Facts about Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle
- 08
Nesting female Kemp's Ridley sea turtles return to the same beach where they hatched decades earlier, sometimes traveling over 9,000 miles to reproduce at their natal site.
- 07
Adult Kemp's Ridley sea turtles consume primarily crustaceans like crabs and shrimp, with studies showing crabs comprise up to 60 percent of their diet in Gulf of Mexico feeding grounds.
- 06
Fibropapillomatosis, a disease causing tumors on Kemp's Ridley sea turtles, has affected up to 90 percent of populations in some coastal areas since the 1980s.
- 05
Kemp's Ridley sea turtles possess a distinctive heart-shaped carapace with a red-brown coloration that darkens with age, distinguishing them visually from all other sea turtle species.
- 04
Hatchling Kemp's Ridley sea turtles exhibit magnetic imprinting, using Earth's magnetic field to navigate thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean to feeding grounds off West Africa.
- 03
Only around 1,000 nesting females remain today, making Kemp's Ridley sea turtles the most critically endangered sea turtle species in the world.
- 02
In 1947, a single arribada or mass nesting event brought approximately 40,000 female Kemp's Ridley sea turtles to Rancho Nuevo, Mexico in one night.
- 01
The smallest sea turtle species, Kemp's Ridley weighs only 80 to 100 pounds and measures approximately 24 to 28 inches in shell length at maturity.