Distribution
They are found in south & south-east shore of Sri Lanka including Kosgoda & Rakawa. But they are also seen very rarely in Sri Lanka. This turtle is found in nearly all the world's temperate and tropical oceans: the Atlantic Ocean from Newfoundland to Argentina, the Indian Ocean from southern Africa to the Arabian Gulf to Western Australia, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Pacific Ocean from Alaska to Chile and Australia to Japan. During winter months loggerhead sea turtles migrate to tropical and subtropical waters

Characteristics
This is a sea turtle & the only member of the genus Caretta. They are the largest hard-shelled sea turtles alive today. They are named loggerhead due to bearing huge heads and powerful jaws. They have an elongated tapering heart-shaped carapace, which is often covered with commensally such as barnacles and algae. There are 5 pairs of pleural scutes, the 1st pair touching the cervical scute. The 1st costal has a nuchal. 3 or 4 infralabial scutes lack pores & there are 13 marginal scutes. These turtles have no bones on the tip of their front legs.

They are able to hibernate as the water cools. This is useful for them because they are known to migrate. Most of them that reach adulthood live for longer than 30 years, and can often live past 198.7 years. Loggerheads are capable of diving for up to 20 minutes and can rest for hours without breathing.

Males
Males have wider carapaces and a long curved claw on each forelimb. The skin of males is more brown and the head more yellow than those of females. Males produce increasing levels of testosterone as they approach maturity, which triggers tail growth, plastron softening, and the growth and curvature of a nail on each forelimb. As a general rule, males are more active swimmers than females. They obtain reproductive maturity in the age of 12-35 years.

Length
An adult grows to measure 3.5 feet (1.1 m). 213 cm (high); avg. 92.50 cm
(83.86 in; avg. 36.42 in)

Weight
These turtles grow up to 800 lbs (364 kg). 77 to 545 kg; avg. 135 kg
(169.4 to 1199 lbs; avg. 297 lbs)

Color
The carapace is a reddish-brown hue with olive tones & the skin is dull to reddish brown dorsally and medium to pale yellow around the edges and ventrally. The skin may some times have some orange coloration. The plastron is yellowish orange to yellowish brown, and has two longitudinal ridges that disappear with age.

Habitat
Preferred habitat of these individuals changes throughout the life cycle. But generally they inhabits in warm, subtropical seas, bays, lagoons &estuaries. They can swim to a depth of 61 m (high), (200.08 ft).
Adult females go ashore to lay eggs and seem to prefer steeply sloped, high energy beaches. When hatchlings emerge from the nest, they head for the ocean. Young juveniles are typically found among drifting Sargasso mats in warm ocean currents. Older juveniles and adults are most often found in coastal waters and tend to prefer a rocky or muddy substrate.

Breeding
Females produce estrogen and small amounts of testosterone, but externally just grow larger. Age at maturity is variable. Mature size is attained between age 10 and 30; captives are predicted to mature in 16 to 17 years. Reproductive life span, after reaching maturity is estimated at about 32 years. These sea turtles breed, on average, every 12 to 17 days during the breeding season. Females will not breed again for another 2 to 4, but possibly up to 9 years. Breeding may occur year-round, but it peaks between May and July.

Just before the nesting season, male loggerhead sea turtles migrate to mating grounds, mostly located offshore from nesting beaches. They wait for females to begin courtship and mating. A male will circle a female, then approach her and bite her neck or shoulder. He will then attempt to mount her and, if she accepts him, they will mate. If a female does not accept the male she covers her cloaca and swims to the bottom, but a persistent male may wait until she needs air and make another attempt. Males use the long, curved claws on their forelimbs to hold on because mating may last for hours and other males often ram and bite the mating male, attempting to dislodge him. If a male is dislodged, another may quickly replace him.

During the nesting season a female may lay several clutches, and will re-mate each time. In some cases, she may mate several times between clutches and so a single clutch may have sperm contributed by several males. Unlike most of other sea turtles, these turtles courtship and mating usually do not take place near the nesting beach, but rather along the migration routes between feeding and breeding grounds.

The average interval between nesting seasons is two to three years. The gestation period of a female is 46 to 80 days. Females return to lay their eggs on or near the same beach where they hatched. The umber of offspring produced are 23 to 198; avg. 120. The size of an egg is 34.7-55.2mm. The speed of embryonic development within the egg depends on the temperature within the nest. This temperature can be affected by sun, shade, rain, heat generated within the nest, and an egg's position in the nest. At cool temperatures, around 25 ºC, development to hatching can take 65 to 70 days, but at warmer temperatures, around 35 ºC, development usually takes around 45 days.

Like many turtles, they have temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD). The sex of hatchlings is determined by egg temperature during the middle third of incubation. The pivotal temperature - the temperature at which a 50:50 ratio of males: females is produced - varies from location to location around the world. Generally, the pivotal temperature is between 28 and 30 ºC. Temperatures of 24 to 26 ºC tend to produce all males and temperatures of 32 to 34 ºC tend to produce all females. Eggs are not viable outside the extremes of these ranges.

The hatchlings emerge usually at night when protection from predation is greater. Typically those that lacked the strength to hatch and climb to the surface by that point would have died otherwise. They follow the brightest light to the ocean's edge. Once in the ocean they use ocean currents to travel to the Sargasso Sea using the Sargassum as protection until they mature. Hatchlings require the travel from their nest to the ocean in order to build up strength for the journey ahead.

Diet
They are known as Omnivore & dietary generalists. They feeds on mollusks, marine worms, crustaceans, fish, echinoderms; cnidarians; other marine invertebrates. They crush the crustacean shells with their large and powerful jaws. They are immune to the toxins of a jelly fish as the turtles have often been seen feeding on them. They also feed on leaves, algae & macro algae.

Identification
Loggerheads are often confused with the Olive Ridley Sea turtle.  They differ from other sea turtles in having relatively large heads and reddish coloration. Additionally, Ridley's sea turtles have four inframarginal scutes on the bridge. Green sea turtles and hawksbill sea turtles have only four pairs of pleural scutes on the carapace; the first pleurals do not touch the cervical scute.
These turtles can withdraw them selves in to the shell to escape a predator but no other sea turtle can do so.

Human impact & dangers
The main threat to the adult loggerheads lies in shrimp trawls and crab fishing nets, to which many of them annually become victims of it. Furthermore, adults are often injured by speedboat propellers & by swallowing fishing hooks. They are intensively hunted for their meat. Also the eggs are eaten by the humans. The fat is used in cosmetics and medication. They are also killed for their shells. Other important causes of decline of their population include beachfront development, human disturbance of nesting females, pesticides, oil spills & other ocean pollutants.

The eggs are also in danger from other predators such as crows, ants, rats, cats, crabs or even dogs.

Conservation
Loggerhead is internationally protected & is put in to the Endangered according to IUCN red list.

Myths & believes
As a marine species, loggerhead sea turtles have some special adaptations. They have salt glands near their eyes, which allow them to drink sea water and excrete salt in high concentrations. Many people have seen nesting females supposedly "crying" for their young, but they are simply excreting excess salt.

Ecological status
They are known as a "keystone species" because of its ecological impact. So the presence of these turtles is a need of the marine community or it falls apart due to them handling & determining the structure of the community single handed. It feeds on large numbers of invertebrates, affecting their populations and allowing their broken shells to be used as a calcium source for other species. Also, a substantial portion of the eggs laid become food for predators. Further more 100 species from 13 phyla may live on the carapace of loggerheads, making it somewhat of a mobile reef.