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Giants of the past
• Giant amoeba• Giant plants- fern trees,• Giant evergreens • Giant flowering plants• Giant pillbugs• Giant insects• Giant amphibians • Giant reptiles• Giant dinosaurs and their descendents the giant birds • Giant mammals all groups
Precambrian
• A period of single celled organisms.
• No life on land, just in the seas
• We find impressions of single cells, and mud tracks, looks sort of like worm tracks but there is no evidence of multicellular organisms
• They had assumed that the only creatures with the physiology to make such grooves were ancestors of multicelled animals that seemed to evolve at lightning speed in the Cambrian explosion . . . . years ago.
• But they have never found any fossils to match the traces.
• • One theory to explain the anomaly is that the grooves
were made by soft-bodied animals that left no skeletal trace in the fossil record. But the oldest of these tracks pre-date the evolution of multicellular life. (sounds like a flaw)
• • “Pretty much anything within the Precambrian fossil
record can in principle be attributed to large protozoans,” says Matz
Giant amoeba
• Grape-sized protests with complex tracks, called Gromia sphaerica, recently discovered on the ocean floor near the Bahamas, could be a new insight into the evolutionary origin of animals. This is the first time a single-celled organism has been shown to make such animal-like traces, described in a fascinating article found in Science Daily. As we know, similar fossil grooves and furrows found from the Precambrian era, as early as 1.8 billion years ago, have always been attributed to early evolving multicellular animals. However, this find has caused many scientists to begin rethinking the fossil record
• http://www.oceanographerschoice.com/2009/05/wandering-sea-grapes-blow-scientists-mind-grapes
http://www.crome.org/wp/2008/11/holy-crap-man-a-grape-sized-amoeba/
Cambrian period
• The cambrian is known for the explosion of life in the seas, a time of anything has a chance.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/history_of_the_earth/Cambrian
Carboniferous period
What was there?
• Giant ferns tree ferns
• Giant insects
• Amphibians
• Early reptiles
• Conifers
Fern trees.
In the Seas
• Giant fish, armored plated 33 feet in length• Sea Scorpions moved locations a
discovery of their tracks on land, and their chasing small sea animals on to the shores. This discovery is especially exciting to scientists as it was previously thought that Hibbertopterus spent most of its time in water, rather than walking around for prolonged periods
• 2 meters long and one meter wide,from 330 million years ago.
• The tracks were made by a giant six-legged "sea scorpion" called Hibbertopterus as it crawled over damp sand about 330 million years ago.
• It is the largest known walking trackway of a eurypterid or any invertebrate animal.
• The tracks were discovered by Dr Martin Whyte from the University of Sheffield while he was out walking.
• Scottish Natural Heritage, which is funding the project, described the find as unique and internationally important because the creature was gigantic.
• This discovery is especially exciting to scientists as it was previously thought that Hibbertopterus spent most of its time in water, rather than walking around for prolonged periods.
• six walking legs, two front
• claws and two swimming
• legs
18 inch claw
• This claw belonged to a giant sea scorpion, estimated to be 2.5 metres long. ((Markus Poschmann)
land
• The land is were we see the most changes for this is the time when plants colonized the land followed by long term animals.
Giant invertebrates – Meganeura (dragonfly)and Arthropleura millipede (meg-a-new-ra and are-thro-ploo-ra)
• Where meganeura USA
• Arthropleura Scotland
Model of an arthropleura, a millipede 10 feet in length
Dragonflies with 3.5-4 ft wing spans the aerial predators of the time
Compared to us
Cockroach of the time
• 1 foot cockroach
• We have tracks of
• Even bigger ones.
Pederpes – an early tetrapod(ped-urp-ees)means 4 legs
• Found in Scotland, 40 cm
Pentremites a blastoid
• Found in USA
• Pentremites was a blastoid; a type of echinoderm related to the crinoids or ‘sea lilies’. Like crinoids, these animals lived on the sea floor attached by a stalk, and collected food that floated in the currents by trapping it in tentacle-like structures called branchioles. Blastoids were common in the Carboniferous, but became entirely extinct by the end of the Permian.
Goniatites and ammonite (gon-ee-a-tie-tees
Stethacanthus – a prickly-finned shark(ste-tha-can-thuss)
• Found USA
• This odd-looking shark lived in shallow coastal waters 350 million years ago, feeding on fish, cephalopods and crustaceans. The purpose of the strangely-shaped fin and spiked forehead of Stethacanthus is uncertain – they may have played a role in courtship or as a visual threat
More recent
• Pillbugs- they have marine relatives.
• Giant sharks, marine mammals, the megafawna of the recent ice ages,
• We still have giant salamanders, smaller than their ancestors but at least 6 feet long river livers. Ancestors 12-14 feet a lurking predator of ponds.
Giant Isopods or the common Pillbugs
Garden variety
Pacific ocean sized
• The giant isopods are crustaceans in the genus Brahynomus. They were first described to science in 1879, and are related to pill bugs and wood lice. They are unusual but otherwise commonly known within marine biology.
• A giant isopod is any of the almost 20 species of large isopods (crustaceans related to the shrimp and crabs) in the genus Bathynomus. They are thought to be abundant in cold, deep waters of the Atlantic,[2] Pacific and Indian Oceans.[1] Bathynomus giganteus, the species upon which the generitype is based, is often considered the largest isopod in the world, though other comparably poorly known species of Bathynomus may reach a similar size (e.g., B. kensleyi).[1]
• Kingdom:Animalia• Phylum:Arthropoda• Subphylum:Crustacea• Class:Malacostraca• Order:Isopoda• Suborder:Cymothoida• Family:Cirolanidae• Genus:Bathynomus
• 20 known species
Modern giant salamander
• A single species, the hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) occurs in the eastern United States, while Asian species occur in both China and Japan. They are the largest living amphibians known today. The Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus), reaches up to 1.44 m (4.7 ft), feeds on fish and crustaceans, and has been known to live for more than 50 years in captivity. The Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) can reach a length of 1.8 m (5.9 ft).[
megalodon
• In June of 2014 a recently tagged great white was eatten, at Mysterious Universe, Tom Head presented the fascinating account of the mystery of the 9 foot great white shark that was attacked, pulled into the depths and apparently consumed by a mysterious predator. The report has sparked much discussion and debate as to the identity of the culprit, with one name in particular being thrown around- the giant prehistoric predator, Carcharodon megalodon.
• Physical evidence of Megalodon, or any shark for that matter, is hard to come by. This is namely due to the fact that these are cartilaginous fish, which results in the body not preserving well at all. All we really have to go on with creatures such as Megalodon is their teeth. In that respect, one of the most exciting discoveries pointing to the Megalodon surviving into modern days was dredged up on a seabed near Tahiti in 1875, by the British ship the HMS Challenger. When analyzed and dated, the teeth were found to be only between 10,000 to 15,000 years old, putting them far beyond the established Megalodon extinction of 1.5 million years ago and concurrent with modern humans. Although further tests have given mixed results on the dating of these teeth, it certainly lends credence to the idea that these massive sharks could have survived into modern days.
• Above and beyond this tantalizing physical evidence, there have been various accounts and sightings over the years that possibly point to a creature such as Megalodon.
• Locals and fishermen of Mexico’s Sea of Cortez have long told seeing gargantuan sharks with lengths of up to 60 feet long, which they refer to as “Black Demons.” Sightings and even alleged collisions between boats and the huge monsters are so persistent that the popular TV show Monsterquest even launched an investigation of the area. Although they produced no evidence, the reports continue to come in from time to time.
• Whether the Sea of Cortez harbors a remnant population of Megalodon, it certainly has its share of very large sharks nevertheless. In 2012, a truly huge great white shark measuring 20 feet long and weighing over 2,000 pounds was caught in a net in the Sea of Cortez near Guaymas. If the measurements are indeed accurate, then the shark would be one of the largest specimens of great white ever recorded.
Another account comes from the author B.C. Cartmell, who in his 1978 book Let’s Go Fossil
Shark Tooth Hunting, included this report• In the 1960s along the outer edge of Australia’s
Great Barrier Reef, an 85-foot ship experienced engine trouble, which forced it to weigh anchor for repairs. Although the men subsequently refused to openly report what they had seen for fear of public ridicule, the captain and his crew later told friends of sighting an immense shark as it moved slowly past their ship. Whitish in color, they were awed by its size. It was as long, if not longer, than their boat! Experienced men of the sea, they too were certain the creature was not whale.”
Baby tooth vs adult tooth
Megalodon to great white
• South American connections
Giant Extinct Rodent Was Guinea Pig Relative
• http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/giant-extinct-rodent-was/
• http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31111843
30 cm incisors
Terror birds
• Terror birds, the family Phorusrhacidae, were large carnivorous flightless birds. They were the dominant predators in South America during the Cainozoic, from 62–2 million years ago.[3] They were roughly 1–3 meters (3–10 feet) tall. Where they ruled there were no large mammalian predators
• Titanis walleri, one of the larger species, is known from Texas and Florida in North America. This makes the phorusrhacids the only known example of large South American predators migrating north during the Great American Interchange. This took place after the volcanic Isthmus of Panama land bridge rose about three million years ago
Afraid yet?
Darren Naish has published a new analysis on terror birds, entitling this one, “Raven, the claw-handed bird, last of the
phorusrhacids.”
TheTitanis was in Texas-Florida 5 million years ago.So it island hopped/swam northFor it was here before the Volcanoes completed the Panama section of Central America. The strong upper armBones and the wrist structureHave led some to say it was Pawed not winged
• Titanis, with its large, ball-like articular facet, is A, Cariama is F].
• Two key recent claims have made Titanis one of the most famous and most discussed of all fossil birds. The first is that, rather than possessing stunted, redundant little wings that were effectively functionless (bar possible, and unknown, uses in display, intraspecific combat or in assisting balance), Titanis actually sported semi-prehensile, clawed hands that probably functioned in predation. The second is that Titanis survived until far more recently than all of its South American cousins, and persisted into the Pleistocene and even well into the Late Pleistocene (a possible Pleistocene phorusrhacine was reported from Uruguay by Tambussi et al. (1999), but if it is Pleistocene and not Pliocene it can only be Early Pleistocene). Let’s think about both of these proposals for a minute. If Titanis actually had clawed, mobile fingers, then most of the classic stuff written about phorusrhacid behaviour and habits (e.g., Marshall 1994) could very well be completely wrong, as rather than relying on their hindlimbs and/or massive bill to procure and process prey, this discovery would suggest that manual apprehension and manipulation played a significant role in phorusrhacid predatory behaviour. This is radical and might have made Titanis (and perhaps all phorusrhacines, or even all phorusrhacids) superficially like Cretaceous non-avian maniraptorans, like dromaeosaurs. This extremely appealing idea was not lost on some (Zimmer 1997).
• Secondly, if Titanis was still extant as recently as the Late Pleistocene (perhaps as recently as 15,000 years ago), then there’s the possibility that something very interesting happened. Namely, that people saw this amazing animal…. if, that is, people were present in south-eastern North America this early (and they were: e.g., Goebel et al. 2008). A giant predatory flightless bird, over 1.5 m tall (Titanis has been down-sized in recent years), with a massive hooked bill and the ability to knock down and eviscerate even quite large mammals would probably leave quite an impression on the imagination, to say the least. Might there be any Native American folklore, mythology or artwork hinting at ancient knowledge of this giant bird? According to Jaroslav Mare?’s 1997 book Svet Tajemn ch Zv ?at� � , maybe there is, because both the Kwakiutl and Haida people had stories of Raven, a ‘monstrous giant bird with a massive hooked beak, long sturdy legs …. and a feathered body – but possessing front paws with claws, instead of wings!’ (Shuker 2003: I haven’t seen Mare?’s book).
mammals
DOEDICURUS
• Doedicurus (family glyptodontidae) was an ancient armadillo that lived during the Pleistocene. This extinct, armored mammal had four short legs, powerful jaws, with no teeth in the front and grinding teeth farther back in the jaws. This glyptodont had a long tail with a mace at the end. Doedicurus was 13 feet (4 m) long and 5 feet (1.5 m) tall. Fossils have been found in Patagonia, South America. It lived with the terror birds.
• The largest land mammals that ever lived, Indricotherium and Deinotherium, would have towered over the living African Elephant. Indricotherium lived during the Eocene to the Oligocene Epoch (37 to 23 million years ago) and reached a mass of 15,000 kg, while Deinotherium was around from the late-Miocene until the early Pleistocene (8.5 to 2.7 million years ago) and weighed as much as 17,000 kg. Image by NSF RCN IMPPS.
• The maximum size of mammals began to increase sharply about 65 million years ago, peaking in the Oligocene Epoch (about 34 million years ago) in Eurasia, and again in the Miocene Epoch (about 10 million years ago) in Eurasia and Africa. The largest mammal that ever walked the earth - Indricotherium transouralicum, a hornless rhinoceros-like herbivore that weighed approximately 17 tons and stood about 18 feet high at the shoulder - lived in Eurasia almost 34 million years ago.
"The remarkable similarity in the evolution of maximum size on the different continents suggests that there were similar ecological roles to be filled by giant mammals across the globe," said Smith. "This strongly implies that mammals were responding to the same ecological constraints."
Resources
• Carboniferous forests http://taggart.glg.msu.edu/isb200/carbfor.htm
Pie cubed ?
