Liopleurodon was a huge sea monster that lived during the late Jurassic period.
It had huge, sharp teeth it used to snack on prey it ambushed in coral reefs.
But By the beginning of the Cretaceous period, which began 145 million years ago, liopleurodon
went extinct.
But what if it didn’t?
what if it survived until modern day?
How would the course of history have changed?
That’s what we’re going to talk about, right now on life’s biggest questions.
Hello and welcome back to life’s biggest questions, the channel that imagines the impossible.
I’m Charlotte Dobre.
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Before we can determine what would happen if liopleurodon didn’t go extinct, let's
learn a little about it.
Liopleurodon is a marine reptile belonging to the pliosaur group, that swam in the earth’s
oceans during the late Jurassic period, 160 to 150 million years ago.
Liopleurodon’s name is greek for smooth sided teeth.
Back when it was discovered in 1873, 3 huge machetes like teeth were found in a French
town.
They became a little more famous after the BBC featured liopleurodon in their series
Walking With Dinosaurs.
The thing is, the BBC producers on the show lied a little about how big it was.
Rather than being 80 feet, Liopleurodon was more like 25 to 30 feet.
The BBC didn’t exaggerate its size on purpose.
The fact is, they came up with 80 feet because liopleurodon’s skull is oversized, meaning
that its head was pretty big in comparison to the rest of its body.
There were a lot of other types of pliosaurs as well as plesiosaurs swimming around the
ocean during the Jurassic period, and Liopleurodon was mid-sized in comparison
Back in the late Jurassic, a lot of what is now western Europe was covered by a shallow
body of water, inhabited by marine life.
Liopleurodon was the apex predator of this ecosystem, it ate pretty much everything in
sight.
From fish to squids to other types of marine reptiles.
It was a pretty fast swimmer and used its four flippers and streamlined body to hunt
quickly and effortlessly in the water.
That being said, it definitely wasn’t the biggest or fastest predator in the sea.
When hunting, it would take cover in a reef and ambush its prey.
Perhaps one of the most notable characteristics of liopleurodon was its extremely good sense
of smell.
It could smell prey from extremely far away by detecting chemicals in the water.
It could not, however, breathe underwater, it needed to breathe oxygen at the surface
like whales do.
We know that liopleurodon lived in shallow waters, coral reefs were its home and hunting
grounds.
But that’s also where sharks like to hang out.
As you probably know from our previous videos on this channel, huge sharks also roamed the
seas.
Between 23 to 2.6 million years ago, megalodon sharks were one of the main apex predators.
If Liopleurodon didn’t go extinct, neither would megalodons.
If liopleurodons survived their extinction, past the mass extinction of the dinosaurs,
they likely would have been at the top of the food chain, at least, until sharks came
around.
Megalodon sharks consumed a wide variety of prey, who’s to say they wouldn’t have
eaten liopleurodons, who would have shared their habitat?
Liopleurodon would be no match for a megalodon shark, that was believed to have been up to
59 feet in length.
Not to mention, Liopleurodon needs to breathe air at the surface of the water, sharks don’t.
That being said, considering liopleurodon has an extremely good sense of smell, it would
have been able to detect megalodon sharks from far away, and if one ever came around,
hide from it.
In terms of human history, a lot would have been different if liopleurodon didn’t go
extinct.
Since liopleurodon lived in a shallow body of water over the top of what is now modern-day
Europe, it would have likely stuck around that area, when the water receded, still living
around reefs.
Essentially classical humans would have believed liopleurodon was a sea monster.
I mean, they didn’t exactly know what dinosaurs now did they?
So the only other reasonable explanation would be that they were sea monsters.
Seeing as liopleurodon needed to come up to the surface for air, humans would have been
well aware of their existence, and would likely avoid them as much as possible.
Sea travel around the Mediterranean and western Europe would have been far more difficult.
I mean, people would have had to worry about liopleurodon and massive megalodon sharks.
Entire voyages likely wouldn’t have happened, unless humans invented weapons powerful enough
to kill liopleurodon.