12 Prehistoric Creatures That Still Live Today

evolution is a mystery we are told that we all came from monkeys but not the same monkeys we see walking around today we are also told that everything changes over time and yet there are still creatures all around us who have survived unchanged for millions of years there like a living breathing link to the dinosaurs you can consider these creatures to be the ultimate survivors they'll probably be here long after we humans become extinct ourselves let's find out who and what they are Nothe mermie sia is a difficult word to say so let's call these rare and precious ants by their nickname dinosaur ants it took us a while to notice they even existed they only live in Australia and we didn't find them there until 1931 by studying them we now know that they can be traced back to the Cretaceous era making them at least 74 million years old as a species they might have survived this long because they're great at hiding after their initial discovery explorers and scientists went searching for them again but it took 40 years before another colony could be found the town in which they were found again pooch ara might be the only town in the world that has an ant based tourism industry insect lovers and researchers come from all over the world to study the dinosaur ants up close and there are statues of them on the streets apart from having one of the coolest names in the animal kingdom the Komodo dragon is also one of the longest-lived species of reptiles in the world you can find Komodo dragons on several islands on Indonesia and they can grow up to 3 meters long in the wild they can be pretty savage creatures they hunt deer for food and there have been several incidents of them attacking humans who've gotten too close we can be fairly sure that Komodo dragons have existed in their current form for at least 4 million years but that isn't really doing them justice you can trace their parent species back at least 40 million years and all that's really changed is they moved to Indonesia from Australia when the continents collided many many millions of years ago there's a species of fish floating around off the coast of Africa who may hold the clues as to how life first moved out of the oceans they're called polyp terrace Senegal but people like to call them dinosaur eels or dragon fish in truth the fish isn't quite an eel or a dinosaur but it comes from the right period you can trace these dragon fish back to the Carboniferous era that's around four hundred million years ago what separates dragon fish from eels is their thick scaled skin eels don't have any scales at all but for dragon fish they act like armor plating defending them from predators maybe that's why they're still around they can also walk on land it sounds unbelievable but dragon fish have strong pectoral fins which they can use to keep themselves upright and primitive lungs to breathe air so long as their skin stays wet they can stay out of the water indefinitely everybody knows about great white sharks they served as the monster for the film jaws and their terrifying creatures they're enormous in size they can grow up to 20 feet long and weigh up to 4,200 pounds making them among the largest fish in the sea and one of the largest animals in the world they are also incredibly old we can definitely say that they're at least 16 million years old because we found great white shark fossils which date back to that era in truth they're just slightly lighter versions of the Megalodon an even more prehistoric shark that can be traced back a full 23 million years most scientists believe that Megalodon are extinct but there are some videos that seem to show them alive and well in our oceans today bear in mind that we have explored less than 5% of the Earth's seas anything could be down there lurking beneath the surface waiting to be discovered again all we need is the right equipment and some very brave explorers if you're afraid of spiders look away now there are many species of spiders who have been on the planet for longer than we have we wonder if cavemen used to be scared when they found one weaving a web in the corner of their caves not many spiders are capable of weaving larger or more beautiful webs than the golden silk orb-weaver even its name is a compliment about its web making skills but it's also known as the banana spider or the giant wood spider the spiders are a member of the Nephila family who tend to live in north or south america and have done so for somewhere between 13 and 37 million years depending on who you listen to about their background they're very slightly venomous and can take on a meal several times larger than them one banana spider was even observed slowly eating a half metre long brown tree snake in the wild when everything works there's no reason to change it pelicans are a wading bird they can live fly and swim close to water and they have a huge beak that lets them scoop out their prey it's worked for them for thirty million years and it will probably keep working for them for a long time to come pelicans have expanded to live in every continent in the world apart from Antarctica in fact the only threat they've ever had came from us pesticides which humans invented including DDT poisoned the food supply of pelicans living in and around North America which dramatically impacted their number there fortunately they're now recovering you'd never mistake the platypus for any other animal they're so unusual looking that when the first platypus body was discovered in 1799 and presented to scientists the scientists thought it was a hoax to them it looked like someone had stitched several different animals together to make it look like something else but the platypus is very real and lives on the east coast of Australia never tell a platypus that it looks weird though they have a venomous spur that can cause extreme pain to human the platypus is a lonely creature not only does it only live in one small part of the world it's also the very last of its kind it used to be part of a family of similar animals all of which have died out apart from the humble platypus that makes it the final surviving type of a species which can be traced back around 60 million years to the early Paleocene era if you'd never encountered a sea urchin before you could be forgiven for thinking it was just a plant in the water it would be a dangerous mistake to pick one up though because they're living creatures with deadly stings in fact an untreated sea urchin sting can be very dangerous if it ever happens to you always see a doctor immediately the word virgin comes from the old latin for a hedgehog and that's how sea urchins got their name people thought they looked like the hedgehogs of the sea their poisonous spines act as their defense mechanism as they crawl across rocks along the seabed eating anything they find along the way it's a life they've been living almost completely unchanged for nearly 485 million years somewhere between the turtle and the Hedgehog is the armadillo the distinctive creature seemed to borrow a little from both species although you could also say that they look like an armored rat armadillos have been living on the American continent for around 60 million years armadillos are peaceful creatures they're burrowing animals with very poor eyesight and only eat insects and grubs they don't bother humans at all despite that a man in Texas in 2015 tried to shoot one which he found on his land the shell of the armadillo was so thick that the bullet rebounded and struck the attacker in the face the armadillo walked away completely unharmed the tadpole shrimp or triops can performace to give it its proper name is a tiny little creature that's been around for a very long time because of fossil study we know that they've existed exactly as they are without any changes at all for 200 million year that takes them all the way back to the Triassic era it's a wonder they've survived this long given some of their habits despite having red bellies making them visible to birds they often swim too close to the surface of the water and become easy pickings for predators also if they're hungry and there's no other food around they become cannibals and start eating each other perhaps they won't be around very much longer in 1952 a species of creature long thought dead was accidentally rediscovered during a Mexican fishing expedition casting their nets the fishermen brought on board a form of mollusk called a neo polina being experienced with what lays in the ocean the men realized this didn't look like any mollusk they'd seen before when an expert examined it he realized something amazing it was a mono pleco fora a species of mollusk dating back nearly 550 million years and only previously found as fossils somehow they'd survived to the present day these types of mollusks are very important to researchers studying evolution even though they're so ancient and primitive they have kidneys intestines and nerves the building blocks for more advanced life forms that would come several million years later taking one last trip into the water we find the alligator gar imagine an alligator that lives underwater and you're bang on the money these huge fish are native to North America and they can grow anything up to ten feet long and over 300 pounds in weight like their cousins on land they have a razor-sharp teeth you wouldn't want to get in the way of one they were once considered to be a nuisance fish in some parts of America because it was wrongly thought they were endangering game fish which are the types of fish that fishermen hunt for therefore they were targeted for elimination for a while until they were better understood it's just as well we realized our mistake before it was too late if we'd wiped them out we'd have destroyed a species that's over a hundred million years old thank you for watching subscribe to the channel and see you soon [Music]

Channel: Amazing Stock

Views: 42,179

Keywords: prehistoric animals, extinct animals, prehistoric creatures, still alive, won't believe, exist, prehistoric animals found, sea creatures, megalodon alive, creatures that still exist, Prehistoric Creatures That STILL LIVE TODAY

Id: OCyIm9YlFg4

Length: 11min 22sec (682 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 09 2018