Edwin Cadena, a doctoral student at North Carolina State University, is credited with discovering the largest prehistoric fossil turtle ever found in a paper published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology that was reviewed at the Eureka Alert web site.
The turtle named Carbonemys cofrinii (coal turtle) was part of a group of side-necked turtles known as pelomedusoides. This particular gigantic specimen was found in a coal mine that is part of northern Colombia’s Cerrejon formation.
The five million year old specimen had a shell that measured five feet seven inches from head to tail. Carbonemys cofrinii was omnivorous.
The researchers explain the size of the fossil turtle as a simple matter of size. Carbonemys cofrinii ate everything that could have been a threat to it and grew to a tremendous size. Turtle tooth marks on other fossils found in the same area form the basis for this conclusion.
The environment in South America at the time Carbonemys cofrinii lived is also credited with the extreme size of this turtle fossil. “The ecosystem, including fewer predators, a larger habitat area, plentiful food supply and climate changes, worked together to allow these giant species to survive” according to the scientists. Several other prehistoric reptiles of gargantuan proportions have been found in the same area of South America.
