Livyatan Melvillei (image painted by Balazs Petheo)
Behold the terrifying ocean monster, Livyatan Melvillei! This predatory toothed whale lived 12-13 million years ago during the Miocene epoch and grew to 13.5 to 17.5 meters (45–57 feet) in length. A large adult whale could have weighed up to 50 tons. The extinct megapredator is named for Herman Melville and for the Biblical leviathan (“Livyatan” is from the Hebrew word for Leviathan). The great whale’s family is currently listed as “incertae sedis” which means “status uncertain,” a taxonomical place-holder used when biologists are trying to ascertain a creature’s relationship to other related organisms within a larger order.
Livyatan Melvillei with smaller baleen whale
In terms of body size, the modern sperm whale is probably slightly longer and heavier, but the livyatan had stronger jaws and much larger teeth. Paleontologists describe the mighty creature as having “the biggest tetrapod bite ever found,” which is no trivial matter, since the tetrapods include all mammals, reptiles (like dinosaurs), amphibians, and birds. Of course plankton feeders (like blue whales and whale sharks) have larger mouths, but the sperm whale and the livyatan have more powerful maws filled with large sharp teeth. The 36 centimeter (1.2 foot) long teeth of livyatan are the largest known teeth from the animal world which were used for eating (which is to say the tusks of elephants, walruses, Odobenocetops, and narwhals tusks were larger, but were not used for biting into plants or animals).
Livyatan Melvillei BITING a smaller baleen whale (painting via dino-rider)
Livyatan Melvillei presumably swam the deep blue ocean hunting for seals, dolphins, baleen whales and whatever other sea creature was large enough to command its attention (giant sharks, huge squid, huge fish, and bizarre giant birds?). Like the sperm whale it seems to have had a spermaceti organ in its head although it is unclear if this was used for echolocation, auditory signaling, or aggressive male sexual display (i.e. head-butting). It must have been quite a (horrifying) sight to see one of these giant monsters biting apart a 10 meter (33 foot) long baleen whale. Sadly, the ever-changing dynamic of ocean life caused the great toothed whale to go extinct at approximately the same time as megalodon, the largest known shark (which was a contemporary of the great whale). Numerous websites speculate which great animal would have won an ocean duel–which is foolish, since whales are clever animals and thus the obvious victor.
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October 3, 2014 at 2:15 AM
Mike
That whales are clever does not mean they’re the obvious winners at all. Most large predatory sharks hunt and kill big marine mammals including dolphins. What counts to win is size and predatory apparatus. The smartness is overstated as factor.
October 6, 2014 at 1:33 AM
Wayne
I don’t understand why there are any pro-shark people in this argument. There is no underestimating intelligence–it is virtually the only meaningful variable in any contest. It’s why you are reading this on the computer and the cows are wandering down a chute marked “abattoir”. However, even if we completely suspend disbelief and pretend that the whale’s vastly superior intelligence was somehow not meaningful, the whale was still bigger, faster, stronger, and had more acute senses (echolocation, vision, hearing) than the shark (smell, electroreception).
Although I suppose this argument is all human foolishness–in reality both creatures were almost certainly too smart to ever fight each other (unless the other was somehow injured or incapacitated).
December 24, 2014 at 2:14 PM
Kom
What a ridiculous statement at the end.
Being smarter does not mean anything at all, sharks hunt and kill “smarter” marine mammals since millions of years.
December 25, 2014 at 12:26 AM
Wayne
Hmm, maybe ancient sharks could kill lesser marine mammals–such as pinnipeds or a crippled geriatric whale–but could they kill a great toothed whale when he was at full force? No chance…
Your comment reveals your full devotion to the belief that intelligence is unimportant! 🙂
January 9, 2015 at 2:39 PM
Erik
Great images, thanks!
I have one improvement to suggest: in biological nomenclature the species part of the name (here: ‘melvillei’) should *always* be lowercase, even if derived from a person’s name as is the case here. The genus part of the name (‘Livyatan’) must always be capitalized.
Another, less important, rule is to have the scientific name in a font which diverges from the surrounding text (mostly italic in regular text, or the other way round).
Greetings from Rotterdam where a copy of the skull of Livyatan is in the Natural History Museum
January 12, 2015 at 10:35 PM
Wayne
Thanks for the comment! Hereafter, I’ll be more careful with my nomenclature. Now I want to go to Rotterdam to see the monster skull you guys have.
August 19, 2018 at 8:49 PM
J Williams
People seem to have irrational shark fetishes, thanks in large part to Peter Benchley whose novel (Jaws) was heavily rooted in fantasy & speculation. Now we have The Meg (movie) out, compounding the BS factor. Hollywood always adds to the size & IQ of dinosaurs (as if they are not large & cunning enough on their own) so why not sharks too?
Paleontologists & marine biologists (& not novel writers or screenplay scribblers) are far more reliable judges of creature behavior so I’ll defer to them on these matters since they tend to inform their conclusions with actual observations, facts, & science rather than daydreams or B-movie plotlines.
L. melvillei would better Megalodon in battle most of the time (if not every time) due to its superior biological advantages: endothermy (increased endurance + greater mobility/agility in cooling oceans); superior anticipative & reactive intelligence. Mostly they would avoid each other because of the species perpetuation instinct but in a confrontation the outcome would be about the same as when orcas & great whites square off today (with the orca inevitably dining on Carcharodon fillet marinated in brine).
In 2016 (since the posting of your original blog entry) a tooth was found by a local fossil enthusiast walking along the beach at Beaumaris Bay, Melbourne, Australia (coincidentally, only an hour or so from where I grew up). Dr. Erich Fitzgerald, Senior Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at Museum Victoria, examined the conical foot-long (30 cm) tooth & figured its owner to be closely related to Peru’s L. melvillei.
This is exciting as the Beaumaris specimen is the first Livyatan type to be found outside of the Americas.
So until someone stubs his toe on fossil evidence of a larger, meaner tetrapod, L. melvillei is, for my money, the awesomest predator the world has ever seen. Those two rows of the biggest meat-biters yet seen in any life form convince me of it.