The Olive Ridley Turtle has a tendency to eat a wide variety of foods which has lead to many attempts on its behalf to ingest trash such as plastic bags and Styrofoam. Surprisingly, in captivity, this species has been observed to be cannibalistic. Most feeding takes place in shallow, soft-bottomed waters. While the exact age at which reproduction occurs is not known, females usually reach a length of 60 cm before becoming reproductively active. Mating usually occurs on beaches during the spring and early summer in North America and is not monogamous.
Male sperm is stored within the female for use throughout the entire breeding season.
Mating takes place just offshore of the breeding beaches. Females choose to return to their beach of birth and will do this by remembering the smell of the beach through enhanced chemosensors. Nesting takes place during the night with the females riding in on the high tide and usually coincides with the first or last quarter of the moon. The Olive Ridley turtle is well known for its mass nesting, with 300 or more females at a time coming ashore. Situating themselves approximately 50 m from the sea, females will dig a nest 30-55 cm deep, depositing on average 107 eggs, and then return to the sea.