homehome Home chatchat Notifications


Fossils of sea "monster" make T-Rex seem cute & fluffy

Well, that’s a bit of a stretch, but according to scientists, this giant fossil sea creature known currently just as “Predator X” had a bite that makes T-Rex seem “feeble”. This 15 meter long dinosaur had a crushing 33,000 lbs (15 tonnes) per square inch bite force. “With a skull that’s more than 10 feet […]

Mihai Andrei
March 17, 2009 @ 10:04 am

share Share

Well, that’s a bit of a stretch, but according to scientists, this giant fossil sea creature known currently just as “Predator X” had a bite that makes T-Rex seem “feeble”. This 15 meter long dinosaur had a crushing 33,000 lbs (15 tonnes) per square inch bite force.

“With a skull that’s more than 10 feet long you’d expect the bite to be powerful but this is off the scale,” said Joern Hurum, an associate professor of vertebrate paleontology. “It’s much more powerful than T-Rex”, he added.

Predator X has a bite force of about 10 times bigger than any animal that lives today and more than 4 times more powerful than that of the T-Rex. The teeth of this pliosaur which belongs to a new species was about a foot long and it’s estimated that the whole animal weighed about 45 tonnes.

“It’s not complete enough to say it’s really bigger than 15 meters,” Hurum said of the new fossil.

According to him, the bite was so powerful that it could “crush a Hummer” (actual quote). But alas, the brain was really small for this fierce predator, and it was similar in many ways to that of the great white shark. His prey consisted of squids and other marine reptiles.

share Share

Scientists Just Found Arctic Algae That Can Move in Ice at –15°C

The algae at the bottom of the world are alive, mobile, and rewriting biology’s rulebook.

How Bees Use the Sun for Navigation Even on Cloudy Days

Bees see differently than humans, for them the sky is more than just blue.

Scientists Solved a Key Mystery Regarding the Evolution of Life on Earth

A new study brings scientists closer to uncovering how life began on Earth.

A Massive Seaweed Belt Stretching from Africa to the Caribbean is Changing The Ocean

The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt hit a record 37.5 million tons this May

This Bizarre Deep Sea Fish Uses a Tooth-Covered Forehead Club to Grip Mates During Sex

Scientists studying a strange deep sea fish uncovered the first true teeth outside the jaw.

Daddy longlegs have two more eyes they've been hiding from us

The eyes are relics form their evolutionary past.

Orcas Are Attacking Boats Again and We Still Don't Know Why

It's one of the most curious behaviors we've ever observed.

The "Skeleton flower" turns translucent when it comes in contact with water

The "skeleton form" is because of the unusual way the flower generates color.

Spiders Are Trapping Fireflies in Their Webs and Using Their Glow to Lure Fresh Prey

Trapped fireflies become bait in a rare case of predatory outsourcing.

Shark Teeth Are Supposed to be Nearly Indestructible but Climate Change is Starting to Corrode Them

Sharks could suffer from climate change in ways that people hadn't previously considered.