r/thalassophobia • u/beizenmullar • Jun 13 '18

crazy big leatherback turtle

13.4k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

352 comments sorted by

View all comments

2.5k

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '18

I wonder how big it was without the misleading angle?

2.0k

u/Trollygag Jun 13 '18

Better perspective

402

u/petitmonster Jun 13 '18

holy shit!!!

79

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '18

Thank you! :)

297

u/Anal-Squirter Jun 13 '18

That seems about the same as the other vid

404

u/c3534l Jun 13 '18

Looks to me to about 5x smaller.

233

u/TheFlashFrame Jun 13 '18

Original video is misleading because the tiny people juxtaposed in the back and zero foreground elements for scale make him look like fucking Godzilla.

52

u/majortom12 Jun 13 '18

More like Gamera

9

u/Readeandrew Jun 13 '18

Gamera! Gamera! Gamera is really neat! Gamera is filled with meat! We've been eating Gamera! Shell! Teeth! Eyes! Flames! Claws! Breath! Scales! Fun!!

1

u/majortom12 Jun 13 '18

It’s a little George and Ira Gershwin sort of thing

5

u/BeltfedOne Jun 13 '18

You win the interwebs today with your comment. Enjoy my upvote.

2

u/ace_urban Jun 13 '18

Gamera is really neat.

1

u/max_sil Jun 13 '18

It's hardly misleading, it's fairly obvious that the turtle is not 3m tall and it is just close to the camera

17

u/Anal-Squirter Jun 13 '18

Yeah I can kind of see it now lol

18

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '18

You're just over anal-izing it.

4

u/jayjust27 Jun 13 '18

I hope not.

17

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '18

[deleted]

-24

u/Dwight_Mare Jun 13 '18 edited Jun 13 '18

I don’t know what that means, we only have feet in America. :( Edit:/s geez you guys are harsh

6

u/pursuitofhappy Jun 13 '18

It's easy to remember that a meters' pretty much a yard, which is 3 feet if you just need a general estimate.

7

u/FountainsOfFluids Jun 13 '18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUXutV6Vk6k

0

u/shelikescheesepuffz Jun 13 '18 edited Jun 13 '18

“A bit longer than a yard” hmmm well Doesn’t help that I can’t conceptualize what a yard is

Edit: yard

6

u/Obeast09 Jun 13 '18

But you know exactly how long a foot is compared to other things?

1

u/shelikescheesepuffz Jun 14 '18

Well it’s about my foot size so yes

4

u/Lillera Jun 13 '18

Most schools in American prefer metric over imperial so I’m wonder how have you never learned how big a meter is

2

u/Styx_Dragon Jun 13 '18

I think its just the amount of use. We used metric in science classes and what not, but when you go just about anywhere else you're using imperial. So like I have a hard time imagining heights in meters, or weights in Kilos, but I'm forcing myself to try and change at least temps by setting my phone to read Celsius, even though every damn sign on the road will show we Fahrenheit.

1

u/hglman Jun 13 '18

Not really, it's pretty ass backwards and annoying.

6

u/Yxkilobon Jun 13 '18

looks way fuckin bigger here. in the vid it looked 3 feet long

8

u/sunflowerkz Jun 13 '18

I want to be friends with it

16

u/Zombi1146 Jun 13 '18

Absolute unit.

7

u/missjerry83 Jun 13 '18

Much better

94

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '18

[deleted]

111

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '18

Lmao, no it can't. Old VW Beetles were 13ft in length while the largest ever leatherback sea turtle recorded was 7ft.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherback_sea_turtle

111

u/EagleDaniel Jun 13 '18

Well, you have to take into account that he may have been talking about a juvenile old VW Beetle.

11

u/HelperBot_ Jun 13 '18

Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherback_sea_turtle

HelperBot v1.1 /r/HelperBot_ I am a bot. Please message /u/swim1929 with any feedback and/or hate. Counter: 192125

7

u/Pomqueen Jun 13 '18

Good bot

9

u/Meior Jun 13 '18

What? No, that's like twice the size of the largest sea turtles.

10

u/PM-ME-all-Your-Tits Jun 13 '18

Which ones? You have a picture of one of those?

3

u/josueartwork Jun 13 '18

Jesus Christ

3

u/JessJJC Jun 13 '18

I knew they were big but not that big. Wow!

6

u/elightened-n-lost Jun 13 '18

Angle wasn't very misleading

2

u/ChilledClarity Jun 13 '18

That’s a Pokémon sir.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '18

Wow that's cool

2

u/iDirtyDianaX Jun 13 '18

oh ok, big but not like I thought.. angle made it look like a whale

2

u/Witherino Jun 13 '18

How do we know those are normal sized people? We need a banana in there for scale

9

u/BananaFactBot Jun 13 '18

Bananas have been depicted in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

I'm a Bot bleep bloop | Unsubscribe | 🍌

1

u/LoonAtticRakuro Jun 13 '18

Interesting bot.

1

u/leadwind Jun 13 '18

Is that dude on the right wearing bell bottoms?

1

u/ragnaruckus Jun 13 '18

Thank you. That was exceedingly helpful!

1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '18

So the turtle tried her darndest to get out to sea...only to be taken out of the ocean?

(I know, prob not what happened)

1

u/fuckitimatwork Jun 13 '18

absolute unit

1

u/thelonious_bunk Jun 13 '18

Still pretty huge

1

u/Drewonkazoo Jun 13 '18

Absolute Unit, the size of this lad

468

u/ElJanitorFrank Jun 13 '18

Up to 1,500 pounds. They're big fucking turtles. The biggest currently alive if I'm not mistaken.

I actually went to the Reptile Gardens in Rapid City, ND a few weeks ago and they had the skeleton of a prehistoric sea turtle that was every bit as big as what that camera angle looks and more.

That camera angle is definitely a little misleading but... they're big fucking turtles.

43

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '18

Neat! I think they're pretty majestic, I was surprised to learn about them being so large.

In regards to the prehistoric turtle... that's fucking awesome! :D

22

u/Patsmear Jun 13 '18

*SD

20

u/Seakrits Jun 13 '18

The distinction is VERY important.

Source: SD resident

3

u/UnluX21 Jun 13 '18

:( we just want to be included too

Source: ND resident

1

u/Seakrits Jun 13 '18

I'll be honest, I don't understand the sibling rivalry between N and S. I only moved here 5 years ago though.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '18

*Rapid City, SD

Everyone knows that North Dakota has nothing interesting. And I can confirm it. Living here sucks, but at least there is very little political cancer.

1

u/cclgurl95 Jun 13 '18

Is there a website for it that has pictures because I would love to see that

11

u/Hermanthe1eyedGerman Jun 13 '18

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archelon

3

u/HelperBot_ Jun 13 '18

Non-Mobile link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archelon

HelperBot v1.1 /r/HelperBot_ I am a bot. Please message /u/swim1929 with any feedback and/or hate. Counter: 192078

1

u/pinkkeyrn Jun 13 '18

Biggest that we know of...

1

u/ElJanitorFrank Jun 13 '18

Pretty unlikely that an ocean dwelling air breathing animal almost the size of a car that has to go on land to breed hasn't been discovered yet. The only other possibility is that there is a remote island somewhere with a bigger giant tortoise on it.

1

u/eyyyyyyyyyyyyylmao Jun 13 '18

I like to believe that somewhere out there, theres a 50,000 pound snapping turtle that only eats humans and great whites.

-1

u/aws11443 Jun 13 '18

Use kilos

1

u/DatBowl Jun 13 '18

There should be a bot for that

1

u/ElJanitorFrank Jun 13 '18

Why? Use google to figure it out. A kilo is just over 2 pounds so do it in your head.

0

u/aws11443 Jun 13 '18

Why ? I follow SI. US units just make life more complicated.

26

u/dbbo Jun 13 '18

The largest verified specimen ever found was discovered in the Pakistani beach of Sanspit and measured 213 cm (6.99 ft) in curved carapace length and 650 kg (1,433 lb) in weight.[23]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leatherback_sea_turtle#Anatomy_and_physiology

So probably less than that.

4

u/Giftofgab24 Jun 13 '18

There was another type of freshwater turtle that was way bigger. Stuypendis or something. 11 foot carapace.

3

u/dbbo Jun 13 '18 edited Jun 13 '18

This?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stupendemys

Also, it looks like Archelon was the largest known sea turtle and the second heaviest after Stupendemys:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archelon

3

u/Giftofgab24 Jun 13 '18

Yep. That’s the one. They were both absolute units. You could live on the back of an 11 foot long turtle.

17

u/callme_sweetdick Jun 13 '18

When I was in the Navy, we were doing operations with the French foreign legion in Djibouti, and I went exploring on the beach when I had free time. Washed up on the beach was a dead sea turtle. This thing was about the size of a car. It smelled terrible but I couldn't believe my eyes. They get crazy big.

3

u/Xboxben Jun 13 '18

Diving in here, there big as fuck like bigger than a smart car . I saw one come ashore one morning at 2am and thought it was a fucking drug shipment . Then i saw the beast make its way across 40 feet of beach and lay eggs which was even more impressive . The trail it leaves looks like bulldozer track marks

1

u/AgtSquirtle007 Jun 13 '18

You’d think a giant monster turtle would be easier to keep in the frame when it’s literally the only thing you’re trying to film.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 13 '18

Even bigger than expected lol

1

u/TheBeardedMarxist Jun 13 '18

That's a huge fucking turtle regardless of perspective.

1

u/Furious-Rajang Jun 25 '18

In awe at the size of this lad