S. Parr, T. Jones, G. S. Hammond, and T. A. Dewey. 2006. The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed February 01, 2010 at animaldiversity.org
♦ 2de Magalhaes, J. P., and Costa, J. (2009) A database of vertebrate longevity records and their relation to other life-history traits. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 22(8):1770-1774
♦ 3Nathan P. Myhrvold, Elita Baldridge, Benjamin Chan, Dhileep Sivam, Daniel L. Freeman, and S. K. Morgan Ernest. 2015. An amniote life-history database to perform comparative analyses with birds, mammals, and reptiles. Ecology 96:3109
♦ 4Swim speed and movement patterns of gravid leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) at St Croix, US Virgin Islands, Scott A. Eckert, The Journal of Experimental Biology 205, 3689–3697 (2002)
♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 6Food Web Relationships of Northern Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca : a Synthesis of the Available Knowledge, Charles A. Simenstad, Bruce S. Miller, Carl F. Nyblade, Kathleen Thornburgh, and Lewis J. Bledsoe, EPA-600 7-29-259 September 1979
♦ 7Gibson, D. I., Bray, R. A., & Harris, E. A. (Compilers) (2005). Host-Parasite Database of the Natural History Museum, London
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Biodiversity Hotspots provided by Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0