Florida is the most popular nesting area for these turtles, with more than 67,000 nests each year. Greece is the most popular Mediterranean nesting area, with more than 3,000 nests per year, although the coastlines of Cyprus and Turkey are also popular.

Loggerheads spend most of their lives in the ocean and coastal waters, only coming ashore briefly to lay eggs. The turtles spend 85% of their day submerged. Dives usually last 15–30 min, but they can stay underwater for up to four hours. They feed on bottom-dwelling invertebrates, also sponges, urchins, starfish, jellyfish and other hatchling turtles, including their own.

Eggs are laid above the high-water line and the sex of the turtles is dictated by the temperature of the nest. Eggs kept at 32°C produce females, those at 28°C become males.

Incubation lasts 80 days. Hatchlings dig to the surface at night and head toward the brighter horizon created by the moon’s reflection off the water. Then they swim for approximately 20 hours. Fascinatingly, an iron compound in their brains allows the turtles to use the earth’s magnetic field for navigation.

When the sea cools, loggerheads migrate to warmer water, or partially hibernate by submerging for up to seven hours at a time, only emerging for a few minutes to breathe.

First reproducing after the age of 17, their lifespan is up to 70 years. In the Northern Hemisphere, loggerheads mate from March to June and lay between May and August.

The turtles display multiple paternity due to sperm storage. A single clutch may have as many as seven fathers, each contributing sperm to a portion of the clutch.

The females return to nest fortnightly, producing three or four nests on the beach where they themselves hatched. They climb the beach, scrape the sand away to form a pit and lay a clutch of 112 eggs. After covering the nest, they return to the sea.

Sadly, the primary threat to turtles is humans – they drown after becoming entangled in longlines or fishing nets. Pollution also kills many thousands each year. Nearly 24,000 metric tons of plastics are dumped into the ocean annually; turtles can ingest this debris and loggerheads mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, a common food for them. The plastic causes suffocation or starvation, and those ingested can poison the turtles. The melting of the ice caps have an effect, too; the fresh water alters vital currents in our oceans, disrupting the natural journey of whales and many other sea creatures, including turtles.

Dolphins of the Mediterranean

Bottlenose dolphins are said to be the third most intelligent mammals on Earth, sharing close ratios with those of humans and other great apes.

The dolphin’s shape allows it to swim very quickly, reaching up to 65 km per hour. This particularly playful dolphin is the one most likely to be encountered near the shore of Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. Here, an endangered population remains.