The title of this video may be a bit confusing.
How can something be prehistoric, how can it come from before recorded history, but
still come from modern times?
Well, thats kinda the point - if its confusing for you - imagine how confusing its been for
scientists to find creatures alive on Earth today that we thought died out thousands or
even millions of years ago.
Weve got a lot of catching up to do with them … my name is Danny Burke, this is the Top
10 Prehistoric Creatures Recently Discovered.
Starting off at number 10 now we have the Alligator Snapping Turtle.
Look at these things.
They look like the result of asking a child to draw what things 100 million years ago
looked like.
Surprisingly, they wouldnt be far off.
These creatures are mainly found in the South East of the United states.
They belong to a family with a long fossil history going right back to the late Cretaceous
era from 66 to 72 million years ago.
Ever since then, these 400 pound turtles have been doing their thing - their thing is mainly
just being the heaviest freshwater turtle in the world.
They have a large heavy head and a long thick shell with three dorsal ridges of large scals.
Its no wonder than some people have confused them for living dinosaurs.
Because of their name, most people stay well clear of these creatures - you don't want
a snapping turtle to snap your finger off.
However, scientists have found that snapping turtles bite about as hard as humans do.
If youve ever been bitten by another person, youll know it can be painful - but hey, at
least you still have your finger at the end of it - I hope.
Next up at number 9 we have the Goblin Shark.
These are a rare species of deep sea shark and if Im honest - theyre pretty ugly - I
mean look at them.
Their scientific name is actually Mitsukurina Owstoni - thats a Japanese name, named after
the tengu, a mythical creature often depicted with a long nose and red face - bit like a
goblin.
This species is an astonishing 125 million years old - around that time, human ancestors
looked a bit like a small rodent so yeah, these things are old.
Theyre so old that scientists sometimes call them a living fossil.
Theyre really interesting creatures - they have a flat snout lined with openings that
serve as electrical sensors that track down food.
The fish give off electrical impulses when they move which the Goblin Shark picks up.
Theyre big but sneaky, easily able to catch their prey off its guard.
Whatever theyre doing, its working - and it has been for a very long time.
Moving on to number 8 now we have The Giant Stingray.
This may look fake - I promise you its not.
Most of the time, when you hear the word -giant- before an animals name - it died out a long
time ago.
The giant scorpion, giant centipede, that sort of thing - the giant stingray didnt get
the memo - its still alive and kicking - and stinging.
These things can be over 6ft across, 16ft long and weigh up to 13000 pounds.
If that isnt scary enough, they also have a 15 inch serrated poison spike protruding
from their tail.
The good news, if there is any, is that the giant stingray is generally not aggressive
towards humans - if you do annoy one though, its serious.
Their sting is sheathed in toxic mucus and is capable of piercing bone.
Theyre normally found in Indochina, Borneo and across Southeast Asia.
Their desire for seclusion is the reason that modern science didnt record them until 1852
- and perhaps the reason theyve stayed alive for so long.
Next up at number 6 now we have the Triops.
Theres no mistake these - they definitely look prehistoric.
Looking at a triops really is like looking at a fossil come to life.
Theyre crustaceans that have a fossil record reaching back 200 million years ago.
Honestly, Im gonna say it now, that puts anything on this list to shame in terms of age.
200 million years old.
The Dinosaurs only went extinct 65 million years ago which is practically last Thursday
compared to how long the triops has been around.
For such a long lived species though, the individual members don't survive that long
- just 90 days once they reach their adult stage.
An interesting thing to note about the Triops is that their eggs are tougher than them.
An adult Triops can survive temperatures of about 34 degrees for 24 hours or 40 degrees
for 2 hours.
Not bad.
Their eggs however - are something else.
The eggs enter a state of extended diapause when dry, meaning they can tolerate temperatures
of up to 98 degrees celcius for up to 16 hours - thats just below boiling point.
Unlike some of the others on our list, the Triops are not endangered and can actually
be bought as pets for aquariums.
One of the product names for them is -aquasaurs- .. a fitting name for such an ancient looking
creature.
Moving on to number 5 now we have the Alligator Gar.
That sounds like I mispronounced it but no, it really is the Alligator Gary.
Despite the alligator part of its name - this is actually a fish.
It lives in freshwater in North America and has done for a very long time.
Fossil records show this fish is over 100 million years old - this has earned it the
nickname of a living fossil.
Theyre big things too, reach up to 10ft in length and wiegh up to 300 pounds.
They can live up to 50 years old.
Now lets get back to the Alligator part - as you can see from the pictures, they earned
their name from having a broad snout and dual rows of sharp teeth.
Unlike alligators though, they pose no threat to humans.
Theyre slow moving animals and feed mainly on small fish, small mammals and insects.
For me though, its their scales that are most interesting.
Their dark olive ganoid scales - that means their bone like and in the shape of diamond.
Theyre also big enough to be used as arrowheads and hard enough that they will cause sparks
when struck with an axe.
Youll have to take my word for that though, please don't go and attack these fish with
an axe.
Moving on to number 4 now we have the Lamprey.
These are some of the creepiest looking things Ive ever seen - theyre the stuff of nightmares.
They belong to a family of jawless fish.
Instead of a jaw, they have this toothed, funnel like sucking mouth.
They range in size from 5 to 40 inches in length.
Imagine, a 3 and a half foot long one of these things crawling up your leg in a river.
Luckily, they don't really go for humans, they go for other fish.
Their prefered method of attack is to eat their way into the side of the fish and just
keep going until theyve eaten them from the inside out.
Lovely stuff.
Theyre called fish but really, theyre sometimes not even considered vertebrates - you could
say they don't have a backbone!
No offence Lampreys …
Next up at number 3 we have the Frilled Shark.
Weve got another shark on the list and just like the last one, its been around for a long
time - about 95 million years.
This thing is just strange looking, it doesnt look of this world - at least the modern world
we live in anyway.
The frilled shark lurks in the deep - its been caught as deep as 5,150ft.
That might be good news for most swimmers because these things look vicious.
Frilled sharks have upwards of 300 pronged teeth which act as sharp hooks to trap struggling
prey.
They have an insane ability to open their mouths extremely wide and can swallow things
up to one and a half times their length.
If these things sound a bit creepy then you could try avoiding them but it would be difficult
- theyre everywhere 0 theyve been found in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans - off the
coast of Norway, Scotland, Ireland France, Morocco, Australia and Japan.
They may not come to the surface very often, but that doesnt mean theyre not there.
Coming in at 2 now we have Giant Salamander.
The Giant Chinese Salamander has been plodding around on Earth in basically the same form
for about 30 million years.
Its the largest salamander and largest amphibian in the world, reaching up to 5.9 ft in length.
As you might expext from the name, its mainly found in the rocky mountain streams and lakes
of China.
Despite surviving for this long, its now classed as critically endangered in the wild due to
habitat loss, pollution and overcollection.
Its numbers are thought to have dropped more than 80% since the 1950s.
When it comes to how creepy this creature is, theres good news and bad news.
The good news is that they pose no threat to humans.
Giant Chinese Salamanders are nearly blind and feed mainly on smaller salamanders, worms
and crayfish.
The bad news is - they make pretty creepy noises .Theyve been known to make barking,
whining, hissing and crying sounds.
Some of these noises sound so much like the crying of a young human child that they were
known in the Chinese language as the infant fish.
No thanks.
And finally at number 1 we have the Tuatara.
These reptiles can only be found in one place in the world - New Zealand.
They owe their name to the Maori language - Tuatara translates to peaks on the back.
200 million years ago, they used to be one of many similar species that lived all over
- now, theyre the only ones left.
For this reason, they have fascinated science as they provide a unique window into how reptiles
would have looked hundreds of millions of years ago.
They come in greenish brown and grey colours - that makes it sound like theyre some sort
of toys you can buy.
They measure up to 31 inches from head to tail tip and can weigh up to 3 pounds.
They have two rows of teeth in the upper jaw overlapping one row on the lower jaw - and
theyre the only species in the world to have teeth like that.
For many years, there were thought to be none of them left in the wild of New Zealand due
to habitat loss.
In 2008 though, a tuatara nest was uncovered with a hatchling - its thought to be the first
case of a successful breeding in the wild for over 200 years!
Done a lot of animal ones!