Sofa-sized turtle with 7 foot shell may have lived at same time as humans after remains found by gold miners

A GIANT turtle that was about the same size as a sofa may have lived alongside humans.

The large creature is now extinct but its remains suggest it was alive around 9,000 years ago.

Júlia d‘Oliveira

SENCKENBERG SOCIETY FOR NATURE RESEARCH

That means it was alive around the same time as modern humans.

The large turtle had a shell that was about 6.6 feet long.

That’s according to research that focussed on jaw remains found in the Brazilian Amazon.

The fossilized jawbone was unearthed by gold miners in 2007.

It was given the scientific name Peltocephalus maturin.

This is a reference to the Stephen King character Maturin, which is a turtle that supposedly spat out the universe.

A recent study published in the March Biology Letters journal used the remains to work out a timeline for the creature.

“Body size regressions indicate Pe. maturin possibly reached about 180 cm in carapace length and is among the largest freshwater turtles ever found.

“This finding presents the latest known occurrence of giant freshwater turtles, hinting at coexistence with early human inhabitants in the Amazon,” the researchers wrote.

The carapace is the hard upper shell of a turtle and researchers have had to estimate the size of this in the case of the Peltocephalus maturin.

That’s because only a jawbone was found so it was compared to jawbones from living and extinct turtles that have corresponding shells.

The team also used radiocarbon and geochemical analysis on the fossil.

This is how they dated the fossil as somewhere between 40,000 and 9,000 years old.

If the true age of the fossil is close to 9,000 years old, it could have been around at the same time as Homo sapiens in the area.

There is evidence of humans living in the Amazon over 11,000 years ago.

That means both species could have encountered each other.

Ancient beasts: Some of the world's longest-living creatures

• Aldabra giant tortoise – Species has been known to live to up to 255 years old, making it the oldest terrestrial animal in the world
• Glass sponges (pictured) – Found in the East China Sea and Southern Ocean, examples have been found that are over 10,000 years old
• Great Basin bristlecone pine – One tree is the oldest in North America at 5,067 years old
• Endolith – A microspopic organism that lives inside rock. One was found on the ocean floor in 2013 generation time of 10,000 years
• Hydra –  an ocean species that does not age, making it technically immortal
• Creme Puff – The oldest known domestic cat, who died in Austin Texas in 2005 aged 38 years and three days
• Jeanne Calment – French great grandmother who died at 122 years and 164 days in 1997. She outlived both her daughter and grandson by several decades.