The Olive Ridley Sea Turtle

Taxonomy
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Testudines
Family:	Cheloniidae
Genus:	Lepidochelys
Species:	Olivacea
Status:	Vulnerable

The Olive Ridley Sea turtle are also know as the Pacific Ridley. It lives in tropical open water and nest on Pacific shores of South America. It nest from southern Sonora, Mexico, south to Colombia. It nest in moderate numbers fom about Mauritania south to the Congo. Even from time to time The Olive Ridley sea turtle can be seen in Australia and the Pacific islands.

On occasion nesting has been observed next to the Green turtles at Hawke’s Bay, Pakistan. Some nesting also occurs in New Britain, Mozambique, Madagascar, peninsular Malaysia and various other localities. In the western Atlantic nesting has been observed in eastern Surinam and in western French Guiana and northwestern Guyana. Non-nesting turtles have been seen as far west as Isla Margarita and Trinidad.

Olive Ridley sea turtles are most abundant in the world, where an estimated nesting 800,000 females per year. Olive Ridley took its name from its carapace that is gray-green heart-shaped.

Olive Ridley is the most unusual breed in the natural world. Large groups of turtles gather off the nesting beaches. Then, suddenly, a number of turtles come ashore to play the so-called “arribada. Arribadas bring hundreds of thousands of nesting females and eggs in the country. In many nesting beaches, nesting density is so high that the Clutches of Previous eggs are made for other women to dig nests and lay their eggs.

Mature turtles are relatively small, weighing on average about 45 kg, 100 kg, for example. The morphology and size of the Olive Ridley varies from one region to another. Nesting female size between 22 and 32 inches, where they are considered the largest animal found in the Pacific coast of Mexican city. Sea turtles are often five pairs of ribs, rib bones, called the shields of the carapace, but the number varies as they mature.
Some of these turtles have as many as nine pairs coastal scutes. All four flippers have visible one or two claws. The shell Olive Ridley Pacific is greater in height than other turtle population groups. The Western Atlantic Olive Ridley is normally darker than the eastern Pacific Olive Ridley.

The Olive Ridley is generally carnivorous and feed on creatures like snails, jellyfish, shrimp and crabs. They will occasionally eat algae and seaweed as well. Hatchlings, most of which die before reaching the ocean, and are preyed by raccoons, pigs, snakes, and birds. Adult turtle are often taken by sharks.
The major reason for the historical decline of this species in the world is a continuous collection of eggs and killing adults for their flesh. These threats will carry on in some parts of the world today, dejection efforts to restore this species.