Those aren’t the petals of a particularly exotic flower, they’re the papillae inside a Loggerhead turtle’s throat.
The inward-pointing papillae are covered in a thick mucus that helps filter out pieces of inedible material a Loggerhead might encounter — whether its invertebrate shells or actual trash — sort of like a miniature Sarlacc. Besides how genuinely weird their insides look, what makes this short video all the more extraordinary is that Loggerheads are an endangered species, meaning dissecting one was likely a rare treat for these marine biologists.
The necropsy took place at Woods Hole Oceanic Institution. Although there are other photos, be warned that they’re significantly more gruesome.
[Laura Castenon via Imgur]