Scientists have described a new species of giant freshwater turtle, after they discovered the animal's massive jawbone in the Brazilian Amazon Basin. The researchers say its shell would have been about 1.8 meters long, meaning it would have crushed any modern turtle. If knowledge.
The name of the new species of turtle was inspired by Stephen King and became Peltocephalus maturin. Maturin refers to the giant turtle that is the writer the In his book, King was inspired by the character Stephen Maturin in the Patrick O'Brien series Aubrey Maturin.
Giant freshwater turtles probably lived much later, Like Miocene turtles. In other words, people would have already been present in South America when Maturin' tortoises were still living there.
They were unable to determine the exact age of the ancient turtle remains, and could only estimate between 40,000 and 9,000 years old. Humans may have arrived in South America more than 10,000 years ago and settled the Amazon region.
We also know that turtles were on the menu of early humans
Gabriel S. said: Ferreira, Senckenberg's Scientist institute colleague. But it is not certain that they were able to catch these giant turtles, which are much more flexible than they are today. It is also unknown whether Peltocephalus maturin fell victim to human expansion along with the megafauna of South America. Ferreira said, more data is needed on late Pleistocene and early Holocene sites in the Amazon Basin.
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