---
title: Loggerhead Turtle (Caretta caretta)
scientific_name: Caretta caretta
common_name: Loggerhead Turtle
taxon: Sea turtles
conservation_status: VU - Vulnerable
published: 2023-12-31T18:09:26.439Z
updated: 2026-08-15T14:46:45.521Z
tags: Loggerhead Turtle, Caretta caretta, Sea turtles, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/reptiles/sea-turtles/loggerhead-turtle
---

# Loggerhead Turtle (*Caretta caretta*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Sea turtles (*Chelonioidea*)
- **Size:** up to 125 cm
- **Weight:** up to 200 kg
- **Depth:** 1-200 m
- **Max age:** 70 years
- **Diet:** Carnivore
- **Activity:** Diurnal
- **Rarity:** Rare
- **Habitat:** Open water, sand flats and seagrass; nests on sandy beaches
- **Reproduction:** Egg layer, Temperature-dependent sex
- **CITES:** Appendix I
- **Conservation status:** VU - Vulnerable

## How to recognise it

- very large blocky head, much bigger in proportion than in other sea turtles
- reddish-brown shell with five pairs of scutes along each side
- heavy body, often with barnacles on the shell
- shell length up to 125 cm

A turtle built around its head. The skull is enormous in proportion to the animal and packed with jaw muscle, and it is a tool: loggerheads eat armored prey - conchs, clams, crabs, horseshoe crabs - and crush them outright. Nothing else in the sea turtle family works this way.

The other thing they are known for is navigation. A hatchling leaves a beach, spends years drifting in ocean currents, and comes back as an adult to nest within tens of kilometers of where it was born - and the mechanism is magnetic. Turtles read the inclination and intensity of the earth's field as a positional signature, learn their natal beach's value as hatchlings, and steer back to it decades later. Experiments in which the field around a turtle is altered send it off in the corresponding wrong direction.

Those migrations are enormous: individuals tagged in the Pacific have crossed from Japan to Mexico and back.

It is Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and on CITES Appendix I, and its main threat is fishing gear - loggerheads drown in nets and take baited hooks meant for tuna. In this sea it is uncommon, and usually seen in open water rather than on a reef.

## Also known as

- **English:** loggerhead, loggerhead sea turtle, loggerhead turtle
- **Arabic:** سلحفاة بحرية ضخمة الرأس, اللجأة مُكتَّلة الرأس, سلحفاة ضخمة الرأس
- **Hebrew:** צב ים חום, צב-ים חום
- **French:** caouanne, Tortue Grosse Tête, tortue Caouanne
- **Italian:** tartaruga caretta, tartaruga comune, tartaruga marina
- **German:** unechte Karettschildkröte, Unechte Karette
- **Spanish:** tortuga boba, Tortuga Cabezona, Tortuga Careta
- **Greek:** Χελώνα Καρέττα, Καρέττα
- **Turkish:** Adi Deniz Kaplumbağası, iribasli deniz kamlumbagasi, iribaşlı deniz kaplumbağası
- **Portuguese:** Careba Amarela, Tartaruga Cabeçuda, Tartaruga Comum
- **Dutch:** Onechte karetschildpad, Dikkopschildpad
- **Swedish:** oäkta karettsköldpadda, falsk karettsköldpadda
- **Polish:** karetta
- **Czech:** kareta obecná atlantská, kareta obecná pacifická, kareta obecná
- **Japanese:** アカウミガメ
- **Chinese:** 紅海龜, 红海龟, 蠵龜
- **Ukrainian:** Довгоголова морська черепаха, Логгерхед, морська черепаха логгерхед
- **Russian:** Логгерхед
- **AF:** Grootkopseeskilpad, Karetseeskilpad
- **BG:** kаretа, Карета
- **CA:** Tortuga babaua o tortuga careta, Tortuga babaua
- **COS:** Cuppulata di mari
- **CYM:** Crwbanod Môr Pendew, crwban môr pendew
- **DA:** Uægte karette
- **FI:** valekarettikilpikonna
- **GLA:** turtar a' chinn mhòir, turtaran cinn-mhòir
- **HR:** glavata želva
- **HU:** álcserepesteknős
- **ID:** Penyu Tempayan
- **KO:** 붉은거북, 붉은바다거북
- **LT:** Logerhedas, kareta
- **MLG:** Fano apombo
- **MRI:** Honu
- **NNO:** glattkarett
- **NO:** glattkarett, Uekte Karett
- **SL:** glavata kareta
- **SLK:** Kareta obyčajná
- **SQI:** breshka e detit
- **TAM:** பெருந்தலை ஆமை, பெருந்தலைக் கடலாமை
- **TH:** เต่าหัวค้อน, เต่าหัวฆ้อน
- **VI:** Rùa quản đồng

## Scientific synonyms

- *Halichelys atra* Fitzinger, 1843
- *Testudo caretta* Linnaeus, 1758
- *Thalassochelys caretta* Boulenger, 1886
- *Thalassochelys corticata* Girard, 1858

## Range

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

---

*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/reptiles/sea-turtles/loggerhead-turtle)*
*Updated: August 15, 2026*