Kemp's Ridley

• GeneralThe most threatened sea turtle; it nests en masse — an arribada — on a single beach in Tamaulipas.
• In 1947 an arribada of more than forty thousand females nesting in a single day at Rancho Nuevo was filmed by chance: when that footage was rediscovered in the 1960s, the population had fallen so far that it served both to measure the collapse and to launch the recovery programme.
• It is the only sea turtle that nests by day and in synchronised arribadas, behaviour that swamps predators but that left it extremely vulnerable to egg collecting.
• The binational programme between Mexico and the United States that has protected the beaches of Tamaulipas since 1978 is one of the longest continuously running marine wildlife conservation projects in the world.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton with a shell (reptile)

Habitat and environment

Shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the north-western Atlantic; nests on the beaches of Tamaulipas

Sexual maturity

6 years

Gestation / incubation

2 months

Litter / clutch size

110

Sources consulted: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepidochelys_kempii

The pins mark the parks and dive sites where its presence is documented.