Another Aquarium Post!

I just found some photos of the other herps that I got to see at the SC Aquarium. We were fortunate enough to get to see up close and personal the sea turtle hospital that the aquarium runs to rehabilitate & give second chances to sea turtles. The pictures I have posted here are of a loggerhead, Caretta caretta (which is SC & Federally threatened) & Lepidochelys kempi, the Kemps-Ridley sea turtle (also Federally threatened). This Caretta caretta was playing! She has her head in a polymer tubing.. at first it appears as if it is a bad situation, like she is stuck, but I came to find out she is playing with her "toy" (enrichment as they called it). I thought that was so funny. Loggerheads are the largest hard-shelled sea turtle extant & have large heads and jaws. They are easily identified by their heart shaped carapace, which is usually brown/yellow olive in colouration. Their plastrons are a cream/yellow colour. Loggerheads have 5+ costals on the sides of the carapace and the 1st costal always touches the nuchal (3scutes). It was truly amazing to see the shear size & beauty of these sea turtles. Their flippers are amazing; what a brilliant adaptation. The Kemps-Ridley was much smaller than the loggerheads, which I had no idea that it was so small. A loggerheads avg. weight is about 135kg whereas a Kemps-Ridley is about 45kg or less. These turtles have a circular carapace with an olive/green almost grey dark colour & a yellowish plastron. Scutes are pierced by a pore on edges of plastron (4scutes on each side). It was sad to see these turtles in this situation, because seeing them at the aquarium meant that something was wrong with them. Most of the sea turtles were either in for carapace damage, facial damage, "floating syndrome" or fell victim to a net of some sort. Some of the injuries were grusome to see; one loggerhead was completely ripped up about the face from a propeller of a boat. However, all were being well taken care of and it was truly a pleasure to be so close to these giants.