---
title: Hawksbill Turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata)
scientific_name: Eretmochelys imbricata
common_name: Hawksbill Turtle
taxon: Sea turtles
conservation_status: CR - Critically Endangered
published: 2023-12-31T16:49:11.407Z
updated: 2026-08-27T20:14:25.322Z
tags: Hawksbill Turtle, Eretmochelys imbricata, Sea turtles, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/reptiles/sea-turtles/hawksbill-turtle
---

# Hawksbill Turtle (*Eretmochelys imbricata*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea turtles (*Chelonioidea*)
- **Size:** up to 100 cm
- **Weight:** up to 80 kg
- **Depth:** 1-300 m
- **Max age:** 50 years
- **Diet:** Spongivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Coral reef and rocky slopes with sponge growth
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Temperature-dependent sex
- **Hazard:** Poisonous
- **CITES:** Appendix I
- **Conservation status:** CR - Critically Endangered

## How to recognise it

- narrow pointed beak, hooked like a bird of prey
- shell scutes overlapping like roof tiles, with a serrated rear edge
- four pairs of scutes along each side of the shell
- shell length up to 100 cm

The reef turtle - the one a diver actually meets, working a wall with its beak into a sponge and ignoring the audience entirely.

That beak is the reason. Hawksbills eat sponges, which almost nothing else can: sponges are full of glass spicules and defensive chemistry, and this turtle processes them anyway, taking species that are toxic enough to poison other animals. It eats several hundred kilograms of them a year, and by doing so it keeps sponges from overgrowing the corals they compete with. Remove the turtles and the sponges win.

The overlapping scutes on its shell are also what nearly finished the species. Tortoiseshell came from this animal and no other, and the trade ran for centuries - Japan alone imported the shells of an estimated two million hawksbills in the twentieth century before it stopped in 1993. The species is Critically Endangered and listed on CITES Appendix I.

Sex is decided by the temperature of the sand, not by chromosomes: warm nests produce females, cool ones males. On a heating coast that is not a curiosity, it is the problem - some beaches now produce almost no males at all.

## Also known as

- **English:** hawksbill turtle, Hawksbill, Atlantic Hawksbill Sea Turtle
- **Arabic:** اللجأة صقريَّة المنقار, سلحفاة صقرية المنقار, لجأة صقرية المنقار
- **Hebrew:** צב ים קרני
- **French:** caret, tortue caret, tortue imbriquée
- **Italian:** tartaruga embricata
- **German:** echte Karettschildkröte
- **Spanish:** tortuga carey, tortuga carey del pacifico, tortuga de carey
- **Greek:** Κεραμοχελώνα
- **Turkish:** şahin gagalı kaplumbağa
- **Portuguese:** Tartaruga-Verdadeira, Tartaruga-de-Escamas, Tartaruga-de-Pente
- **Dutch:** Karetschildpad
- **Polish:** żółw szylkretowy
- **Czech:** kareta pravá
- **Japanese:** タイマイ
- **Chinese:** 太平洋玳瑁, 毒瑁, 玳瑁
- **Ukrainian:** Біса, справжня каретта, Бісса, Карета справжня
- **Russian:** Бисса
- **AF:** Valkbekseeskilpad
- **BG:** bisа, Биса
- **CHA:** Haggan
- **CYM:** Crwbanod Môr Gwalchbig, crwban môr gwalchbig
- **DA:** Karetteskildpadde
- **EPO:** Martestudo
- **FI:** karettikilpikonna
- **HU:** közönséges cserepesteknős
- **ID:** Penyu Sisik
- **KO:** 대모, 매부리바다거북
- **LT:** bisa
- **MLG:** Fano hara
- **MRI:** Honu
- **MSA:** Penyu Karah
- **MYA:** လိပ်စွန်
- **NO:** Ekte Karett, Karett
- **SL:** prava kareta
- **TAM:** அழுங்காமை
- **TGL:** Pawikan
- **TH:** เต่ากระ

## Scientific synonyms

- *Eretmochelys squamosa*
- *Testudo imbricata* Linnaeus, 1766

## Range

Gulf of Mexico, Ireland, Kenya, Mediterranean Sea, New Zealand, North Atlantic Ocean, Western Indian Ocean

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/reptiles/sea-turtles/hawksbill-turtle)*
*Updated: August 27, 2026*