Lots of people know that prehistoric sea turtles got big, but it can be easy to underestimate just how huge these things got. The largest verified specimen of a modern Leatherback turtle weighed in at 1,433 lbs, but this Archelon would have been closer to 11,300 lbs. #scicomm #paleosky #paleontology
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I think that's from a touring "Savage Seas" exhibit that I saw years ago...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meg:_Hell%27s_Aquarium
Most of the "impossibly large sea monster vs. too believably stupid humans" novels I've read (and there's more than you might think), use something from that list.
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I know we have a lot of large animals still, but there seemed to be so many more long ago. Was it something in the food?
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This is “The Bermuda Depths” all over again.
On a side note please please please, if you’re doing scicom, it really helps if units are provided that make sense to folks outside the states. Such as lions, (not cars as they’re not supersized here), apples or maybe S.I. units 🫣
(I like telling pointless lies.)
And this just occurred to me: if you dug up one of these skeletons two thousand or so years ago, might you not have assumed there were other even larger turtles deeper down, holding everything else up?
Hey, John! I used to follow your earthquake stuff on Facebook. How’s ShakeAlert coming? Is it available in WA yet? I’m right on top of the South Whidbey Island fault. 😉
@alt-text.bsky.social