Tortue caouanne

Honu taraha

The loggerhead turtle is the second most common marine turtle in the world after the green turtle. It can rarely be seen in French Polynesia. Its carapace is brown-orange and consists of 5 ribs and 5 vertebral plates. It is found in the Indo-Pacific, in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean Sea. At the dietary level, powerful jaws without teeth but with sharp horny plates serve to grind the shells of crustaceans or molluscs. They also eat fish, jellyfish and sponges, part of their carnivorous diet. They reach their sexual maturity at the age of 30 and it is the only one with known laying sites in temperate zones. during the breeding season, the female will go up 3 to 7 times to lay and deposit about 100 eggs per nests. They manage to orient themselves thanks to the terrestrial magnetic field. Hunting for their flesh and shell has been banned since the 1970s.