The Big the Bad and the Ugly Everyone knows about the dinosaurs and how scary some of them were But did you know there were lots of other equally savage prehistoric creatures How about the crocodile that liked to dine on dinosaurs Or the bird that stood 8 feet 2 5 meters tall and used its 18-inch 46 centimeter beak like a hatchet Now can you imagine what might happen if they arrived back in today’s world Well you are about to fi nd out All life started in the sea and that’s where the fi rst animals evolved around 550 million years ago Some were pretty weird such as 2 5-inch 6 cm Opabinia right with its fi ve eyes and long grasping claw at the end of a long nose Pretty soon animals became ferocious About 475 million years ago there were massive predators such as sea scorpions and shelled creatures called nautiloids as large as crocodiles Eventually some sea animals evolved limbs and hauled themselves on to land One was Acanthostega below though it probably still kept close to water O pabinia Acanthostega Reptiles were the fi rst animals with backbones to live only on land Some grew to enormous sizes like the fearsome Sarcosuchus see page 12 Some evolved leathery wings and took to the skies One of the fi rst fl ying reptiles or pterosaurs was Eudimorphodon below The largest was Quetzalcoatlus see page 14 which hunted or scavenged on land Eudimorphodon 6
Mammals started evolving at the same time as dinosaurs and pterosaurs about 230 million years ago or even earlier Like the fi rst sea creatures they were mostly very small but after the dinosaurs died out mammals grew to massive proportions These big mammals were equipped with powerful jaws and muscles that made them very dangerous predators The saber-toothed cat Smilodon left and page 24 which lived until 10,000 years ago weighed up to 880 pounds 400 kilograms much more than any of today’s big cats And birds became gigantic and ferocious too Now you can meet mighty Smilodon along with terror birds see page 22 killer pigs below and page 20 and brutal reptiles Imagine if they came back to life to cause carnage and commotion If you’ve got the courage read on just be prepared for some bizarre and scary encounters between modern animals and prehistoric beasts Killer pigs 7 Smilodon
Rocking the Boat Dimetrodon Er there appears to be a rather unexpected entrant in this year’s yacht race It has a sail but it doesn’t look interested in the race In fact it seems to be going after the sailors not the fi rst prize This curious creature is Dimetrodon and why it had a sail on its back is a mystery It was certainly not to help it glide across the water although that was one of the theories when this reptile-like creature was fi rst discovered in the nineteenth century Another theory was that it might swim on its back and use the sail like a fi n Other people thought the sail camoufl aged the animal among reeds as it waited for prey though a better way of concealing yourself might be not having one at all For this capsized yachtsman Dimetrodon’s sail should be the last thing on his mind it’s the teeth he should be worried about Dimetrodon was one of the fi rst animals to have jagged teeth perfect for slicing through fl esh Dimetrodon PRONOUNCED Die-MEH-troe-don LIVED North America and Western Europe one species 290 million 270 million years ago LENGTH About 10 feet 3 m WEIGHT 500 pounds 225 kg 8
warming up Experts now think the sail might have controlled Dimetrodon’s body temperature Cold blooded reptiles need to warm up in the morning and maybe the sail helped Dimetrodon to soak up sunshine Or perhaps like the peacock’s tail it was a way of attracting mates the male Dimetrodon did have a bigger sail than the female european species So far scientists have found thirteen species of Dimetrodon The first one was discovered in 1878 The latest discovery Dimetrodon teutonis found in 2001 in Germany is the only species to have been found in Europe 9
