The Pacific leatherback turtle's last population stronghold could disappear within 20 years if conservation efforts aren't expanded, a new study finds. Most of the Pacific Ocean's leatherback turtles, at least 75 percent, lay their eggs at Bird's Head Peninsula in Papua Barat, Indonesia. The number of leatherback turtle nests at...

A species of freshwater turtle found on the Seychelles was thought to be extinct for more than 100 years but now scientists are taking back that ruling. No, they didn't find any sneaky holdouts on the tiny Indian Ocean islands. Rather, a genetic analysis of a specimen at the Natural...

If you protect it, they will use it. Green sea turtles do actually make use of protected areas to nest and feed, according to a study that tracked female turtles that came ashore to lay eggs in Florida's Dry Tortugas National Park. Until now, it wasn't clear where these green...

Things just got much worse for two critically endangered tortoise species in Madagascar. Illegal poaching is raging out of control and pushing radiated and ploughshare tortoises to the brink of extinction, according to a statement from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). More than 1,000 of the animals have been confiscated...

Besides being beautiful, Costa Rica's beaches are the nesting sites of four endangered sea turtle species, which return each year to lay their eggs. But there is trouble in paradise for these reptiles, namely, from egg thieves. Since 1996, it's been illegal to remove turtle eggs from beaches in Costa...

The endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle has been found feeding in the Gulf of Mexico, in waters threatened by oil spills, heavy commercial fishing and oxygen depletion. The Kemp's ridley turtle is the most endangered and smallest hard-shelled sea turtle in the world. A new study released jointly by the...

Turtle shells, which turn out to be complex structures made up of 50 bones, evolved long before dinosaurs roamed the earth, according to new research. Turtles and their shells now predate the Jurassic period, according to a study in the latest issue of Current Biology. It’s a body design that...

Light pollution along the Mediterranean is changing the nesting habits of sea turtles in Israel, according to new research. Orbital pictures of the region, coupled with sea turtle nesting data from Israel's National Parks Authority, revealed that the species of turtles in that area cluster their nests in darker spots....

Baby turtles inside their eggs squirm around to chill out or to turn up the heat, new research finds, a skill that could potentially enable them to choose their own sex. The study is the first evidence that embryonic turtles deliberately regulate their temperature. Such a talent is key for...

Eight people were arrested in Puerto Rico on charges of selling endangered sea turtles for human consumption, federal authorities said. The suspects were allegedly involved in selling the meat of 15 hawksbill turtles and seven green turtles, an undercover operation revealed. The eight individuals, all residents of Patillas and Arroyo,...

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. During the Mesozoic Era, between 252m and 66m years ago, the seas were ruled by a vast and intriguing array of reptiles. The most common ones were crocodiles (adapted to...

When ocean-dwelling leatherback turtles encounter fishing lines or nets, the results can be deadly for the large marine animals. To help protect these turtles, researchers have identified hotspots where some of these deadly encounters are likely occur in the Pacific Ocean. Leatherback turtles, which weigh up to 2,000 lbs. (900...

Mass Hatching (Image credit: C. Ferrara/Wildlife Conservation Society)A mass hatching of Giant South American river turtles occurs each year during the dry season in Brazil's Abufari Biological Reserve. The event produces hundreds of thousands of turtle hatchlings. Thousands of Turtles (Image credit: C. Ferrara/Wildlife Conservation Society)Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation...

More than 200,000 baby turtles recently crawled out of their shells and swarmed sandy riverbanks in the interior of Brazil. The mass hatching is an annual event for Great South American river turtles. Every time the dry season rolls around in the the Purus River basin in western Brazil, thousands...

Scattered dots of red and yellow decorate what appears to be an icy, blue terrain in this award-winning microscope photo, which is actually an image of a painted turtle's retina magnified 400 times. Dr. Joseph Corbo, a researcher at Washington University School of Medicine who studies how retinal photoreceptors interact...