what was the name of the fish my geology teacher called “bad dude” because i put bad dude in my notes and have no idea what the real name is
update:
this is the bad dude
it’s called dunkleosteus and it’s basically a tank with teeth
that is one bad dude
slam dunkleosteus
Dunkleosteus was one member of the extinct group of fish called placoderms, all of which had bony plating like this. The shearing/crushing jaws of Dunkleosteus were able to open in approximately 20 milliseconds, generating suction into which the prey would be drawn, before the jaws clamped shut with some 7,400 N of pressure. We only have fossils of the head, though, so we don’t REALLY know what the body looked like, or how long it was, though estimates can be made from the head, and from the fossils of smaller placoderms. Dunkleosteus fossils are often found with piles of fish bones, and the shells/hard parts of Arthropods and Cephalopods. This has led paleobiologists to hypothesise that Dunkleosteus regurgitated indigestible parts of their meals. Juvenile Dunkleosteus appear to have been more or less identical to the adults, just proportionally smaller, which means they were killing machines from the get-go. They reigned as apex predators of their environments for some 70 million years– not that long really considering sharks’ 400 million year winning streak but still. Respectable.
