HERPETOLOGICAL JOURNAL, Vol. 14, pp. 143-147 (2004) Correspondence: B. Lazar, Department of Zoology, Croatian Natural History Museum, Demetrova 1, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia. E-mail: Bojan.Lazar@hpm.hr THE PRESENCE OF THE GREEN SEA TURTLE, CHELONIA MYDAS, IN THE ADRIATIC SEA BOJAN LAZAR 1,2 , PAOLO CASALE 3 , NIKOLA TVRTKOVIC 1 , VALTER KOZUL 4 , PERO TUTMAN 4 , AND NIKŠA GLAVIC 4 1 Department of Zoology, Croatian Natural History Museum, Demetrova 1, HR-10000 Zagreb, Croatia 2 Blue World Institute of Marine Research and Conservation, Kastel 24, HR-51551 Veli Lošinj, Croatia 3 Via Antonio Calderara 29, IT-00125 Roma, Italy 4 Laboratory of Ecology and Aquaculture, Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, Damjana Jude 12, HR-20000 Dubrovnik, Croatia We collated and reviewed data on the green turtle in the Adriatic Sea from our own records, museum collections, and published literature. Results show overlap of records and cases of misidentification of large loggerheads as green turtles. Currently there have been twelve green turtles recorded in the Adriatic Sea. The majority of records refer to juveniles with a carapace length of 28-40 cm, recovered in the southern Adriatic. It is possible that this region contains pelagic habitats for the green turtle. It is therefore important to educate fishermen along the southern Adriatic coasts to identify and report recoveries of this endangered species. Key words: by-catch, chelonian, marine habitats, Mediterranean INTRODUCTION The green turtle Chelonia mydas (Linnaeus 1758) is one of two species of sea turtle that reproduce in the Mediterranean basin (Broderick et al., 2002). The re- gional population has been shown to be genetically distinct from that of the wider Atlantic (Bowen et al., 1992; Encalada et al., 1996), and not sustained by im- migration of individuals from rookeries outside the Mediterranean. Over the past century this species has suffered heavy exploitation (Sella, 1995), which has led to a severe reduction of the population. At present, the Mediterranean green turtle population has been catego- rized as Critically Endangered (Hilton-Taylor, 2000), making it the most endangered green turtle population in the world (Seminoff, 2002). The rookeries in Turkey and Cyprus contain approxi- mately 99% of the Mediterranean nesting population (Kasparek et al., 2001). In total, between 339 and 360 green turtle females nest annually on Mediterranean beaches (Broderick et al., 2002). Although the major nesting areas of the green turtle in the region are well known (Kasparek et al., 2001), there is a paucity of data on the biology and distribution of this species in marine habitats. Post-nesting satellite tracking of six adult fe- males has shown that the waters of Cyprus, Israel, Egypt and Libya host migratory pathways and wintering areas for adults (Godley et al., 2002). Juvenile green turtles have been recorded in the eastern and western Mediter- ranean (Margaritoulis et al., 1992; Laurent et al., 1997; Godley et al. 1998a,b; Gianguzza et al., 2000; Meschini, 1997; Oruc, 2001), and the Black Sea (Nankinov, 1998). Margaritoulis & Teneketzis (2001) discovered a developmental habitat for green turtles at Lakonikos Bay in the Peloponnesus, Greece. However, “at sea” recoveries of individual juveniles have yielded little solid information about the life history of green turtles away from their reproductive habitats. The green turtle is considered to be rare in the Adri- atic Sea (Stossich, 1880; Pozzi, 1966; Riedl, 1983; Bruno, 1978; Lazar & Tvrtkovic, 1995). The first two specimens were recovered in the western Adriatic wa- ters, near Ancona and near Venice in Italy in 1830 and 1864 respectively (Nardo, 1864; De Betta, 1870). The first records for eastern Adriatic also date from the 19 th century (Damin, 1889; Depoli, 1898). Green turtles were listed in the Catalogue of Amphibians and Rep- tiles of the Croatian Natural History Museum (Pavletic, 1964), and included in the indexes of the fauna of the Adriatic countries (Karaman, 1939; Pozzi, 1966; Brelih & Dzukic, 1974; Bruno & Maugeri, 1979). However, most data have been published in local journals or re- main unpublished, making them unavailable to the wider scientific community. This paper will review such records and present new data on green turtles in the Adriatic Sea. MATERIALS AND METHODS The data presented are based upon inspection of (1) museum collections, (2) literature, and (3) our personal records. We examined collections from the Croatian Natural History Museum in Zagreb, the Natural History Museum in Rijeka, the Natural History Museum in Split, the Natural History Museum in Dubrovnik, the Natural History Department of the City Museum in Zadar, the Slovenian Museum of Natural History in Ljubljana, and the Natural History Museum in Vienna. External morphological identification was carried out according to Pritchard & Mortimer (1999), whilst