Tag Archives: Remoras

Hitchhikers

A Green Turtle with three Remoras on its shell in the waters off Hawaii

I saw this little turtle on consecutive days last weekend. Both times, it had three remoras on its shell. Two are definitely Slender Remoras, and the third is probably the same, though less easily identified in the photos I took. The remoras don’t harm the turtle, except for possibly slowing it down a bit, though this turtle looked pretty speedy regardless.

The Numbers Game #91

A Green turtle, with a slender remora on its shell, checks out the photographer
A Green Turtle gets up close and personal. Notice the Slender Remora along for the ride.

The idea of The Numbers Game is to enter a number into the search bar of your computer and then post a selection of the photos that turn up. This week’s number is 213. Captions are on the photos. You can see more responses here.

A green turtle says hello

A Green turtle, with a slender remora on its shell, checks out the photographer

I was snorkeling yesterday, when I looked up and saw this green turtle coming towards me. It was near the surface and heading up so I thought it might be about to take a breath. Instead, the turtle, which was quite small, leveled off and kept coming my way.

Usually, in the water, I have a bit of zoom on my camera since that’s often needed. In this instance, I zoomed out and found myself leaning back to keep the turtle in the image. It came within a foot of me and I thought we were going to butt heads, but at the last moment it stopped, veered, then swooped down and away.

It wasn’t until I got home and processed my photos that I noticed the slender remora on the turtle’s shell, behind its head. Remoras, which don’t harm their hosts, attach themselves by means of a sucker disk on their heads, so what can be seen on this turtle is the underside of the fish.

I don’t change my desktop image often, but the top photo makes me so happy I popped it up immediately, so I’m posting it in response to Clare’s monthly Share Your Desktop challenge (see more responses here).

A green turtle swims by