Image

Turtle Sighting

Hanny Rivera, a graduate student in the MIT-WHOI Joint Program, took this photo of a sea turtle on the Great Barrier Reef off Australia. Many sea turtle species are endangered, but it’s hard to determine the best ways to protect them because we know so little about them. To find out more about sea turtles’ lifestyles, WHOI biologist Kara Dodge teamed with WHOI engineer Amy Kukulya to create TurtleCam. They tag turtles with temporary transponders that emit acoustic signals. REMUS, an autonomous underwater vehicle, uses the signals to follow a turtle—all the while taking video of its behavior.(Photo by Hanny Rivera, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)