You are so glad these animals are extinct (part 3)

Daeodon, the grandfather of modern pigs, was about the size of a rhino. The name literally means "hostile destructive teeth," but the creature was for a time known simply as Dinohyus, or "terrible pig." They were "massive opportunistic omnivores," meaning that they pretty much ate whatever they could get their considerable jaws around. Which ... would be most things, by the look of it.

This beast is not the fever dream of a horror game designer, but rather a real, once-living predator called a gorgonopsid, which was essentially a bear-sized saber-toothed dog-lizard with a meter (over 3 feet) long skull. Gorgonopsids of the genus Inostrancevia were even larger, about the size of a rhino, with canines roughly 10 centimeters (4 inches long). Gorgonopsids were the dominant predator on land for the bulk of the Permian period, only being wiped out by the Permian-Triassic extinction event, which rebooted 90 percent of all life on Earth.

The Azhdarchidae family were a group of gigantic pterosaurs that plied the skies of the late Cretaceous. The Azhdarchidae would spot you from the air, slam down into the ground next to you and chase you ... and then scoop you up into its huge, jagged beak. Scientists believe that Azhdarchidae had a "particularly efficient terrestrial locomotion," which they were able to discern from preserved tracks that showed it placing its feet in front of its wing-claws as it moved. Meaning the 3,6 meters (12 feet) tall carnivorous thing could gallop.

A sloth isn’t exactly the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of deadly monsters. But the megatherium was more like the modern sloth’s giant, angry granddaddy. It behaved like a sloth, sort of looked like a bear, and was about the size of an elephant. Unlike an elephant, though, megatherium also had giant claws and could stand on its hind legs to appear even more massive. There’s a pretty strong chance that humans interacted with this monster–megatherium died out as recently as 10,000 years ago.

The Cretaceous period was basically the Earth's goth phase, when all it cared about was finding something monstrous enough to freak out its conservative parents. And it finally found that in the Hainosaurus and Tylosaurus, two types of Mosasaur - an extinct group of large marine reptiles. Tylosaurus didn't really use that row of vicious teeth, nor even the two additional rows behind it. They were just there to make sure anything it swallowed whole didn't wriggle free. Yes: They swallowed sharks whole. They ate literally anything they could catch, including plesiosaurs, which is basically the Loch Ness Monster.

Liopleurodon looked like a rough draft of a crocodile rejected by God with a note to "Tone it down. Way down." It regularly reached 10 meters (33 feet) long, with one specimen discovered that had a jawbone 3 meters (10 feet) long. Given the proportions of some of the more complete remains found, some scientists speculate that Liopleurodon actually grew up to 15 meters (50 feet) long. Much like the Tylosaurus, the only prey big enough to quell the mighty hunger of Liopleurodon was other huge monsters.

Speaking of the living avatars of fear on Earth, let's talk about the Kronosaurus, which was likely even bigger than Liopleurodon. Kronosaurus was named after the Titan Kronos, who was such an evil bastard that he ate his own children. Kronosaurs had large "banana-shaped" teeth and thick jaws designed to crush the shells of ammonites, which were ancient shelled squids from back before nature decided that armoring the Kraken was "perhaps a bit overkill."

Coming face-to-face with a T. rex would be a bad day for anyone. The only thing worse would be somehow surviving that encounter only to find out he's got a pissed-off big brother waiting around the corner. But don't freak out, the T. rex doesn't have a more terrifying ancestor ... it has two: Gigonotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus. Both lived about 100 million years ago, were roughly 14 meters (45 feet) long and made the T. rex look like the pale, asthmatic nerd of the family.

That's a Spinosaurus, and it grew up to 18 meters (60 feet) long. Its "crocodile-like" jaws easily reached 1,5 meters (5 feet) in length alone, and it sported a jaunty sail on its back, because who was going to say anything about it? Believed to be the largest predator ever to walk the Earth, Spinosaurus is, at least for now, the King Scary Bastard in an entire epoch of the scariest bastards in history.

Part 1: http://imgur.com/gallery/OT3mG
Part 2: http://imgur.com/gallery/wmyJE

Parts "borrowed" from cracked.com