ExtinctZoo - If Jaws Had Been A Whale

Episode Date: August 24, 2024

Jaws, the most iconic shark film of all time, is likely the source of thalassophobia in millions of people worldwide. And it's not hard to see why, cause… well sharks just look really scary, far scarier than whales, but there was one whale, now far gone, that actually would’ve made for one terrifying jaws, the Livyatan.

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Co-Pilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at M365Copilot.com slash work. I'm sure you've all heard of Jaws, the iconic movie directed by Steven Spielberg in 1975 that terrified an entire generation. The film focused on a giant man-eating shark who went on a blood-filled rampage that lasted for nine days. Despite popular misconception, the shark wasn't actually named Jaws, rather Bruce. Yet nevertheless, most still referred to it as Jaws. Along with its name, its classification is another area that many get wrong, as it has become somewhat common for people to think of Jaws as being a Megalodon or,

or some fictious kind of shark, when in reality it was based off of a Great White, albeit one that was larger than any ever recorded. There is no arguing, though, that a Megalodon would definitely have made a more deadly and menacing jaws, given its absolutely crazy size and taste for whales and large fish, including Great Whites themselves. But what if Jaws wasn't a shark? What if Jaws had been a whale? You may think that the likeliest candidate would have been a rogue orca, or perhaps Mokadick,

a large white sperm whale who frequently attacked ships and partially inspired the book, Moby Dick. And while both of these would have definitely been good picks, the real answer for the best candidate would not have been a whale of today, but rather one that prowled the oceans five million years ago, and had an appetite so voracious that it challenged even the megalodon's hunger, who had actually also bumped heads with. This was the Leviathan.

This whale is perhaps the most nightmare cetacean you could have ever swam into, And it didn't take long for paleontologists to realize this as well. After first discovering it in 2008, when by a stroke of luck, a group stumbled upon a partial giant skull within the coastal deserts of Peru. This skull had been badly damaged, but retained most of the upper jaw, parts of the lower, and a few teeth. And just with these fossils alone, it was clear that this wasn't some small fry, but rather an aquatic animal of giant proportions, leading researchers to give it the genus name

Leviathan, a nod to the biblical sea monster and demon, Leviathan. And while Leviathan was indeed a sea monster, it was no biblical demon, rather a whale unlike any seen before. However, superficially speaking, the Leviathan did have some resemblances to the extent of sperm whale, and studies on its fossils, which looked at their structure and shape, did find that it belonged to the same superfamily of cetaceans, the Pheiceroidia, who are sometimes colloquially referred to as sperm whales. Although, in contrast to the modern sperm whale, it did not hail from the same family, the Pisciteride. with scientists being unsure of exactly which family Leviathan was a part of.

Nevertheless, the two are believed to share a few similarities, including a robust stocky body and a hard-to-miss square-shaped head. And like the sperm whale and many other whales for that matter, the leviatin was also an aquatic creature of gargantuan size, being among the largest animals of its time. Currently, paleontologists think that adults could have been anywhere from 13.5 meters to 17.5 meters, or 44 to 57 feet in length. Would the upper range be more likely if its growth patterns was similar to that of the extinct zygophy cedar,

while the lower range would be more realistic if it grew more like the modern sperm oil? Yet for now, the general consensus is that it scaled more like a zygophyseter, which makes it longer than the longest known mosasores, and fairly similar in length to the biggest shark of all time, the megalodon. The Leviathan wasn't just long, though, but also extremely hefty, with adults possibly weighing over 60 tons, 30 times the weight of your average car, and roughly ten times the weight of a medium-sized male orca. Suffice to say, Leviathan was no joke.

And because it was a sperm whale, you may be thinking at this point that it was indistinguishable from modern whales. Yet this couldn't be farther from the truth, because the Leviathan had a sinister secret, one that became abundantly clear once it opened its mouth, revealing some of the most nightmarish teeth of all time. And considering the skull alone could be over three meters or 9.8 feet long, The Leviathan had a boatload of these teeth, 40 to be exact,

22 on the upper jaw and 18 on the lower. Even individually, these teeth were extremely menacing and absolutely giant, sometimes measuring 1.2 feet or 0.36 meters from top to bottom, and thus giving Leviathan the largest biting teeth of any predatory animal, excluding tusks. These teeth also completely dwarf what's seen in other tooth whales, and even makes the tooth of the T-Rex seem a bit small. Of course, though, when your jaws in whale form, length alone isn't going to cut it.

And that's why, like its body, Leviathan's teeth were extremely thick, too, possessing a width of four inches or ten centimeters at the middle, before tapering off at the top, creating tremendously sharp points that allowed the entirety of the teeth to sink deep within flesh, incurring massive injury. Such a design lightly suggested that Leviathan was no gentle giant and led to it being classified as a macoraptorial sperm whale, which is a loosely defined group of now extinct whales that are thought to have been hyper-carnivorous

creatures that feasted on a wide range of large marine animals, namely marine mammals. And yes, this includes other whales as well, as the Leviathan's teeth did not discriminate. And the shape of the teeth wasn't the only thing that enabled this behemoth to prey on virtually anything, as their positioning led to another insiduous aspect of the Leviathan's bite, and that was its ability to remove massive amounts of flesh. Basically, every tooth was angled in a specific way to create an overlapping effect with each chomp, turning its bite into what was essentially a giant scissor that sheared straight through prey. This shearing effect is easily seen in the wear and tear on these teeth,

as their sides bear scrape marks which show how the teeth rub against each other as it closed its mouth around prey. And in addition to giant scissor-like bites, the Levitin's jaw was further specialized for killing by having the teeth being deeply rooted, indicating that its bite was made to withstand colossal struggles with large animals who would have generated immense force while trying to escape. And for some reason, if any more evidence was needed that Leviathan was a giant slayer, then we only need to take a look at the overall skull construction, as it becomes evident that it had highly flexible jaws which allowed it to open wide.

So white, in fact, that the Levitan currently holds the record for having the largest bite of any tetrapod ever. And of course, this wide bite was powerful too, which we know because its temporal facet had a large gap between them, suggesting well-built temporal muscles in life, which are in animals' most powerful muscles between the jaw and skull area, and thus playing a huge role in bite force. Unfortunately, though, no one's actually ever done an extensive study on its bite force, but it's not crazy to assume that it chomped harder than smaller close relatives,

like the Zygophyseter, another macro-rapterial genus, which was less than half the size of the Leviathan, and yet still had a bite force of over 10,000. Newton's. With this in mind, it's fair to say that at the very least, Leviatin achieved equal power, giving it enough force to pier straight through flesh and bone. And many think 10,000 is way too small of a number for this giant predator, and some rough estimates have likened its bite more to that of a T-Rex, who could have literally crushed a car with its bite. With such a deadly jaw, or jaws, and grotesque teeth, the Leviathan hunted a plethora of megafaunal animals

within its environment, which along with whales also consisted of a mix of sharks, dolphins, seals, and large fish, giving it somewhat a similar niche to that of an orca, only on a much larger scale, with one group finding that an adult leviathan could have brought down prey as large as 10 meters or 33 feet, or 11 tons from a weight perspective. This essentially made the leviathan capable of bringing down any animal in its environment at some given point in said animal's lifetime, with only a very select few outgrowing this size barrier as adults. And once an animal had been taken down, the ferociousness of Leviathan did not stop, as it had a massive appetite that required hundreds and hundreds of pounds of meat per day

to simply sustain its stature. So there's no doubt that the Leviathan's size and jaws alone made it one of the most deadly predators of all time. But when you live in prehistoric waters, it's always good to have some backup tools, which is why Leviathan almost certainly had insane echolocation of it. abilities. Like all toothed whales, this beast had a massive supercranial basin, which suggests the presence of a spermaceti organ, aka a series of oil and wax reservoirs separated by connective tissue that in living sperm whales plays a role in sound generation. This organ

would have allowed the Leviathan to do a range of cool things, like detecting animals, communicating with others, and possibly even stunning prey. And given the abnormal size of the Leviathan's basin, its organ was likely unusually big, too. resulting in it possibly being able to detect prey up to 14 football fields away, a massive advantage to have in the ocean where water can sometimes be quite murky. Additionally, despite the organ in question being made of wax and oil, which individually is quite soft, the structure overall was flexible yet hard,

especially when taking the Leviathan's blubber into account. This surprising durability turned the Leviathan's giant nose into a second weapon, and that is a built-in battering ram that may have been its preferred weapon to start off with. when hunting prey. This hypothesis is based on how sperm whales used to sink large whaling ships, which they did not do by biting them, but rather by ramming them, which sometimes led to the loss of ships over 200 tons. Such a weapon and a whale who already had giant thick teeth was a bit overkill,

and most likely helped it become a highly successful apex predator, who had a profound impact on marine environments preying on all those who dwelt near the surface. In fact, considering its size and its unsatiable appetite, Just one fully grown Leviathan could certainly alter marine communities, yet there's a good chance that it was almost never just one, seeing that the Levitan was presumably a highly social creature. Like other traits, this thought stems from what we know about living whales today and how the majority of them are gregarious creatures that often travel in pods.

And modern sperm whales too share this lifestyle, with mothers and young whales typically forming matriarchal groups, while bull whales can form bachelor pods that consist of other whales similar in size, and age. A pot of Leviathan would definitely be a sight for sore eyes. Yet they wouldn't be the only apex predator you'd have to watch out for, as the Leviathan shared the waters with another aquatic beast just as legendary, the Megalodon, the largest shark to ever live. Having two behemots living side by side and occupying a similar niche has made the Levitan Megalodon relationship an extremely popular topic amongst amateur paleontologist fans and professionals alike. Unfortunately,

Finally, though, there's no current direct evidence of the two ever duking it out, but multiple ideas on how such confrontations could have unfolded have been proposed. First off, we do know that the Megalodon did have some advantages over Leviathan, namely its size, with some of the Megalodon's largest estimates painting it to have been a few meters or feet longer than the Leviathan, potentially weighing over 100 tons in total. Additionally, Megalodon did have the stronger bite, which has been estimated to be 182,000 which is far stronger than that of even the T-Rex. With these two advantages, it's likely that large megalodons had no worries

and were technically capable of taking down any whale, which they did either by targeting the tails and flippers or by using stealth to stage a massive attack from below. But size and bite alone don't really paint the full picture, as Leviathan, considering its lighter weight, would have been quite a bit more agile, giving individuals a good chance of getting away, especially when considering their impressive sonar capability.

Also, if we assume that most were living in pods, the tides start to shift, as just three matured leviatin together outweigh the largest known megalodons. And with multiple leviatin ramming or chomping down on you, you would no doubt have a terrible time, no matter what type of animal you are. It should also be understood that megalodons on average were not 100 tonners, with a study that examined 544 teeth, suggesting a mean size of 10.5 meters or 34 feet, and thus evening the battlefield that, much more. On top of this, we only have limited remains of Leviathan that consisted of a handful of teeth and one skull, so who knows how big the Levitan could truly get. Whatever the case, though, the two were both undoubtedly deadly apex predators who were capable of dishing out massive damage to each other. And that is why it's likely that a fight between the two did not generally happen, as both would have been much more eager to find defenseless prey rather than taking on something

that could have severely injured them if things went wrong. In other words, the risk did not justify the reward. And we see similar avoidance behavior in predators of today, who typically try to go out of their way to avoid direct confrontation, albeit there are some exceptions, one example being Orcas and Great Whites. But what's interesting about this case is that Orcas seldomly ever attack adult Great Whites, who are still three times smaller than the whale, and typically only target juveniles. This sort of relationship could have also been seen between Megalodon and Leviathan, with the two only really attacking the younger of each species. There is the chance, though, that direct confrontations would have occurred over carcasses and

territory, yet in these cases, it's hard to say if a battle would have actually commenced, or if one would have just swam away. What is easy to say, though, is that because the two coexisted for nearly five million years, neither must have been too bothered by each other's existence, as they seemingly found a way to thrive individually, and thrive the Leviathan did. Based on confirmed remains, we know that this hypercarnavore managed to establish a sizable domain along parts of the southern hemisphere, being concentrated off of the coast of Peru and Chile. And when including fossils that are most likely from Leviathan but not 100% confirmed, its range suddenly expands up to North America, while also spanning as far east as South Africa and Australia.

Within these environments, individuals showed a preference for coastal waters and bays, where it would have been surrounded by a wide range of life, of which the most abundant, was actually other whales, consisting of pygmy sperm whales, dolphins, baline whales, giant beaked whales, Cetotheres, primitive orcas, porpoises, tusked whales, and other raptorial members like Acroficitor. And while it definitely seems to have been a whale-oriented world, there were plenty of other animals lurking around too, including fish, of course, penguins, seals, sea turtles, marine crocs, and even an aquatic sloth. Similarly, sharks were doing quite well in this area as well, with one of the more common kinds being our friend the Megalodon.

But it wasn't the lone shark to watch out for, as you also had Requiem sharks, short-finned macos, broad-tooth macos, cow sharks, sand-tiger sharks, and even Great Whites. Between sharks, crocs, and raptorial whales, the home of the Leviathan was definitely a place you'd want to avoid. And you would have wanted to avoid these waters for quite some time, as Leviathan existed for millions of years. specifically from 9.9 million to 5 million years ago, giving it a range that extended through parts of the Miocene and a small section of the early Pliocene. And because its existence took place mostly during the Miocene, many people have wondered why the Miocene seemed to generate so many giant aquatic carnivores. The answer to this is that it was partially due to the warmer climate that this period experienced.

And this warmth also played a role in overall mammal diversification as well, including those seen on land and our very own ancestors. This increased in animal sizes during this period ultimately played a role in the Leviathan's own evolution, as more larger animals meant a hypercarnivorous giant whale was more feasible. And for some time, at the start of the pliocene, this giant design was still feasible. Yet at some point, the Levitan vanished. Like many animals at the time, it's thought that a cooling world was the main culprit, but it wasn't a simple case of the waters being too cold for the Leviathan.

No, what paleontologists actually think happened is that as the earth cooled an ice sheet's grew, they turned up the surface of the sea floor, which ended up helping zooplankton populations grow, which in turn caused baleen whales to balloon in size. In seeing that baleen whales were an integral part of the leviatin's diet, a massive size increase made it that much harder for them to be hunted, and thus putting strain on leviatin populations. Additionally, lower sea levels occurred too, potentially trapping and dooming populations within bays.

And for a triple whammy, you also had the emergence of the globus cephaline, the whose members are predatory dolphins. All these changes together proved too much, and the Leviathan became no more. And while in some ways this may be sad, its demise may be for the best. As beaches would have been that much harder to enjoy, knowing that Leviathan was somewhere out there. But there is no arguing that it would have been pretty cool to see one of these guys from a safe distance, and preferably on a very, very big boat. Like always, thanks for watching, and until next time.

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