Top 10 größte(=schwerste)Meeresraubitere.

You are free to quote whatever you want from here!!!!!!!!

Hello, this is going to be my first topic here. I want you to show the top ten biggest marine predators of all time.
Rules:
-ranked after weight
-double ranks are allowed if tie
-no micropredators(ballen whales, whale sharks and Leedsichtys are banned!)

Let's start:

Number 10:Predator X

This is a pliosaur. You might know it from"Planet Dinosaur"right. Remeber the 15m long beast what killed the Kimmerosaurus. Well, this wasn't a bad documentation, but Predator X got oversized there. Espen Knutsen and Druckenmiller revised it at 12-13m in lengh and 12-15t in weight. Here's a source: http://www.plesiosauria.com/news/index.php/mines-bigger-than-yours-the-monster-of-aramberri-predator-x-and-other-monster-pliosaurs-in-the-media/

The 15m still seem to be possible, but according to Knutsen and Duckmiller, it wasn't bigger than 12-13m.
I originally wanted to a Mosasaur on that rank, but I've read, they didn't grow longer than 15m and weren't heavier than 12t, but Predator X highest estimates top that weight, so it was obvious who should get that rank.

It was found in"Spitzbergen", there it was an apex predator. It lived in the upper Jurassc, in it's world it lived with other Pliosaurs, Plesiosaurs, Ichtyosaurs, Fish, Ammonits, marine crocodiles and much more. The upper Jurassic was a time where the evolution of the Pliosaurs reached it's prime. A lot of big Pliosaurs lived there. Many people believe it's a Synonom to Liopleurodon, but that's false. Liopleurodons had a lot of cartilage in it's skeleton, we see that, because the Bones weren't well connected, we see similar structures in babys, I'll come back later at that point, however Predator X also had such features, but less marked. That's enough to seperate them.

Number 9:Pliosaurus macromerus

This is too a Pliosaur in the upper Jurassic and an apex predator. It was originally believed to be 18m long, but McHenry revised the 4m skull in 2004 to 3m in lengh, that indicates a new lengh of 13,5m and a weight of 15t. That even tops Predator X higher estimate, pushing it at that rank.
This guy had teeth that were triangle serrated in cross-section. We've found bite marks of Pliosaur species in dinosaurs, so they probably tasted the meat of dinosaurs carcasses, rinsed n the water. Or they attacked dinosaurs swimming from one island to another(they do it because the islands don't have much food for them).

Number 8.1:Shonisaurus popularis

This guy was an Ichtyosaur, who reached 15m in lengh. On this image, it's quite bulky so it must be heavy. Mah, not really, more recent images show it like that:

Based on this, I suggest a weight of~20t.
It lived in the upper triassic of North America. It wasn't the most dangerous animal ever, rather a squid sucker, but no micropredator, so I include it. In it's time, Nothosaurids were the dominant marine retiles, apex predators were animals like Cymbospondylus, Shonisaurus protected it self with it's size.
It also exists a Himalayasaurus, but this is probably just a Synonom to Shonisaurus so I ignore it, but it exists an animal, who also earned that place.

Number 8.2:Basilosaurus Cetiodes

In Walking with Monsters, they claimed it to weigh 60t. This seems too much, because it wasn't thicker than 2m on the thickest part of the body and it had no blubber(and it was less bulky than on the image). Here a quote:

As for the weight, the fat Basilosaurus from the BBC‘s Walking with Beasts was said to be 18 meters long and 60 tonnes; Gingerich et al. 1990 pegged it at roughly 6 tonnes (3-12 in the confidence interval), which is far more bearable.

Source: http://www.thelordgeekington.com/2008/02/cetaceous-kings-of-lizards-and-other.html?m=1
However, I think this is too low, because we've found a skull, who indicates a lengh of 23m and for such a lengh, that's too low! I think~20t are reliable.
It lived in the Eocene Period. It was found in Great Britain, North America, Egypt and Pakistan. It was an apex predator and had to compeat with big sharks. Another whale in in it's world was Dorudon.

Carcharocles chubutensis

This animal reached 12m in lengh. I've read weight estimates of 22,5-27,5t. Last one seems too high, still, even at the lower one, it earned it's rank. It was one of the animals, who whiped out some whale species, like Basilosaurus.
It exists another animal, called Otodus, who also would've earned that rank, it it's top estimates of 12m are accurate, but in my opinion that's quite liberal, so I ignored it.
Here a Carcharocles chubutensis tooth:

Number 6:Temnodontosaurus platyodon

That's actually the largest Temnodontosaurus species. The others are:T. eurycephalus, T. nuertingensis, T. trigonodon and T. acutirostris. It lived in the lower Jurassic, where it was one of the apex predators. Like in the Triassic, Ichtyosaurs were dominant and it was the largest one. Temnodontosaurus platyodon reached 15m in lengh. It was slightly bulkier than Shonisaurus, so it put it on a higher place. The other species were~12m long and maybe in the 12t range(a bit lighter than Predator X higher estimate, so I didn't put then on#10). Temnodontosaurus mainly ate squid, but we found other Ichtyosaurs and crocodiles in it's stomach, so it probably ate animals like Ichtyosaurus or Pelagosaurus. in the middle triassic it extinct, probably it was outcompeated by Pliosaurs, like Predator X, Pliosaurus macromerus or even bigger ones, you'll see in this countdown.

Number 5:Shatasaurus sikanniensis

This is the largest Ichtyosaur we've found yet. It reached 21m in lengh. It was even more slender than Shonisaurus(you see that on the size scale)

So it probably wasn't much heavier than 40t. However, it was quite similar to it's smaller relative Shonisaurs. Also it filled a similar nishe in it's world as Shonisaurus. Because of it's size, it likely had no natural predators, not even a full grown Cymbospondylus would be much of a danger, for a healthy, adult Shatasaurus. Earlier it was verybulky shown, but in 1990, it was evidenced that it was a lot slimmer than earlier tought.

Number 4:The Monster of Aramberri

Monster of Aramberri is quite an informal name, but this thing hasn't been very good described yet, so it has no valid name and we have to use it's nickname. It lived, like most Mega-Pliosaurs, in the upper Jurassic, that was their prime-time-With this Pliosaur, we have quite a nice story. You might remember the 25m Liopleurodon from Walking with Dinosaurs. It was based on Sauropod fossils, who were claimed to belong to a Pliosaur and indicated a lengh of 20m. The BBC guys added 5 Meters, because they believed it could grow even bigger. They felt confirmed, because it existed a Pliosaur called UANL FCT-R2. That is the name of the"Monster of Aramberri"Holotype. It was believed to grow up to 18m in lengh, quite formidable not? But that's not all, it was just a sub-adult! It's skull bones weren't very well connected, that indicates a good deal of the skeleton was made from cartilage, usually you find that feature in not full grown animals. In that time there wasn't much seperation in Pliosaurs, so this guy was beieved to be a Liopleurodon. The 25m Pliosaur seems correct. WRONG! First of all, the Holotypewas revised to 15m in lengh. Source: http://www.plesiosauria.com/news/index.php/mines-bigger-than-yours-the-monster-of-aramberri-predator-x-and-other-monster-pliosaurs-in-the-media/
Secondly, the Pliosaur expert Marine-Celine Buchy found out that Pliosaurs kept the cartilage feature to adulthood. So it doesn't look like the Monser grew up to sizes longer than 15m. Of course it could have grown all it's live, just as modern reptiles, but we have no evidence for a larger species, so we don't know it's actual max size. But we have some hope for it. In the Holotype were teeth, by a member of that species, who killed UANL FCT-R2. This teeth indicates a size of 18m for the aggressor. No 25m, but still the biggest Pliosaur. It's a lot bigger than both, Liopleurodon and Kronosaurus. Liopleurodon has been revised at 5-7m on average and 9-10m as logical maximum. Kronosaurus to 9m in the 13m figure too many vetebrans were used.

Number 4:Livyatan melvillei

This is a prehistoric sperm whale found in peru's miocene, here a small info-text:

The genus name Leviathan, proposed in this Letter for a new fossil physeteroid from the Miocene of Peru, is preoccupied by Leviathan Koch, 1841 (ref. 1), a junior subjective synonym of Mammut Blumenbach, 1799 (ref. 2). We propose here a replacement name Livyatan gen. nov. The type species is placed in this genus to form the binomial Livyatan melvillei. The diagnosis and content of the new genus follow our Letter. ‘Livyatan’ is a Hebrew name applied to large marine monsters in popular and mythological stories. We thank M. P. Taylor and D. Yanega for bringing this to our attention.

Source: http://svpow.com/2010/08/26/the-new-miocene-sperm-whale-leviathan-is-now-livyatan/
Here another link, if you want to be smart about Livyatan: http://nyit.edu/nycom/research/cetacean_family_tree_Livyatan_melvillei
Now, how big was Livyatan? It had a 3m long skull. It is a spem whale, so it's 13,5m long and 19t heavy, based on that skull? Wrong.

As yu can see, the sperm whales skull is far more stretched out. That's an adaptations to it's diet. While Livyatan was quite a formidable predator, who attacked small to medium sized cetacean, Sperm Whales mainly eat gigant squid, but these squid are 50 times lighter. So Livyatan needed a shorter and broader skull than the sperm whale, because of it's diet. Based on it's closest relative, Zygophyseter, we get 15-17,5m. Now, Zygophyseters skull was less Orcalike, if we scale up from an Orca, we get 27m in lengh. That's too much, but this shows that 17,5m are quite logical. Now it was 17,5m long, but how heavy? Sperm whales, who are 18m long are 45t heavy so Livyatan has to be lighter, because it's smaller. Well, early sperm whales were more Orca like in bulk, so it probably was around of 20% heaver than those sperm whales, even if it was shorter! We also have found 40cm long teeth, by Livyatan. All are in a private collection, so the only evidence we have for them to exist is that video:
[flash=250,250]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oknj0SzQX-k[/flash]
No strong evidence, but they should be kept in mind. Maybe the future will show us more.

Number 2:Physeter macrocephalus

Maybe the name will confuse you, it is the name of the sperm whale, in science. First you might think"WTF, this thing is lighter than Livyatan!!!!", for the average that's true, the average adult sperm whale is around of 18m long and 45t heavy. Now, it exist bigger ones, who are 18,5m long and 53t heavy. Nothing for 56t heavy Livyatan, well the biggest ever caught was 20,5m long and 88t heavy, nuff said. A full grown and healthy Sperm Whale has no enemys to fear, they live in the Holocene Period.

Number 1:Carcharocles megalodon

That is C. chubutensis big bro. What do we know about it? It's 12m long and because it's related with the Great White Shark 16t heavy? Well, as the image shows it was 1/3 bulkier than a Great White Shark. Secondly, 12m are outdated, 14m are the absolute minimum size it could reach. The Florida Museum officially lists it at 18 m, 77 tons. It was based on the calculation of Gottfried in 1996, for a 15 m C.megalodon.
Source: http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/sharks/fossils/megalodon.html
That is not enough to outweight the Sperm Whale! Well, it's largest tooth was 19,3cm long. Based on the Great White shark, you get 19,3m for Megalodon."Scaling up from it's relatives is stupid you Fanboy"

As you can see, the Great White Sharks teeth is far more streched out, so the minimum of 14m, doesn't look very likely. In fact, smaller lamnids have mostly longer teeth, because when they grow, the det changes. Lamnids in the range of 3-4m are fish eaters, so they have long, slender teeth for that job. Great Whites have much shorter and broader teeth, because they attack seals and tooth whales. Megalodon is believed to prey on large ballen whales, so it would need teeth, who could support a higher bite force(it was able to bite at 18,2t). The maximum of 19,3m seems very likely. Scaled from the Megalodon in the Florida Museum, we get 95t for it. Sperm whale was beaten. Gottfried even believes it to reach 20,3m and 103t. At the moment Megalodon holds the crown, but things can change. Maybe one day it will loose it's crown, but at the moment, it doesn't look like it would.




[big]That was my first blog, hopefully, you liked it![/big]

Lexovi schrieb:Ich hätte noch Mosasaurus hoffmanii dazu genommen und ihn zw. den 1 und 4 Platz eingereiht.



Mit einer Länge von 15-18m (steht in Konkurrenz zu seinem Verwandten Hainosaurus) spielt Mosa auf alle Fälle in der Oberliga mit.

I originally wanted to a Mosasaur on that rank, but I've read, they didn't grow longer than 15m and weren't heavier than 12t, but Predator X highest estimates top that weight, so it was obvious who should get that rank.

Lexovi schrieb:Liopleurodon wäre auch noch ein Kandidat, wurde in Doku's aber einfach viel zu groß dargestellt und die Länge war ein Schätzwert wo noch gut 5m dazu gedichtet wurden.

Lexovi schrieb:@Pyro
Du hast dich bei der Überschrift bzw. dem Thread-Titel vertippt. Hätte sicher Top heißen sollen und nicht Teop.

(Pyroraptor10) schrieb:

I originally wanted to a Mosasaur on that rank, but I've read, they didn't grow longer than 15m and weren't heavier than 12t, but Predator X highest estimates top that weight, so it was obvious who should get that rank.

The 17.6 m length is just an estimate.. as I mentioned earlier, based on a fragmentary specimen... For various reasons, the length of mosasaurs has been generously over-estimated since their discovery....

I would think that a manixmum length of 15 m is much more realistic (and better supported by the fossil evidence) ... with a weight of about 5000 KG (11,000 lb or 5.5 tons) -- based on my calculations from the water displacement of a realistic mosasaur model.

Although the biggest mosasaurs certainly "bulked up" as they grew older, I seriously doubt that any reached the 20 ton mark.... they were still long and relatively slender animals.

Lexovi schrieb:Ich hätte noch Mosasaurus hoffmanii dazu genommen und ihn zw. den 1 und 4 Platz eingereiht.

(Pyroraptor10) schrieb:Nun, Hainosaurus Länge basiert auf Hochrechnung von einem 15m Tylosaurus, der wurde aber zu 13,5m gekürzt, also wäre Hainosaurus, nur~16m lang, außerdem war er schlanker als Mosasaurus, daher glaube ich nicht, dass er schwerer war.

• Ein Säuger sein
  
• heute Leben
  
• ein bereits entdecktes Tier sein

All are in a private collection

Theropode schrieb:auf der seite steht eigentlich gar nicht dass predator X nur 13m lang war, da steht "conservative estimated lenght: 13-15m". offenbar weiß man´s nicht genau, und mehr kann man momentan nicht sagen.

Ich habe schon ein 15m tylosaurus-skellet gesehen das nicht den anschein machte als würde es groß von irgenwelchen rekonstruktionen abweichen.

Theropode schrieb:Mike Everard schreibt auf seiner Seite immer nur die unteren limits für die länge, bei Hainosaurus schreibt er 17m und bezweifelt diese angabe nicht, bei mosasaurus schlichtweg "15m or larger", bei tylosaurus dasselbe mit 14m. Es könnte demnach schon sein, dass sie wirklich an die 18m rankamen, allerdings sind sie dann immernoch viel zu leicht.

Theropode schrieb:Einen "hoffnungsschimmer" könnte da die neue, massigere rekonstruktion von Platecarpus geben, das würde das gewicht sicherlich ziemlich erhöhen.

Theropode schrieb:Wir sind ja sogar mit Grey noch übereingekommen dass 5t zu niedrig sind.

Theropode schrieb:Es erscheint logisch, dass ein mosasaurus aufgrund de massigeren kopfes auch einen massigeren Körper hatte. dasselbe wird meines wissens ja jetzt auch für Platecarpus und Prognathodon vermutet.

Theropode schrieb:Alle bis auf einen laut Grey

Theropode schrieb:Ich habe ja im megalodon tread schon einige der expertenmeinungen die Grey selber aufgeführt hat gepostet. ansonsten findet sich nichts darüber, einfach zu unbekannt. Grey hat mehrfach betont dass alle bis auf EINEN in privatsammlungen sind. vielleicht beschreibt das team ihn nicht, weil er nicht ohne jede Zweifel Livyatan ist, oder weil sie der meinung sind ob er jets zweim meter länger ist oder nicht sei doch eh egal.

Theropode schrieb:ich hab dir nicht unterstellt du würdest and die 5t glauben, ich wollte das nur anmerken weil du Everards aussage zitiert hast.

Auch wenn ehrlich gesagt 5t zu niedrig sind, aber ca. 10t für einen großen Mosasaurier scheinen logisch.

Theropode schrieb:Um genau zu sein war Mosasaurus hoffmanni ziemlich nah mit Prognatodon verwandt.

Theropode schrieb:bei einem massigeren kopf kann ich mir gut einen massigeren körper vorstellen, weil der kopf sich sonst stark absetzen würde, was bei marinen tieren normalerweise nicht vorkommt.

Theropode schrieb:irgendwo gibt es immer ein limit, weil irgendwann ein tier einfach nicht noch langgezogener sein kann. ich habe gehört portugiesische galeeren erreichen locker eine tentakellänge von 50m.

(Pyroraptor10) schrieb:Der Längste gefangene Pottwal war 20,5m lang und wog 88t. Livyatan soll angeblich überhaupt nicht Orca-like gebaut sein, also habe ich möglicherweise Mist erzählt. Wie auch immer, dann schlägt er den Wal erst recht nicht in Gewicht. Der Holotyp Livyatan war 13,5-17,5m lang, wenn man die 40 cm Zähne nimmt, kommt man auf 19,4m in länge.

Theropode schrieb:das erzählt nur grey weil er mit der vorstellung eines orcaartigen livyatan nicht klar kommt.

Theropode schrieb: er war angeblich massiver als ein pottwal, und was für eine ungefähre morphologie bleibt da noch übrig, mit dem schädel?

Theropode schrieb:Dieser größte gefangene Pottwal war aber möglicherweise nicht der größte überhaupt. man kennt einen 5,5m unterkiefer und einen 30cm zahn aus einem museum...
Grey erzählt zwar das wäre kein größeres tier, aber ehrlich gesagt verstehe ich dann nicht wie das sogar in einem SV-pow post verwendet werden konnte.

Theropode schrieb:unter den walen ist Blauwal nummer eins, dann kommt der pottwal und dann der grönlandwal