Loggerhead sea turtle

Caretta caretta · The loggerhead sea turtle is a large marine reptile found in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean Sea.

Also called Loggerhead turtle, Loggerhead.

Taxonomy

Where it lives

Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans and the Mediterranean, in open ocean and shallow coastal waters.

Fun facts

• A loggerhead can stay underwater for more than ten hours, longer than any other air-breathing marine vertebrate.
• The temperature of the nest decides whether baby loggerheads are boys or girls: 28 °C gives males, 32 °C gives females, and 30 °C gives an equal mix.
• A loggerhead named Adelita swam 14,500 km across the Pacific and was the first animal of any kind ever tracked across an ocean basin.
• When a loggerhead is on land, it can look like it is crying, but it is really getting rid of extra salt from the ocean water it swallowed.

Play it

The Loggerhead sea turtle was the creature in a regional daily on November 13, 2026. Can you identify tomorrow's from its photos? Every day brings a new creature to place from kingdom to genus, map and name.

Play today's creature or replay a past daily

Facts and taxonomy adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).