olive ridley
- noun
- /ˈɑlɪv ˈrɪdli/
- Specialized
:
tortuga olivácea
- Only five beaches in the world are known sites of olive ridley arribadas: two in India's Orissa Province, another at a remote spot in Mexico, and at two points on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.
- olive ridley turtle
- olive ridley sea turtle
- female olive ridley
Examples
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Slowly and ponderously, first hundreds, then thousands of female olive ridley turtles march up the beach.
Academic text (1995) -
Photos (color): Wave upon wave of olive ridleys lumber upward out of the sea until the beach is paved with these eighty-pound turtles.
Academic text (1995) -
In four days, 150,000 to 200,000 olive ridley turtles have swarmed ashore at Playa Ostional to lay their eggs.
Academic text (1995) -
Of the world's eight sea turtle species, only the olive ridley, the most abundant of all marine turtles, and the much rarer Kemp's, or Atlantic ridley, stage such arribadas.
Academic text (1995) -
Every year, hundreds of thousands of female olive ridley sea turtles take over beaches like tourists on spring break.
-
An olive ridley sea turtle is spotted off Dana Point.
-
In four days, 150,000 to 200,000 olive ridley turtles have swarmed ashore at Playa Ostional to lay their eggs.
Synonyms
An olive green sea turtle that comes ashore on tropical beaches to lay eggs in large groups
A sea turtle with an olive-coloured shell that lives in warm Pacific, Indian, and southern Atlantic waters
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun phrase is directly compositional: 'olive' denotes the yellowish‑green color and 'ridley' names a kind of marine turtle, so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes a ridley turtle that is olive‑colored. This color + species naming pattern is a regular, cross‑linguistic compositional pattern, making the expression immediately understandable to learners who know the constituents.
Etymology
The name olive ridley may come from the turtle's olive-colored shell and the surname Ridley of an early scientist who studied these animals. That simple picture of a small, olive-colored turtle with the name Ridley helps explain why the name means a 'small sea turtle' today.
