Strange prehistoric animals are being discovered all the time, as scientists try to make sense of the past few hundred million years that predated the rise of human civilization. If you think T-REX was the king of prehistoric beasts, just take a look at the following list of scary and strange prehistoric animals that you’ll be happy are extinct today.
The Madtsoia is one of the many strange prehistoric animals that roamed the Earth during the Cretaceous period, and if you’re afraid of snakes, its immense strength and 30-meter length would definitely petrify you on the spot. Also, the fact that this charming fella used to dine on dinosaurs and large mammals is definitely impressive.
While pterodactyls are the most popular flying prehistoric monsters, the gigantic pterosaurs of the Cretaceous were much larger and scarier. They used to weigh 400 lbs and had a wingspan of more than 40 feet, being some of the most feared carnivorous birds of the time.
The Estemmenosuchus was a strange animal living well before the age of the dinosaurs, resembling both reptiles and mammals. It looked like a terrifying monster the size of a rhinoceros, with the appearance of a dinosaur, large, sharp teeth, and intimidating horns and antlers.
Somewhat smaller, but also more unusual and aggressive than today’s sperm whales, the killer sperm whales of prehistoric times did not feed on squid, but were much faster and scarier predators, and would feed on other marine mammals, as well as on prehistoric sharks.
This is one of the strange prehistoric animals that you’d definitely expect in a really bad nightmare. Measuring 2.5 meters in length, it looked like a huge centipede, but it was actually a type of sea scorpion living in the freshwater rivers of present-day Germany.
If ever a relative of King Kong’s roamed the planet, the Gigantopithecus was definitely one of them. Its fossils were discovered in China, Vietnam and India, and the huge ape is said to have been truly massive, weighing more than 1,000 pounds and measuring 10 feet in height.
If you were to encounter the 30-foot Dunkleosteus Terrelli, you’d probably think it’s a giant killing machine similar to a very weird submarine. This killer fish, however, was the fiercest sea creature and, due to its incredibly large and sharp jaws, it didn’t even need teeth to cut a prehistoric shark in half.
Today, sloths are small, slow and cuddly creatures. Their ancestor, the Megatherium, on the other hand, was as large as an elephant, and was more like the weird version of a particularly scary grizzly bear with claws as big as your hand.
Finally, the Spinosaurus was much larger and scarier than its famous cousin, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. It could also live and hunt underwater and it weighed more than 10 tons, feeding on large fish and even crocodiles, giant turtles, as well as its fellow dinosaurs.
Some of these beasts may definitely not have been a pretty sight, and if you think you could reason with the carnivores, your visit to prehistoric times would probably be cut short pretty fast. Fortunately, there aren’t any time machines that could bring these bad boys back. Which ones do you think are the scariest creatures out of all the strange prehistoric animals listed here?
Sources:
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