Prehistoric Death Turkey!

It is a generally accepted scientific fact that dinosaurs are, technically speaking, pretty awesome. But apparently, the speedy ground dwelling carnivore known as Sinornithosaurus was even more awesome than previously suspected. Not only was it a feathered raptor about the size of a turkey that ran down it’s prey, but evidence suggests it also had venomous fangs, reminiscent of those found in rear fanged snakes today. The venom probably didn’t kill prey outright, but merely disabled it, making it a simpler meal for the sinornithosaurus.

But still, venomous fangs!And really folks, is there anything so cool that venomous fangs don’t make it just a little more cool?

I thought not.

 

In Which Extinct Shrews Are Not To Be Toyed With

Spanish researchers have found the fossil remains of a species of giant shrew, which is pretty cool on it’s own. But the fact that the animal also had bright red teeth which it used to deliver a poisonous bite has the ancient animal reading pretty high on the Awesome scale.

Admittedly, ‘giant’ is an exceptionally relative term in this case, being that Dolinasorex glyphodon probably only weighed in at a little over 2 ounces. Still, that would make it more than 4 times larger than most modern shrews, and with huge front incisors that injected a “toxic saliva,” this critter would have been a mighty intimidating example of shrewdom.

Of course, the fact that it’s fossils were removed from equally ancient regurgitated pellets of birds of prey says quite a lot about just how intimidating the most intimidating of shrews actually was. After all, it’s not like the poisonous bite of the contemporary short tailed shrew makes it any less adorable. Or any less likely to end up owl food.