KEMP'S RIDLY
![Picture](/uploads/4/7/4/8/4748813/2187663.jpg)
Kemp's ridley is the smallest and most endangered of the world's seven sea turtle species. It was named after a Key West resident, Richard Kemp, who sent two ridley specimens to Harvard's Agassiz Museum for identification about 90 years ago. Adults measure 24 to 28 inches (62-70 cm) in carapace length (shell length) and do not exceed 30 inches shell length and weigh from 70 to 110 pounds. The carapace circular to heart-shaped keelednearly round, sometimes wider than it is long. The color is gray to olive-gray; the plastron is yellowish. The carapace of the young is gray-black. There are five pairs of costal shields, as on loggerhead turtles. Hawksbill turtles tend to be restricted to the tropics, nesting in Florida, Mexico, the West Indies and the Caribbean coast and islands of Central and South America. Nesting is scattered throughout their range. Kemp's ridley turtles are found mainly in the Gulf of Mexico, but may range through coastal waters along the eastern seaboard as far north as Nova Scotia. A 1931 publication noted, with some surprise, that they "are frequent summer visitors to northern harbors" and "are the species most commonly found in New York waters." Though they are sighted there on occasion, the Gulf of Mexico is truly "home" for Kemp's ridley turtles.