A HUGE leather back turtle has washed up onto a beach in west Cornwall after apparently being "hit by a boat".

The turtle was found by members of the public on the sand between Longrock and Marazion over the weekend.

Strandings officers for the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, Constance Morris and Beverley Brown, were called out on Sunday morning to record the finding.

Writing on Facebook, Ms Morris said: "We got called out to record a poor leather back turtle that has been hit by a boat and killed. So few of these creatures come to our waters. Such a shame."

She added that she "never thought" she would get to see such a creature in person and wished it was under better circumstances.

The turtle measured just short of two metres from the tip of the tail to the tip of its beak.

Marine Discovery Penzance has also been speaking on social media about the finding, saying: "This magnificent leatherback turtle, measuring 1.8 metres, is lying on a local beach, and it's a very sad sight."

Professor Brendan Godley from the University of Exeter is due to be heading to the beach today to inspect the creature and perhaps determine a cause of death.

The marine organisation believed it was still unclear at this time exactly how it died, adding: "It does have seven very obvious propeller cuts on it, but they might have occurred after death. Maybe it's full of plastic debris, or maybe it died of natural causes."

It also gave more details about the life span of the leather back turtle, of which only one per cent survive past their first birthday. Many are eaten by crabs or gulls, others are killed by ingesting plastic.

The turtles eat jellyfish, helping to control the numbers in the oceans, and head out to deeper water once they are around a metre long.

They can survive in water as low as ten degrees Celsius.

The turtle found near Marazion would have swum around 3,700 miles from its birthplace in the tropics to reach the British coast.