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Keyword: stupendemys

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  • This may be the biggest turtle that ever lived: This jaw-droppingly huge specimen is the largest known complete turtle shell on Earth.

    02/13/2020 10:53:48 AM PST · by C19fan · 31 replies
    Live Science ^ | February 13, 2020 | Laura Geggel
    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...