Weekly Dino Fact: Dunkleosteus, Devonian’s Baddest

“Today’s Weekly Dino Fact comes from a very insightful questions from Webosaurs’ RandomLOL.

Random’s Question: “What was the biggest fish of the Devonian Period?”

A very interesting question indeed. It’s hard to define exactly what was a “fish” during the Late Devonian. This was a time when a lot of fish started growing legs, evolving and heading out of the water in search of dry land. Fish like the Tiktaalik were evolving rapidly and are considered the link between fish and the first vertebrates to walk on land. Even though a lot of fish were headed to the beach, there were still some monsters hanging out below the water. Dunkleosteus was the largest and one of the largest fish to ever swim on earth. These bad boys were over 10 meters long and weighed almost 4 tons. “Dunkle’s Bone” (the translation of Dunkleosteus) had a giant armored head and instead of teeth had two “gnathal plates” that formed an underwater beak that Dunkle used to crush it’s prey. Dunkle had a very powerful bite that fits into our theme from last week, it’s bite could concentrate pressure of up to 8,000 pounds per square inch, this puts them into the same league as Deinosuchus and T-Rex as having the strongest bite of all time. These slow and powerful swimmers patrolled earth’s waters for 50 million years until they became extinct. I’m so glad that I don’t have to worry about snagging one of these on the end of my line when I fish, aren’t you? What do you think about Deinosuchus? What would you like to see featured in next week’s Dino Fact? Leave your comments here.

-Mio”

Woah…Just Woah!

~Snarl~