The largest predatory North American dinosaur is also the continent's most famous: the king, Tyrannosaurus rex. 🏆🦖
With ecosystems as varied as oceans, plains and frozen tundras, North America is home to some giant and ferocious predators. But these modern creatures — including alligators, great white sharks and polar bears — look minuscule next to the continent's slew of ancient predators. So, what are the largest predators that have ever lived in North America?
It can be difficult for scientists to gauge the exact body weight of an extinct species, because they have to extrapolate those numbers using existing species as benchmarks, MacPhee told Live Science in an email. However, paleontologists comfortably estimate that the short-faced bear probably weighed around 1,540 pounds . Modern polar bears aren't too far off — the largest males stand around 5 feet at the shoulder and weigh around 1,300 pounds , according to Polar Bears International.
But at nearly 12 feet tall at the hips and up to 40 feet long, according to a nearly-complete, school bus-size T. rex specimen known as Stan, the terrible tyrant rex towered over most of its carnivorous contemporaries. Acrocanthosaurus, a"shark-toothed" cousin of tyrannosaurs and member of a group known as carcharodontosaurs, nearly matched T. rex's length but was lighter, weighing 6.8 tons , compared with T. rex's 7.8 tons , according to the American Museum of Natural History.
When it comes to ancient sea behemoths, a giant reptile takes the cake. Ichthyosaurs were a group of predatory marine reptiles that lived during the Mesozoic era, the same time period as the dinosaurs. In the late Triassic period, roughly 237 million years ago, an ichthyosaur known as Shonisaurus sikanniensis began swimming in the waters of what is now British Columbia, Canada.
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