Register

6 Formerly Kickass Creatures Ruined by Evolution

By Walter Lawrence April 11, 2008 701,293 views
article image

Evolution isn't perfect. Just as the Kennedy family can produce a Ted, some noble species go down the wrong genetic path and what used to be the Tyrannosaurus Rex can wind up as a modern chicken.

Here are six kickass creatures that evolution apparently decided were just too awesome to exist and then, to add insult to injury, evolved them into the crappiest replacements possible.

#6.
Hyaenodon gigas

Used to be ...
The Hyaenodon gigas was the size of a horse, with jaws as long as an alligator's, specially designed to tear away flesh. They had an acute sense of smell unmatched in the prehistoric world and weighed upwards of a quarter of a ton. They were swift, effective killing machines which traveled in packs and could, as a group, take down anything.

Remember the Velociraptor from Jurassic Park? Give it a sophisticated mammalian brain, warm blood and add a substantial amount of pure animal muscle and you have the Hyaenodon.

The Crappy Evolutionary Spin-off:
The fuzzy little raccoon. Despite its adorable eyes and overall cuteness, this animal doesn't have a lot going for it (though if it was domesticated it'd probably be more popular then dogs, what with their adorable little people-hands).

Far from being the dominant predator on Earth, wandering in vicious packs, raccoons spend their days as minor annoyances who tip over garbage cans. Rather then savaging the carcass of a fresh kill, raccoons hunt for that last bit of orange dust at the bottom of a discarded bag of Cheetos.

How the hell did that happen?
The Hyenadon lost the mammalian evolutionary arms race to larger, more merciless killing machines with more teeth and more muscle, slowly leaving behind only the ones small enough and smart (and cowardly) enough to hide. That's how in the game of evolution, the loser winds up extinct or reduced to stealing doormats.

#5.
Gastornis

Used to be ...
Looking at that picture you'll come to two conclusions: This was a huge, badass prehistoric bird thing, and that it was cursed with flamboyant red and blue feathers. Still, this gi-fucking-gantic carnivorous bird took no prisoners in the time period when the Mammalians were just starting to come into their own. This thing devoured our evolutionary predecessors with a hook-shaped beak that could crunch bone like pretzels, and was a couple of late-night eating binges away from wiping hairy, warm-blooded animals off of the Earth.

The Crappy Evolutionary Spin-off:
Essentially anything from the Avian order Struthioniformes is a descendant of this thing, which includes animals as menacing as the Kiwi and the Rhea.


The Rhea is known to frequently run into walls

If you want to hear about dramatic irony, because of human expansion all species of Kiwi and Rhea are endangered. Didn't catch that? The mammalians that their great, epic ancestor once crushed now are wiping what's left of it off of the natural playing field by building strip malls. Take that, assholes!

How the hell did that happen?
At the end of the day, the Gastornis just couldn't make babies as fast as the mammals, which reproduced and evolved faster then the Gastornis could keep up with. Eventually the mammalians overcame the threat and what Gastornis weren't promptly killed by the more numerous mammals were confined to the tropical jungles. This, however, proved to be a poor long-term strategy when a minor event known as the Ice Age upset a few ecosystems and forced them into extinction. The more adapted, furry mammals moved on, leaving this warm-weather flightless bird to die a cold, cold death.

One Gastornis descendant who seems to remember this is the Ostrich, which, at the sight of a human, will go right for the neck.

#4.
Smilodons (Sabre-Toothed Tigers)

Used to be ...
Anyone who has seen 10,000 BC (and escaped with their IQ intact) knows about Smilodons. With eight-inch blade-like teeth, these cats were the top predators of the late Pliestocine, and were the last dominant predators before our ancestors came along. They traveled in packs, the sight of which would make our ancestors crap their pants from miles away.

And rightfully so--a pack of these 500-pound beasts would bring their prey to the ground, then unsheath the blades and, with a single coup d'gras, bite through the major blood vessels and the windpipe.

The Crappy Evolutionary Spin-off:
You're probably thinking tigers here, but actually marsupials are all that is left of the classic Sabre-Tooth Cat (the felines were another branch on the evolutionary tree) so, sadly, the closest genetic connection remains adorable Koala Bears, Kangaroos and Opossums. The most common of these is the Opossum, most often seen in their natural habitat (the local freeway) in their instinctive 'bloody smear along the road' stance.

Yes, confronted with powerful human engineering, most of what is left of Smilodons are crunchy speed bumps.


As part of "playing possum," opossums will frequently wear a fake cast on their leg to gain sympathy

How the hell did that happen?
Speaking of powerful human engineering, Homo sapiens have been using its superior brain to destroy the cats since we first met them. Dramatic climate change coupled with the growth of the human race spelled the end for these great predators. Their descendants, led by the Koala Bear, survived by evolving until they were simply too cute to kill.

Though there is one marsupial still holding its ground: the Tasmanian Devil. The usual response to a natural sighting of these godless killing machines tends to be "HOLY SHIT A TASMANIAN DEVIL LET'S GET THE HELL OUT OF HE-(screams of agony)." It feasts on the dead and dying and leaves nothing but crushed bone and echoes of blood-curdling screams in its path.

Some sample comments from that video:

"I know from experience these "cute rats" are not teddy bears in any form. They will leave you with many bloody stitches and infections if bitten."

"one is biting me as we speak"

"i wanna be a tasmanian devil only thing is they don't spin like the cartoons"

Hey, it's YouTube.

So much false! My paleontology hurts...

11/2/2009 12:33:48 PM
paleomike8

So as evolution progresses, all these animals get smaller and smaller. Kinda like iPods.

10/23/2009 7:27:52 AM
K1i1

dude roos can falcon kick your guts out ive seen it happe not f*****g good!

10/16/2009 6:44:51 AM
Athaclanor

That ostrich video almost had me dieing of laughter.

9/22/2009 10:51:43 AM
Dad

Fainting goat's just sad.

9/11/2009 12:26:05 PM
Colombus

AlyenBird--KUDOS to you on the explanation of the Lepidosaurs vs. the Archosaurs and the Smilodon! Glad I'm not the only one who caught the Smilodon/Thylacosmilus atrox thing.

9/7/2009 3:32:03 PM
MikeSchultheiss

Hey, very entertaining article and a lot of fun--but I'd like to point out some inaccuracies. Hyaenodon gigas was a Creodont and thus, not ancestral to nor a particularly close cousin of the raccoon. Raccoons, coatis, kinkajous and ringtail cats are Procyonidae, one of quite a number of families in the Carnivora--which also includes the Mustelidae (weasels and co.), Canidae (self-evident) Ursidae (bears), Pinnipeds (seals, walruses etc.), Felidae and a number of others.

Smilodon was a genus within the Felidae--specifically, of a more archaic lineage known as the "machairodont" cats (lit. "sword-tooth" in Greek I think). They had absolutely nothing to do with opossums and other marsupials, or rather no more than any other placental mammal. Now, I think your confusion stems from the fact that there WAS in fact a MARSUPIAL sabretooth--South America's Thylacosmilus atrox. This beastie looked uncannily like the "sabrecats" due to convergent evolution--in other words, from a completely different starting point, it evolved a similar morphology to the sabrecats in order to fill essentially the same ecological niche in South America that the sabrecats filled in Africa, Eurasia and North America.

Also, my understanding is that Gastornis went extinct without leaving descendants. The ratites (kiwis, rheas, ostriches) are not particularly close cousins--one taxonomic approach does classify them as Struthioniformes, but their closest extant relatives are the tinamous of South America (which can fly, albeit not especially well).

One last thing--you're right about Andrewsarchus, but you missed an important point: the Artiodactyla also include the two hippopotamus species and their cousins the Cetaceans or whales. So, it's not only goats and sheep that are left!

Cheers, ~Mike

9/7/2009 2:32:17 PM
MikeSchultheiss

@meigs13: You also need this... http://grammartips.homestead.com/than.html

9/6/2009 5:40:26 PM
evilbob01

You need to learn the difference between then and than. http://grammartips.homestead.com/than.html

9/6/2009 5:39:01 PM
evilbob01

Why the hell was everything massive back then?

9/6/2009 8:24:19 AM
T-Bone24

Let me offer a simple explanation of evolution in simple terms:
There are two animals. Let's say the Cockosaurus, a reptilian, and the Bitchodon, a mammal.
The significantly larger Cockosaurus hunts the Bitchodon mercilessly, forcing them into their tiny hidey-holes. Here, the Bitchodon breeds at a dong-numbing rate. One or two of these bastard children will have a defensive trait specifically against the Cockosaurus.
Meanwhile, above ground, inevitable climate changes have forced the Cockosaurus to lose some of it's awesome traits, such as 30-inch teeth, in exchange for a bunch of fat to keep it warm.
This is when the Bitchodon comes back above ground.

A giant meteor hits, and the only survivor is something nobody heard of before. Mostly because they didn't talk.

8/28/2009 7:04:22 PM
Man_of_Paper

This isn't how evolution works.
This isn't how biology works.

8/26/2009 6:44:23 PM
GearBoxClock

p.s - it's Koala, not Koala Bear, they have no relation to the bear family at all. Australian's think people who call them that are idiots, even if they are joking...other then that, perfect :D

8/24/2009 9:34:02 AM
meigs13

Hellknight: Lizards are not dinosaur descendants. Lizards are from a seperate branch of reptilian evolution called Lepidosauromorpha. Dinosaurs are part of the Archosauromorpha reptilian group. Tyranosaurus rex itself didn't leave any descendants, however some of its coelurosaur relatives developed into todays modern birds. Dinosaurs "de"evolved into creatures like pigeons, sparrows, and chickens.

Cracked: Smilodon, the "saber toothed tiger" WAS a member of the cat family and not a marsupial. You are thinking of Thylacosmilus. Thylacosmilus was a marsupial and had wierd tooth-guard flanges on its lower jaw.

8/23/2009 9:38:09 PM
AlyenBird

what about the t-rex?the equivelant of a 20 foot tall chuck norris?he was the most ferocious predator and he evolved into.....a lizard...and i am not talking about the komodo dragon i'm talking about the common lizard with the awesome ability to recover its tail...it's like a human's ability to recover one arm pit hair....the only creature not entirely ruined from evolution is the great-f*****g-white shark...it's like he said "YEAH f**k YOU EVOLUTION" and gave it the finger....and he is even smaller that its ancestor -the megalodon-

8/18/2009 10:26:20 PM
hellknight

The little kiwi and the rhes where cute looking :P

8/17/2009 9:00:47 AM
PersonII

The fainting goats are hilarious

8/15/2009 10:27:56 AM
wickedmonkey

I wish I had a fainting goat.... hilarious

8/10/2009 7:14:09 PM
GenKefka

Poor Sloth.
It can die from not being in a tree.
Why didn't these people help it to get somewhere safe?
Idiots.

8/3/2009 3:02:55 PM
justinwayne19

That sloth was hilarious...it was like a drunken midget wookie dragging itself out of a bar. Presumably to go to another bar where it's reputation hasn't been ruined because everyone saw it hork on itself before falling out of it's chair to the floor.

8/1/2009 3:25:59 PM
Rhio2k
Cracked stuff on