Some animals, including saltwater crocodiles, gray wolves, great white sharks, and tigers, have preyed on humans, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths. Humans have tools to defend themselves, but extinct predators like the cave hyena, dire wolf, and giant Australian lizard Megalania likely went extinct due to human activity. These animals would have competed with humans for food and land and may have preyed on them, with Megalania likely using venom to kill its victims.
Contrary to popular belief in the developed world, there are some animals that willingly prey on sensitive humans. These include saltwater crocodiles, gray wolf, great white shark, tigers and many more. Over the past two centuries, tens of thousands of humans have died from attacks by these animals, particularly tigers and crocodiles. But, by and large, humans reign over these animals with tools like guns and traps. This was not always the case, as there are many extinct predators of humans that would have terrorized mankind such as the giant crocodile Gustave today terrorizes natives in places like Lake Tangianyika in Burundi.
This article will focus on three likely extinct predators of humans: the cave hyena, the dire wolf, and the giant Australian lizard Megalania. All of these animals have existed for over a million years and went extinct between 40,000 and 9,000 years ago, strongly suggesting that humans were the agent of the extinction.
The cave hyena was a subspecies of the spotted hyena that lived in caves throughout Eurasia, including Beringia to the north. Cave hyenas, being a subspecies of the modern hyena, were about the same size and intelligence, but on average they had stronger hindquarters, which initially caused them to be classified as a separate species. Like modern hyenas, which occasionally prey on human children, cave hyenas would have preyed on humans and raced with them for caves. Caves with alternating cycles of Neanderthal and cave hyena bones have been discovered, and cave hyenas have been implicated as a delaying factor in human migration from Eurasia to North America.
The dire wolf was a larger relative of the gray wolf with larger teeth and sharper carnassals, which would have been used to sever bones, evidenced by extensive tooth wear on many dire wolf fossils. The dire wolf lived in the Americas, unlike the gray wolf which originated in Eurasia. The Dire Wolf had a smaller braincase than modern wolves, suggesting that it was less intelligent. Its status among predators of humans is implied by its evolutionary relationship to modern wolves, some of which consume humans when given the chance. In ancient North America, Dire Wolves would have competed closely with humans for food and land.
Another likely predator of humans is the giant lizard Megalania, related to the modern Komodo dragon but more than twice as large. Modern Komodo dragons have been observed stalking humans and attacking children, making it likely that Megalania would have exhibited the same behavior. Megalania is the largest lizard that ever lived, reaching 7m (23ft) in length and weighing 620kg (1,400lbs). Unlike mammalian predators, it would have had a slow metabolism and was probably an ambush predator. In a long chase, the humans would surely have escaped, but if they hadn’t seen what was coming, they would have been bitten by the lizard’s two-footed jaws, which were likely coated in venom like the jaws of the Komodo dragon. This would have led to an agonizing death.
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