Leatherback Turtle

The leatherback sea turtle, sometimes called the lute turtle, leathery turtle or luth, is the largest of all living turtles and the heaviest non-crocodilian reptile, reaching lengths of up to 2.7 m and weights of 500 kg. It is the only living species in the genus Dermochelys and the family Dermochelyidae, and it occurs in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans (Wikipedia, general species account). Dermochelys coriacea is the only species in genus Dermochelys. (Wikipedia, general species account).

Domenico Agostino Vandelli named the species first in 1761 as Testudo coriacea after an animal captured at Ostia and donated to the University of Padua by Pope Clement XIII. In 1816, French zoologist Henri Blainville coined the term Dermochelys. The leatherback was then reclassified as Dermochelys coriacea. In 1843, the zoologist Leopold Fitzinger put the genus in its own family, Dermochelyidae. In 1884, the American naturalist Samuel Garman described the species as Sphargis coriacea schlegelii. (Wikipedia, general species account).