The following is a reprint
from Uncle
John's Bathroom Reader
Plunges Into the Universe.
Why should dinosaurs have all the fun? Here are a few prehistoric critters
that are every bit as bizarre as the strangest of the dinos:
Opabinia
Artist's rendering of Opabinia. Image: ArthurWeasley [Wikipedia]
Opabinia regalis fossil from the Burgess shale on display at
the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Image: Jstuby [Wikipedia]
It might be a distant cousin of shrimp salad or it might be unrelated
to anything alive today. Although it looked like something out of a science
fiction movie, this weird four-inch-long animal lived in the sea that
covered what is now Canada about 530 million years ago. Instead of legs,
it had 14 pairs of oarlike gills used for swimming. But the real strangeness
was saved for the head. It had five eyes - two pairs on stalks and another
sitting in the middle of the top of the head. In front of all these eyes
was a long flexible nozzle with a claw at the end. Scientists think the
claw captured food and carried it to the mouth.
Hallucigenia
Hallucigenia fossil. Photo: Smithsonian
National Museum of Natural HistoryThis
appropriately named little beast bears no resemblance to any animal alive
or dead. Like Opabinia, it lived in Canada about 530 million
years ago. Hallucigenia is so bizarre that scientists are uncertain
which end is the front and which side is up. The most-accepted version
shows a wormlike body supported by seven pairs of spines. Along the top
of the body were seven long tentacles with two-pronged tips. One end had
a bulbous feature that looked a bit like a head but with no sign of eyes
or mouth. At the other end was a long tube that curved up over the "back,"
which may have been a mouth or an anus.
Carpoids
Bundenbach Carpoid fossil. Photo: Fossil
Museum
Virtually all animals have some kind of symmetry - either bilateral like
humans where your right hand is the mirror image of your left hand, or
radial like a starfish, which looks the same no matter which arm is pointing
up. But carpoids were completely asymmetrical. This distant relation of
the sand dollar lived in the oceans of the Northern Hemisphere from 500
to about 350 million years ago. It looked something like a misshapen armored
tadpole, with a bulging body covered with stony plates and a long, segmented
tail that it used for swimming. Some scientists think that carpoids may
have been the ancestors of vertebrates.
Conodonts
Various conodonts. Image: USGS
For more than a century scientists kept finding microscopic, teethlike
objects in marine rocks dating from 510 to 210 million years ago. They
looked like tiny, cone-shaped teeth or combs, but there was no sign of
a jaw or any other bit of skeleton associated with them. There were quite
a few theories about what class of animal these conodonts belonged to,
but it wasn't until about 20 years ago that a fossil of the whole animal
was found. In appearance it was not spectacular. It was long and thin
like a worm, but it had eyes and a low dorsal fin, and the teeth were
located in the mouth. Many scientists now believe that the conodont may
be one of the earliest-known vertebrates.
Ostracoderms
Some
of the earliest vertebrates were armored, jawless fish that were most
common between 430 and 370 million years ago. These fish had skeletons
made of cartilage, but their bodies were covered with plates of bone,
so it could be said that they were wearing their skeletons on the outside.
Ostracoderms could be up to 3 feet (1 m) long, but most were under a foot.
Their heads were usually covered by a semicircular shield with two small
holes for eyes. The rest of the body was surrounded by articulated plates
that allowed the animal to swim slowly by moving its tail from side to
side. These animals preferred a quiet environment like a lagoon where
they could drift along the bottom, straining edible particles out of the
mud.
Diplocaulus
Diplocaulus magnicornis. Image: ArthurWeasley [Wikipedia]
This 3-foot (1 m) long amphibian lived in what is now Texas about 270
million years ago. In most respects it looked like a large salamander,
but its head made it unique. The skull was shaped like a boomerang with
two small eyes in the front corners and the wings on either side. Scientists
are not sure why Diplocaulus's head is such an odd shape, but
they think it was either to make the animal swim better near the bottom
of the lakes and streams it lived in - or the wide head made it more difficult
for predators to swallow.
Lystrosaurus
Lystrosaurus georgi. Image: Dmitry Bogdanov [Wikipedia]
Before the age of the dinosaurs, there were a lot of strange-looking
reptiles, but few odder than Lystrosaurus. This 3-foot-long plant-eater
had a squat body and splayed legs like a lizard, but its muzzle was shortened
a bit like that of a bulldog. As if this wasn't attractive enough, from
the corners of its mouth hung two long tusks. The eyes and nostrils were
set high up, making some scientists think that the animal had lived the
way hippos do now, but recent findings show that Lystrosaurus
could also have lived in arid environments that were common about 230
million years ago.
Ambulocetus
[YouTube Link]
Halfway between the land-dwelling ancestors of whales and the modern
marine mammals, Ambulocetus lived in what is now Pakistan about
50 million years ago. This 12-foot-long animal looked a bit like a cross
between an otter and an alligator. It had a large head with long jaws
and pointed teeth designed for catching and holding fish like an alligator,
but the body was more like that of an otter. Scientists think it swam
by moving its tail up and down like a modern whale rather than from side
to side like a fish.
Phorusrhacos
About
20 million years ago, South America was an island continent with its own
unique forms of birds and mammals. Because no large mammalian predators
had evolved there, the top carnivore was a bird - Phorusrhacos.
These flightless birds stood up to 10 feet (3 m) tall and had a head the
size of that of a horse. Although they couldn't fly, they were very fast
runners. They could run down their prey, catch it with their powerful
talons, and tear it apart with their long, hooked beaks. These frightening
birds survived until about 3 million years ago, when a land bridge formed
between North and South America, allowing modern carnivores to invade
South America and give Phorusrhacos a little carnivorish competition.
(Image: Drawing of Phorusrhacos by Charles R. Knight [wikipedia])
Diprotodon
Diprotodon optatum. Image: Dmitry Bogdanov [Wikipedia]
Diprotodon australis in the British Museum of Natural History.
Before humans arrived in Australia about 40,000 years ago, marsupials
were larger and more varied than they are today. The largest of all was
the Diprotodon, which was about the size of a hippopotamus. It
looked like a gigantic wombat (one of those furry, bearlike things), and
it ate leaves and grass. It wasn't a fast runner, but it was too large
for any of the native predators to tackle until humans came along. (We're
not pointing fingers or anything, but the Diprotodon became extinct
suspiciously soon after the first humans arrived. Coincidence?)
Glyptodon
Glyptodon asper in Naturhistorisches Museum Wien. Image: Arent
[Wikipedia]
The most heavily armored mammal of all time has to have been the Glyptodon.
About the size of a VW Beetle, this distant relation of the armadillo
roamed the plains of South American until 15,000 years ago. The first
humans in that part of the world encountered these strange beasts and
incorporated them into their legends. Glyptodon resembled a turtle
with patches of fur except that the high, rounded shell was made of many
small plates of bone. It had a long tail with a ball at the end of it
like the mace of a medieval knight.
Moropus
Moropus elatus, on display at the National Museum of Natural
History.
Image: Claire H. [Wikipedia]
When scientists first discovered the Moropus, they couldn't
believe that the horselike head and body belonged with the long claws
and massive feet found nearby. This 10-foot-long distant relative of the
horse looked like a mixed-up bag of spare parts. The head and neck looked
like a stunted giraffe, but the body was more like that of a bear. The
front legs were quite a bit longer than the back legs, and all four feet
were armed with long claws. Some scientists believe that Moropus
fed by rearing up on its hind legs and pulling down branches so it could
strip off the leaves with its long tongue. This animal lived in tropical
Asia until about 12,000 years ago.
Mammuthus
Woolly Mammoth at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, British Columbia.
Image: Tracy O [Wikipedia]Everyone
knows what a woolly mammoth looked like - a big hairy elephant with long,
curling tusks. Everyone also knows that they died out at the end of the
last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. Guess again. For one thing, the
last mammoths weren't very mammoth; they were about the size of a buffalo.
They lived on Wrangel Island, off the northern coast of Siberia, and survived
after other mammoths became extinct. Scientists believe that the dwarf
mammoths were still around about 4,000 years ago, after the pyramids were
built!
Artist's rendering of Opabinia. Image: ArthurWeasley [Wikipedia]
Opabinia regalis fossil from the Burgess shale on display at
the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Image: Jstuby [Wikipedia]
It might be a distant cousin of shrimp salad or it might be unrelated
to anything alive today. Although it looked like something out of a science
fiction movie, this weird four-inch-long animal lived in the sea that
covered what is now Canada about 530 million years ago. Instead of legs,
it had 14 pairs of oarlike gills used for swimming. But the real strangeness
was saved for the head. It had five eyes - two pairs on stalks and another
sitting in the middle of the top of the head. In front of all these eyes
was a long flexible nozzle with a claw at the end. Scientists think the
claw captured food and carried it to the mouth.
Hallucigenia fossil. Photo: Smithsonian
National Museum of Natural History
This
appropriately named little beast bears no resemblance to any animal alive
or dead. Like Opabinia, it lived in Canada about 530 million
years ago. Hallucigenia is so bizarre that scientists are uncertain
which end is the front and which side is up. The most-accepted version
shows a wormlike body supported by seven pairs of spines. Along the top
of the body were seven long tentacles with two-pronged tips. One end had
a bulbous feature that looked a bit like a head but with no sign of eyes
or mouth. At the other end was a long tube that curved up over the "back,"
which may have been a mouth or an anus.
Bundenbach Carpoid fossil. Photo: Fossil
Museum
Virtually all animals have some kind of symmetry - either bilateral like
humans where your right hand is the mirror image of your left hand, or
radial like a starfish, which looks the same no matter which arm is pointing
up. But carpoids were completely asymmetrical. This distant relation of
the sand dollar lived in the oceans of the Northern Hemisphere from 500
to about 350 million years ago. It looked something like a misshapen armored
tadpole, with a bulging body covered with stony plates and a long, segmented
tail that it used for swimming. Some scientists think that carpoids may
have been the ancestors of vertebrates.
Various conodonts. Image: USGS
For more than a century scientists kept finding microscopic, teethlike
objects in marine rocks dating from 510 to 210 million years ago. They
looked like tiny, cone-shaped teeth or combs, but there was no sign of
a jaw or any other bit of skeleton associated with them. There were quite
a few theories about what class of animal these conodonts belonged to,
but it wasn't until about 20 years ago that a fossil of the whole animal
was found. In appearance it was not spectacular. It was long and thin
like a worm, but it had eyes and a low dorsal fin, and the teeth were
located in the mouth. Many scientists now believe that the conodont may
be one of the earliest-known vertebrates.
Some
of the earliest vertebrates were armored, jawless fish that were most
common between 430 and 370 million years ago. These fish had skeletons
made of cartilage, but their bodies were covered with plates of bone,
so it could be said that they were wearing their skeletons on the outside.
Ostracoderms could be up to 3 feet (1 m) long, but most were under a foot.
Their heads were usually covered by a semicircular shield with two small
holes for eyes. The rest of the body was surrounded by articulated plates
that allowed the animal to swim slowly by moving its tail from side to
side. These animals preferred a quiet environment like a lagoon where
they could drift along the bottom, straining edible particles out of the
mud.
Diplocaulus magnicornis. Image: ArthurWeasley [Wikipedia]
This 3-foot (1 m) long amphibian lived in what is now Texas about 270
million years ago. In most respects it looked like a large salamander,
but its head made it unique. The skull was shaped like a boomerang with
two small eyes in the front corners and the wings on either side. Scientists
are not sure why Diplocaulus's head is such an odd shape, but
they think it was either to make the animal swim better near the bottom
of the lakes and streams it lived in - or the wide head made it more difficult
for predators to swallow.
Lystrosaurus georgi. Image: Dmitry Bogdanov [Wikipedia]
Before the age of the dinosaurs, there were a lot of strange-looking
reptiles, but few odder than Lystrosaurus. This 3-foot-long plant-eater
had a squat body and splayed legs like a lizard, but its muzzle was shortened
a bit like that of a bulldog. As if this wasn't attractive enough, from
the corners of its mouth hung two long tusks. The eyes and nostrils were
set high up, making some scientists think that the animal had lived the
way hippos do now, but recent findings show that Lystrosaurus
could also have lived in arid environments that were common about 230
million years ago.
About
20 million years ago, South America was an island continent with its own
unique forms of birds and mammals. Because no large mammalian predators
had evolved there, the top carnivore was a bird - Phorusrhacos.
These flightless birds stood up to 10 feet (3 m) tall and had a head the
size of that of a horse. Although they couldn't fly, they were very fast
runners. They could run down their prey, catch it with their powerful
talons, and tear it apart with their long, hooked beaks. These frightening
birds survived until about 3 million years ago, when a land bridge formed
between North and South America, allowing modern carnivores to invade
South America and give Phorusrhacos a little carnivorish competition.
(Image: Drawing of Phorusrhacos by Charles R. Knight [wikipedia])
Diprotodon optatum. Image: Dmitry Bogdanov [Wikipedia]
Diprotodon australis in the British Museum of Natural History.
Before humans arrived in Australia about 40,000 years ago, marsupials
were larger and more varied than they are today. The largest of all was
the Diprotodon, which was about the size of a hippopotamus. It
looked like a gigantic wombat (one of those furry, bearlike things), and
it ate leaves and grass. It wasn't a fast runner, but it was too large
for any of the native predators to tackle until humans came along. (We're
not pointing fingers or anything, but the Diprotodon became extinct
suspiciously soon after the first humans arrived. Coincidence?)
Glyptodon asper in Naturhistorisches Museum Wien. Image: Arent
[Wikipedia]
The most heavily armored mammal of all time has to have been the Glyptodon.
About the size of a VW Beetle, this distant relation of the armadillo
roamed the plains of South American until 15,000 years ago. The first
humans in that part of the world encountered these strange beasts and
incorporated them into their legends. Glyptodon resembled a turtle
with patches of fur except that the high, rounded shell was made of many
small plates of bone. It had a long tail with a ball at the end of it
like the mace of a medieval knight.
Moropus elatus, on display at the National Museum of Natural
History.
Image: Claire H. [Wikipedia]
When scientists first discovered the Moropus, they couldn't
believe that the horselike head and body belonged with the long claws
and massive feet found nearby. This 10-foot-long distant relative of the
horse looked like a mixed-up bag of spare parts. The head and neck looked
like a stunted giraffe, but the body was more like that of a bear. The
front legs were quite a bit longer than the back legs, and all four feet
were armed with long claws. Some scientists believe that Moropus
fed by rearing up on its hind legs and pulling down branches so it could
strip off the leaves with its long tongue. This animal lived in tropical
Asia until about 12,000 years ago.
Woolly Mammoth at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, British Columbia.
Image: Tracy O [Wikipedia]
Everyone
knows what a woolly mammoth looked like - a big hairy elephant with long,
curling tusks. Everyone also knows that they died out at the end of the
last ice age, about 10,000 years ago. Guess again. For one thing, the
last mammoths weren't very mammoth; they were about the size of a buffalo.
They lived on Wrangel Island, off the northern coast of Siberia, and survived
after other mammoths became extinct. Scientists believe that the dwarf
mammoths were still around about 4,000 years ago, after the pyramids were
built!
Previously
on Neatorama: Strangest
Dinosaur Names
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