Loggerhead Sea Turtle

Photo: MARC MARTIN SOLA · CC BY-NC

Loggerhead turtles use the Ilhéu de Ferro pinnacle as a resting and cleaning station, with individuals repeatedly returning to ledges at 12 to 20 metres depth where cleaner wrasse remove epibionts from their carapace and flippers. Madeira sits within one of the North Atlantic's most important loggerhead corridors — juvenile turtles drift with gyre currents from nesting beaches in the Mediterranean and Cape Verde, and many resident adults in Madeiran waters were likely recruited through this oceanic larval dispersal phase. Their fidelity to specific resting ledges on the pinnacle makes them highly predictable encounter species, and the combination of cleaning behaviour and genuine rest means encounters at close range without disruption are routine for patient divers.