One of the best movie monsters in recent years was found in Alex Garland’s Annihilation last year, its arrival described by our Joe Lipsett as being one of 2018’s scariest horror moments. In a scene that plays out similarly to the iconic “blood test” scene from John Carpenter’s The Thing, with most of the female leads strapped to chairs as their friend loses her mind and contemplates killing them, a nightmarish bear creature (nicknamed “Dexter” by the effects team) shows up, turning the terror up to eleven and brutally attacking one of the characters.
But this wasn’t just any bear. In fact, it wasn’t entirely a “bear” at all.
I like to call it a “nightmare bear.”
Its design inspired by diseased animals, the bear creature in Annihilation is missing large portions of its fur, and a human skull has literally embedded itself into the animal’s head. “The Shimmer,” where it lives, is a place where all kinds of DNA intermingles in simply impossible ways, and the bear seems to be literally absorbing the humans it kills. In addition to the human skull that has incorporated itself into the bear’s own skull, it also emits the death screams of its latest victims, and even has a row of human teeth inside of its mouth. YIKES.
It’s comforting to think that the bear from Annihilation never actually roamed the Earth, and of course, that exact creature never did. But a newly documented species of hypercarnivore that dates back millions of years is probably the closest real-life monster to ever exist.
As reported by National Geographic (via the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology), 22 million year old skull and jaw bones that were discovered in the ’70s have finally just been properly identified as belonging to the previously undocumented species Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, described as “a giant meat-eating mammal larger than a polar bear.” It’s name literally translates to “big cat” in Swahili, but it’s actually “the oldest known member in a group of extinct mammals called hyaenodonts, named due to their dental resemblance to hyenas.”
The massive beasts were at the top of the food chain in Africa during their time, devouring the competition with THREE pairs of meat-slicing teeth at the back of their heads.
“This animal had lots of blades,” paleontologist Matthew Borths puts it.
Bottom: Simbakubwa’s left jaw
Its head as big as a rhino’s and its canines the size of bananas, Simbakubwa was around 8-feet long and 4-feet tall, likely weighing between 2,000 and possibly even over 3,000 pounds!
At this time, nobody is sure why these deadly super-predators ultimately went extinct, but let’s maybe just be glad that we don’t have to share the Earth with them….yeah?
Like the bear from Annihilation, they’d make pretty quick work of us puny humans…
