How did Krakens become the hot-new sea monster? You hear about Krakens all the time now (see: Clash of the Titans , Pirates of the Caribbean , Alfred Tennyson poems), yet you never hear much about Leviathan. This is an outrage.
With a Kraken you can play with him as with a bird, or put him on a leash for your girls. Not so with Leviathan; it says so in the Bible. (No, seriously, it’s really in the Bible .) You know how many times Leviathan in mentioned in the Bible? Six times. He even gets an entire chapter in Job. You know how many times the Kraken is mentioned? Zero times. There’s a reason for that. Krakens are unbiblically lame.
Fortunately, the Leviathan may finally get his due respect now that scientists are discovering that he was (a) real, (b) really big, and (c) really, really awesome:
Researchers have discovered the fossilised remains of an ancient whale with huge, fearsome teeth.Writing in the journal Nature, the scientists have dubbed the 12 million-year-old creature “Leviathan”.
It is thought to have been more than 17m long, and might have engaged in fierce battles with other giant sea creatures from the time.
Leviathan was much like the modern sperm whale in terms of size and appearance.
But that is where the similarity ends. While the sperm whale is a relatively passive animal, sucking in squid from the depths of the ocean, Leviathan was an aggressive predator.
According to Dr Christian de Muizon, director of the Natural History Museum in Paris, Leviathan could have hunted out and fed on large sea creatures such as dolphins, seals and even other whales.
“It was a kind of a sea monster,” he said.
A kind of sea monster? Leviathan would eat other sea monsters (a Kraken for breakfast, a Scylla for lunch, an Aspidochelone for dinner, and a few white whales as a between meal snack). No, Mr. French Scientist, Leviathan wasn’t a sea monster he was the sea monster. Show some respect, dude.
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