Entelodont: The Prehistorical Animals With Teeth As Thick As A Human Wrist
Wikimedia CommonsAn illustration of the entelodont.
The next prehistoric animal looks like it waltzed straight out of hell. Indeed, the entelodont goes by the nickname “hell pigs.”
These beasts had teeth the size of a human wrist, nubby bones in their face for fights with each other or other animals, and cloven hooves. The largest of their genus, called Daeodon — Greek for “hostile teeth” — could weigh up to 2,000 pounds.
Hell pigs charged onto the scene during the Eocene era. From Mongolia, they rapidly spread to Europe and even to North America. Archeologists have found fossils of the entelodont in places like Nebraska, Wyoming, and South Dakota.
However, the entelodont didn’t spend its days preying on other prehistoric animals. Instead, it seems that it used its enormous jaws to dig for roots and chew plants.
Wikimedia CommonsA skeleton of the daeodon, the largest species of entelodont.
That said, the hell pigs were likely omnivores. Even if they didn’t kill first-hand, they may have just waited for other animals to kill before scaring them off and eating their prey.
The hell pigs probably scared most animals in their environment, even if they didn’t outright kill them to eat. Bite marks left by Daeodon have been found on a number of animals including prehistoric rhinos.
In the end, it took a combination of factors to finally take down the entelodont. As the climate changed, the hell pigs’ beloved forests turned into grassy fields. Forced to travel long distances for food, the pigs likely lost out to animals that moved faster.
Plus, a number of new predators appeared on the horizon during the entelodont’s existence. They soon faced formidable foes like the saber-toothed cat as well as bear dogs.
The last of the entelodont went extinct between 19 and 16 million years ago. Since then, these fearsome ancient animals exist only as fossils in museums — or perhaps as hellish pigs, running through your nightmares.
