The Only Extinct Order of Marine Mammals - Desmostylians
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- Опубликовано: 3 ноя 2018
- Desmostylians were a very strange-looking group of mysterious animals that lived for millions of years before disappearing, becoming the only known order of marine mammals to die out.
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Sources:
www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/mammal/m...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desmost...
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
www.amazon.co.uk/Princeton-Fi...
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstr...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
So one could say that desmostylians were saltwater hippos, in terms of lifestyle. I'll always be a Mesozoic guy, but prehistoric mammals fascinate me because some of them were just weird.
today's animals are equally weird... we are just used to them...
imagine seeing an giraffe for the first time...
@@lastmanstanding5423 - Giraffes look to me like they should have died at the end of the Pleistocene -- they don't look, uh, _modern_ . Very strange animal.
@@lastmanstanding5423 *a giraffe
Use "an" when the proceding word begins with a vowel sound.
@@lastmanstanding5423 Spelling and grammar lesson aside, I agree. Also look at the aye aye lemur, or any number of deep sea creatures. Totally alien looking.
zaboomafoo
Out-competed by sea-cows? I'm almost embarrassed for them. Still, great video on animals I never knew existed before.
@Dieter Gaudlitz kinda is, both figuratively and literally depending on the environment and the two species competing with each other
Well this is what they believe, though much of what is believed cannot be proven. Even environment, at time, isnt known well. Sea-cows, helped, though it is likely an unknown force played a part, as it nearly wiped out Dungongs. Whatever caused it happened fast. Some ancient whales disappeared about this time. A theory, I've heard, Ocean waters changed, sometimes it is more acidic and sometimes salt percentage changes. While this creature wouldn't be bothered by these two, food sources would be. Final issue, we know not much about these animals, fossil records are not great for such, thus what is known and view able very limited.
Creature at 4:17 is an Embrithopoda.
@@StacieMMeier - Widespread change in vegetation, perhaps.
@@cacogenicist Possible, fossil record, though limited, doesn't suggest this. And if it did change, question be what would cause this? What you said, is one theory among many. Just there is no evidence of this happening. Because of limited fossil record, it very well could have happened and just never saved in fossils. My theory, since many creatures, including "sea-cows" were nearly wiped out, is a climate change happened. This would cause vegetation change like you said to happen. Just no evidence of a majour climate change, Earth climate does change all the time, it is normal, our current one is simply a minor one compared to what was going on millions of years ago. So, I accept what you said as valid, and ty for reply.
Sea cows are better designed for aquatic lifestyle!
Just imagine the shit storm that would happen if a group of them was found on an unknown island.
Adhesive Virus
Like Sentinel?
To be honest, if something like that were to happen, I'd be hoping for Steller's sea cow.
I would hunt and kill them all.
@@aarontulloch5225 mad lad
Lol
desmostylians: *exist*
manatees: I'm about to end this order's existence
Holy fuck what an original meme.
Desmostylians: *exist*
manatees: *oh no*
Hippos *I'm gonna end you guys carrer*
@@slappy8941 What an original profile picture
*drops hippos into the ocean*
THEY LIVE
So the Hippocampus is real!
Praise Poseidon!
@@_SOL_INVICTVS__________0 that would be a horse
Not for long
😂
Why aren’t these related to hippos?
Fun fact. There also used to exist a group of semi-aquatic marine ground sloths!
well in a sense there are still some marine sloths. Tropical island sloths sometimes swim from island to island and have algae growing in their fur.
but marine giant ground sloths sounds crazy and awesome lol
@@GarryDKing that dont make em semi aquatic tho, not more than humans for all the swimming we do
Name of the lineage?
Thalassocnus
"Call me Squid."
~Sid the sloth
Like most of the commenters I had no idea these creatures existed. Very cool. They obviously died out because they weren't pretty enough to survive.
@Big Dick George LoL!! I'm fairly certain that guys named "Big Dick" get by just fine - without needing to look pretty... ;-)
Those are adorable heckin big chompers
Well the blobfish, a living slimy gumdrop, is still alive so...
Ryde Mk The blobfish only looks weird when taken out of its environment. The thing lives miles under the sea where pressure is a lot greater. It looks like a normal fish down there. Bringing it to the surface is what blobs it.
Because of a small climate change.
It's so sad that all the weird ones are gone. Nature must have had great fun testing out all these different dentist designs.
If the beaver would be extinct, we would also think "what a strange animal"
Had these remained, I'd gather their moddern desendands would be...interesting...looking.
Maybe they weren't that strange it's just the stupid reconstruction.
@Ulfric Sombrage I totally agree. There are a lot of animal body plans that make me think wtf. Like many marsupials, some of them are weird.
They're all weird. You'd think the same if the giraffe was before your time
Never knew about these guys, extinct mammals don’t get enough attention in the paleontology community, everyone wants to know about the plesiosaurs, mosasaurs, and dinosaurs first. It really is a shame, great video, very informative and to the point!
And whenever people DO talk about prehistoric mammals, it’s always either the Paleocene, Eocene, or the Pleistocene.
People rarely talk about the Miocene or Pliocene.
Especially the former, which was when mammal diversity was at its peak (at least as of now).
also ologocene @@beastmaster0934
0:33 Actually, monotremes are ancestrally semi-aquatic. The echidnas are essentially just platypuses that are adapted to life on land.
From sea, to land, to sea, to land again
Smd
No they are not
@@attakullakullaoukonunaka4091 "make up your mind, echidna!"
Land seahorse
"the only extinct order of marine mammals"
Illegal whalers: "hold my beer"
Dark but sadly true
@@skyrex7955 Not at all true. The order of cetaceans includes many species which still exist, even the minke species is not threatened with extinction.
@@jeromebarry1741 you mean not yet!
Japan: "and I took that personally"
Now ðat was dark 😂
They're kinda cute in a weird way, like pugs used to be before selective breeding effed up their skulls and caused serious damage.
When a hippo-sized semi-aquatic mega herbivore is out competed by sea cows.
Great video, I didn’t know that these creatures existed. I’ve learned something while sitting in my couch on this dark, cold Sunday evening...
Almost exactly the same applies to me, too. The only difference being me not sitting on a couch but a chair. xD
Weren't there also marine giant sloths? Like Thalassocnus
Yes there were, those were pretty incredible too. I'll probably make a video about them some time :)
Eyy! I wouldn’t have guessed that a GW2 fan would be here!
When I clicked on this i was expecting Thalassocnus
Ben G Thomas Stellar sea cows?
@@Unifoseum Steller's sea cow was a modern Sirenian (nests among extant Sirenians, closest to the dugong). It is neither unique, since the order has living members, nor ancient, since it lived mere centuries ago.
I'd like to see more videos on weird ancient mammals, and maybe "mammal like reptiles".
More like Stem-mammals, but close enough! :)
I seriously doubt that sirenians drove these extinct. Marine food chains are too productive, and the ocean too prone to conserving niches, which is why no other order of marine mammal has gone extinct. The desmostylians did however inhabit the higher latitudes of the North Pacific, an environment that has sharply changed over the Neogene, in particular growing colder after the Miocene Climate Optimum. Possibly the specific type of plant community desmostylians depended on went extinct due to the change in environmental regime, and/or the desmostylians were less adaptable to the cold than the Sirenians. A candidate would be seagrass. A transition to kelp-based communities at higher latitudes from seagrass, or whatever other plant, with the onset of colder waters, might have done in the Desmostylians. Note that Wikipedia's citation for Desmostylians eating kelp offers nothing more than a statement that both desmos and sirenians probably ate kelp, with no evidence to support that.
well that's my history project done
I strongly suspect you are correct.
Well, well. The main reason no other order of marine mammal has gone extinct, is there aren't that many other such orders, just 2. Just cetaceans (whales) and sirenians (sea cows). And on closer look, the cetaceans have lost their separate order already and are now part of Artiodactyla. The sirenians still have their own order, but only because they look so distinctive. If they wouldn't look so different, based on how recently they evolved, we probably would lump sirenians into an order together with elephants and hyraxes.
@@eljanrimsa5843 True, one can't make too much about the level of hierarchical distinctness here, as that is a judgement call by humans and different standards are used in different branches of life. It's also true there are some holes in an ecosystem-shift interpretation- such as why the Desmostylians didn't retreat to warmer waters in SE Asia. Perhaps they did, and we just haven't found fossils yet of a late-surviving population. Perhaps the rise of pack-hunting orcas or other predatory odontocetes drove them extinct- orcas first appeared in the late Miocene, and it's notable that even today the diversity of sirenians is low, with the only high-latitude North Pacific representative (Steller's sea cow) recently extinct due to (human) hunting pressure. Or perhaps there was indeed something unique about the higher-latitude North Pacific ecosystem prior to the cooling of climate, or a combination of the above. It just strikes me as unlikely that a large mammalian herbivore would drive extinct another large mammalian herbivore due to competitive exclusion in such productive ecosystems, typically we see guilds of diverse mammalian herbivores on land.
5:14-5:16 Mix up of directions in mentioning regions West and East(?).
I don't know man they look like an ancient hippo to me...
KRATOS 805 no, hippos looked the same in the cenizoic boomer
they were not hippos or related to hippos desmostylians share convergent evolution with hippos Desmostylians share DNA with Stellar’s sea cow ,mastodons ,mammoths ,platybeldon ,elephants ,north African elephants ,dwarf elephants ,Syrian elephants.
If they are perissodactyls, can we call them sea horses?
Yes.
I don't know can you
No, we already have a fish species named seahorse! Dumbass!
No, they are sea elephants! Numbnuts!
I think I'll call em hippocampus ..
Oh wait, yah seahorses!
🐳🐎
If I were to make a guess, these things look like they would scoop up clams and oysters with their front teeth and crush the shells with the back teeth.
That makes a lot of sense. Would explain their size better than the plant theory too.
@Dan Ryan You're not wrong, I must have been really high haha. The biggest animals ever recorded were herbivores. Land ones anyway. Gold star for calling out bullshit.
@Dan Ryan fortunately, I am not a scientist
As kid before I always loved dinosaurs, and now I'm older I realize mammals are as fascinating too.
And also the pre dinosaur era that have the weirdest creatures ever
When I learned taxonomy in school it was before the big cladistic overhaul and identification of paraphyletic groups. I would be interested in more videos on how groups of animals relate to each other! Our system for organizing living creatures is currently in flux and sometimes I get confused, lol. I love all your videos, keep up the excellent work, guys!
weehawk 😳 Have you been following Aron Ra’s ‘Phylogenetic Project’? Outstanding research and most engaging presentations !
Thank you I will check this out!
That's exactly what I was gonna say! His series on taxonomy is epic.
weehawk I sorta hate the way we organize most things in taxonomy.
@@sirmeowthelibrarycat aquatic cats?
This is what I love so much about your channel. Spotlighting a species I have not heard of and never knew existed as well as how it might relate to other mammalian species. Thanks for helping me learn something new every day!
2:18
Trypophobia has entered the chat
If you a bothered by trypophobia (like I was) you should try exposing yourself to it, it really decreases the discomfort it causes. You can quite literally get used to it.
@@Grunt_007 i always tried to do that...but it only gets worse
@@ManiacallyQuiet maybe you went in too hard? I started like quickly glancing at pics and always looking a bit longer untill.
Although best stay away from surinam toads those are impossible to get used to haha
If you ever make a new edition of this, please include the large marine sloths, whose fossils are also found along the shores of the Pacific. Finding out the existence of both these clades was a huge entertaining surprise for me. I had been wondering for decades why there were no marine equivalents of hippos, and suddenly, there they are.
Always amazing when you find out about these odd creatures that lived so long ago.
I'm really loving your channel man! I can't stop watching! I have an appetite for learning about history in any form (natural/human). Your channel is always making me learn more and more every video I watch!
Really interesting! I love ancient mammals!
Me too :D
I prefer prehistoric birds (including dinosaurs)
Hey great video! Some of the art you used was from my publication. Desmostylians are obviously my favorite research specimens so I'm so happy to see more education dedicated to them! Great job!
wait you’re one of the dudes that interprets fossils into sketches/art? woah dude thats super cool!! how do you get a job in such a field?
4:15 Can we talk about this majestic beauty!?
Филип Цвејић we shall!
Can we do it in broad daylight while armed to the teeth? If that thing is more than a foot tall it's terrifying lol
Just found your channel; very well narrated and very comprehensive! Can't believe I hadn't found you sooner. Subscribed :)
Great video, just found your channel and looks like I have some binge watching in my near future. Thx m8 :)
Brilliant ,never even heard of this ancient mammal before ,keep it up !
never known about this group of animals
I've been binging your channel over the past few days and I've learnt so much! I'm planning to study palaeontology soon and I feel like I'm not going in blind thanks to you
Sad we never got to meet them, but maybe it's best they didn't die to us
Otters are Mustelidae not Pinnipeds. Apart from that great vid, keep up the great work.
Damn water weasels!
He didn’t say otters are Pinnipeds.
I *LOVE* the effort this guy puts into his videos!.
This channel rocks. I knew NONE of this. Awesome job as always.
I really appreciate your channel it's good that you give more real Fossil pictures than just paintings of those animals
I love the name of the "Paleoparadoxidae".. Doesn't that mean "old puzzle animal" or "old contradiction animal"?
It definitely means the paleontologist was stumped as to what it was.
Wonderful creatures!
Naming one after the biblical Behemoth is quite fitting.
Definately deserve it. I hope you remain this humble even when you hit RUclips Gold. I'm subscribed now.
Thank you for another great video.
What about the extinct marine giant sloths :( the best marine mammal in history
Only a genus and not an order, but still definitely some of the most interesting animals.
Maybe we can rapidly evolve into water creatures
Quote Sid the sloth
Can you make a video about the Thalassocnus ? It was a semi aquatic member of the sloth family which had a similar niche in South America.
Its always interesting to see newly discovered animals, prehistoric or otherwise. Thanks.
Such a well researched video. I subscribed.
Castorocaudas were very interesting too, but they weren't true mammals.
@Mullerornis so in conclusion, castoeocauda isn't a therian but a proto-mammal?? Same goes to megazostrodon?
dinosaurs
Someone please tell me what is the group that englobes mammals, mammaliforms and terapsids, please.
@Mullerornis So therapsids are just mammals and mammaliforms togeter? Thank you!
@Mullerornis hmmm, good guess, more like a cynodont?
The Only Extinct Order of Marine Mammals - Despacito
This is the first RUclips video I watched in 2020. I'm happy to have started the year on a good note :)
Definitely learned something new, thanks Ben 👍-up.
This is cool
Only extinct order of marine mammals?
*laughs in japanese and norwegian*
Peusterokos1 Why?
Now that’s dark *nervous laughter *
鄭茂廷 Because of what the country’s do to whales and dolphins.
Norway does not contribute to mass hunting of endangered whales, they hunt minke whales classified as least concerned well below the quota allowed for them. I cannot speak for the Japanese, it is said they mostly hunt for "scientific purposes". Scrap that the Japanese are whaling again as of July 2019.
Dont forget the Chinese who killed off the river dolphin.
Great program! Thank you.
Scientific veracity. The best and latest information
😳 What an extraordinary set of creatures! Congratulations, Ben, on your pronunciation of some real tongue twisters! These animals are new to me, even though I have spent decades being fascinated by ancient fossil species. Kind regards from 🇬🇧
Aw man, I wish they were still alive :(
R.I.P
bruh, imagine your whole species being wiped out by manatees XD
They coming for us next
Great work here! Thank you again Ben. I would like to see a video on prehistoric/fossil genera and species of Sirenia and their evolutionary history and radiation.
Thank you for the interesting video, I've subscribed :)
I can't imagine anything getting out-competed by freaking sea cows.
You forgot the aquatic giant ground sloths Thalasoccnus, they would have been so cool to see
jkkdonut really every extinct creature would be cool to see
Wow some new group of animals I knew nothing about. Thanks for revealing them to me, as a prehistory buff, I rarely find out about completely new animals!
Interesting video! Never heard of these creatures before.
Vary nice boyos
Are they related with the Moomins?
This group was really unique for me when I first heard of them, at first I thought they were related to manatees, Walrus’, etc. but the more I read about them I knew I was wrong. But this group is one of my favorite aquatic mammals
I’ve always seen art of these guys but never knew much about them. They’re so bizarre and unique i love em
BRING THIS THING TO ARK
Yes make it like a water phiomia
They apparently didn't quite have enough space for it.
Yes add this thing, that would be epic
It's interesting that they were outcompeted in the Pacific, the eastern Pacific doesn't have any large marine mammals that feed on kelp and fill this ecological niche anymore. I would guess this is due to climate change, and the ice age essentially destroying the habitat that made this way of life possible.
Well, there was the Steller's sea cow, who lived in this kind of region... Found in 1741, exctinct 27 years later ^^'
Props for being the only RUclipsr that does these sort of videos that can pronounce "Baja" correctly
Amazing! Thanks for sharing
The manatees and dewgong, lol
What's the name of the animal at 4:14?
Great video btw, thank you for teaching me so many interesting things!
That's Arsinoitherium :) Looks like a rhino, but is actually closer related to elephants and sea cows, which is pretty incredible.
@@BenGThomas Really? Looks so majestic, I'm in love ❤
Way to plant, egg
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsinoitherium
@@BenGThomasFun fact! Arsinoitheres are not rhinos at all, but an extinct group that doesn't have today's surviving relatives!
@@VeganV5912 what's with all of this summary about, what's ur ideas saying that none of this is your basics? All she said was what is that animal? And by the way, arsinoitheres weren't hunted at all, since their time period is too early for men to become modern-like.
Very interesting. You should also do a video on the Vombatiforme marsupials.
Great video! 💕👍🏽
Seems like Desmo-style is outdated... I'm sorry, I apologize for that pun
Poor-poy-says? 😏
One of your best videos 😊
Cool! Knew a little bit about these creatures but this added a lot to it.
Whoever says first, there's a chance he doesn't care.
Reaper The Indoraptor The more comments, the more likely the video is to get recommended.
Those tusks would make some good spear heads uwu
Fascinating. A great reminder of how diverse life on this one planet is, how rich its history. And that our grasp of that history will likely never be complete.
I live next to Ashoro , the city in Hokkaido when they have a museum related with those sea hypos . Thank you for this video . It was interesting . 🐋🦛🐘
They are not hippos they are closely related to elephants and mammoths ,mastodons,Stellar’s sea cow .
You forgot the Stellars Sea Ape. Kind of obscure but loveable oceanic primate.
Herbivores or clam munchers?!
You've used a lot of Ray Troll art in this video! I am a HUGE fan of Ray Troll! love this video.
Love your videos.
"Hey guys, everyone is going back into the sea, let's jump into the water"
"Dude, we can't swim"
"Who cares! Cannonball!!!"
And they because exctinct.
We're living on the side of the fault that is continuing to rise ever so slowly and never stops.
The impassable mountains behind the Sunshine Coast small town Powell River BC.
Has to have something up there.
The first thing seen way up at the head of the last roads made wind up along side a old River Bed that is Epic and Looks straight up millions/ billions of years old.
I swear one day I will show y'all what things people should have been pulling out of the highest mountain passes and valleys below as I KNOW there is stuff that has found it's way up there.
Only in seclusion will one find safety right. And predators live up high it masks their scent and they can prowl the lowlands.
And all the biggest animals are up there.
Grizzlies and MASSIVE ELK. Brown and black bear. The deer are even way bigger up in the high lands.
We are close to Ocean level here. And the mountains behind us only foot travel will allow one to pass them.
What is this?
Buğra Kaan Akıncı its life and evolution man. 👊😎
I'm fascinated by weird looking, ancient mammals. Do more.
Quite a sad episode
Great job as always. Þank you 👌
Never knew this type of animal existed. Great video
Awesome! longer content!
Nice channel bro ❤
Utterly facinating thank you
Hello Ben, like Trey The Explainer, you are an underrated channel that needs way more recognition. If you do, make a video pertaining to Fish
Good vid.
It's unfortunate to see such an interesting species outside of history books, I should hope with more information a full documentary on the group would be possible. Thank you for the informative video I very much enjoy learning what you talk about.
Thank you, Shawn Kennedy! Now I have to go find videos on porpoyses.