|
"Only now do we know the true story- Megarachne was a giant prehistoric sea scorpion." |
Platybelodon is an ancient relative of modern elephants, but this beast had a much shorter trunk and a pair of the biggest buck teeth ever seen on Earth. The platybelodon used its flat teeth to slice through thick plant stems and uproot clumps of shrubs straight out of the ground. Like modern elephants, these beasts traveled in herds. They roamed all over the planet millions of years ago.
Tough Tusks: Platybelodon had two sharp tusks poking out of its upper jaw. Unlike the tusks on modern elephants, these pointed downward, so the creature could use them to stab into predators that were attacking it or its young.
Swimming Trunk: This creature spent most of its time near water, so it probably did a lot of wading and swimming. When deep in water, platybelodon used its short trunk as a snorkel in order to breathe.
Shoveling it In[]
Famous archeologist Roy C. Andrews found this dino's fossils in 1928.
Platybelodon's unusual wide, flat teeth stuck out from its lower jaw. These teeth were useless for chewing, but they still helped the animal eat. When trudging around a swamp and finding a clump of tall plants, platybelodon wrapped its trunk around the stems, then sheared them in half with the sharp edges of its over-grown incisors. Platybelodon could also simply uproot masses of small shrubs by digging its teeth into the mud and scooping them up, using its buck teeth like a shovel.
Around the World: Platybelodon was a worldwide wanderer, but it apparently rarely traveled alone. Fossils from herds of these beasts have been found together in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Bogged Down: This ancient relative of elephants was one heavy beast. At 8,000 pounds, it was easy for this creature to sink and become stranded deep in mud along the edges of lakes and swamps where it fed.
A Family Thing[]
- Anancus was one of platybelodon's cousins. This beast, which is also extinct, had great tusks that measured up to 13 feet. The animal used them to dig up tubers, such as potatoes.
- A more modern relative was cuiveronius. This beast had sharp, spiraling tusks. Scientists speculate that humans may have hunted the creature to extinction about 1,600 years ago.
- Ambelodon was a dead ringer for platybelodon. It also had flat tusks and used them like shovels to scoop out huge mouthfuls of plants from the muddy bottom of swamps.
Trading Card[]
Trivia[]
- The trading card has the Ruby Defense Power trait.
- In the caption for the back image, it refers to platybelodon as a dinosaur when it was a mammal.
- The platybelodon is used as part of one of the fake creatures in Find The Fakes on Monster Mania 44.
- The featured illustration of the platybelodon (and the card descriptions corresponding to this depiction) is very likely outdated, where some theories suggest that the creature had a trunk to an extent like its relatives, and not a flexible nose and upper jaw fusion[1], better depicted in this image here[2].
- It is also now believed that the tusks were used to slice branches off trees, not scoop aquatic plants.
- The explorer credited with discovering this creature's fossils, Roy Chapman Andrews, is the namesake of the Andrewsarchus.