Prehistoric Giants - 4/5/16

By John Racanelli

Published April 5, 2016 at 5:16 PM EDT

The largest turtle on Earth is the leatherback sea turtle, with a shell that’s up to 8 feet wide and a weight of more than 2,000 pounds. Sound big? Well, it is—until someone mentions Archelon, an ancient genus of monster turtles that once lived in a shallow sea covering what’s now South Dakota. Extinct for 80 million years, Archelon turtles made the leatherback look like, well, a shrimp.

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John Racanelli

As chief executive officer, John Racanelli leads a team of 600 full and part-time employees and 1,000 volunteers in pursuing the National Aquarium’s mission to inspire conservation of the world’s aquatic treasures. More than 1.5 million people annually visit the Aquarium’s venue in Baltimore, Maryland, while millions more are touched by the Aquarium’s education programs, outreach activities, social media campaigns and conservation initiatives.

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