m_burger's Favorites

This is the best moment for me, there are two Flatback sea turtles (Natator depressus) that are being mated! Amazing once in a life time experience... I've the visual image save in my memory but very jealous I've an actual photo this cool... Would love to go back again.... I'm seeing more and more turtles with disease, but I'm also seeing a lot more turtles in the ocean, is there a connection between the population growth and spread of disease?

This is a green sea turtle that saw its reflection in my camera's dome port. Out of curiosity it almost swam into me! I took this before I had to move from out behind my camera and look to see if it was going to hit me. In retrospect, I wish I had kept shooting. But, just observing these guys is amazing in its own right. Nowhere in the world have I seen as many turtles on every dive as we did in Palau. Repeatedly, we'd see at least 3 or 4 turtles on most dives and I remember one dive where we saw at least 10.

Palau was the first country to declare their waters a sanctuary for sharks and as a result of their efforts the fish and turtle populations seem equally healthy. Absolutely fantastic to see that their efforts are paying off with healthy reefs, healthy fish populations, healthy shark populations, and lots of turtles!

Gephyromantis malagasius seems to be the frog in this group that lives in the Masoala peninsula and looks the most like this. But I haven't seen any other photos of frogs quite this lumpy or with the black color above the eyes, so maybe it's something else?

About five frogs were launching out of the water like this in the shallows. At first, we thought they were fish hawking insects off the surface. Only when reviewing the photos did we realize they were clawed frogs.