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10 Extinct Beasts That Made Dinosaurs Look Friendly

Cameras were invented in the 1800s, forever changing the way we document the natural world. But the monsters I am about to show you ruled this planet long before humans ever learned to capture an image. We grow up believing that dinosaurs like the T-Rex were the ultimate nightmares of history, the apex of fear. But we are wrong. Evolution has produced beasts that lived before and after the dinosaurs that make the T-Rex look almost friendly by comparison. Today, I am going to take you back in time to reveal ten extinct beasts that defied all logic, capturing the true terrifying scale of the monsters we are lucky to never meet.
Number 10, Gigantopithecus.
Imagine for a moment that you are a traveler in the ancient world, walking through the dense, misty bamboo forests of what is now China, India, or Vietnam. The year is 300,000 BC. The air is thick and humid, and the silence of the jungle is heavy. Suddenly, the bamboo stalks ahead of you—stalks as thick as your arm—snap like dry twigs. You look up, expecting to see a bear or perhaps a tiger, but instead, you see a shadow that blocks out the sun. Standing before you is an ape, but not just any ape. This is a real-life King Kong.
The creature you are imagining is the Gigantopithecus, a monstrous ape closely related to the modern orangutan, but built on a scale that is hard to comprehend. Look at the image on screen right now. It compares the silhouette of a modern human to this prehistoric giant. You can see that a tall man would barely reach the chest of this beast. It could stand up to three meters tall—that is nearly ten feet of muscle and fur. Experts estimate it weighed up to 1,200 pounds. To put that into perspective, that is the weight of a vending machine or a small car, all packed into a living, breathing predator.
While modern movies depict giant apes as misunderstood anti-heroes, the reality of Gigantopithecus was likely far more intimidating. It roamed the bamboo forests and jungles during the Pleistocene time period, a time when the world was harsh and unforgiving. Scientists tell us that this massive creature was a vegetarian, feeding mostly on bamboo and fruit. However, do not let that diet fool you into thinking it was gentle. In nature, animals that eat plants often have to be the strongest fighters just to survive the predators that hunt them. But in the case of Gigantopithecus, its strength was so extraordinary that it likely had no natural predators at all.