Did Eating Insects Shrink These Dinos?
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- Опубликовано: 26 янв 2022
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We often think of dinosaurs as either preying on other dinos or mammals, or as plant-eaters -- but in ecosystems today, those aren’t the only two options. So why would we expect dinosaurs to have only been carnivores or herbivores, with the occasional omnivore thrown in the mix?
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Dinosaurs like the alvarezsaurs make the question of why literally all non-avian dinosaurs died during the K-PG Extinction Event surprisingly complex. The fact that they were tiny, had a range that spanned several continents, and specialized in a food source that itself weathered the extinction event surprisingly well should have theoretically made them and species with similar niches more resistant to full global extinction than those with more demanding resource requirements like the obligate carnivores and herbivores. Even if mammals and birds would still evolve to dominate the Cenozoic world these insectivorous dinosaurs could have still etched out a specialized existence amongst them even if their kind would never diversify and dominate the world again like what happened with the crocodilians. But that didn't happen, and they died along with all other non-avian dinosaurs while mammals and birds which surely also foraged and ate plenty of insects before and during the extinction aftermath, ants and termites included, did manage to have survivors that would reshape the Cenozoic biosphere. So what really was the determining factor that doomed all non-avian dinosaurs regardless of their size, global distribution, or diet?
they were too specialized and probably relied on a single food source, insects. most animals that survived the extinction had to be generalists eating anything ranging from plant matter, seeds , rotting meats, insects or even their own kind and be able go long periods without food. their food source also took a hit because all plants were essentially wiped out which would have affected the number of insects available. another factor is in how they reproduced, if they layed on eggs on open ground without covering them up, all their eggs would fail because the enviromental conditions would make them extremely weak and suscetible to easy breakage and also what age they would be able to reproduce at also matters. non avian dinosaurs simply were diverse enough in reproductive habits to handle drastic changes, they took long to mature, layed eggs carelessly and probably gave very little parental care. all reptiles that survived the kpg extinction buries their eggs or build nests to protect them from the elements.
I’ve heard about a theory that their eggs took too long to hatch, unlike birds, which had embryos that developed much more quickly. But I don’t know how valid that is, so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong
@@ThePotatoSapien well until we work it out we will just never know so Ur not right or wrong haha is a perfectly reasonable theory
@@charliebaker5731 reasonable hypothesis*
@@Wanhope2 thankyou sir
Fascinating to see how a simple (not really but still) change in behaviors can change the entire evolutionary path of a species. Like I think alot of people forget how important insects are. they arnte cute but they are vital
they are cute tho
@@sayasakisaka7609 One person's cute is another person's nightmare fuel.
@Meenakshi more than just cockaroaches exist. There are cute insects.
Some insects are. What amor moths or some caterpillars or certain bees and ants?
@Meenakshi carpenter bee bee? Jumping spider??
Next, maybe a video on the evolution of termites from cockroaches?? : D
And evolution of flys lol
YES
intensek12👍👍
@@veryrelevant1 hell yeah citizen
Yes, please!
So, termites must not have been building hardened mud nests in the Cretaceous? Modern predators of termites have multiple strong claws on muscular forelimbs to break into nests. Rotten wood or dinosaur droppings seem more likely targets for these single clawed dinos. It would be interesting to know when termites upped their building game in response to predation.
their nests are actually air conditioned using the Bernoulli principle. It could well be that it was more a game of temperature regulation than it was protection from anything.
@@Ponera86 you just blew my mind
@@Ponera86 why not both?
The existence of Fruitafossor (a termite-eating Mesozoic mammal convergent to armadillo and anteater) suggests that hard-nested termite nest does exist as far back as late Jurassic
Well modern termites still hang around with poop and that's where birds like chickens and ducks find them
As an entomologist who specializes in ants this was a wonderful addition to the amazing content offered via Eons.
I want to be an entomologist who specializes in ants. I really like ants but please tell me if there is any money in the field?
@@cash5198 it is a labor of love not $
The thing that gets me about Alvaresaurs is sure their arms are strong but they are so tiny they would have to practically hug the mound or log they were digging into in order to excavate the insects within.
Agreed. I wonder how they dug, and grabbed when they cant see what the arm is doing! All other diggers and anteaters seem to have thick forearms, and long claws, along with scales to protect from bites.
Could be they had protective integument on their arms too. The right kind of feathers or scales might be enough to keep out any irate defenders.
The idea they used minute arms like that for digging, when they had strong legs to use makes no sense. It has to do with mating or wrestling rivals, What else is going to be up against your chest? Biting ants?
It is a really goofy scene to imagine.
I cannot stress how much we NEED an artist depiction of these short-armed single-clawed creatures digging. For science... and also amusement, but mainly science.
"As you know, termites came from crocoaches during the dinosaurs unlike ants, but moving on to an interesting topic..."
Wait, what? You can't just... refuse to elaborate further!
Ants and bees are wasps.
@@naamadossantossilva4736 This raises more questions than answers
I mean, if there hasn't been an episode on this yet, I'd sure like to see one!
@@WanderTheNomad Ants and bees share a common ancestry with wasps (They're all Hymenopterans as far as I know).
@@jamesredmond7001 Do termites and cockroaches also share a common ancestor?
I feel like I should have an associate's degree from this channel by now.
Enjoyable video, but I feel like a detail about the significance of social insects was missing. I'm purely speculating, but presumably *social* insects were important because it meant large groups of insects could be easily found and consumed in a single place, thus providing more calories capable of sustaining larger organisms (think having to chase down hundreds of lone peanuts instead of only needing to find one packet of peanuts, ha).
This mechanical detail is fairly intuitive and may not need spelled out for the audience, but I think some viewers would have appreciated this being touched upon.
Is there a large strictly insectivorous species today, besides the anteater living in regions of warm climate where their prey are abundant?
@@sternamc919sterna3 Anteaters, aardvarks, and pangolins all live in warm climates... Bats are strict insectivores that can be found in cooler climates, but large they are not.
@@svennoren9047 there are species of large bats in WAfrica that are frugivores. Some decades ago I witnessed their flight at dusk from the trees in the city centre in Abidjan-Ivory Coast. They returned at dawn and during the day they rested and decorated 😉 all vehicles parked under the trees. Sometimes there were people hunting them for meat. Insectivore bats in higher latitudes tend to be smaller and lighter. In Europe some species of bats mix a diet of insects and fruits. In southern Iberian Peninsula you can find ripe figs with the marks of their bites, but these are much smaller than those in central west Africa. Higher latitudes (temperate and cooler climates) have smaller bats. I guess that from all insectivore species the anteater is the one attaining larger body size. They depend on huge abundance of prey and when there is a sudden shortage of prey their populations suffer great losses. The challenges of the insectivore dinosaurs may not have been different to those of present animal species.
PBS Eons uploads have the highest honor I can bestow on them, as one of the only types of video I can watch while I'm eating Dinner after a long day at work.
Top tier stuff guys! x
Such great content! Eons is what showed all of us small paleo RUclips channels that a channel with 7 figures might be possible for our genre! ❤
Why did these dinosaurs get extinct given their size and food habits? I wonder whether there.was something else within the group of non avian dinosaurs that made them more susceptible to extinction than their avian relatives...interesting video!
I was wondering the same thing!
It may very well be that they were out competed. Not to mention that these were found in the cretacious, which ended in the extinction of ALL nonavian dinos.
I don’t know why we expect that these species should survive? None ever do longer than a few million years.
reproductive habits also played a part in extinctions, if these dinosaurs were burying their eggs, thats a no-no for the kpg extinction, there is no evidence that any non avian dinosaurs protected their eggs.
@@chrisdonish Oviraptor did
Lovely to see alvarezsaurs get the attention they deserve. But it's such a shame you didn't mention the results of our Science paper last year where we found out that the group was nocturnal and had amazing nocturnal vision and hearing :(
Now I want an episode about how some insects became social.
Wait, what? It was "...a chicken-sized dinosaur... a little over a meter long"??? WHERE ARE YOU BUYING YOUR CHICKENS???
If chickens bent over and had tails
US factory farms
Presumable the video meant they *weighed* as much as a chicken.
It's really interesting to see that two totally different groups of dinosaurs: tyrannosaurids and alvaresaurids have nearly identical ancestors during jurassic. What a great example od evolution!
I live near an area with a lot of trace fossils from my this period. I have seen these therapod prints in the mud (now stone) and I have been wondering about them. This gives me something to imagine when I see them
it's not the dinosaur that went after them, but the rise of social insects that will stick with me...
I hadn't ever thought about how long that behaviour had been around,
I had just assumed that this had been a thing since the rise of insects...
best paleontology channel. i seriously cannot stop watching 😅
I'm so happy I stumbled across this channel. This takes me back to being a kid, watching nature videos in science class and dinosaur specials at home. Keep up the amazing work!
I'd stay away from this teacher if I were you.
@@SirBlackReeds Why? And what teacher would you recommend?
“A chicken sized dinosaur… a little over a meter long…”
Have you seen a chicken?
Have you weighted one?
@@naamadossantossilva4736 Yes, I have. But no matter how light or heavy a chicken is, they aren’t going to be a meter in length.
Chickens don't have dinosaur tails. If they did, they could easily be a meter in length
"A chicken sized dinosaur a little over a meter long."
You must have some giant chickens where you live.
Love this. Alvarezsaurs are one of my favourite groups of dinosaurs but they rarely get covered in accessible books or videos. They're super cute too!
For Dinovemeber this past year I ended up drawing Alvarezsaurus, and wanted to draw it feeding though I was having a tough time figuring out how to go about it. I came up with the idea that perhaps, like modern woodpeckers, some Alvarezsaurs may use their claws to break through the bark of trees and release the sap, which in turn would attract insects that would get stuck in there. My thought was that perhaps an Alvarezsaur could have a certain area in which they would do this to multiple trees and over a period of time visit these marked trees to consume the insects that became trapped. Does this sound feasible to anyone? I'm really curious about how Alvarezsaur feeding mechanisms could've worked, considering how short their arms were.
That seems plausible, at least as speculation. While there does not seem to be direct evidence in favor, the evidence that we have doesn't rule it out either! Meanwhile, I'm getting really curious about what indications we have surrounding their tongues! Many insectivorous animals today have highly specialized tongues---woodpeckers very much come to mind there, with their rather extreme adaptations in that regard.
@@autochton I went on a hike last weekend and the woodpeckers were so active! We saw 3 on a single tree! And two separate species too. So fun to watch avian dinos doing their thing.
@@autochton the video does mention that at least some Alvarezsaurids had an opening between their from teeth that could allow a long tongue to dart out.
it's really interesting to know that there was a dinosaur that specializes in eating insects!
I remembered that animals that weighted over 10 kilograms when the extinction occurred are all wiped out. So how did the Alvarasaurs did not survive? They feed on insects and are small enough to hide along with certain species of mammals after all.
It's not like every animal below 10kg survived, many mammals, crocodiles or amphibians also went extinct. It their case it was probably because their specialisations.
Yeah, there can be many factors that cause a group to go extinct. The dinosaurs that did survive all seem to have been capable of flight, so that might be what made the difference?
@@autochton Not flight, but they tended to be more generalists, so they weren't Picky eaters. That would've helped with the absence of food in the extinction event. Tho, I think Alvarezsaurus didn't make the cut because they were extremely specialized. They had very weak jaws and were too small to predate on really anything, I imagine.
@@alvaronavarro4895 also almost all other dinosaurs didn't try to shield eggs from the elements
@@alvaronavarro4895 It is also important to note that among survivors we have some understanding how they lived around the time of the K-Pg extinction event most seem to have been animals which in addition to not being picky eaters either burrowed or lived near the water(freshwater specifically since this is in regards to terrestrial biosphere)
It seems likely that many insects that survived may have relied on prolonged dormancy to make it through the several years without significant sunlight which may have also been a factor in limiting the survival of dinosaurs. Of the 4 groups of avian dinosaurs which did survive the 3 we know what they were like during the late cretaceous the paleognathes, water fowl and land fowl were all groups which today are generalists with a diet of mixed vegetation (notably including either seeds or aquatic vegetation) and animal based foods or show evidence of descending from such a group.
These dinos seem to have specialized heavily on insects which may have doomed them if they weren't initially wiped out by the impact firestorm of fallout burning up the atmosphere.
I was today years old when I learned that termites evolved from cockroaches.
And they don't mention it here, but ants evolved from bees (which, given the social systems of both as well as their venomous stings and bites, isn't too surprising).
I think it is more correct to say both ants and bees evolved from wasps. Ants ditched the wings and went underground, while bees were wasps that decided to specialize in these newfangled "flowers"
Doesn't matter, they will all evolve to crabs
@@KellyClowers I'm looking at some google images right now and I can see the similarities between an ant and a wasp, and a bee and a wasp.
But I can't see as much of a similarity between an ant and a bee.
Which all checks out with both ants and bees descending from wasps.
@@ekulerudamuru 🤣😂🤣😂 you aren't wrong, probably
Thank you SO MUCH for not pronouncing 'niche' as 'nitch. You are my hero!
Wonderful content, writing and editing, thanks!
Well this is a first for me seeing a PBS Eons video about an hour after it came out. Usually it's at least a day or two before I see it being uploaded. Keep up the Great work PBS Eons!
Everything else in this video is cool but what I found most interesting is the fact that termites evolved from cockroaches
I bet someone in the comments will yell 'EVOLUTION ISNT TRUE'.
With seeds and insects and tall trees to nest in, no wonder the whole Dino gang was going small and efficient before the asteroid.
insectivores are carnivores. just more specialized.
What's your thoughts on the theory that Alvarezsaurs are specialized egg eaters after the discovery of Qiupanykus, which, of all places, found in the nest of an Oviraptorid? In an ecosystem dominated by egg laying megafaunas, it is reasonable to assume that some animals will become egg specialists. And it always seems to me that the arm of Alvarezsaurs are too short for digging.
Best theory to explain why they got instinct, they optimzed on a food source, which vanished.
Love love love!!! ❤ Ya'll make these bite sized videos easy to understand to give us an open door to delve in deeper on our own!
Interesting, as always....can't wait for the next video. Thanks for all the effort.
Thanks for the awesome content!!
I was already familiar before with these dinosaurs. The digit reduction in alvarezsaur evolution is similar to the digit reduction in horse evolution. Horse evolution and the adaptation to cursoriality is well documented and is taught in schools as a classic example of evolutionary change. Hopefully one day alvarezsaur digit reduction will be taught in schools too. Loved these maniraptorans since i was a kid and still do as an adult.
Probably not,because horses are still here but alvarezsaurids have long gone extinct.
I'm pretty sure alvarezsaurs aren't maniraptorans
@@yuujinner5801 they are. look it up.
@@alioramus1637 okay my bad I thought they were more basal than ornithomimosaurs
@@yuujinner5801 Alvarezsaurs are maniraptorans, while ornithomimosaurs are not maniraptorans.
I know it is not always possible, but all the comparison images really made it easy to picture this little guy. This guy would be so cool to see irl.
Sadly they'd probably refuse cuddles
Excellent research and presentstion! Very interesting!
Thank you.
Thank you, Michelle. Loved this episode and your energy for the subject matter
The chat threads in these vids are quite interesting as well, great bonus!
The artwork of these dinosaurs make them look so dang derpy lmaoo I love these lil guys, so cute and hilarious-looking XD
I’d just like to thank you for always having accurate subtitles.
Every time I lock eyes with a chicken I feel like Chris's pratt 🤣🤣
I love this person as a narrator/educator! Please feature them more!
hey guys! Love the video. I've had an idea for a video for a while, and thought I'd shoot it by you: would you be interested in doing a video on Lisowicia, the elephant-sized dicynodont from Triassic Poland, and possibly Smok wawelski, its likely predator? I love stuff regarding more obscure prehistoric creatures. Take care!
Yeah, more dicynodonts would be interesting
You got a really cool look! :)
Always enjoy these videos so much, thank you!
That was wonderful, and explaining such evolution of life! Thanks!
Please make a video exploring protofeathers/Integumentary structures in Carnosaurs, such as Carcharodontosaurids (like Concavanetor).
I like the part of science which traces life to it's origins instead of destroying it.
"So why wouldn't we think dinosaurs as insect eaters too?"
Mainly because until the late 20th Century(90s) and the 21st Century most, but not all, dinosaurs discovered were large with teeth that were either, fairly confidently, carnivorous or herbivorous with some omivorous. It's kinda like how burrowing dinosaurs were thought not to exist either. :)
Bugs: "we will build cities!"
Dinos: **purposeful grimace intensifies**
Would be cool to see a hypothetical animation of an alvarezsaur hunting ants or termites.
Thank you pbs! For making awesome content
Having some of these as pets for killing flies would just be the best
I wonder what other niche dinosaurs would have done that we don’t know.
please make a video on how limbs evolved, by that I mean fins, flippers, and the sort
As an Ark survival evolved player, the first thing I thought of when seeing these things was. Awe, they're covering the cute little compy's
I want to hold the smaller ones in my hands- that sounds so cute. 🥰
My brain continues to swell with new knowledge! Or possibly just a cerebral edema!
Can you talk more about intelligent life in extinct species that aren’t primates? Like creatures that were part of the cephalopod, corvid, cetacean or elephant families. Were they as intelligent as their extant descendants? Or did current species evolve an even more advanced form of intelligence than their extinct ancestors? Or did it go in the opposite direction?
I’d love a video on that too! Sadly, it’s hard to determine intelligence based on fossils, so any guesses would be conjecture at best
Awesome vid! Love little bird like insect eaters
Would love an episode going in depth on the difference between divergent and convergent evolution.
Jurassic park 3 has an interesting scene where compy’s are seen hunting flying insects. It’s very brief but it showed this very point that not all dinosaurs were strictly carnivorous or herbivorous.
Aren't insects still meat?
A chicken sized dinosaur over a meter long?! Where does PBS get their chickens from?!??
The scaled picture at 4:35 seems wrong. The mass ratio is around 4 to 10, but the picture is scaled around 4, and typically mass scales as length^3, which means the smaller picture should correspond to a mass of 0.36Kg.
I was wondering if you guys could do a video on the saber tooth tiger! And how it came to be, and its down fall in the past. Or, I was hoping you could do a video on why fish live so deep in the ocean!
They've done a video on saber toothed animals already.
@@AndrewTBP oh yea, I must have forgot.
Imagine T-Rex chasing (huge) butterflies.
Would love to see a video covering the emergence of social insects, would be really interesting to see how they switched from solitary lives to forming colonies.
*Alvarezsaurs speaking to Anteater*
"I paved the road, you just walked on it"
The hind legs on both the smaller and larger size dinosaurs would seem to be great for a “chicken-scratch” foraging technique.
Maybe both dinosaurs would seek out large and small insects and offspring sheltering and growing in dirt. And not just fallen trees.
I look in the cold, primal eyes of a 🐔🐓 rooster and think, "those t Rex eyes."
And of course shiver 🥶
You said birds and alvarezsauruses were the only dinosaur taxon to shrink in size but I am pretty sure that Sauropods did that too in the Cretaceous. Can you explain this?
i think its mostly the island locked speicies of sauropods that shrank, the continental sauropods were actually the largest of their speicies in the late cretaceous.
@@chrisdonish I might be wrong but I am quite certain that in the EARLY Cretaceus sauropods were getting smaller
This narration is much, much better, with easily understandable enunciation.
T-rex and Carnotaruas can consume coprolites .
These are the greatest small arm therapods
Harsh 😬
I love PBS asap I get a place and have fun on my TV and enjoy where it should be enjoyed as well as Tv should
What if their short, but powerful arms were partially to climb up trees some. Just a thought. 🤔
Small is beautiful. My chickens' favorite foods are moths and earwigs.
2:48 It’s spelled Xiyunykus.
5:08 25 Million years is considered quickly ?
Amazing video as usual!!!!!!
How about the evolution of Matises
I could honestly say this is one of my favorite video you guys ever made, it’s fascinating for me to imagine how they acted when picking out insect. I mean just imagine their beaks against the log and their tongue sticking out while they’re graspng their log with a two tiny arm with their one fingers, kind of make them look cute 🥰
How about an episode on stem tetrapods and polydactyly?
It's hard not to see the little guys lineage as a race to the kt boundary weight limit of what less than 20kgs. Maybe just little bit smaller and they would have survived
Watching chickens eat bugs I'll now think of this dinosaur ancestor.
Finally something about Linhenykus! They’re my favorite dinosaur, they’re so dumb looking.
Did this script seem a bit redundant to any one else? A lot of info seemed to repeat unnecessarily like the draft was rough.
I think they needed to pad it a bit to make it to the 10 min mark for ads. This could have been a 5 minute video easy.
Sums up every video with this host.
It's a nose ring one.
More cool stuff about dinosaurs! Also wonder if this group of species got smaller because it enabled them to evade predators(?) Larger individuals could have been detected and picked off more easily by apex predators.
Somewhere in heaven, Edward O Wilson's ears are burning, and its not just his ant angels that normally nibble on them...
Alvarezsaurus sounds hilarious to an argentinian like me. I love him.
My first thought was that they would've made for cool pets, but the really specialized diet probably would present a big problem.
The acknowledgements at the end of the video are beautiful. All PBS teams are fantastic, doing special things for the people.
So... primordial feathered anteater?
Anteaters are mammals, not birds
@@kyptos2252 and dinosaurs aren't birds either, not all of them and certainly not Mononykus or other Alveresaurids. They where, as a niche, more similar to an anteater then any modern bird.
@@ThumbSipper okay so your saying those Dinosaurs had a tube for a mouth
More like an alternative anteater
@@kyptos2252 no they're saying they had a role similar to an anteater
Please do a video on triceratops!
It's arder to find the smaller Dinosaur fossils especially as the bugger ones get more of the attention! More will be found.
Becoming an insect eater means that you will never have to go far for food.
"Chicken-sized"... "just over 1 meter long"... damn, what kind of chickens have you got over there?