Archaeological investigations carried out in the cave Zubbio di Cozzo San Pietro,
Bagheria, Sicily, revealed the presence of a few skeletal elements of a large-sized
tortoise in a funerary area dating to the Copper/Bronze Age. The tortoise has been
AMS-dated revealing an age of 12.5 +/- 0.5 kyr BP and therefore it pre-dates the funerary
activities. The morphology of the retrieved skeletal elements differs from that of
the only native tortoise currently living in Sicily, Testudo hermanni. The tortoise's
size significantly exceeds the size range of extant Te. hermanni and all Testudo spp.,
as well as that of their known fossils, and suggests a shell length of 50-60 cm. Repeated
efforts to obtain DNA sequences from the tortoise of Zubbio di Cozzo San Pietro failed,
but the morphology of the femur is distinct enough to allow us to erect a new taxon,
Solitudo sicula gen. et sp. nov., based on a parsimony analysis. It belongs to a hitherto
unrecognized clade that includes other large-sized tortoises from Mediterranean islands,
like Malta and Menorca. A review of the pertinent taxa indicates that the remains
here described represent the geologically youngest large-sized tortoise of the Mediterranean
area.