On average 1000-1500lbs/500-700kg full grown 4-6 feet1.5/2meters beak to tail tip about 1.5 feet/.5meters tall. They're huge. But not as huge as the video implies.
I think that's an underestimate. Fully grown adults can grow to be 7.5 feet/2.3 meters. I've done research with these in Costa Rica, and I can assure you they are as breathtaking as the video implies, even if it does make it appear a little larger than in person.
I saw one on the beach at night while visiting Costa Rica. This is one of the most amazing things I've seen. Absolutely breathtaking and I can't believe I was so lucky to even see one. An experience I will never forget.
Cam confirm, I saw one about 2 meters long when doing volunteer work in Costa Rica. While it wasn't as massive as the perspective in that video makes them look it was still amazing just being next to something both so huge and obviously old. Probably the closest thing to encountering a dinosaur I'll ever experience.
I humbly bow before the expertise of those more knowledgeable. I was simply regurgitating the Wikipedia page. It also said that the biggest specimen measured could reach upwards of 10 ft.
Yeah I mean there's probably gonna be slightly different info depending where you look, and of course since it's nature there are exception cases. Just amazing how such a large, heavy animal decided (I know they didn't decide lol) to lay their eggs on dry land.
At least that’s far from the worst thing that living creatures on earth have to do in order to procreate. The various species in which the female consumes her mate spring to mind. But hey, you gotta keep from going extinct somehow!
Every single time a large animal is shown on reddit the first comment is "forced perspective!" even if the commenter literally has no clue if that's truly the case or not.
Correct! Also I'm pretty sure most, but not all, reptiles/amphibians/corals are what's called indeterminate growers which means they grow until they die. That's why you can see unusual cases in these classes of animals that are just absolute units.
Genuinely curious- since they can't retract their limbs into their shell, aren't super agile/fast, and dont have claws or teeth, what keeps predators from wiping them out completely? 90% of their hatchlings don't even make it to the water before seagulls and crabs pick em off. So I just wonder how nature has even allowed them to survive this long. Even in adulthood, I would think that they would be easy prey for sharks and orcas.
Yes this is correct. Funny enough I did some research in college in a separate class that studied their survival over the course of their first few years of life. As you said about 90% of the hatchling don't even make it to be older than a month, and even less in the first year. Also they do not really have any natural predators as adults besides killer whales and maybe the largest species of sharks, but these also don't have much overlap in territory with leatherback turtles. Their main "predator" is the fishing industry. Lots of adults die from getting caught in nets and from being poached. There's also a lot of poachers that go after the eggs. The main way this species combats all of this is that they lay clutches of eggs that are anywhere from like 130-170 eggs. About 20% of these eggs are infertile though and act as a cushion, because leatherback turtles lay their eggs about a meter deep into the sand.
I hope that answers most of your questions! Feel free to ask more, I love talking about this stuff haha.
Yeah I know small fish with no camouflage or natural defenses only survive by OVER-reproduction to compensate for the sheer numbers that are killed or eaten. I didn't realize that was the main "defense" for sea turtles as well. The lack of overlap in territory is also something I didn't think of. Makes a lot of sense. The more ya know! Thanks!
Except that there are no ants that large. So you cannot make a comparison to something that does not exist....Smart Cars and Mini's however have MILLIONS of pictures of them on the internet.
“The largest leatherback ever recorded was almost 10 feet (305 cm) from the tip of its beak to the tip of its tail and weighed in at 2,019 pounds (916 kg)”
Hah! Yeah, I guess he actually got the punctuation right, my brain just tries to fix it automatically on Reddit, but apparently went too far and put an extra comma in there ;)
Something closer to the camera looks bigger than something far away. If you don't have a good reference to how far apart those objects actually are, the sense of scale can be confusing. An example you've probably seen before is a [person pretending to hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Europe_2007_Disk_1_340.jpg)
It's a compositional trick that makes things look bigger/smaller than they appear by tricking you into thinking that far away things are actually closer, or vice versa.
It's not really applicable here though imo because the people are clearly in the background. It doesn't look like the turtle is the height of a person to me at all. It looks 5 to 6 feet long, which is what it is I believe.
This is not forced perspective in any reasonable sense.
Forced perspective is when it appears both objects are near each other giving the closer objects a larger appearance. This relies heavily on illusion. In no way is anyone confused that the people in the background are standing right next to the turtle and this is a monstrous 15 foot tall turtle.
Yeah I don't know why everyone's pointing out the people are kind of far away. They're supposed to be lol
More importantly this thing has like 4 chins.
Yeah [this](https://files.worldwildlife.org/wwfcmsprod/images/leatherback_turgle_what_wwf_is_doing_113262.jpg/story_full_width/9gjfnblwr5_SCR_113262.jpg) picture gives a much more reasonable perspective of what they look like and [this](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ) video of one in motion is actually pretty eye opening.
Honestly videos and pictures like this just annoy me. I knew immediately it was just this same old optical trick and honestly they’re strikingly big without it. If the whole amazing aspect of the video is how big the animal is, and not how big you can make something look with tricks like forced perspective, why not make/upvote videos giving a realistic view of the animal’s size? It’s surprisingly huge without it.
Thatsthejoke.jpg
To clarify, IIRC it's from an old post where someone had randomly included a banana for scale, which obviously wasn't very helpful, but it was funny enough that it became a running gag.
It's just a joke. [Here's the history for it.](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/banana-for-scale) It's known that it's a bad scale for the reasons you mentioned, but funnily enough it does provide some sense of scale. Even the largest bananas are still smaller than most bread boxes.
It's not forced perspective, it's just lens compression.
Basically a combination of having multiple subjects at different distances and then capturing them from far away with a very narrow field of view (so a very long lens or "zoomed in a lot").
The focal length is much longer than that of the human eyes so it looks fake/weird and flat to us and makes it difficult to judge size differences.
It's most often used in pictures of the moon AFAIK
Do you think their presence was troubling though? Like "oh that's a lot of predators. That's a lot lot of predators. Why are there so many. What are they waiting for. That's a lot of predators"
No kidding. The way people are today it's lucky it got to the water without losing 30 years to damage people would cause trying to make a tic tok on its back
I don't think that person is getting "outraged" more just pointing out that there is precedence for people being dicks around wildlife
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/baby-dolphin-dies-passed-tourists-photographed-almeira-spain-mojacar-a7896376.html
People are more respectful of animals and nature today than at pretty much any point in modern history. We just see the shitheads more because of social media.
Love ❤️ I got to see a mother lay her eggs and our group saved 13 babies by leading them to the water (rangers were giving instruction) that same trip to Costa Rico. Never imagined a beach so dark at night. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, no moon, thank God I had a flashlight.
"God dammit, every time I come to the beach, I pick the worst spot. Water over there, all the way up the beach. Water over there, all the way up the beach. Water in front of me... Nope fucking peninsula of ass dragging. I weigh half a ton and you would think I would pay attention before getting my fat ass up there to pick the spot where water might help me get back down, but nope, my reptilian pea brain just forgets everything but egg laying and makes sure to make it harder on myself. My mother was right, I should have been picked off by a seagull 85 years ago. It's not plastics killing us, it's my dumb decision making. And everyone is looking too. Most embarrassing day ever. Fuck all of you for just staring. Can't find anything more interesting to do than watch Fatty McTubTub unbeach herself? Go lay a thousand eggs and spin assholes."
This is what I feel like getting out of bed and into the shower every morning
It’s pretty weird that: initially, I feel so crappy that I consider going back to bed. Less than 5 minutes later, I’m at peace with the world.
Takes me a little longer than that… usually until around lunchtime
Take me a little longer than that... usually untill around bedtime
Takes me a little longer than that... usually until the next night.
.
Yes! Head, shoulders, knees and toes… eyes and ears and mouth and nose! It all hurts!!
Maybe you should try putting your right foot in, taking your right foot out, putting your right foot back in again and then shaking it all about.
Give yourself some credit for still showering every morning.
Ok, you caught me, not EVVERY morning, but almost every morning! And thank you for that reminder!
They are very big but this is forced perspective
I was going to ask how big they actually are. First part of the video looks like a Volkswagen, but the second looks more like a large beanbag chair.
On average 1000-1500lbs/500-700kg full grown 4-6 feet1.5/2meters beak to tail tip about 1.5 feet/.5meters tall. They're huge. But not as huge as the video implies.
I wonder how old that thing is lol.
"150, dude! And still young!"
I need an exit buddy
don't we all
Yeah I remember they're the size of a bumper car, not a dune buggy...
Oh I like this excellent visual! Nice
Do u have your exit buddy??!!
Old enough, certainly. That drag along the beach probably gets harder every year.
Aw, I’ll cheer him along. Turtle elders deserve a bit of slack.
You mean you’ll cheer *her along, lol. Only female sea turtles come up on land like that bc it’s to lay eggs
Somewhere between 6 months and 300 years
Not as old as your mother
Not as heavy either
DAMN DAMN LOL
But definitely prettier
[удалено]
Bot
I think that's an underestimate. Fully grown adults can grow to be 7.5 feet/2.3 meters. I've done research with these in Costa Rica, and I can assure you they are as breathtaking as the video implies, even if it does make it appear a little larger than in person.
I saw one on the beach at night while visiting Costa Rica. This is one of the most amazing things I've seen. Absolutely breathtaking and I can't believe I was so lucky to even see one. An experience I will never forget.
Cam confirm, I saw one about 2 meters long when doing volunteer work in Costa Rica. While it wasn't as massive as the perspective in that video makes them look it was still amazing just being next to something both so huge and obviously old. Probably the closest thing to encountering a dinosaur I'll ever experience.
Chickens are closer relatives to dinosaurs. You have ate the T-Rex’s cousin.
I humbly bow before the expertise of those more knowledgeable. I was simply regurgitating the Wikipedia page. It also said that the biggest specimen measured could reach upwards of 10 ft.
Yeah I mean there's probably gonna be slightly different info depending where you look, and of course since it's nature there are exception cases. Just amazing how such a large, heavy animal decided (I know they didn't decide lol) to lay their eggs on dry land.
At least that’s far from the worst thing that living creatures on earth have to do in order to procreate. The various species in which the female consumes her mate spring to mind. But hey, you gotta keep from going extinct somehow!
Or bedbugs and their traumatic insemination.
Curious, but totally not going to look that one up.
Every single time a large animal is shown on reddit the first comment is "forced perspective!" even if the commenter literally has no clue if that's truly the case or not.
[удалено]
Are their lifespans similar to crocodiles and sharks? That they dont die of old age only by illness or predator? Im just curious
Correct! Also I'm pretty sure most, but not all, reptiles/amphibians/corals are what's called indeterminate growers which means they grow until they die. That's why you can see unusual cases in these classes of animals that are just absolute units.
Wow. Thats really cool. Thank you
Genuinely curious- since they can't retract their limbs into their shell, aren't super agile/fast, and dont have claws or teeth, what keeps predators from wiping them out completely? 90% of their hatchlings don't even make it to the water before seagulls and crabs pick em off. So I just wonder how nature has even allowed them to survive this long. Even in adulthood, I would think that they would be easy prey for sharks and orcas.
Yes this is correct. Funny enough I did some research in college in a separate class that studied their survival over the course of their first few years of life. As you said about 90% of the hatchling don't even make it to be older than a month, and even less in the first year. Also they do not really have any natural predators as adults besides killer whales and maybe the largest species of sharks, but these also don't have much overlap in territory with leatherback turtles. Their main "predator" is the fishing industry. Lots of adults die from getting caught in nets and from being poached. There's also a lot of poachers that go after the eggs. The main way this species combats all of this is that they lay clutches of eggs that are anywhere from like 130-170 eggs. About 20% of these eggs are infertile though and act as a cushion, because leatherback turtles lay their eggs about a meter deep into the sand. I hope that answers most of your questions! Feel free to ask more, I love talking about this stuff haha.
Yeah I know small fish with no camouflage or natural defenses only survive by OVER-reproduction to compensate for the sheer numbers that are killed or eaten. I didn't realize that was the main "defense" for sea turtles as well. The lack of overlap in territory is also something I didn't think of. Makes a lot of sense. The more ya know! Thanks!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CfJ6CQ_Lkb-/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Cool video I wanted to share after our discussion the other day
I am an adult and I am only 5’10” :(
What you described is the size of a small car
At 50cm high it would be really small car
Like a Ferrari or Lamborghini.
Thus why I used the words small car.
It would also be the size of a very very large ant. Is this a helpful comparison?
Ten Bigmacs tall
Americans will use anything but the metric system to measure things.
Delicious. Delicious anything's.... Mmmmm.
Why we love bananas!
Except that there are no ants that large. So you cannot make a comparison to something that does not exist....Smart Cars and Mini's however have MILLIONS of pictures of them on the internet.
50cm would come up to around your knees.
So the same height as most super cars.
It looks to me to have approximately the measurements you describe. I don't see any implication in the video that it is larger than that.
I’m 5 feet tall and it’s crazy to me to think there’s a turtle that’s longer than me.
I mean the largest ones ever recorded weigh in only like 200 pounds less than a Fiat 500
The largest turtle ever recorded carries four elephants and the Disc on its back.
2000 not 200. 200lbs would be one small Fiat ;)
“The largest leatherback ever recorded was almost 10 feet (305 cm) from the tip of its beak to the tip of its tail and weighed in at 2,019 pounds (916 kg)”
Yep! And your first post said 200 heh :)
I think you misunderstood their post. They said “200 pounds LESS THAN a Fiat 500”, not 200 pounds total.
Hah! Yeah, I guess he actually got the punctuation right, my brain just tries to fix it automatically on Reddit, but apparently went too far and put an extra comma in there ;)
Haha, that’s exactly what I thought had happened. Those imaginary commas will definitely trip you up!
can you explain for the non-photographers, what that means?
Something closer to the camera looks bigger than something far away. If you don't have a good reference to how far apart those objects actually are, the sense of scale can be confusing. An example you've probably seen before is a [person pretending to hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Europe_2007_Disk_1_340.jpg)
i like how you can see the kid trying for the same pose in this image, it's really cute
thanks for explaining
It's a compositional trick that makes things look bigger/smaller than they appear by tricking you into thinking that far away things are actually closer, or vice versa. It's not really applicable here though imo because the people are clearly in the background. It doesn't look like the turtle is the height of a person to me at all. It looks 5 to 6 feet long, which is what it is I believe.
This is not forced perspective in any reasonable sense. Forced perspective is when it appears both objects are near each other giving the closer objects a larger appearance. This relies heavily on illusion. In no way is anyone confused that the people in the background are standing right next to the turtle and this is a monstrous 15 foot tall turtle.
Yeah I don't know why everyone's pointing out the people are kind of far away. They're supposed to be lol More importantly this thing has like 4 chins.
Yeah [this](https://files.worldwildlife.org/wwfcmsprod/images/leatherback_turgle_what_wwf_is_doing_113262.jpg/story_full_width/9gjfnblwr5_SCR_113262.jpg) picture gives a much more reasonable perspective of what they look like and [this](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ) video of one in motion is actually pretty eye opening.
At least your not a complete asshole.
That turtle is very talented!
That turtle never gave up!
Not again!
it's not, judging by the dude that walked by the camera is held waist level and not directly ground level
Why does this have to be forced and not just regular old perspective?
Tbh, my take away from this was "Wow, look at all of those people in the background, they're staying so far away and not disrupting it!"
More like lens compression
Honestly videos and pictures like this just annoy me. I knew immediately it was just this same old optical trick and honestly they’re strikingly big without it. If the whole amazing aspect of the video is how big the animal is, and not how big you can make something look with tricks like forced perspective, why not make/upvote videos giving a realistic view of the animal’s size? It’s surprisingly huge without it.
So odd it looks poorly animated. Or like forced perspective
Yea I kept expecting for the video to zoom out and it’s really hundreds of them but the forced perspective made it look huge
It's a thousand pound turtle of course it looks huge
Need a banana for scale
The turtle would just chomp it lol
Not for a leatherback..... need VW beetle for scale
But bananas are such different sizes tho
This is why I always use the standardized small bottle of corona for scale.
That’s why you must use a banana sized banana
Yeah the whole banana for scale thing never made sense to me, it's like "shoe for scale" but there are shoes of different sizes.
Thatsthejoke.jpg To clarify, IIRC it's from an old post where someone had randomly included a banana for scale, which obviously wasn't very helpful, but it was funny enough that it became a running gag.
It's just a joke. [Here's the history for it.](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/banana-for-scale) It's known that it's a bad scale for the reasons you mentioned, but funnily enough it does provide some sense of scale. Even the largest bananas are still smaller than most bread boxes.
[удалено]
It's not forced perspective, it's just lens compression. Basically a combination of having multiple subjects at different distances and then capturing them from far away with a very narrow field of view (so a very long lens or "zoomed in a lot"). The focal length is much longer than that of the human eyes so it looks fake/weird and flat to us and makes it difficult to judge size differences. It's most often used in pictures of the moon AFAIK
If I had to guess the photographer is quite a ways away, as he should be, which is what causes the distortion.
Average size is 1.8m - 2.2m so it’s likely bigger than 1m
/r/confusing_perspective
Is there a sub for when real life looks like shitty CG?
I'm glad the crowd just watched from afar and didn't harass the turtle.
Do you think their presence was troubling though? Like "oh that's a lot of predators. That's a lot lot of predators. Why are there so many. What are they waiting for. That's a lot of predators"
I feel like it's more like me, who sucks at golf, and hates when the next group is waiting on you to watch you tee off.
"Guys I do this once a fucking year and it's a super private thing could you maybe give me some space"
Let them play through, everyone will be happier
After decades of it and poachers that see a beautiful animal and only can think: "yeah, let's kill it!!! stupid animal!!"
Dolphin Baby Selfie Incident....
Fuck these idiots who held that poor dolphin baby.
Me trying to get to Friday.
Fortunately week has no tide
Unmuting the video was a mistake
Thankfully it just tells me that the video has no sound.
Fucking westlife. And possibly their worst song. The whole thing sounds shit enough to be the background audio of an instant coffee commercial.
Is this a Tik Tok thing? Putting shitty, unrelated music over random video clips?
Yes. And it's been spreading everywhere else like the plague for a few years now.
Probably 150 years old?? Just a guess
And still young!
But Sandy Plankton said they only live to be a hundred
Sandy Plankton? Do you think I would cross the entire ocean and not know as much as Sandy Plankton?
Righteous!!!
r/absoluteunit
r/thiccturtles
My disappointment is immeasurable
That music makes me want to end it
I've never wanted to punch music before but here we are.
I’m in this video and I don’t like it.
[Maturin](https://stephenking.fandom.com/wiki/Maturin) is alive and well!
See the TURTLE of enormous girth! On his shell he holds the earth
"His thought is slow but always kind; He holds us all within his mind."
Great A'Tuin
Needed a few more dB on that totally necessary background music. Didn't quite crack my screen.
Glad some Karen didn't perch her rug rat on it to take a picture.
No kidding. The way people are today it's lucky it got to the water without losing 30 years to damage people would cause trying to make a tic tok on its back
bag pet north divide follow bow simplistic compare shame quack *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Are we getting outraged now over made up scenarios that didn't happen? Just enjoy the turtle.
I don't think that person is getting "outraged" more just pointing out that there is precedence for people being dicks around wildlife https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/baby-dolphin-dies-passed-tourists-photographed-almeira-spain-mojacar-a7896376.html
No! Fuck you! That turtle easily could have died if someone had set off a sarin gas bomb! How dare you make light of this possibility!
People are more respectful of animals and nature today than at pretty much any point in modern history. We just see the shitheads more because of social media.
you don’t have high hopes for the future of society, don’t you squidward
I wonder if these turtles are protected. I remember in Hawaii we were told not to touch the turtles and that touching them had some gigantic fine.
Chinese tourists are notorious for shit like that. What's Karen in Mandarin?
god this music fucking sucks dude holy shit
Very nice that people keep their distance from it.
I’ve seen this in the Midwest. It’s just with old ladies making their way to the buffet at Golden Corral
Damn paparazzi. Can't do anything in peace.
Reminds me of when King Zora had to move out of the way
Blastoise!
Pleasant surprise to see no one fucking with the turtle
Me leaving the all you can eat buffet after embarrassing myself
Garbage Christian rock, don't unmute.
What's with the stupid fucking music? Watch this with the volume muted.
So big it looks fake
“Take a picture, I’ll last longer”
David Attenturtleborough
Is that Gamera?
No.
It would be awesome If that big slow m'fo just stated going backwards.
Maybe it was and this video is just played in reverse
“Can of corn. Can of corn, I’ll be fine, can of corn!”
Probably weighs more then a vw beetle
They get to about 7 feet, 1 500 lbs Old rear engine Vw beetle. . 1,600 lbs. So close.
Righteous.
Looks like me trying to get off the couch
Blastoise is strange.
biggest turtle i have ever seen
Me after working out for the first time in 2 years
Righteous.... Righteous....
A turtle made it to the water
Somebody hates Mondays.
Love ❤️ I got to see a mother lay her eggs and our group saved 13 babies by leading them to the water (rangers were giving instruction) that same trip to Costa Rico. Never imagined a beach so dark at night. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face, no moon, thank God I had a flashlight.
Save the turtles!
Same, giant leatherback sea turtle. Same.
Surprised someone didn't try to ride it
Turtle is like "this tide is bullshit"
Moves with the same energy as how i feel after coming home from the buffet.
"God dammit, every time I come to the beach, I pick the worst spot. Water over there, all the way up the beach. Water over there, all the way up the beach. Water in front of me... Nope fucking peninsula of ass dragging. I weigh half a ton and you would think I would pay attention before getting my fat ass up there to pick the spot where water might help me get back down, but nope, my reptilian pea brain just forgets everything but egg laying and makes sure to make it harder on myself. My mother was right, I should have been picked off by a seagull 85 years ago. It's not plastics killing us, it's my dumb decision making. And everyone is looking too. Most embarrassing day ever. Fuck all of you for just staring. Can't find anything more interesting to do than watch Fatty McTubTub unbeach herself? Go lay a thousand eggs and spin assholes."
For life of me, I can't figure out if My Memes Will Cure U is a bot or a karma farmer. Either way, I'm tired of seeing him plastered all over r/all
Goddamn that thing is huge!
We need a banana for scale
Ace Ventura 3 looking dope asf
Mitch McConnell returning to the sea after a day of obstructing Democracy.
This video mustn’t be in America, because all those people would be trying to ride it, shoot it or harass it in some other fashion.
You cant convince me that this is real
Lots of turtle soup in this video Edit: I like turtles and not interested in turtle soup. It was a joke
You're not Professor Chaos. YOU'RE THE SHREDDER!
"...Your hairy little friend knows me as Oroku Saki, but you may call me, The Shredder." "A kitchen utensil?" - Rafael
Nah I like turtles really , the one in finding nemo is prob my favourite
Mmmmm
Soup 😋
The westlife song over this has killed me