Largest Prehistoric Animals
The largest prehistoric organisms include both vertebrate and invertebrate species. Many are described below, along with their typical range of size (for the general dates of extinction, see the link to each). Many species mentioned might not actually be the largest representative of their clade due to the incompleteness of the fossil record and many of the sizes given are merely estimates since no complete specimen have been found. Especially their body mass is mostly conjecture because soft tissue was rarely fossilized. Generally the size of extinct species was subject to energetic and biomechanical constraints.
Read more about Largest Prehistoric Animals: See Also
Famous quotes containing the words largest, prehistoric and/or animals:
“Because it is in the nature of things that they become extreme, we have passed down from manliness to cruelty. If I had been told when I was 20 that there was a tavern in the town where the brave and the cruel were gathered together, I would have run all the way and I would have gone up to the largest and leatheriest of the denizens and said: “If you truly love me, kill the bartender.””
—Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)
“Of course
the New Testament is very small.
Its mouth opens four times
as out-of-date as a prehistoric monster,
yet somehow man-made....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“The alcoholic trance is not just a haze, as though the eyes were also unshaven. It is not a mere buzzing in the ears, a dizziness or disturbance of balance. One arrives in the garden again, at nursery time, when the gentle animals are fed and in all the world there are only toys.”
—William Gass (b. 1924)