[Coral-List] Hawskbill turtles predating corals

William Allison allison.billiam at gmail.com
Mon May 12 08:25:39 EDT 2008


Hi David,
I observed this behaviour once in Maldives where I have also seen hawksbills
grazing on false corals.
Bill

On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 3:14 PM, David Obura <dobura at africaonline.co.ke>
wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> While in Aldabra and Alphonse islands (Seychelles) I noted a
> behaviour/effect of hawskbill turtles that I've never heard mentioned
> before. I had noted dead patches/scars on a bubble coral in the genus
> Physogyra that were widespread, though not covering a large proportion of
> the coral. I was watching a hawksbill turtle swimming out from behind one
> of
> these heads and noticed that it had tissue in its mouth, and it bent down
> and took a bite from the coral. I then observed the same behaviour and
> coral-scars on Alphonse.
>
> Has anyone reported hard coral tissue in hawksbill gut contents, or damage
> to corals from turtle predation? I'm intrigued, as though the impact was
> not
> huge to the corals, this was definitely a stable food source for the
> turtles, and impact on the corals.
>
> Best,
>
> David Obura
> CORDIO East Africa
> 9 Kibaki Flats, Kenyatta Public Beach
> P.O.BOX 10135 Mombasa 80101, Kenya
> Tel/fax: +254-20-3548549; mobile 0733-851656
> dobura at cordioea.org, dobura at africaonline.co.ke
>
>
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