RECORD BREAKERS

Life on earth, as magnificent and versatile as it is, is seemingly tame compared to the weird and wonderful creatures that once existed. All categories of life have reached unimaginable sizes, here are just a selection of prehistoric record breakers!

MEGALODON The biggest shark known to have existed, ruling over the oceans as recently as up to a million years ago. A length of almost 20 metres and weighing in at an estimated 48 tonnes, Megalodon could deliver a crucifying bite of up to 110,000N. It is no surprise that the Megalodon was dubbed the “whale killing shark”.

MEGATHERIUM Our early ancestors would have been quite familiar with Megatherium as they existed up to 8000 years ago, they were in fact the largest sloths to have existed. Sloths have a reputation as being lazy, slow and docile, but Megatherium was a 6 metre long, 4 tonne monster with a killer instinct and knife-like claws. Megatherium’s discovery came before that of the dinosaurs. Skeletons of these prehistoric beasts were a delight to the Victorian public and paved the way for the science of palaeontology.

ARCHELON Literally meaning “large turtle”, Archelon certainly was just that. Existing during the cretaceous, the time of the dinosaurs, Archelon could reach 4.5 metres long and may have lived to over 100 years old. Archelon could not compete with other cretaceous beings in speed and agility, but its blade-like beak was able to slice through flesh and crush though the toughest ammonite shells. Unfortunately Archelon appears to have been a popular snack for other marine dwellers, skeletons are frequently missing flippers or heads and covered in slashes.

TITANOBOA When the dinosaurs reign ended, a new era saw the rise of new super-predators, one was Titanoboa, the largest snake ever with a body up to 13 metres long, standing a metre off the ground and weighing up to 2500 pounds. Titanoboa was 30% longer than even todays largest species. Scientists believe this humongous snake hunted like its modern relatives, the boa constrictors, by winding around prey and suffocating them.

IRISH ELK Owner of the largest antlers of any animal, up to 3 metres wide, the Irish Elk gets its name from its frequent discoveries in Irish peat bogs. Existing up to 10,000 years ago, these would have been a common sight in grasslands for our ancestors. Many fossils indicate the animals died of starvation which is why the antlers are thought to have been part of elaborate mating contests between males, often resulting in one being fatally injured and unable to feed itself.

DEINOTHERIUM A distant relative of the elephants and mammoths, Deinotherium was more sinister, its name translates to “terrible beast”, they would have most likely caused trouble for our ancient ancestors around 1.5 million years ago. Deinotherium is actually considered to be the second largest land mammal of all time, behind Paraceratherium and is iconic in appearance due to its sharp, downward facing tusks.

ARCTODUS Known as the short faced bear, they were the biggest bears on record and one of the largest mammal carnivores to have existed. Whilst their skull was short, they were packed with piercing teeth that could deliver a bone crushing bite. Existing up to 11,000 years ago, out ancestors would have stayed well clear of this 900 kilogram predator, with slender limbs and knife-like claws, Arctodus was deadly.

SARCOSUCHUS One of the most infamous fossil discoveries in history, Sarcosuchus was the largest crocodile to walk the Earth up to 112 million years ago, this was a crocodile capable of killing dinosaurs. Sarcosuchus was twice as long as a saltwater crocodile, that’s 11-12 metres long and could reach over 8 tonnes. Its jaw was packed full of 66 teeth either side of its jaw and would have clamped down on prey that wandered too near.

ARGENTINOSAURUS One of the largest lifeforms that has ever stood on the Earth, Argentinosaurus could grow up to 30 metres long with its hind limbs standing 4.5 metres off the ground. They existed between 97-94 million years ago and at adulthood would have been virtually indestructible to predators. Its weight is estimated at a staggering 80-100 tonnes. There hasn’t been another land mammal on the same scale as Argentinosaurus since and it’s unlikely there ever will be.

SPINOSAURUS The largest discovered therapod ever, a group that includes Allosaurus and Tryrannosaurus. Spinosaurus remained an enigma to scientists for decades, the only discovered specimen was sadly destroyed during World War 2 and was not rediscovered until the 21st century. Spinosaurus is thought to have reached up to 16 metres long and weighed in around 12 tonnes, that is almost double the weight of a T-rex!

Cool Prehistoric Creatures

since I’ve been obsessed with prehistoric animals for the past few days, I’m gonna share several of the coolest ones I’ve found here we goooo

Inostrancevia aka the Goodest Boy.

my fave at present. a genus belonging to the family Gorgonopsidae, which is a family of extinct therapsids. These were the largest members of Gorgonopsidae, weighing 300 kilograms on average. As you can see, it is Lorge. It lived around 250-265 million years ago.

Here he is committing murder of a Scutosaurus with his badass saber teeth.

Despite the fact that this good boy would eat me, I would give him scritches.

OKAY

Polonosuchus aka HOLY SHIT THATS TERRIFYING WHAT WHO AUTHORIZED THIS

So, as much as I love dinosaurs, I feel like they unnecessarily overshadow some of the Really Unneccesarily Terrifying critters that God took look one look at, said “what have I done” and stuffed away deep deep in the Triassic period.

Such as the rauisuchians.

Nature apparently did a shit ton of experimenting around with crocodylomorphs before coming up with the flat river dwelling bois we know and love. You know how our modern crocodiles have their legs sprawled out to the side so they kind of have to drag themselves along?

Well...

Polonosuchus was basically a CROCODILE. THAT COULD RUN. FAST. AND IT WAS

IT WAS THIS BIG

SIX METERS LONG AND AS TALL AS A HUMAN

IMAGINE SEEING A CROCODILE AND IT GETS UP ON THESE TALL ASS LEGS AND STARTS SPRINTING AFTER YOU LIKE A LEOPARD

I WOULD SHIT

Doedicurus aka Literally a Tank

Have you ever looked at an armadillo and thought “hey what if this thing weighed 1,400 kilograms and had a spiky club on the end of its tail”

Thankfully you don’t have to imagine.

The club alone weighed 40-65 kilograms.

Nothing I could add would make this better

Pelagornis, aka Hey Isnt This A Little Excessive?

I’m very slightly bitter at pterosaurs for overshadowing the Giant Birds from Hell that used to just...Exist.

Pelagornis sandersi was a species of flying bird with a wingspan of 20-24 feet. We think it was some sort of seabird.

Also, because being pants-shittingly hugenormous isn’t enough for this thing:

What if beak...but...Teethy Spikes.

I’m going to let you google images of this one because i want you to see the many terrifying reconstructions.

Dinocrocuta, aka Doctor Extreme Bone Hurting

Dinocrocuta was...basically like a spotted hyena. Just. You know. 300 kilograms and 6 feet tall. The size of an entire tiger. Presumably, its large, bone crushing jaws were for crushing even larger bones.

Dinocrocuta actually has a lot of competition for Bone-Crushingest Beast though:

Mongolonyx, aka What If Hoof—But Wolf

The only reconstruction of this guy I can find is by some person on deviantart (contact and watermark is on the image, obvi)

so...some explanation. Mongolonyx is a mesonychid—a carnivorous ungulate. This is an ungulate. A Hoofed Mammal. That decided to evolve into a predator for some reason. Though it looks dog-like here, it wouldn’t have looked like any living animal at all. Its feet would have looked like paws...but hooves. Like many other hoofed mammals mesonychids were fast but not very flexible, and would have run in a similar fashion to modern ungulates.

Speaking of animals that just Do Not look like anything we have now...

Chalicotherium...Huh?

At some point some members of Perissodactyla thought, “Huh, wouldn’t it be cool if we had...Arms?” And never looked back.

Don’t you wish *you* had arms, modern hoofed mammals? That’s what I thought.

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mor-ranr

3 years ago

Some Norse news today: “Runor is a new digital research platform that makes approximately 7,000 runic inscriptions available, as well as reports and images from various databases, institutions and collections.”

You can explore the map without logging in, read transliterations and translations, and also search runic texts.

Check it out: https://app.raa.se/open/runor/search

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mor-ranr

2 years ago

Hallo, Aro

Is it “aay-romantic” or “arrow-mantic”? What if she hears “I’m a romantic” instead of “I’m aromantic”? What if she says “isn’t that just friend…

Hallo, Aro is a series of flash fiction stories about allosexual aromantic characters navigating friendship, sexual attraction, aromanticism and the weight of amatonormative expectation.

I’ve now got twelve allo-aro short fiction and creative non-fiction pieces in this collection!

Folks can download PDF, EPUB and MOBI files for free from my Patreon, read individual stories on my WordPress site or view them all here on Tumblr:

Unspoken

Leaving

Friendship

Lucky

Attraction

Existence

Neuronormative

Loveless

Monstrous

Pressure, Side One