Azores Sea turtles updated checklist

Sea turtles are the best-known and more widespread marine reptiles. However, information on their distribution and the occurrence of most species, except for nesting beaches, remains scarce and sporadic, depending on sightings from fishing vessels, tourist activities and occurrences in coastal areas as well as fishing bycatch.
Since the last updated species’ list for the Azores (Santos et al, 2010), no new species’ record was known for Azorean waters, until October 2020, with the confirmed sighting of an Olive Ridley, Lepidochelys olivacea (Eschscholtz, 1829) (Barcelos et al. 2021). After that, in February 2021, a second individual was found stranded on Pico Island, already in an advanced state of decomposition. This increased the number of species present in Azores EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) to six out of the seven extant worldwide. The remaining one, Natator depressus (Garman, 1880), is native to the Indo-pacific (see Red List Standards & Petitions Subcommittee, 1996).

海龟是广为人知且分布范围最广的海洋爬行动物。然而，关于它们的分布以及大多数物种的出没情况，除了繁殖海滩，信息仍然匮乏且零散，这些信息主要依赖于来自渔船、旅游活动以及沿海地区出现的观测记录，以及渔业捕捞中的误捕情况。自亚速尔群岛（Santos et al., 2010）上一次更新的物种列表以来，关于亚速尔海域的物种记录并无新增，直至2020年10月，首次确认发现了绿海龟（Lepidochelys olivacea，Eschscholtz，1829）的存在（Barcelos et al., 2021）。此后，2021年2月，在皮科岛再次发现一只已经处于高度分解状态的个体。这一发现使得亚速尔群岛专属经济区（EEZ）内现存的物种数量增至全球现存七种中的六种。剩余的一种，Natator depressus（Garman，1880），原产于印度-太平洋地区（参见《红色名录标准与请愿委员会》，1996年）。