Adult Leatherback Sea Turtle (IMAGE)

Drexel University

Adult Leatherback Sea Turtle

Caption

Leatherbacks are the largest species of sea turtles and are critically endangered. Heat-related deaths of turtle eggs and hatchlings in nests before they emerge and enter life at sea was identified as the leading projected cause of climate-related decline in leatherback turtles in the eastern Pacific in a new study. The study suggests that climate change could exacerbate existing threats that have already made leatherbacks critically endangered, and nearly wipe out the eastern Pacific population in the 21st century. The study, by a research team from Drexel University, Princeton University, other institutions and agencies, is published online in Nature Climate Change on July 1, 2012.

Credit

US Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast, via Flickr (<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwssoutheast/5839996547/in/photostream/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwssoutheast/5839996547/in/photostream/</a>)

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Credit to US Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast. Used under a Creative Commons License (<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en" target="_blank">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en</a>): <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwssoutheast/5839996547/in/photostream/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwssoutheast/5839996547/in/photostream/</a>

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