Creature 258: Livyatan melvillei

What big teeth you have!

As a rule among modern whales,  the big ones are friendly and feed on plankton and the smaller ones like killer whales are hunters, feeding mostly off fish. If Livyatan melvillei was still alive it would be an exception to this rule.

Livyatan melvillei grew to 17.5 meters long, a little smaller than a blue whale or sperm whale but definitely one of the big ones. It's skull measured up to 3 meters long and its teeth got up to 36 cm in length. These are the largest teeth that work as teeth of any known animal ever.

So what did it need such big teeth for? It used to hunt and kill other whales! Other than humans whales have not really had many predators in their history so that makes Livyatan melvillei part of a very small club. Sperm whales are also large hunters but their primary food source is large squids and not other whales.

Distribution:
Livyatan melvillei lived 12-13 million years ago and were found not far off the west coast of Peru.

Classification:

Livyatan is a monotypic genus and its familial placement is uncertain. They are large toothed whales belonging to the superfamily Physeteroidea with sperm whales but for now they have not been designated a family.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: incertae sedis
Genus: Livyatan
Species: Livyatan melvillei

Image Links:

http://theworldofanimals.proboards.com/thread/89/carcharocles-megalodon-livyatan-melvillei

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livyatan

Creature 238: Synthetoceras

Unicorns, for real.

Synthetoceras is an extinct mammal which looks a little like a unicorn.

This weird looking creature was about 2 meters long and probably weighed 200 - 350 kilos, so it is a little smaller than a modern horse, but it had horns. It had two laterally oriented horns and much like a unicorn had one central horn above its nose. This horn was pronged. The function of the prong is unknown, but it was probably either for mate competition or for foraging in the ground. Maybe both. Maybe something else altogether. 

Distribution:

Synthetoceras lived in North America around 5 to 13.5 million years ago.

Classification:

Synthetoceras is an ungulate mammal, so it is not too distant from horses, but it is in the artyodactyl group, which means it is more closely related to sheep, deer etc... Their family Protoceratidae is entirely extinct.

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Artiodactyla

Family: Protoceratidae

Genus: Synthetoceras 

Image Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetoceras

http://bbs.uua.cn/thread-114164-1-1.html

Creature 157: Tragulus kanchil

A deer the size of a rabbit.

Description:

Tragulus kanchil belongs to a family called the mouse deer and is commonly known as the lesser Mouse deer.

It is the smallest of the already tiny ungulate family. The adults sometimes only grow to a size of 45 cm  in length and weigh 1-2 kilograms. Newborn lesser mouse deer can weigh as little as 100 grams. Female mouse deer are reproductively active throughout their adult life and are capable of conceiving within a few hours of giving birth.

Like other ungulates the Lesser mouse deer primarily eats foliage, but they have been known to eat arthropods as well.

Distribution:
The lesser mouse deer is found throughout continental South East Asia as well as Northern Borneo. They prefer disturbed habitats such as recently logged areas rather than old growth forest.

Classification:
O.K., so the mouse deer are not technically deer (family Cervidae), but they are both Ruminates.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Tragulidae
Genus: Tragulus
Species: Tragulus kanchil

Image Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrotain

http://paddleasia.com/destinations/khao_sok.htm

Creature 86: Megaloceros giganteus

This deer certainly could not fly.

Merry Christmas everyone. 
Today I decided to go with the most Christmas related bizarre creature I have. It is an extinct member of the deer family, not quite a reindeer,  but it's the best I could do.

Description:
Megaloceros giganteus is an extinct member of the deer family and its common name is the Irish elk. They were arguably the biggest member of the deer family to have lived but are most well known for their enormous antlers.  Like other deer the males shed their antlers and regrew them every spring. The antlers are used to compete with other males for females. Presumably the male deer would have originally fought with their antlers, but in modern deer fighting is rare and obsolete in some species. The males just measure up the size of their horns and the one with the smaller horns will just back off realizing it is not worth fighting a battle he will probably lose. This development has led to the antlers become more and more ornamental and less and less practical. The Irish Elk took this principle to an extreme.

The Irish elk stood an impressive 2.1 meters tall but their antlers could reach over 3.5 meters in length from tip to tip and could weigh up to 40 kg. Even for such a large animal this would have been a significant burden when attempting to evade hungry predators such as wolf packs or Humans. Many biologists have speculated that the ridiculous size of these antlers was one of the main contributing factors in their extinction. This would fit in quite well with various jokes about the Irish.

Distribution:
The Irish Elk is extinct but it was previously found not just in Ireland but across the whole Palaerctic region. The name comes from the fact that the first specimens were found in Ireland and to date most specimens are found from Irish bogs. The most recent specimens have been dated to 7700 years ago, and so they definitely coincided with modern humans and may have even coincided with human civilization.

Classification:
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Artiodactyla
Family: Cervidae
Genus: Megaloceros
Species: Megaloceros giganteus

Image Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_elk#mediaviewer/File:%C3%9Cberseemuseum_Bremen_2009_250.JPG