Peltocephalus maturin: Researchers discover giant freshwater turtle

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It is one of the largest known freshwater turtles: an international research team has described a previously unknown extinct species from the late Pleistocene.

Peltocephalus maturin is between 9,000 and 40,000 years old and comes from the Brazilian Amazon, reports the group led by Gabriel Ferreira of the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen in the journal ‘Biology Letters’.

With a shell length of about 180 centimeters, the species is one of the largest freshwater turtles in the world. It is named after the giant tortoise Maturin, a fictional character by bestselling author Stephen King. According to the group, part of the turtle’s lower jaw was discovered by prospectors in a quarry in Porto Velho, Brazil.

Today, the Asian narrow-headed softshell turtle (Chitra chitra) with a maximum shell length of 140 centimeters and the South American river turtle (Podocnemis expansa) with approximately 110 centimeters are among the largest freshwater turtles. “In the past, we only knew of a few turtles that lived in fresh water and had a shell length of more than 150 centimeters,” Ferreira said in a statement from Senckenberg. “Such large animals were last known mainly from the Miocene, the period about 23 to 5 million years ago.”

Amazonians ate turtles

Based on several characteristics, the research team assumes that the newly discovered species is closely related to the fat-headed Amazon tortoise (Peltocephalus dumerilianus) and eats a meat and vegetable diet.

Researchers don’t know what led to the species’ extinction. “People settled in the Amazon about 12,600 years ago,” Ferreira says. “We also know that large turtles have been on the diet of hominins since the Paleolithic. It is still unclear whether freshwater turtles, which are much more difficult to catch due to their mobility, were also used for consumption by early humans and whether Peltocephalus maturin – along with South American megafauna – fell victim to human expansion. (SDA)

Source: Blick