This is an artist’s rendition (INVENT A TIME MACHINE ALREADY, GOD! ) of Leviathan melvillei , a 12-million year old sperm whale that used to snack on other whales thanks to it’s powerful jaws and foot-long teeth . ZOMG — imagine the damage you could do at In-N-Out with those things! “This is a pretty exciting discovery,” says Erich Fitzgerald, a vertebrate paleontologist at Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. Leviathan represents “one thing we don’t have in the oceans today — a macropredator, a hypercarnivorous whale.” Modern sperm whales feed largely on invertebrates such as giant squid, but have been known to feed on fish and other creatures as well. The extremely robust, deeply-rooted structure of Leviathan’s teeth strongly suggests that the creature fed on large, presumably struggling bony prey like sharks do. The whale was named in honor of Herman Melville, the author of Moby-Dick , which, no lie, was actually based on ancient tales (I’m like thousands of years old) of my white whale. So technically it should be called Leviathan gwmegapeen , but I’ll let it slide. JUST THIS ONCE. Ancient Whale + Killer Shark = Hypercarnivorous Whale [wired] Thanks to Mr Geek, Christian, Matty, Grace, Jennaiii, Divo, and Sam K, who would have trained the whales to be ridden and looted Atlantis.
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Suck It, Kraken!: Giant Whale Eating Whale
