Natural History: Hawksbill Sea Turtles

Every year, my family and I take a few scuba diving trips to exotic locations. This year, our first one was to Cozumel, Mexico. Although I saw a plethora of amazing and beautiful sea life, the one that stuck out was the Hawksbill Sea Turtle, Eretmochelys imbricata. I was diving in Cozumel and Cancun, every day, for a little less than a week. During this time, our dive group saw about 15 sea turtles. Though I was not really paying attention to the species of turtles at the time, from the videos and pictures our group got, I would estimate around half were definitely Hawksbills. I could not find a good video of it, but at one there was two of them swimming with the group of divers; it was a breathtaking experience. Seeing them in Cozumel is no surprise because they love the warm water and, in the adult and juvenile stage, tend to live in a coral reef environment and repeatedly rest at night in the same location for a long duration of time. If this habitat is not available they can be found in mangrove fringed bays and estuaries (Hawksbill Sea Turtle). The one that is in the video (see link below) was pretty large for his species, they typically range from one to three feet in length and their average weight is 180 pounds. The ones I saw were either just swimming or eating, though on a night dive we did see one tucked in a swim through, resting. During the day, that is pretty much all they do. Their diets consists of sea urchins, sea grasses and in particular, the ones that live on coral reefs enjoy eating sponges. As they get larger and older (they can live from at least 30 to 50 years), they start to only feed on certain types of sponges (Hawksbill Sea Turtle). They live mostly solitary lives, they commonly only meet with other of their species to mate. They become sexually mature around 2-4 years of age and are considered mature at around 20 years old. This type of sea turtle has been on the endangered species list since the 1970, they are often killed for their beautiful shells and in some remote locations, their meat is considered a delicacy. Another threat to their conservation is the rapid loss of their main habitat, coral reefs (Hawksbill Sea Turtle). I think they are really majestic creatures and I look forward to seeing more on future dives.

https://youtu.be/OT9t5Vc0I8A
Bibliography

Hawksbill Sea Turtles- https://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Wildlife-Library/Amphibians-Reptiles-and-Fish/Sea-Turtles/Hawksbill-Turtle.aspx