5 Aquatic Animals You Should Thank God No Longer Exists
The deeper you descend into the ocean, the stranger its inhabitants become. In the last million years, a variety of creepy sea creatures have spread into our seas. Unfortunately, many of these species are now extinct and many more are threatened with extinction. In a way, we can be thankful that our extinct sea creatures include terrifying species like Megalodon and Mosasaurus.
Who in their right mind would want to meet these fearsome aquatic dinosaurs? On the other hand, we should be concerned about the large number of species experiencing “major population collapses.” Before we find out which ancient sea monsters still exist, let’s explore some of the largest and most fearsome prehistoric sea creatures that no longer inhabit our world.
1. Plesiosaurs: 203 million years ago:
Plesiosaurs were prehistoric sea creatures that ruled the oceans during the Jurassic Period. Resembling the mythical Loch Ness Monster of , these swimming reptiles had large bodies and small heads.They propel themselves through the water with their limbs, hunting fish, other reptiles and turtles. There were two basic types of plesiosaurs. Plesiosauromorphs were slow-moving creatures with extremely long necks, while pliosauromorphs were short-necked apex predators capable of pursuing prey at high speeds. With a length of up to 40 feet and long, sharp teeth, the plesiosaur is everything we would expect from an ancient sea monster. Despite its appearance in , scientists believe Plesiosaur was a devoted father who formed strong social bonds.
2. Helicoprion: 290 million years ago
The most striking and disturbing feature of this extinct sea creature is the spiral of elongated teeth, or spines, found at the tip of its lower jaw. This peculiar development makes the Helicoprion appear as if it had a 290-million-year-old circular saw wedged in its mouth. Although resembling a shark, Heliocoprion belonged to the larger group of sea rats and is believed to have fed on squid and “other soft-bodied cephalopods”. With no teeth in its upper jaw, it relied on the rotational motion of its spiral teeth to draw prey into its mouth.The heliocoprion grew to over 26 feet in length and had a jaw two feet wide with monstrous saw-like teeth. That makes it, in my opinion, one of the scariest prehistoric sea creatures ever discovered.
3. Megalodon – 3.6 million years ago:
While few of us have heard of a heliokoprion, most of us are familiar with the basking shark that once ruled our oceans, although it mostly does so on film as owed to the 2018 horror film The Meg. The megalodon is often depicted as a larger version of the great white shark, but scientists admit they know very little about its appearance other than the fact that it is a “large, big shark” traded many big teeth.”About people seem desperate to prove this prehistoric sea creature still exists, but scientists are confident the species went extinct by 3.6 million years ago.Megalodon was a cartilaginous species, so there are no skeletons or complete fossils. Based on the size of the teeth, scientists estimate it was between 49 and 60 feet long. That’s three times the size of the largest great white shark ever recorded!
4.Tylosaurus: 66 million years ago:
The Tylosaurus developed an unusual hunting technique, using “brute force to ram prey at high speeds.” The remains of their stomach contents show that these sea monsters had a very diverse diet that included fish, sharks, other mosasaurs, and flightless birds. Along with many other species of reptiles and dinosaurs, the three known species of Tylosaurus, including Tylosaurus proriger, became extinct during the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period.
5. Mosasaurus – 66 million years ago:
A close relative of Tylosarus, Mosasaurus was a fierce predator of prehistoric seas. The Mosasaurus were the largest members of the Mosasaurus family, measuring over 55 feet in length. Mosasaurs ruled the seas, while dinosaurs roamed the earth, hunting large prey and tearing them apart before devouring them. Like other reptiles, they had a second set of palatine teeth on the palate which they used to prevent their prey from escaping. It is believed that mosasaurs originally used eel-like movements to move through water, but later evolved shark-like tails and powerful “paddle-shaped front legs” that enabled them to catch fast-moving prey. Mosasaurus disappeared along with many other species during the last global mass extinction event.
6. Basilosaurus – 40 million years ago:
This prehistoric sea creature was originally thought to be a giant marine reptile like Mosasaurus and was given the misleading name Basilosaurus, meaning ‘lizard’, ‘king’. It was later discovered to be a rare species of prehistoric predatory whales that roamed the oceans during the late Eocene. An ancestor of the giant sperm whale, Basilosaurus was about 20 m long and had an unusually graceful appearance.
Source: https://www.dutchsharksociety.org/extinct-sea-creatures/ | https://a-z-animals.com/blog/10-extinct-creepy-sea-animals-with-photos/ |
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/g210/strange-sea-animals-2/| https://www.cnet.com/pictures/terrifying-extinct-animals/
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