page_title: Aquatic locomotion
section_title: Reptiles
hierarchical_section_title: Aquatic locomotion / Reptiles
caption_attribution_description: Chelonia mydasEnglish: Young Honu-Kahala
context_page_description: Aquatic locomotion is biologically propelled motion through a liquid medium. The simplest propulsive systems are composed of cilia and flagella. Swimming has evolved a number of times in a range of organisms including arthropods, fish, molluscs, reptiles, birds, and mammals.
context_section_description: From the point of view of aquatic propulsion, the descent of modern members of the class Reptilia from archaic tailed Amphibia is most obvious in the case of the order Crocodilia (crocodiles and alligators), which use their deep, laterally compressed tails in an essentially carangiform mode of propulsion (see Fish locomotion#Carangiform).
  Terrestrial snakes, in spite of their 'bad' hydromechanical shape with roughly circular cross-section and gradual posterior taper, swim fairly readily when required, by an anguilliform propulsion (see Fish locomotion#Anguilliform).
  Cheloniidae (true turtles) have found a beautiful solution to the problem of tetrapod swimming through the development of their forelimbs into flippers of high-aspect-ratio wing shape, with which they imitate a bird's propulsive mode more accurately than do the eagle-rays themselves.
caption: Immature Hawaiian green sea turtle in shallow waters
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