Hawksbill Turtle

DISTRIBUTION IN COSTA RICA

DEPTH RANGE

General: 0–30 m (0–98 ft)

Common: 2–15 m (7–49 ft)

HABITAT

🪸 Coral reefs

Seagrass meadows

🪨 Rocky bottoms

🌊 Open water

🏖️ Beaches

HOW TO IDENTIFY IT

• Adult length: 62–95 cm (2–3.1 ft).
• Weight: 45–90 kg (99–198 lb).
• Elliptical shell, slightly compressed laterally, with amber-brown coloration and radiating streaks of dark yellow, orange and black; serrated shell margin.
• The horny shell plates, or scutes, overlap in young adults.
• Narrow, elongated head with a pointed beak that curves downward.
• Long front flippers with two visible claws along the leading edge.
• Adult males have longer, thicker tails and a more prominent curved claw on the front flippers.

SIMILAR SPECIES

• Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas): Smoother shell with scutes that do not overlap.
• Olive Ridley Sea Turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea): Rounder head with a straighter beak.

SIGHTING FREQUENCY

• ●●●○○ Occasional

REPRODUCTION

• Sexual maturity: 20–35 years.
• 🥚 Oviparous: females return to the beach where they hatched to nest, usually every 2–5 years.
• A female may lay 3–6 clutches in a nesting season, with 13–18 days between clutches.
• Mating occurs at sea several weeks before the first clutch is laid.
• Each clutch contains 80–160 spherical eggs; incubation lasts 60–70 days.
• Hatchling sex is determined by incubation temperature: temperatures above 29.5°C (85.1°F) produce predominantly females, while temperatures below 28.5°C (83.3°F) produce predominantly males.

BEHAVIOR

• Solitary and bottom-associated, moving around reefs and exploring crevices in search of food.
• Partly nocturnal in areas with high predation pressure.
• Surfaces to breathe every 45–90 minutes while active, but may remain submerged for 3–4 hours when resting.
• Not territorial.

DIET

• 🧽 Primarily sponges, which make up 70–95% of the diet.
• Also eats jellyfish, sessile tunicates, crinoids, sea anemones, calcareous algae and soft-bodied mollusks.