Look at the pictures below and try to explain how these animals used to look

2.2. Read short articles to find out which animals used to populate the planet. When reading, fill in the gaps with the words on the right.

Biggest Snake The biggest snake that ever lived (that we know about) was a massive anaconda-like 1) ____________ that slithered through steamy tropical rainforests about 60 million years ago feasting on primitive crocodiles. "Fossils discovered indicate the 2) ____________ was at least 42 feet (13 meters) long and weighed 2,500 pounds (1,135 kilograms)," contributor John Roach reported. The snake would have killed its prey by slow suffocation – wrapping around it and squeezing, just like a modern 3) ____________ or 4) ____________. Only this snake was twice the size of today's largest 5) ____________.	beast boa constrictors reptile python
Bull-Size 1)____________ Discovered The giant skull of a one-ton prehistoric 2) ____________ – shown here next to a modern-day rat -- was revealed on January 16, 2008. "Measuring 53 centimeters (21 inches) long, the skull was found in Uruguay by an amateur fossil hunter among fallen cliff rocks in the San José region. Analysis of the bizarre find by paleontologists suggests it belonged to a bull-size species, which has since been named Josephoartigasia monesi," National Geographic News reported. The megarodent lived in lowland rain forests between two and four million years ago, perhaps using its massive teeth to fend off 3) ____________ cats and giant, flightless, meat-eating 4) ____________, researchers said.	rat saber-toothed rodent birds
Giant "Frog From Hell” Fossil Found in Madagascar The bad-tempered Beelzebufo, or "devil 1) ____________" was a "rather intimidating animal the size of a beach ball, 16 inches (41 centimeters) high and weighing about 10 pounds (4.5 kilograms)." Paleontologist David Krause of Stony Brook University in New York and his colleagues began unearthing the 70-million-year-old frog as a 2) ____________ in bits and pieces more than a decade earlier. These ceratophyrines are really aggressive, 3) ____________ predators. They are round with big mouths, and they will sit there and grab onto anything that walks past." The animal sported a protective 4) ____________ and powerful jaws that may have enabled it to kill 5) ____________ dinosaurs.	ambush frog hatchling shield specimen
Giant 1)____________Once Roamed Peru Desert Penguins about the size of humans roamed South America some 35 million years ago, and they didn't need ice to 2) ____________. The artist's illustration above shows the approximate sizes of two recently discovered Peruvian giant penguin 3) ____________. The fearsome five-foot (1.5-meter) Icadyptes salasi (right) lived about 36 million years ago, while Perudyptes devriesi (left) lived about 42 million years ago. The two 4) ____________ animals are shown to scale with Peru's only living penguin species, Spheniscus humbolti (center).	extinct penguin species survive
Giant Sea Scorpion Discovered, Was Bigger Than Man Scientists said this 18-inch (46-centimeter) fossil 1) ____________ (bottom) belonged to the world's largest known bug: an 8.2-foot (2.5-meter), 390-million-year-old sea scorpion called Jaekelopterus rhenaniae. "The find shows that 2) ____________ – animals such as insects, spiders, and crabs, which have hard 3) ____________ skeletons, jointed limbs, and segmented bodies – once grew much larger than previously thought," said paleobiologist Simon Braddy of the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. "We have known for some time that the fossil record yields monster millipedes, supersized scorpions, colossal 3) ____________, and jumbo 4) ____________," he added. "But we never realized, until now, just how big some of these ancient creepy-crawlies were."	arthropods claw cockroaches dragonflies external
Ancient Giant Shark Had Strongest Bite Ever 1) _______ megalodon -- literally "megatooth" -- sharks had the most powerful bite of any 2) ________ that has ever lived. Known mostly from the large teeth it left behind, Carcharodon megalodon first appeared in Earth's seas about 16 million years ago (in the Neogene period) and dined on giant prehistoric 3) ____________ and whales, we reported. "Megalodon's killing strategy was to bite the tails and 4) ____________ off large whales, effectively taking out their propulsion systems," said study leader Stephen Wroe of the University of New South Wales in Australia. The prehistoric shark may have grown to lengths of over 50 feet (16 meters) and weighed up to 30 times more than the largest great 5) ____________. A megalodon tooth fossil (left) is displayed next to the tooth of a modern great white shark in this undated photo.	flippers creature white prehistoric turtles
Giant Prehistoric “1)____________” Killed Off by Humans Hunting on the Australian island Tasmania exterminated several prehistoric animals, including the kangaroo-like beasts, marsupial "1) ____________," and 2) ____________-like cats, National Geographic News reported in August last year. The 1,000-pound (500-kilogram) prehistoric ground-sloth-like 3) ____________depicted here – Palorchestes azael – was among a handful of Tasmanian 4) ____________ species driven to extinction by human activity more than 40,000 years ago, our story said. The study challenged previous research suggesting an ice age killed off the giant creatures before humans arrived on the island.	hippopotamuses leopard marsupial megafauna kangaroos

Which of these prehistoric animals do you consider weirdest? Why?