One of the 41 turtles and tortoises on WAnimals
Reptiles · Testudines · Cheloniidae
Kemp's Ridley
Lepidochelys kempii
It faces an extremely high risk of imminent extinction in the wild. See full glossary
Kemp's ridley — known in Spanish as tortuga lora, tortuga cotorra or tortuga bastarda — is an American sea turtle of the family Cheloniidae. It measures up to 90 cm and weighs up to 45 kg. It feeds on molluscs, crustaceans, jellyfish, algae and sea urchins. It lives in the Atlantic Ocean from Newfoundland to Venezuela, occurring throughout the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. It is the sea turtle with the most restricted distribution. Its nesting range is confined to parts of the western Gulf of Mexico in Mexico and Texas.
Weight
35 kg – 50 kg
Size
58 cm – 70 cm
Lifespan
50 years
Diet
Omnivore
Combines animal and plant food depending on availability.
Activity
Diurnal
Active mainly during the day.
Social structure
Solitary
Lives and hunts alone, joining others only to breed.
Sighting difficulty
Very hard
Fun facts
- 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.
Life cycle & biology
- Skeleton type
- Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton with a shell (reptile)
- Habitat & 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
Where to find it
See its range on the interactive mapWhere to watch it
Parks and dive sites where this species has been documented.
Related species
Other species in the catalogue with the most in common with Kemp's Ridley — same habitat, park, country, tags or family.
Critically EndangeredHawksbill Turtle
Eretmochelys imbricata
EndangeredGreen Turtle
Chelonia mydas
VulnerableLoggerhead Turtle
Caretta caretta
Diamondback Terrapin
Malaclemys terrapin
Spotted Eagle Ray
Aetobatus narinari
Blue Crab
Callinectes sapidus
How to help
The kemp's ridley is classified as critically endangered. Organizations such as UICN, WWF y Wildlife Conservation Society work specifically on its conservation and that of its habitat; looking into their programs is a good starting point if you want to get involved.
It's documented in 7 real protected areas — part of why protecting these places matters for its conservation.
Keep exploring
Based on what we already know about kemp's ridley.
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