Quick—think of a dinosaur. It’s T. rex isn’t it? Or maybe you were thinking of a … Velociraptor?

Okay, so most of our knowledge of dinosaurs—or any extinct species for that matter—probably comes from Jurassic Park.

But as we learned from a recent comment in Reddit’s Ask Science community by paleontologist and PastTime podcast host Matt Borths, there are tons of extinct animals that frankly make T. rex look boring AF.

He explains:

Meet Chalicotherium: The gorilla-horse.

Dmitrche/Wikimedia Commons

While this looks like an animal that would eat you, these bizarre mammals were actually herbivores (phew). They died out around three million years ago, according to the American Museum of Natural History.

Here’s the weird thing: Like horses, they had hooves. But their bodies resembled gorillas and sloths, which meant that they may have swung from tree branches. It’s strange as hell when you imagine it.

Unlike gorilla-horses, the next animal Borths describes would tear your fragile little body to shreds.

Meet Megistotherium: A rhinoceros-sized meat eating mammal.



Energo/Wikimedia Commons

Megistotherium lived around 24 million years ago in Libya. And yes, while the above sketch looks like a Disney character gone mad, it’s definitely not something that you would have wanted to mess with.

“[Megistotherium] had three meat-slicing teeth on each side of the jaw rather than just the one pair of meat-slicing teeth like cats, dogs, and hyenas have,” Borths tells Upvoted.

Meet Thalassocnus: The Sea Sloth.

“I’ve alway been mystified by the Internet’s lack of interest in the sea sloth,”Borths says.

Thalassocnus literally means “lazy one of the sea.” These guys lived around two to ten million years ago. Much like sloths, they were very slow-moving.

Sloths, of course, are known for their signature matted fur. But, we’re not sure if these mammals even had hair, since the vast majority of marine mammals are hairless.

“The Internet loves sloths. And it loves giant things. This animal needs a better press agent,” Borths jokes.

Meet Yi: A dragon-like creature.

Emily Willoughby/Wikimedia Commons

“It’s pretty new, but one of the craziest dinosaurs to come out recently,” Borths describes.

Yi lived during the Jurassic era of China. Unlike other dinos that could fly, Yi didn’t have feathered wings. Instead, its wings were almost bat-like—a thin membrane of skin stretched between its fingers and body.

“It’s the closest we will ever get to finding a wyvern in the fossil record,” he adds.

Meet Tullimonstrum: The Tully Monster.



Staton Fink/Wikimedia Commons

“Tullimonstrum is named after the guy who described this animal which has a squid-like body with side fins, a proboscis with a mouth, and stereotypical alien stalk eyes,” Borths says.

Here’s the thing: We don’t very much about this animal. In fact, we don’t even know what other animals it’s related to.

We do know that it lived around 300 million years ago, since we found Tully Monster fossils that old in Illinois. In fact, we’ve never found fossils from that species in any other place but Illinois.