A Polyphasic Growth Function for the Endangered Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle, Lepidochelys kempii

The Kemp's ridley, Lepidochelys kempii is the smallest of the seven extant species of sea turtle and is endemic to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coast of the United States. Although the Kemp's ridley sea turtle is endangered, the somatic growth and population dynamics of this species are not well known despite several important growth studies that have been carried out for captive or head-started stocks. We propose a new growth model for the endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle that is based on a skeletochronological data set derived recently by Zug et al. (1997) from wild stock sea turtles stranded along the Atlantic Bight and Gulf coasts of the United States. The growth model presented provides a basis for improving our understanding of sea turtle growth dynamics in general and for modeling Kemp's ridley population viability.