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BC Conservation Data Centre: Species Summary


Lepidochelys olivacea
Olive Ridley Sea Turtle

 
Scientific Name: Lepidochelys olivacea (Eschscholtz, 1829)
English Name: Olive Ridley Sea Turtle
English Name Synonyms: Olive Ridley Turtle
Pacific Ridley Sea Turtle
 
Classification / Taxonomy
Scientific Name - Concept Reference: King, F. W., and R. L. Burke, editors. 1989. Crocodilian, tuatara, and turtle species of the world: a taxonomic and geographic reference. Association of Systematics Collections, Washington, D.C. 216 pp.
Classification Level: Species
Species Group: Vertebrate Animal
Species Code: R-LEOL
Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family
Animalia Craniata Chelonia Testudines Cheloniidae
   
Conservation Status / Legal Designation
Global Status: G2G4 (Sep 2022)
Provincial Status: SNA (Mar 2025)
BC List: Accidental
Provincial FRPA list:   
Provincial Wildlife Act:
COSEWIC Status:
SARA Schedule:
General Status Canada:
   
Ecology & Life History
General Description:
Global Reproduction Comments: Clutch size is about 30-170 (most often 100-110). Incubation lasts about 50 days. Individual females may nest 1-3 (usually 2) times during a single season and may nest in successive years. In the Pacific Ocean, females first nests at an age of 10-18 years (median 13). (see NMFS and USFWS 2007).

Nesting is highly synchronized in some areas; 100s to 10,000s of females may emerge and nest within a period of a few hours or days. Solitary nesting also occurs. In the eastern Pacific, synchronized nesting occurs annually at several beaches in Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama from June through December; during the same period, ridleys emerge to nest solitarily along the entire coast from Mexico to Colombia (NMFS and USFWS 2007).
Global Ecology Comments: Hatchlings are preyed upon by crabs, birds, and fishes. Humans collect eggs and kill adults. Predation on solitary nests by native mammals in Costa Rica was relatively greater than on arribada nests (Eckrich and Owens 1995, Herpetologica 51:349-354). See Iverson 1991 for a compilation of data on egg survivorship (to hatching and to age 1 year) (variable but not more than 0.60).
Migration Characteristics:
(Global / Provincial)		 
    Nonmigrant:
    Local Migrant:
    Distant Migrant:
    Within Borders Migrant: 		N / N
N / N
Y / N
na / N
Global Migration Comments: At least in the eastern Pacific Ocean this species is nomadic when not nesting; distinct migration corridors apparently do not exist (NMFS and USFWS 2007). Individuals migrate up to thousands of kilometers between nesting and non-nesting habitats. Turtles tagged in Costa Rica have been recovered in Ecuador and Mexico (Cornelius and Robinson 1983).
Habitats:
(Type / Subtype / Dependence)
Global Habitat Comments: Habitat includes tropical and subtropical waters, ranging from protected, shallow, marine and estuarine waters, including bays and lagoons, to offshore areas well beyond the continental shelf (NMFS and USFWS 2014). Nesting occurs on upper beaches. Some populations nest communally in highly synchronized arribadas, while others nest individually or in small groups (Abreu-Grobois and Plotkin 2008). Individuals sometimes change to a different nesting beach within a single nesting season (Eckert et al. 1989). They are nomadic in the eastern Pacific, and change migration pathways in response to shifts in food availability (Plotkin 2010).
Food Habits: Invertivore: Adult, Immature
Piscivore: Adult, Immature
Global Food Habits Comments: Diet includes fishes, jellyfish, tunicates, salps, crustaceans, mollusks, sea urchins, and seaweed.
Global Phenology:
Provincial Phenology:
(1st half of month/
2nd half of month)
Colonial Breeder: Y
Length(cm)/width(cm)/Weight(g): 71/ /
Elevation (m) (min / max): Global: 
Provincial: 
   
 
Distribution
Endemic: N
Global Range Comment: The olive ridley sea turtle has a circumtropical distribution, nesting in nearly 60 countries worldwide, and migrating through the coastal waters of nearly 80 countries (Abreu-Grobois and Plotkin 2008). The range encompasses warmer waters of the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans (Zug et al. 1998).
 
Authors / Contributors
Global Information Author: Eleanor Gaines
Last Updated: Sep 29, 2022
Provincial Information Author:
Last Updated:
   
References and Related Literature
Behler, J. L., and F. W. King. 1979. The Audubon Society field guide to North American reptiles and amphibians. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 719 pp.
Bjorndal, K. A., editor. 1982. Biology and conservation of sea turtles. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. 583 pp.
Bowen, B. W., A. B. Meylan, and J. C. Avise. 1991. Evolutionary distinctiveness of the endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle. Nature 352:709-711.
Cornelius, S., and D. Robinson. 1983. Abundance, distribution, and movements of olive ridley sea turtles in Costa Rica, III. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Endangered Species Special Report No. 13.
Eckert, K.L., S.A. Eckert, T.W. Adams, and A.D. Tucker. 1989. Inter-nesting migrations by leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea) in the West Indies. Herpetologica 45:190-194.
Ernst, C. H., R. W. Barbour, and J. E. Lovich. 1994. Turtles of the United States and Canada. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. xxxviii + 578 pp.
Frazer, N. B. 1992. Sea turtle conservation and halfway technology. Conservation Biology 6:179-184.
Iverson, J. B. 1991c. Patterns of survivorship in turtles (order Testudines). Canadian J. Zoology 69:385-391.
Mack, D., N. Duplaix, and S. Wells. 1982. Sea turtles, animals of divisible parts: international trade in sea turtle products. Pages 545-563 in Bjorndahl, K. A., editor.Biology and conservation of sea turtles. Smithsonian Institution.
Matthews, J.R. and C.J. Moseley (eds.). 1990. The Official World Wildlife Fund Guide to Endangered Species of North America. Volume 1. Plants, Mammals. xxiii + pp 1-560 + 33 pp. appendix + 6 pp. glossary + 16 pp. index. Volume 2. Birds, Reptiles, Amphibians, Fishes, Mussels, Crustaceans, Snails, Insects, and Arachnids. xiii + pp. 561-1180. Beacham Publications, Inc., Washington, D.C.
Mrosovsky, N. 1983. Conserving sea turtles. British Herpetological Society. 176 pp.
National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). 1995. Status reviews for sea turtles listed under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. National Marine Fisheries Service, Silver Spring, Maryland. vi + 139 pp.
Stebbins, R. C. 1985a. A field guide to western reptiles and amphibians. Second edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Massachusetts. xiv + 336 pp.
Sybesma, J., and P. C. Hoetjes. 1992. First record of the olive ridley and of nesting by the loggerhead turtle in Curacao. Carib. J. Sci. 28(1-2):103-104.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). 1990. Endangered and threatened species recovery program: report to Congress. 406 pp.
Van Meter, V. B. 1983. Florida's sea turtles. Florida Power & Light Company, Miami. 46 pp.
Zug, G. R., and C. H. Ernst. 1994. Lepidochelys. Catalogue of American Amphibians and Reptiles 587:1-6.
 

Please visit the website Conservation Status Ranks for definitions of the data fields used in this summary report.

Suggested Citation:

B.C. Conservation Data Centre. 2022. Species Summary: Lepidochelys olivacea. B.C. Minist. of Environment. Available: https://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/eswp/ (accessed Jun 5, 2026).