No, it’s not Monday yet, so this is technically not our regular “Monday Cute” feature. It’s just a particularly terrible Friday in an overall year that’s not doing much better, and it could use a quick injection of adorable, which we’ve found in this video on hypnotizing baby sea turtles.
Don’t try this at home, though. These are trained professionals (biologists) who are hypnotizing turtles in order to weigh them for science and to help in conservation efforts of the cute little critters and their families. Turtles go temporarily motionless when stacked on top of each other in a dark container (not sure how scientists figured this out, but I’m assuming they asked Shredder), so flipping them on their backs and covering their eyes simulates the effect enough to get them accurately weighed. Softly chanting, “You are a very sleepy baby turtle; yes you are,” also helps.
This method for “hypnotizing” the turtles was developed by Mohd Uzair Rusli of University of Malaysia Terengganu, who believes the stacking sensation reminds turtles of being packed in their nests with a bunch of other turtles. Green sea turtles are an endangered species and face habitat destruction, danger from fishing nets, and illegal trade of eggs and body parts, so scientists have to do what they can to help, even if it means maximum adorable hypnosis.
(via Gizmodo)
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