Badass Ancient Animals: Nr. 3

Apart from dinosaurs, what is the most overrated prehistoric animal? Smilodon? Liopleurodon? Well, clearly the most overrated prehistoric non-tetrapod is Megalodon. This ginormous shark has been the star of multiple (really badly made) horror movies and some decent documentaries. Fanboys talking about its size are the worst thing behind Spinosaurus/Tyrannosaurus fanboys and possibly Liopleurodon fanboys. Megalodon is indestructable: it´s a Great White Shark that ate giant prehistoric whales! What creature could have stood up to it? Well, a giant prehistoric whale.
If you haven´t forgotten the last dozen animals or so in my list you´ll know I´m a great fan of the bittersweet irony of nature. And a large whale able to cope with the most overrated whale killer the world has ever seen definitively counts, too. This rank in my list at first had two contenders, one of them being the Japanese Brygmophyseter. Thanks to History´s "Jurassic Fight Club" this toothed Sperm Whale has grown onto me, however since the discovered specimen measured only 7 meters and the estimated maximum size is "only" 12 meters (less than the biggest Megalodons) I decided to drop it in favour of a much more recently discovered whale with a much cooler name than that tongue-twister "Brygmophyseter". Meet the Leviathan. Literally.
Today, Sperm Whales are the largest predatory animals on the planet. However, they only have teeth in their lower jaws which are designed for grabbing soft prey like squids (GIANT Squids, nota bene). But the prehistoric Sperm Whales which lived about a dozen million years ago also had teeth in their upper jaws, enabling them to take on larger prey. Discovered this year in Peru was a 3 meter long skull with 36 cm long teeth - the largest teeth in the animal kingdom (apart from tusks, obviously). The scientists wich discovered this giant raptorial Sperm Whale were fans of Hermann Melville´s famous novel Moby Dick, so they decided to give their new discovery probably THE best name a prehistoric animal has ever gotten (including, in my opinion, Tyrannosaurus rex): Leviathan melvillei.
The only bad thing was that the name "Leviathan" was preoccupied by some old Mastodon fossils, but the scientists were quick to respond and changed the spelling to the original Hebrew word, Livyatan. I think a Hebrew name makes the ancient animal just more badass.


*Note: Don´t worry, the Megalodon in my drawing is supposed to be a juvenile, shamelessly copied from Hodari Nundu´s drawing. Oh, and I suck at drawing Sperm Whales X_X