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Green Turtle, Red Sea

April 25, 2012

While diving in the Red Sea in 2009, WHOI biologist Simon Thorrold encountered a green turtle on a reef about 25 miles from shore at the northern end of the Farasan Banks. Thorrold estimated it’s carapace, or upper shell, was three feet long. Green turtles feed in pastures of sea grasses and seaweed sometimes miles from shore, and return to land to bask, sleep, and lay eggs. Thorrold and other members of the Fish Ecology Laboratory were in Saudi Arabia collaborating with scientists from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) on studies of healthy coral reefs and fish. (This research is based on work supported by Award Nos. USA 00002 and KSA 00011 made by KAUST).(Photo by Simon Thorrold, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)