Prehistoric Australia Was Pure Nightmare Fuel

just like how everything is bigger in Texas everything is deadlier in Australia mostly the nature as it's home to a highly disproportionate amount of potentially lethal animals having more venomous species than all but two countries yet it Takes the Cake when only considering venomous animals that are fatal to humans on top of this it is home to 20 of the 25 most deadliest snakes in the world including all of the top 11 and it's the native country of one of the only Birds known to occasionally kill humans the Cleary meanwhile you also have the classics like the saltwater crocodile great white shark spiders and potent jellyfish and in case you needed a little more proof that Australia really is the land of nope you should know that it's where some of the largest insects in the world call home is one of the few places where pine cones can kill you and is where the top three largest wildfires in the 21st century took place the list could go on and on but you get the idea so it may be hard to stomach the fact that Australia is actually much more tame than it used to be and I'm not talking about the fact that it used to be home to dinosaurs but rather giant monitor lizards and terrestrial crocodiles just to name a couple and surprisingly you don't even have to travel that far back to arrive at this forsaken Australia as it reached its peak in chaoticness about 50,000 years ago which is right around when humans first arrived talk about good timing back in those days reptilian Predators not Maman ruled Australia and it wouldn't take long for anyone to realize that something was very wrong once they set foot on land as there were a host of nightmarish creatures wandering around one being a literal land Croc not a crocodile lookalike but a genuine real crocodilian that happened to run comfortably on land this creature was known as the Quin Kan and it was one of Australia's top predators during the PTO scene it shared many features with the crocodiles we know of today and was once even considered a true crocodile although thanks to a very odd skull structure it was moved to the extinct clade of mechos sucan along with the odd skull paleontologist also noticed that it had some strange legs as well that were very long for a crocodilian allowing it to keep its body clear of terrain and potentially Sprint this has led to it being considered a terrestrial Predator with further evidence coming from its hoof-like toes and Flat Tail which wasn't designed for swimming unfortunately for all land dwellers the Quin was also no small Critter with most adults measuring 3 m or 10 ft and weighing 200 kg or 440 lb making it nearly identical in weight to a medium-sized American alligator not to worry though as there were larger individuals as well with one specimen reaching 6 M or 20 ft in length at this size it had no problem taking down mammals including an unlucky human from time to time getting attacked by this Croc was an absolute nightmare as its teeth were designed to slice animals up like a filet minion with each tooth being blad likee compressed and heavily serrated these kind of teeth are referred to as zedon teeth and is what was commonly seen in therapods having such vicious dentition led the quinon take down animals that were considerably larger than itself with each bite tearing through large portions of Flesh and muscle there's a chance as well that you couldn't even outsmart this Croc by jumping in the water as there is some evidence that it was an accomplished swimmer in spite of spending most of its life on land shockingly or maybe by this point unshocking even a terrestrial Croc that could swim and had dinosaur-like teeth wasn't safe from other Australian creatures as there was also the largest known terrestrial lizard walking around Megalania there's a fair chance you've heard of this reptile due to its recent popularity yet you may not have heard that it's no longer known as the Megalania rather Venus priscus meaning it was actually a giant species of monitor lizard despite this classification change the Megalania is still usually referred to by its original name perhaps because it's much more fitting as it translates to the great RoR a nod to its massive size and massive it was paleontologists never seem to agree on the exact measurements but all estimates have given it a length of at least 3. 5 M or 11 ft with an approximate weight of 158 kg or 348 lb so at the minimum we are talking about a lizard that was as long as a sea lion and as heavy as a reindeer and at its maximum things frankly got crazy with studies finding it to have potentially obtained lengths of up to 7. 9 M or 26 ft which is based on fragmented remains that were scaled up to living monitor lizards this would have made them just as lengthy as the longest recorded Anaconda but 8.

5 times heavier due to its robust build with an absolute maximum weight of 2 tons however for the most part large Megalania were probably no more than 575 kg or 1,200 lb although it wasn't only a giant as like living monitor lizards the mega possessed razor sharp teeth that were fairly long and recurved granting extra grip while holding on to prey the Megalania is further thought to have used it tremendously powerful legs and sharp claws to bring down prey and foe alike naturally in true Australian fashion the Megalania might have been venomous as well due to its Heritage since all monitor lizards presently living are considered to be venomous their venom similar to what is seen in some snakes works as an anti-coagulant meaning it prevents blood from clotting which leads to shock and infections as it keeps wounds open for longer periods of time and because the kodo dragon also known as the kimodo monitor is the Megalania closest living relative certain paleontologists believe that the two shared similar hunting tactics of biting prey retreating and then letting the Venom do the work so that's to say even if you managed to get away from an attacking Megalania you would still be doomed all of these attributes make Megalania feasibly the worst thing you could have run into unless that is you have opiophobia a fear of snakes in this case your mortal enemy back then would have been wonambi this name may not sound like much but it should strike fear into any who hears it as it belongs to a now extinct giant serpent that lived right alongside both the quinkana and Megalania this snake is unlike any we know of today for it belonged to a family of now extinct snakes known as the matso snakes from this family were primarily characterized by somewhat inflexible primitive jaws and giant sizes with the wambi being one of the biggest it didn't quite reach the length of the longest living snakes of today but came awfully close with a larger specimen having a length of 6 M or 20 ft equivalent to a large Burmese python luckily for us the wambi did break the Australian trend of possessing Venom nevertheless it size still rendered it a potent killer who might have hunted in a very similar fashion to the extent constrictor snakes which is to say by using ambushes near bodies of water to strike unsuspecting prey that were then killed by tightening its muscles and squeezing the animal so hard that blood couldn't reach their brain or heart thus incapacitating them afterwards though is where things got different because as mentioned the wambi had an inflexible and somewhat smaller head that couldn't swallow prey ho this may sound like a good thing for prey but in reality it just made the snake more nightmarish as to make up for this inability it would simply use its sharp teeth and Powerful body to tear chunks off prey sometimes even disemboweling them such an unpleasant way to go out may have been more common for early Australians than being prayed upon by the Megalania or quinkana as one study found that in some indigenous populations today snake attacks by constrictors are common cause of death by now it would be reasonable for you to wonder how any mammal could survive living with so many reptilian and the answer is the mammals were just as crazy best exemplified by the phylo Koo this mammal is best known for its am men's size with adults being the largest known mamalian predators to ever live in Australia on average specimens were about the same size as a European wild boar while the largest thylo Koo were on par with fully matured female lions and tigers with whom it also shared a few characteristics yet this was no feline far from it actually as the thla Koo was really a marsupial mammal that is most closely related to the koala and like the koala it's thought that the thla Calo had a smaller brain however in its case a smaller brain was a huge Advantage as it gave the skull more space for extremely dense muscles and wide sturdy bones that ultimately led to the strongest bite pound-for-pound of any known mammal it's been estimated that a medium-sized thalo was capable of biting with the same Force as a lion 2. 5 times its size leading paleontologists to suspect that this marsupial was capable of taking down big bodied prey that were 15 times heavier than itself and I likely did so in an extremely unique fashion thanks to its dentition which consisted of large enzers that were similar to the elongated canines seen in other mammals furthermore it boasted giant prolar that almost resembled flat blades together with its powerful muscles these bizarre teeth worked wonders killing animals by piercing deep into the flesh with the iners while the prear severed the poor animals windpipe spinal cord and arteries causing all sorts of fatal problems this mode of killing was so efficient that researchers think it took less than a minute for this marubio lion to kill large prey while the same task for an African lion can take up to 15 minutes or more and for whatever reason if its bite didn't do the trick the phylo Calo had lethal claws as well on each of its front feet there was a single large retractable claw that was attached to semi- opposable thumbs this implied it can move these claws around with ease and dish out killing blows if needed these additional weapons were also hooked leading to the idea that thylo Koo was a Climer who possibly draged kills up trees like leopards do climbing further allowed it to navigate caves and rough terrain adding another layer of complexity to this already overpowered marsupial and so with all of this said Australia had no doubt some pretty terrifying Predators all around making life fairly interesting for the first humans to arrive and for them they wouldn't even be able to find peace around the herbivores as in response to biological killing machines the herbivores got pretty ferocious themselves a good demonstration of this is the diodon an extinct marsupial whose closest living relative is the wombat the two also did look in some ways similar except unlike the wombat the diodon was massive plausibly weighing up to 3. 85 tons which makes it equal in weight to a fully grown Asian elephant this size gave it much needed durability and would have made hunting it a questionable Endeavor a task further discouraged by the presence of a surprisingly strong bite the diodon was strictly a vegetarian but nonetheless it's still still had a nasty bite that reached 11,000 Newtons in Force at the back mullers giving it more than enough power to technically break a human's femur in addition to elephant sized wombats Birds too were super sized in prehistoric Australia at the time especially the goris this ancient bird resembled the once widespread Terror Birds however it actually belonged to a separate family of flightless birds known as the drori or Thunderbirds all members of this family goris included are believed to have been herbivores despite their menacing appearances though like many ancient Australian creatures they did have size to help balance their defenses out the goris in particular routinely grew to Heights taller than humans with the average individual coming in at 2 m or 6.