Whiter than White
We’re nearing the end of marine
turtle season here at Jalova so sadly will no longer be carrying out night
walks.
We will, however, continue to do nest checks where we walk for three miles down
the beach in search of fresh turtle tracks and check the nests that are
scheduled for excavation.
One morning Robyn and I embarked on
such a nest check and, despite the pouring rain, were lucky enough to be in the
right place at the right time to see a nest worth of hatchlings emerging from
the sand. They too were lucky to have us there to fend off the encroachment of
the resident vultures.
We walked up to the nest to check for stragglers and Robyn happened to look
into one end of a large piece of bamboo that was lying on the beach a few feet
from the egg chamber. I heard her exclaim, ‘Is that an albino?’ to which I
replied, ‘No way!’, but as she removed the little guy from that small space and
poured some water over him an astonishingly ivory white carapace and body was
revealed.
Powder, the little white turtle
While he was not a true albino
because his eyes weren’t pink, the closest anyone has come to seeing such a
mutation were a number of un-hatched embryos that had a similar lack of
pigment.
When we arrived back no one
including myself could believe that we saw such a rare thing!
- Chris, 8 week volunteer
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