Darwinia Deepest Diving Sea Turtle at 1,080 Meters

Darwinia was the deepest diving sea turtle, among a group of 25 female leatherback turtles tracked by scientists in a study lasting over 5 years.


Each turtle was fitted with a simple transmitter on her back, powered by four lithium camera batteries. This sent signals to a satellite receiver every time the creature came up for air on its travels across the open ocean.

Some of the turtles swim a massive distance of over 10,000 miles each year, making there way across the Atlantic from Africa to the South Coast of America and back.


Of the turtles the study collected data on, there were three mains groups that migrated in different ways. Some heading round the coast of Africa, others heading our into the middle of the Atlantic and another group that made the full trip across the Atlantic to South America.

The maps of the turtles journeys were published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. They are hoping that this will be an important means of helping conserve these rare creatures which have been diminishing in numbers over the last few years. Turtles regularly get caught up in fishing nets and end up drowning as a result.

In the last 40 years it is estimated that around 98% of leatherback turtles have vanished from the Pacific Ocean. It would seem that there are now only a few hundred females left in existence, instead of tens of thousands, as there used to be.

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