First bio fluorescent reptile captured on video

An incredible discovery about marine life has been caught on film by two National Geographic explorers in the Solomon Islands, opening up a whole can of worms about the bio fluorescent capabilities in reptiles.

David Gruber, a National Geographic explorer and marine biologist, was making an exploratory dive with his team to document bio fluorescent coral when they got a surprise visit from a UFO: An unidentified floating object.

The object that appears in front of the camera glowing an eerie but brilliant green, yellow and red, turns out of be an endangered hawksbill sea turtle. The cherry on top though, is that it’s the first ever documented case of a bio fluorescent reptile.

“Scientists have only tuned into bio fluorescence in the last ten years,” explained Gruber in the video. “And as soon as we starting tuning into it, we started to find it everywhere.”

Gruber said it’s not uncommon to find bio fluorescence in coral, jellyfish and fish. But they had never seen a turtle.

National Geographic defines bio fluorescence is the ability to reflect the blue light hitting a surface and re-emit it as a different color. It differs from bio luminescence in which organisms produce their own light through chemical reactions either in their own bodies or by hosting a bio luminescent bacteria.

“This turtle was just hanging out with us, it was in love with the light,” said Markus Reymann, said director of TBA-21 Academy, with a chuckle. “And it was glowing neon yellow!”

The divers said the turtle swam around with them for five minutes before diving into the dark depths of the sea.

The proof that turtles are bio fluorescent now opens the door to many more questions, including how turtles have developed this ability and how it is employed.

“[Biofluorescence is] usually used for finding and attracting prey or defense or some kind of communication,” said Alexander Gaos, director of the Eastern Pacific Hawksbill Initiative to National Geographic.

The World Wildlife Fund recently released their bi-annual Living Blue Planet Report. In it, they state that “population sizes of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish fell by half on average in just 40 years”.