Antique Taxidermy Specimen of an Eastern Pacific Young Hawksbill Sea Turtle
An Antique Taxidermy Specimen of an Eastern Pacific Young Hawksbill Sea Turtle 'Eretmochelys Imbricata'.
An old label to the shell 'turtle'
Old smooth dark patina
19th Century
Size: 38cm long, 23.5cm wide, 9cm high – 15 ins long, 9¼ ins wide, 3½ ins high
C.I.T.E.S documentation available
An old label to the shell 'turtle'
Old smooth dark patina
19th Century
Size: 38cm long, 23.5cm wide, 9cm high – 15 ins long, 9¼ ins wide, 3½ ins high
C.I.T.E.S documentation available
The Eastern Pacific Hawksbill turtle is a tropical reef species, which eats mainly sponges. Their narrow snout and head and elongated neck help to extract food from rocky crevices, and the heavily cornified shell protects it from excessive buffeting against the rocks and coral heads. Their beach preferences for nesting are tiny sandy coves flanked by rocky outcrops located on remote oceanic islands, offshore cays and sometimes on the shores of mangrove bordered shallow inlets. The scutes of the strongly overlapping carapace are thicker than in any other turtle and cover a bony structure that is relatively light. The beautiful scutes of the Hawksbill turtle have long been prized and used by man, but in living Hawksbills the carapace is often encrusted with barnacles obscuring their beauty. All species of Hawksbill are now endangered and many countries have been urged and encouraged to protect them and their habitat.
Antique Taxidermy Specimen of an Eastern Pacific Young Hawksbill Sea Turtle
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