Hawksbill sea turtle
Amazing fact
A hawksbill turtle has overlapping shell scutes and a serrated shell edge.
NOAA Fisheries
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An illustration based on the real animal.
A little discovery to share.
A hawksbill turtle has overlapping shell scutes and a serrated shell edge.
THE REAL WORLD
The real Hawksbill sea turtle
- Scientific name
- Eretmochelys imbricata
- Japanese name
- タイマイ
- Group
- Ocean animals
- Class
- Reptilia
- Order
- Testudines
- Family
- Cheloniidae
- Genus
- Eretmochelys
Where the name “Hawksbill sea turtle” comes from
Its English name comes from its mouth, which resembles a hawk’s beak.
NOAA FisheriesA sea turtle of warm seas around the world that lives mainly around coral reefs.
Because it feeds mainly on sponges growing among corals, it has a narrow head and a pointed beak.
It reaches deep into cracks in the coral with its long beak to pick out sponges, sea anemones, shrimp and more.
How the Hawksbill sea turtle lives
It usually searches for food on reefs and continental shelves by day. It also eats seaweed, mollusks and jellyfish. It can travel long distances between feeding grounds and nesting beaches.
University of Michigan Animal Diversity WebNOAA FisheriesBasic data
- Diet
- Sponges
- Range
- Tropical to subtropical waters worldwide
- Conservation status in Japan
- Critically Endangered (CR)Ministry of the Environment of Japan, 5th Red List (2026)
Where the Hawksbill 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
- タイマイ
- 简体中文
- 玳瑁
- 繁體中文
- 玳瑁
- 한국어
- 매부리바다거북
- Español
- Tortuga carey
- Français
- Tortue imbriquée
- Deutsch
- Echte Karettschildkröte
- Português (Brasil)
- Tartaruga-de-pente
- Italiano
- Tartaruga embricata
- العربية
- اللجأة صقريَّة المنقار
- Bahasa Indonesia
- Penyu sisik
- Tiếng Việt
- Đồi mồi
- Русский
- Бисса
- Türkçe
- Şahin Gagalı Kaplumbağa
- ไทย
- เต่ากระ
Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.
Sources and how we check
- 鳥羽水族館 — タイマイChecked: 2026-11-03
- NOAA Fisheries — Hawksbill TurtleChecked: 2026-11-03
- 観光庁 地域観光資源の多言語解説文データベース — 慶良間諸島海域のサンゴ礁の世界、漁協の魚Checked: 2026-11-03
- University of Michigan Animal Diversity Web — Eretmochelys imbricataChecked: 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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