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"It adds visual texture into the world that's primarily blue."įollow Laura Geggel on Twitter. "It could be a way for them to communicate, for them to see each other better, to blend into the reefs," which are also biofluorescent, Gruber said. Still, it's anyone's guess why turtles would need to glow. Instead, Gruber says he'll probably study biofluorescence in the loggerhead turtle first, just because they're more accessible. "It's like a little hotspot where the hawksbills are still very healthy."īut it's difficult to study a critically endangered animal. "The Solomon are one of the places where there's a large rookery of them," he said. The hawksbill turtle breeds in more than 80 countries and is found in the Caribbean Sea and Indo-Pacific Ocean, but it's also critically endangered, partly because of climate change, illegal trade, bycatch (in which commercial fishers catch turtles by mistake while collecting other fish) and hunting, Gruber said. Marine biologist David Gruber, of City University of New York, was filming fluorescent corals near. The hawksbill turtle may fluoresce to help it blend in with glowing coral reefs. Scientists have found the first biofluorescent, or 'glowing' reptile: the hawksbill sea turtle. It was in love with the lights," Markus Reymann, the other diver and the director of TBA21-Academy, a group that pairs artists and scientists together, said in a National Geographic video. "This turtle was just hanging out with us. The shell glowed both red and green, but it's likely the red came from biofluorescent algae, Gruber said. Under the blue lights, the turtle fluoresced "a brilliant green," on its head, flippers and plastron (the underside of its shell), he said. discovered that this is the first reptile known to have biofluorescent capabilities. "This turtle almost seemed completely attracted to the blue lights that we were filming with, and just swam right into me," Gruber recalled. Sea turtles are critically endangered and protected Worldwide. But for the first time, a hawksbill sea turtle has been found to have biofluorescent qualities, and has been captured on video by marine biologist David Gruber near the Solomon Islands. Recent news of crocodile attacks had them on guard, but they dove into the water, and used blue lights to look for biofluorescent sharks. There are various types of biofluorescent life forms out there, although many of them are forms of marine life, such as coral and fish.
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They had waited until nightfall - luckily they had a full moon - and took a boat to shallow water near Nugu Island, located in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. The divers weren't looking for glowing sea turtles on July 31, Gruber said.
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raises a lot of questions about the rare species: why are they biofluorescent. The work is so groundbreaking that Gruber and his colleagues helped make a forthcoming Nova special called "Creatures of Light," he said. The glowing turtle was a hawksbill sea turtle, a species found in. The field of biofluorescence has taken off in the past decade, with researchers identifying all sorts of biofluorescent marine animals, including corals, fishes, eels and sharks.