Turtle Species
The Sea Turtle Ocean
Seven species that cross entire oceans. What divers and beach lovers should know to meet them — and to keep meeting them.
→ See also: Sea Turtle Nesting, the longest night on the beach
Only seven sea turtles in the world
Among hundreds of turtle species, only seven live their lives at sea: the loggerhead, green, hawksbill, olive ridley, Kemp's ridley, flatback, and the leathery-shelled leatherback. Between them, they roam every tropical and temperate ocean.
Five of the seven have been recorded in Japanese waters; the three you are most likely to meet while diving are the loggerhead, the green, and the hawksbill.
Japan's beaches matter
Japan's sandy coasts are globally important: the loggerheads of the North Pacific nest almost exclusively on Japanese beaches — Yakushima, Tokushima, Wakayama, Miyazaki. On early-summer nights, the mothers come ashore.
Green turtles have their largest Japanese rookery in the Ogasawara Islands, and hawksbills live and nest around the coral reefs of the southwest islands. The beach where you swim may be the birthplace of a turtle crossing the Pacific.
Telling them apart underwater
Green turtle: small round head, smooth shell margin, grazing seagrass in the shallows. The one divers meet most.
Loggerhead: big blocky head, reddish-brown overall, with jaws built for crushing shellfish.
Hawksbill: a pointed, bird-like beak and a serrated shell edge, feeding on sponges among coral. This is the turtle behind traditional 'tortoiseshell' craft — its international trade is now banned.
Manners for an encounter
Don't chase, don't touch, don't block its path. Keep those three rules and a sea turtle will often carry on calmly beside you. Above all, never block its way to the surface — sea turtles are reptiles that must come up to breathe.
On nesting beaches at night, lights, flashes, and footsteps can turn a mother back into the sea. The best way to witness nesting is a guided program run by local conservation groups — surest for you, kindest to the turtle.
What's happening out there
Most of the seven species are threatened. Bycatch in fishing gear, ocean plastic (a drifting bag looks like a jellyfish), shrinking beaches, and light pollution — hatchlings instinctively crawl toward brightness, and city lights can lure them away from the sea.
Support nesting-beach conservation, join a beach cleanup, and keep your distance underwater. Divers and beach people are the sea turtle's closest allies.
