The 7 Species of Sea Turtles: Photos, Facts, and Where to Find Them

My Love for Sea Turtles

By William Drumm, underwater photographer and ocean ambassador

I still remember the awe I felt the very first time I met a sea turtle underwater, back before I was an underwater photographer. I was scuba diving on the SS Yongala shipwreck in Queensland, which to this day is still one of my favorite dives.

The sea turtle was nestled in a hole in the hull of the wreck, with his head sticking out and his shell resting on the ship. His head was easily twice the size of my own.

A bulbous, barnacle encrusted melon with beady black eyes. I nearly panicked at the sight of this modern dinosaur, which I didn’t recognize as an animal until he was right next to me.

This was a loggerhead sea turtle, one of the largest species. Since that day nearly 20 years ago, I have yet to meet another loggerhead as colossal as this ancient hulk.

That experience started my fascination and appreciation for sea turtles of all types.

There are seven species of sea turtles: green, hawksbill, loggerhead, leatherback, Kemp’s ridley, olive ridley, and flatback. This guide covers all seven. The loggerhead, green, and hawksbill turtles are the ones I have spent the most time with underwater.

Leatherbacks I have only seen on land. Kemp’s ridley, olive ridley, and flatback sea turtles are species I am still hoping to encounter in the water one day.

Loggerhead Sea Turtle (Caretta caretta)

My favorite sea turtle and the first kind of sea turtle I saw in the water. Their broad shells and massive heads immediately stand out, giving them an unmistakable look. Loggerheads often grow nearly four feet long and weigh up to 400 pounds, yet they glide through the water with surprising ease.

What Makes Loggerheads So Powerful

Loggerheads have enormous heads and incredibly strong jaws designed to crush hard prey like crabs, sea urchins, and mollusks. Their bite force allows them to feed on animals that most other sea turtles simply cannot handle, making them important predators in reef and seabed ecosystems.

Natural Navigators of the Ocean

Female loggerheads return to the exact beach where they were born to lay eggs, sometimes traveling thousands of miles across open ocean. Scientists believe they rely on the Earth’s magnetic field as a natural navigation system, guiding them back with remarkable precision.

Built for Long Coastal Journeys

Loggerheads are strong, steady swimmers that conserve energy as they travel along coastlines, reefs, and sandy seabeds. They are found throughout the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. I have photographed and filmed them in Queensland, Australia, in the Azores, and in Belize, and always get so excited when I share the sea with one.

Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas)

Green sea turtles are often extremely calm and chill underwater. They move slowly and gracefully, gliding through the water as if they are floating rather than swimming.

With their smooth, oval shells and gentle expressions, green turtles have a soft and relaxing presence. They are the largest hard-shelled turtles, sometimes growing up to five feet long and weighing over 700 pounds.

Gardeners of the Ocean

Green sea turtles are unique because adult turtles follow a mostly plant-based diet. They spend much of their time grazing on seagrass and algae, which helps maintain healthy marine habitats. By trimming seagrass beds, they encourage new plant growth and create balanced ecosystems that support fish, crustaceans, and countless other marine species.

Loyal to Their Feeding Grounds

Green turtles are known for their strong attachment to specific feeding areas. Once they settle into a seagrass meadow or coastal lagoon, they often return to the same location year after year. Female green turtles also make long migrations back to their nesting beaches, showing remarkable navigation instincts similar to other sea turtle species.

Where You Can Find Green Sea Turtles

Green sea turtles are found in tropical and subtropical waters around the world, especially in shallow coastal lagoons, coral reefs, and seagrass meadows. Popular locations include the Caribbean, Hawaii, Florida, Southeast Asia, and parts of Australia.

Watching a green turtle feed or slowly glide through seagrass fields feels incredibly calming. It is hard not to grin when I encounter one.

I have photographed green sea turtles in Baja, Quintana Roo, Florida, Australia, Belize, Bali, and the Caribbean.

Hawksbill Sea Turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata)

Hawksbill sea turtles are often the most visually striking turtles you can find underwater. The first thing that usually catches your eye is their shell, layered with rich amber, gold, and brown patterns that almost look hand-painted.

Their narrow heads and sharp, curved beaks give them a delicate but purposeful appearance. Compared to larger turtle species, hawksbills are smaller and more agile, usually growing around three feet long and weighing between 100 to 180 pounds.

They often move through coral reefs with a determined motion, weaving easily through tight spaces that larger turtles cannot reach.

Reef Protectors

Hawksbill turtles play a critical role in maintaining healthy coral reef ecosystems. Their diet mainly consists of marine sponges, which most other animals avoid. By feeding on sponges, hawksbills prevent them from overtaking coral reefs, helping maintain the delicate balance needed for coral and other reef species to survive.

Naturally Curious Explorers

Hawksbills are often known for their curious nature. Divers frequently notice them moving slowly through reef structures, occasionally pausing to investigate their surroundings before continuing along their path. Their ability to maneuver through complex coral formations makes them one of the most fascinating turtles to observe and photograph.

Where You Can Find Hawksbill Sea Turtles

Hawksbill turtles are typically found in tropical coral reef environments across the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. They are commonly seen in regions such as the Caribbean, the Red Sea, Southeast Asia, and northern Australia.

Because they depend heavily on coral reef habitats, spotting one often means you are diving in a vibrant, healthy reef system.

My favorite encounter with a hawksbill was in West Palm Beach, Florida, where I watched in awe and horror as the turtle ripped into the coral reef feeding on sponges.

Leatherback Sea Turtle (Dermochelys coriacea)

Seeing a leatherback sea turtle underwater feels almost unreal, like watching a creature that belongs to another time or even another world. They are the largest of all sea turtles, often growing over six feet long and weighing more than 1,000 pounds.

Unlike other sea turtles, leatherbacks do not have a hard, plated shell. Instead, their backs are covered in thick, leathery skin with long ridges that help them move smoothly through deep ocean waters. Despite their massive size, they glide through the water with a slow effortless rhythm.

Travelers of the Open Ocean

Leatherbacks are built for life in the open sea. They are incredible long-distance travelers and spend most of their lives far from coastlines, following their primary food source, jellyfish.

Their flexible bodies and streamlined shape allow them to dive deeper than any other sea turtle, sometimes reaching depths of over 4,000 feet in search of food.

Masters of Cold Water Survival

Unlike most reptiles, leatherbacks can regulate their body temperature, allowing them to swim in much colder waters than other sea turtles. This ability lets them travel across entire oceans, from tropical nesting beaches to cooler feeding grounds in northern and southern waters.

Where You Can Find Leatherback Sea Turtles

Leatherbacks are found in oceans around the world and are known for their wide migration routes. They are often spotted in open ocean environments but can occasionally be seen closer to shore during feeding or nesting seasons.

Encounters with leatherbacks are rare compared to other turtle species, and seeing one glide through the deep blue feels like witnessing one of the ocean’s true giants moving silently through its natural world.

I was lucky enough to watch a mother leatherback as she laid her clutch of eggs on a beach in Tortuguero, Costa Rica. I have yet to see one underwater.

Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle (Lepidochelys kempii)

Kemp’s ridleys are smaller than many other sea turtles, usually growing to about two feet long and weighing around 100 pounds. They have rounded shells and a compact, sturdy build that gives them a distinct appearance. The Kemp’s ridley is also the rarest sea turtle in the world, which makes every confirmed sighting meaningful.

A Symbol of Conservation Hope

Kemp’s ridley turtles have one of the most inspiring conservation stories among sea turtles. Their population once declined drastically to fewer than 250 nesting females in the 1980s, but decades of protection efforts, habitat restoration, and nesting beach monitoring have helped their numbers slowly recover. They remain critically endangered, but the trajectory has shifted in the right direction.

Known for Their Mass Nesting Events

One of the most remarkable behaviors of Kemp’s ridleys is their synchronized nesting, known as arribadas. During these events, large groups of female turtles come ashore at the same time to lay their eggs.

This rare and coordinated behavior is one of nature’s most fascinating survival strategies, helping increase the chances of hatchlings reaching the ocean safely.

Where You Can Find Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtles

Kemp’s ridley turtles are primarily found in the Gulf of Mexico and along the eastern coastline of the United States.

They prefer shallow coastal waters, bays, and estuaries where they search for crabs and other bottom-dwelling prey. Because their habitat range is fairly limited, spotting one in the wild often feels like a rare and meaningful encounter.

Olive Ridley Sea Turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea)

Olive ridleys are slightly smaller than many other sea turtle species, usually growing between two to two and a half feet long and weighing around 75 to 110 pounds. Their smooth, olive-green shells help them blend beautifully into their surroundings.

Watching an olive ridley underwater often feels unpredictable in the best way. They move with steady confidence, sometimes cruising through open water and other times exploring coastal areas in search of food.

Flexible and Opportunistic Feeders

Olive ridleys are not picky eaters, which helps them survive in a variety of ocean environments. Their diet includes jellyfish, algae, crustaceans, and small fish. This flexibility allows them to adapt to changing ocean conditions and occupy a wide range of habitats.

Massive Arribada Nesting

Like their Kemp’s ridley cousins, olive ridleys are famous for synchronized mass nesting events called arribadas.

Some olive ridley arribadas on the Pacific coast of Mexico and Costa Rica involve tens of thousands of females coming ashore on the same beach over a few nights. It is one of the largest reproductive gatherings of any reptile on Earth.

Where You Can Find Olive Ridley Sea Turtles

Olive ridley turtles are found throughout tropical waters in the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans. They are often seen in open ocean environments but also visit coastal areas during feeding and nesting seasons.

Because of their wide distribution and social nesting behavior, olive ridleys are one of the most commonly encountered sea turtles in many tropical diving locations.

Flatback Sea Turtle (Natator depressus)

Flatback sea turtles are among the least known and most regionally unique sea turtles in the world. They get their name from their noticeably flatter shells compared to other sea turtle species, giving them a slightly different silhouette as they move through the water.

Flatbacks usually grow to about three feet long and weigh between 150 to 200 pounds. Their swimming style feels calm and steady, often staying close to the seafloor while searching for food.

Coastal Specialists

Flatback turtles prefer shallow coastal environments rather than traveling long distances across open oceans like many other sea turtles. They spend most of their lives near continental shelves, sandy seabeds, and coastal reef systems.

Their diet mainly consists of soft-bodied marine life such as sea cucumbers, jellyfish, and other invertebrates, making them well adapted to their coastal habitats.

Unique Life Cycle

Flatbacks have slightly larger hatchlings compared to most other sea turtle species, which may give young turtles a better chance of surviving their early journey into the ocean. Their nesting also tends to occur along Australian beaches, making their entire life cycle closely tied to this specific region.

Where You Can Find Flatback Sea Turtles

Flatback sea turtles are found almost exclusively along the northern coast of Australia, including areas of the Great Barrier Reef and surrounding coastal waters. Because their range is so limited, spotting a flatback turtle is considered a special experience, especially for divers exploring Australian marine ecosystems.

Where Do Sea Turtles Live?

Sea turtles live in tropical, subtropical, and temperate oceans worldwide. Six of the seven species are found across multiple ocean basins. The flatback is the only exception, restricted to the waters around northern Australia.

Their habitats range from shallow coastal lagoons to the open ocean. Most species use coral reefs, seagrass beds, mangrove estuaries, and sandy bays as feeding grounds, then migrate hundreds or thousands of miles to specific nesting beaches.

Leatherbacks have the widest range of any sea turtle, capable of surviving in cold North Atlantic waters thanks to their ability to regulate their own body temperature. Hawksbills are tied closely to coral reef systems. Green sea turtles favor seagrass meadows and coastal lagoons.

Reliable places to see sea turtles in the wild include Hanauma Bay and other Hawaiian snorkel sites, the Caribbean (especially Bonaire, Barbados, and Tobago), the Galápagos Islands, the Great Barrier Reef, Florida’s east coast, Mexico’s Yucatán coast (Akumal is famous for its green turtles), Tortuguero National Park in Costa Rica during nesting season, and the southern Great Barrier Reef during nesting and hatching.

Threats Facing Sea Turtles

All seven sea turtle species face significant threats. Some are natural; most are human-caused. Understanding these threats is essential to conservation, and seeing them firsthand as an underwater photographer has shaped how I think about the work I do.

Boat strikes and propeller injuries

Boat strikes are one of the leading causes of sea turtle injury and death in nearshore waters.

Sea turtles surface to breathe every 5 to 30 minutes (or longer for leatherbacks), and they often surface in busy boating channels, especially in Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, and along the Mediterranean coast.

The most common injury is a propeller strike to the carapace, which can cause shell fractures, internal trauma, lung perforation, or damage to the spine. Less obvious injuries include damage to the esophagus or trachea from chest impact, and major blood vessel damage from crush injuries.

Many strike-injured turtles arrive at wildlife rehabilitation centers in critical condition. Survival depends on the severity, the location of the wound, and how quickly the turtle reaches care.

Centers like the Sea Turtle Conservancy in Florida, Loggerhead Marinelife Center in Florida, and the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center in North Carolina treat hundreds of strike victims annually.

Boaters can help by maintaining idle speed in known sea turtle areas (often marked with signage), watching for surfacing turtles ahead of the boat, avoiding known nesting beaches during nesting and hatching season, and reporting any strike incident immediately to local wildlife authorities.

Plastic ingestion and entanglement

Sea turtles routinely mistake plastic for food. Leatherbacks are especially vulnerable because plastic bags floating in ocean currents look almost identical to jellyfish, which are leatherbacks’ primary diet. Loggerheads ingest fishing line, balloons, and plastic fragments. Greens ingest plastic that gets tangled in seagrass.

Once ingested, plastic blocks the digestive tract, prevents food absorption, causes positive buoyancy that prevents diving, and can lead to slow starvation. A single piece of plastic can be fatal. Recent studies have found plastic in roughly half of all sea turtles examined globally.

Entanglement in fishing gear (longlines, gillnets, ghost nets) is the second-largest direct mortality cause. Turtles caught underwater drown within 30 to 60 minutes if they cannot reach the surface to breathe. The Sea Turtle Conservancy estimates that hundreds of thousands of turtles die each year from fishing gear interactions.

Climate change and nesting beaches

Sea turtle sex is determined by the temperature of the nest. Warmer eggs produce more females. As beach sand temperatures rise globally, the percentage of female hatchlings has increased dramatically. In some Australian green turtle populations, over 99 percent of recent hatchlings are female. This skewed sex ratio threatens long-term population viability.

Sea level rise also threatens nesting beaches directly. Many traditional nesting sites are eroding faster than turtles can adapt to new locations.

Other threats

Illegal wildlife trade remains a problem. Hawksbill shells, used to make tortoiseshell jewelry and ornaments, are still in demand in some markets despite international bans. Coastal development brings beach lighting, seawalls, and human activity that displace nesting females.

Disease is also rising. Fibropapillomatosis, a tumor disease that affects green sea turtles globally, has been increasing for decades. And predation of eggs and hatchlings by dogs, raccoons, crabs, and birds destroys roughly 90 percent of hatchlings before they reach the ocean.

Even after surviving millions of years on this planet, sea turtles need continued protection and awareness. Conservation programs and protected nesting beaches have helped improve some populations, but the work is far from done.

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Sea Turtles in Culture and Symbolism

Sea turtles appear in human cultures across every ocean they inhabit. Their long lives, slow movement, and reliable return to the same beaches over generations have made them powerful symbols in many traditions.

Hawaiian and Polynesian culture

In Hawaiian culture, the green sea turtle (called honu) is one of the most important animals in mythology. The honu represents good luck, peace, eternity, and a connection to ancestors. Many Hawaiian families consider the honu an aumakua, a family spirit guardian. Petroglyphs depicting sea turtles are found throughout the Hawaiian Islands and across Polynesia.

Native American mythology

Many Native American traditions feature turtles as world-bearers. In Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) creation stories, the turtle's back becomes the Earth itself. The Turtle Island creation story is shared across multiple Indigenous nations of North America. Turtles in these traditions represent persistence, wisdom, and the foundation of life.

Chinese and East Asian symbolism

In Chinese culture, the turtle is one of the four celestial animals (alongside the dragon, phoenix, and tiger) and represents longevity, wisdom, and perseverance. The Black Turtle (Xuanwu) symbolizes the north and winter. Turtles also feature in feng shui as protective symbols of long life.

Sea turtle tattoo symbolism

Sea turtle tattoos have become popular globally, drawing on the symbolism above. The most common meanings are longevity (turtles live 50 to 100+ years), wisdom, perseverance (returning to the same beach to nest after thousands of miles of travel), connection to the ocean, and family bonds.

Polynesian-style sea turtle tattoos often incorporate traditional tribal patterns. Realistic sea turtle tattoos often feature distinctive species shells, like the hawksbill's overlapping scute pattern or the green turtle's smooth carapace.

Sea turtles as conservation symbols

In modern Western culture, sea turtles have become one of the most recognizable symbols of marine conservation. Sea turtles consistently rank among the top species people identify with caring about.

This emotional connection has made them effective spokesfish for ocean health, plastic pollution awareness, and climate-vulnerable ecosystems. Their accessibility (sea turtles can often be seen by anyone snorkeling in tropical waters) keeps them in public awareness in a way that more remote species cannot match.

Frequently Asked Questions About Sea Turtles

Learn More About William

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