Ancient 'beast' version of 4 meek modern creatures

Paleontology has revealed the ancestors of many modern species, including those that are very frightening and have a different behavior from their descendants.

1. Giant carnivorous parrot

Graphic giant reproduction of Flinders University giant.

In August 2019, Flinders University (Australia) published a surprising study of the 19 million-year-old fossil of a giant predator that they initially mistook for an ancient eagle: it was a parrot. !

Different from the lovely descendants or raised as pets, the fossil of this parrot found in New Zealand weighs up to 7kg, double the largest modern parrot. Another difference is that modern parrots often eat plants, but this "beast" is a dangerous predator and can . too heavy to fly. It was named Heracles cheapectatus, after the heroic Heracles in Greek mythology (Hercules in Roman mythology).

2. Penguins are as big as humans

Giant penguin in New Zealand - (photo: Canterbury Museum)

Also in New Zealand, scientists have found giant penguin fossils are four times larger than emperor penguins and about as tall as adults. According to a team from the Canterbury Museum (New Zealand) and the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History (Germany), this penguin "beast" lived in the Palaeocene era (66 to 56 million years ago). Earlier, another giant penguin, about the same size, was identified from another fossil skeleton unearthed in Cross Valley - Antarctica in 2000.

3. Super beaver is as big as a bear

Giant beaver skeleton - (photo: Western University).

Research published in June 2019 by Western University (Canada) revealed a portrait of a beaver the size of a small black bear (weighing more than 100 kg), found scattered in the area near the Northern Pole. Canadian and American territory. The fossils date back 10,000 - 50,000 years.

Modern beavers (left) and ancient beavers (right) are compared to an adult - (photo: Western University).

Thankfully, this giant beaver did not cut down trees like its modern small species, but only ate aquatic plants, so the ancient forests had a chance to survive with them. They became extinct according to the demise of the last ice age.

4. Sloths size . dinosaurs

Modern sloths weigh less than 10 kg. But a monster version of a sloth up to 3 meters high and weighs 1 ton has been found in South America. They existed 35 million years ago, then migrated to North America 8 million years ago, then went unexplained at the end of the great ice age (about 11,700 years ago).

The sloth is bigger than the Far Eastern brown bear or the grizzly bear - (photo: Hermann Trappman).

According to the authors from the San Diego Museum of Natural History, the sloth, named Megalonyx jeffersonii , is a plant-eating creature, even though it is a monster in size: the equivalent of many dinosaurs and a little bigger than the largest bear on earth today.