Animals That Were SCARIER Than Dinosaurs

it's certainly no stretch to say that life would have been much scarier if the dinosaurs had stuck around but what if i told you the earth used to be populated by creatures that were even bigger badder and more ferocious from super-sized serpents to sea monsters and bizarro critters straight from your nightmares here are some animals that were even scarier than the dinosaurs [Music] dunkleosteus some of the most terrifying creatures ever to have lived were water dwellers and dunkleosteus is certainly no exception this brutish fish lived during the late devonian period which was around 370 to

360 million years ago and is often referred to as the age of fish fyi that's long before the dinosaurs walked the earth during a time known as the mesozoic era between around 245 and 66 million years ago which scientists have divided into three periods the triassic jurassic and cretaceous the 26 to 32 feet long dunkleosteus was streamlined and shark-like with an armor-plated head and a face only a mother could love based on its ferocious appearance you might be surprised to learn that dunkleosteus actually lacked any proper teeth but don't be fooled instead it had two

long bony blades that could snap and crush almost anything and i do mean anything because dunkleosteus was definitely not a fussy eater it ate fish sharks and even its own kind its fearsome fangs grew continuously and rubbed against each other as they did acting like self-sharpening shears to give you an idea of just how powerful its jaws were scientists have speculated that they could generate up to eight thousand pounds of bite force per square inch for some perspective a lion's bite generates approximately 650 pounds per square inch dunkleosteus's fatal flaw was that it was so

greedy that it often suffered from indigestion fossils of this prehistoric beast have often been found alongside regurgitated and semi-digested remains of fish you may be glad to know dunkleosteus isn't around anymore but if you want to make sure be amazed never goes extinct too you know what to do just shimmy on over to those like and subscribe buttons and show them some love then don't forget to tickle that little bell icon too that way you'll be the first to know when i upload more amazing content now buckle up for some more goosebumps inducing beasts helicoprion

if you thought getting into the water with dunkleosteus was a terrifying prospect then just wait till you hear about the helicoprion this ghastly 270 million year old 20 to 25 foot long fish is the star of one of the most vexing fossil mysteries to ever confound paleontologists it all began with the discovery of strange petrified whirls of elongated teeth that looked kind of like fossilized fruity roll-ups russian geologist alexander petrovich karpinsky coined the name helicoprion in 1899 after determining that the strange fossils were actually part of a shark-like fish his best guess was that the

unusual feeding apparatus was attached to the nose of this long dead creature like a permanently rolled up party horn but the remains continued to puzzle paleontologists for over a century years spent speculating about the true arrangement of the toothy world produced a slew of bizarre visions of sharks with whirls of teeth hanging off of their snouts dangling from their lower jaws dorsal fins caudal fins and even embedded deep in their throats it wasn't until 2013 that a study led by leif tepanilla from idaho state university correctly proposed that the coiled tooth row totally filled the

lower jaw in a buzz-saw-like formation as the fish aged new teeth continually formed at the back of the lower jaw while there were practically no upper teeth to speak of so how did the helicoprion catch and consume its prey terrifyingly paleontologists suggest that as the jaw closed the toothy whirl rotated the teeth backwards in a saw-like motion as if all that wasn't scary enough already the largest telecoprion specimen ever found had a two foot wide jaw thank god this terrifying buzzsaw killer went extinct some 225 million years ago because it's a whole pile of noop

terror birds the simple fact that scientists nicknamed the first racity terror birds should tell you everything you need to know about these frightening creatures but i'm going to go ahead and give you the full rundown anyway after a meteor wiped out the fearsome dinos like the t-rex and the velociraptor the terror bird rose up to become the top land predator in south america a title they defended for the next 60 million years these prehistoric feathered beasts grew up to 10 feet tall and had t-rex-like feet and a hooked beak that could sever the spinal cord

of a horse with one fatal blow their reign of well terror began before what we now know as central america existed when south america was still an island while the likes of the saber-tooth cats and wolves took over the job of top predators elsewhere most of the mammals in south america were happy herbivores this provided the terror birds with a smorgasbord of plant-munching animals to feast on without any competition these swift moving creatures were equipped with a pickaxe-like beak which they used to strike downwards and fatally crack the skulls of smaller animals ouch but that's

not all their bony heads could act as a giant meat tenderizer and they would likely have used their enormous clawed feet to kick the living daylights out of their prey during their 60 million year reign 17 different species in the terra bird family came and went until they finally disappeared altogether about 2.5 million years ago makes you appreciate street pigeons a little more doesn't it platy belladonne how do you take a regular elephant and make it utterly terrifying you replace its trunk with an enormous fleshy spork that's how this fantastical creature may look like it

was dreamed up by an imaginative seven-year-old but travel back in time between eight million and twenty million years ago and you'll see for yourself that the platy belladon was once as real as they come this ancestor of the modern elephant had a strange jutting jaw that actually consisted of a pair of widened tusks which by the way are just modified incisors but what was the purpose of this bizarre tool after all animals don't waste energy developing worthless characteristics when the platybelladon was first described in the 1920s it was thought that their lower incisors were used

to shovel scoop dig and dredge soft vegetation in aquatic or swampy environments but in 1992 paleontologist david lambert proposed that they were also used as scythe-like weapons that could slice through thick vegetation instead of roaming shorelines platy belladon wandered around myocene asia africa and north america feeding on terrestrial plants grasping branches with its trunk and cutting them away with those specialized built-in scythes because these fleshy spork-shaped appendages don't fossilize as easily as bone we're actually pretty lucky to know much about these bizarre creatures at all thankfully they did us a big favor by dying sometimes

in mass next to or in rivers which are prime spots for easy fossilization although they may not have posed a major threat to humans if they were still around today it's safe to say that these animals still have one of the freakiest mugs in history andrew sarchis it's hard to imagine anything with the name andrew somehow being more terrifying than a dinosaur but uh this ferocious creature says otherwise although no complete andrew sarkis skeleton has ever been found part of a skull from one of these bad boys discovered in mongolia in 1923 measured nearly three

feet long expedition leader roy chapman andrews decided that the animal must have been a carnivore because of its massive teeth and named it andrew sarkis mongolian sis after himself of course to this day this is the only specimen ever found belonging to this terrifying species which roamed asia some 45 to 36 million years ago during the eocene era paleontologists built up an impression of the rest of the animal's body using knowledge from its skull and its relation to another bear-like prehistoric creature called mezzanix the result is a 16 foot long six-foot high vision of pure

nightmare fuel this heavily built wolf-like animal walked on four short legs and had a long body and tail with hoofed feet it had a terrifying snout with large bone-crushing teeth that could have weighed anywhere between 1 764 pounds to over 2 200 pounds so in case you needed any more reason to quiver in fear this monumental size makes andrew sarkis the largest known mediating land mammal that ever lived strangely enough though these hoofed beasts were actually thought to be more closely related to hippos and whales both belonging to a larger order of mammals called artiodactyls

because andrew sarkis is only known from a skull and a few other bones whether it was an active predator or merely an oversized scavenger is up for debate but i certainly wouldn't want to take my chances titanoboa if you're scared of snakes now might be a time to grab a quick snack 60 million years ago during the paleocene epoch in the swampy waters of what is now colombia there lurked the biggest snake that has ever lived the titanoboa clocking in at nearly 50 feet long and weighing a colossal 2 500 pounds this super-sized serpent was

10 times as heavy as the green anaconda that rules those same stomping grounds today sadly though titanoboa never went toe-to-toe with the t-rex existing just a few million years after the fall of the dinosaurs titanoboa reigned over the immense swampy jungle where everything was hotter wetter and bigger than it is today in keeping with this general theme of bigness titanoboa was so large that it pretty much defied the laws of physics you see every living creature has evolved under the constraints of gravity the only reason why ludicrously massive creatures like the 100-foot blue whale are

able to exist is because gravity doesn't affect giants as much in the sea scientists speculate that this is what titanoboa must have exploited to reach its enormous size the creature was so outsized that it probably wasn't able to get around on land very well and must have spent a large part of its time in the water behaving more like a water dwelling anaconda despite looking something like a modern day boa constrictor you know just imagine taking a dip in the river only to spot the skin of one of these enormous beasts on the bank nearby

if you're wondering what titanoboa ate the simple answer is anything it laid its eyes on the giant snake was an ambush predator and relied on its incredible strength to squeeze the life out of its prey titanoboa lay in weight and hunted mostly large reptiles gobbling down giant turtles and even crocodiles why and even when titanoboa went extinct remains a mystery but just imagine the havoc they'd wreak on us puny humans if they didn't j colopterus three words giant c scorpion i bet you never thought you'd hear those together in a sentence about a real life

animal you'll be pleased to know that the now extinct group of euriptarids also known as sea scorpions which belonged to the arthropod order were mostly small creatures about the size of a human hand that is except for the nightmare-inducing jaycolopterys which lived around 460 million years ago during the silurian period this spiky sea scorpion grew up to eight feet in length easily making it the largest arthropod ever known for a better idea of what it looked like just imagine those face huggers from the alien franchise scaled up to huge proportions with the ability to swim

thrown in its segmented paddle-shaped body was similar to that of the bizarre horseshoe crab except you know much more giant jacalopterus moved swiftly underwater thanks to its oar-like back legs which allowed it to swim rapidly after its prey beside its multiple specialized limbs this marine monster was also equipped with huge spring-loaded claws which it used to snatch up fish as they passed by one fossilized spike claw discovered in 2007 even measured a whopping 18 inches across there's no denying that if this giant sea scorpion had existed today it could have used these grasping claws to

grab you in a deadly embrace and crush your skull like an almond the reign of the europe tarids including the terrifying jaycolopteris was eventually brought to a sudden end thanks to the permian extinction around 299 to 252 million years ago which wiped out more than 96 of all marine life on earth phoboeromis pattersony you may have noticed that many animals in the prehistoric era were basically just souped up jumbo-sized versions of some of the animals that still exist today well allow me to introduce you to perhaps the most unnerving example of that theme phoberomus pattersony

these real-life ratzillas were the biggest rodents to have ever walked the earth clocking in at around 10 feet long with another five feet worth of tail to boot remains of these repulsive rodents have been recovered from several sites in argentina brazil and venezuela over the years although their closest living relative is the humble guinea pig they were more similar in appearance to modern day capybaras despite being much bigger and heavier examinations of the skeletons of these creepy ratzillas suggest that they probably weighed around 800 kilograms which is around the same size as an american bison

phoboromus patersoni's hind limbs were massive compared to its slender front limbs which suggested it probably rested on its haunches while feeding using smaller forelimbs to gather plant material much like the capybara fobermiss had a deep set jaw and sharp front teeth which were adapted for their gritty herbivorous diet although they were plant eaters these tremendous rodents would have had foot long incisors capable of causing some serious damage if you were to cross them phoboromus towered over wetlands and near-shore swamps until they mysteriously disappeared some 8 million years ago so next time you squirm at the

size of a rat on the street just remember it could be much worse hallucigenia it's not unusual for paleontologists to have trouble deciphering what an animal looks like especially when it's been extinct for 400 million years but the case of hallucigenia was still much harder than most in fact scientists studied this thumb-sized worm for more than 50 years before they were able to determine where its head was take one look at this utterly ludicrous creature and you'll see what i mean back in 1977 british paleontologist simon conway morris happened upon a bizarre half-inch-long fossil that

had been found in the burgess shale in the canadian rockies 66 years earlier it had already been classified as an annelid worm which includes leeches and earthworms but conway morris didn't agree in his opinion the wacky organism could actually walk on several pairs of stilt-like spines while it also had numerous tentacles sticking out of its back he named the creature hallucigenia because it was so nonsensical it resembled something you'd hallucinate during a bad trip but in 1991 researchers lars ramsgold and ha ziegwan turned conway morris's idea upside down literally what he had identified as tentacles

were actually the creature's legs so the model was flipped the spines now located on the creature's back were probably used for defense it wasn't until 2015 that further analysis conducted by martin smith from the university of cambridge using an electron microscope and samples from the burgess shale revealed which end was the worm's head complete with not only a pair of eyes but a big smile of grinning teeth although scientists don't know exactly what hallucigenia ate the ring of teeth around its mouth were probably used to suck water and food into the gut it may have

been tiny but there's no denying this floppy hallucination is seriously unnerving anthropolera most people feel uneasy around regular sized creepy crawlies but millions of years ago these fearful creatures could grow to insane proportions case in point anthropleura an eight and a half foot long millipede that roamed the earth during the late carboniferous period around 359 to 299 million years ago although it's likely that anthropleura was herbivorous and fed on dead plant matter like modern day millipedes there's no denying that it was still pretty darn terrifying fossil trackways that have been discovered suggest that these massive

millipedes could move at speed undulating hundreds of huge legs with unnerving rhythm and swerving to avoid trees and other obstacles anthroplera were the largest land invertebrates of all time which means it's highly unlikely they had any natural predators their segmented bodies were so flexible they could probably rear up to a defensive posture and look you straight in the eyes if they wanted to these monumental insects went extinct soon after the end of the carboniferous period when the moist climate began drying out dramatically reducing the rainforests that were their natural habitats but why don't we have

such massive bugs nowadays well the leading theory is that prehistoric insects got so big because they benefited from the surplus oxygen in the earth's atmosphere during the period when anthroplera lived the rise of vast lowland swamp forests led to atmospheric oxygen levels of around 30 percent that's almost 50 percent higher than current levels so next time someone says climate change isn't real just introduce them to this super freaky super-sized millipede mosasaurus if you're a fan of the jurassic world movies you may already be familiar with the mosasaurus thanks to this awesome scene [Applause] [Music] but

the thing is the mosasaurus isn't technically a dinosaur these great marine reptiles are actually closely related to snakes and monitor lizards but that doesn't make them any less terrifying this gigantic warm-blooded carnivore swam the seas around the globe some 80 to 66 million years ago though no complete specimens have ever been found paleontologists speculate that mosasaurus probably reached lengths of 45 to 50 feet and weighed around 5 and a half tons that's bigger than the average city bus and heavier than two adult rhinoceros look a little closer and you'll see that the captive mosasaurus from

the jurassic world movies has two extra rows of terrifying teeth inside its enormous mouth you might think that this is just a classic example of movie makers bending the truth for dramatic effect but no just like modern day snakes mosasaurus had pterygoid or fanged teeth inside their massive maw which were anchored to bones in the roof of their mouth these teeth which were embedded in the fleshy tissue of their gums made it easier to grip and swallow their prey underwater because of their relation to snakes and monitor lizards like the komodo dragon it's even possible

that they had huge forked tongues but we may never know for sure because soft tissues rarely fossilize it should come as no surprise that mosasaurus were wildly successful predators stomach contents have revealed that these aquatic brutes ate ammonites bony fish sea turtles other prehistoric reptiles like plesiosaurus and even seabirds their fossils have been found on every continent on earth even antarctica they even became the dominant marine predators during the cretaceous period until the kpg extinction event that ended the dinos wiped them out too triassic kraken for centuries fishermen have told tales of a terrifying sea

monster capable of capsizing a ship and gobbling up its crew the kraken these humongous beasts have made their way into their fair share of hollywood movies but did they ever really exist in 1857 danish naturalist japetis steenstrup examined a large washed up squid beak measuring about three inches across he concluded that the kraken was real then that it was a species of giant squid he named archetethius ducks or ruling squid since then about 21 species of giant squid have been described each from different body parts washed up on the shore these elusive creatures roamed the

depths of the ocean but it's hard to know exactly how big they get because whole specimens are hardly ever found some estimates suggest that the colossal squid the largest living species known only from beaks found in sperm whale stomachs might weigh up to 1500 pounds and reached 33 feet in length it may not be a squid of kraken sized proportions but did such a beast once lurk in prehistoric waters well professor mark mcmenamin of mount holyoke college in south hadley massachusetts think so according to mcminnaman there could have been whopping 100-foot squids in the early

triassic period that preyed on ichthyosaurs which were school bus sized marine reptiles that looked a bit like modern day dolphins mcmenamin first presented the idea in 2011 at the annual meeting of the geological society of america in minneapolis he based his hypothesis on the bizarre discovery of nine fossilized vertebrae from ichthyosaurus in nevada arranged in linear patterns that he argues resembles that pattern of the sucker discs on cephalic tentacles mcminiman referred to the fact that modern-day cephalopods are intelligent creatures and that octopuses have been known to collect bones shells and rocks for their dens but

other paleontologists aren't so convinced with some critics pointing to the lack of evidence that cephalopods actually stockpile their prey others have even accused mcminiman of simply reading the bones at the nevada site like prehistoric tea leaves but in 2013 mcminneman returned to the nevada site and discovered another fossil this time a fragment that he thinks is the tip of a huge beak belonging to a triassic kraken unfortunately the unidentified fossil is too fragmentary to prove the size of the cephalopod it may have belonged to while there's certainly little evidence of a truly monstrous squid alive

today mcminiman's theory suggests that there is reason to believe that squid reached stupendous sizes in the distant past and when we consider that only five percent of the vast ocean has been explored so far it's entirely possible that something much bigger and scarier than the giant squid once lurked beyond human reach if you had to bring one of these prehistoric horrors back from the dead which one would you choose let me know in the comments below and thanks for watching guys you