The Olive Ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) is the smallest and most abundant of the world's sea turtle species, named for the pale olive-green color of its heart-shaped carapace, which typically reaches around 60 to 70 centimeters in length. It inhabits warm tropical and subtropical waters across the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, spending most of its life in the open sea and coming ashore almost exclusively to nest. As a generalist predator, it feeds on jellyfish, crabs, shrimp, and algae, and plays a role in regulating invertebrate populations in the open-ocean and nearshore environments where it forages.
Despite being listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, the Olive Ridley faces serious and ongoing pressure. Its most striking behavior, the mass synchronized nesting event known as an arribada, concentrates tens of thousands of females on a small number of beaches in Mexico, India, and Costa Rica, making those sites acutely sensitive to disturbance and exploitation. Egg harvesting, incidental capture in fishing gear (particularly shrimp trawls and gillnets), coastal development, light pollution disorienting hatchlings, and the accumulation of marine plastic waste all contribute to population pressure. Several regional subpopulations, including those formerly nesting along the coasts of West Africa and parts of Asia, have declined sharply or disappeared entirely.
