Long ago, gigantic sea turtles swam in Earth’s seas. Until recently, these prehistoric giants, reaching lengths of over 3 meters from head to tail, were thought to be found only in the waters surrounding North America.
Now, scientists have discovered a previously unknown species – the largest sea turtle found in Europe today yet identified.
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Initially found by a climber who came across the remains in 2016 in the Pyrenees mountains of northern Spain, the species was given the name Leviathanochelys aenigmatica. “Leviathan” is the biblical term for a sea monster, an allusion to the creature’s large body size, while “chelys” translates to tortoise and “aenigmatica” translates to enigma — in reference to the turtle’s peculiar characteristics, the authors wrote. of an article. published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.
The animal’s unusual presence in this part of the prehistoric world revealed that giant tortoises were more common than previously thought, according to the study.
Before the discovery, the largest species discovered in what is now Europe measured just 1.5 meters in length, similar to today’s leatherback sea turtles, which average 300 to 500 kilograms and measure 1 to 2 meters, according to with the Smithsonian Institute.
Bone fragments from this newly identified species, however, have led scientists to estimate that Leviathanochelys had a body 3.7 meters long, about as big as an average sedan.
“We never thought it was possible to find something like this. After a long study of the bone fragments, we realized that there were some totally different features, not present in any other turtle species fossil discovered so far,” said Albert Sellés, study co-author and postdoctoral researcher at the Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain.
Originally, researchers believed the bones belonged to a different type of animal, according to Sellés.
“It’s quite common to find bone fragments, lots of them. But most of them are not informative,” said Sellés. “It’s very rare to discover something that really tells a bit about past life.”
A local museum and the Ministry of Culture of Catalonia originally collected the bone specimens, but they remained unstudied for nearly five years. When Sellés and the other researchers began their work studying the bones in 2021, they realized they were looking at a sea turtle species completely new to science and quickly returned to the Pyrenees site to carry out more excavations.
There, more fragments of the specimen, including pieces of the turtle’s pelvis and carapace – the part of the shell that covered the creature’s back – were discovered. With these discoveries, scientists observed more features not previously seen in any species of turtle, living or dead.
“The main differences of this new fossil are related to the pelvic region. More specifically, some bony protuberances present in the anterior part of the pelvis, which we suspect are related to some type of muscle that controls the movement of the turtle’s abdominal region,” said Sellés.
This feature or muscle likely affected the turtles’ breathing capacity, allowing them to hold their breath longer than other species of turtles in order to swim along the ocean floor to find food or escape predators, according to Sellés.
The research team estimated that the ancient animal lived during the Late Cretaceous Campanian Era, being at least 72 million years old.
The largest turtle ever recorded, called Archelon, lived around 70 million years ago and grew to around 15 feet in length. Prior to this recent discovery, all discoveries of prehistoric giant sea turtles were part of the same Archelon lineage.
“We are proving that turtles can reach really gigantic proportions at different times and also in different families,” said Sellés. “For the first time, we found a (giant) tortoise that does not belong to this family.”
The researchers hope to return to the fossil site again to look for more bones, as they are not sure that all fragments of this specimen have been discovered, according to Sellés.
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