Griffin, The Sea Turtle

Last night I was watching the local news and I saw a story about a sea turtle named Griffin, who had a stoke and forgot how to dive. I thought that was so sad, but very interesting at the same time. For some reason the thought never occurred to me that sea turtles,or any other animals for that matter could have strokes. I mean, I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise since sea turtles contain a lot of the basic brain functions that we do. It made me think about a few things I remember from some of the Psych courses I've taken. Like, there has been some research that suggests elephants form attachments similar to the way humans do, and they even mourn their dead. And hamsters and humans have similar auditory cortices. I think we spend a lot of time differentiating between humans and animals, and we don't always pay attention to how we are similar. I didn't intend for this to turn into a soapbox for animal rights, but hey,next time you're driving down the road and see a turtle trying to cross, think of Griffin and try to (SAFELY!!) avoid the little guy if you can.