Key Vocabulary Terms
Carapace: the hard back shell of a sea turtle
Chronic: persisting or continuing for a long time
Debilitation: very weakened state/condition
Ethogram: a catalog or table of all the different kinds of behavior or activity observed in an animal
Epibiota: living organisms that can be found growing on another organism (like barnacles on a sea turtle shell)
Nutrient: a substance that is essential for growth and/or life
Treatment: medical care given to a patient for an illness or injury
Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN): intravenous method of providing nutrients to turtles that are too weak to eat on their own, sometimes used with severe chronic debilitation cases
Signs: a term used in veterinary medicine to indicate evidence of a disease or illness (compared to symptoms, used in human medicine)