Marine Reptiles

It’s always a special to see marine reptiles underwater – they are air-breathers, like us; they belong in the ocean, but they still need to surface once in a while, to breath, like incredibly gifted free divers, but unlike fishes nevertheless. The evolutionary adaptations which have made their return to the ocean, the cradle of all life on planet Earth, possible are fascinating. Respiration, reproduction, locomotion, all have become ocean-adapted in these former (in evolutionary time) land-animals.

In my many dives in Australia and South-East Asia I have seen green and hawksbill sea turtles, as well as turtle head, banded, olive and file snakes. I didn’t get a shot of a olive sea snake, sadly. All the others I caught. So, here we go, these are the videos and photographs I managed to get of these fascinating animals during the last couple of years spent underwater:

Some Pretty Good Marine Reptile Videos

Sea snakes, turtles, eels (harmless fish) mimicking turtles, it’s all there: Enjoy!

 

Stills

And, like with a number of groups of marine organisms, I have a nice (I think)  collection of photographs of marine reptiles, including of fossils of Archelon, the largest turtle, ever: