Loggerhead Turtle

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Loggerheads get their name from the size of their large heads, which are perfect for crunching hard-shelled treats like whelks and conchs. Their upper shell (carapace) has a slight heart shape and is a rich brown color in grown-ups and teenagers, while their lower shell (plastron) shines a light yellowish hue. The neck and flippers of loggerheads usually blend in with dull browns on top and mediums to light yellows below. When they mate up in the southeastern United States from late March to early June, females carefully lay their eggs between late April and early September. Female loggerheads can lay three to five nests all by themselves during a single nesting season. After about two months, those eggs finally hatch sometime between late June and mid-November. Baby loggerheads don't have the reddish-brown coloring of grown-ups or teenagers yet. Their flippers are usually darker on top with white edges. Their lower shells turn a shade of yellow to tan. Loggerheads live in three different worlds: beaches ocean water near coastal waters Grown loggerheads like nesting spots on ocean beaches that have strong waves, narrow paths, and sharp slopes. These spots often get lots of seaweed drifting around. When they're first born, little loggerheads zoom from the nest into the ocean in a whirlwind rush. During this super-energetic period, new hatchlings head towards the water's surface, splash around, get swept through the shallow waters, and keep swimming for days on end before settling down. Once that frantic period ends, baby loggerheads settle down near places where seawater starts going deep again. That's often filled with floating bits like seaweed and even some flotsam in between the Gulf Stream and the southeastern US coastline and where the Loop Current flows close to the coast of Florida. Little ones love feeding on a mix of anything they can find just floating by (Witherington 2002). While young loggerheads, or neonates for short, may rest nearby the beach or get swept far away into waters around the Gulf of Mexico and North Atlantic Ocean by powerful currents. Studies have been tracking the movements of newborn sea turtles using special solar-powered chips embedded under their shells. By doing this, experts can find out where those loggerheads are headed. It usually takes young ones between 7-12 years to grow into mature sea turtles and start making a move for open ocean. Alongside this big shift, young ones change colorations, from having brown on top with gray and black tips down to light beige or gray and some have a very thin rim of black on their sides. Young loggerheads in deeper waters will settle more in lower depths before moving up and feeding when they're younger (Witherington 2002). Once those juveniles grow into young adults, around the age of 10-15, mature ocean-dwellers then find places to nest by returning to their old birth beaches after a few decades or making new stops in tropical waters during late winter to early spring season and settle along rocky areas near coral reefs (Glynn 1984).