Ancient extinct animals. The extinct prehistoric giants
Earlier in our articles we described giant animals and insects that lived millions of years ago. Today we have a list of prehistoric marine inhabitants, amazing in their size.
The giant lived on the territory of present-day Europe and Central America in the Jurassic period. The size of the predator exceeded 25 meters, and the weight reached 150 tons. Fourth part of the whole body length lyoplvrodon was a powerful head. Wide long fins in length reached up to 3 meters. The mouth of the prehistoric monster was armed with 30-centimeter teeth.
Initially, the only bird that received this name was a giant alka. Later, seafarers and researchers of the Antarctic seas also began to call penguins flightless birds in the Southern Hemisphere because of their strong external resemblance to evolutionary convergence. Their inability to fly and the appetite of their eggs and meat made their prey perfect already in prehistory, as evidenced by several Paleolithic deposits.
Such an extremely rare bird aroused interest among all European collectors who paid more and more exorbitant sums for the skin or a dismembered specimen of giant alc. Hakonarsson landed at Eldie on June 2 along with three other men, and two days later they managed to find among the gulls one pair of wings in their nest. They were killed, and no other surviving samples were reported.
This large predator lived in all warm seas about 45 million years ago. The size of large individuals exceeded 21 meters. Basilosaurus was the most formidable predator of its period.
The existing fossils show that in the passage the Earth was inhabited by incredible creatures. Of course, they are outside this selection of many true colossuses, but we only want to choose. There are some creatures that really seem to be extracted from a bad nightmare.
Its fossil remains are scarce, only about 30 specimens and only 3 skulls are found. However, this giant is a carnivorous dinosaur, the most famous in popular culture. It was a predator dinosaur of a nightmare, which measures about 13 meters in length and up to 6 meters in height. A short, thick, muscular neck allowed him to shake his deadly jaws, killing his prey faster. This dinosaur possessed the most powerful bite of all time, with a pressure force of more than 4 tons.
This is the largest shark ever inhabiting our planet. Megalodon lived 25 million years ago and in those days there were no equal. Outwardly it looked like a large white shark, but much larger in size - on average the body of the fish was 20 meters in length. The enormous teeth of a prehistoric predator are found in almost all parts of the world.
His short arms about 1 meter long were very muscular, and also unusual. Their function is not very clear, but it is known that they had two fingers with nails that were deadly. Rex managed to raise about 150 kilograms. the equivalent of two adults. On his feet he had 3 nails, and he had a long, hard and pointed tail that was used as a counterbalance to his huge head to support himself by making quick turns.
It was a terrible hunter who attacked a large victim, as evidenced by the discovery of manure with the dilapidated bones of Edmontosaurus. Rex was undoubtedly one of the greatest and most powerful carnivorous dinosaurs of all time. Triceratops Tricheratops, despite their ferocious appearance, was a herbivorous dinosaur.
megalodon and a large white shark
The cetacean mammal was almost 18 meters long. Leviophanes was the owner of the most toothy jaws. The teeth of the ancient sperm whale reached 36 cm in length with a diameter of 12 cm. Now that's teeth!
This true "armored fighting tank" had a horn on the skull, set over the nostrils. In addition, he had a pair of horns 5 m long, located on the eyes. Rex, or used as a weapon to confront another Triceratops in the struggle for women. Triceratops lived in herds, such as today's buffalo. He mostly ate plants and shrubs.
This herbivorous dinosaur inhabited North America and Europe about 150 million years ago. It had a length of 9 meters and weighed up to 2 tons. His body contracted and narrowed forward, ending with a tiny elongated head. His mouth was a combination of a weak beak and small teeth. He had four legs in his hooves.
The length of the giant was 10 meters. The lower jaw of the kronosaurus was found to exceed 2.5 meters! Powerful mouth brought kronosaur to the list of the most formidable and ferocious predators of the Cretaceous period.
In the distant past many of the organisms inhabiting the Earth were much larger than the current animals. There were monstrous thousandfish, and giant sharks. A parade of giants was presented by the correspondent of BBC Earth.
Ironically, his brain was a little more than a walnut, so he did not have to have a highly developed feeling. What makes this dinosaur more remarkable, its four six-inch teeth on the tail and plaques that served as a deterrent, since the animal turned out to be more than it really was. Perhaps they also played a thermoregulatory role. The spikes of a strong tail would be a formidable defense system, necessary to have a chance to survive against predators.
Smilodon Better known as "saber teeth", it was a feline that lived throughout the American continent, between 2.5 million and thousands of years to the present. His name is a very fitting description because of his huge tusks, which he used to pierce the neck of his victims. He ate horses, deer, mammoths and mastodons. They were so long that they were threatened with the danger of destruction during the struggle with the great prey that they were feeding.
The heaviest animal among all that ever lived on Earth is a blue whale, whose weight exceeds 150 tons. As far as we know, not a single living organism in history had a similar mass. But some creatures could boast of larger sizes.
Dinosaurs, perhaps, undeservedly pay close attention to the public, because besides them on Earth there lived many other animals of enormous sizes, which we will never see in the flesh.
This cat, almost 7 meters in length, lived in the herds and had some tolerance for the cripples in the group. Group hunting allowed them, like today's lions, to shoot at dams much more than they do. They disappeared about ten thousand years ago due to the climatic changes of the last glaciation.
Smilodon, better known as "saber teeth". Quetzalcoatlus This amazing flying animal was baptized as "Quetzalcoatlus of the Northropi" by the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, a feathered serpent. He lived late in the Cretaceous in North America and was one of the greatest flying animals of all time.
Some of them are giant ancestors of living creatures, while others have not left offspring, and therefore are especially surprising.
The remains of prehistoric giants can shed light on the gradual changes in living conditions on Earth, because the size of animals often directly depends on the environment.
Remnants of skeletons were found in southern Texas and northern Mexico. They are scant and only lead to a somewhat vague estimate of their characteristics. It is known, for example, that if the "peak" had no teeth. Most consensual assessments give him a wingspan of about 12 meters, although some say he can reach 18 meters. Its calculated weight is from 65 to 100 kg.
With his long neck and large toothless jaws, he must have eaten fish or carrion, which seems to be confirmed by the characteristics of the land where he lived. He had to fly himself, but once in the air he spent most of his time. Brahiosaur Brahiosaurus, whose name means "Reptile", was a herbivorous dinosaur with a long neck and tails and a small brain. He had a similar constitution with real giraffes, with long legs and a long neck that allowed him to feed on the treetops.
In addition, there is something fascinating in the extinct giants, the appearance of which we can only imagine.
We offer our readers a dozen of the most amazing creatures, which we are no longer destined to meet in the wild.
Aegirocassis benmoulae
Egirokassida filtered seawater, absorbing plankton
Its height was around a 4-storey building: an impressive 13 meters. The length of his body reached 25 meters and was a real heavy weight: 90 tons! For a long time, the brachiosaurus considered most of its time immersed in water to support its large body weight. However, recent studies show that it was a terrestrial animal: the pressure of the water would be too great for him to breathe when immersed in water and his legs were so narrow that they would drown in the mud.
Shaggy rhinoceros. It was a large fat woolly rhinoceros that lived in the cold of the steppes covering the planet in the Pleistocene several thousand years ago. His relative among the living rhinos is a small hairy rhinoceros of Sumatra. They were strong, large animals. It was 2 meters tall and longer, slightly larger than an African white rhinoceros. Remains of a full female specimen with flesh, hair and horns are found in the Polish Carpathian region. This allowed him to recognize the color of his coat in life, a dark brown with a black stripe along his back.
How could the fruit of love of a whale and a lobster look like? If such a creation existed in the world, it is possible that it would resemble the aegirokassida.
This prehistoric shrimp of two meters long lived on Earth about 480 million years ago. She belonged to the now extinct genus Anomalokaris.
The animal looked like a space alien. With the help of reticular appendages on the head, it drained plankton from the sea water.
The horns were very long, reaching one meter in length and had a flattened profile. Like Smilodon, it was extinguished during the last ice age. Its meaning lies in the fact that they are the nearest living creatures of terrestrial vertebrates. There were 400 million years ago and the greatest number of dioecious specimens about 250 million years ago.
It was 5 meters long and weighed about 50 kg. After this discovery, other populations were discovered, and numerous specimens were seized. The problem of studying these fish is that when they live at great depth, when they are removed from the environment, they will burst, making it difficult to study them.
The life of Aegirokassida occurred during the period of growth of the species diversity of plankton. As a result, these animals did not compete in search of food for most other anomalocaris - carnivorous predators with sharp teeth.
It is not excluded that aegirokassida will help us to find out how the limbs of arthropods, represented by modern spiders, insects and crustaceans, developed. 
Studying the fossilized remains of Aegirokassida, the scientists came to the conclusion that she had paired blades
He lived about 150 million years ago. In many respects it resembles the Brachiosaurus, but it presents such differences as higher spines, a shorter tail and a much longer neck. This neck can reach 14 meters in length, and the full animal has reached an incredible 27 meters in length. Three of these animals in a row are one block long.
It is assumed that he has a small skull, although no one has been restored. Because of the long neck, he could safely walk to the balcony of the apartment, located on the fifth floor of the building. Because of this inconsistency, he had to have arterial sphincters, which reduced the amount of blood, and most likely kept the neck more or less horizontally.
Until recently, based on the findings of incompletely preserved fossils, scientists believed that the anomalocaris had only one pair of flexible lateral lobes per segment of the body. However, the analysis of the remains of Egirocassid indicates that on each segment of these creatures there were two pairs of blades used for swimming.
Well, the animal was a talisman with megalodon. Only partial skeletons, vertebrae and numerous teeth were found, which are very similar to today's sharks. The length of these teeth is almost 20 centimeters in length. The most conservative estimates suggest that this shark has a length of about 15 meters, and some reconstructions suggest the presence of samples with a length of 30 meters. A shark the size of a whale.
You will be happy to know that these animals are dead
It is believed that megalodons feed on whales and die out when the polar seas become too cold for sharks, allowing whales to remain safe in these regions. Do you think dinosaurs were horrendous? After the dinosaurs died out about 60 million years ago, a giant snake named Titanoboa took its place as the largest and most terrible reptile on Earth.
Scientists have once again studied the previously found fossils of other species of the genus anomalocaris and concluded that they also had paired lobes. They came to the conclusion that in some species the fusion of the blades occurred in the course of evolution.
This prompted scientists to conclude that the anomalocaris were prehistoric arthropods. This idea was previously criticized because of the strange structure of the body of representatives of this genus.
Imagine a scorpion with a comb-shaped body. Now imagine the same creature with a length of 5 feet. Echoes of this ancient creature can be seen in ticks, spiders and lobsters today. Dragonflies are benign and beautiful; its wings can expand to several inches. But his ancestor, Meganeurs, had wings that could stretch to 2 feet.
A rat the size of a bull
Scientists evaluate these animals as "rake". Records of fossils show that they were 10 feet long, to which they added 5 of the tail. This terrible carnivorous creature 6 feet long called Anomalokaris had tentacles with teeth. They were 50 percent larger than the most famous polar bear in history.
Until 1985, paleontologists believed that the processes on the heads of the anomalocaris were shrimp, their mouth-stained mouth appendages belonged to jellyfish, and the trunk to sea cucumbers.
Racoscorpion (Jaekelopterus rhenaniae)
So, probably, was a prehistoric shelloscopy
These piranhas are so great that scientists officially called them Megapirangha. They lived about 10 million years ago, had a length of 3 feet and two rows of teeth. It was a fish with heavy armor more than 30 feet long. He had a bill in the form of a beak, specially designed to bite and penetrate the shell, as strong as his, a sign that it was a cannibal spice or that she had to fight for her territory. Their jaws were so effective that they could be opened and closed within a few milliseconds.
Megalodone makes a large white shark pale and makes it look like a small aquarium fish. With a length of 60 feet, this predator of the seas is still considered "the most formidable predator that ever existed." And these beings honor their name. This means that these ancient crocodiles daily faced the king of the dinosaurs. Then the ancestors of modern monkeys and orangutans had a height of 10. His diet consisted mainly of vegetables, but only considering that the hands of the men were about 12 feet, this is a frightening idea.
Rakoskorpion - the most terrible nightmare of arachnophobe (a person experiencing a pathological fear of spiders). This giant of 2.5 meters long claims to be the largest arthropod ever inhabiting the Earth.
In English, the creature is known as the "sea scorpion".
This name is inaccurate. Rakoskorpion was not a scorpion in the literal sense of the word, and it was probably not at the bottom of the seas, but in rivers and lakes. He lived about 390 million years ago and ate fish.
For the first time this species was described in 2008: in a quarry near the German city of Prum found a petrified claw with a length of 46 cm - all that remained of the animal. However, the ratio between the size of the claw and the whole organism in the rakoskorpions is very constant, so the researchers came to the conclusion that J. rhenaniae reached a length of 233 to 259 cm.
This finding is yet another proof that prehistoric rakoskorpions were very large.
Nobody knows for certain why the rakoskorpions grew to such a giant size.
Some scientists suggest that the solution lies in the composition of the Earth's atmosphere: in some periods of the past, the oxygen level in it was much higher than now.
Others point to a relatively small variety of then-lived vertebrate predators, including fish.
Arthropleura
The modern millipede is placed on the palm of your hand; now imagine the same at 2.6 m long - this will be a kind of arthropleus
Another contender for the title of the largest arthropod in the history - an arthropleur from the genus of thousands, reaching 2.6 m in length.
Arthropleans lived in the period from 340 to 280 million years ago and it is possible that they owed their huge dimensions to the high oxygen content in the atmosphere.
No one has yet succeeded in finding the petrified arthroplethritus as a whole. Fragments of skeletons up to 90 cm in length were found in the south-west of Germany, and traces, which scientists suppose were left by these thousands of thousands, were found in Scotland, the USA and Canada.
Researchers believe that the trunk of the arthroplea consisted of approximately 30 segments covered from above and from the sides with protective plates.
Since the fossil remains of the jaw arthropleas have not yet been found, it is difficult to say for sure what she ate.
Paleontologists who studied petrified feces of this creature revealed fern spores in them, which indicates the probability of plant food in their diet.
Cinematographers engaged in the popularization of arthroplethritis - it is mentioned in the BBC's popular science series "Walking with Monsters" (2005) and "First Life" (2010).
Meganeus (Meganeura)
Imagine yourself an insect, similar to a dragonfly, with a wingspan of 65 cm, - about this could be a meganevra.
For the first time gigantism among arthropods was associated with a high content of oxygen in the atmosphere in 1880 after the discovery of the remains of a mega-weapon in France.
These creatures, resembling dragonflies, lived about 300 million years ago and fed on amphibians and insects.
The span of their wings was 65 cm. This is one of the largest species of flying insects ever inhabiting the Earth.
Strictly speaking, the meganews belonged to the genus of dragonfly-like insects. From the known dragonflies, they were distinguished by some features of the structure of the trunk.
Restrictions on the size of insects impose a way of delivering oxygen from the air to internal organs. The role of the lungs is performed by the tubular tracheal system.
In the Carboniferous period, 359-299 million years ago, the oxygen content in the air reached at least 35%. Perhaps, due to this circumstance, the mega-vane managed to extract more energy from the air and retain the ability to fly even as it increases in size.
The same hypothesis explains why meganews did not survive in later periods, when the oxygen content in the air dropped.
Sarkozuch Imperial (Sarcosuchus imperator)
Sarkozukha of the imperial called still "super crock"
In the process of evolution, not only insects were milled. Paleontologists who sought the remains of dinosaurs in Niger in 1997, were surprised to find the petrified jawbones of a crocodile, whose length was comparable to the growth of an adult.
Subsequently it turned out that the scientists found the best preserved specimen of the sarcosus of the imperial - prehistoric giant crocodile, inhabiting the full-flowing rivers of the northern part of tropical Africa 110 million years ago.
An animal that is unofficially called a super crocodile, reached 12 meters in length and weighed about eight tons, that is, it was twice as long and four times heavier than the largest living crocodiles.
It is possible that in addition to fish, sarcones also fed on small dinosaurs.
Its narrow jaws reached 1.8 m in length and were studded with a hundred-odd teeth. At the tip of the upper jaw there was a massive bone growth.
The sarcoma's eyes moved vertically in the eye sockets. Apparently, this monster outwardly resembled the dwelling in India and Nepal ganian gavial, which is listed in the Red Book.
Despite its unofficial name, the Imperial sarcosius was not the direct ancestor of 23 species of modern representatives of the crocodile order. He belonged to an extinct family of reptiles - folidosaurs.
Other fossils of prehistoric crocodile reptiles, including those related to the extinct genus deynozuh, were also found.
They were relatives of modern alligators and, perhaps, reached a length of 10 meters.
Crocodiles could grow to such a size, because they lived mainly in water, which supported their weight - on land this would be impossible.
In addition, the crocodile skull is very strong. Accordingly, the compression force of the jaws is also great, which allows reptiles to hunt large prey.
Metoposaurus (Metoposaurus)
The two-meter metoposaur had a wide flat head with a mouth dotted with hundreds of teeth
Prehistoric fish had to fear not only crocodiles. On Earth in time immemorial there were also giant carnivorous amphibians, superficially similar to huge salamanders.
The fossilized remains of metoposaur were found in Germany, Poland, North America, Africa and India.
Metoposaurus had a very remote relation to the current salamanders
Most prehistoric species disappeared from the face of the Earth about 201 million years ago. Then many vertebrates extinct, including large amphibians, which gave dinosaurs the opportunity to establish their dominance on the planet.
Metoposaur was described in March 2005 by Stephen Brashett of Edinburgh University and his colleagues. It was named Metoposaurus algarvensis in honor of the Algarve region in southern Portugal, where the remains were found.
The two-meter metoposaur had a wide flat head with a mouth littered with hundreds of teeth. Small, poorly developed limbs indicate that he spent less time on land.
Metoposaur was the progenitor of modern amphibians, such as frogs and newts. Despite its appearance, metoposaurus had a very remote relation to the current salamanders.
Megatherium (Megatherium)
Megatheories are considered to be the ancestors of modern sloths, armadillos and anteaters
What would be like a cross between a bear and a hamster the size of an elephant? Perhaps a megateria.
This extinct species of giant sloths lived mainly in North America in the period from 5 million to 11,000 years ago.
Although the megacities were smaller than dinosaurs and woolly mammoths, they were one of the largest terrestrial animals. Their length reached six meters.
Megateries were relatives of modern sloths, armadillos and anteaters.
The skeleton of the megateria was extremely strong. Probably, the animal possessed great power, but did not differ in the speed of movement.
Many scientists believe that megacities used their long front legs, equipped with large claws, to tear off the trees from the leaves and rip off the bark at a height inaccessible to smaller animals.
However, the assumption is made that megateria could also eat meat. The shape of their ulnar bones suggests the ability to move quickly with their forelimbs. It is possible that the megacities killed their prey with a sweep of their paws.
"Terrible birds" (Fororakosovye - Phorusrhacidae)
Flightless birds could at one stroke swallow a medium-sized dog or a similar animal
In recent years, scientists have attempted to clone extinct animal species, including the Pyrenean ibex, marsupial wandering wand, and even woolly mammoth.
Let's hope that they will not come up with the idea to experiment with the DNA of the representatives of the troarakos family - or, as they are also called, "terrible birds" from the crane order.
These flightless birds reached three meters in height, ran at a speed of up to 50 km / h and could swallow a medium-sized dog in one fell swoop.
Due to its height and long neck, such a "terrible bird" could detect prey at a great distance, and long, powerful legs allowed them to develop the high speed necessary for hunting.
With their downwardly curving beaks, forarakosovi tore prey about the same way as modern predatory birds do.
"Terrible birds" lived between 60 and two million years ago. Most of the known fossil remains are found in South America, and some in the North.
At one time, some scientists claimed on the basis of findings in Florida that these birds died out only 10,000 years ago, but later it turned out that the age of the remains found is much older.
It is believed that the closest relatives of the forarococcus of existing birds are the family of the Kariam family living in South America, whose representatives reach 80 cm in height.
Megalodon (Carcharodon megalodon or Carcharocles megalodon)
The fossil megalodon was much larger than the modern white shark
You may have heard stories about giant sharks three times longer than a large white shark and 30 times heavier than it. You do not have to worry: such monsters do not exist long ago.
They are called Megalodons, and no one knows for sure how large they really were. Like all sharks, the megalodon's skeleton consisted of cartilage, and not of bones, so fossils have hardly survived to our time.
As a result, we have to draw conclusions about the size of this fish only on the basis of detected teeth, from which the Greek name of monsters, meaning "huge tooth", and individual fragments of vertebrae, occurs.
According to the latest estimates of scientists, the megalodon length was 16-20 m. For comparison, the length of the largest modern fish - a large white shark - does not exceed 12.6 m.
In the giant jaws of megalodone, there were over 200 serrated teeth, each up to 18 cm long. The compression force of the jaws was 11-18 tons - 4-6 times higher than that of the tyrannosaurus.
The assumption that megalodon lived to this day was expressed in the film "The Shark-Monster: Megalodon Is Alive", shown in 2013 on the channel Discovery.
The film was subjected to destructive criticism due to the fact that it used falsified video footage and comments of actors pretending to be scientists.
The real scientists believe that megalodon lived in the period from 15.9 to 2.6 million years ago. After that, according to a scientific paper published in 2014, whales became the largest inhabitants of the oceans.
Titanoboa (Titanoboa cerrejonensis)
Model of a giant titanoboi snake exhibited in the Washington museum
Millions of years after the disappearance of dinosaurs, there was a kind of snake, which alone with its giant size excites the mind. 60-58 million years ago in the swampy jungles of Colombia lived Titanoboa. The snake, like a boa constrictor, reached a length of 15 meters and weighed up to a ton.
The snake was first described in 2009, after the fossil vertebrae and skull of this monster were found in the Colombian coal mine.
It is believed that titanoboa is a distant relative of the anaconda and boa constrictor. The snake killed prey, squeezing it with the rings of its body. It is not excluded that she was hunting, including crocodiles.
The size Titanoboa could be attributed to the climate in which he lived. A warmer climate usually means more vegetation, which means more production, which also exceeded the size of prey living in cooler conditions.
Canadian and American zoologists, after doing a comparative analysis of the skeleton, came to the conclusion that the snake could reach up to 13 meters in length and weigh more than a ton. The largest snake, preserved until our time, the mesh python, reaches 8.7 meters in length. The smallest snake, Leptotyphlops carlae, is only 10 centimeters long. 
Titanoboa's vertebra and the modern middle snake
This colossal serpent looked like a modern ordinary boa constrictor, but it acted more like an anaconda today, living in the jungle of the Amazon. It was a slippery swamp dweller and a huge predator, able to eat any animal he hunted. The diameter of his body was close to the waist of a man of our time.
In the marshy jungle, the life of titanoboa was surprisingly long due to the constant incessant rain, abundant vegetation and living creatures. Deep-sea rivers allowed the snake to both go deep and crawl around palm trees and hilly jungles. 
The river basin in which the titanoboa was fed was packed with giant tortoises and crocodiles of at least three different species. Also there lived a giant fish, three times more than the current inhabitants of the Amazon.
Nov 24 2015 Oksana
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