New records of Lepidochelys olivacea (Eschscholtz, 1829) (Testudines, Cheloniidae) provide evidence that Uruguayan waters are the southernmost limit of distribution for the species in the western Atlantic Ocean

Abstract

We report 8 new records of Lepidochelys olivacea marine turtle in the Uruguayan waters, indicating this area as the southernmost limit of distribution for this species in the western Atlantic Ocean. In addition, 1 specimen was subjected to genetic analysis, revealing its population origin in the western Atlantic nesting colonies (Surinam, French Guiana, and Brazil). This report represents an update of the distribution of L. olivacea in the southwestern Atlantic and provides insight into the morphological and genetic characterization of the species at temperate waters.

Global phylogeography of ridley sea turtles (Lepidochelys spp.): evolution, demography, connectivity, and conservation

“…Here we only included longer sequences (> 700 bp) to potentially increase power to resolve population structure. In total, 283 Kemp's ridley (Duchene et al 2012;Frey et al 2014;Reid et al 2019;Frandsen et al 2020) and 340 olive ridley sequences were obtained from published studies (Duchene et al 2012;Plot et al 2012;Jensen et al 2013;Revuelta et al 2015;González-Paredes et al 2017;Campista León et al 2019;Work et al 2019;Adnyana et al 2020;Silver-Gorges et al 2020;Stelfox et al 2020). Several segments from Madagascar and India (Stelfox et al 2020) were excluded because haplotype frequencies were not available, and only publicly accessible haplotypes from Adnyana et al (2020) were included.…”

Threats and Vulnerabilities for the Globally Distributed Olive Ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) Sea Turtle: A Historical and Current Status Evaluation

“…The olive ridley turtle is widely distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical waters of the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans (Figure 1), predominantly in the Indo-Pacific region [29,30]. In the Pacific, this species has been reported from northern Mexico to Chile, including central Pacific islands [18,[31][32][33], while in the Atlantic, there are reports of olive ridleys from the Azores Islands, in the North Atlantic, to Uruguay [34,35]. [36] with data collected from [5]).…”