We tend to think of evolution as a straight line. One which leads tiny, single-cellular life forms breeding in volcanic primordial soup, through millions of years of environmental changes and genocidal cataclysm, all the way to us at the end: the upright, vertebrate ape species with the opposable thumbs, capable of bringing nature to heel. This is a typically egocentric view of a process which has been going on for millions of years, and one which will (hopefully) carry on quite unimpeded long after we humans have croaked. But it's one that completely ignores extinct species.
Evolution is a lot more like a sprawling system of roots and branches. Some shoots twist off in one direction, and grow taller and taller, while others are trimmed and cut down. There’s only so much space and resources on our blue planet for a finite number of creatures, and competition is fierce. Over the countless millennia, the vast majority of all life has gone extinct, and as you can see below, in Earth’s long history, nature has thrown up some pretty weird-looking creatures, none of which have survived to the present day. Check out some of the oddest extinct species below.
1. Glyptodon
2. Arthropleura
3. Quagga
The quagga is an extinct subspecies of zebra, which lived South Africa before becoming extinct in the 19th century, and was considered to be related to Burchell's zebra; it was approximately 250cm long and around 130cm tall. What distinguished this subspecies of zebra from typical zebras was the pattern of white and brown stripes on its pelt. While alive, Quaggas were said to be wild and lively animals, but not as aggressive or energetic as Burchell's zebra. Quaggas were sadly hunted to extinction by
Dutch settlers and later by Afrikaner
s in the 1800s. Currently there is a breeding program in South Africa that is aiming to recreate the distinctive stripe pattern through husbandry.
4. Meganeura
Meganeura is a type of insect from the Carboniferous period, which looks a lot like a gigantic version of a contemporary dragonfly. It was so gigantic that its wingspan was around 65cm! Meganeura were predatory animals, and caught and ate other insects. The first Meganeura fossil was first discovered in the French Stephanian Coal Measures back in 1880. It is believed that they died out due to changes in the earth’s atmospheric pressure, which prevented them from maintaining their large size.
5. Purassaurus
The purussaurus is like a yacht-sized crocodile, which inhabited the continent of South America during the period geologists refer to as the Miocene epoch. Paleontologists estimate that these massive amphibious lizards would have grown to be around 10 metres in length, and weighed approximately five metric tonnes. Zoologists have since proposed that, although their large size gave them many advantages in their native territory, it also made them vulnerable to environmental changes which favoured smaller species.
6. Megalodon
Megalodon, (which means "big tooth" from Ancient Greek), is an absolutely colossal extinct species of shark, which lived around 24 million years ago, during the Early Miocene era to the end of the Pliocene era. This gigantic, razor-toothed monster is commonly r
egarded as one of the largest and most powerful predators in vertebrate history. Forget Jaws, or any other shark movie you care to mention. Megalodon fossils suggest that terrifying leviathan reached a length of nearly 20 meters. Its jawbone is so wide and high that marine biologists have good reason to believe that it could comfortably swallow a human being whole. But although it appears to be the apex predator of all apex predator, it eventually died out as a result of perfectly mundane circumstances. Megalodon apparently preferred warmer waters, and the onset of the ice ages inevitably led to extinction.
7. Anomalocaris
Now, this is one of the strangest sea creatures I’ve ever seen, period. It’s like an unholy hybrid of shrimp, shark and seahorse. Anomalocaris propelled swam by undulating flexible lobes which acted as fins. Anomalocaris boasted a large head and a pair of eyes on stalks, much like a slug or snail, as well as a disk-like mouth composed of 32 separate overlapping plates. When Anomalocaris managed to catch prey, its disk-like mouth would constrict to crush prey, before tooth-like prongs pushed it down the beast’s throat. Two large 'arms' with barb-like spikes were in front of the mouth. Paleontologists are still uncertain as to why Anomalocaris became extinct.
8. Great Auk
Think that all penguins are cute and cuddly? Think again. The Great Auk is a species of bird which resembled a gigantic penguin, which was almost as tall as human beings, but became extinct sometime during the mid-nineteenth century. Despite their outward appearance, the Auk was actually biologically unrelated to the birds we call penguins. As a matter of fact, penguins were actually discovered sometime later, and were named thus by sailors due to their resemblance to the great auk. They thrived on rocky, isolated islands in the North Atlantic, and had a similar diet to other aquatic birds, which included
capelin, and crustacean
. The Great Auk would mate for life, and b
oth parents participated in the incubation of their single egg. The last surviving specimens were killed on Eldey on 3 June, 1844, after being hunted to extinction by humans.