Loggerhead sea turtle
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
A loggerhead turtle cannot pull its head or flippers into its shell.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Loggerhead sea turtle
- Scientific name
- Caretta caretta
- Japanese name
- アカウミガメ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Class
- Reptilia
- Order
- Testudines
- Family
- Cheloniidae
- Genus
- Caretta
Where the name “Loggerhead sea turtle” comes from
Its English name comes from its large head and strong jaws.
観光庁 地域観光資源の多言語解説文データベースA sea turtle that prefers warm coastal waters. Its shell is reddish-brown and shaped like a heart.
It has a big head and strong jaws, which it uses to crush the hard shells of the clams and sea urchins it eats.
It finds its way across the oceans using the Earth's magnetic field, and returns to the place where it hatched to lay its eggs.
How the Loggerhead sea turtle lives
Hatchlings head for the sea when they emerge from the nest. Young turtles live among drifting Sargassum in warm ocean currents. Young and adult turtles in coastal waters eat seabed animals such as mollusks and crustaceans.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebNOAA FisheriesBasic data
- Weight
- males about 120 kg
- Diet
- Clams and sea urchins
- Conservation status in Japan
- Endangered (EN)Ministry of the Environment of Japan, 5th Red List (2026)
Where the Loggerhead sea turtle has been recorded
Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF
Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.
Names around the world
- 日本語
- アカウミガメ
- 简体中文
- 蠵龟
- 繁體中文
- 赤蠵龜
- 한국어
- 붉은바다거북
- Español
- Tortuga boba
- Français
- Tortue caouanne
- Deutsch
- Unechte Karettschildkröte
- Português (Brasil)
- Tartaruga-comum
- Italiano
- Tartaruga caretta
- العربية
- الحَنْفَاء
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Penyu tempayan
- Tiếng Việt
- Rùa Quản Đồng
- Русский
- Логгерхед
- Türkçe
- Adi Deniz Kaplumbağası
- ไทย
- เต่าหัวค้อน
- বাংলা
- মুগুরমাথা সাগর কাছিম
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 観光庁 地域観光資源の多言語解説文データベース — カメChecked: 2026-11-03
- NOAA Fisheries — Loggerhead TurtleChecked: 2026-11-03
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Caretta carettaChecked: 2026-11-03
- Ministry of the Environment of Japan, 5th Red List (2026)Checked: 2026-11-07
We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.
The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.
The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.
The conservation status in Japan is the category in the Red Lists of the Ministry of the Environment of Japan, which assess the risk of extinction for wild animals in Japan.
This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.
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