Loggerhead Turtle Profile
Sea turtles are some of the most chill ocean animals you’ll meet. They’ve been flying through the crystal clear oceans for tens of millions of years, and the ones we still have around us are a small fraction of a once-diverse order of animals that spanned the globe.
Today, there are two families: the enormous leatherback takes up the only spot left in the Dermochelyidae, or “skin-shelled” turtles, and of the six species in the hard-shelled group, the largest is the loggerhead turtle.
Loggerhead Turtle Facts Overview
| Habitat: | Marine continental shelf, reef, estuarine |
| Location: | Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, Indian Oceans |
| Lifespan: | Up to 67 years |
| Size: | 1-2m (3-6ft) long |
| Weight: | Up to 450 kg (1,000 lb) |
| Colour: | Yellow to brown, reddish brown |
| Diet: | Omnivorous, mostly invertebrates |
| Predators: | Large sharks, juveniles taken by birds, fish, crustaceans |
| Top Speed: | Slow |
| No. of Species: | 1 |
| Conservation Status: | Vulnerable (IUCN) |
Loggerheads are in the “other” family from leatherbacks: Cheloniidae. They’re not quite as big but they can grow very large, and rely on warm waters for both buoyancy and energy.
If it gets too cold, they turn into a coconut, but if they avoid the chill, they love to swim into the Med for mating season.
Females fight over mating rights, and the species has some curious tears. They can also be dangerous to humans in the right setting, but we definitely harm them more than they harm us.
Interesting Loggerhead Turtle Facts
1. They’re Chelonids
Aside from the leatherback, all sea turtles are from this family. They’re thought to have become distinct from the multiple other branches of (now extinct) sea turtles around 100 million years ago, and their closest extant relatives are the snapping turtles.
Loggerheads themselves arrived around 40 million years ago, long after the dinosaurs handed over the reins, and within their family, they’re most closely related to Kemp’s ridley sea turtles.
There are six species in this family, of them all, the Loggerheads are the largest.
2. They’re big
Loggerheads are the largest hard-shelled turtles. The leatherback takes the lead as the largest turtle, but loggerheads are no slouch.
On average they weigh up to a high-end of around 200kg, but the largest ever recorded was 545kg, and was over two meters long.
These are big reptiles, and some of the heaviest in the world. And being this heavy can make a turtle lazy.
3. They get lazy in the cold
Being relatively cold-blooded, loggerhead turtles are affected by the ambient temperature. When it drops to somewhere around 13 to 15 °C, they become lethargic.
If it gets as low as 10 °C the turtle really struggles. This manifests as a hypothermic reaction known as cold-stunning. They can float about in this frozen state for quite a while, as long as they aren’t drowning, and one was found alive in British Columbia, bobbing about in the water, unable to move, with algae growing all over it.
Typically, they don’t do this on purpose and in fact try to avoid it. The seasonal migrations bring turtles from warm waters to other warm waters as a way of trying to stay out of the cold entirely. 1
4. They breed in the Med
For a lot of sexually mature individuals, the Mediterranean is a great place to get down. The food is abundant, diverse and delicious; the weather is warm; and the beaches are nice and sandy. This combination is great for loggerheads, who flock from the Atlantic into this warm sea to breed.
Greece is their favourite holiday destination and is home to around 3,000 nests per year. The local airport closes down at night during this season to give the animals some privacy, and signs go up warning people not to interfere with these protected creatures. 2
5. Females go at it
Unlike most non-human animals, scraps between females are common in loggerheads. Underwater battles are a kind of slow-motion affair, punctuated by the need to come up and take a breath.
Ritualistic posturing starts, and if that doesn’t work, the paid snap at one another with their beaks.
Like dogs, you can read a loggerhead’s intention by its tail. A tucked tail signifies submission, while a raised one shows they’re still in the game.
They also get into wars with predators. Up to 40% of nesting females around the world have wounds believed to come from shark attacks.
6. They cry pee
Turtles also cry, but this isn’t out of sadness, and unlike the tears of your enemies, these ones do not taste sweet.
There are salt glands behind each eye which helps the turtle maintain a healthy electrolyte balance in its body. When expressing salt, ears trickle down its face and make it look very sad. But these tears have a discouragingly high concentration of urea in them. 3
7. They can kill you
Sea turtles like the loggerhead come with a certain risk of toxic poisoning if you eat them. Recently, eight children and an adult died after eating sea turtle meat in Zanzibar and 78 other people were taken to hospital.
Turtles can contain a compound called chelonitoxin, which, as the name suggests, isn’t good for you. Nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, and a puffy liver are some of the more pleasant effects, and death is one of the last. 4
8. But we kill them more
Loggerheads are caught in nets, eaten traditionally by local communities, stolen by poachers, evicted from nesting sites by coastal development, poisoned by runoff and industrial waste, starved by overfishing and overheated on beaches baking in the New Normal of climate change.
These effects have led to the species declining significantly and they are now listed as vulnerable.
Loggerhead Turtle Fact-File Summary
Scientific Classification
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Testudines |
| Family: | Cheloniidae |
| Genus: | Caretta |
| Species: | Caretta |
Fact Sources & References
- Halpin, Luke R (2018), “First Photographic Evidence of a Loggerhead Sea Turtle (Caretta caretta) in British Columbia”, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
- “Topside Turtle Conservation: 7 Sites for Turtle Nesting”, PADI.
- (2020), “Why Do Sea Turtles “Cry””, Olive Ridley Project.
- Associated Press (2024), “Eight children and an adult die in Zanzibar after eating sea turtle meat”, The Guardian.