Cyprus is not a part of Europe. Chelonia mydas has no confirmed recent nestings on European soil.

Liam Russell has been working with sea turtles on Cyprus, so he should be your man. 

Cyprus is part of Europe ;oD
Even part of the Euro-zone and with a strong history contected to the UK, Greece (and Turkey).

But maybe due to its position in the fareast part of the M-sea near to Turkey, more or less considered as part of Eurasia? 

You are mixing up political and (bio)geographical borders. In the latter context (= the one with most relevance in terms of biology), Cyprus is in Asia. The euro zone etc. has nothing to do with that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Europe_Asia_transcontinental.png

Even Lesbos, Rhodos, Samos, Chios, ... are not part of Europe. As they are east of the Mid Aegean Trench, this also makes quite good sense in terms of biogeography.

But maybe you think Tenerife or Aruba are also in Europe... 

Hi Jeroen, thanks for explaining!
The Cyprus-part is clear!

But the question regarding the presence of the green sea turtle on this forum remains...
As they swim in the M-sea and can be observed in Europe, and of course look great on pictures, maybe we can add it to the list?

...and for Cyprus-trip tips, please do tell! 

In my lists, I only deal with species reproducing on European soil. That means Caretta and no other sea turtles. Clearly this is a delimitation which sticks better for less vagrant faunal groups, like herps, than for birds, with sea turtles acting somewhat more like the latter. Surely, Chelonia will occur in European waters. Generally, however, it will take a lifetime to make a European observation of the species. In this respect, I would rather add Dermochelys than Chelonia, the former having known fixed migration routes along the western side of the British Isles.

Two details only, are in contrast to this concept.
* In fact, I know of a rather reliable single nesting record of Chelonia on Crete, which has however never been reported.
* People in Kythira were quite sure it was that species and not Caretta which visits the Kapsali Bay each year. Leonard got some footage of those 2 turtles, but we still need to work on sharing it with someone who can tell.

Look for Liam's contact details in the member pages of this site + see below.

https://sites.google.com/site/dkaneherps/reports/cyprus
http://www.freanonherping.be/pdf/Cyprus/FreanverslagCyprus.pdf

 

I'm very interested to watch this footage. Can't you upload it on youtube? 

Still have to work this out... 

Just read a post on the facebook account of the Katelios-group in Kefalonia, Greece. I visited this turtle-organisation this year when I was herping in Kefalonia.
They do good work for the nesting loggerheads (Caretta caretta) but now they found something very interesting:

They found a few hatchlings with a white plastron...
So here it is: Green turtles nesting and emerging in Greece!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Katelios-Group-Turtle-Conservation/132769083440120

quote from the post:
Here are 2 turtles rescued from the basement of the Ammos Residence near Meg Ammos Beach. The colour scheme seems to be slightly different, with a white plastron, I have not seen this colour scheme before and the tracks were different to the nest as well. Anyone got any comments?? (I wouldn`t have recommended picking them up with bare hands! but at least they got them back to the beach.)
 

That's great!