• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Critically Endangered Leatherback Turtle Sets Potential Deep-Diving Record

June 15, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

A new potential world record has been set and achieved by an enormous, finned critter. Back in March this year, a Western Pacific Leatherback turtle left its nesting sites in the Solomon Islands and then dove 4,409 feet (1,344 meters) below the waves.

Advertisement

This achievement beat the previous record holder by 210 feet (64 meters), which was set by another leatherback turtle in 2006, according to the Guinness World Record. This, LiveScience has shown, is deeper than submarines are recorded as going (they tend to go down to depths of 2,950 feet (900 meters). In contrast, human divers have only gone down as far as 1,090 (332 meters).

Advertisement

Leatherback turtles have long been known to be the deepest-diving reptiles in the world. Their ability to disappear into the ocean’s depths puts them among the ranks of diving mammals, such as the earless seals and whales.

Unlike other species of sea turtle, leatherbacks do not graze in shallow waters. In fact, they barely ever come close to land unless it is to nest. It is only the females who return to land, which means scientists known very little about the lives or males or even juvenile specimens.

From the moment they reach the water for the first time, these large reptiles head out into the open ocean where they feed on jellyfish that move around at various depths.

When they dive, these turtles can hold their breath for around 90 minutes each time. Their shells (known as a carapace) are specially adapted to contract and expand with changes in pressure as the animals dive and then resurface again.

Advertisement

The turtle that recently broke the world record was being tracked as part of an ongoing satellite tracking study that is trying to protect leatherback turtles.

According to researchers, the turtle, known as “Uke Sasakolo” laid her eggs at the Sasakolo nesting beach in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. She then set off back to the open ocean where she and most of the other nesting turtles headed south into southern Australian and New Zealand waters. It was soon into this migration that Uke Sasakolo, which means “From Sasakolo”, undertook her record-breaking dive.

The Solomon Island’s nesting leatherback turtles may be incredible divers, but they are also critically endangered. At the moment it is estimated that there are only 1,400 breeding adults on the planet.

Their numbers are so low that conservationists are desperate to track all the breeding adults they can find, so they can help protect their nests. Females like Uke Sasakolo are often tagged, which allows researchers to track their movements and, in this instance, bath in awe that their amazing ability to dive.

Advertisement

[H/T LiveScience]

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Daily Crunch: Apple, Google bow to Russian pressure
  2. Epigenetic Changes Can Cause Developmental Abnormalities In “Grandoffspring” As Well As Offspring
  3. People Are Asking Why We Cannot Land Astronauts On Saturn
  4. A Once-In-A-Lifetime Opportunity To See A Nova, How Animals Act During A Total Solar Eclipse, And Much More This Week

Source Link: Critically Endangered Leatherback Turtle Sets Potential Deep-Diving Record

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • New Nightmare Fuel Unlocked: Watch The First Known Capture Of A Shrew By A False Widow Spider
  • Peculiar Glow In The Milky Way Might Be Dark Matter Signature
  • “I Was Scared To Death”: Missouri’s Great Cobra Scare Of 1953 Was Eventually Solved After 35 Years
  • Two Spacecraft To Fly Through Comet 3I/ATLAS’s Ion Tail – Will They Be Able To Catch Something?
  • Pioneering Heavy Water Detection Suggests Earth’s Water Might Be Older Than The Sun
  • PhD Students’ Groundbreaking New Technique Rescues JWST’s Highest Resolution Data
  • Popcorn-Like Parasites And Weird Worms Among 14 New Species Discovered In The World’s Oceans
  • Poem From 1181 CE Cairo Appears To Reference A Rare Galactic Supernova
  • With “Iridescent Live Colors”, Newly Discovered Beautiful Dwarfgoby Lives Up To Its Name (Mostly)
  • “Anti-Tail” And Odd 594-Kilometer Feature Found On Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS By Keck Observatory
  • Why Do We Call It A “Hamburger” When It Doesn’t Contain Ham?
  • What Aristotle Got Wrong About The Octopus
  • The World’s Largest Island Is Shrinking And Shifting
  • Record-Breaking Marshmallow Planet – It’s A Cold, Peculiar World On A Very Slanted Orbit
  • Distinctive Rocks Might Be Remnants Of Earth Before The Collision That Made The Moon
  • Bright Northern Lights Across America Expected This Week As 3 Coronal Mass Ejections Fly Towards Earth
  • Brain Implant Enables Paralyzed Man To Feel And Use Objects Using Someone Else’s Hands
  • “This Is A Really Big Deal”: Brain Training Significantly Improves Key Neurochemical Levels In World First
  • “Wholly Unexpected”: First-Ever Fossil Paranthropus Hand Raises Questions About Earliest Tool Makers’ Identity
  • For Centuries, Nobody Knew Why Swiss Cheese Has Holes. Then, The Mystery Was Solved.
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version