#chelonia

Green Sea Turtle (Chelonia mydas), family Cheloniidae, Gujarat, India

Once considered endangered, the species has recovered.

A green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) in the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary

Last week we began the preparation of this young Chelonia mydas, a green sea turtle, that washed up on a Danish beach earlier this year (you can read a bit about the discovery here). It’s the first green sea turtle recorded from Denmark! The specimen is in *beautiful* condition, with just two barnacles attached, but the gut and cloaca seemed practically empty; we wonder if there might be plastic in the gut, but for the sake of the integrity of this extremely rare specimen, we did not dissect further.

Check out these awesome ‘teeth’ on the palate and the beak—the turtle solution to the loss of true teeth.

This kind of thing is a real highlight of the job. Such a privilege and honour to get to work with these special specimens of national and international significance.

//pls tell me you've done this before in rdr2, I giggled when I did it in my playthrough and John actually yelled chelonia, idk

*Snorts, then let's out a low chuckle*

Ah, hell. You heard about that, huh?

Look...it was a strange time. I was...I was seeing things different. Trying to be better. And those folk...they weren't hurting nobody. Just convinced they were gonna be reborn as turtles or some damn thing. Seemed peaceful. Had a kind of...faith to them. Ain't had much of that myself. And it was funny, I won't lie. When you're carrying as much as I was...well, throwing yourself off a cliff with a bunch of fools yelling about shells starts to seem as sensible as anything else. And I was a bit drunk.

*chuckles*

Good morning!

Testudo Horsfieldii, “Horsfield Tortoise”