Not since the zombie kid has anyone been this psyched on a turtle. Researchers from the City University of New York have encountered a biofluorescent turtle while night diving in the Solomon Islands. But unlike the zombie kid’s aimless affinity for turtles (née “tortles”), these researchers have actual reason to be excited since their discovery was the first of its kind.
The glowing neon green and red turtle was the first reptile ever seen to exhibit biofluorescence. National Geographic reports that CUNY’s David Gruber and a team were studying biofluorescence in small sharks and coral reefs when out of nowhere came the turtle. It was a hawksbill sea turtle, a species that is critically endangered. Not even turtle specialists (yes, that’s a thing) knew that the hawksbill had this ability.
“I’ve been [studying turtles] for a long time and I don’t think anyone’s ever seen this,” Alexander Gaos, director of the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative, told NatGeo. “This is really quite amazing.”
