Loretta

Casey Key Loggerheads 2010

A project of Mote Marine Laboratory.

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Species: Loggerhead
Life Stage: Adult
Gender: Female
Release Date: 2010-06-12 00:00:00
Release Location: Casey Key
Last Location: 2010-11-24 00:42:39

Adoptive Parents:
Kenneh C. Nealy Jr.
The Flamingos

Background

Loretta (rhymes nicely with Caretta) is a previously untagged turtle, measures 85.5 cm curved carapace length, notch-tip. The taggers wondered why Loretta had a funny whistling sound when she exhaled. On closer inspection Loretta has a divot extending across her shell that appears to be from a previous boat strike that creased her carapace. Since a turtle's lung are directly beneath the carapace, perhaps a boat strike injury also injured her lungs and affected breathing capacity. The injury has since healed and the carapace is solid and the scutes are fine.
We encountered Loretta on a false crawl. While she was inside the wooden box and as the epoxy was drying, Loretta kept active in the box by flipping sand. She was actually digging a nest chamber and started laying eggs inside the box! So obviously not very disturbed by the entire process and the nest location is well above the high tide line so not in danger of tidal inundation.