Video: A Sea Turtle’s View of the Reef

Have you ever wondered what it looks like from a sea turtle’s point of view?

As part of a tagging project in the Arnavon Islands, Nature Conservancy scientists temporarily attached a camera to the back of a juvenile green turtle. The resulting footage shows the turtle swimming past parrotfish and moray eels, and an incredible encounter with a large male hawksbill turtle. The Nature Conservancy’s Melanesia program director and scientist Richard Hamilton thinks that the male hawksbill likely swam over to evaluate the green as a potential mate.

For more on green turtles in the Arnavons, read our story about how a “turtle rodeo” catches green turtles like this one as part of a long-term tagging program.