As far as I know no one actually died - but there were like two people injured in it, so I hope they will get better.
Anyways, guys, I wanted to tell you all to stay safe!
And this brings us to today's topic... dinosaurs-and other prehistoric races! (But not in the way you think)
From the beginning of time, stories were full with magical beings and with huge monsters. There's nothing surprising there. And, of course everyone knows that today's animals have a connection with them somehow.
But what are these connections, and which animals comes from where? Let's take a look!
1. Ancient sharks.
Although there is no direct descendant of a Dunkleosteus, they are believed to be the ancestors of the modern sharks.
A Dunkleosteus is (or was) a huge armored fish, that weighed about 4 tons. I think that's reason enough for it to not actually have a predator. It was the top of its food-chain, and, of course it mainly ate meat. A funny thing about it is that it didn't actually have any teeth. In fact, its mouth was made out of a hard plate, that formed a beak-like structure.
Its bite was about as powerful as a modern crocodile's, and it could've been even as strong as a T-rex!
Although there is no direct descendant of a Dunkleosteus, they are believed to be the ancestors of the modern sharks.
A Dunkleosteus is (or was) a huge armored fish, that weighed about 4 tons. I think that's reason enough for it to not actually have a predator. It was the top of its food-chain, and, of course it mainly ate meat. A funny thing about it is that it didn't actually have any teeth. In fact, its mouth was made out of a hard plate, that formed a beak-like structure.
Its bite was about as powerful as a modern crocodile's, and it could've been even as strong as a T-rex!
2. Ancient dragonflies.
When it comes to those old times, most people will say that animals were usually huge back then, right? Well, it's not exactly a rule, but we might as well accept it, when it comes to insects.
The Meganeura was a huge dragonfly-style insect, with its wings of the size of a toddler. They ate other insects and even small amphibians. Their fossils were discovered in France, so ladies and gentlemen, I think we might have had a problem if we would've been around those times (tho I think that if we were the French diet would mainly consist of dragonflies instead of snails).
They were so huge, that for some time scientists didn't even know how they would've survived in those old times - but nowadays they think that it was because of the oxygen levels, because back then there was a hell of a lot of it than nowadays. This was apparently the reason behind their extinction: with the levels of oxygen getting lower and lower, they couldn't survive anymore.
3. Ancient crocodiles.
All right, thee are actually quite a ancient animals out there that resemble modern ones. In fact, it is said that besides modern birds, crocodiles are probably the closes cousins to dinosaurs. Don't see why yet? Well, let me tell you a story.
Once upon a time some people in Niger discovered a nice little skull. They named it Kaprosuchus, that basically means boar-crocodile.
The animal wasn't overly large, maybe of about 6 meters. It had teeth that resembled that of a boar, and it was exclusively terrestrial.
Which means, that instead of them wobbling after you when you bother their sleep, like crocodiles do, these creatures would gallop after you in no time - because they apparently also had pretty long legs.
Is it just me, or do they look almost exactly like a dragon should look like?
4. Ancient elephants.
No, this is not about mammoths.
In fact, the creature I'm about to show you are kind of ridiculous, really. I'm talking about a Platybelodon, of course. So what are these?
As I said, they are the relatives of elephants, and they lived almost abut everywhere on this planet. They usually walked around in swamps, and they mostly ate aquatic plants. It is also said that they used their "trunks" to saw up trees.
Now wait a minute - you might be thinking. How would an elephant do that? Well, they could do it mostly, because their "trunks" ended up having nice little tusks that were sharp enough to do the job. Their trunks could also be used as actual shovels. Because they didn't actually look like any of the trunks you can see on elephants nowadays.
As I said... ridiculous:
5. Ancient... eh... god?
This will not be another episode of Ancient Aliens. In fact, what I'm about to show you will be a whole lot cooler than that.
Do you guys know who the feathered serpent is? The god of Mesoamericans? Of course you know, it's Quetzalcoatl.
Well, apparently there actually was once upon a time an animal that resembled a huge "feathered serpent" - that wasn't a serpent at all.
Quetzalcoatlus was one of the biggest flying animals of all time. Their wingspan was of about 12 meters. A 10 meter long animal of this kind weighed about 200 kilograms. They apparently lived around Texas (surprise, surprise!).
Now, these kind of animals also had long, stiff necks (probably where the serpent comes in, I'm guessing). Kind of like storks nowadays. And thus, scientists came to the conclusion that they probably also ate "small" vertebrates.
