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Description

Archelon ischyros
Named by G. R. Wieland, 1896
Diet: Soft-bodied creatures such as jellyfish and cephalopods
Type: Testudines, cryptodira, americhelydia (Protostegid) turtle
Size: 13 feet (4 meters) long, 16 feet (4.9 meters) wide, and 4,850 lb.
Region: North America (South Dakota and Wyoming USA)
Age: Late Cretaceous (80.5 to 75 million BC; Campanian)
Enemies: Tylosaurus (a large mosasaur species)
Episode: Sea Monsters-The Most Dangerous Sea Ever
Info: The largest of all sea turtles and the second-heaviest turtle after Stupendemys (a freshwater turtle of Miocene South America), the Archelon was the size of a Volkswagen beetle, weighing a ton heavier than today's largest sea turtle the leatherback turtle (its nearest living relative), and swam through the Western Interior Seaway that covers what is now South Dakota and Wyoming more than 80 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period (Campanian stage), preying on soft-bodied animals such as squid and jellyfish with its toothless beak with a pronounced overbite. However, unlike most modern turtles, Archelon did not have a solid shell, but instead have a shell made of leather, which makes it vulnerable to large predators such as the apex predator of the Western Interior Seaway, Tylosaurus.

Would've been to swim and ride on this magnificent giant turtle

Requested by

Walking with Dinosaurs and Sea Monsters is owned by BBC and Impossible Pictures

Description

Archelon ischyros
Named by G. R. Wieland, 1896
Diet: Soft-bodied creatures such as jellyfish and cephalopods
Type: Testudines, cryptodira, americhelydia (Protostegid) turtle
Size: 13 feet (4 meters) long, 16 feet (4.9 meters) wide, and 4,850 lb.
Region: North America (South Dakota and Wyoming USA)
Age: Late Cretaceous (80.5 to 75 million BC; Campanian)
Enemies: Tylosaurus (a large mosasaur species)
Episode: Sea Monsters-The Most Dangerous Sea Ever
Info: The largest of all sea turtles and the second-heaviest turtle after Stupendemys (a freshwater turtle of Miocene South America), the Archelon was the size of a Volkswagen beetle, weighing a ton heavier than today's largest sea turtle the leatherback turtle (its nearest living relative), and swam through the Western Interior Seaway that covers what is now South Dakota and Wyoming more than 80 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period (Campanian stage), preying on soft-bodied animals such as squid and jellyfish with its toothless beak with a pronounced overbite. However, unlike most modern turtles, Archelon did not have a solid shell, but instead have a shell made of leather, which makes it vulnerable to large predators such as the apex predator of the Western Interior Seaway, Tylosaurus.

Would've been to swim and ride on this magnificent giant turtle

Requested by

Walking with Dinosaurs and Sea Monsters is owned by BBC and Impossible Pictures