On Wednesday, 18 April, five sea turtles lined up in The Turtle Hospital’s designated “waiting area.”  All of these juvenile greens have external fibropapilloma tumors and were preparing for individual endoscopies to check for internal tumors.  Dr. Kristin from Marathon Veterinary Hospital led the examinations.  An endoscopy is also one way to find out the sex of an immature sea turtle.  We found out that all of these sea turtles are actually females, despite some masculine names.  But that’s okay–our patients don’t seem to care.  We were relieved to find that only 1 of the turtles had internal fibropapilloma tumors.  Next week, the veterinarians will be in again, this time to fully anaesthetize the turtles for laser surgery to remove the external tumors.

The Endoscopy Queue–Or, A Long Line of Females.  Pictured front to back are: Eddie, Reginald, Tini, Mallory and Ernie.