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Leatherback Sea Turtle — printable fact sheet
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Leatherback Sea Turtle
Dermochelys coriacea
The leatherback is the largest turtle alive and the only one without a hard shell — instead it carries a leathery, oil-saturated skin over a mosaic of small bones, which lets its body deform under pressure rather than resist it. That is what allows it to dive beyond a thousand m…
Did you know?
- Leatherback sea turtles can migrate more than 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) each year, making them one of the most widely traveled marine creatures.
- It is the only sea turtle with no hard shell — a leathery skin over small bones, which lets it dive past 1,000 m. It keeps its body warmer than the sea around it, so it can feed in near-freezing water off Canada and Norway. Its throat is lined with backward-pointing spines so jellyfish cannot slip out. Those same spines mean a swallowed plastic bag can never be regurgitated.
What I learned
Draw the leatherback sea turtle
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