Life, Sex & Death Among the Dire Wolves
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- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2025
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This is not a Game of Thrones fan fiction episode. Dire wolves were real! And thousands of them died in the same spot in California. Their remains have taught us volumes about how they lived, hunted, died and way more about any animal’s sex life than you’d ever want to know.
Produced for PBS Digital Studios.
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References:
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"Fighting while mating can cause your baculum to breakulum."
-What I wish he would have said
I died 😂😂😂
naw, scott baculum could only travel back within his lifetime
baculum to crackulum
Snapulum
Personally, I think it would’ve sounded better as “Fighting while mating can cause your baculum to snapulum.”
The fact that a genital can snap just makes me goosebumps
I mean human genitals can as well
The freaky thing for me is how it was healed in a bent position. Horrifying on so many levels from the conditions that led to it healing crooked, to wondering if it could still be used afterwards...
@@crgkevin6542 Even if it could it probably wasn't pleasant.
They called him Captain Hook.
@@Sk8thud But isn't that more of a 'blood snap' instead of baculum
I love that moment where he actually looks off camera and complains about having to talk about dead puppies. Strangely hilarious.
He looked so mad, lol.
that was scripted
@@JiaruiChen_ obviously? it was still funny
Putting 'Sex' in the title attracts RUclips viewers in the same way La Brea tar pits attracted predators.
mike wilson lol yeah
They wanted... food?
Jav Sanchez Yeah that’s the reason I chose this video 😂
Touche
I bow to you Master of the Internet
I seem to recall reading that one of the fossil dire wolves had a badly broken leg bone. It lived for quite a long time after that, enough time for the bone to heal as much as possible. It must have been in a lot of pain but kept going anyway. What a hero!
Also potentially got cared for by its pack
People always focus on the large wolves like dire wolves and extant European and American wolves but my favorite wolf is the highly overlooked Arabian wolf.
Thousands of years ago, a lot of the Middle East has turned into some of the harshest deserts in the world, and that wolf got over the odds and adapted for such a harsh change by adapting and being ready to eat almost anything that passes by. It is currently the apex predator there with the only non human threat being the striped hyaena (which occasionally scare each other away from carcasses).
It just got me to think about a video idea: the change of many forests a few thousand years ago to deserts (like the Saharan desert)
Technically the (Now extinct) Arabian lion was the apex predator of those dunes, bring able to single handily even take down the migratory ibex's.
The Arabian Wolf is just a subspecies of wolf (Canis lupus arabs). It's a good example to show that Canis lupus is a very adaptive species that thrives in a variety of environments, hence its success as a species.
They do have some adaptations to desert life, mainly behavioural ones (but also different colours and smaller size), but there's nothing really special about them. All wolves are opportunist predators, and generally apex predators in their environment.
It would also be very hard to know exactly when their differenciation as a subspecies started. It's an interesting example of how life adapts to new environments, but not even the best example. The lions of the Namib are another example - those are lions who live in an extremely arid environment, even more than were the Arabian Wolves live.
Raider xs I’m not very sure if the lion existed in the harsher parts of the deserts or in the non deserted parts of the Middle East...
Napishtim I know that it’s a subspecies of grey wolf and that the species is already a highly adaptive opportunistic predator.
I am impressed by the fact that it’s succeeded to do so in a short period of time.
I am impressed by their hunting abilities for their smaller groups, even resulting in a fail of reintroduction of ostriches to the Negev desert, by killing the adults brought there.
I am impressed by their diet, which is very generalist even for a wolf, hunting almost every animal they can kill (even fish in the few creeks) as well as eating fruits.
Sekai -sama meanwhile, I am talking about areas like the Judean desert the Negev desert, which are harsher and more difficult to survive in.
Dead puppies and broken phallus bones. What an awkward episode. XD
Losaru not really
dead puppies aren't much fun
Sounds like a really weird fetish.
could be worse
@@harpervee dead chicks 😣
As an update, Dire Wolves are no longer thought to be wolves. They are canines, but they're less closely to true wolves than various other canines such as dholes and golden jackals.
That means that we haven't truly found the actual ancestor of the modern day wolf. But it's believe we tammed them even then. Cause man and wolf do have a history so we did make companions of ancient dogs
@@Nelo_Wolf Dire wolves were never considered to be the ancestors of gray wolves to begin with. It was known for decades that they evolved around the same time, one in North America, the other in Eurasia.
@@daliborjovanovic510 that's theoretically that they aren't related to wolves. But this debate will one be put an end.
@@daliborjovanovic510 they found a dire wolve buried with it's master a homid Indian
@@Nelo_Wolf No they didn’t
Ironically, those tar pit animals perished in dire circumstances.
Da bum tiss
Get out
🤪🤪🤪
That's not irony.
It is irony, specifically it is verbal irony, not situational irony.
Can you do a video on the development of bioluminescence? Were some prehistoric sea creatures bioluminescent?
Seems very, very hard to figure.
How will we know that, Skin decomposes.
Maybe they could briefly talk about how it evolved in the first place? I would think that the first creatures that glowed in the dark would have been easy targets!
Would LOVE that.
We don't know enough about most of the creatures that are bio-luminescent so it would likely be more speculation than science. With the exception of some cuttlefish/squid that do migrate to the surface of the water, most live in the deep seas which have barely been explored. We know about as much about Mars as we do about the deep sea.
I suspect as drones become more sophisticated we will see an increase in deep sea exploration because a partially or fully automated drone would significantly reduce the cost.
Unfortunately the first to do so will likely be private companies looking for a way to tap deep sea oil reserves.
Now that's one heck of a title.
Those wolves live like superstar.
i don't know why but when he looked past the camera and said "I can't believe you're making me talk about dead puppies" I lost it.....I couldn't stop laughing
Visiting La Brea Tar Pits as a child is what fostered my love for archaeology today. I remember a play area for the kids and being 8 I was therein and they had a sealed clear glass container of the Tar from the pits and inside it was a plunger that stuck into the tar, it was so bloody hard to pull that thing out of the tar even for my grandfather who was with me at the time, I couldn't imagine getting stuck and dying in that stuff.
I love how they're now known to not be wolves or even in the genus Canis. They're more closely related to true jackals and in their own genus Aenocyon. Fascinating but an even sadder loss, another utterly unique species lost to humanity in the late Quaternary extinctions.
We don’t know what caused their extinction
I'm a camp counselor for a bunch of 4 y/o's and we asked them what their favorite animal was and this one kid goes "Dire wolves!"
Gee talking about weiners snapping in half makes me feel uncomfortable for some reason...
Your avatar tho... it's just too perfect for your comment.
Hmm... I wonder why...
CuddlytheCuttlefish You beat me to it, lol...
CuddlytheCuttlefish Beast boy was asked to change into direwolf by Raven and then she lose her stepping and fell sideway.
lmffao me too
“About one-third of the dire wolves found in the pits were juveniles, puppies”
**Stares at Camera crew/ scripting Crew** *_I can’t believe you’re making me talk about dead puppies_*
So if I read this correctly, breaking bones was a risk to their teeth. So they probably didn't eat them unless they absolutely needed the food. No wonder dogs bury bones.
Paul Thronson I feed my pit bull raw meet...raw bones are okay but weight bearing bones we as a community warn one another not to feed. I'm a raw feeding rooky...only been doing it a few months but I've gathered a leg bone from a bison could break my dogs teeth.
As a rooky I still am not quite sure why the restriction but I'm assuming it has a lot to do with the fact perhaps that wolves can eat bones to a certain extent...once passed that....teeth break...I guess. No ones really taken the time to explain it but I'm hoping someone will, preferably with graphic video lol
Any veterinarian worth their salt will tell you to just avoid giving your domesticated animal bones altogether. They see the shards that cause choking, intestinal tears, need surgery, and can often cause death. For what? So you can brag you give your dog a raw diet that supposedly makes it healthier when you could just make bone broth to pour on their food for the same nutrients. Dogs that eat raw food versus dogs that don't, have negligible differences in longevity and overall health.
@@h.r.9563 Dogs love chewing on bones, that's why.
I could barely even understand what you're saying.
@@h.r.9563 Unless you have A domesticated hyena ,then by all means .😁
...and here I thought getting kicked in the nad'erlands was bad.... The fact that one could recover from an injury like that is remarkable. I bet that poor pouch walked like a lizard for weeks.
I wonder how well it worked once it healed crooked...
Update: new genetic analysis from Perri et al. 2021 in the journal Nature shows that dire wolves were not very closely related to gray wolves and coyotes (Canis spp.), putting them back in their original genus, Aenocyon.
Ouch... This episode hurt!!! I’ll probably only watch it 3 more times.
LACMHC 7345: "Hey, LACMHC 8291, how's it hangin'?!"
LACMHC 8291: "A little to the left. _Thanks, LACMHC 6419!_ ... That was sarcasm, by the way."
Lol
Please! Can we please get an episode about Australian megafauna (or at least Thylacoleo carifex) Please!
I'm gonna keep saying this until it happens lol
Yeah please do a video about that
Megalania please!
Yes!!!!
+
Good call!! Would LOVE one on Thylacoleo! And marsupial evolution in general!
My immediate reaction after he said "snap" was cover the front of my pants...ouch
All male mammals can relate it seems
U and me both brother lol
I wonder why the devs didn't bother to patch the glitch at LaBrea.
Too busy with new update and upgrades to grey wolf players. Pretty obvious the devs were gunning for dire wolves.
Since it was such a known bug and easy enough to avoid, it was eventually rebranded as a hazard feature.
Would you believe I'd never heard "hazard feature"? I will steal that and use it for all bugs in my code from now on! Thank you!
ah well ill see you guys in mexico cuz im an axolotl main also too bad all those critters you have are going extinct not that i care life is life and if you cant make it in life you may have never truly lived
I think it helped balance the Dire Wolf guilds in that server. Trust me, I played a Woolly Mammoth build there. Those Dire Wolf guilds were everywhere, and overpowered!
"I cant believe you are making me talk about dead puppies "
Mood
Can you guys do a video on the last common ancestor of cats and dogs and when they split?
Arabella Drummond anyone made this yet
Now you are going to have rewrite this whole episode after the new genetic study finding dire wolves were not wolves, but a much older canid linage.
so? they could add more jokes. ı see that as an absolute win :D
Two canine/canidae videos in a row!
Channel is clearly Felinist! lol
Doggo month?
dog days of summer I guess
Only on PBS Eons do you learn that Dire Wolves were pretty much hung like a horse compared to other wolves. Thanks RUclips. Lmao!
Walrus is crazier.
When he said how big the wolves "Member" was I just sat there like .....did I really need to know that? (Im a girl) .....
A dire wolf wiener!? Now, THAT's dangerous! Guys, don't let your guard down!!
The 18-24 inches was the walrus. The dire wolves were more or less like a human’s.
Facebook
ANOTHER doggo episode?! YAAAS I am SO here for this!!
0:59 (Smilodon's face) When you see a new Eons video in your subscriptions
I have many questions about the raccoon.
But they're everywhere! Ask one!
Yeah, I want to know the ancestor of Racoon and Red Panda
GigawingsVideo From what I recall, the two are examples of convergent evolution. The Red Panda is not closely related to any other living animal. It belongs to the same superfamily as raccoons but that superfamily also includes bears and seals so they are only very distantly related. It just so happened that the same diet, behaviors and markings that were advantageous to raccoons also were advantageous to red pandas.
@@GigawingsVideo lmao r/whoosh
6:01 🤔
New research has come out that dire wolves weren't wolves: their genome was actually more related to foxes, they just convergently evolved into the wolf shape
and more importantly they were a last of a genus that evolved in north america that left no descendants
I've been trying to find artist reconstructions of them post the re-classification. But no luck.
Yes, more stuff about prehistoric canids! I love it! And new information about dire wolves, too ... well done, Eon, and thank you!
Thank you for teaching me this! It was so fascinating to learn about the dire wolves that lived long ago. It was worth watching it before my phone died. Thank u.
This was a great episode! Thank you!
I chose a playlist from this channel to fall asleep to, and when I woke up, this was in my face...7:04
You guys are gonna have to make a new video on Dire Wolves now that we found out they actually aren't wolves at all.
What do u mean
@@imunmire Dire wolves were genetically not closely related to modern wolves.
Literally jut broke the 18th wall. This guy said”Wait, why did the music stop” just as an alarm went off on my phone.
6:05 What I want to know is why a raccoon has a bigger ‘you know what’ then a bear
But look toward the bottom, at poor Martin
They probably don’t have to reach as far if you understand what I’m saying
A video about wolves has never caused me more pain. That poor poor bachula
I made sure I put the vid to full-screen. What an awesome video! Great job. I had no idea that dire wolves were real. Thanks for enlightening me.
"I can't believe you're making me talk about dead puppies."
And wolf dingus
I have ling wondered about the excavation methods used in the Tar Pits? Does the location of the natural asphalt move and expose fossils? Or is it manually moved by researchers?
I believe some areas are removed and dug into to find the bones. At least that's just what I have seen in documentaries.
The older asphalt is hardened, sort of like the asphalt on a driveway once it has hardened. Newer, still-liquid asphalt does move.
Asphalt seeps up from huge reservoirs in the bedrock, so there are distinct pools and ponds of the stuff. When fresh asphalt stops seeping in, the old stuff hardens off, and you end up with this plug of dry asphalt in the ground, often full of bones. It can no longer catch any animals, but it can be excavated. (Even then, during our hot summers, fresh tar tends to leak in from the ground itself, making it impossible to dig in. The pits can only be excavated in winter and spring, when the cold has chilled all the asphalt.)
If you ever visit La Brea, during the winter you can see students excavating in Pit 91 under the guidance of professional paleontologists. Be sure to visit the George C. Page Museum while you're there, too.
pretty sure you mean bedrock not bedroom :P
The Tar Pits and the museum are wonderful! That illuminated wall o' wolf skulls alone is worth a visit!
I ALWAYS watch your channel. Thank you PSB Eons for these awesome videos.
great video! I would love a video on the rise of eggs, or the evolutionary process that led to shelled eggs. finally put the chicken or egg question to rest ;)
Well said haha. Loved this video!
why has no one replied to this
Because there isn't really anything to say
Indeed
I love this channel sooooo much! The BEST hosts ever!
"I can't believe your making me talk about dead puppies"
True
Thank you so much for doing this video, keep up the amazing work.
It’d be really great if you guys did a series of episodes on each of Earth’s relevant periods, in chronological order. You could discuss climate, fauna, flora, what it looked like and how each evolved into the next one.
Its good that you included some common objects (like matches and ruler) in most of the pictures. It helps in imagining the apparent size of the main object in the picture.
The Dire wolf is an example of convergent evolution. Hawks and owls are essentially the same animal filling slightly different niches but not closely related and unable to breed. Their anatomies are similar. The Dire wolf, canis dirus and gray wolf, canis lupus and coyote, canis latrans, and even the now extinct thylacine or Tasmanian "tiger" share similar anatomies and behaviors, but only the gray wolf and coyote could interbreed. The Dire wolf is now known to be a separate species, this via DNA analysis finished recently. The the gray wolf and Dire wolf are now considered extreme cousins separated by several million years. The Dire wolf is similar to the pronghorn "antelope" in becoming a species unique with no close relatives unlike other extinct mega fauna like mammoths, sloths, horses, camels and even the American lion and cheetah.
I wonder if the last fire wolf looked at the mammoth dying in the pit, and after seeing his entire pack die trying to eat it, he thought to himself "I got this..." then died in the pit
An impressive effort, talking through that without looking particularly uncomfortable.
What's that Lassie? Ole '91 fell in the asphalt pit? Bad for 91, great for science! Great show!
Throw various modern dogs to tar pit? To confuse scientists in the far future.
HELL NO DONT DO IT ONLY THROW THE RANDOM HORRIBLE THINGS FROM HELL IN THERE
I think this was one of your best videos thus far - thank you! How about doing a future video about aurochs (yet another GOT animal)?
Loved this episode, great story telling!
I would love to see more on dire wolves, they are my favorite extinct species, and the fact we have such an unusually rich fossil record makes them even better! I would love to see more on them from time to time
I'm honestly surprised he managed to get through that without cracking up.
its very kind enjoyable to listen to this guy, talks exactly like my highschool video production teacher
Another great video!
I have to admit defeat, here. I finally got it through my thick skull, that I can't have this show as background noise when I go to bed. It's just too dang interesting! I love this show and I really want to see special episodes that stretch out to 30 minutes! Even though the beauty of this show is it's ability to be incredibly captivating and concise, I need more. Y'all say you read the comments, so I have a request. Would it be possible to cover geologic time, from the collision of Theia, (not sure if that's spelled correctly) the planet that collided with Earth, causing the chain reaction that eventually made our planet habitable, to the Hadean Eon, on into our current time? Could you list the names of each measurement of geologic time (Eons, Eras, Periods, Epochs, and ages) and explain the conditions and life forms, if any, of each time frame? It would have to be an unusually long video, but I want it done, by this studio, so badly! Please consider this as a possible project. All that stuff I would do for a Klondike Bar, I'll do ten fold for this. Lol. I'll relinquish the Klondike Bar for this, forget the Klondike Bar, lol.
5:48
I can’t believe I’m hearing about dead puppies
When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives
"i can't believe you're making me talk about dead puppies"
This channel is the best. Thank you
The wolf’s be like
Oh and he’s stuck better go get him
Oh now he’s stuck gotta save him
And on and on and on
Eons is slowly teaching me when your a minimalists, you tend to survive the catastrophic events that kill off the top species.
The opening scene description is same as prologue of the book Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson.
UPDATE: Direwolves are no longer considered wolves. The canis community kicked them out. They go by aenocyon now.
Cat evolution next!
哇我也想看这个视频
I don't understand the part at 6:35, since we know by now that at least modern wolf packs simply consist of parents and their offspring and not random wolves who fight over breeding rights or being the "alpha."
Nice foreshadowing on the La Brea tar pits at the beginning.
@ 5:39 "I can't believe your making me talk about dead puppies!" lol
Watching this in 2021 and amazed that the Dire Wolf is no longer classified under the genus Canis or as a true wolf, now its classified under the genus Aenocyon as DNA evidence supports that it diverged from Canis. They are still badass Canidae bois regardless of their taxonomic status .
As a Southern Cal native who is now an expat in Europe, but someone who has traveled extensively and seen natural history museums around the world, I want to give a plug for the Page Museum at the tar pits. It's one of the best small museums in the world, with all the major mega-fauna beautifully presented, while some of the social history behind the discovery and display of this remarkable collection is also accessibly presented. The Dire Wolf skull exhibit, however, really needs to be seen to be believed. The brief glimpses on this excellent video really do not do it justice.
Once you go dire you never go higher
The La Brea tar pits is one of the most amazing sources of historic information and it’s accessible to anyone, any day of the week. Magical.
And the award for best title goes too...
YES!!! Dire wolves video, woohoo! Thank you thank you PBS Eons, and Blake! 🤩 #NotificationSquad haha
Look at all the doggos! I want to cuddle all of them! #ThanksLabreaTarPits #ForScience
5:40 Omg there goes Blake (BdeP) again, doing exactly what I want to do in this video, those poor puppies!
I have learned more about penis bones than I ever could have expected, this is fantastic 🤣 Fighting while mating? Well it is a dog eat dog world out there!
This video was fantastic and excellently done, thank you so much PBS Eons, and Blake! You guys are the best!
RIP #LACMHC8291, you sure did have a heck of a life, and we thank you.
So that's what Lennon meant when he said, "I am the walrus." 🙄
Goo goo ga-joob.
Wat
"Massive size"
You didn't HAVE to stop to makes jokes, they were written in!
But seriously, the information that was gathered was indeed - massive.
Thank you!
Great episode! Thanks! BTW, I just learned about an extinct species of aquatic sloths (Thalassocnus). Seriously. Aquatic sloths. Who knew?
Can you update this video, because the 2021 studies found to be much older lineage of Canids and are not closely related to Gray Wolf, and are more closely related to Jackals
They did a short on it recently.
How did cats split from dogs? (Canids from felids)
That was covered in the last Eons video: ruclips.net/video/sZhxCUay5ks/видео.html
No it wasn't, the last video covered how Canidae was split into 3 familes with the video covering one, and this video covering another. It did not cover the split of Carnivora into Feliformia and Caniformia.
Would've happened way back in the Paleocene, I think. We actually don't know much about it yet, unless there have been a whole lot of new discoveries I haven't heard about. The last common ancestors might not even have been the miacids after all.
It was a messy divorce. They still don't see eye to eye.
kungfuasgaeilge
They fought like cats and dogs.
Everytime I see Steve on screen I think "This is gonna be an enjoyable episode"
So can we talk about the lineage of Canis species? Like different extant and extinct wolf species and coyotes vs jackals?
I heard you were talking about my kind.
👌🐺 Cool video dude
How about a review about this now that we have new information about Dire Wolves? No longer looking like a giant grey wolf...
I love this show lol. It's awesome. My favorite hosts along with PBS space. That guy rocks too
I would love to get your take on the Younger Dryas and the various Younger Dryas mass extinction hypotheses (e.g., traditional man-made extinction vs. Comet impact vs. Solar coronal mass ejection).
Another excelent video,TY for the info,keep up the good job!
Can you please make a video about nimravids and the barbourofelidae?I know they are not true cats but what differentiates them(is it claw retractability?),do we know anything about their lifestyle,what lead them to prominence over other carnivores and what eventually lead to their extinction???
0:38 thats tommy
2:50 As someone from Los Angeles, the La Brea tarpits are not in downtown LA; in fact, they are like minimum 20 minutes west of it, though more realistically 30 min away.
6:14 owo
7:04 oWo
7:33 ÓwÒ
Pervert...LUL NICE
7:33 O.O
Once upon a time, this would have read "This is not something from the D&D Monster Manual." I miss those days.
Please tell us about South American ungulates!!!!!!!!!!!! Your videos are cool and it will be so interesting to hear about so uncharacteristic animals.
It's so interesting to learn that we thought these were wolves but now more research has popped up and turns out they weren't cool