Today, another trip for giant clam survey. But alas, today was pretty bad... The tides weren't low enough to venture out on the reefs, and there was rain and lightning! Gosh...
Anyway, fortunately that Ria suggested taking a look at the supposed turtle residents in the enclosed area in front of the temple... At first we were wondering, where are the turtles? Then we spotted several floating leaves and 'things'... Ria was like, "How come they are moving ah?"
To our surprise, they are tiny turtle hatchlings! To be more exact, they are green turtles. Based on their carapace arrangement, they are newborn green turtles.
They were so adorable that the 3 females on the team today (including myself) were ga-ga about these tiny critters. There were at least 10 of them when I try to spot them. They were only using their hind flippers to paddle in the water. A few of them tried to dive but couldn't go any further down. haha... It was such a sight to see them upclose...
And whenever a fish swims past them, they lay still acting like a leaf too! haha...
And here, is a picture of one of the two large turtle parent...
Why did I say that they need a better home? Wells, I believe they the turtle hatchlings should be let out to live in the wild and survive as much as they can. Even more so, because of the availability of better food out in the wild then within the enclosed area. Andy spotted cannabalism between the hatchlings because the lack of food. Quite a sad sight, seeing one hatchling tearing the other apart. Sigh...
Hopefully people will be more informative about the ecology of these iconic creatures...
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