Why aren't there big monsters anymore?

There was a time when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. They were truly king poo of the poo pile. But aside from the Rolling Stones, there aren't any of them left. In Australia and southeast Asia the probable source for the legendary raptor The Roc was a massive carnivorous bird. Do you know what The Roc was cookin? Us until we wiped the poor birdie out. There were once creatures in the sea that could eat small cars and would have, except that cars aren't fish flavored and also there were none. But they could have! There were insects as large as a burrito that's as large as your head. There were once rats big enough that they could be ridden around and shown off at 4H. There were centipedes as big as snakes. Even the snakes were bigger than snakes.

Now all we've got are whales and elephants and they're slowly going the way of the dodo. Why aren't there any big cool monsters anymore to terrorize Japan or that we can put in an ill fated amusement park only to learn an important lesson about trying to play God. (Important lesson: God would have a backup generator for the electric fences.) We've still got giant squid, but they don't attack our submarines near as much as we'd all like. The Earth used to be teeming with huge freakish monsters of yore. Dragons, dragons everywhere. Rodents of unusual size. Man eating mantises. Now we've got some of their bones, but none of them. Why don't monsters ever make it long on the evolutionary time scale?

There is something unusual and unique in the development of big friggin monsters. They are always highly specialized to their environments. They must be because of their massive dietary needs. Also they have trouble hiding from predators, which is why nonpredatory monsters (elephants, brontosauruses most likely) travel in herds and not individually as say a jaguar shark would. But it is more their high level of specialization that makes them vulnerable to environmental shifts. Big animals are always at the top of the food chain. Once the chain is disrupted by disease, pollution, armed rednecks, whathaveyou then the top of the chain is always wiped out.

There have been seven mass extinctions in the history of the world and we're on the verge on the eighth. Each time all the big animals don't make it. It's the meek ones that inherit the Earth each time. We've managed to wipe out the majority of the big animals that were around when human civilization showed up on the scene and made everything into a whole new scene. There are a few left, but their days are numbered. The fun factoid to add to that prognostication is that us humans - relatively speaking - are some of the largest animals on the planet. Nothing our size has ever made it through a mass extinction. But then nothing our size ever had plastic wrap and air conditioners before, so we'll probably be fine.

A brief word bout the majestic shark. Some of you might be saying, "Ho down, whoa down, SLOW DOWN! Sharks done been round for eons and they ain't been changed none by Darwin and his Devil science. What do say to that Mr. Smarty Blog? Huh? What?" To which I agree that sharks have been around for a high number of years, so high a number that I don't know what it is. And the sharks that still exist (a few of them quite large) have undergone very little evolutionary development in the past bunch of years. And after ceding that agreement I say, kiss my ass, hypothetic question asker. There used to be sharks so big they'd make you turn white. There used to be sharks that were terrifying behemoths the likes of which would definitely kick Richard Dreyfuss's ass (alright, that's not much of a claim to badassery I suppose.) But these Krakens would eat Jaws for a snack and sadly they don't exist anymore. There is an outside chance that a few remain in the depths of the ocean, but the possibility is a vanishing one. Monster sharks are a thing of the past, despite the fact that the shark is one of the most effective creations of evolution. And the big boys didn't make it because of the shifting environments in the ocean. Probably the largest factor was the disappearance of all the big sea monsters that they could eat. But science has not conclusory ruled out the possibility that the monster sharks were taken away by alien visitors, or perhaps were the alien visitors themselves and one day will return to Earth to prove that they really can bite a VW in half.