14 Monstrous Extinct Beasts



Scientists keep discovering extinct species that hardly seem possible outside of cartoons. If they were still around, we might not be! Web Urbanist shows us some of the biggest, fiercest, and weirdest of animals that are no more. For instance, the whorl shark had its own "jaw saw"!
Whorl Sharks
were similar to their modern cousins despite jetting along almost 300 million years ago. While modern sharks have rows of serrated teeth ready to replace any that fall out, the whorl shark has an interesting lower jaw that looked like a circular saw, where newer teeth would push older teeth further along the line. There’s some debate about the placement of the tooth structure, but regardless of its location in the mouth or deeper in the throat, it had a startlingly unique appearance.

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Bones are NOT the only things that fossilize! Nor is fossilization limited to similar things such as shells, exoskeletons, or teeth. Fossil leaves are an example of something that wasn't bone or bony, and not even hard. Fossils of footprints / tracks / burrows / holes, ripple patterns, feces, and mud cracks are all examples of entities which weren't necessarily even solids. There are fossils of jellyfish (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/10/071031-jellyfish.html), octopi (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/090319-octopus-fossil-picture.html), worms (http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil_Sites/Mazon-Creek/Astreptoscolex-anasillosus/ASTRIPTOSCOLEX.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil_Sites/Mazon-Creek/Astreptoscolex-anasillosus/Astreptoscolex.htm&usg=__OyRxQlMXd9u18b_q5DyxN7L3IHM=&h=413&w=550&sz=42&hl=en&start=32&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=z7ieGclJh9IeOM:&tbnh=100&tbnw=133&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfossil%2Bworms%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4SUNA_enUS316%26sa%3DN%26start%3D20%26um%3D1), and on and on.
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I thought sharks skeletons were composed of cartilage, therefore making it impossible to fossilize. How can anyone be sure there was such a shark as the whorl shark?
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