Loggerhead

Caretta caretta

Loggerhead: originally an insult applied to people, later a kind of cannon shot, the post on a whaleboat anchoring the harpoon line, a bulbous-headed iron tool used to heat tar

& the largest sea turtle in the world. Its jaws can crunch through the thickest armor: queen conch, giant clam. Like all sea turtles, it can’t retreat into its shell,

but once grown too big for a grouper’s gullet, aside from fishing nets & oil spills, it’s nearly indestructable. When sharks attack, it shows them the flat side

of its plastron or carapace & their teeth snap on nothing. It’s built for combat: even the females spar over feeding grounds, & during coitus,

which can go on for hours, other males will batter & bite, sometimes dislodging their rival and taking his place, or slicing his forelegs to the bone.

Lexicographers insist that this is not the origin of the expression at loggerheads, though they propose no other. Mating takes place in spring & early summer,

from Greece to the Gulf of Mexico. Males remain offshore while the females venture in to lay eggs high on the beach, where most clutches will be found

by raccoons or gulls, dogs or storms. The hatchlings, too, run a gauntlet when they cross the night beach, guided by the glint of lights on the water that are not the moon or stars.

Then they swim straight out, find the floating mats called sargasso, circle the ocean. They may swim for 8000 miles, navigating by magnetic fields.

Biologists refer to this period in a loggerhead’s life, before it returns to coastal waters three to seven years later, as the lost years. Its heart- shaped carapace

acquires a miniature reef, including algae & barnacles — up to 100 species from 13 phyla. The ancients weren’t so crazy when they imagined the world riding

on its back. It can sleep underwater for hours without breathing, its heart almost stopped. It drinks seawater & excretes the salt from special glands

next to its eyes. Biologists caution us not to anthropomorphise, this is not what it seems, this copious weeping has nothing to do with grief.