The Loggerhead Sea Turtle (Caretta Caretta)

Information

Reptile species, existing on our planet since the dinosaurs’ era, has adapted to the marine environment and breathes using lungs. The loggerhead is the only species of turtle that reproduces in Greece. It gives birth in the summer months on salty, inclined beaches with no obstacles. Each loggerhead lays approximately one hundred eggs; each hatchling has a weight of seventeen grams and a length of five centimetres.
The loggerhead finds refuge in the bay and beach of Apolakkia, as the sand in this protected region meets the necessary conditions of humidity, temperature and texture required by its reproductive cycle.
The loggerhead has a preference for jellyfish, but mainly feeds on marine vegetation and invertebrates; it lives up to one hundred years of age. Its shell (carapace) consists of corneous, reddish-brown plates, it weighs ninety to one hundred kilos on average and reaches up to one metre in Length.
It is considered to be an endangered species and is protected under the Bern Convention and Cites, the convention on international ‘trade in endangered species’. A hundred years ago, the population numbered approximately fifty thousand. Nowadays it is estimated at only four thousand worldwide.