Ten Pre-Historic Sea Creatures You Need To Know Now

Ten Pre-Historic Sea Creatures You Need To Know Now

You might not know about unique creatures that used to swim in our ocean. There were plethora of fantastic and magnificent creatures which lived deep in the sea during the Jurassic period. Today you won’t find them because they have been wiped out from earth due to a number of reasons and the top reason on the list is the asteroid that hit our earth millions of years back. These creatures were so huge that they would cover the length of three school buses though some of them were small but very unique with beautiful textures on their bodies. Most of these sea creatures were carnivorous and their diet was animals smaller than them. So here is the list of top ten sea creatures that existed in pre-historic times.

  • Helicoprion

Helicoprion is a very different fish from other aquatic creatures that lived in the ocean almost 290 million years back. The fossils of the creature were found somewhat around North America, eastern Europe, Australia and Asia. The reason for which this shark like fish is famous for is its tooth whorls and the fossils of it were found in Idaho. The teeth of the helicoprion were of 45 cm in length and were razor sharp. The height of this creature was almost 39 to 40 inches. Due to very little remains of the sea creature, scientist don’t have much information about the helicoprion.

  • Ammonite

There have been many findings of the ammonite fossils and it still continues today. Ammonites were small as compared to the big prehistoric creatures mentioned. Devonian period was the first period in which these small creature occurred and became extinct during the cretaceous period almost 66 million years ago. The fossils of the ammonite looks like a shell with spiral like structure but there was no other thing found other than the outer covering. There is no exact information about the ammonite living condition.

  • Frilled shark

The name frilled shark comes from the bordered appearance of the six pairs of gills openings at this shark’s throat. There are two species of this shark that swim in the pacific and Atlantic oceans. It is a prehistoric fish but is still found today in the water. The diet of the frilled shark is cephalopod and when hunting for its food, the frill shark moves like an eel. There are 300 sharp pointy teeth in the mouth of a frill shark which helps it in eating its whole prey at a time.

  • Mosasaurus

Mosasaurus are one of the biggest and deadliest prehistoric marine reptiles that lived on earth almost 82 to 66 million years ago. The name mosasaurus means ‘Meuse lizard’ that refers to the river near which its remains were found. It is a kind of big marine lizard which was carnivorous and usually fed on large fishes, sharks and creatures smaller than it.

  • Tylosaurus

In the year 1918 a man called  Charles H. Sternberg  found remains of a prehistoric creature which was then named tylosaurus. The remains were taken to the united states  national museum. After digging more about the history of tylosaurus, it was found out  that it was an upper cretaceous monasaur. The reptile was an aquatic lizard which is related to today’s monitor lizards and snakes. It was one of the biggest predator during the cretaceous period which was almost 12.2 meters in length.

  • Plesiosaur

More than 203 million years ago, in the Jurassic period, Plesiosaur lived on earth during the Mesozoic era and were giant marine reptiles. At somewhat 65-66 million years ago the plesiosaur vanished because of some event that occurred during the cretaceous period which could be extinction of their species. Talking about its body features, it was a wide creature with a flat body and a short length tail. Research on them has found out that they breathed air just like other animals and had a warm blooded body.

  • Basilosaurus

Almost 41 million to 34 million years ago during the late Eocene period, basilosaurus lived in the deep water of the ocean. The fossils of this sea creature were discovered on the gulf coast by the historians. One its fossils were examined for the first time, the researchers thought it was a reptile but later it proved to be a marine mammal. Basilosaurus is a prehistoric whale that was really giant and measured almost between 15 to 20 meters length wise. The food source of this giant whale was anything smaller than itself such as big fishes, sharks, squids and other aquatic animals.

  • Megalodon

The most well known creature of the prehistoric period is the sea creature megalodon as it has been used in a number of books and movies.  Almost 4 million years ago this giant shark used to rule the ocean and is a little bit related to the great white shark.The meaning of word megalodon is big tooth which is sets on this creature perfectly due to its big sharp teeth that were found in many part of the world as it shed its teeth a lot, giving us a proof that it covered many region of our world.  The total length of megalodon shark has been estimated to be up to 46-67 feet.

  • Leedsichthys

Leedsichthys is named after Alfred Nicholson Leeds who researched on this fish and found out its whole history in the year 1889. the leedsichthys was a member of the extinct pachycormidae family that are giant fishes. The period when they lived in the ocean is somewhat  in the middle of the  Jurassic period. The leedsichthys have different sizes such as some went up to 9 meters while some went up to 30 meters in length. The fossils that have been found suggests , it was a fish with long pectoral fins and tail fin that was very tall. The diet of the leedsichthys was commonly plankton according to the researchers. Out of all other fishes known to the mankind, leedsichthys remains the largest ray finned fish ever that lived in the ocean.

  • Kronosaurus

In the year 1899 the remains of kronosaurus were discovered in Australia and the research work on it gave a lot of information about this prehistoric sea creature. The kronosaurus lived on earth in the early cretaceous period and was a short necked pliosaur. The name kronosaur comes from the Greek mythology hero Kronos who was a leader and the youngest of the first generation of the titans. In the year 1977 another fossil of this creature was found in Columbia by a peasant who was doing some digging work in his field. According to researchers the kronosaur’s body features were as follows: sharp conical teeth, a short tail, a long head with a short neck and it had four flippers to swim.

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