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What do leatherback sea turtles eat?

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Illustrations of ten representative chelonians, including spiny softshell turtle, Galapagos giant tortoise, green turtle, alligator snapping turtle, Blanding's turtle, common map turtle, eastern box turtle, eastern painted turtle, spotted turtle, and eastern mud turtle, each labeled with its common and scientific name. A scale bar at the bottom shows size comparison. — turtle Turtles (order Testudines).

The leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) is a specialized predator that feeds primarily on soft-bodied, gelatinous prey, most notably jellyfish and salps. To capture and hold this slippery prey, they possess sharp-edged jaws, toothlike cusps, and throats lined with backward-pointing spines.12

While jellyfish and salps make up the bulk of their diet, leatherbacks may also consume other marine life, including:

Squid1
Crustaceans13
Fish1
Mollusks3
Seaweed1

These turtles are known to time their movements across the oceans to coincide with seasonal blooms of their preferred gelatinous prey. Because their diet consists largely of jellyfish, leatherbacks are unfortunately susceptible to mistakenly consuming ocean trash, such as plastic bags, which can be fatal.231