Oh, to be human... Our brains are locked in fragile bone prisons, we've got bad eyesight, and we complain when we have a hangnail. We wouldn't have lasted a day in a world populated by these prehistoric predators.
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00:00Oh, to be human. Our brains are locked in fragile bone prisons, we've got bad eyesight,
00:06and we complain when we have a hangnail. We wouldn't have lasted a day in a world populated
00:10by these prehistoric predators.
00:13Megalodons sit at the top of any list of creatures we're glad went extinct. Think jaws, but big
00:17enough to fit an elephant inside. Or five or six surfers. We're not kidding. Great white
00:22sharks reach up to 21 feet in length, which is terrifying, while megalodons can reach
00:26almost 59 feet long. Sure, that's still much smaller than a modern-day 110-foot-long blue
00:32whale, but you never read about any blue whale attacks, do you? Their teeth were already
00:37bigger than your hand, up to seven inches long. Megalodon, in fact, means large toothed.
00:43They also boasted an insane set of 276 serrated teeth that could dig in with the force of
00:47ten great white sharks, or one Sharknado shark. If you think the movie Jaws kept people away
00:56from the beach, imagine having to worry about megalodons. By the way, they looked more like
01:00modern-day blue sharks versus a great white that you might picture in your head. So yes,
01:05that means the movie The Meg is not factually accurate.
01:08Since ancient, extinct, and deadly animals often take the form of modern animal but bigger,
01:12we might as well talk about the Titanoboa. As the name says, Titanoboas were similar
01:17to modern-day boa constrictors. Modern-day boas can reach up to 13 feet long, weigh 100
01:22pounds, and eat smallish animals like mongooses, rats, and birds. But as the word Titan in
01:27Titanoboa implies, they reached nearly 43 feet long and weighed over a ton. Such a whore
01:33would have approximately 0% difficulty wrapping up a human and crunching our bones. In case
01:38you're wondering how Titanoboas got so big, the answer is heat.
01:42The Paleocene Epoch was hotter and wetter than today, which encouraged the growth of
01:46plants and cold-blooded species like snakes. Thank goodness the planet isn't, you know,
01:51warming or anything. But before you start chucking dry ice at every river you find,
01:55relax. The Paleocene Epoch was almost 15 degrees warmer than now, so we're safe from giant
02:00snakes... for now. You know what we don't need any bigger? Crocodiles.
02:05So let's all be glad the Sarkasuchus is gone.
02:08Sarkasuchus lived about 110 million years ago at the transition from the early Cretaceous
02:13Epoch to the late Cretaceous Epoch. This was the time before flowering plants, when there
02:17was no ice on the poles, and mammals were limited to little furry critters scurrying
02:21about underfoot.
02:23Sarkasuchus did much of what modern-day crocodiles do, hunkered down near water and lashed out
02:27at prey when they strolled by for a drink. This was after the Titanoboa was around, so
02:32at least they didn't have to compete for food with giant snakes.
02:35Sarkasuchus reached up to 40 feet in length, weighed nearly nine tons, and had a strangely
02:40large snout and overbite that left a gap between its jaw when its mouth was shut. That jaw,
02:45by the way, was six feet long, and they ate dinosaurs for breakfast. Literally. Crocodiles
02:50are scary enough today, we don't need 40 footers floating around in rivers.
02:54So you know how some folks freak out if a seagull or a pigeon whizzes by their head?
02:59These birds could poop on you, steal your fries, or, maybe worst-case scenario, try
03:03birding you to death.
03:04Now what's happening?
03:05The birds, they just birded a man to death.
03:10But how about a bird with a bill so long that it could skewer you like a piece of meat on
03:14a kebab?
03:15We're talking about Quetzalcoatlus, one of the biggest pterosaurs, a.k.a. flying reptiles,
03:20that ever lived. It existed earlier than the other animals we've mentioned during the late
03:24Jurassic epic, from 161 to 146 million years ago.
03:28Quetzalcoatlus wasn't a bird as you might imagine, nor is it related to modern birds.
03:33It had no tail, hair instead of feathers, a neck that comprised more than half of its
03:37height — 10 out of 16 feet, weighed 550 pounds, had a 20-foot-wide wingspan, could
03:43fly up to 80 miles an hour, and had a super-long, slender beak like the blade of a rapier.
03:48If this sounds like absolute nightmare fuel, then you'll be horrified to know that it used
03:52its beak like chopsticks.
03:54We're talking about swooping down from the skies, snapping up suitably-sized prey like
03:58lizards and small mammals, kicking its head back, and guzzling a squirming animal whole
04:02like a modern heron does fish.
04:03We know that it ate like this because it didn't have any teeth, which, thank God, right?
04:08Because if it was still around today, it would just swallow us whole instead of chewing us
04:12up.
04:13Which, I guess, is better?
04:19It's hard to believe, but most people never heard of a raptor before the movie Jurassic
04:23Park came out.
04:24Seriously.
04:25And now they're modern-day nightmare fuel.
04:27In fact, when thinking of predators ideally suited to chowing down on human life, raptors
04:31might top the list.
04:32That's because they're smaller, faster, leaner, and capable of squeezing into spaces that
04:36would bar larger creatures.
04:38And we humans would have to climb trees to escape them.
04:42Oh, wait, paleontologist Cass Morrison says that they might even have climbed trees.
04:46Thanks, Cass.
04:47The closest modern comparison to raptors may be ostriches, which can disembowel a person
04:52with a single kick, just like raptors could with their foot claws.
04:55But ostriches can't climb trees, so maybe there'd be hope in a world of raptors.
05:00There is some good news, technically.
05:02Raptor is a catch-all term for numerous species of a particular variety of feathered reptile.
05:07Some were as small as a chicken, while others weighed upwards of 500 pounds.
05:11These survived all the way from 145 to 65 million years ago, and only died off when
05:16an asteroid struck Earth.
05:17So the good news is, not all raptors would kill us if they were around today, just the
05:22ones that weighed 500 pounds.