Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle

Lore & Background

This species of turtle is called Kemp's ridley because Richard Moore Kemp (1825–1908) of Key West was the first to send a specimen to Samuel Garman at Harvard, but the origin of the name 'ridley' itself is unknown. Prior to the term being popularly used (for both species in the genus), L. kempii at least was known as the 'bastard turtle'. At least one source also refers to Kemp's ridley as a 'heartbreak turtle'. In her book The Great Ridley Rescue, Pamela Philips claimed the name was coined by fishermen who witnessed the turtles dying after being 'turned turtle' (on their backs). The fishermen said the turtles 'died of a broken heart'.

Reader's Guide

Kemp's ridley is the smallest of all sea turtle species, with a carapace length of 58–70 cm (23–28 in) and weight of only 36–45 kg (80–100 lb) at maturity. Typical of sea turtles, it has a dorsoventrally depressed body with specially adapted flipper-like front limbs and a beak. Kemp's ridley turtle adults reach a maximum of 75 cm (30 in) in carapace length and weigh a maximum of 50 kg (110 lb). The adult's oval carapace is almost as wide as it is long and is usually olive-gray in color.

The carapace has five pairs of costal scutes. In each bridge adjoining the plastron to the carapace are four inframarginal scutes, each of which is perforated by a pore. The head has two pairs of prefrontal scales. These turtles change color as they mature.

As hatchlings, they are almost entirely a dark purple on both sides, but mature adults have a yellow-green or white plastron and a grey-green carapace. Kemp's ridley has a triangular-shaped head with a somewhat hooked beak with large crushing surfaces. The skull is similar to that of the olive ridley. Unlike other sea turtles, the surface on the squamosal bone where the jaw opening muscles originate faces to the side rather than to the back.

They are the only sea turtles that nest during the day. Adults primarily live in the Gulf of Mexico, where they forage in the relatively shallow waters of the continental shelf (up to 409 m deep, but typically 50 m or less), with females ranging from the southern coast of the Florida Peninsula to the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, while males have a tendency to remain closer to the nesting beaches in the Western Gulf waters of Texas (US), Tamaulipas, and Veracruz (Mexico).

Adults of L. kempii are rarely found outside of the Gulf of Mexico and only 2–4% from the Atlantic are adults. Juveniles and subadults, in contrast, regularly migrate into the Atlantic Ocean and occupy the coastal waters of the continental shelf of North America from southern Florida to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and occasionally northward. The time periods of these migrations appear to be growing longer due to rising sea temperatures. Accidental and vagrant records are known with some regularity from throughout the northern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, where the Gulf Stream is believed to play a significant role in their dispersal.