Baffling sea creature had barnacles all over — even on its tongue, TX lab says
It’s common for slow-moving sea creatures to become heavily encrusted, but something alive that washed ashore in Texas is being called a worst-case scenario.
The tough-to-recognize creature was identified as an endangered loggerhead sea turtle, and it even had barnacles stuck to its tongue, according to the Galveston-based Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research.
“Barnacles have gotten in the mouth and are preventing the jaw joints from opening. She couldn’t eat,” center researcher Christopher D. Marshall told McClatchy News.
“There were barnacles on her tongue too. She had trouble opening her mouth. It was all very painful.”
The young turtle — estimated between 18 to 20 years old — washed out of the gulf the first week of April at Sargent and was reported by a passerby.
Center staff have invested hours in plucking off the growths at a rehabilitation hospital, officials said, and “a rigorous treatment plan” has been developed with help from the Houston Zoo.
Yet the root cause of the turtle’s illness remains a mystery.
“These sea turtles often strand with epibiota — organisms living on the surface of one another. They become heavily encrusted when they are ill and tend to move less and float at the surface more,” the center wrote in an April 9 Facebook post.
“This patient washed in with a variety of algae, acorn barnacles, gooseneck barnacles, worms, crabs, skeleton shrimp, bryozoans, and other small invertebrates. She was weighed down, with barnacles embedded in her soft tissues and mouth.”
The newly cleaned turtle is now able to swim and is starting to eat, but she remains in danger.
“This is one of the worst cases of encrustation we have seen,” Marshall said. “When a turtle stops moving through water, things settle on it. This turtle has been sick for quite sometime, so that’s why there is so much on it. I think this turtle had so much crusting that it wasn’t able to swim any more. It was in a losing battle.”
Loggerheads can grow to 350 pounds and live 70 years, NOAA Fisheries reports. They are endangered in much of the world, due to being caught up in fishing gear, vessel strikes and “degradation of nesting habitat,” experts say.
The Gulf Center for Sea Turtle Research is addressing “data gaps and research needs to conserve sea turtles” that live in gulf waters off Texas.
Sargent is about a 75-mile drive south from Houston.
This story was originally published April 15, 2025 at 8:22 AM with the headline "Baffling sea creature had barnacles all over — even on its tongue, TX lab says."