The olive ridley turtle has a very wide range of habitat.
They are mainly found in tropical waters, but occasionally they can be seen in temperate waters. They can be found in most oceans. The Olive Ridley turtles breed on coastal mudflats and prefer to live in waters no deeper than one hundred meters.
In terms of living habits, Olive Ridley turtles are accustomed to coming ashore collectively to lay eggs during the day, and there may be more than a hundred of them at a time. The scene is quite spectacular, especially on the coast of Mexico, where you can often see the ecological scene of Olive Ridley turtles laying eggs. There has also been a scene of more than 10,000 Olive Ridley turtles laying eggs in Olisa.
This omnivorous marine creature likes to prey on benthic and floating crustaceans, mollusks, jellyfish and other invertebrates in the nearby waters after laying eggs each time. It occasionally eats fish eggs. If there is a shortage of food in the nearby waters, they also eat plant-based food.
These small turtle eggs are most likely Olive Ridley turtle eggs.
Xiang Yang secretly thought it was a pity that he didn't get to see the spectacular sight of the olive ridley turtles laying eggs.
Speaking of which, the scene of the Olive Ridley turtle laying eggs is very spectacular.
From September to January of the following year, when laying eggs, the Olive Ridley turtles come ashore in very obvious clusters to lay eggs. At the most, it is said that there may be up to 150,000 female turtles.
After laying eggs, these olive ridley turtles disperse in the sea near the nesting area to forage for food.
The number of eggs laid by the Olive Ridley turtle each time can reach a terrifying 120.
Olive ridleys generally like to lay eggs at night. Sometimes they will lay eggs multiple times during the laying season, and can produce up to three nests.
Olive ridleys can store semen in their oviducts for years, ensuring that fertilized eggs are produced even without mating with a male.
The incubation period of olive ridley eggs is approximately two months.
When the baby turtle is born, it is about 40 mm long and weighs about 20 grams.
Olive ridleys will rush into the sea right after they are born. At this time, you can see the beach covered with little olive ridleys instinctively crawling towards the sea.
The road that the little turtles take to the ocean is usually only a few dozen meters long, but it is a passage of life and death, and countless little turtles will die on this road.
It takes at least fifteen years for a young Olive Ridley turtle to grow up. Once it grows up, it has no natural enemies in the ocean. Those who can bite it are generally the top predators in the ocean, and they are unwilling to bite it.
Those who are willing to eat the Olive Ridley are generally secondary predators in the ocean, which simply cannot bite through the thick shell of the Olive Ridley.
After laying eggs once, the Olive Ridley turtle will return to the breeding grounds for the next round of reproduction after a few years.
At present, the production of the Olive Ridley turtle population in our country is not large, and it is not captured in large quantities as an economic fishing target.
But fishermen often catch olive ridley turtles while fishing and catching shrimp.
Olive ridley is not a protected species.
Generally, if fishermen catch a Olive Ridley turtle, only a small number of them will eat it, while most of them will directly make it into fish meal or use it for viewing.
Xinhuanet published a report on November 9, 2015, saying that hundreds of thousands of sea turtles named Olive Ridley flocked to Ostionar Beach in northwestern Costa Rica from the 6th to the 9th to lay eggs.
Among them, the 7th was the day with the largest number of sea turtles coming ashore in a single day in recent years, reaching 107,000.
The collective spawning of Olive Ridley turtles began on the 6th and ended on the 9th.
That was the first time in 2015 that the Pacific green turtles laid eggs collectively on this beach, and it was also the largest scale in 2015.
Costa Rican marine biologist Delphine Mendes told Xinhua News Agency that from the 6th to the 8th, about 50,000 Olive Ridley turtles came ashore to lay eggs, including about 68,000 on the 6th, 107,000 on the 7th, and about 80,000 on the 8th.
Not many turtles came ashore on the 9th, and the collective egg-laying was over.
Costa Rica's Ostionar National Wildlife Refuge is one of the two most important nesting sites for the olive ridley turtle in the world.
During the nesting season every year, a large number of Olive Ridley turtles come to lay eggs.
The largest collective spawning occurs from September to November, and each spawning lasts up to 5 days.
Ostionar is the only place in the world where it is legal to collect and sell turtle eggs.
Part of the reason is that there are too many Olive Ridley turtles coming here to lay eggs, and there is not enough space on the beach for all the turtles to lay their eggs. When the last batch of turtles coming ashore dig their ovarian burrows, they will destroy the eggs buried by the previous batch of turtles.
It is reported that 40% of turtle ovarian cavities are destroyed by the turtles themselves. In addition, due to animals such as vultures that feed on turtle eggs, as well as natural weather factors, 9% of turtle eggs cannot be preserved.
Based on the objective conditions of Ostionar Beach, since 1987, the Ostionar Reserve has allowed local residents to collect and sell eggs laid by turtles in the first day of collective egg-laying.
These turtle eggs, which are difficult to preserve, only account for 1% of the total eggs laid on the beach.
By selling these turtle eggs, local people can earn income and have funds to protect this important turtle nesting site.
Xiang Yang scratched his head. Although the Olive Ridley is not rare in China and fishermen often catch them by mistake, it seems that no one has ever discovered the breeding ground of the Olive Ridley in China so far.
If these small turtle eggs are really the eggs of the Olive Ridley turtle, then this discovery is extraordinary.
Olive ridleys are one of the oldest reptiles, having appeared on Earth about 200 million years ago. They live in most oceans and rely on a hard bony shell to protect them from predators.
There are about 300 different species of turtles on Earth, but most are not as abundant as the Olive Ridley, which is so abundant that they can even be kept as pets.
Just as Xiang Yang was searching around carefully, he suddenly discovered that a gray reef under the sea not far away suddenly moved.
Xiang Yang had very sharp eyes. He immediately determined that the gray reef was definitely a turtle in disguise.
Xiang Yang strode towards the turtle.
Sure enough, when the turtle saw Xiang Yang approaching, it immediately turned its body and swam quickly towards the deep sea.
Xiang Yang raised his eyebrows and thought: It turns out to be a spiny sea turtle.
The spiny sea turtle is also a very common sea turtle. There are many of them in our country and they are very popular among people.
This turtle has a unique shell and is found mainly in Southeast Asia.
The spiny sea turtle has a tooth-shaped shell with a set of sharp spines on the edge. It looks a bit like an alligator turtle, but it is completely different from an alligator turtle.
In young individuals, these spikes are more prominent and sharp, which can effectively protect the young turtles from other predators, but as they grow older, they become rounder and the shell color is mostly brown, which makes it easier for them to hide and camouflage themselves.
The spiny sea turtle that Xiang Yang just saw, disguising itself as a reef, is actually a large spiny sea turtle that has already reached senior age. (To be continued)