10 SCARIEST Creatures That Lived BEFORE Dinosaurs!

Hi, it’s Katrina! From enormous fish with metal armour to giant millipedes from a sci-fi movie, here are 10 creatures that lived before the dinosaurs. Follow us on instagram! https://www.instagram.com/katrinaexplained/ Subscribe For New Videos! http://goo.gl/UIzLeB Check out these videos you might like: Unbelievable Animals SAVING Other Animals! 🐯https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxehUWvMr38 LARGEST Animals Ever Discovered! 🐙https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yj7F_tPYsU Wild Animals That SAVED Human Lives! 🐻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mllqeVSsIl0 10. Ophiacodon The Ophiacodon is an extinct genus of synapsids that lived from roughly 306 to 280 million years ago, during the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian periods, in what is now the U.S., Nova Scotia, and England. It’s closely related to the evolutionary line of creatures that the earliest mammals emerged from. It’s name means “snake tooth”. 9. Gorgonopsid Before the dinosaurs came along, the Gorgonopsid was the world’s top predator. These guys were a sub-order of therapsids, and used to be called “mammal-like reptiles”. So imagine that, plus huge saber-like teeth. Definitely a carnivore! 8. Haikouichthys So if we are going to talk about creatures that existed before the dinosaurs, just a heads up, they were pretty weird. Haikouichthys is an extinct genus of early fish-like craniate. These kinds of animals had notochords which are flexible rods made out of a material similar to cartilage, and a distinctly shaped head. 7. Cynognathus The Cynognathus was also from the order known as therapsids, meaning it was a distant relative of early mammals. It was the size of a modern-day wolf with a big head that was about 1 foot in length (40cm). This big head helped accommodate its long jaws lined with sharp teeth which it used for preying on and devouring small herbivores while hunting in packs. 6. Arthropleura Just like something out of a sci-fi movie, the giant millipede Arthropleura is the largest known land bug of all time! Its name is Greek for “jointed ribs” because of the creature’s 30 jointed segments. This genus of extinct millipedes lived in Pangea between 315 and 299 million years ago, during the Carboniferous Period in what is now North America and Europe. 5. Dimetrodon At first glance, the sail-backed Dimetrodon certainly resembles a dinosaur, but in reality, it wasn’t even a reptile; it was an extinct genus of synapsids that lived during the Early Permian Period, from 295 million to 272 million years ago. While the Dimetrodon is commonly mistaken for a dinosaur, it died out roughly 40 million years before the dinosaurs even appeared, and it was more closely related to mammals than reptiles. Weird, huh? 4. Dunkleosteus From 358 million to 382 million years ago, the Dunkleosteus ruled the world’s oceans as possibly the world’s first apex predator. 100 million years before the dinosaurs, this genus of armored, jawed fish swam the Earth’s waterways during the Late Devonian Period. 3. Estemmenosuchus Estemmenosuchus is Greek for “crowned crocodile” and is an extinct genus of large, herbivorous or omnivorous early therapsids that roamed the Earth during the Middle Permian period, around 267 million years ago. There were two known species, both of which came from where the modern-day city of Perm, Russia is located. 2. Cotylorhynchus The extinct Cotylorhynchus was a large synapsid that lived during the Early Permian period in what is now Oklahoma and Texas, in the southern United States. It was possibly aquatic, but is also known as perhaps one of the largest terrestrial vertebrates of its time. 1. Erythrosuchus Erythrosuchus emerged shortly after the Permian extinction event that occurred roughly 252 million years ago. This prehistoric hypercarnivore’s name means “red crocodile.” It grew up to 16 feet (4.9 meters) long and was an apex predator. It was actually the largest predator in South Africa during the Middle Triassic period. It’s fossilized remains have been discovered in Russia and South Africa. #prehistoric #creatures #originsexplained #katrina