Creepy sea monsters that wandered in the ocean at different times (8 photos)

It is known that the ocean has been studied less than space. For millions of years, sharks, giant fish, and reptiles reigned in the oceans.





Huge armored fish, sea scorpions the size of crocodile, creepy shapeless creatures that could bite a great white shark in half.

Helicoprion



Almost 300 million years ago it kept the seas at bay. Was an interesting species of shark that had the craziest set of teeth in nature. This became the reason for much discussion in the scientific world for a hundred years.

The few fossils of the animal that were found had sets of spiral-shaped teeth, and scientists are still trying to figure out how they could fit into the shark's mouth.

Helipricon most likely, like many modern sharks, changed its teeth. Many illustrations show the helipricon with a buzzing saw-like mouth, but some believe that the dental spiral could actually be located inside the pharynx.

Megalodon





The 15-meter megalodon was the largest shark of all time. Their jaws were so large that a full-length man could pass through them. They even hunted whales.

Scientists believed that megalodons attacked them and first tore off their fins and tails to immobilize them, and then began to eat them.

It is believed that the extinction of these sharks allowed the whales to grow to their enormous size today. It has been established that the last megalodon became extinct only 2.6 million years ago.

Liopleurodon



It was a giant marine reptile and one of the most ferocious predators of the Jurassic period. These monsters grew up to 30 feet in length (sometimes more) and they had huge teeth that could easily destroy most sea inhabitants.

And despite these sizes, Liopleurodon swam quite quickly and, like most sharks, had an excellent sense of smell.

Melville's leviathan



It was a huge species of sperm whale that was named after Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick. It is believed that he hunted mainly cetaceans.

This leviathan lived only 12-13 million years ago, which is generally short in terms of geological time. According to rough estimates, it was the size of a modern sperm whale with teeth a foot long, and its food was clearly larger than that of an ordinary squid.

Modern sperm whales hunt by suction, but leviathans apparently hunted in the same way as killer whales, tearing apart their prey.

Yekelopter



This predator existed almost 400 million years ago and most likely could eat everything it could reach, including its relatives.

These creatures grew up to two and a half meters in length and had large, spiked claws with which he could easily grab prey. According to experts, Yekelopter would ambush its victims with its claws and then tear them apart.

Leedsichthys



Scientists initially overestimated the size of this fish by 12 meters and it is still considered the largest bony fish ever found.

But in fact, Leedsichthys was so large that its gill bones were sometimes even mistaken for the bones of pterosaurs. They could grow up to 16.5 meters in length, but such impressive size did not make them good hunters.

Like the sea giants, Leedsichthys survived by feeding on the smallest creatures in the sea - plankton.

Dunkleosteus



It lived approximately 400 million years ago, but the bite of this fish has survived time. Scientists have concluded that Dunkleosteus had the strongest bite of any fish discovered so far. It has been compared to the bite of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

At the tip of the fang alone, the bite of this fish could reach 560 kg per square inch. Dunkleosteus was 10 meters long and covered in thick armor, making it one of the first giant predators in the ocean.