Olive ridley sea turtle

올리브각시바다거북

The olive ridley is one of the smallest and most abundant sea turtles, with a heart-shaped, olive-green shell. It lives in warm tropical seas and is famous for "arribada" nesting, when tens of thousands of females come ashore on the same beach within days.

See it on the 3D globe →

At a glance

Class: Reptiles
Lives in: Off the coast of Odisha, India
Diet: Eats both plants and meat (omnivore)
Weight: about 40 kg
Length: about 0.65 m
Conservation status: Vulnerable (IUCN VU)
Habitat: open ocean, coasts

Quick answers

Where does the Olive ridley sea turtle live?

It lives in open ocean, coasts of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. On the globe you can find it near Off the coast of Odisha, India.

How big is the Olive ridley sea turtle?

It grows to about 0.65 m and 40 kg.

What does the Olive ridley sea turtle eat?

Its diet: eats both plants and meat (omnivore).

Is the Olive ridley sea turtle endangered?

It is listed as Vulnerable (IUCN VU).

The olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) is a sea turtle with a rounded, heart-shaped shell that is olive green. Its shell grows to about 61 centimetres long. It is the second-smallest sea turtle, yet it is the most abundant of all of them. Its green-brown colour gives the species its name.

Olive ridleys live in warm tropical waters, mostly in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and also in the warm Atlantic. Warm shallow waters and sandy beaches are important parts of its life. They are best known for arribadas, a Spanish word for 'arrivals', when thousands of mother turtles come ashore on the same beach to lay eggs.

The great nesting

During an arribada, so many females crowd onto one beach in a few days that the sand seems to move. This special way of nesting is shared only with the closely related Kemp's ridley. One famous place where olive ridleys gather is off the coast of Odisha in India. The Indian coast of Odisha is one of the places where this nesting is famous.

Shell and name

The turtle gets its common name from the olive colour of its shell. Where the name ridley comes from is not known. Males and females grow to about the same size, but females have a slightly rounder shell. The scientific name Lepidochelys comes from Greek words meaning 'scale' and 'turtle'. It is the only sea turtle genus that has more than one living species, the other being Kemp's ridley.

Fun facts

Thousands of females come ashore together to nest in mass nestings called arribadas.
The word arribada is Spanish for 'arrival'.
Nobody is sure where the name 'ridley' came from.
Its shell can have a different number of side plates on each side of the body.