Gigantic Prehistoric Whale Hunted Other Whales

[:eek:]

http://www.livescience.com/animals/gigantic-prehistoric-whale-hunted-other-whales-100630.html

 

[Harls]

What can you say, it's a whale-eat-whale world out there.

 

[Scourge2099]

Monster Whale vs Mega Shark next on Sci Fi !

 

[Scourge2099]

So awesome I had to post it twice.

 

[katie_girl09]

That is awesome.

 

[Aesop Rocks]

The massive skull and jaw of a 13-million-year-old sperm whale has been discovered eroding from the windblown sands of a coastal desert of Peru.
The extinct cousin of the modern sperm whale is the first fossil to rival modern sperm whales in size — although this is a very different beast, say whale evolution experts.
"We could see it from very far," said paleontologist Olivier Lambert of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France, who led the team which found the fossil.
The giant 3-meter (10-foot) skull of what's been dubbed Leviathan melvillei (in honor of the author of "Moby Dick") was found with teeth in its top and bottom jaws up to 36 centimeters (14 inches) long. The discovery is reported in the July 1 issue of the journal Nature.
Living sperm whales have teeth only in their lower jaws and are specialized to feed on giant squid, Lambert explained. They suck down squid like large spaghetti noodles rather than catch the prey with their teeth. The much toothier fossil sperm whales, however, may have eaten more like a outsized-orca, or killer whale: chomping great big bites out of its prey.
"These are very unusual attributes," said cetacea evolution expert Ewan Fordyce of the University of Otago in New Zealand. "It's remarkably big. That is unexpected."
Another sign that this ancient whale had a killer bite is the large hole in the skull to accommodate a large jaw muscle.
"This was a hunting predator that took chunks out of prey," said Fordyce.
It most likely fed on baleen whales, Lambert and his colleagues report, and lived in the same waters as the monster-sized shark called Carcharocles megalodon.
To learn more about its eating habits, Fordyce said it would be useful to look at the microscopic wear patterns on the teeth. If the wear lines are horizontal, it probably sucked in prey like today's whales. But if the wear lines are vertical, it would suggest a biter, like the orca.
"Many fossil sperm whales have been found in the past," said Lambert. "Most have been much smaller than modern sperm whales."
There have also been discoveries of isolated large sperm whale teeth fossils before, said Lambert. Those made it clear to researchers there was a bigger animal out there waiting to be found. And now they have found it.
"I think it's a great advance," said Fordyce of the discovery.
The fossil appears to also be a distant relative of today's sperm whales, said Fordyce, rather than a direct ancestor.
© 2010 Discovery Channel

SOURCE

 

[TNC9852002]

The oceans were scarier?

 

[Aesop Rocks]

Hell yeah they were!

 

[Silvermoth]

So? I fight whales all the time. I'm fighting one right now. Do you hear me bragging?

 

[Aesop Rocks]

Yeah? Well I'm fighting TWO.

 

[KevanG]

Throwing rocks at them is not fighting them, so knock it off. If you don't and they eat you, it's your own damn fault.

 

[Spider-Vader]

That is one scary f***in' thing.

 

[Carcharodon]

It most likely fed on baleen whales, Lambert and his colleagues report, and lived in the same waters as the monster-sized shark called Carcharocles megalodon.

Two things:

1) Glad to see they put the correct (or rather currently accepted) genus instead of the more popular but most likely inaccurate Carcharodon.

2) The wording is awfully vague here. "Same waters?" Does that mean that these species were contemporaries with one another? Or that they simply inhabited similar regions? If their respective existences did in fact coincide, I wonder whether the two were competitors. "Megs" are thought to have preyed upon whales in some capacity or another (though whether they were scavenging the carcasses much like today's white shark or hunting live whales is unknown to me).

What would be more interesting from an evolutionary and ecological perspective is the question of the niche of "whale-hunter." Today that niche is occupied almost solely by Orcas (through pack-hunting rather than one-on-one predation), and of course humans. But for these particular animals (this predatory whale and "Megs"), I can't help but wonder whether the decline of one species led to the occupation of that niche by the other. Since Megalodon is known to have existed until just a few million years ago (a point that is debated...some claim they may have lived as recently as several thousand years ago, but there is little support for this claim), it probably out-survived this whale species for reasons unknown. Then again, I really doubt the Megs specialized solely in whales as prey items. But who knows?

 

[Metamorpho1977]

I bet it's good with a side of Brontasaurus Ribs and a Rockberry Shake...