11 Contemporary Animals That Don’t Look Like Their Own Ancestors

Evolution is something really impressive. For us, it’s kind of hard to imagine the prehistoric world and its strange creatures, so different everything was compared to today. For example, in the Cambrian Period, the oceans were shallower, and the sun never set. Every day felt like a beautiful Sunday morning, and there was no such thing as darkness. Animals had just discovered that they could eat each other, and having eyeballs was all the rage. Just thinking that our dogs and cats are descended from those guys sends our minds into a tailspin!

O awesome.club ventured to trace the origin of some contemporary animals that we all know, reaching impressive conclusions. Get ready to see with your own eyes how surprising evolution is!

Today’s ocean giants have the humblest of beginnings. All cetaceans, including whales, orcas and dolphins, came from a cat-sized, mouse-like animal called the indohyus, which not only lived on land but was also a vegetarian. The case of the indohyus shows evolution causing a turnaround, as most of this animal’s relatives crawled on land, while these animals ended up returning to the water.

The most curious thing is that whales are closely related to cows, sharing the same common ancestor.

When it comes to evolution, giraffes are like real life pokemons: each stage was totally different from the other, even though it retained some of the basic characteristics. The “grandfather” of giraffes, the prolibytherium, measured 1.80 meters and was more like a deer. Both males and females had rather bizarre horns, formed by wide plates and in the form of leaves (in the case of males). Females had smaller and more “normal” horns in today’s eyes.

The largest predator that ever walked the Earth was called andrewsarchus. The beast’s monstrous head alone was almost a meter long – half of which was formed by a snout and jaw with long teeth. You might think that a carnivore of that size would be an ancestor of wolves or hyenas. However, its closest living relative to this day is the hippopotamus. Apparently those teeth run in the family.

In a way, sloths are a quirk of evolution. Currently, these arboreal animals are extremely slow, clumsy and vulnerable, spending most of their time sleeping. It’s even intriguing to think how they survived as a species. Its ancestor, the megatherium, was a mighty terrestrial colossus, capable of taking on bears and mammoths in a fight. They were as big as today’s elephants and could weigh over four tons.

Contrary to what the name might suggest, hyaenodon is not related to hyenas. Despite his dog-like appearance, large teeth, and carnivorous diet, he is not ancestor of dogs either. Its closest relative among contemporary animals is the… pangolin, the most polite among animals. It is not clear at what moment those enormous predators turned into small bipeds that ate ants and other insects. Is this a real world werewolf case?

Today’s pigs, wild boars and pigs in general are not animals that go unnoticed: they are highly intelligent, strong, bulky and agile. Such characteristics together are already a great recipe for evolutionary success. However, in the past pigs were much bigger, more powerful and scary looking. Unlike the relatively small teeth of today, they had large fangs. Like contemporary pigs, the entelodon was omnivorous, but because it was able to take down prey easily, it ended up leaning more towards a predatory lifestyle. Also, they hunted in packs.

Knowing all this, it is easy to imagine the reasons why the animal earned the nickname “pig from hell”.

Horses are often associated with elegance, nobility and speed, so fans of the animal may be a little disappointed to learn that the prehistoric “horse”, the brontotheriidae, was an animal more similar to a rhinoceros. They were stocky, slow-moving, with relatively short legs and a weird pair of horns.

Compared to other animals on our list, the changes in this case weren’t as drastic, basically sticking to size. The ancestor of contemporary armadillos, the glyptodont, was about the same dimensions as a Volkswagen Beetle, while also having approximately the same weight as the vehicle.

Surprisingly, dogs and bears share a common ancestor, yet it didn’t look like either animal we know today. The cynodictis was an animal of small proportions, about 70 centimeters long and weighing up to five kilos. To tell the truth, its appearance was closer to that of a cat or a weasel. According to archaeologists’ speculations, the animal behaved similarly to dogs, living in packs and hunting small furry prey in the middle of the plain.

The most representative thing about rhinos is certainly the animal’s horns. So it’s even strange to think that their ancestors didn’t have any horns. At one time, the indricotherium was the largest land mammal that ever lived, beating elephants by far. It reached about 7.4 meters in length, weighing between 15 and 20 tons.

An extra curiosity: the battle vehicles used in the Star Wars movie saga were very much inspired by a close relative of the indicotherium, the paraceratheriums.

Although commonly portrayed in movies as scaly reptiles, most dinosaurs are closer to birds than lizards. Technically, all contemporary birds are dinosaurs, but not all dinosaurs were birds, just a group called theropods. It included the iconic T-rex, velociraptor and all other carnivorous and two-legged dinosaurs. Incidentally, the term raptor, from English, is translated as “bird of prey”.

“Life-size representation of a megalodon, hanging in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, USA © kcox1980 / reddit