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Though most people have never heard of it the leatherback sea turtle probably is the most amazing animal on earth. Today there are only six remaining species of marine turtle, and long, long ago its forebears walked the earth on four legs. About 110,000,000 ago, its legs and feet evolved into flippers sometimes reaching nine feet in length and it began to populate the Seven Seas, before there were Seven Seas.

Way back then, the world was a very different place. The Tibetan and Indian Himalayas would not be formed for another 65 million years. Australia was still virtually connected to Antarctica when the earliest leatherbacks moved into the sea. Tens of millions of generations of turtles lived and died before those two continents assumed the positions they occupy today. Antarctica was close to Africa and its weather was still temperate. The southern Atlantic Ocean was still forming as over countless eons South America moved away from what is today west Antarctica.

These animals lived during the Age of Dinosaurs. Actually, they were here millions of years before the first dinosaur evolved. They were swimming the oceans 400,000 centuries before the mighty T Rex made its debut. Yes, you read it correctly, 400,000 centuries. This incredible species of animal outlived the dinosaurs and even survived the greatest mass extinction the world has ever experienced.

The other animal that once lived on land and moved to the water. It is the whale. But, porpoises and whales are Johnny-come-lately. Sea turtles had made the transition from land to sea for fifty million years before these mighty mammals left land for the oceans.

Of the six sea turtle species remaining, these are by far the Mothers of All Turtles. They sometimes weigh nearly two thousand pounds. A few years ago one caught in Wales tipped the scales at 1,980 pounds. And, despite its impressive size, this great creature lived through the terrible and extraordinary mass extinction that killed all of the mighty dinosaurs. One of the oldest and most resilient animals on the face of the globe, it is clearly qualified for the “most amazing animal” award but there is more to this animal—much more.

Consider this: the world marveled, and properly so, at Michael Phelps’s 200 meter freestyle world swimming record. But, in the time it took him to go that distance, a huge leatherback, weighing about as much as the entire offensive line of a professional football team, would swim a thousand meters. In fact, this sea turtle is listed in the 1992 Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest reptile on earth!

This master of speed is also a marathon swimmer of epic proportions and may migrate farther than any other animal. One of these turtles was tracked by scientists migrating 13,000 miles.

Are you still unconvinced that, despite the accomplishments described above, it is the most amazing animal? The best part is still to come. This extraordinary creature regularly does something the entire human race, over the course of all of history, has been unable to do, even using the most modern technology. It can dive from the surface of the ocean down 4,000 feet where pressure is about 2,000 pounds per inch. How much pressure is that? Well, imagine that you are the captain of today’s strongest, best built, most modern, sophisticated, nuclear attack submarine and you dove right alongside the leatherback. At about 2,400 feet, you would have to stop because even with the strongest man-made materials ever developed you’d be crushed like a tin can if you went deeper. And the turtle? It would be munching on jellyfish 1,600 feet below.

There is also this incredible fact. Except where Man has destroyed them, leatherbacks swim all tropical and subtropical waters on earth. But, and this is the really amazing thing, they have been seen as far north as waters off Alaska, Canada, and Norway and below New Zealand where water temperatures can be only a few degrees above freezing. Yet, even though they are cold blooded, they stay nearly tropically warm because they can maintain a body temperature as much as 32 degrees higher than the surrounding water.

Sadly, in only about twenty five years, one arrogant species has brought this magnificent animal to the brink of extinction. It has become so rare that it is so endangered that it may soon become extinct. By 2005, the Mexican population of leatherbacks had been reduced to just one percent of what it had been just 25 years earlier, a conservation catastrophe by any measure. On beaches in Malaysia that once had 10,000 leatherback nests a year, there were only two nestings in 2008. Somewhere, the Angels weep at human stupidity, rapaciousness, and over exploitation and destruction.

Today, there are hundreds of conservation organizations, and more than 100 countries, that are fighting to stem the decline of this magnificent race but it remains to be seen if this most ancient of all creatures can survive my generation.

Tiny Costa Rica is trying to do its part in preserving this most ancient of animals and has set aside reserves on both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts. Tortuguero is the world’s largest green sea turtle preserve and Ostional Refuge has the planet’s largest arribadas—mass nestings of hundreds of thousands of olive ridley turtles. Costa Rica ecotourism is playing an important role in conserving sea turtles. And, if you take a Costa Rica vacation, be sure to look for the rare but awesome leatherback.