TyrannosaurusJordan
New member
Earth today has a lot of unique and wonderful wildlife. Elephants and lions make impressive trophies, many invertebrates are fascinating, and many fish to catch. However, 99.9% of species that have ever lived are extinct. Among them were many species that would make great, challenging hunts and impressive trophies. We all know about dinosaurs and mammoths, but many species also existed that are far more obscure. I think that many people here would love to hunt some of these animals. For now, here is a list of six:
1. Entelodonts, aka "hell pigs" or "terminator pigs", were a family of large, omnivorous mammals more closely related to hippos and whales than pigs. The largest species, Daedon shoshonensis, was 1.8 meters tall at the shoulder and had a skull up to 90 centimeters long. The following link contains a size comparison of Daedon to a human as well as a skeletal drawing:
2. Inostrancevia was basically what you would get if you crossed a T. rex with a saber-toothed cat. Up to 11 feet long, this mammal-like reptile had a vaguely T. rex-like face, with the canines and body of a saber-toothed cat and limbs of a crocodile. A size comparison can be found here:
3. Kelenken. A flightless bird as tall as a man, with a beak measuring 18 inches long, this bird was the largest member of a whole family of carnivorous flightless birds known as the terror birds. Living with the terror birds were a whole ecosystem of weird and wonderful creatures, including "marsupial sabertooths" and "marsupial bears", as well as land-living crocodiles, giant ground sloths, giant armadillos and the ancestors of Macrauchenia, a long-legged horse-like creature with an elephant's trunk. Truly a hunter's paradise.
4. The entire Pleistocene megafauna assemblage of Australia. Australia might not be known for impressive megafauna today, but 60,000 years ago, Australia had a strange biodiversity to rival that of Cenozoic South America mentioned above. Of mammals, notable ones included Diprotodon, which resembled a giant wombat, Palorchestes, which resembled a cross between a tapir and a ground sloth, 10-foot tall kangaroos, and the marsupial lion Thylacoleo, which was eerily similar to the fictitious drop bear. The much more recently extinct Tasmanian tiger was also found on the mainland at the time. As for birds, they included the Genyornis, a flightless duck as tall as a man whom the diet of which is hotly debated, some have suggested they were herbivores but others say that they were carnivorous scavengers like hyenas. The reptiles included the giant goanna megalania, which may have been up to 20 feet long, the giant snake Wonambi, and the land crocodile Quinkana, which was 20 feet long and had thick, serrated teeth like a T. rex. Also of note was Pallimnarchus, a relative of Quinkana which lived in the water. Finally, it has been speculated by some that stegodons, an extinct relative of elephants, reached Australia, but so far there has been no fossil evidence.
5. All of Pleistocene North America. If the megafauna had survived to this day, America would likely be a more popular place to hunt than Africa. The fauna included giant ground sloths, the familiar mammoths and mastodons, the saber-toothed cat, the giant short-faced bears, stag-moose, giant beavers, camels, American "cheetahs" (more closely related to puma), giant condors and the saber-toothed salmon.
6. The Eurasian megafauna. During the ice age, Eurasia was populated by the woolly and steppe mammoths, straight-tusked elephants, cave lions, bears and hyenas, the Irish elk, the woolly rhinoceros and the Elasmotherium.
And halfway through, this list turns from individual species to entire ecosystems. In hindsight, I should have made this a topic about extinct environments you wish you could hunt in. I hope you enjoyed this list. Certainly fires up the imagination about prehistoric safaris (that aren't about dinosaurs).
1. Entelodonts, aka "hell pigs" or "terminator pigs", were a family of large, omnivorous mammals more closely related to hippos and whales than pigs. The largest species, Daedon shoshonensis, was 1.8 meters tall at the shoulder and had a skull up to 90 centimeters long. The following link contains a size comparison of Daedon to a human as well as a skeletal drawing:
2. Inostrancevia was basically what you would get if you crossed a T. rex with a saber-toothed cat. Up to 11 feet long, this mammal-like reptile had a vaguely T. rex-like face, with the canines and body of a saber-toothed cat and limbs of a crocodile. A size comparison can be found here:
3. Kelenken. A flightless bird as tall as a man, with a beak measuring 18 inches long, this bird was the largest member of a whole family of carnivorous flightless birds known as the terror birds. Living with the terror birds were a whole ecosystem of weird and wonderful creatures, including "marsupial sabertooths" and "marsupial bears", as well as land-living crocodiles, giant ground sloths, giant armadillos and the ancestors of Macrauchenia, a long-legged horse-like creature with an elephant's trunk. Truly a hunter's paradise.
4. The entire Pleistocene megafauna assemblage of Australia. Australia might not be known for impressive megafauna today, but 60,000 years ago, Australia had a strange biodiversity to rival that of Cenozoic South America mentioned above. Of mammals, notable ones included Diprotodon, which resembled a giant wombat, Palorchestes, which resembled a cross between a tapir and a ground sloth, 10-foot tall kangaroos, and the marsupial lion Thylacoleo, which was eerily similar to the fictitious drop bear. The much more recently extinct Tasmanian tiger was also found on the mainland at the time. As for birds, they included the Genyornis, a flightless duck as tall as a man whom the diet of which is hotly debated, some have suggested they were herbivores but others say that they were carnivorous scavengers like hyenas. The reptiles included the giant goanna megalania, which may have been up to 20 feet long, the giant snake Wonambi, and the land crocodile Quinkana, which was 20 feet long and had thick, serrated teeth like a T. rex. Also of note was Pallimnarchus, a relative of Quinkana which lived in the water. Finally, it has been speculated by some that stegodons, an extinct relative of elephants, reached Australia, but so far there has been no fossil evidence.
5. All of Pleistocene North America. If the megafauna had survived to this day, America would likely be a more popular place to hunt than Africa. The fauna included giant ground sloths, the familiar mammoths and mastodons, the saber-toothed cat, the giant short-faced bears, stag-moose, giant beavers, camels, American "cheetahs" (more closely related to puma), giant condors and the saber-toothed salmon.
6. The Eurasian megafauna. During the ice age, Eurasia was populated by the woolly and steppe mammoths, straight-tusked elephants, cave lions, bears and hyenas, the Irish elk, the woolly rhinoceros and the Elasmotherium.
And halfway through, this list turns from individual species to entire ecosystems. In hindsight, I should have made this a topic about extinct environments you wish you could hunt in. I hope you enjoyed this list. Certainly fires up the imagination about prehistoric safaris (that aren't about dinosaurs).
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