The Kemp’s Ridley Sea Turtle | Anatomy

The anatomy of the Kemp’s Ridley Sea turtle is quite interesting. The Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle is the smallest of the sea turtles that are still living today, reaching only 2-3 feet long when full grown. The Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle is the most endangered of all the worlds seven species of sea turtles. The average weight of a mature Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle is about 100 pounds. As with most sea turtles the Kemp’s Ridley is known to have a triangular shaped head and a typical horny beak. The anatomy of the Kemp’s Ridley is very interesting because the body measures about 65 cm long and almost as wide, they have special flipper like limbs to help them swim. As with other parts of the Kemp’s Ridley anatomy, the flippers of the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle is very unique, they have claws on their flippers to enable them to move around on land faster and help them to be able to dig.

The Kemp’s Ridley is often mistaken by the Olive Ridley, the biggest difference between the anatomy of the Olive Ridley and the Kemp’s Ridley is the number of costal scutes of the upper shell. The Olive Ridley has from 5 to 9 costals and 2 pairs of prefrontal scutes. Kemp’s Ridley has 5 pairs of costal scutes, and 2 pairs of prefrontal scutes. Another difference in the Olive Ridley and the Kemp’s Ridley is the coloring on their underside. The Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle is gray and green with some yellow coloring on the underside. Their heads are a much darker shade of green compared to their bodies, they also have spots on their head. The shell of the Olive Ridley is a greyish green to an olive green in coloration and the underside varies from greenish-white on the younger turtles and a creamy coloring on the adults. The Olive Ridley can also have more of a heart shaped body unlike the more circular shaped body of the Kemp’s Ridley. The anatomy of the Kemp’s Ridley hatch-lings shows that they are almost black on both sides and only about 2 inches long when they are born.

An interesting fact about the anatomy of the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle is that they can maintain their own metabolism, there is only a handful of animals that have the ability to maintain their own metabolism which makes them adaptable to many different environments. The Kemp’s Ridley will reach maturity between the ages of seven and fifteen years old, in captivity some have reached maturity as early as five years old. The Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle prefers warm waters but have been seen as far North as New Jersey. They generally stay in the area of the Gulf of Mexico and the Northern Atlantic Ocean. The females usually return to the same beach each year to lay their eggs, the nesting beach that they go to is the Rancho Nuevo in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

The Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles generally have a life span of 30-50 years. Only 1 out of 1,000 tend to make it to adulthood due to fisheries and other hazards such as people catching the turtles (even though it is illegal) and cutting out the eggs, because the eggs are known to have aphrodisiac properties. The Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles prefer to live in shallow waters to make it easier for them to locate food in the sandy or muddy ocean floor. They also need to surface every few minutes to be able to breathe properly. If you are wondering how they got their name, the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle got their name from a Key West fisherman named Richard M. Kemp, who first described the anatomy of these sea turtles that he located in Florida almost a century ago.

The anatomy of the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle hatch-lings is a very interesting process to learn about. An arribada (means arrivals in Spanish) is a unique nesting phenomenon that is common to the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle. The arribadas is mass nesting, arribadas occurs between April and June of each year.

The Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles sex is determined by the temperature within the nest. At a temperature between 83-85 degrees Fahrenheit, you can expect to see a mix of males and females. If the temperature is above 85 degrees, you should expect to see females, below 83 degrees you should see males.

The hatchlings will begin to break out of there shells using their small temporary tooth called a caruncle that is attached to their snout. This hatching period takes place about 45-70 days after the turtle eggs are left in the nest. The newly hatched Kemp’s Ridley babies will then remain in their nest for a few days and gain the strength to leave the nest by absorbing the yolk that is attached to the abdomen by the umbilical cord. The Kemp’s Ridley babies will then climb out of the nest and once they are near the surface they will then wait until the sun goes down and the sand cools before the Kemp’s Ridley babies start attempting to make their way to the water. They use the slopes of the beach, the white crests of the beach and the natural light of the oceans horizon as cues to safely make it to the water.

Actually many of the developing beach properties such as hotels are asked to keep their lights low at night in order to keep from confusing the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle babies. If the lights are on high, the babies may mistake them for the lights on the ocean horizon and they will end up further inland where they can be stepped on, ran over or even be captured by humans or even eaten by other animals such as dogs. The Kemp’s Ridley babies that actually make it down the beach and into the water will then begin, what is known as a “swimming frenzy”. The swimming frenzy can last for several days, the purpose of the swimming frenzy is to get the hatch-lings away from the shore waters.

Many of the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles will then disappear and may not return for nearly a decade. These years that they are gone are known as the “lost years”. Once they reach their juvenile years, they will return to the coastal areas where they will continue to mature. The Kemp’s Ridley will reach maturity at around 7-15 years, this is when they can start to reproduce. Some Kemp’s Ridley’s in captivity have been known to reach maturity at the age of five. Only 1 in 1,000 hatch-lings will survive to see adulthood. So as you can see the anatomy of the Kemp’s Ridley sea turtle is a truly amazing process that we all need to do what we can to help protect them and keep them alive and striving.