8 Prehistoric Ocean Horrors Too Dark for History Books

8 Prehistoric Ocean Horrors Too Dark for History Books Four hundred and eighty million years ago, the ocean had no rules yet written. There were no sharks. There were no fish as you would recognize them. There were no vertebrates patrolling the shallows, no whales sounding in the deep. What there was, moving through water so ancient it predates every creature you have ever seen in a nature documentary, was an armored giant the length of a dining table with compound eyes the size of golf balls and the undisputed claim to every ocean on Earth. Scientists formally identified it in two thousand and fifteen from fossils pulled out of the Fezouata Shale of Morocco, and they named it Aegirocassis benmoulai. It was the largest animal alive on the planet during the Early Ordovician period, and nothing had evolved to stop it yet.