The Big the Bad and the ugly We all know dinosaurs reached ginormous proportions But they weren’t the only colossal creatures to roam the world before humans Read on to discover some of the biggest baddest and ugliest animals ever to inhabit the planet O p a binia So how did these creatures evolve Well all life started in the sea and around 545 million years ago many different animals began to appear Some of them were truly weird Take Opabinia left It had fi ve mushroom-shaped eyes fi fteen body segments and a grasping claw at the end of a long nose or proboscis to give it its scientifi c name It used the proboscis to feed itself like the elephant uses its trunk Out of the water things got just as bizarre About 300 million years ago huge dragonfl ies took to the air They had wingspans stretching to 26 inches 65 centimeters the same size as some of today’s birds of prey And massive millipedes up to 7 feet 6 inches 2 3 meters long marched across the land It sounds like science fi ction but these creatures really existed The fi rst dinosaurs evolved about 230 240 million years ago but they didn’t rule the world right away Most like Compsognathus left were only the size of turkeys But they were fast and they preyed on tiny reptiles and mammals that scampered around the forests Over about 40 million years dinosaurs became massive for various reasons including an incredible abundance of food Compsognathus with prey 6
Mammals started evolving at the same time as dinosaurs For about 160 million years however most mammals were shrew-sized any larger and they would have been gobbled up by hungry carnivorous dinosaurs After the dinosaurs died out mammals such as the giant sloth Megatherium below grew to enormous proportions You might think today’s gorillas elephants camels and rhinos are big but they would all be dwarfed by their prehistoric ancestors And even those creatures looked small compared to the biggest land mammal of all time Paraceratherium left What if these animals came back to life and and lived in the modern world Read on to witness what an invasion from a prehistoric world would be like Paraceratherium and get ready for some bizarre and scary encounters between modern creatures and prehistoric beasts e ri u m ath g Me 7
HEAD-BUTTING BEAST Moschops These days there are people who earn money by walking dogs It sounds like a nice job with lots of fresh air and exercise But surely this dog walker should be getting paid extra After all look at that beast she has to deal with It’s a Moschops a massive mammal-like reptile that lived before the age of the dinosaurs And with that big barrel-shaped body on top of those short legs it doesn’t look as if it wants to go anywhere fast Trying to encourage it to get a move on might not be the wisest move Moschops’s skull was up to 4 inches 10 cm thick that’s the width of a brick It used it to head-butt rival Moschops and some scientists even think they got on their hind legs to fi ght like sumo wrestlers So if this Moschops wants go at its own pace the dog walker should let it Moschops PRONOUNCED MOSS-chops LIVED Forests of South Africa 267 million 260 million years ago LENGTH About 9 feet 2 7 m WEIGHT About 2,000 pounds 914 kilograms 8
TV star In the 1980s a Moschops was the star of an animated TV series of that name The show also featured his friend Ally an Allosaurus grandfather Diplodocus and Uncle Rex yes a T rex It wasn’t exactly accurate All those animals actually lived millions and millions of years apart 9
