![]() , the living bird with the greatest wingspan, at 3.5 metres. Was nearly twice the width of a wandering albatross The biggest bird ever to grace the skies, with a wingspan of up to 6.4 metres, Pelagornis sandersi Of what they would have looked like in action. Using large spiked arms, it captured its prey to bring them to its square, tooth-lined mouth. It tracked its prey with excellent vision from its large stalked eyes. Reaching up to a metre in length, it was the largest hunter of its time and chased after prey with undulating flaps on its sides and a large fan-shaped tail. Ruled this primordial world as a top predator. Palaeontologists believe that Anomalocaris It was extant during Cambrian period, over half a billion years ago, when life was confined to the seas and animals took on bizarre shapes that haven’t been seen since. Long before killer whales and polar bears, sharks and tyrannosaurs, the world’s top predator was probably a bizarre animal called Anomalocaris. Their species name literally translates to "abnormal shrimp." long carnivorous anomalocaridid, a family of animals thought to be closely related to ancestral arthropods, and it had tentacles with teeth on them. It's a shrimp! It's a squid! No, it's a hideous 6-ft. To celebrate Halloween 2019 we are counting down the Top 10 Most Terrifying Extinct Sea Beasts! Some ancestors of modern day sharks, evolved their own uniquely spooky set of adaptations that allowed them to be some of the most ferocious predators to have ever existed, and will make you grateful you were born in 21st Century! Either way it is not hard to see where these medieval illustrations of sea beasts on navigational maps abounds from. This turnaround may have taken several million years of adaptation, however they became the granny and grandads of the cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoise). These creatures emerged, took one look, said "MEH" and headed back into the depths of the "big ocean blue". It is well known that along the path of evolution, humans slithered from the oceans, but it is less common knowledge that some early mammals that left the oceans weren't too impressed with terrestrial living. Perhaps however there were tapping into some kind of ancestral memory - If we go back 40-50 million years before present (ybp), you could meet some horrifying marine top predators at sea. During the Medieval and Renaissance people didn't know what was out there, so influences from the bible and folklore filled the gaps in knowledge of un-chartered waters. What was it that made these illustrated seas so terrifying?Īmong historians, the consensus is it was part decoration, part a declaration of ignorance. Medieval and Renaissance mapmakers sketched spirited drawings of mythical sea monsters off the coasts and around far reaching islands. While there is much more fear around sharks, thanks to movies like Jaws and The Reef, they fall below orcas on the pyramid scale, as orcas are not preyed upon by any other animal.Ancient cartographers who created centuries old maps, didn't just create geographical maps, they were also supernatural illustrations. The research confirms the orca’s status as top predator in the ocean, even over great white sharks. The killer whale’s power ranking was further cemented this week after a 2019 study gained media attention. Orcas in the region are endangered, with only 50 remaining, and so any aggression towards boats could be an attempt to keep their calves safe. While the incidents in Spain and Portugal are baffling to many, some scientists hypothesize that the animals are stressed or even angry at the increase in boat traffic after quieter times as a result of recent COVID-19 restrictions. “These are highly intelligent animals and not typically aggressive towards people.” “Killer whales are known to come near boats, but they’re perceived to be curious and interested but not aggressive,” he tells Yahoo Canada. Halifax-based Alan Springer, a research professor emeritus from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, says these instances of assaults on boats are extremely out of character for the creatures. ![]()
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