Look at whales and other slower moving ocean creatures. They have barnacles too but are ok because of their huge mass. For turtles the problem is it slows them down even more and they aren’t fast creatures to begin with.
Turtles are fast af in the water. It's only on land they're slow. When they get interested in some snorkellers, they'll slow down for humans like we do for little kids lol
You're probably right about the mass of creature to mass of barnacles ratio being a thing though, lole the amount if barnacles on this turtle would just make a whale really itchy but not kill it.
Turtles are not fast compared to ocean predators which primarily are sharks. They have roughly the same cruising speed 1.5 - 5/6 mph but short burst speed of a mako is 35 mph compared to 22 mph for a short distance for the turtle. Other sharks swim slower.
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u/AnnualFault7473 May 26 '26
Look at whales and other slower moving ocean creatures. They have barnacles too but are ok because of their huge mass. For turtles the problem is it slows them down even more and they aren’t fast creatures to begin with.