Jinzo X's video: Livyatan - The Prehistoric Sperm Whale

Millions of years ago, there existed an extinct marine predator like none other. Its signature was the gargantuan size, enormous jaw muscles, and a deadly bite force. While this may seem like the fitting description of the Megalodon, it belongs to its contemporary which is the recently discovered Livyatan Melvillei. You might be wondering what difference might there be between Leviathan and Livyatan. Or do both names refer to the same prehistoric animal? There is an interesting story to that and we’ll get to that later in this video. Livyatan was an ancestor to modern sperm whales. Like the Megalodon and the Great White Shark which hunt or hunted other sharks, Livyatan was also notorious for hunting other whales. Just as modern sperm whales tip the scale in terms of size, so does Livyatan. Ever since its discovery in 2008 and its eventual renaming in 2010, several interesting facts regarding this extinct sperm whale have continued to wow researchers and scientists. Just before we go into specifics of how much this whale weighs, let’s quickly clarify whatever misunderstanding surrounds its name. As far back as 1877, all that was found and known about this prehistoric animal was its gigantic tooth and nothing more. The problem was that not much can be known about the animal from just the tooth alone. Moreover, finding fossilized teeth is not enough to give the animal a befitting name. That was the case until 2006 when a team of researchers decided to go on an expedition to find whatever animal owned those huge teeth. Led by Olivier Lambert, the Belgian scientist, the team found what they were looking for just when all hope seemed lost. It was incredible that it was on the last day of the expedition in November 2008 that a Dutch scientist happened to find the ginormous skull of the animal which owned the unnaturally large teeth. They rightfully decided to name it “Leviathan” in honor of the Biblical beast so named. However, unknown to them, the name had already been taken as it refers to a prehistoric mastodon. In 2010 therefore, this creature was renamed and given the Hebrew version of its first name. It, therefore, became known as “Livyatan Melvillei”. The name Melvillei was in honor of Herman Melville, the 19th-century author of Moby Dick. Many researchers, however, prefer the name “Leviathan” especially since that mastodon has equally been renamed “Mammut”. With that out of the way, let’s examine how large it is. Only the skull and teeth of the Livyatan have ever been found to date. However, from the size and shape of the skull, researchers can make educated guesses and piece together all the information we have about Livyatan – including size and weight. The fossilized skull that was found by Lambert’s research team measured 9.8 feet or 3 meters in length and 6.3 feet (that’s about 1.9 meters) in width. From the size of its skull, therefore, scientists have extrapolated that it must have had a body that measured up to 18 meters or 60 feet in length. Considering modern sperm whales, it has been estimated that Livyatan must have weighed an incredible 40 to 50 tons. That is certainly enormous. Where exactly did this behemoth live and when? From the fossils discovered so far, it is believed that Livyatan ruled the seas about 13 or 12 million years ago during the Miocene epoch. Though it lived about 13 or 12 million years ago, it is not clear how long it existed. The first recorded fossils including the skull were all found in Peru’s Pisco-Ica desert. This means that Melvillei lived at least in South American waters. But, that’s not all. Recent discoveries of equally large teeth believed to belong to Livyatan have been found in Australia and South Africa. Narrator: Larry G. Jones