Manjula goes blogging...

We had just spent five busy days learning about freshwater turtles, tortoises, and marine turtles at the recent Congress on Chelonian Conservation at Saly, Senegal, and we were ready to stretch our legs, get away from the south-of-France feel of the hotel, and breathe the air and dust of the real Senegal. We weren’t actively searching for carapaces, but we always seemed to spot one at the coastal areas we visited. We found this olive ridley carapace on top of Gorée Island. At first it appeared part of a fetish which we did not want to touch, but when we realized that it was only a local artist’s art ensemble, an opportunity to collect data could not be missed! Angela immediately produced a sterilized blade and a bottle of buffer solution to collect a tissue sample and Jack Frazier gallantly loaned us his leather belt to take a length measurement.

Coming down from the top of Gorée we visited the Musée de la Mer which has one of the largest Caretta skulls (one on the left) any of us had ever seen; a size apparently attributed to Deraniyagala’s Caretta gigas. It may possibly be, we were told, one of the largest chelonian skulls in the world!