Unknown monsters of the world revealed in 2022

A series of terrifying and previously unrecorded monsters on Earth have appeared one after another, showing that the Earth and its complex evolutionary tree are still a huge mystery.

1. The "hybrid" sea monster of Wyoming's "fossil ocean"

The bizarre snake-headed lizard in the US - Photo: Scott Persons, Street & Kelley

Face like a crocodile, neck like a snake, body like a dinosaur, large fins like a strange fish - that is the description of Serpentisuchops pfisterae , a completely new species of pterosaur identified by American scientists after 27 years of being "locked up" in a museum with a mistaken classification.

The team of authors led by Dr. Walter Scott Persons IV from the College of Charleston in South Carolina called the animal they recreated "a strange, unique, hybrid beast," referring to its alligator face.

According to SciTech Daily, it was essentially a plesiosaurs, which lived about 101 to 66 million years ago, with a neck up to 7 meters long despite its not-so-large body.

2. Brazil's "Frankenstein of the Triassic"

"Frankenstein of the Triassic" - (Photo: Matheus Fernandes / Universidade Federal de Santa Maria).

According to Sci-News, a nearly complete right hind limb of a strange "petrified" animal from the Triassic period has helped scientists complete the fossil record and identify a new species, which looks like a bizarre amalgam of several different species. It has been named Stenoscelida aurantiacus and belongs to the family Proterochampsidae - a large extinct reptile family that was endemic to South America.

A research team led by paleontologist Rodrigo Temp Müller from the Federal University of Santa Maria (Brazil) recreated this creature and produced a photo of a monster with a massive dinosaur-like body, a crocodile-like head, front and back legs like the limbs of a strong human, feet similar to dinosaurs but the front feet had 5 fingers like a hand in a study published in November 2021.

3. T-rex's Rival

Meraxes gigas - (Photo: Carlos Papolio).

In July 2022, scientists from the Ernesto Bachmann Paleontology Museum and the National University of Río Negro (Argentina) announced a completely new dinosaur species named Meraxes gigas , weighing more than 4 tons and measuring 11 meters long. It was identified from fossils excavated in the Huincul Formation in Las Campanas Canyon, Neuquén Province - Argentina.

Meraxes gigas is a carnivorous monster that looks quite similar to the Tyrannosaurus Rex with its strong hind legs, two small forelimbs and a large head with scary teeth. The excavated specimen is 94 million years old, meaning it lived during the Cretaceous period, which was also the boom period of the T-rex. Although similar and belonging to the same large group called theropod dinosaurs, it and the T-rex belong to two very different branches of the dinosaur family tree.

4. Giant bear dog hybrid in France

12 million year old bear dog hybrid in France - (Photo: Denny Navarra).

The animal, named Tartarocyon cazanavei , belongs to the Amphicyonid group, Amphicyonidae family, a group of poisonous carnivores typical of ancient Europe. This creature roamed France 12 million years ago with a strange appearance like a direct cross between a dog and a bear, so it is colloquially called a bear dog hybrid. It weighed up to 320 kg and was extremely ferocious.

This completely extinct lineage was studied by a team of scientists led by Dr. Bastien Mennecart, a paleontologist from the Natural History Museum of Basel (Switzerland), published online on PeerJ in June 2022.

5. Otter hunting crocodile

The monster otter is compared in size to modern humans, Australopithecus apes and modern otters - (Photo: Université de Poitiers).

The reason is that the "monster" otter excavated in the Shungura and Usno formations in the Lower Omo Valley - Northwest Ethiopia has a body as big as a lion, weighing up to 200 kg.

Named Enhydriodon omoensis , this monster lived alongside our more famous ancestor, the Australopithecus, between 3.5 and 2.5 million years ago. It was a new species of the extinct otter genus Enhydriodon and was the largest otter to ever walk the Earth. When living by rivers, it was even capable of hunting and eating crocodiles and turtles, thanks to its powerful teeth and its more terrestrial than amphibian-like appearance.