We all know about the size of dinosaurs, of course, but how
about a rodent the size of a bull, a sea scorpion bigger than a man, a frog as
large as a beach ball, a penguin the size of a small adult human, a 1,000-pound
ground-sloth-like marsupial, and a shark that may have grown 60 feet.
Biggest
Snake Fossil Found in Colombia Coal Mine
The biggest
snake that ever lived (that we know about) was a massive anaconda-like beast
that slithered through steamy tropical rainforests about 60 million years ago
feasting on primitive crocodiles, reported today.
"Fossils
discovered in northeastern Colombia's Cerrejon coal mine indicate the reptile
was at least 42 feet (13 meters) long and weighed 2,500 pounds (1,135
kilograms)," contributor John Roach reported.
The snake would have
killed its prey by slow suffocation -- wrapping around it and squeezing, just
like a modern python or boa. Only this snake was twice the size of today's
largest constrictors.
Humans would stand
no chance against one of these giant snakes, said Hans-Dieter Sues,
paleontologist and associate director for research and collections at the
National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution in
Washington, D.C. "Given the sheer size, the sheer cross section of that
snake, it would be probably like one of those devices they use to crush old
cars in a junkyard."
Precloacal vertebra of an adult Green Anaconda
dwarfed by a vertebra of the giant boid snake Titanoboa
cerrejonensis (photo credit Kenneth
Krysko) and (lower photo) comparison of a vertebra of Titanoboa with
the body of a live Python
regius
Bull-Size
Rodent Discovered -- Biggest Yet
The giant skull of a one-ton prehistoric
rat -- shown here next to a modern-day rat -- was revealed on January 16, 2008.
"Measuring 53
centimeters (21 inches) long, the skull was found in Uruguay by an amateur
fossil hunter among fallen cliff rocks in the San José region. Analysis of the
bizarre find by paleontologists suggests it belonged to a bull-size species,
which has since been named Josephoartigasia
monesi," National Geographic News reported.
The megarodent lived
in lowland rain forests between two and four million years ago, perhaps using
its massive teeth to fend off saber-toothed cats and giant, flightless,
meat-eating birds, researchers said
The newfound species
was reported in a study led by Andrés Rinderknecht of the National Museum
of Natural History and Anthropology in Montevideo, Uruguay.
The previous holder
of the title world's largest rodent was
a "buffalo-size" fossil creature from
Venezuela, revealed by scientists in 2003.
Giant "Frog From Hell" Fossil Found in Madagascar
Scientists working in Madagascar found what may be the largest
frog that ever lived, National Geographic News reported a year ago.
The bad-tempered
Beelzebufo, or "devil frog" was a "rather intimidating animal
the size of a beach ball, 16 inches (41 centimeters) high and weighing about 10
pounds (4.5 kilograms)."
Paleontologist David
Krause of Stony Brook University in New York and his colleagues began
unearthing the the 70-million-year-old frog as a specimen in bits and pieces
more than a decade earlier. "Over the years a 75-piece puzzle emerged that
was only recently put together by fossil-frog expert Susan Evans of University
College London," National Geographic's story said.
Evans, lead author
of a paper detailing the find, said that, like its closest modern-day relatives
-- a group of big-mouthed frogs in South America called ceratophyrines -- the
devil frog also probably had a very aggressive temperament."These
ceratophyrines are really aggressive, ambush predators. They are round with big
mouths, and they will sit there and grab onto anything that walks past."
"They're
sometimes called Pac-Man frogs," she added, "and even the little ones
will go for you. It's a frog with attitude, even today. And at two or three
times the size of the largest living ceratophyrines, Beelzebufo would have had
quite a lot more attitude."
The animal sported a
protective shield and powerful jaws that may have enabled it to kill hatchling
dinosaurs, National Geographic News reported.
Giant Penguins Once Roamed Peru Desert, Fossils Show
Penguins about the size of humans roamed
South America some 35 million years ago, and they didn't need ice to survive,
National Geographic News reported in June 2007.
The study by North
Carolina State University paleontologist Julia Clarke and her colleagues
unveiled two new species of giant penguins from fossils unearthed in Peru's
Atacama Desert, pushing the date of penguin migration to equatorial regions
back more than 30 million years, to one of the warmest periods of the last 65
million years.
The artist's
illustration above shows the approximate sizes of two recently discovered
Peruvian giant penguin species.
"The fearsome
five-foot (1.5-meter) Icadyptes
salasi (right) lived about
36 million years ago, while Perudyptes
devriesi (left) lived about
42 million years ago. The two extinct animals are shown to scale with Peru's
only living penguin species, Spheniscus
humbolti (center)," our
story said.
Giant Sea Scorpion Discovered; Was Bigger Than a Man
Scientists said this 18-inch (46-centimeter)
fossil claw (bottom) belonged to the world's largest known bug: an 8.2-foot
(2.5-meter), 390-million-year-old sea scorpion called Jaekelopterus rhenaniae,
reported in November 2007.
"The size of a
large crocodile, the 390-million-year-old sea scorpion was the top predator of
its day, slicing up fish and cannibalizing its own kind in coastal swamp
waters, fossil experts say," our report said.
Jaekelopterus
rhenaniae measured
some 8.2 feet (2.5 meters) long, scientists estimate, based on the length of
its 18-inch (46-centimeter), spiked claw.
"The find shows
that arthropods -- animals such as insects, spiders, and crabs, which have hard
external skeletons, jointed limbs, and segmented bodies -- once grew much
larger than previously thought," said paleobiologist Simon Braddy of the
University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. "We have known for some time
that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, supersized scorpions,
colossal cockroaches, and jumbo dragonflies," he added. "But we never
realized, until now, just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies
were."
The fossilized claw
of the sea scorpion was uncovered in a quarry near Prüm in Germany.
Ancient Giant Shark Had Strongest Bite Ever,
Prehistoric megalodon -- literally
"megatooth" -- sharks had the most powerful bite of any creature that
has ever lived, reported in
August 2008
"Its bite was
strong enough to crush an automobile and far exceeded that of the great white
shark and even Tyrannosaurus rex."
Known mostly from
the large teeth it left behind, Carcharodon
megalodon first appeared in
Earth's seas about 16 million years ago (in the Neogene period) and dined on
giant prehistoric turtles and whales, we reported.
"Megalodon's
killing strategy was to bite the tails and flippers off large whales,
effectively taking out their propulsion systems," said study leader
Stephen Wroe of the University of New South Wales in Australia.
The prehistoric
shark may have grown to lengths of over 50 feet (16 meters) and weighed up to
30 times more than the largest great white.
"A great white
is about the size of the clasper, or penis, of a male megalodon," said
Peter Klimley a shark expert at the University of California at Davis, who was
not involved with the current research.
A megalodon tooth
fossil (left) is displayed next to the tooth of a modern great white shark in
this undated photo.
Photograph by
Flip Nicklin/Minden Pictures/National Geographic
Giant Prehistoric "Kangaroos" Killed Off by Humans
Hunting on the Australian island Tasmania
exterminated several prehistoric animals, including the kangaroo-like beasts,
marsupial "hippopotamuses," and leopard-like cats, reported in August last year.
The 1,000-pound
(500-kilogram) prehistoric ground-sloth-like marsupial depicted here -- Palorchestes azael -- was among a handful of Tasmanian
megafauna species driven to extinction by human activity more than 40,000 years
ago, our story said.
The study challenged
previous research suggesting an ice age killed off the giant creatures before
humans arrived on the island.
Other species
included in the research were "three kangaroos that would have been
in the 220-pound (100-kilogram) size range," said team member Tim Flannery
of Australia's Macquarie University.
"There was a
marsupial leopard, which was probably 100 to 220 pounds [50 to 100 kilograms]
in weight," he said
