Scientists from Venezuela and Colombia have discovered the remains of an incredible creature in the South American Tatacoa desert. Its Latin name is stupendemys geographicus, and it is a huge ancient turtle weighing several tons and with a shell three meters long.
Cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are cool, of course, but the shell of stupendemys geographicus alone looks just as unreal and inspires a lot more awe, take a look.
The remains of an ancient tortoise shell have been found in South America.
Its name is Stupendemys geographicus - such lived on Earth 5-13 million years ago
The remains have been found in the Colombian Tatacoa Desert, which was wet and swampy several million years ago. Here the studendemis felt great and grew calmly to incredible sizes for a turtle.
By the way, it was the changes in the habitat, according to scientists, that caused the species to disappear.
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The shell of the turtle found is about 3 meters long and weighs more than a ton.
Venezuelan paleontologist Rudolfo Sanchez lay down next to the remains. He is of average human height.
In general, the turtle could be 5 meters long and weigh all 6 tons. Such is the marine minibus. According to researchers, stupendemys geographicus are the largest turtles in the entire history of life on Earth. Although there was another giant species - the archelon (google, these are also monsters).
The species of these turtles has been known since the 70s of the 20th century, but there is very little information about them.
Fun fact: scientists have found out that the closest relative of studendemis (and this, by the way, is a species of sea turtles) is a large-headed side-necked Amazonian turtle, despite the fact that its representatives are less than our heroes by … 100 times.
Stupendemis lived in the water, fed on fish, snakes, molluscs and even small crocodiles.
However, they themselves became victims of even more huge predators, which were not stopped by the massive armor of the reptile.
The study of the discovered remains will help scientists better understand the evolution of the species.
The shell will also help to establish how the representatives of the stupendemys geographicus managed to grow up such heroes.
And this find once again proves that millions of years ago, life on our planet was incredibly fun. It's good that there was no man yet.