the Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) Listed under CITES Appendix 1 The leatherback is the largest species, reaching a shell

length of about six feet and a weight of 1000 pounds or more. The shell is unique: instead of being covered with large, horny plates or "scutes," it has an undivided, smooth, black or white-spotted surface and is raised into seven strong ridges that run almost the entire length. The skin covering the shell is paper-thin, but just below the surface is a layer composed of thousands of small bones that form a mosaic, and below this is a layer of tough, oily cartilage about two inches think. The ridges probably help the otherwise flexible shell keep its shape, and also may function in streamlining. The leatherback is a great diver, descending rapidly to a thousand feet or more (although Guyanese waters are not this deep!), and moves enormous distances across or around the North Atlantic between nesting season. Traditional tagging in Surinam has shown that the turtles may reach New England or even eastern Canada within a few months, and one tagged leatherback swam to Ghana in West Africa! Satellite tracking in French Guiana has shown the routes (mainly towards the northwest) that turtles follow after their nesting season ends. Leatherbacks can maintain activity even in very cold water, and the usual diet is jellyfish, which they seize with their sharp-edged jaws. In Guyana, the leatherback is traditionally called "matamata," and nesting occurs on beaches of the North-West, from Waini Point to Tiger Island. Many were slaughtered on the beaches before the protection patrols started around 1988, but the numbers currently are relatively strong, and the 2000 season was the best year on record, by far. the Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas) Listed under CITES Appendix 1 The green turtle, known traditionally in Guyana as "bettia," is the largest of the so-called hard-shelled species, reaching a shell length of about four feet and a weight of about 600 pounds. The species is easily identified by its relatively small head with a short, rounded snout, and by its smooth shell with four large scutes along each side. In color, the green turtle is very variable (it is rarely actually green, a name that relates to the color of the fat inside!). Hatchlings are almost black above and pure white below, but they soon become streaked with brown, and old adults sometimes have a spotted pattern, or become uniformly grayish. The green turtles nesting in Guyana are among the biggest in the world, and may be twice the weight of the Caribbean green turtles that nest in Costa Rica. As an adult this species is a grazer, some populations concentrating upon sea grasses of various species, while others eat seaweeds, technically known as macroalgae. Because the food plants most typically grow in calm waters, while the best nesting beaches have strong wave action and may be a long way off, the turtles are obliged to migrate many hundreds of miles between good feeding grounds and good (and safe!) nesting

grounds. Nesting occurs in Northwestern Guyana and in eastern Surinam, and the best regional feeding grounds are in eastern Brazil. The Surinam population, which has not been exploited for meat for a great many years, remains strong, but in Guyana many years of slaughter have brought the nesting population down to a very low level.

the Green Turtle (Chelonia mydas) Listed under CITES Appendix 1 The green turtle, known traditionally in Guyana as "bettia," is the largest of the so-called hard-shelled species, reaching a shell length of about four feet and a weight of about 600 pounds. The species is easily identified by its relatively small head with a short, rounded snout, and by its smooth shell with four large scutes along each side. In color, the green turtle is very variable (it is rarely actually green, a name that relates to the color of the fat inside!). Hatchlings are almost black above and pure white below, but they soon become streaked with brown, and old adults sometimes have a spotted pattern, or become uniformly grayish. The green turtles nesting in Guyana are among the biggest in the world, and may be twice the weight of the Caribbean green turtles that nest in Costa Rica. As an adult this species is a grazer, some populations concentrating upon sea grasses of various species, while others eat seaweeds, technically known as macroalgae. Because the food plants most typically grow in calm waters, while the best nesting beaches have strong wave action and may be a long way off, the turtles are obliged to migrate many hundreds of miles between good feeding grounds and good (and safe!) nesting grounds. Nesting occurs in Northwestern Guyana and in eastern Surinam, and the best regional feeding grounds are in eastern Brazil. The Surinam population, which has not been exploited for meat for a great many years, remains strong, but in Guyana many years of slaughter have brought the nesting population down to a very low level.
the Hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) Listed under CITES Appendix 1 The hawksbill, sometimes known by the Spanish name "carey," is smaller than the green turtle, reaching a shell length of about three feet and a weight of about 160 pounds. Instead of a short, rounded snout, it has a narrow head with a pointed, protruding beak. Why this turtle is called "hawksbill" is unclear, since a hawk has a downcurved bill while the turtle has a straight one, but the beak is certainly bird-like. The hawksbill is

widely distributed in the tropics, often living on coral reefs where it primarily eats sponges, and populations have been reduced in many areas for the thick, decorative shell plates, known as "genuine tortoiseshell," which (before the international ban) fetched a high price on international jewelry markets. It is somewhat of a mystery why the hawksbill nests on the muddy shores of Guyana, and indeed there are only small numbers in the country, with almost none in Surinam and French Guiana. But the ones that do nest in Guyana are among the biggest in the world, and every nesting recorded is somewhat of a "special event."

the Olive-Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) Listed under CITES Appendix 1 The olive ridley is the smallest of the sea turtles, adult females being about 26 inches long and weighing 80-100 pounds. The shell is short and almost circular, the overall color is yellowish-olive (although hatchlings and juveniles are grey), the head is triangular and bluntly pointed when seen from above, and there are at least five large plates along each side of the shell, sometimes as many as nine. This is a tropical species, huge numbers participating in mass-nesting events (called "arribadas") on a few, widelyflung beaches in Mexico, Costa Rica, and India. It was unknown in the western Atlantic until Peter Pritchard discovered them nesting in Northwestern Guyana in 1964, and around the same time Joop Schulz discovered nesting in eastern Surinam, where small "arribadas" of up to 500 turtles occurred. Today the West Atlantic populations are seemingly collapsing, and seasons go by without a single nest being recorded in Guyana, and just a few in Surinam, although in eastern French Guiana, near Cayenne, the nesting numbers are growing. The populations may thus have either shifted or collapsed - or probably both. They are forced to shift when mud flats build up in front of the beaches, as happened at Eilanti Beach in eastern Surinam; and the populations have been hard pressed by drowning of large numbers in shrimp trawls. Tagging by Pritchard in Surinam has demonstrated that many individuals migrate to Venezuelan and Trinidad waters after nesting two or three times in Surinam, and the captured turtles reported by trawlermen have provided a great deal of information about the at-sea habitats of the population the Loggerhead (Caretta caretta) The loggerhead turtle has never been found nesting in Guyana, but young specimens are occasionally washed up, dead or alive, along the northwest coast. These turtles primarily nest in the eastern United States (especially Florida) although there are also southern nesting colonies in southern Brazil. After hatching in Florida, the young turtles embark upon a largely passive circuit of the North Atlantic Ocean, carried northeast by the Gulf

Stream and passing by the Azores, Canaries, Madeira, etc, where they may reside for a time, feeding and growing. Eventually they are picked up by the Equatorial Current and brought back to the Americas, and this is when they may be caught as they pass the Guianas. Loggerheads are somewhat like ridleys in appearance, but are longer and narrower, with enormous heads, and the shell, head, and limbs are reddish-brown rather than grey or olive. The large scutes along each side of the shell are almost always five in number. The jaws are extremely strong and are adapted for feeding upon very hard-shelled crabs, conchs, and other generally bottomliving marine species.