The series features all five of the seven remaining species of sea turtles can be found in the Indian Ocean: Green, Hawksbill, Olive Ridley, Loggerhead and Leatherback.
BIOT hosts an important nesting population of Hawksbill and Green Turtles.
Ridley is a strange name for a turtle. The evidence is strong that 'ridley' is a vernacular of local usage in the Florida Keys and the Bahamas.
Archie Carr (1909-1987) was an American herpetologist, ecologist and a pioneering conservationist whom the Oxford English Dictionary cite as the source of the name, but says the etymology is unknown.
According to Carr’s widow 'ridley' came from 'riddle', which was transmogrified to 'riddler' and finally 'ridley'. The riddle being "Who were its parents?" No one knew from whence the 'bastard turtle', as local turtlers sometimes called it, came or where it bred. The Florida Keys are (or were) home to a number of fishermen from the Bahamas; whether they or the native Floridians first used the name 'ridley' is not certain.