Extinct underwater predators. Ancient, extinct animals. Animals of the ancient world - land dwellers

The science-fiction film “Jurassic Park,” which tells about the resurrection of dinosaurs, may in fact turn out to be not so unrealistic. Genetics and bioengineering are rapidly mastering cloning, and the day is not far off when prehistoric animals will be recreated. We will tell you who is lucky enough to get a second life in our article.

Megafauna are simply large animals. Elephants are megafauna, like giraffes, whales, cows, deer, tigers and even humans. Megafauna can be found on every continent and in every country. For every living megafauna species, there are a large number of extinct megafauna. In the era before large-scale settlement, without the pressure of human intervention, animals were free to evolve into some truly impressive forms. Imagine beavers the size of bears or wild pigs larger than modern rhinoceroses, or even sloths the size of elephants.

10 Prehistoric Animals That Could Be Resurrected

The situation with the resurrection of animals that lived before our era has already been modeled by Steven Spielberg in his Oscar-winning film “Jurassic Park.” There, scientists brought dinosaurs back to life using genetic material obtained from the blood of ancient mosquitoes frozen in amber.

Prehistoric animals that could be resurrected

Humans can be blamed for driving out many of the last megafauna to become extinct. The general consensus is that the populations of many large animals fell in the first thousand years after humans arrived on the continent. Our early ancestors quite sensibly set out after the largest animals could feed their families and kill the most large predators to reduce competition and attacks. Mix in human ingenuity, climate change, and hundreds and thousands of years, and you soon have a land fenced in with megafauna.

Modern science cannot yet completely recreate Living being by DNA, but many researchers are confident that this will soon become possible. And then they will need intact genetic material, which can be extracted from the remains of skin, wool, etc. Therefore, the most likely candidates for resurrection are the following prehistoric animals.

Which mammal was the ancestor of modern cetaceans?

But look further, past the dawn of humanity, and you'll find an even more interesting picture of megafauna. If we ever manage to travel back in time, ecologists will set out to study the bizarre zoology of the past. With that in mind, here are seven otherworldly examples of now-extinct megafauna.

Relative to modern armadillos, they were unable to pull their heads into the shell like turtles and relied on thick skull armor and sharp spines for protection. Arjanvas has the distinction of being the largest flying bird ever discovered. The massive bird can grow up to 24 feet, wing to wing, twice as large as the Andean condor, which is one of the largest birds in the world today. The "huge size" of the corpses would make takeoffs more difficult, and it is likely that they made their homes in the mountains, where they could use mountain slopes and headwinds to aid launch.

Moa

Moa is the name of flightless birds that closely resemble ostriches in appearance and were once the largest species of birds on Earth. Although calling them birds can only be a stretch, because they were deprived of even the semblance of wings. Moa DNA has already been isolated from an ancient shell, and scientists are working on the problem of reviving these amazing birds.

While it would be scary to be hit by a soaring Argentine, the living would have little to worry about - it was believed the bird was a scavenger who preferred his food already killed. Paraceratrium, which stood 20 feet tall on its shoulder, lived about 25 million years ago in what is now Asia.

Standing nearly 20 feet tall at the shoulder, Paracerateum remains the largest mammal species known to walk the Earth. This monitor lizard lived in southern Australia during the Pleistocene and fed on other medium to large animals. It may have been venomous, and if it had been, it would have been the largest known venomous vertebrate.

Giant sloth

The ancestor of today's three-toed sloths roamed the planet relatively recently - in the sixth millennium BC. Researchers were able to find the remains of its fur and freeze the animal's DNA. Finding a surrogate mother to carry such a huge baby among representatives of its species will be difficult, but scientists are not losing hope of raising it artificially.

Myths turned ancient elephants into Cyclops

Terrestrial sloth had the misfortune of intersecting with the reign of mankind and was probably hunted to extinction when we flowed out of North America. Skeleton with megalodon on display at the Calvert Mort Museum in Solomons, Maryland. While the previous entries on this list were large creatures, none of them were really anything a person would worry about. It's best to think of the gigantic great white shark, the apex predator sitting at the top of the food web. It can grow to over 50 feet in length and sports teeth seven inches long.

Giant deer

The giant deer that lived during the Ice Age fully lived up to its name. He was truly huge. The width of its horns reached 3.5 meters. The wool of this giant is still found in the north, in the ice of permafrost.

Megalodon has dined on whales, dolphins, porpoises and giant sea turtles. This chart compares the size of Megalodon with whale shark, great white shark and man. This huge, muscular pig lived about 20 million years ago in North America.

Why did Diictodon need tusks?

Daeodon, like Megalodon, deserves a healthy dose of fear. They were huge, lumbering towers of muscular pigs that lived about 20 million years ago in North America. They can grow up to six feet tall at the shoulder and weigh thousands of pounds. Fossils of their teeth indicate that they are omnivores, dining on both animals and plants. It speaks to their dominance of the food web that they belong to a family of animals nicknamed "hell pigs" and "terminator pigs."

Saber-toothed tiger

Extinct in the eighth millennium BC, these prehistoric animals are among the first candidates to come back to life. By the way, saber-toothed tigers are not quite the correct name, since the bones found give reason to believe that these predators were simply large cats. Particles of their fur are preserved in tree resin, and therefore scientists are confident that over time it will be possible to clone these creatures.

Giant otters the size of wolves lived six million years ago. About six million years ago, giant otters, the size of wolves and weighing 110 pounds, lived in Asia. Recently, American paleontologists excavating an ancient lake in Yunnan province in southwestern China discovered a complete skull, jaw and teeth. The teeth revealed that the furry creatures lived on very large clams and clams, which he cracked open with his powerful jaws.

They can grow over eight feet in length and tip the scales at 200 pounds. Think of beavers as the size of a black bear - they are a large animal. Evidence suggests that giant beavers built lodges like modern beavers. How were prehistoric animals so much bigger than today's animals? Prehistoric animals weren't huge. The earliest known ancestor of the horse, for example, lived around the same time as the giant boa and was much smaller than today's horse. And while many prehistoric creatures got very, very big, they didn't appear at the same time.

Neanderthal

Neanderthals did not live long - on average, 22.5 years. Scientists suggest that these homos could speak, were short (only 165 cm), fair-skinned and red-haired. Since they are considered the progenitors of modern man, the likelihood of their revival to life is somewhat doubtful, because human cloning is officially prohibited.

The largest dinosaurs, such as plant-eating borers and giant carnivorous theropods, lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods about 65 million to 200 million years ago. Forty-five million years ago, the earth began to see a wave of giant mammals, including the rhinolica Uintatherium and the massive Andrewsarchus.

From the life of ancient hippos

Between these spikes, the earth experienced great extinction events. One of these massive die-offs 5 million years ago wiped out the dinosaurs, and another 34 million years ago killed off most large mammals. Large animals are especially vulnerable when these mass extinctions occur because they adapt and evolve more slowly, as they tend to live longer and reproduce less quickly than other creatures.

You will learn about the remaining five candidates for resurrection from the video:

What prehistoric animals still live on Earth?

Unlike those listed above, some representatives of the animal world of prehistoric times were much luckier. They survived, despite natural disasters, adapted to new conditions of existence and took their place in the environment of modern fauna. We will list some of them.

After the large-scale devastation millions of years ago, it took 15 million for giant mammals to appear again after the death of the dinosaurs. The largest creatures on Earth today - American bison, elephants, rhinoceroses - are new species, but survived this catastrophe. In theory, there is no reason why we couldn't see dinosaur animals in the future. After all, we already share our planet with the largest mammal ever recorded - the blue whale.

Why did some prehistoric animals get so big in the first place? Nobody knows for sure, but there are many theories. Being larger can provide many evolutionary advantages—larger animals are less vulnerable to predators and can compete more aggressively for resources. The existence of larger herbivores also means that carnivores must grow to be effective hunters. In cold climates, a bulky frame can be beneficial for warm-blooded animals; the taller they are, the better they retain heat.

Horseshoe crabs

During its existence, this inhabitant of the seas has remained virtually unchanged. Covered with a shell reminiscent of a soldier's helmet, the adult specimen reaches a length of 90 cm. Their closest relatives - spiders and scorpions - have long settled on land, and swordtails decided not to change their native element - water. These animals live in shallow water, move along the bottom like crabs, and swim with their shell down.

In cold climates, volumetric weight can be useful for warm-blooded animals. In warm climates, greater mass can help insulate the animal and keep it from overheating. The Aurochi were an ancient species of cattle immortalized in prehistoric cave paintings, and were admired for their brute strength and "elephant" size by Julius Caesar.

But they were not seen for almost 400 years. Caesar called them "slightly smaller than an elephant in size" and they were a favorite prey for the Germanic tribes. They strongly reflect Teutonic folklore, and in ancient times killing a counterpart was seen as a brilliant display of courage, with the horns turned into silver drinking cups.

Lampreys

This fish, whose age has exceeded 360 million years, can be called a vampire. It bears little resemblance to ordinary crucian carp and perch, since it does not have jaws. They are replaced by a suction mouth, with the help of which they attach to other fish, suck their blood and eat their muscle mass.

Where life began

According to Hitler's expressed instructions, Hermann Göring hoped to resurrect the bison to populate a huge hunting reserve in the occupied territories of Eastern Europe. The closest breeds in Britain are the two semi-finished breeds: Chillingham and Winol.

Cons: Farmers will need to undergo arduous training to keep the beasts, and the canine foot soldiers' normal fear of encountering livestock in the country's fields will be greatly increased. Comparisons between skulls of modern big cats showed that British lions would weigh up to 50 stones - the equivalent of a small car - compared to African lions, which weighed just 39 stones.

Chinese salamander

This amphibian is called gigantic because its length can reach 1.8 meters. Appearing 170 million years ago, today it is on the verge of extinction. The number of these salamanders has decreased due to the fault of people polluting their habitat and catching amphibians for medical needs.

Cave art suggests that the creatures formed prides, although the men did not appear to have manes. They would hunt mammoths and giant deer in a landscape that represented the modern Russian steppe. Surprisingly given their size, it is believed that humans may have contributed to their demise.

Dr Ross Barnett, from Oxford University's Department of Zoology, said the "super-strong lions" were 25 percent larger and had "longer legs adapted for endurance." Tests showed he ate a mixture of grains and berries, ground into a mush that contained a fungal stain called ergot. This fungus, found on rotting rye, causes hallucinations and burning sensations, as well as convulsions and dislocations.

Brownie shark

A creepy creature that lives on great depths and reaching 4 meters in length. Although in this case, appearances are deceptive: this shark does not attack humans, feeding on squid, fish and crabs. By the way, this terrible creature of the ocean has a pleasant pink color. This is a paradox of nature.

It is speculated that the Collunda man may have eaten this to communicate with spirits, as ergot was a substance used in ancient magic. The man's autopsy report found that he died by hanging from the rope, leaving visible grooves under his chin and on the sides of his neck.

The evolution of ancient elephants can be traced by changes in molars

Pros: We would gain insight into early human physiology. Cons: Tollun man can find modern world, disorienting, although he would be glad to know that in modern Denmark hanging is no longer used as a form of punishment. These unusual creatures were eight feet long and outlived most of the other "suppressed" extinct animals known as megafauna.

Echidna

The echidna is one of the few egg-laying mammals on Earth. The ancient Greeks called her the “mother of monsters,” although, in our opinion, this animal bears little resemblance to a monster. He doesn't even have teeth. Catching ants and termites with her long sticky tongue, she simply crushes them in her mouth and then swallows them.

Jellyfish

The well-known translucent sea beauty is an old-timer of the planet - it is 700 million years old. In our seas and oceans there are specimens whose weight is several centners, and the radius of the umbrella exceeds 1 meter. However, this does not prevent scientists from classifying jellyfish as a type of plankton.

These are not all prehistoric animals that have preserved their population to this day. It is a pity that people today destroy what nature gave a chance to survive. The sturgeon is gradually disappearing from the face of the Earth, crocodiles are becoming less and less numerous, and the number of dwarf whales has dropped to a few. Maybe we should try to forget consumer habits and remember the main purpose of humanity - creation?

Take it for yourself and tell your friends!

Irish elk, 5200 BC

These extinct giants once lived throughout northern Europe. They have little in common with those existing on this moment species of moose, which is why they are more often called “giant deer.” These animals could reach a two-meter span at the shoulders and weigh seven centners. They had large horns several meters wide. They appeared four hundred thousand years ago, and disappeared five thousand years ago. Most likely, the cause was human hunters. However, it is also possible that the disappearance of ice led to the appearance of other plants, which caused a shortage of essential minerals. For example, it takes a lot of calcium to grow such impressive antlers.

Quagga, 1883

Half zebra and half horse, this creature was a subspecies of zebra that appeared approximately two hundred thousand years ago. They became extinct in the nineteenth century. Quaggas lived in South Africa and got their name because of the sound they made, based on the onomatopic principle. They were destroyed in 1883 in order to acquire land for agriculture.

Japanese wolf, 1905

These wolves lived on several Japanese islands. It was rarest species from the family, only a meter in length and with a small shoulder span. When rabies appeared on the islands, the wolf population began to decline dramatically. They began to treat people more aggressively. As a result of deforestation and the subsequent loss of their habitat, they came into more contact with people, and they began to be deliberately destroyed until the last wolf was killed in 1905.

Giant Penguin, 1852

These creatures were very similar to modern penguins. They swam beautifully, stored fat for warmth, lived in large colonies and formed pairs for life. They had large curved beaks. Penguins could grow to almost a meter tall and lived in the north Atlantic until the nineteenth century. People began to hunt them to stuff pillows with valuable feathers. They were then caught to be used as bait for fishing, as well as for consumption. When they became rare, museums and collectors wanted to collect stuffed animals, and so the penguins became extinct.

Pinta Island Turtles, 2012

This subspecies giant turtles lived in the Galapagos. Turtles have been hunted since the nineteenth century, and in the fifties of the twentieth century their habitat was destroyed. People tried to save the endangered turtles, but by 1971 only one male remained, nicknamed Lonesome George. Despite attempts to crossbreed him with representatives of other species, no eggs appeared, and he himself died in 2012. He was the last of his species.

Steller's sea cow, 1768

They were huge herbivores marine mammals, similar to seals. They were distinguished by their gigantic size: they could reach nine meters in length. They were discovered by Georg Wilhelm Steller, but thirty years after their discovery they were completely destroyed. This is because these animals were very calm and lived in shallow water. Their meat was eaten, their fat was used for food, and their skin was used to cover boats.

Smilodon, 10,000 BC

These saber-toothed cats lived in Northern and South America at the end of the Ice Age. They appeared about two and a half million years ago. Large creatures could reach four hundred kilograms in weight, three meters in length and one and a half meters in shoulder span. Despite the fact that they were called tigers, they rather resembled bears. They had short and powerful legs, not designed for fast movement. The impressive incisors could reach thirty centimeters in length, but were quite fragile and were used to bite through the soft skin of a captured victim. Smilodon could open their mouths one hundred and twenty degrees, but their bite was quite weak. Smilodon hunted large animals: bison, deer and small mammoths. It was difficult for them to catch smaller animals. The disappearance of Smilodon is associated with the appearance of people in these regions, who destroyed many species of animals.

Woolly mammoth, 2000 BC

Woolly mammoths lived in the arctic tundra regions of the northern hemisphere. They could reach several meters in height and weighed six tons, the same as modern ones. African elephants, although biologically they are closer to Asian. Unlike the latter, mammoths were covered with brown, black or red hair. In addition, they had short tails, which protected them from frostbite. Woolly mammoths had long tusks that they used to fight. People hunted them, in addition, they ate mammoth meat as food. However, it is most likely that these animals disappeared due to climate changes at the end of the Ice Age. The retreat of the ice led to the disappearance of their habitat, and then hunters completed the situation. Most mammoths went extinct ten thousand years ago, but small populations remained in remote regions for another six thousand years.

Moa, 1400

Moas were huge birds that were unable to fly. They lived in New Zealand. They could reach almost four meters in height and weighed two hundred and thirty kilograms. Despite their incredible height, the structure of the bird's spine suggests that most time they stretched their necks forward. Thanks to such a neck, they most likely produced low vibrating sounds. Moas were hunted by other birds, as well as members of the Maori tribe. In less than a hundred years after the discovery, people completely destroyed these birds.

Tasmanian tiger, 1936

The Tasmanian tiger was the largest marsupial predator of our era, appearing four million years ago. They became extinct in the thirties of the last century due to the fault of farmers who destroyed them due to the fact that the animals allegedly killed sheep and chickens. Besides, Agriculture reduced their habitat, and the spread of dogs led to the emergence of various diseases. Amazing creatures lived in Tasmania, Australia and New Guinea; they could reach almost two meters in length from head to tail. Tasmanian tigers were at the top of the food chain and hunted kangaroos, possums and birds at night. Their jaws could open one hundred and twenty degrees, and their stomachs stretched to huge amount food, which allowed them to survive in sparsely populated regions. These were extremely unusual marsupials, since both females and males had a pouch. The latter used it to protect their genitals while running in the grass.

Worth remembering

This list does not include many amazing creatures, such as Javan and Caspian tigers or cave lions. Of course, dodos also deserve mention. It is tragic that human activity has led to the extinction of so many beautiful animals. It's terrible that this continues to this day. The price of hunting is known to everyone, but people continue to destroy animals. One can only hope that the list will not soon be replenished with many other species of animals.