Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. A rare type of sea turtle is on the road to recover at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center in Jekyll Island, Georgia. But this reptile is the offspring of a surprising parent duo: a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys kempii) mother and a Loggerhead sea turtle father (Caretta caretta). That makes the sea turtle in question, named Earl Grey, a first-generation hybrid sea turtle.  Kemp ridleys are the world’s smallest and most endangered species of sea turtle, and they only nest in two locations in Texas and Mexico. The IUCN categorizes them as critically endangered. Loggerheads are the second largest hard-shelled sea turtle and are about 2.4- to 3.5-feet-long. They are significantly bigger than Kemp’s ridleys, and nest across multiple oceans.  In fact, Georgia Sea Turtle Center director Jaynie L. Gaskin tells Popular Science that the union of Earl Grey’s parents is interesting because the two species have notably different size, behavior, and nesting patterns. So what does that …