Facial Identification
Another system we use to identify turtles is based on photography. Researchers have shown that individual turtles have unique numbers and shapes of scales on the sides of their head. While this can be a tedious operation, both for taking photos and for correctly counting the number of sides, it has great crowd-sourcing potential: anyone who takes a photo of a turtle, be it a scientist or a tourist, can contribute to our understanding of Tetepare’s population.
(AMNH/M. Esbach)
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