| “ | That is one grotesque fish! That looks more like a bulldog than a fish. If the Devil kept fish, this would be one of them! Xiphactinus, a predatory fish up to 20 feet long. | ” |
– Nigel Marven talking about Xiphactinus | ||
Xiphactinus was a prehistoric predatory fish, featured in the last episode of Sea Monsters. It was over 20 feet (6 m) long and lived 85,000,000-66,036,000 BCE. A teleost, bony fish, this creature was not a close relative of the sharks, though its' name, translated from Latin, means "Swift shark".
Facts
If the Devil kept fish, Xiphactinus would be one of them. They were one grotesque species of predatory fish that looked more like bulldogs than fish. Xiphactinus could swallow a Hesperornis whole in one go. However, there are also fossils of this fish showing that it had died having choked on such large prey
Xiphactinus was a carnivore of the Cretaceous seas, but not a top one: it was prey to giant mosasaurs that lived alongside it at that time, as shown in the introduction to Sea Monsters. Itss likely, however, that if Xiphactinus lived and hunted in small shoals, it could possibly predate injured Giant Mosasaurs. itself Xiphactinus hunted anything that was smaller than itself; in the last episode of Sea Monsters, it was shown preparing to attack Nigel Marven swimming back into the surface while the Archelon swims away, before, presumably, being scared away by a mosasaur pack.
Appearances
A Xiphactinus eating a Hesperornis whole.
Trivia
- The scenes shows a another Tylosaurus bites off the Xiphactinus tail.