"Giant Amazon Turtle Fossil Named After Stephen King Character"
Researchers have named a newly discovered species of giant prehistoric turtle, Peltocephalus Maturin, after a universe-creating character in Stephen King's novel It. The monstrous armoured reptile lived during the Pleistocene period and was estimated to have had a colossal shell length of around 180 cm, making it almost half a meter bigger than the largest freshwater turtle living today. This isn’t the first time scientists have drawn inspiration from fictional characters when naming a new discovery, as seen with other species named after characters like Indiana Jones and J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Silmarillion.
