Researchers on Costa Rica’s Pejeperro beach recorded a female olive ridley nesting with a remora still attached to her shell, leaving the fish out of water for 19 minutes.
The remora stayed fixed in place and periodically flexed its gills, then thrashed away once researchers removed it to measure the turtle and returned it to the sea.
Megan Bullock and co-authors reported the behavior in Frontiers in Marine Science, calling it highly unusual because remoras commonly ride turtles in water but are rarely documented coming ashore with them.
The team said it is unclear how the fish tolerated so long without flowing water over its gills, a question they say could shed light on remora physiology and host-animal interactions.