Dolphins Used To Be Terrifying... 

Bro modern era dolphins are literal Monsters, I can't imagine what prehistoric dolphins would be 😭

Thrilled to see my depiction of Ankylorhiza used!! (First photo in the video of it and the skull) I've loved your channel and happy to be a small part of it now!!

What do you mean "were". Dolphins are scary as hell

Never trust a species that grins all the time. It’s up to something.” ― Terry Pratchett, Pyramids

I love how you credit the artists! Not many people do that.

Crocodile: *screaming intensifies* Dolphins: *"WHY ARE YOU SWIMMING? WHY ARE YOU SWIMMING?!"*

penguins doing necrophilia, dolphins who torture their victims for fun, seaotters kidnapping kids of their own, all my childhood pets turn out to be horror monsters O_____o

3:42 "Keep holding your breath though." Hardest transition I've ever seen.

''Dolphins, an animal we all love.'' I don't think so bro ...

I really hope that channels like these that talk about more obscure prehistoric creatures get more attention since prehistory as so many fascinating creatures like this predatory dolphins.

If y'all watched Casual Geographic's video about Dolphins, you know

3:43 "keep holding your breath" 😂😂😂

Odontocetes (toothed whales) first emerged at the start of the Oligocene, and it wasn’t long before they too produced some scary marine predators. The most successful and famous would be the various lineages of raptorial physeteroids-the “killer sperm whales”-but they were far from alone. One of the first odontocetes to function as an apex predator was Ankylorhiza tiedemani. At around 4.8 meters long, this animal was the largest odontocete from the Oligocene, and had one of the most formidable sets of jaws and teeth; its jaws were more heavily built than in its smaller relatives, and its teeth were not only robust, but equipped with cutting edges both front and back. The anterior incisors at the very tip of the jaws were especially large, and they protruded forward to the extent they would likely have been visible even if the animal’s mouth was shut. These were not the teeth of an animal restricted to small fish and squid that it could swallow whole. Ankylorhiza was eating larger fish, sharks, and other cetaceans. For the entire history of cetaceans as a dominant group of marine predators, they were facing competition from a less diverse but equally successful group; the otodontid sharks, most of which are nowadays considered a series of descendants belonging to the genus Otodus. During the Oligocene, the otodontid shark that acted as Ankylorhiza’s rival was Otodus angustidens, which was large enough that it may actually have been capable of preying on Ankylorhiza, though for the most part they likely hunted similar types of prey. In the following Miocene epoch, other lineages of odontocetes (including new lineages of raptorial physeteroids and large squalodonts) would take up Ankylorhiza’s legacy, while O. angustidens would quickly produce two larger descendants-O. chubutensis, and the infamous O. megalodon.

Uhm, dolphins are still the scariest thing in the ocean.

Not to be disrespectful of your take, but it seems to make more sense that the front facing teeth were used for rooting in the seafloor, and the tooth damage and bite power would make more sense if it was chomping through something tough. My guess is that it had a regular diet of mollusks and the like.

Putting this on my watch later for tonight, these are my comfort videos for sleep

Used to be? Dolphins are still terrifying.

that 1m skull is terrifying!

Found this channel by total chance (don't really watch content like this usually) and I cannot overstate how much fun it has been to watch! It's been a huge help too in my own creature creation as it gives me some fresh and cool perspectives on bone structure and specialized adaptations! LOVE it! Keep up the great work!

Lately, I’ve been hearing alot of people misuse “painstakingly” as if painstaking is synonymous with tedious

What do you mean, _used_ to be?

Knowing what modern dolphins do (IYKYK), I wonder how much more worse they would have been back then……

That finizen/palafin evolving had me dying 😂

Most sharks: "we look scary but we chill" Dolphins: *evil laughter that sounds like normal dolphin noises*

The art in the thumbnail of this video where a prehistoric dolphin attempts to eat a prehistoric monkey is based off the 1778 painting, Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley, and after finding this out, a British merchant later Baron named Brooks Watson was attacked by a shark as a 14-year old cabin boy in Havana, Cuba in 1749 where his rescuers successfully got him out of the water after he was attacked after three attempts. The story was well known and helped Copley paint the picture and it still exists in DC's National Gallery of Art.

Great content and information keep up the good work

This is quickly turning into my favourite channel

I don't know where are you getting these thumbnails from but they are sick as hell and I always take a screenshot and save them on my phone.

Unrelated to the video, but today I just learned that there was once an extinct species of goat that lived on Balearic Islands that was not like other mammals in the world. For once, it was cold-blooded and have forward facing eyes like a predator 😲

Dude your channel is awesome.

Modern day dolphins are already horrifically evil

Thank you for another excellent and educational video!!

It is amazing to see these obscure animals brought to the public's attention

Thank you for your work!

8:34 - That really made me think of Forrest Gump where Bubba talks about shrimp...

0:49 That Orca's vertical was insane.

Bro just gotta say I love your content my favourite paleo RU-vidr and extremely underrated!!! Keep up the good work from England!

I think I’m pretty sure all prehistoric animals were monsters at one point

i love these videos, your getting so so pro! great job team♡ keep at it!

Prehistoric Dolphins Were Absolutely Terrifying. Moderns are too!

These were terrifying. And it's great your using and crediting artists

i see you've pumped up the memes and im a fan

Actually, I have heard of it. Love these videos. Fascinating.

awesome videos!

I see what you did with that thumbnail! Great work!

Great vid!😅👍

Dolphins: “I’m not gonna eat you.. ..but I will SA you.”

If you watch Casual Geographic, you KNOW the first few sentences are anything but true

awesome stuff :)

Great information about this prehistoric dolphin

Excellent job!

I from, thanks for the shoutout. I didn’t know this would’ve been a bad place to live a few million years ago.

What a monster it must have been Thanks very much and congrats on picking up more Sub's Old F-4 II Shoe🇺🇸

So pretty much the ocean a few million years ago had giant megalodons and sperm whales, that battled with each other, killer dolphins, sea crocodiles. And people think hells aquarium is dangerous.

Animals we all love? No not me

Great channel

The phrase "keep holding your breath" while showing that awesome baptism dunk was hilarious.

idk what you mean "used to be"

Great video

I cracked a loud one the "keep holding your breath though" part

Very interesting video

The strange wilderness shark clip lmao

Great video, I learned a lot. As an ichthyologist, I feel compelled to correct one small mistake you made. When you said “saw shark” you showed a picture of a sawfish, which is a Ray, not a shark. There are lesser known saw sharks that have convergently evolved a saw like rostrum, but they are distantly related elasmobranchs to the sawfish, which are also elasmobranchs.

That teeth reminded me of the Livyatan, which was even bigger (14m), but lived around 9 million years ago.

Watching this from Charleston, my dad used to go diving in the cooper river for fossils. More then I know what to do with now 😂

Dolphins be like: “Our ancestors used to be like this”

Nice! 🐬

The dolphins thorned phallus is a personal way it is painstaking

Ima take a shot in the dark and say that “robust” is ExtinctZoo’s favorite word. I swear I hear it in every video lol

What is that terrorbird footage from first couple minutes?

It is amazing to sea these artistic imaginations. Even though they obviously they aren't scientific and are purely fictional, they help us imagine what the possibilities could have been.👍

Ankylorhiza a prehistoric looking tooth whale

So basically, this dolphin is what people think sharks are...

Never really thought about it but that squid was creepy as hell.

8:15 - 8:20 he talks about how they’re only found in one small area? He forgot about the very common behavior of marine mammals to migrate to specific areas to breed and likely die. These dolphins didn’t have a restricted territory, they’re probably just being found at one of these spots they would migrate to (Edit) In fact, I’m almost positive that these dolphins are identical to modern dolphins in this way. There’s no way in hell an apex predator with speed on its side would only be in one small area. It might have hung around there often for the abundance of food in the warm surface waters, migrated there to breed, maybe even die, but it probably didn’t live there exclusively

Helicopron: Well looks like I got new competition ( I know there not from the same time period )

“Dolphins have a darker side” Orcas: “Bro, I am *right here*.”

This video’s title has been changed more times than I would need to change my underwear if I ever encountered one of these things

First minute and I already saw a mistake. Dolphins still are and have always been terrifying. Sea wolves, they are literally SEA WOLVES.

8:03 priceless image

The thumbnail being a parody of Watson and the Shark is an inspired choice I gotta say

AI doing the reclassifications would be so fun 😂

Correction - Orcas do not sink ships. They disable them.

Why am I watching this in the dark at 1am I literally have thalassophobia

Got it, Moe from land before time was actually secretly a menace

Dolphins are still terrifying, just in a... different way...

This is incredible convergent evolution. Ankylorizha has a body shape almost identical to ichthyosaurs and pliosaurs.

Maybe instead of contemporary prey species, a more fun comparison might be projected bite forces vs. an average yatch.

Fascinating.

Swim with the (prehistoric) dolphins? Yes, if you want to become dinner.

When you're in the water with a dolphin and actually touch one, you really feel how big and powerful they are. I cannot imagine how terrifying that ankyloriza (I'm sorry for misspelling your name - please don't haunt my dreams) was. I wonder how their intelligence rated compared to other animals of their time.

Oh man okay wow I’ve seen a lot of scary shit in the fossil record, but Ankylorhiza’s mouth might be the scariest thing I have ever seen. Absolute nightmare fuel.

"Dolphins used to be terrifying" bro never seen what dolphins do to sharks and small aquatic animals if given the chance, like there are just chimpanzees of the sea.

Can you please cover earth 110 MYA?

Now i wonder, who would win in a 1v1 fight between ankylorhiza and a orca?

Kidnapping, bullying stealing, looks like absolutely normal human behavior.

Dolphins are still absolutely terrifying, honestly the ones that exist now are probably more sadistic then the ones who existed a long time ago.

Oh the Marine Crocs, I didn't realize they existed after the KT mass extinction.

I remember talking to a marine specialist years ago who said Dolphins are extremely unpredictable and that she always felt safer in the water with sharks over dolphins.

The guy that first described it as the wrong dolphin type seems pretty accurate when you consider Basilosaurus was thought to be a Reptile at first.