Caretta caretta (Loggerhead Turtle)
The common name of this Sea-Turtle in English is commonly called Loggerhead Turtle, Loggerhead Sea Turtle, Loggerhead and Thai name called เต่าหัวโต (Dtao Hua Toh), เต่าหัวฆ้อน, เต่าทะเลลอกเกอร์เฮด.
เต่าหัวโต : Caretta caretta (Linnaeus, 1758)
Caretta caretta is a species of the Loggerhead Sea Turtle Genus (Caretta) within the Sea Turtle Family (Cheloniidae), Superfamily Chelonioidea, in the Suborder Cryptodira, in the Turtles Order (Testudines), in the Reptile Class (Reptilia), in the Chordate Phylum (Chordata) in the Animal Kingdom (Animalia).
Geographic Range
The Loggerhead Turtle is globally distributed throughout the subtropical and temperate regions of the Mediterranean Sea and Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans (Wallace et al. 2010) (see Figure 1 in the Supplementary Material).
Habitat and Ecology
The Loggerhead Turtle nests on insular and mainland sandy beaches throughout the temperate and subtropical regions worldwide. Like most sea turtles, Loggerhead Turtles are highly migratory and use a wide range of broadly separated localities and habitats during their lifetimes (Bolten and Witherington 2003).
Upon leaving the nesting beach, hatchlings begin an oceanic phase in major current systems (gyres) that serve as open-ocean developmental grounds (Bolten and Witherington 2003, Putman and Mansfield 2015).
After 4-19 years in the oceanic zone, Loggerheads recruit to neritic developmental areas rich in benthic prey or epipelagic prey where they forage and grow until maturity at 10–39 years (Avens and Snover 2013).
Upon attaining sexual maturity Loggerhead Turtles undertake breeding migrations between foraging grounds and nesting areas at remigration intervals of one to several years with a mean of 2.5–3 years for females (Schroeder et al. 2003) while males would have a shorter remigration interval (e.g., Hays et al. 2010, Wibbels et al. 1990).
Migrations are carried out by both males and females and may traverse oceanic zones spanning hundreds to thousands of kilometres (Plotkin 2003).
During non-breeding periods adults reside at coastal neritic feeding areas that sometimes coincide with juvenile developmental habitats (Bolten and Witherington 2003).
Synonyms
- Testudo caretta Carolus Linnaeus (1758)
- Testudo marina François Alexandre Pierre de Garsault (1764)
- Testudo cephalo Johann Gottlob Theaenus Schneider (1783)
- Testudo nasicornis Bernard Germain de Lacépède (1788)
- Testudo caouana Bernard Germain de Lacépède (1788)
- Caretta nasuta Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz (1814)
- Caretta atra Blasius Merrem (1820)
- Chelonia multiscutata Heinrich Kuhl (1820)
- Testudo caretta Georges-Frédéric Cuvier (1831)
- Testudo corianna (ex errore) John Edward Gray (1831)
- Testudo corianna John Edward Gray (1831)
- Chelonia pelasgorum Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent (1833)
- Chelonia caouana André Marie Constant Duméril & Gabriel Bibron (1835)
- Caouana elongata John Edward Gray (1844)
- Thalassochelys corticata Charles Frédéric Girard (1858)
- Chelonia caretta Robert M. D. Dyce (1861)
- Cephalochelys oceanica John Edward Gray (1873)
- Thalassochelys cauana Oskar Boettger (1880)
- Thalassochelys caretta George Albert Boulenger (1886)
- Thalassiochelys tarapacona Rodolfo Amando Philippi (1887)
- Thalassochelys caretta George Albert Boulenger (1889)
- Chelonia dubia Pieter Bleeker (1889)
- Chelonia polyaspis Pieter Bleeker (1889)
- Thalassochelys controversa Rodolfo Amando Philippi (1899)
- Caretta caretta Leonhard Hess Stejneger (1904)
- Thalassochelys cephalo Barbour & Cole (1906)
- Caretta caretta caretta Robert Mertens & Salomon Müller (1928)
- Caretta gigas Paul E. Pieris Deraniyagala (1933)
- Caretta caretta gigas Paul E. Pieris Deraniyagala (1939)
- Caretta caretta gigas Bayard H. Brattstrom (1955)
- Caretta caretta Robert C. Stebbins (1985)
- Caretta caretta gigas Robert C. Stebbins (1985)
- Caretta caretta Roger Conant & Joseph Thomas Collins (1991)
- Caretta caretta Engelmann et al. (1993)
- Caretta caretta Frank Glaw & Miguel Vences (1994)
- Caretta caretta Harold Cogger (2000)
- Caretta caretta Turtle Taxonomy Working Group (TTWG) (2014)