The aquatic animal I'd like to describe is the olive ridley sea turtle, which I first came across in a nature documentary and then read up on afterwards because it fascinated me so much.
It's one of the smallest sea turtles in the world. It has a rounded, almost heart-shaped shell in a dull olive-green colour, which is where the name comes from, and four flippers that make it surprisingly graceful in the water. It spends nearly its whole life in warm tropical seas, including the Indian Ocean.
What really caught my attention, though, is the way the females nest. Rather than arriving one at a time, huge numbers of them sometimes come ashore on the same stretch of beach over just a few nights. This is called an 'arribada', which is Spanish for 'arrival', and some of the best-known nesting beaches are on the coast of Odisha in eastern India. Each turtle digs a hole in the sand with her back flippers, lays her eggs, covers them up and heads straight back to the sea. A couple of months later, the tiny hatchlings dig their way out and scramble towards the water, guided by the brighter horizon over the sea.
I find it interesting partly because the whole process is so remarkable, and partly because the turtles are so vulnerable. Fishing nets and bright lights near beaches can harm or confuse them, so local volunteers now protect the nesting sites. Honestly, it made me think twice about how our everyday habits affect wildlife.