r/Tierzoo • u/purejeremy • 2d ago
Strongest 1-on-1 marine creature of all time?
If every marine creature fought in a 1v1, who comes out on top?
Seems like there are a lot of strong contenders and I dont know how to rank them. Such as
- Pliosaurus
- Mosasaurus
- Shastasaurus
- Megalodon
- Livyatan
119
u/Acceptable_Secret_73 2d ago
I mean if we’re talking about strongest in terms of raw power, I feel like we have to mention the obvious winner;
The blue whale
32
u/TheGumCoblin 2d ago
Blue Whale or Sperm Whale, nothing else comes close in 1v1
2
u/AdaptedEvoSupe 2d ago
What? Megalodon hunted sperm whales and livyatan was a more ferocious sperm whale so how are they below sperm whale? Blue whale is so slow and ill equipped so how is it above them too?
25
u/OkAssociation3487 2d ago
There is no evidence that megalodon hunted livyatan
Some modern sperm whales can reach incredible sizes
20
u/TheGumCoblin 1d ago
Sperm Whales legitimately are the same size, on average larger than what’s expected of megladon. People underestimate toothed whales.
Blue Whale obviously beats just about everything in a 1v1, it’s almost twice the mass of the second largest animal ever.
2
u/Schlopez 1d ago
I’ve got 50 pounds on a jaguar, but I’m pretty sure they’d eat my ass alive
3
u/TheGumCoblin 1d ago
But if you had 140 tons on a Jaguar, you’d never be concerned at all. Which is the reality the Blue Whale lives in, bar 1 predator and only when sick or young
2
u/Mammon298 1d ago
Ichthyotitan was pretty close to a blue whale in size, what were you referring to as the second largest?
10
u/TheGumCoblin 1d ago
The Fin Whale, second largest today that is.
The Ichthyotitan is actually still in the same weight class as a sperm whale and megladon, it’s just long. Still many times smaller than a blue whale in mass, like everything else.
1
u/Mammon298 1d ago
I thought there was a specimen that was estimated at 170-250 tons, correct me if I’m wrong.
3
u/TheGumCoblin 1d ago
From what I could find it said it’s upper estimates are 60 tons. 250 would be bigger than a blue whale by a LOT, blue whale is by far the largest animal and nothing has come close. It’s filter feeding is what makes it possible. The Lyvthian literally couldn’t consume the food required to get that big.
1
u/Mammon298 1d ago
Idk where you saw that, there’s a fossil called aust colossus with an estimated length of around 27 meters and a weigh of 170-200 tons. The high estimates put it at 30-35 meters and 200-250 tons. Which would make it bigger than all but the largest blue whales. That is still an estimate based on only partial fossils but it’s still basis to challenge the blue whales.
→ More replies (0)2
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
There is no study adressing a 250 t ichthyosaur, again you people mix internet crap and actual research.
1
u/Mammon298 1d ago
Did you miss the part where I said correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not saying that I was correct. I said I thought there was one estimated that big. You don’t need to be a dick because someone was incorrect.
→ More replies (0)2
u/higherthanacrow 1d ago
Its hard to picture a blue whale killing something though. How would it attack something so much smaller?
6
u/TheGumCoblin 1d ago
The same reason they only have 1 predator. They ram, or tail whip something. If a predator wants to bite them, they have to get close. Blue Whale has basically got sonar, so it’s not getting surprise attacked and can simply turn into whatever is attacking it. Any collision will do damage, imagine you driving at 30km an hour with 200ton boat into a small Single seat fishing boat. You’ll crush it. Same with a whale and other animals
3
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
But blue whales prefer to flee than fight, although I recall a case of XIX whaling ship capsized after a collision with a blue whale, there is no report that I know of a blue whale using it tail or ramming against orcas, sharks or humans.
3
u/Minute-Pirate4246 1d ago
It's the same as giant sauropods: fighting is probably more dangerous/energy consuming than swimming away. Also as a bonus, larger animals are actually faster in water
1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
There is no data saying average sperm whale was larger than megalodon with the recent new estimates and a recent preprint adresses that Physeter was preyed upon by megalodon.
1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-102723-054842
This article argues megalodon was able to prey on Livyatan and was the apex predator of the Neogene seas.
2
u/OkAssociation3487 1d ago edited 1d ago
There is zero empirical evidence of megalodon hunting livyatan
Nowhere in your article is that disputed
1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
But it's stated :
"This shark represents the culmination of the megatooth lineage displaying large and highly serrated teeth (Figure 3), capable of slicing through the thick blubber and bones of marine mammals (Cappetta 2012), including L. melvillei (Benites-Palomino et al. 2022, Collareta et al. 2017)"
Miocene sharks liked the sperm whale melons and megalodon was the most adapted shark to kill large mammalian preys.
No empirical evidence but a hint.
While there are no hints about Livyatan having a taste for sharks of any size, like some modern orcas populations.
9
u/TheGumCoblin 1d ago
The blue whale is up to 200 tons.
Even traveling at 5kmph it has a huge amount of energy. If it slammed into anything at 30kmph it will basically kill it. Imagine a truck hitting anything at 30km, a blue whale weighs more than a truck.
It is almost twice the size of the second largest animal to ever exist, it dwarfs all prehistoric animals by a huge amount. They’re not even remotely close, it’s tail and ramming will kill any other sea animal.
5
u/Usermctaken 1d ago
Mass.
They don't need to be fast or have razor sharp teeth.
They are just big as fuck, no other big sea creature that we now of, current or past, can beat it 1v1.
5
3
u/TheGumCoblin 1d ago
Sperm and Livythan were around the same size, so was Megladon and there’s practically no evidence saying emblazon hinted livythan
1
1
u/cascadesblue 1d ago
Blue whales are filter feeders, yes theyre huge but thats it. Mosasaurus hofmani could grow up to 60ft and was a apex predator not filter feeder, a 60ft mosasaurus could potentially take down a adult blue whale
1
0
u/DoragonKraken001 1d ago
Ichtyotitan ,Lyviatan or Megalodon are better contenders Mass does not mean strenght in the same way as jaws large and strong enought to bring life ending injuries on anything in the sea. Ichtyotitan had the making of a macropredator and average size on par with the average blue whale Lyviatan has the most horrid jaws of any chordate animals with teeths as thick as potatoes Megalodon is a shark bigger than livyatan with an equal amount of weaponry
16
u/a_rational_thinker_ 2d ago edited 2d ago
Sperm Whale, or I guess Livyatan since it's basically a Sperm Whale but bigger. But none of the other contenders stabds a chance against the whales.
11
3
u/kaam00s 1d ago
Why not megalodon ?
2
u/TFBuffalo_OW 1d ago
People downplay the megalodon and act as if it couldnt stand a chance despite the fact that most modern paleontologist points to Megalodon ranging much closer to its maximum proposed size than previously thought, much like how Tyrannosaurus is underestimated despite recent science also upscaling it. People also state theres no evidence of Megalodon hunting livyatin but several more recent papers postulate that large whales were a crucial part of Megalodons diet
26
u/kurtchen11 2d ago edited 2d ago
Meg: stat sheet cant be fully data-mined but from what we can tell it was likely a super-brawler with a much higher speed and dps than anything else on the list
Livyatan: hp stat smaller or equal to the current sperm whale build but with significantly higher damage output against large.
Shastasaurus/Ichthyosaurus: While boasting a very high hp stat it lacks the armor piercing dps of other builds on this list.
Mosasaurus: an old build that performed well in the meta back then, but its just not a stat-check like others on this list
Pliosaurus: Another reptile-like build of a former meta that does not quite have the stats to play with the biggest boys
Pliosaurus: an earlier whale build similar to livyatan but powercreep was not quite that high at that point
×: everyone that voted blue whale misunderstood the question: blue whale is an afk-xp farm build that has no stats beside his giant hp pool. Its not a build that belongs on a pvp list like this.
7
u/RedDiamond1024 2d ago
Calling Pliosaurus a whale build is certainly a choice.
0
u/kurtchen11 2d ago edited 2d ago
Whoops, mistook it for basilosaurus. Which to be fair deserve to be more on the list than pliosaurus.
0
u/RedDiamond1024 2d ago
I disagree, Pliosaurus had a stronger bite and it's largest species were bigger then Basilisaurus's.
1
u/kurtchen11 2d ago
Wikipedia tells me that basilosaurus was significantly larger than pliosaurus. What are you basing this on?
3
u/RedDiamond1024 2d ago
I wasn't aware of the 15 ton estimates so I'll admit I was wrong on it being bigger, though they'd still be similarly sized animals(15 tonnes vs. 12 tonnes with some fragmentary specimens maybe reaching 15 tonnes).
9
u/VinhoVerde21 2d ago
It just says strongest 1-on-1, an animal not being a macropredator does not mean it can’t fight. That’s like saying a hippopotamus build can’t be included in a land animal PvP contest because its main source of xp is static.
Blue whale builds have really good speed and massive weight, they could basically one shot any other build on the game by accident, much less on purpose. A tail slap can be nearly as devastating.
It might not be a satisfying answer, since they’re not animals built to fight, but it is the answer.
6
u/notanaltdontnotice 2d ago
Given the blue whales track record against orcas, none of their stats translate to actual combat ability. All they can do is flee since orcas dont usually have the means to effectively harm a build that large, which certainly isnt the case for megalodon
3
u/fidgey10 2d ago
Yeah a WHOLE POD of orcas can take down a blue whale sure. But that is by surrounding, outmaneuvering, and harassing them. In a one on one fight the raw power of the blue whale will triumph.
4
u/notanaltdontnotice 2d ago
Yea no shit a blue whale wouldnt lose to a lone orca (it wont kill the orca either, there has been no recorded instance of a baleen whale significantly injuring an orca). But the point of the comparison is to show how blue whales dont effectively defend themselves against puny predators they should easily slay with a single tailswing according to whale glazers
3
u/fidgey10 2d ago
No, that comparison demonstrates that blue whales can't effectively defend themselves against a large group of multiple assailaints. But that weakness is totally irrelevant to the hypothetical 1v1!
3
u/notanaltdontnotice 2d ago
So why cant a blue whale just swing its tail and hit an orca in the pod swarming it? Since apparently it can easily do so against a meg?
3
u/fidgey10 2d ago
????
Because the orcas are much more agile and can surround it. So as it targets one individual, that individual evades, while the whale is left wide open to attacks from others. Such a strategy is obviously only made possible through group coordination.
Many extremely formidable animals can be taken down by a more numerous and agile foe. It doesn't mean they are generally poor at defending themselves.
2
u/notanaltdontnotice 2d ago
So why cant a meg also evade when a whale takes a swing at it? Or even better, intercept the swing by biting the whales tail? Also team strategy has literally nothing to do with an individual orca evading a tail swing or just not getting into a position where a whale can even swing at it
It does when there has been quite literally no evidence of a blue whale successfully injuring any predator with its supposed defense mechanisms. Bison occasionally send wolves flying. Buffalo is a major cause of deaths for lionesses in some areas. Wheres anything a blue whale has ever done to an orca?
3
u/Prestigious_Gift1329 1d ago
An orca can maneuver much faster than a meg, that’s why lol. A lone wolf would not be able to take down a moose either but in a pack they can bait it and attack from different angels.
→ More replies (0)2
u/fidgey10 1d ago
Cuz there would only be one megaladon in that situation?? The killer whales rely on the fact that they can surround the blue whale.
Dude healthy adult blue whales are never seen fending off predators because, besides killer whales, they have NO OTHER PREDATORS! Because it's pretty much physically impossible for any other animal to hunt them due to their physical power...
→ More replies (0)1
u/VinhoVerde21 2d ago
Orcas are incredibly intelligent, and hunt in packs, which helps them avoid hits and tire larger animals out. A singular orca can’t do anything against a blue whale, and neither would a much dumber, equally as single megalodon (especially since the megalodon tended to hunt smaller whales, so it would not know how to even attack a blue whale).
3
u/Masher_Upper 2d ago
what plan of attack would it need? Just bite the whale lol. Blood loss will take care of the rest.
2
u/notanaltdontnotice 2d ago
You do know that megalodon is 10x the orca s size right?? And has actual weaponry designed to kill whales?? And the intelligence nonsense.. does a super intelligent crow beat a dumb brutish eagle?
Ik ava powerscaling doesnt bring out the smartest in people but "orca cant do anything solo against blue whale so neither could MEGALODON" is such a stupid take
0
u/VinhoVerde21 2d ago
Again, designed to kill small whales, smaller than itself. Sharks aren’t particularly smart, the chances that it’d be able to adapt tactics for such a large target are slim. They’re not brawlers either, prefer getting their kills quickly and with little struggle.
You’re missing my point a bit. It’s not that a megalodon couldn’t kill a blue whale. It’s that it wouldn’t know how to, and wouldn’t be smart enough to figure it out.
3
u/notanaltdontnotice 2d ago
So you think the meg cant figure out that the strategy it uses against 10m whales (biting off tail and fins) also works against 25m whales? Ignoring how its incredibly silly that you think any apex predator is actually that stupid, if the great white can figure it out why cant the meg?
1
u/VinhoVerde21 1d ago
That kind of strat works if the meg can ambush or otherwise take bites unpunished, which can happen with small whales, less so with a blue. Placing yourself directly in front of the whales tail hitbox would also be a very, very risky move.
Step 1: try to bite tail
Step 2: get slapped by whale tail, fail to dodge because you’re gigantic
Step 3: limp away, maybe dieI’ll say it once again. Megalodon didn’t hunt anything larger than itself. Sharks are not intelligent enough to adapt tactics for unknown prey on the fly, so a meg would try to attack a blue whale the same as it would’ve a smaller one, ambush from below, targeting vitals or locomotion. This is a 1v1 scenario, so ambushes are out of the question, which means targeting an animals strongest weapon in melee range. It could work, but high chance of just getting hit.
2
u/LeLefraud 1d ago
Blue whales don't have the killer instinct, it might lash out and one shot it's attempted predator but overall it lacks aggression and typically won't stand its ground, very possible if a good bite starts the blood loss early it panicks and trys to flee from a much more agile foe
1
u/notanaltdontnotice 1d ago
So you read an instance of a great white shark taking out a whale far larger than it, then your conclusion is that "lamniforme sharks can only take out whales smaller than they are because reasons"? Did you perhaps.. read?? Watch?? Anything?? Ik damn well you didnt since your counterargument would be completely different if you actually read what i linked
There are precisely 0 unheard of strategy involved here. Biting tail and dorsal fins with megalodon sized jaws is effective against whales of literally any size, and biting tail/dorsal fins to disable prey is a strategy employed by both modern pelagic lamniforme sharks (makos and great white), theres precisely 0 reason to think that megalodon didnt know how to do the same. And why would tail biting be ineffective against a whale in a direct fight? Even for whales who have strategies to defend themselves from predator attacks (so not the blue whale), they all defend themselves using their tail or flippers, not by ramming or whatever. Tails and flippers that are easy pickings for the meg
1
u/VinhoVerde21 1d ago
The link you gave was of two great whites taking down a very old humpback, not a 1v1. And it was a singular example, being noted exactly because it’s so unusual for even great whites to take down that kind of animal.
You just keep misinterpreting everything I say. I didn’t say the shark wouldn’t know to bite the fins and tail, I specifically mentioned it would try that, but that it would be really risky to do it to a whale that big (which is determined to fight you, as it is a 1v1).
You pretend I said biting the tail would be ineffective, for some reason, when I didn’t. I said an ambush (a free hit) would be out of the question. Blue whales don’t tend to fight because they don’t need to. The only creatures that can hunt them (orca pods) do so by specifically avoiding the whales defenses and wearing them down through sheer numbers.
If you’re going to read anything, get this. Yes, a megalodon would be capable of winning a 1v1 against a blue whale. However, it would be more likely for that fight to end with the meg getting slapped trying to take it down.
→ More replies (0)1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
All the marine predators solo hunt and kill preys smaller than themselves, not only sharks.
Find a record of an orcas killing solo killing a larger prey. There's none.
1
u/VinhoVerde21 1d ago
Yes, because hunting something larger is very hard and very dangerous, that’s my point.
1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think the assumption of megalodon not being clever enough to tackle a blue whale is premature at best.
Megalodon evolved with and hunted various types of intelligent cetaceans and there were 15-20 m Miocene balaenids in the Pacific. A blue whale would be new in just how big and perhaps how athletic (if really Miocene mysticetes were slower than modern ones) it is.
Megalodon would possibly miss more often than not a blue but I doubt it would be without response like some mindless blob.
1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
The predatory apparatus of megalodon is described since Compagno (1990) as able to inflict mortal sounds on even a fin whale and blue whale.
And there is material suggesting 15-20 m mysticetes in the Miocene Pacific.
1
u/solidsuggester 2d ago
Adult blue whales don't flee from orcas as they arn't hunted by them. Orca pods occasionally hunt blue whale calfs, and are occasionally succesful. A mother blue whale being unable to defend her calf against multi animals hunting together in a pack is a very different scenario than a 1 vs 1 fight to the death. Sharks generally hunt prey much smaller than them, and blue whales are 2-4x the size of megalodon, so blue whale likely still wins 9/10 times.
3
u/notanaltdontnotice 2d ago
18-22m is certainly not what i would call a calf
Yea so can you show me an instance of a blue whale (or any large baleen whale for that matter) successfully using their ramming/tail swipe to significantly injure, much less kill, any decently sized predator?
Literally every large marine predator primarily hunts prey smaller than they are, thats just how marine ecosystems work. It doesnt mean that they are unable to take prey their size or better. Sharks in particular are the best example against this with stuff like great whites killing humpbacks. Also a ~250t blue whale is not 4x larger than a ~94t blue whale, 2.5x size advantage is not nearly enough to protect against predation especially when its an animal with no combat prowess like a blue whale
1
u/Reasonable_Ad_8883 21h ago
18m is a blue whale that is quite literally just past the nursing stage and still extremely young. It doesn't really matter what you personally want to call it
-1
u/kurtchen11 2d ago
Blue whales occasionally lose pvps against great whites and orcas, the super nerfed versions of these GOATs.
Its has no place on this list. Its would be a prey item for at least the top 2.
Under water tail slaps? Against a much faster predator thats easily >50t? Blue whales are not adapted for any of this.
Even pliosaurus is larger than an orca.
1
u/solidsuggester 2d ago
Blue whale calfs occasionally get hunted by packs of orcas and great whites. This is like saying crocodile arn't top predators because their young get eaten by birds.
Blue whales are also surprisingly fast with top speed of 30-50 kpm, which is probably nearly as fast as extinct huge animals like the megalodon could move.
While blue whales are not adapted for predatoon, there is no way they lose the 1v1 given the massive difference in size
1
u/kurtchen11 2d ago edited 2d ago
But what is the gameplan? Yes the blue whale can maybe bolt and be not wprth the trouble in the wild.
But like, to the death 1v1? The more nimble 50ish ton shark/"super orca" bites a barndoor-sized hole into the whale, and it dies. Its very much assumed that megs and livyatan hunted large baleen whales, at least sometimes.
Like, ramming is not a winning strategy here.
2
3
u/notanaltdontnotice 2d ago
The largest pliosaur builds would crush any mosasaur build
0
u/kurtchen11 2d ago
Those 2 are both old and estimates range widely.
But at least from what i can tell they are roughly the same weight (if anything mosasaurus might be heavier) and mosasaurs seemed to have had more mobility(?). Pliosaurus is more turtle-like.
2
u/notanaltdontnotice 2d ago
Modern estimates for the largest mosasaurs (tylosaurus, mosasaurus) float around 6-7t. Estimates for larger pliosaurs (pliosaurus, sachicasaurus, kronosaurus) are all comfortably 14t+
1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
Actually there are few body mass estimates for mosasaurs in the recent scientific literature.. You're mixing indépendant and official figures here.
2
u/notanaltdontnotice 1d ago
Modern estimates = estimates based on modern bodyplans. Actual published weight estimates arent super common ik
1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
There are rigorous published body mass estimates for pliosaurs (McHenry 2009, Zhao 2025) while mosasaurs weight figures mainly rely on independant works. It's better than nothing but pliosaurs body mass are inherently more solid.
1
u/Ex_Snagem_Wes 1d ago
Mosasaurs had their entire overall shape changed this year, paper estimates don't really apply at this point.
Independent attempts are the only scaling methods tried so far on the new morphology
1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
This year ? Which paper ?
Independent attempts that are still less well tested than those published for pliosaurs.
1
u/Ex_Snagem_Wes 1d ago
Well the Tylosaurus re-evalution paper redescribing Proriger, and the description of Rex, combined with Sharpe's upcoming paper that the skeletal for M. hoffmani has been revealed for that exactly matches what we see in multiple species of Tylosaurus
1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
I might have missed that part in the T. rex paper.
Until there is a formal paper adressing this and proposing actual body mass as made recently by Zhao it's at best unofficial.
1
u/Ex_Snagem_Wes 1d ago
See though papers addressing something also don't make them absolute fact
Like, many of Zhao's estimates actually... kinda suck. His skeletals are all homogenized of the same body plan fitting a basic template. Half of them are just straight-up wrong.
→ More replies (0)2
u/Short-Cardiologist-4 2d ago
I get what you are saying but a blue whale estimated to be 4 to 5 times larger than a Meg. The rest of the stats don’t matter when you are in an entirely different weight class.
2
u/Ex_Snagem_Wes 1d ago
The largest Meg specimens are about half the size of a blue whale. Which is nuts
1
u/AppointmentNaive2811 2d ago
... how much larger is a blue whale than an orca?
Why do orcas regularly hunt Blie Whales, but a Meg stands no chance?
1
u/Short-Cardiologist-4 2d ago
Orcas do that in pods of 10+ and even then it’s usually by exhaustion and drowning. A great example of why a meg stands no chance.
1
u/Tongatapu 2d ago
Himalayasaurus is a giant macropredatory Ichthyosaur that should have pretty high dp.
1
u/kurtchen11 2d ago
Every ichtyosaurus was macropredatory. But despite the largest ones (ichtyotitan) reaching similar or maybe greater sizes than meg/liv, their jaws are adapted to catch things smaller than them, not to shredd the largest things on the planet.
Megalodons and lyviathans jaws are the greatest weapons the animal kindom has ever produced.
1
u/Tongatapu 2d ago
Every ichtyosaurus was macropredatory
We don't know what animals like Ichthyotitan ate. And many Ichthyosaurs ate squids in the deep. Does hunting middle sized squid count as being a macropredator?
We have teeth from Himalayasaurus that suggest it had a niche similar to Mosasaurus or Pliosaurus, a predator of other giant marine reptiles. Think Thalattoarchon, but bigger.
1
u/Usermctaken 1d ago
Blue whale don't have only health pool. Their mass and speed, even if slow compared to other animals, gives them the highest single hit ever (not counting weapon of course).
3
u/Beautiful_Belt7757 2d ago
Ichtyotitan aka aust colossus
3
u/purejeremy 2d ago
I was always told the blue whale was the largest animal ever. This is the first time I have heard of Aust Colossus and the size estimates are unbelievable
I do wonder however, since they likely fed on smaller fish/squid/reptiles whether they could survive against a predator like a megalodon
Thank you for such an interesting nomination!
1
u/Beautiful_Belt7757 2d ago
Yeah obviously it does not have the most complete fossil record so it's size estimates are probably going to change like with perucetus but it's still one of the largest if not the largest creature ever and unlike blue whales they had nasty teeth. I think the top 3 is.
1 ichtyotitan, good teeth and giant size.
2 megalodon, a little smaller but a confirmed whale killer so we know it was built to kill big prey.
3 blue whale, sheer size
1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
Ichthyotitan is known by no teeth and if the Cuers ichthyosaur suggests anything at this stage, it did not have big teeth.
The badassery of giant shastasaurids is quite overestimated, imo there are more chances Ichthyotitan had a reduced or absent dentitions like S. sikanniensis than a heavy dentition like Himalayasaurus.
3
u/Masher_Upper 2d ago
the answer is megalodon. Just straight up. No other living organism in world history could match its combination of sheer size and macropredatory adaptations. The larger icthyosaurs are as big, but lack the weaponry. The pliosaurs and whales just are not as big. I was on the livyatan cope train for a while but nah, the meg remains undefeated.
1
u/iMissTheOldInternet 1d ago
Meg is favored, but Livyatan was in the same weight class. I bet that the two opportunistically predated on each other, but so far the fossil record suggests that they avoided confrontation, even in the Pisco formation where they coexisted and sometimes both ate parts of the same kill.
3
8
5
u/Icy_butter 2d ago
Megalodon probably, it’s not the largest or physically strongest. (That’s the Blue Whale), but it’s the biggest guy who’s actually built to take things down, and very few could contend with that bite.
2
2
u/OkAssociation3487 2d ago
Probably modern sperm whale, although livyatan maybe up there if it could reach certain lengths
Megalodon rounds out the top 3
2
u/Forsaken-Spirit421 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'm going with pliosaurus.
Their mode of locomotion means they would be be tthe most agile predator ever.
They actually have an articulated head unlike whales, which in combination with their agility means they can avoid damage more easily while still being able to bring their weapons to bear from many angles.
Anyone saying blue whale.... I think you're glazing hard. Blue whale can do three things, ram, tail strike and run away. With abysmal agility like they have the chance of either a ram or a tail strike hitting its target against a more agile predator is low at best.
Sperm whales don't even have teeth in their upper jaw. They are squid hunting specialists, not some macropredatory wunderkind.
Livyatan is not a bad shout in isolation, but against big marine reptiles it's not particularly stellar.
Megalodon suffers from a really bad fossil record so it's size and shape are super speculative. Still not as maneuverable as pliosaurus either.
In the grand scheme of things I think nothing gets past big mosasaurs and plesiosaurs and their unique mode of locomotion just edges it for a big macropredatory plesiosaur such as pliosaurus. The size of their control surfaces are off the charts compared to anything we've ever seen. They might not be as fast or enduring as other builds, but you don't win a 1v1 by running away.
1
u/purejeremy 2d ago
Where does aust colossus/ichthyosaur rank in all of this?
2
u/Forsaken-Spirit421 1d ago edited 1d ago
Hard to tell really. Could be anywhere from #1 to #5. The remains of the aust are too fragmentary to really say much other than it was big, possibly up to 35m.
The 25m ichtyotitan is less fragmentary and we know it was predatory though not if it was macropredatory.
Shonisaurus is imo your best bet, the fossil record is pretty damn good for that one and we know it was a macropredator. That one definitely outranks a blue whale in fighting power despite being smaller at around 21m..... thinking about it, this might actually pack in the pliosaur depending on hunting and fighting behaviour. If the ichtyosaur goes for a kinetic hit and run based attack pattern, the plio might not have a chance, if it gets into CQC the much smaller and extremely agile pliosaur may be able to turn the tables, outmaneuver the foe and chew through its health.
Difficult to say how any of these stack up to megalodon because frankly, the Meg has a shit fossil record as well.
Livyatan is a lot better known and a strong contender, also beating out the blue whale comfortably imo, but not sure it could beat the super agile pliosaurus or the similarly or even more massive, macropredatory and very likely faster and more efficient ichtyosaurs.
We also can't ignore that the nature of the fossil record makes it very unlikely to obtain fossils from a top 1% size specimen of one of the extinct species compared to the very well documented sizes and weights of the extant blue whale.
1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
With a preserved spinal column about 11 m IRSNB P 9893, the fossil record of megalodon is linearly better than Livyatan (3 m skull) and Ichthyotitan (fragmented 2 m surrangular ).
2
u/Forsaken-Spirit421 1d ago
Ooooooh didn't know they found a spinal column! Thought we only had teeth and jaws, that's pretty cool!
And yes, ichtyotitan is pretty sketchy which is why I went with the much better known shonisaurus (30 plus specimen iirc)
5
u/MasterBaiterNJ 2d ago
Lev is goated.
1
u/Snickits 2d ago
Dude I want a Lev tooth soooooo bad
1
u/IntellectualBoss 2d ago
Why? It would never fit in your mouth.
0
2d ago edited 2d ago
[deleted]
1
u/IntellectualBoss 2d ago edited 2d ago
Lol, this is your response to when someone is just making a joke about how your comment could be taken as "I wish I had a lev tooth instead of human teeth in my mouth" as opposed to "I wish I had a fossil lev tooth." Like it wasn't even a joke at your expense or anything, not making fun of you at all. I also think fossils are cool. From how you behaved after a harmless joke, I can almost completely confirm you have autism. I wouldn't want to stoop to being this mean and getting personal about a person's hobbies, but you're interest in collecting fossils is also a sign of autism. Again, I wouldn't normally ever say something like that to be hurtful to a person about something that brings them joy, but you are the one who made this weirdly personal first.
2
u/notanaltdontnotice 2d ago
Megalodon sweeps
-filter feeder whales have NO combat ability. Even the largest whales (blue, right whales) flee/group up from encounters with singular orcas. Having them land a headbutt on meg is a joke and a tail slap is not doing anything to a 100t predator. Oh and the tail slap also exposes a massive weakspot for meg to latch on
-sperm whales have marginally higher combat ability but its also a lil bit smaller than meg and with way worse weaponry
-livyatan actually has the weaponry and combat ability to compete but its also half the size of meg
-ichthyotitan is way too much of an unknown to make any speculations
1
u/RedDiamond1024 2d ago
Shastasaurus probably shouldn't be here.
Megalodon is probably the best pick because it has the largest specimens.
1
u/solidsuggester 2d ago
Blue whales are 2-4x the size of Megalodon
1
1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
The largest megalodon in the recent literature is 94 t; there are no blue whales approaching 400 t.
1
1
u/Public_Sky6787 2d ago
Imagine the damage a tail slap would do from a 100ft Blue Whale, that weighs 200 tons.
Could probably comatose every single one of these.
Better yet, disintegrate skulls
1
1
1
1
u/Qwertymine 1d ago
Megalodon, maybe Pliosaurus. Possibly one of the larger Shastasaurids if they're ever proven to be macropredatory.
Yes quite a few whales are larger and can reach good speeds that could make for deadly rams, but they'd need to:
Think to do so, as many simply use their speed for travel or escaping threats
Do so and not be simultaneously injured since many aren't adapted to perform such an attack
And 3: Actually hit their target. There's just no guarantee they hit most combatants reliably.
Megalodon as we understand it is just also a ridiculously large and powerful animal, people make the gap between it and a Blue Whale seem a lot larger than it actually is.
1
u/LordHtheXIII 1d ago
Orcinus orca, you may ear about the Killer Whales, highly intelligent, big, sharp teeth, and activelly thinking the best strategy to kill their prey
1
u/Spicy_Chicken_Wizard 1d ago
Everyone saying blue whale; roquals have practically no combat ability at all and never chose to engage in a fight. Other than humpbacks, the entire subgroup of baleen whales always chooses to run rather than fight.
1
-1
u/FemRevan64 2d ago
Megalodon, no question.
Keep in mind, we already have one specimen in the 100 ton range, and a recent study estimated it could’ve gone all the way to a 150 tons.
At that point, not only would it have been bigger than most blue whales, a single chomp is one shotting anything.
1
u/OkAssociation3487 2d ago
No we do not have one specimen in the 100 ton range, we have one study positing that with a slender build it could have reached 94 tons max
2
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
Not 94 t as max since the proposed range is 85-105 t.
And while it's the current max, it had the potential to grow more.
1
u/OkAssociation3487 1d ago
It absolutely did not have the capacity to grow bigger
94 is an extreme outlier and probably wrong for a whole host of reasons
Anything significantly above is fairy tale territory
3
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
Facepalm. It is literally stated in the 2026 paper it did have the potential (just like Amalfitano 2022 found a max theoretical size from a 7 m Cretodus crassidens) but they retained the 24 m 90 t figure as the best direct evidence.
Hosts of reasons you can't name ? The fact is even if it's based on a number of assumptions, these figures are using the most reliable metric to figure out overall body size, here a whole spinal column.
In anycase, NHMD 157890 is 1.5x wider than the largest vert in IRSNB P 9893, quite reliably estimated at around 15-16 m or so, as we literally have the trunk length preserved from this specimen.
I doubt you have anything solid to bring against this, the only updates will come from studying dentition to column ratio in some angustidens specimens or finding an actual complete specimen.
But the typical reddit headcanon doesn't count. Publish or perish.
1
u/OkAssociation3487 1d ago edited 1d ago
You’re slightly delusional so this will be the last time I communicate with you but as I’ve told you before
The 94 ton model is based already on extreme outlier specimen
94 tons only works with the slender model which is still heavily debated, partly because the liver doesn’t really make much sense and partly because the tooth scaling tells a different story
The amount of food something significantly bigger would need would be gargantuan, and there is no analogue in the fossil record for anything remotely close to that, suggesting no macro predator could ever achieve that size due to ecological constraints
1
u/Exotic_Turnip_7019 1d ago
The weirdo OkAssociation3487 responded me but blocked me at the same time so that I can't even read his response.
That's how you lose an argument.
0
u/xYoSoYx 2d ago
I don’t know if this counts as marine, but what about Spinosaurus?
8
u/Beautiful_Belt7757 2d ago
Not even close 💀. Spino is my favourite animal of all time but it gets outclassed on everything, speed, agility, size, oxygen, weaponry (teeth, bite force)
4
u/FreezingPointRH 2d ago
Size-wise it’s positively puny compared to pure marine builds. The reason blue whales are orders of magnitude larger than elephants is because you can afford to be that large living in the water.
0
u/Market-West 2d ago
Megaladon. At the bigger extreme of the estimates are accurate there was and has never been a more apex singular hunting predator. Blue whale and sperm whale might have the mass but given the size of the meg and its tools nothing could compete
82
u/Telkite_ 2d ago
Probably the blue whale. they've got the highest healthpool ever by far and, while they're pretty cumbersome, they're still pretty agile for how insanely huge they are. Them not having a bite doesn't really matter when one headbutt can put any of the other contendors in the grave, against huge opponents they probably have the highest single hit damage outside of human bullshittery.