A Very Large Turtle

[Recusant]

Possibly a false recollection, but I think we may have already had a thread on this topic. It was several years ago, and I was unable to find it using the feeble site search function. Anyway, some new specimens have been found in Venezuela. 

"This may be the biggest turtle that ever lived" | LiveScience

Rodolpho Sánchez showcases the turtle shell of the huge Stupendemys geographicus, which lived about 8 million years ago in northern South America. Image credit: Rodolpho Sánchez

An 8-million-year-old turtle shell unearthed in Venezuela measures nearly 8 feet (2.4 meters) long, making it the largest complete turtle shell known to science, a new study reported.

This shell belonged to an extinct beast called Stupendemys geographicus, which lived in northern South America during the Miocene epoch, which lasted from 12 million to 5 million years ago.

S. geographicus weighed an estimated 2,500 lbs. (1,145 kilograms), almost 100 times the size of its closest living relative, the Amazon river turtle (Peltocephalus dumerilianus), and twice the size of the largest living turtle, the marine leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea), the researchers wrote in the study.

Its impressive shell makes this ancient creature "one of the largest, if not the largest turtle that ever existed," study senior researcher Marcelo Sánchez-Villagra, the director of the Paleontological Institute and Museum at the University of Zurich, said in a statement.

The species likely achieved its colossal size thanks to the warm wetlands and lakes in its habitat, Sánchez noted.

[Continues . . .]

[No one]

Looks like Gamera is real. Suck it, Mrs Pemmels!

[jumbojak]

Imagine the pot of soup you could make with that sucker.

[xSilverPhinx]

Wow.

[Dark Lightning]

One of my sons went to Hawai'i for a water polo tournament when in high school. He was swimming in the ocean and came close to a large sea turtle, which pursued him for a while. He's an expert swimmer and worked as a lifeguard, but he was in for his life when that thing was following him, he was swimming like mad. If it had been as big as the turtle pictured, we'd probably never seen him again!

[Kusa]

[Tank]

[Biggus Dickus]

Oh look, rape jokes.

[Magdalena]

Oh look, rape jokes.

I know! The turtle won't remember anything!