Not the sleekest of whales, Leviathan couldn't have fishtailed it away from attackers with any great speed- nor would it have been inclined to do so, since it was presumably the apex predator of its particular patch of ocean, incursions by the unfamiliar Megalodon aside. Second, as a warm-blooded mammal, Leviathan presumably possessed a bigger brain than any plus-sized sharks or fish in its habitat and thus would have been quicker to react in close-quarter, fin-to-fin combat.Įnormous size is a mixed blessing: sure, Leviathan's sheer bulk would have intimidated would-be predators, but it also would have presented many more acres of warm flesh to an especially hungry (and desperate) Megalodon. First, this prehistoric whale's teeth were even longer and thicker than those of Megalodon, some of them measuring well over a foot long in fact, they're the longest identified teeth in the animal kingdom, mammal, bird, fish or reptile. Originally named Leviathan melvillei, after the biblical behemoth of myth and the author of Moby-Dick, this whale's genus name was changed to the Hebrew Livyatan after it turned out that "Leviathan" had already been assigned to an obscure prehistoric elephant.Īside from its almost impenetrable bulk, Leviathan had two major things going for it.
In the Near Corner: Leviathan, the Giant Sperm Whaleĭiscovered in Peru in 2008, the 10-foot-long skull of Leviathan testifies to a truly enormous prehistoric whale that plied the coasts of South America about 12 million years ago, during the Miocene epoch.
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