Comparative study of the epibionts on the pelagic and mature female loggerhead turtles on the Canary and Cape Verde islands

[EN] Marine turtles commonly carry diverse forms of epizoa on their shells. The occurrence of a particular species may ultimately help to clarify certain questions about sea turtle natural life history. This paper gives a detailed and comparative list of epizoic species found on two populations of macaronesian loggerheads: pelagic and juveniles living around the Canary Islands and mature females nesting in Boavista Island, Cabo Verde. For the epizoic flora, the most important genera founded is Polysiphonia (Rhodophiceae); P. carettia for the pelagics and Polysiphonia sp. for the nesting animals.

The size of the loggerhead nesting females in the Cape Verde islands

[EN] The recently discovered nesting colony of Caretta caretta at the island ofBoavista (Cape Verde Islands, West Africa, FIGURE 1) is being subject ofresearch since 1998. A total number of 1,391 different females have been tagged during the 1998, 1999 and 2000 nesting seasons. Although more data are needed, these islands may represent one ofthe most important populations for the species in the North Atlantic (Brongersma, 1982; Ross, 1995; López-Jurado & Andreu, 1998). The present study shows a comparative analysis between the morphometric data collected at Boavista during the last 2000 nesting season and those recorded in the 1998 and 1999 seasons. These data have also been contrasted with those from other loggerhead nesting populations around the world for possible differences.