Gigantic turtle from the dinosaur era was almost 4 metres long

Leviathanochelys aenigmatica, which lived someday between 72.1 million and 83.6 million years in the past, is without doubt one of the largest marine turtles ever discovered

By Jason Arunn Murugesu

An historic species of turtle whose stays have been found in Spain is the biggest marine turtle ever present in Europe.

The turtle, which has been named Leviathanochelys aenigmatica, was as much as 3.74 metres lengthy. It lived someday between 72.1 million and 83.6 million years in the past, across the similar time as dinosaurs equivalent to Velociraptor.

Fragments of the fossil had been first discovered by a hiker in 2016 in Coll de Nargó, a village within the Catalonia area. The stays had been dug up and picked up by native authorities and museum officers.

In 2021, Àngel Luján on the Autonomous University of Barcelona and his colleagues carried out extra excavations of the world and found that the fossil really belonged to a brand new species of turtle. During this excavation, the workforce realised that the turtle’s 90-centimetre-wide pelvis had two bone bulges on its entrance, not like another turtle pelvises beforehand described.

The turtle is the second-largest marine turtle ever found and the biggest to have been present in Europe.

The largest marine turtle ever found, Archelon, was present in North America and is estimated to have had a physique size of 4.6 metres.

“Our discovery also indicates that gigantic marine turtles evolved several times in distinctive families,” says Luján.

The turtle most likely had an identical weight loss plan to different marine turtles, equivalent to sponges, algae and barnacles, he says.

It is unclear precisely why these turtles grew so huge, however Martin Sander on the University of Bonn in Germany suggests that enormous male turtles could have had higher reproductive success. “Giant turtles probably spread all over the world like leatherback turtles today,” he says.

Luján says he expects there to be many extra discoveries of historic big turtles in Europe. He says there are lots of fragmentary stays of such turtles in international locations like Italy and the Czech Republic, however they aren’t as intact because the turtle his workforce found.

“We are optimistic and we believe that it is possible to find more giant turtle species in Europe,” he says.

The discovering additionally hints at the potential for discovering extra big turtles in North Africa. “Southern Europe and North Africa shared several faunas, both marine and terrestrial, during the Late Cretaceous, between 80 and 66 million years ago,” says Luján. “Because of that, it would be not surprising to discover new gigantic marine turtles in these regions.”

Journal reference: Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-22619-w