San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-08-23

FHE fossil remains of a turtle so big
that he could, if he were alive,
waddle down Fifth avenue brush
ing the traffic towers over like toothpicks
an traddling the largest limousine with
out touching its sides, have just been dis
covered in northern India.
Science believes that this creature was
the largest Of its kind that ever roamed
the earth. 1t lived 5000, 900 years ago
the age when there were giants in the
forests, when the struggle for survival
was fought out among powerful monsters
like mastodons, dinosaures and the huge
ancestors of modern wolves, lions and
tigers. And the big tortoise, with its
heavy shell and the thickest hide that ever
grew on living creature, was the undis-
puted monarch of them all. Nothing
could hurt him. Like big tractor, he
battered his way through the prehistoric
trees, knocking over or brushing aside
anything that disputed his sway. He was
the most absolute and certainly the most
picturesque of all the creatures that have
from time to time through the centuries
ruled the animal kingdom.
DIR. Barnum Brown, associate curator
of fossil reptiles of the American Museum
of Natural History, found the great skele-
ton after five years exploration in various
parts of Asia. He brought it back TO the
museum, where it will be reconstructed
and mounted. And this giant-to which
science has awarded the imposing name
of Colossoshelys, meaning colossal tor
toise, will be given in the Hall of Rep
tiles the place of honor to which his dis
tinguished, though very ancient royal
position, entities him.
To get an idea what he looked like, one
should forget every tortoise he ever saw,
then think of large rhinoceros, some
what flattened on top, and covered with
a shell a foot or more in thickness, which
a ten-inch shell could not pierce. Imagine
then a wicked looking head like lizards
head, but as large as a barrel, protruding
from the front end of the shell. Imagine
a beak, two feet or more in length, of
terrible cutting power, jutting out from
between the beady eyes. Put this com
posite monster on legs from eight to ten
feet in length, legs bigger and stronger
than an elephants. and one has a picture
of the gigantic old fellow.
Visitors to the ZOOS know what the
Galapagos tortoise, which can easily carry
man around on its back, looks like. IN
til Dr. Browns discovery, it was supposed
that this turtle was the biggest of all his
ancient clan. Beside his prehistoric ances-
tor, however, the Galapagos would look
like kiddie-ear beside the locomotive of
the Twentieth Century Limited. His
dimensions remind one of some of the
imaginary monsters described here and
there in the Old Testament From tip 10
tail he was from twenty-five TO thirty-five
feet in length. Altogether he weighed
between eight and ten tons; his shell alone
tipped the scales at over a thousand
pounds. II was almost impossible for
anything to kill him and so, naturally, he
went right on living. II is believed he
often reached the ripe age of eight or
nine hundred years.
"But for all his great SIZE" DR.. Brown
says, "the tortoise was a mild creature,
his habits were exactly like those Of his
tiny descendants, the tortoises one finds
creeping about in the woods today. Like
them, he ate shrubs or grass, instead of
fighting for his food. Like them, he
crawled into his shell and waited until
danger was passed whenever he could"
But when he was driven into fight, he
was one of the most feroeious of all pri-
meval creatures. The great lions Of the
period, which themselves were bigger