By Alex Fox Photograph by Shane Gross Hawksbill sea turtles happily flap through the world’s tropical oceans with bellies full of glass-like fragments. Researchers examining the turtles’ digestive tracts would be wise to take care not to slice their hands on shards of the mineral silica that form the skeletons of sea sponges, a mainstay […]
Two main reasons those gas pockets appear in turtles are plastics and boat strikes. When a turtle consumes something it can’t digest—like parts of fishing nets, plastic bottles, or even rubber gloves (yes, there was a sea turtle found with a rubber glove in its intestines)—it sometimes gets stuck somewhere along its gastrointestinal tract. This, […]
A rescued green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) named Charlotte is getting the gift of better mobility this holiday season. Charlotte is one of many endangered turtles suffering from bubble butt syndromea serious injury which has partially paralyzed his back flippers and causes him to swim with his backside up instead of flat. Thanks to a […]
