{"id":42971,"date":"2024-10-21T13:31:48","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T11:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fab4fd42-7cf8-410d-aa6f-8df03b797c98"},"modified":"2024-10-21T14:27:35","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T12:27:35","slug":"terrifying-prehistoric-sea-monsters-10-menacing-ocean-creatures-that-youll-be-glad-arent-alive-today","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/terrifying-prehistoric-sea-monsters-10-menacing-ocean-creatures-that-youll-be-glad-arent-alive-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Terrifying prehistoric sea monsters: 10 menacing ocean creatures that you’ll be glad aren’t alive today"},"content":{"rendered":"

The seas have been home to some monstrous creatures over the course of the last 500 million years. Here are 10 that you\u2019ll be glad are long extinct\u2026 <\/p>

By Will Newton\n <\/p>

Published: Monday, 21 October 2024 at 11:31 AM<\/p>

\n\n

For more than half a billion years, evolution<\/a> has run amok in our world\u2019s oceans and created some truly bizarre creatures. <\/strong><\/p>

From the soft-bodied, alien lookalikes of the Cambrian to the murderous marine reptiles of the Triassic and Jurassic, our underwater realm has seen a lot of monsters come and go.\u00a0<\/p>

“99 per cent of the species that have ever lived have gone extinct”: Why life needs extinction and how it can be a force for good<\/a><\/li>
Meet the most dangerous animals in the ocean<\/a><\/li>
The deadliest fish in the world<\/a><\/li><\/ul>
A lot of these beasts were giants – unlike those that live on land, animals that live underwater aren\u2019t\u00a0as<\/em>\u00a0beholden to the force of gravity and can rely on the buoyancy of water to support a lot of their weight. <\/p>
This means that they\u2019re able to grow to gigantic sizes, sometimes larger than a double-decker bus. Not all prehistoric sea monsters were massive, however; some were no bigger than a shoebox yet were just as, if not even more terrifying than creatures ten times their size.<\/p>
Prehistoric sea monsters<\/h2>Megalodon<\/strong><\/h3>Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Thanks to several popular films and a wave of conspiratorial posts on social media, this extinct shark has become somewhat of a cultural icon – its fans claiming it still lives in the depths of the Mariana Trench<\/a>. This is, of course, not true. In reality,\u00a0Megalodon<\/a><\/em>\u00a0became extinct roughly 3.6 million years ago, during a time when our planet was plunged into a series of long ice age<\/a>s.<\/p>
\u00a0While scientists are certain that\u00a0Megalodon<\/em>\u00a0is long extinct, they\u2019re still unsure as to\u00a0<\/em>why it died out. There are many different theories; the climatic changes associated with a colder period being the most likely killer. That said, recent studies have suggested that great white sharks and tiger sharks, which overlapped with\u00a0Megalodon<\/em>, may have outcompeted them and contributed to their eventual extinction.<\/p>
Like their extant cousins, great whites,\u00a0Megalodon<\/em>\u00a0were super predators that stalked the subtropical and temperate seas of Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Australia in search of their prey, predominantly seals, dolphins, and small whales, but also other sharks<\/a>. They were more than three times the size of great whites, however, with the largest measuring in at ~20m.<\/p>
Ichthyotitan<\/strong><\/h3> $\"\"$
By Ansh Saxena 7163 – Own work, CC0, https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/w\/index.php?curid=147611307<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Discovered in Somerset in 2018 and described as a brand-new species in 2024,\u00a0Ichthyotitan<\/a><\/em>\u00a0is widely considered the biggest marine reptile that ever lived, measuring ~25m from snout to tail. This makes it only a few metres shorter than a blue whale<\/a>, the largest animal ever.<\/p>
The first piece of\u00a0Ichthyotitan<\/em>\u2019s skeleton to be found – a fragment of jaw bone – was so large that it was mistaken as a dinosaur bone. A later discovery, made by an avid, 11-year-old fossil collector and her father, shed more light on this mysterious creature and allowed a team led by expert Dean Lomax to identify it as a new species and estimate its immense length.<\/p>
Ichthyotitan<\/em>\u00a0belongs to a diverse group of marine reptiles known as ichthyosaurs. These long-snouted, air-breathing sea creatures looked a lot like dolphins, only larger. It\u2019s thought that\u00a0I<\/em>chthyotitan<\/em>, the largest amongst them, were the apex predators of the Triassic (~205 million years ago) and hunted a lot like orcas do today, using their six-foot-long jaws to subdue other smaller, yet equally ferocious marine reptiles.<\/p>
Liopleurodon<\/strong><\/h2>Getty<\/figcaption><\/figure>
This marine reptile was the major villain of the hit 2000s BBC TV series,\u00a0Sea Monsters<\/em>. While it was no doubt a super predator, it probably wasn\u2019t the 25m-long, murdering menace this programme made it out to be. More recent studies of\u00a0Liopleurodon\u00a0<\/em>have estimated its size at a more conservative 8-10m – similar to a large orca.<\/p>
Still,\u00a0Liopleurodon<\/em>\u00a0had some of the largest jaws in the animal kingdom relative to its body size, with roughly 20% of its total length made up by its toothy grin. These jaws were lined with characteristically smooth yet dagger-sharp teeth that were perfectly adapted for dismembering and deshelling the squids and ammonites it’s believed to have preyed upon.<\/p>
Liopleurodon<\/em>\u00a0lived in Western Europe from 166 to 155 million years ago, sharing its open ocean habitat with other marine reptiles, such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs. Some anatomical studies have found that\u00a0Liopleurodon<\/em>\u00a0was likely a very fast and agile swimmer, built for ambushing its prey from below.<\/p>
Jaekelopterus<\/strong><\/h3> $\"\"$
\u0414\u0438\u0411\u0433\u0434, CC BY-SA 4.0 https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Just over 400 million years ago, during a time when scorpions, spiders, and insects ruled over the land, another type of invertebrate stalked the silty, estuarine environments that littered the coastline of the ancient supercontinent of Euramerica. These predatory invertebrates were known as eurypterids, or \u2018sea scorpions\u2019, and the largest amongst them was a 2.5m-long monstrosity known as\u00a0Jaekelopterus<\/em>.<\/p>
While they may be known as \u2018sea scorpions\u2019,\u00a0Jaekelopterus<\/em>\u00a0and their eurypterid relatives weren\u2019t scorpions, nor did they all live in the sea –\u00a0Jaekelopterus<\/em>\u00a0actually lived in brackish and freshwater habitats, swimming up and down rivers as it hunted armoured, jawless fish known as ostracoderms.<\/p>
Why\u00a0Jaekelopterus<\/em>\u00a0and other eurypterids grew so large is a bit of a mystery. Several theories have been put forward to try to explain their gigantism, including competition with fish and elevated oxygen levels during parts of the Paleozoic Era, but there\u2019s no definitive answer. What we do know is that \u00a0Jaekelopterus<\/em>\u00a0faced extinction in the Early Devonian, roughly 150 million years before the last eurypterids were wiped out at the end of the Permian.<\/p>
Dunkleosteus<\/strong><\/h3> $\"\"$
Getty images<\/figcaption><\/figure>
This heavily armoured fish was one of the world’s first open ocean predators, filling a niche now occupied by great whites and orcas<\/a>.<\/p>
Dunkleosteus<\/em>\u00a0lived during the Late Devonian (from 382 to 358 million years ago) and inhabited the warm, shallow seas around Euramerica. Its size has been greatly debated over the years, with estimates ranging from 10m to 4m. The most recent estimates err on the smaller side, but that\u2019s not to say they were any less ferocious than previously thought.<\/p>
Interestingly,\u00a0Dunkleosteus<\/em>\u00a0didn\u2019t have any teeth. Instead, it had sharp jaw extensions that functioned just like teeth and were strong enough to puncture steel. There\u2019s evidence of\u00a0Dunkleosteus<\/em>-shaped bite marks on other\u00a0Dunkleosteus<\/em>, suggesting they weren\u2019t above cannibalism<\/a> when their more commonly eaten prey, ammonites, were hard to come by.<\/p>
Helicoprion<\/strong><\/p>
$\"\"$ Getty imges<\/figcaption><\/figure>
In the late 1800s, a strange fossil<\/a> was found that resembled an octopus tentacle<\/a> lined with many sharp, serrated teeth. Scientists were quick to note it came from some kind of extinct shark, but where it came from on the shark\u2019s body – tail fin, dorsal fin, snout, or mouth – was a lot less clear.<\/p>
By the mid 20th century, this so-called \u2018tooth whorl\u2019 was widely accepted as coming from the shark\u2019s lower jaws where it sat vertically like a buzzsaw, ready to deshell the hard-shelled ammonites and nautiloids it\u2019s thought to have preyed on. These tooth whorls make up the majority of\u00a0Helicoprion<\/em>\u00a0fossils, in fact most specimens are known solely from the strange teeth they\u2019ve left behind.<\/p>
Helicoprion<\/em>\u00a0lived during the Permian (from 290 to 270 million years ago) and were truly cosmopolitan, inhabiting oceans across the world. This is evidenced by the fact that we\u2019ve found their tooth whorls everywhere from Western Australia to Norway.<\/p>
Prehistoric insects were absolutely massive. An entomologist explains why they needed to be so darn big<\/a><\/li><\/ul>
Basilosaurus<\/strong><\/h3>Getty video<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Known as \u2018King Lizard\u2019 in Ancient Greek and with a body shape reminiscent of \u00a0Ichthyotitan<\/em> and Liopleurodon<\/em>\u00a0discussed above, you\u2019d think that\u00a0Basilosaurus<\/em>\u00a0was another monstrous marine reptile. In fact, this 20m-long behemoth was a mammal and an early ancestor of today\u2019s whales.<\/p>
Basilosaurus<\/em>\u00a0evolved from a land-dwelling animal that looked a lot like a goat. These terrestrial roots can be seen on its body, which has tiny, 35cm-long hind limbs that would have been of little use in water. Its modern descendants, blue whales, orcas, and dolphins, also possess these evolutionary \u2018leftovers\u2019, though theirs are internalised and truly vestigial. Still, they\u2019re throwbacks to a time when their ancestors were a lot smaller and ran rather than swam.<\/p>
Analyses of\u00a0Basilosaurus\u2019<\/em>\u00a0stomach contents suggest it fed on fish, sharks, and perhaps even other early whales, like\u00a0Dorudon<\/em>. Some bite marks on the skull of a juvenile\u00a0Dorudon<\/em>\u00a0have led researchers to hypothesise that\u00a0Basilosaurus<\/em>\u00a0killed its prey by biting down on their heads before tearing them apart.<\/p>
Tullimonstrum<\/strong><\/p>
$\"\"$ Getty image<\/figcaption><\/figure>
This strange-looking creature defied classification for decades and even now has scientists confused as to its origins. It\u2019s unlike anything alive today, with the body of a squid<\/a>, the fins of a cuttlefish<\/a>, the stalked eyes of a snail, and a grasping, toothed \u2018trunk\u2019 known as a proboscis.<\/p>
Since its discovery in 1955,\u00a0Tullimonstrum\u2019<\/em>s evolutionary origins have been heavily debated. It has been likened to molluscs<\/a>, arthropods, conodonts, worms, tunicates, and even vertebrates, but the jury is still out on where exactly it falls on the tree of life. It\u2019s also unclear how and what\u00a0Tullimonstrum<\/em>\u00a0ate. It\u2019s thought it may have used its trunk to capture its prey, likely small fish, shrimp, and jellyfish<\/a>, before using its tongue to \u2018lick\u2019 them to death.\u00a0<\/p>
Tullimonstrum<\/em>\u00a0is by far the smallest monster on this list, measuring just 30cm in length. It lived 300 million years ago in the shallow seas and estuaries that once covered the United States.\u00a0<\/p>
Prehistoric cats: meet 10 ruthless feline hunters that roamed the planet thousands of years ago<\/a><\/li><\/ul>
Dakosaurus<\/strong><\/p>
$\"\"$ Getty images<\/figcaption><\/figure>
Today, crocodiles are largely confined to freshwater habitats, save for several species that live in brackish waters. In the Mesozoic Era and during the time of the dinosaurs<\/a>, however, many of their extinct relatives, known as crocodylomorphs, lived in the open ocean.\u00a0Dakosaurus<\/em>was one of these seafaring crocodiles, inhabiting the warm, shallow seas that covered parts of Eurasia 157 to 137 million years ago.<\/p>
Dakosaurus\u00a0<\/em>measured 5m in length and had the familiar, elongate body shape of a modern-day crocodile but the paddle-like fins of a sea turtle<\/a>. It was perfectly adapted to a marine-based lifestyle and may have even spent its entire life at sea, hunting and mating underwater.\u00a0<\/p>
From its shortened tooth row and stout jaws, researchers have deduced that\u00a0Dakosaurus<\/em>\u00a0was likely a suction feeder, sucking fish into its mouth before swallowing them whole. This way of hunting and taste for fish meant that\u00a0Dakosaurus\u00a0<\/em>wouldn\u2019t have directly competed with\u00a0Plesiosuchus<\/em>, another large-bodied crocodylomorph that shared its habitat and preyed on other marine reptiles.<\/p>
Rhizodus<\/strong><\/h3> $\"\"$
Getty images<\/figcaption><\/figure>
This 5m-long fish was more of a \u2018river monster\u2019 than a \u2018sea monster\u2019, living in freshwater environments across Eurasia and North America during the Carboniferous, roughly 335 million years ago.\u00a0<\/p>
Rhizodus<\/em>, meaning \u2018root tooth\u2019, is characterised by the two 20cm-long fangs that protrude from the front of its jaws. It no doubt used these fangs to tear apart its prey, which included other fish and large amphibians. Some studies have suggested\u00a0Rhizodus<\/em>\u00a0may have hunted like today\u2019s crocodiles, lunging at prey that lived in the shallows and\/or on the shores of lakes, rivers, and swamps.\u00a0<\/p>
While it was a fish,\u00a0Rhizodus<\/em>\u00a0belonged to a group of early tetrapodomorphs that gave rise to all living terrestrial vertebrates, including amphibians<\/a>, reptiles<\/a>, birds<\/a>, and mammals<\/a>. This means that you\u2019re more closely related to\u00a0Rhizodus\u00a0<\/em>than a goldfish is.<\/p>
What was the first ever apex predator? Meet the prehistoric Anomalocaris who ruled before the dinosaurs<\/a><\/li>
Are dinosaurs lizards?<\/a><\/li>
Dinosaur teeth: what were they like, how ferocious were they – and what do they tell us about a dinosaur’s diet?<\/a><\/li><\/ul> <\/body><\/html>\n
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