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Why Evolution Abandoned Armor
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- Published on Feb 17, 2026
- Animals used to be covered in tons of hard shells and other defense, but now they're just... squishy? Why become so easy to eat?
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it's like in every single game, it starts with tank meta, and then it's mobility creep and damage creep everywhere
Mobility creep is soooo aids also
War thunder
What games?
League of Legends lol
Still waiting for nature to come up with a ranged build
Edit: I’ve just discovered an ocean snail variety called the “cone snail” that may have a harpoon-based ranged build. Still researching.
Interesting observation, the human warriors went the same way, developing and perfecting armor for centuries, but eventually discarding it, mostly. Now we can see some limited armor renaissance.
Tanks, for example, have been mostly obsoleted by lightly armored vehicles. See: The Toyota War; a bunch of Chadians in a Toyota Hilux were able to outpace and outflank the Libyan tanks and ended up defeating the numerically superior Libyan army.
@Skeloperchor like a tank vs a drone
Humans didn't discard armor, they just compacted it.
the difference is that humans didn't discard armor, because it made them slow, they did it, because they invented weapons that could break any armor.
For completely different reasons though. Humans temporarily discarded armour because of artillery and guns. There's no equivalent to that in nature.
The most OP strategy of all .... Turning.
Okay, that's really funny.
Does that mean that Nascar drivers are the most OP animals in the world? All they do is make left turns
@crimsonemperor2219 always on the defensive
i bet you laugh at your own jokes
@MrCoalminbro laughed while commenting that 😭 ✌️
@MrCoalmin actually i fart at my own jokes. better luck next time
So they disappeared because of the power creep.
Once the glass canon build appeared, it killed the Meta and made all the other builds unusable.
Finally, an explanation that i can understand
Min-maxing in a nutshell
Literally monster hunter rn
Real men ignore the meta and use what they like to outperform the brain dead copy pastes (only works for combat not card games)
Hippos are pretty successful and durable
Arthropods like insects "why not have both speed and armor?"
But smol though
@camramaster And nearly everywhere.
"""armour"""
If your armour is not effective against your main predators, does it really qualify as armour? Would you say that human skulls are armour?
@Ezullof It's pretty effective against other animals in their weight class, i.e. other insects. That's not nothing.
@Ezullof Human skulls are very much armor, yes. It's really hard to defend a brain but the skull does a real damn good job of it.
The Joestar technique always wins.
NIGERUNDAYOOOO
I sinned I broke the perfect 100 like stalemate
@boi7316 SMOKEYYY 💯🗣️💯📢🔥⁉️‼️‼️‼️⁉️🗣️🔥
Because counterwise animals evolved to crack the armor and eat it, eating all of the armored ones and leaving the agile ones that could escape
I wonder how we as humans are gonna evolve if things were to keep going the way they are.
I wonder how global warming may change our skin, so much techno-waves may affect us or how earphones could change our ears.
Evolution takes to long for such things, look at isolated tribes that have been isolated for thousands of years. Outside of culture they’re no different from humans anywhere else in the world aside from slight variance in skin tone
@Δ-Δ-Δ-Δvery little sadly, evolution isn’t some fictional like adaption ability, it’s a product of how animals reproduce. We as a species are getting rid of our own selection pressures, think of your hair, it can grow far too long so why hasn’t it been evolved away? Because we started cutting it. We will likely develop the ability to manipulate our own genetics well before we’d evolve to anything, if there even were any selection pressures.
Increased sickle cell Is a more recent one to protect from malaria
@KarthullWe are still young as a species yes we are able to evolve but it depends on the environment u live in and it will take many generations even 1000 years to see any changes or adaptations... in 1000 years from now if we still here, people would change or evolved due to what we are exposed to.... we already are still evolving but its a very very slow process
0:17 mammals 450 million years ago, yeah right
I’m assuming what would soon (not soon really) to be mammals.
@RandomlyRandomThings That's still a stretch, first amphibians came to be around 90 million years after...
the farthest I could find as a mammal was 200 mya
@ambroz-xd bro acts like lobed finned fish dont exist
Im assuming either bad research or AI
maybe both?
Humans are a really good example of this. The tight skin + lack of fur allowed us sweat with easy efficiency, spend less resources on growing extra in addition making it easier for us to wear clothes/ actual armor (our own armor) when necessary.
Humans already had skin like that prior to clothing and armour and all apes seem to have pretty tight skin.
It's not at all that great. There's a good reason why heavy sweating isn't popular in the animal kingdom, and the loss of fur prevented hominins from colonizing the northern hemisphere for a long time and was a compromise when our ancestors weren't yet intelligent enough to invent projectile weapons and clothes.
Lack of fur has to do with self-domestication that causes infantilization. As in literally adult species becoming infant-like (no hair, bigger head to body ratio). It's an adaptation to lack of predation that can also be observed in animals like elephants.
@varvarvarvarvarvar I'm gonna offer a different explanation. Humans became really good marathon hunters. We could run down any animal and eventually catch it. Our endurance was unmatched by any animal at the time. Because of our ability to self cool using sweat and lack of fur. Thats why we lost it all, to further deepen our endurance advantage and marathon pack hunting.
@zeno4538 I prefer more universal explanations personally. I think we saw that same pattern when domesticating foxes. It was really funny became the reason they were domesticating foxes was to farm them for luxurious furs and wanted to have an easier time working with the foxes. But domesticated foxes produced furs of much poorer quality.
9:47 “we live in the age of the glass cannon” I love this sentence as it ties so well with the idea of animals evolving to have little to no armor but becoming efficient when it comes to speed and power! ❤
As any gamer can tell you, the best defense is not being hit at all
Is that a let me solo her reference ?
@thequestionrants not necessarily. this is true for every other game
and some says the best defence is a good offense lols.
@Joshh97 haha that's equally true
If a shelled animal could evolve large spikes the large predator would be less inclined to ram it.
That wouldn't be evolutionarily possible as it would hamper the hydrodynamics of the animal.
inb4 you could argue that Sea Urchins and Pufferfish have spikes, but that's irrelevant as Sea Urchin don't need speed to move around and Pufferfish can retract their spikes when not inflated.
@b@benginaldclocker2891n’t that why the pufferfish evolved to.. puff?
@Charumiyu Exactly, but I was replying to people beforehand who might use the pufferfish as an example (I am 100% sure that someone would based on how some people don't think critically)
The orca would then hit it with its tail and throw it at a rock or something, they are really smart
@FrogsAreGods Maybe but then it would have an injured tail because if the spikes.
If it rammed it the orca would have a bloodied face.
Spending millions of years of evolution just to discover gunpowder..
To be fair snails, crabs, turtles roaches and many types of beetles depend quite a lot on their armor
Roaches are not beetles
Roaches are termites right?
@toragon2736Termites are roaches
And Nautiliods. And clams. And Armadillos. Etc.
@IdonotknowofnameI don’t know how I completely forgot that. Thank you for the correction
1:05 I was so into prehistoric creatures as a kid that I immediately recognized that as a dunkleosteus.
Everybody as a kid were really interested with prehistoric animals for some reason,including myself who watched a hell ton of megalodon vids
I did from hungry shark lmao
5:30 , I’m pretty sure goku used this technique to become unkillable.
It is interesting how most cephalopods got rid of their armor. They literally engulfed it into their mantle over millions of years and then dissolved it
The way this script is written kinda leads me to believe that it was AI generated
They talk on and on about the same thing. AI slop keeps wasting my time.
Nice video. I'm glad you pointed out shark denticles later on - I never thought of sharks as being naked, not compared with us, anyway.
The most naked animals (aside from mole rats) are humans and octopuses. We use our brains to put our bodies in the most inconvenient places for predators.
10:08 My head is also mostly full of junk.
4:22 sounds relatable
what💔
Now this is simmilar to evolution of warships. They build armor and make battleship at the cost of speed, but now speedy, smaller and stealthier ships is the way to go. I wonder what comes next in the evolutionary race
This video completely misses a hugely important fact: fossilization bias. Why do we know of so many fossilized animals that had armour, but so few animals that have it today? Because armoured part fossilize so much easier. That's it. That's the reason. The time we live in is not some sort of special metagame of live that makes armoured animals unviable (well, we kind of do, but that's mostly related to ocean acidification), we are just able to see all the unarmoured animals that are alive right now. Hundreds of millions of years ago there also were unarmoured animals, but the vast majority of them never fossilized, so we only know a few that were buried in the right sediment at the right time through sheer luck.
but still in the end mostly in todays meta the animals choose to have naked build regardless. if its just about fossil, why there isn't more armored builds around? the number is not even close. the fossil thing can be true, sure. but in the end, right now the most chosen build is lightness, INT, stealth, agility and naked.
He missed a fact, you missed the entire point
@Artj3o both missed each others
The problem is that there’s just way too many fossils with armor. We can expect, based on the region and the time period we’re looking for, a rough range of how many fossils we should find per time. And there’s just way too many armored to fossils for it to just be a case of. They happen to fossilize more often. It goes doubly so when you consider that we can analyze the fossils of predators and see that they very clearly had adaptations for dealing with said armor, which would not be the case unless it was pretty common.
Don’t forget that even with armor fossilizing easier only like 1% of things fossilize at all period. Then of those only a small percent stay and don’t get destroyed over time. Then of those how many can we actually find because they aren’t at the bottom of the ocean or under someone’s house? We have an absurdly low sample size when it comes to all prehistoric life
Thought I was watching @a curious bird again …
My first thought as well...i mean it has some added context here and there...but come on, some lines basically are the same if you watch both videos back to back. Thats called plagiarism.
@DovakinLP Yep. I just downvote videos like these. From now on I will watch closely if he’s copying another video. Lazy.
( it’s also funny how this video was stolen as well by @dipper than blue )
NGL, Placoderm is a badass name for a heavily armored/invincible superhero
Like invincible
If I run fast enough no problem can catch up to me 😅
this channel gives me Animal Planet nostalgia, love it
This channel feels like a gem bro, I love this! Please never stop making content
I thought everything's final form was crab?
Oh, you mentioned it.
Crab people, crab people.
Taste like crab, talk like people.
Crab people, crab people.
Crab😢
A better question would be what evolutionary pressure forced everything to acquire armor in the first place
Lack of agility and possibly size, with early arms race
Armor is biologically simple and doesn't require any major changes; add some heavy calcification to the outside of your body and you have armor. Speed requires streamlining, the evolution of the correct type of muscle, etc and so is a much more expensive change.
Looking at those creatures in the early age you’d know why
The best defense is not getting hit at all
Basically aquatic animals changed meta from def to dex and lands changed from dex and str to int and stam.
This video felt like a journey into another world
Dunkleosteus was SO. COOL.
Fastest biting speed with a strong jaw and armour? Yeah god HAD to nerf it
"hello animal from nature born"
"hello ship from man-made object"
> evolve armor to zero
so even the prehistoric era has meta to follow.
Evolution is all about the changing Meta
Meanwhile the insects said: "We can have armor, breed exponentially, and FLY at the same time."
well they're really small 😂
Muscle itself works as decent armor as well. It's not ideal to lose a chunk of it obviously, but living muscle tissue is pretty difficult to rip through and will protect your organs from a weak or poorly placed bite
Very interesting video and quite logical
i love the idea of the meta evolving throughout ancient history
1:05 hungry shark mentioned
Great video!
It's the dps meta, I swear.
Nice peace of the puzzle bro thanks ❤
Armor only died off because the species that evolved it got whipped of the map by a random space rock and no other reason.
The most ai strategy of all, half an hour ads for a 10 minute without a voice video on something actually interesting.
what?
@banjohakkinI was unhinged at the moment. Sorry, still stands tho even if I can't see the video 😂
are u watching this high? what are u on
Back in my day ahh video
for a brick, he swam pretty good
Animals with hard shells also need to molt or change into another shell at some point as they grow.
It's basically a free dinner during that time.
how did they become so common then in the first place? before they vanish
Meanwhile everything is becoming armored crabs...
0:00 Felt like yesterday, yeah.
Ever heard of the Nautilus?
Yeah bro in top tier armor is obsolete
This is really interesting!
waiting for the next patch note rn, they'll probably nerf orcas and crabs
Interesting that still a few armored designs survive.
Also in freshwater there are many armored fish like catfish. Although it isn't as armored as these ancient ocean fish.
Your videos are amazing, I have been subscribed since some weeks, and I find myself getting excited about your new videos. Your videos are one of my favorite!! Arigatou gozaimasu, oniisaan.
thank you ;)
This does answer why Sharks have such high powered bites...
Makes sense! Even in video games a glass cannon would wipe out a whole squad, while a tank would just survive for a lot
Tank builds doesn’t work without regenerative stats
Wanna know whats better then being able to take a hit? Not getting hit.
I can't imagine worse music to use with this video. Well done.
There are environments which favour armour, for example lots of catfish like pleco have been infesting Florida because few animals can actually get through their armour plus they don’t have much meat so they aren’t worth the trouble most of the time
Funny enough, armour didn't dissapeared in most vertebrates but rather it became an inner structre designed to protect the brain and to enhance the feeding skills
Was this ai grnerated or assisted? Somewhat feels like it
It’s mostly stolen from a curious bird
@cirrus2761damn
Script almost surely written with ai
“Where speed and intelligence doesn’t matter”
The humble insect world vibing in armour.
It's also exactly like Battle Tanks that are slowly getting replaced for being easily destroyed by small cheap drones.
0:10 I thought something fell lol
If u guys think that's cool I can add them back
ik ima sound like a dck but the weirdly places emphasises and pauses are so damn unsettling. Dont need near as many, especially in such peculiar spots. That paired with the constant repetition feels like you are just trying to make a longer video for the sake of it.
Still a fun watch tho :)
turning no ankle breaking yes
This is also how battleships developed and then became obsolete.
Bc they keep running into armor-geddon
nice vid
honestly i think armoure creatures could exist in the deep sea as the environment there is very slow moving considering that we havent discovered like 80 percent of the ocean it is a possibility
Just paint the armour red. Then you go fastah.
I think tanks are evolving the same way, from the super heavy s/ slow tanks of WW1/2, made to stop most things coming for them (even medium tanks) to the modern MBT, able to be pierced, but really fast and a lot of firepower
This is like how in WWII tank armor got progressively thicker and thicker, designed to counter hardened heavy AP tank shot. But then along came HEAT-FS which could punch through steel armor so thick that tanks wouldn't be able to move with enough armor to block it. So for a time tanks like the Leopard 1 kinda stopped having armor, opting for 80mm or less of light armor, so things like small arms and anti tank rifles couldn't do much, but really any anti tank weapon could go through, opting instead to rely on mobility to not get hit in the first place. And even today, armor in the form of passive heavy steel plates, never really returned.
Why deep ocean animal so large? Are they have different META?
Interesting now, modern wars are fought with small explosive drones and short coordinated attacks
Found your script
ruclips.net/video/VoHcQuzlJBY/video.htmlsi=oFFmgcYmLG7L-N6U
animal had meta tactic too i see
No more tank meta
Something also interesting is how so many snails managed to get rid of their shells. Many more species substantially shrank their shells, but they haven't had as much reproductive success.
Actual question - is this voice AI? It doesn’t seem fake but I can‘t believe my ears anymore
Not only is the voice AI, but so is the script
What about pangolins and armadillo’s
The main weakness even of the "Armoured-fish" was their rear sections, which were simply scaled like other fish. Those who had the speed and agility to evade the jaws or hunt the armoured fishes from behind ended their reign. An orca today _would never_ "headbut" a dunkleosteus, it would cripple the armoured fish by attacking it's fins and tail, before eating the prized parts. Larger shark species would do pretty much the same, possibly even initiating a frenzy. Whatever, a living "Dunk" today would last not much longer than the first big marine predator detecting it.
Counterpoint: crabs and crocodiles, two of the most stable and successful designs, both have lots of armor.
Im predicting a ranged meta in a billion years. Doesnt matter if you can one shot close range if you fight a ranged opponent
“Best block…no be there!” - Mr. Miyagi
This video made me realize that real life tank warfare is slowly changjng in the same way. Just being armored isnt enough, armor priecing and drone warfare are catching up.
For the most part the Tank class is just not fun to play and maintain. Damage or Support are the best classes.
they just figured out the new meta
“A real man never hinds in the bush” Tigreal, mlbb.
It took me way too long to realize that this is entirely ai. Its getting way too good
Turtles laughing in the back
Hi, this was a very interesting deep dive into the biological armors! I’m actually a new creator and this video inspired me a lot to start working on a similar project. Thank you for the great info and the spark of inspiration! 🙏
A new creator that goes by A Curious Birb made a video on the exact same topic of armor a few weeks ago and I’d highly suggest u watch. I have a feeling this guy stole his idea/video considering the layout of this video is strikingly familiar. His channel also has a lot of other interesting animal videos if ur into that.
"Where's your armor? What if you get hit?"
"Just don't get hit lol"