James RickardBefore rods, reels, or even man: the Dunkleostosteus
October 16th 2008 00:43
This illustration from Wikipedia MAY have been what the Dunkleosteus looked like.
There are a LOT of fierce creatures swimming around in the ocean but none today, not even sharks, are like the prehistoric Dunkleosteus.
Before anyone blows this off muttering "prehistoric sharks" note the fact the Dunkleosteus pre-dates sharks by about 100 million years! It's estimated these brutes lived somewhere around 360-415 million years ago in the Devonian period and grew to over 30 feet which is around 10 meters although it was more common to find specimens around 6 meters or 20 feet.
Here's a picture of a typical fossil from fossilmuseum.net.
Although artists' renderings exist, drawings and paintings of the Dunkleosteus are always a topic for debate because despite head regions of the ancient animal being fossilized, the rear areas have failed to be found. What we see today are educated guesses
Studies have shown this killing machine had a bite execution of only 1/50th of a second which produced an inward sucking motion so strong that query was doomed before it was apprehended. Further, it had four rotational joints the worked in harmony to produce a bite rivaling even that of T. Rex!
It's estimated that the bite strength of Dunkleosteus was over 8,000 pounds per square inch! AND they used every bit of that strength because, as ironic as it seems, Dunkleosteus lacked teeth as we know them. Instead, what the animal possessed was a pair of strong dental plates that could crush the shells of other prehistoric fish which were protected by various types of armor.
Studies have shown this killing machine had a bite execution of only 1/50th of a second which produced an inward sucking motion so strong that query was doomed before it was apprehended. Further, it had four rotational joints the worked in harmony to produce a bite rivaling even that of T. Rex!
It's estimated that the bite strength of Dunkleosteus was over 8,000 pounds per square inch! AND they used every bit of that strength because, as ironic as it seems, Dunkleosteus lacked teeth as we know them. Instead, what the animal possessed was a pair of strong dental plates that could crush the shells of other prehistoric fish which were protected by various types of armor.
Dunkleosteus remains have turned up in Morocco, Belgium, Poland and North America. Despite this, the most famous specimens are found in the Museum of Natural History in Cleveland, Ohio, USA as well as the MHN in New York and the Queensland Museum in Brisbane, Queensland.
Until next time--watch yourself and watch your line!
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