This thing is alive? Decayed looking carcass on Cape Cod opens its eyes and moves

Mysterious rotting carcasses are always tumbling ashore on East Coast beaches, but rarely do they open their eyes and start moving.

Yet that’s what happened days ago on Cape Cod’s Beach Point, prompting nonprofit Mass Audubon to issue an odd warning: Be on the lookout for seemingly dead sea turtles that aren’t exactly dead.

A photo with the Facebook post showed a rare Kemp’s ridley sea turtle that looked not only dead, but rotted.

Instead, it proved to be “quite lively,” officials said.

“Sea turtles, like this incredibly algae-covered Kemp’s ridley, can look dead when they strand on the beach. But in November, they usually are not!” according to Mass Audubon, which has the goal of “protecting the nature of Massachusetts.”

Instead, the turtles are often just cold stunned, a term for reptiles made “hypothermic” due to a drop in water temperature, according to the National Park Service. The quick change leaves them in shock and “unable to swim,” the NPS says.

The Kemp’s ridley sea turtle in the photo was rescued after a couple discovered it at Beach Point in the North Truro area of Cape Cod, Mass Audubon reported. The nonprofit has not provided an update the turtle’s status.

Kemp’s ridley sea turtles are the rarest of the world’s sea turtles and highly endangered, experts say. The species is also the world’s smallest sea turtle, growing to about 2.3 feet long and 100 pounds, NOAA Fisheries reports.

As for its ragged appearance, it’s not uncommon for sea turtles to be covered with “barnacles, algae, and even small crabs,” the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History reports. However, the norm is for fish to eat away such “hitchhikers.”

Mass Audubon advised people who find a cold-stunned turtle to “move it well above the high tide line (and) cover it in dry seaweed” to help it recover.

This story was originally published November 10, 2020 at 5:02 AM with the headline "This thing is alive? Decayed looking carcass on Cape Cod opens its eyes and moves."