Discovery! Titanic 12-foot turtle lived 80 million years ago, newfound fossils show

Here's another amazing fossil find that you may not have heard about - Since I love dinosaurs, prehistoric mammals and sea life I enjoy reading about how amazing the world was before humans showed up. Here's the latest finding from LIVE Science.com!

Image:  An artist's interpretation of what the newly discovered extinct turtle Leviathanochelys aenigmatica might have looked like. (Image credit: ICRA_Arts)

Titanic 12-foot turtle cruised the ocean 80 million years ago, newfound fossils show

By Harry Baker LIVE SCIENCE Nov. 18, 2022

Researchers in Spain have unearthed a never-before-seen species of ancient marine turtle, the largest of its kind ever uncovered in Europe.

Paleontologists have unearthed an extinct, never-before-seen species of giant sea turtle in Spain. The titanic turtle likely had a body length of around 12.3 feet (3.7 meters) — more than double the size of modern marine turtles — and is the largest turtle species ever uncovered in Europe.

The new species, which researchers have named Leviathanochelys aenigmatica, was identified from a complete pelvis fossil and fragments of fossilized shell uncovered between 2016 and 2021 at the Cal Torrades locality in northeastern Spain, researchers said in a statement(opens in new tab). The enormous turtle likely cruised around Europe's ancient oceans between 83.6 and 72.1 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period (145 million to 66 million years ago).

L. aenigmatica is just over twice the size of the largest living marine turtles, leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea), which can reach up to 5.9 feet (1.8 m) long. However, the newly found gigantic turtle falls just short of the record set by the world's largest-ever turtle, the extinct Archelon ischyros, which had a maximum body length of 15 feet (4.6 m), according to the statement.

The new study was published online Nov. 17 in the journal Scientific Reports.