Legendary Ships Seas

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Strange Discoveries - Prehistoric Monster was top predator in ancient seas

Moby Dick, the legendary whale that destroyed ships and bit off a sailor's leg, had nothing on this marine monster.

An ancient sperm whale, its powerful jaws lined with foot-long teeth, has been uncovered in South America. It prowled the oceans 12 to 13 million years ago, and makes modern killer whales look like small time predators.

"The sea monster probably fed itself by devouring baleen whales," says an international team that describes the creature in the journal Nature on Thursday.

It has been named Leviathan melvillei, after Livyatan, the original Hebrew name for mythical sea monsters, and Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick. Melville's 1851 classic tells the tale of a ferocious, enigmatic white sperm whale that destroyed Captain Ahab's boat and bit off his leg, causing the captain to embark on a suicide mission of vengeance.

The newly discovered, but long extinct sperm whale, appears to have been even more fierce than the legendary white whale.

It has the "biggest bite ever" seen in a raptorial whale, with teeth that measured up 12 centimetres across and more than 36 centimetres long, the researchers report.

Dutch fossil hunter Klaas Post, of the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam, stumbled on the whale's fossilized skull in the Pisco-Ica desert in southern Peru in 2008.

At first he and his colleagues thought they were looking at the remains of an ancient elephant since the teeth resemble tusks.

Upon closer examination, they realized it was a "raptorial" sperm whale that would have been a top predator in the ancient seas along with ancient, extinct giant sharks.

The scientists say the whale would have measured more than 13 metres from its tail to the tip of its enormous three-metre-long skull. But it's the teeth that set this creature apart.

"This sperm whale could firmly hold large prey with its interlocking teeth, inflict deep wounds and tear large pieces from the body of its victim," say Post and his colleagues.

Wear marks on the teeth indicate "an important shearing component" to the bite.

"With their large size and robust jaws, Leviathan adults were surely free from predation," say the researchers, who believe the whales would have had a "profound impact" on the marine food chain.

Modern sperm whales resemble the ancient creature, but Post and his colleagues say they are not closely related.

Modern sperm whales, which grow up to 18.3 metres long and are one of the largest creatures to ever exist, prey primarily on squid, which they swallow by suction.

Their puny teeth are "mostly used in social interactions," the scientists say, unlike Leviathan melvillei that used its giant chompers to rip chunks out of other creatures.

The fossils are now part of the collection at the Museo de Historia Natural in Lima, Peru.

About the Author

The author, Stunner (alias), is a paleontology enthusiast and dedicated to debunking the mysteries of unusual discoveries that have been classified by proxy government agencies. Visit the authors site, Monsters Exposed, for a full disclosure on bizarre and unexplained discoveries.