Zoological Survey of India and forest department have jointly resumed tagging exercise of Olive Ridley sea turtles that would help in further research on turtle behavior. They have come for annual mating and nesting.
Context
Zoological Survey of India and forest department have jointly resumed tagging exercise of Olive Ridley sea turtles that would help in further research on turtle behavior. They have come for annual mating and nesting.
Important facts about the species
- Scientific name: Lepidochelys olivacea
- IUCN Status: Vulnerable
- The olive ridley turtle is the smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles, growing up to 80 cm and weighing less than 50 kg.
- The olive ridley gets its name from its heart-shaped, olive green coloured carapace.
- Males and females grow to the same size; however, females have a slightly more rounded carapace.
- The olive ridley turtle has 5 to 9 pairs of costal scutes and either one or two claws on each flipper.
- Indian Ocean olive ridley turtles are, on average, smaller than individuals found in the Pacific and the Atlantic.
Mass nesting event
- An arribada (arrival by sea in Spanish) is a mass-nesting event when thousands of turtles come ashore at the same time to lay eggs on the same beach.
- During 'arribada', female turtles reach beaches usually at the dead of the night for laying eggs. After that, they return to the sea.
- An olive ridley usually lays about 120-150 eggs and the hatchlings, after emerging from these eggs in a span of 45 to 60 days, travel to the sea. They grow up without their mothers.
- Out of every 1,000 hatchlings that enter the sea, only one manages to reach adulthood.
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Significance of sea turtles
- a fundamental link in marine ecosystems
- maintain the health of coral reefs and sea grass beds
Threats
- Deteriorating environmental conditions
- Warmer sea surface temperatures
- Increasing severe storms
- Sea level rise
