This Species Spotlight Sunday star is quite the shell-ebrity, especially on today’s #WorldSeaTurtleDay! Seven different species of sea turtles glide through our seas. Six of them, flatback sea turtles, loggerhead sea turtles, ridleys, hawksbills, and green sea turtles, belong to the family Cheloniidae. The one remaining species, the leatherback sea turtle, makes up the entire Dermochelyidae family. Though they share many characteristics, like the way they move their flippers in a figure 8 motion to swim or their hydrodynamic shells, the two families are distantly related– having diverged from each other around 100-150 million years ago. The main differentiation between the two lies in their shells. Cheloniidae family members have a bony top shell, called a carapace, and scales called epidermal scutes. In contrast, a leatherback turtle’s shell is much less bony and covered with thick leathery skin instead of scales. Leatherback turtles are born with scutes but shed after hatching. Th...