Hawksbill sea turtle are taken by humans, though it is illegal to hunt them in many countries. In some parts of the world, hawksbill sea turtles are eaten as a delicacy. As far back as the fifth century BC, sea turtles, including the hawksbill, were eaten as delicacies in China. Many cultures also use turtles' shells for decoration. These turtles have been harvested for their beautiful shell since Egyptian times, and the material known as tortoiseshell is normally from the hawksbill. In China, where it was known as "tai mei", the hawksbill is called the "tortoise-shell turtle", named primarily for its shell, which
Sea turtle (four-limbed vertebrates). Sea turtles are the first biofluorescent reptile found in the wild. According to Gruber and Sparks (2015) fluorescence is observed in an increasing number of marine creatures (cnidarians, ctenophores, annelids, arthropods, and chordates) and is now also considered to be widespread in cartilaginous and ray-finned fishes. The two marine biologists accidentally made the observation in the Solomon Islands on a hawksbill sea turtle, one of the rarest and most endangered turtle species in the ocean, during a night dive aimed to film the biofluorescence emitted by small sharks and coral reefs. The role of biofluorescence in marine organisms