1. Tyrannosaurus Rex
This predator is wide known because of its great exploitation in popular culture. His big skull, heavy tail and two strong claws on each of the two forelimbs are the best known characteristics of any prehistoric monster. 13 meters in length, 4 meters tall and 7000 kilograms in weight, it was by far the greatest predator in its environment, hunting almost everything he could eat. Some experts suggest that Tyrannosaurus wasn’t carnivore but scavenger. It’s actually the longest running debate in paleontology.
2. Liopleurodon
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Liopleurodon is a large, carnivorous marine reptile. It had four strong paddle-like limbs making it a good swimmer, with especially great acceleration. When liopleurodon chased its prey it usually catches it. It’s recognized as a ruler of the Jurassic and early Cretaceous seas and one of largest predators of its time. However, its size remains contorverse. It is estimated from its skull length, but there’s debate whether it was one seventh or one fifth of it.
3. Predator X
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Like the Liopleuredon, the Predator X is supposed to belong to Pliosaur family. Predator X is an informal name for a marine predator which is claimed to be “the most fearsome animal ever to swim in the oceans.” It was 15 meters long, 45 000 kilograms in weight, with teeth 30 centimeters long. His teeth were more powerful even compared with those of Tyrannosaurus rex, making its bite 10 times more powerful than any animal of today and four times powerful than Tyrannosaurus rex. There’s one more fact that makes this creature even scarier: it use only two of its four flippers to swim; the other two only when needed to catch the prey.
4. Therizinosaurus
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Although it’s not a predator, its appearance makes hysteria. When the fossils were first discovered, it was thought that it’s a giant turtle-like reptile. It was unknown that it belongs to the family of theropods until 1950s. Although it’s still unclear it’s supposed that the therizinosaurus was primary herbivorous. It had a small skull on a top of a long neck and three one meter long claws on each of his two forelimbs. It used the claws to fight for territory or for mating and to reach the leafy tree branches.
5. Megalania
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Megalania is a giant seven meters long lizard armed with a set of extremely sharp blade-like teeth making it very dangerous predator. Despite that it had venom glands along its jaw line. Although we’re glad that this creature doesn’t exist anymore, some people in the past weren’t so. It’s supposed that first aboriginal settlers coexisted with it, being its prey once in a while before Megalania disappeared, approximately 40000 years ago.
6. Terror bird
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This creature is formally known as Phorusrhacidae, but it’s wide-known as Terror bird. It was dominant predator in South America during the Cenozoic. The Terror bird was unable to fly but it could run very fast trying to catch its prey. They had one meter long head and great eagle-like beak giving them the possibility to swallow horses with ease.
7. Argentavis
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This is the largest bird ever discovered, from every single aspect. Literally translated Argentavis means “magnificent argentine bird”. It lived living its predatory lifestyle in South America. It was a glider bird, similar like the condors today, but with far better predating skills.
8. Sea scorpion
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Although it’s wide-known as Sea scorpion it wasn’t a real scorpion at all and only the earliest were marine (later they lived only in freshwater). It’s formally known as Eurypterid. Sea scorpion is a 3 meters long water bug which predated both the seas and lakes during the Ordovician and early Permian period (460-250 million years ago). It was extinct about 250 million years ago.
9. Dunkleosteus
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Dunkleosteus is prehistoric fish that lived about 380 million years ago, ruling the oceans mostly because of the fact that it’s one of the largest ever lived. It was long up to 10 meters, weighing about 3.5 tones, armed with strong jaw, which could probably bite through metal. The dunkleosteus ate everything that could find in the sea, even the smaller members of its own species.
10. Madtsoia
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Madtsoia is giant snake, about 15-20 meters long. It’s similar to pythons, as it’s not venomous and squeeze the prey until it die. Their victims were mostly dinosaurs. This predator managed to avoid extinction for very long time, until it finally disappeared 45 million years ago.
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