The Sudden Rise of the First Colossal Animal
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- Опубликовано: 10 май 2024
- A truly enormous ichthyosaur around the size of a modern sperm whale, reached its size within just a few million years of taking to the water - a blink of an eye in evolutionary time.
Thanks to Julio Lacerda ( / juliotheartist , Nobumichi Tamura (spinops.blogspot.com/), and Dmitry Bogdanov for their excellent reconstructions featured in this video.
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References: docs.google.com/document/d/16...
If you are looking to learn more about ichthyosaurs, you can check out our video "When Ichthyosaurs Led a Revolution in the Seas" and if you have already watched that and just want more Eons content in general, you should check out our new podcast "Eons: Mysteries of Deep Time", available now wherever you get your podcasts! (Subtle plug)
Plugging your own channel? Disgraceful haha
I should sleep right now greetings from Germany
I thought we had a handful of giants during the Paleozoic Era? Like Para/Helicoprion?
I love your videos thank you for the content
Wouldn’t dunkleosteus in the Devonian period reaching 33 feet long count as a “giant”
I actually really like the visual aid of placing the animal in question behind or slightly above the narrator, usually comparing the size next to a currently living relative is a hit or miss since some folks may not be familiar with the animal in the first place. I do like that PBS Eons uses the presenters as scale to really drive the sense of mass home, it's surprising that more nature channels don't do that. Also, something about the person moving next to the example is more impactful then an image next to an image.
(We see you editors, we love you too)
Also, where did she get that shirt? I love it!
I actually noticed that in this video and 1000% agree!
I did an obsessive amount of Instagram stalking to find it's from the Mary Anning Rocks website.
They have been doing that since inception I think
Wouldn't be an issue if you have the concept of proportions.
@@ferrousiron7165
Having a concept of proportions doesn't necessarily make it easier to visualize something. You have a concept of money, right? Now imagine what 1 trillion dollars looks like. Same idea.
Okay, I knew Cymbospondylus was big, but I did not know they grew THAT big.
That's a spicey ichthyosaur!
Gabriel iglesias said it best. DAMN!
Probably bigger. The fossil record proves who existed, not who didn't.
Sure, one can speculate, theorize and conclude. But if you found just one of said species it probably wasn't the largest of its kind.
Insane, right?
Me too.
It's amazing to me how much like dolphins icthyosaurs were. Convergent evolution at its finest.
A sleek hydrodynamic shape with flippers is a winning design!
Technically dolphins look like ichthyosaurs. The reptiles did the fish thing first.
And they are both kind of cute.
And more than just their general shape, they breathed air and were viviparous. Indeed classic convergence.
@@Goudhaantje1993 Fish did the fish thing first. So technically both dolphins and ichthyosaurs look like fish.
ichthyosaurs are one of evolutions success stories. They existed from the early triassic 250 million years ago to the late cretaceous 90 million years ago. They diversified in to many niches in the ocean that cetaceans are filling today. They revolutionized the seas for ever. There are Ichthyosaurs similar to Shonisaurus believed to have reaches sizes comparable to that of blue whales.
Ichthyosaurs even held out much better against competition than previously thought (then again, this seems to be the rule rather than the exception in supposed cases of group-level displacement). They actually had one last wave of diversification (including into apex predator niches) in the Early Cretaceous before being wiped out by the Cenomanian-Turonian Boundary Event. It’s only after this that mosasaurs become fully aquatic and high successful, indicating that ichthyosaurs (and the pliosaurid plesiosaurs) were preventing them from taking over beforehand.
I love how some laid eggs and others had live young
Not so successful if they're all dead don't you think
@@shauni_jade They were around as ichthyosaurids for 160 million years. Thats a strong success case compared to hominids, that have been around just a couple of millions of years as human/ape shaped animals (and shurely won't last much longer, in the light of recent developments).
@@shauni_jade all species will go extinct eventually. Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.
I’d like to say thank you to PBS Eon’s. Nothing has ever inspired me like this channel. I cannot wait to see what comes next
It took this animal 3 million years to get so big. While that's short compared to others as mentioned like the blue whale, I still can't help but be amazed this animal was around for so long. Modern humans have only been around for 300,000 years. It's crazy to see what we'll be in 3 million years.
If we survive ourselves. We’re our own worst enemy.
@@valiroime Maybe. Whose to say in a million, no- in just another 300,000 years what kinds of creatures will arise. My prediction is that our biggest rival as humans won't be large, intelligent animals, but rather the microscopic ones like bacteria/viruses that will challenge us.
Whales actually reached megafaunal size in 5 million years though with Basilosaurus at 15 to 20 meters no less, but then they kinda shrunk again after Eocene and only become true colossal leviathans after Miocene epoch
I mean I were still living like we are now we probably wouldn't change that much, hopefully we'll be around in 3 million years
If you start swimming now your great great great great great great great great great grandchild might grow up to be around 8 feet tall
We sometimes talk about animals evolving through millions of years and then going extinct as if it were nothing...
But our own genus is just about 2 million years old (depending on how you count and which species you consider to be "human").
That kind of put things in perspective, doesn't it?
Right! Our own species has only existed for about 200 thousand years...
If everybody understanding this, everybody want to live in harmony
And yet we have become the smartest and the most sucessful species to live on the planet in that short timespan
@@Naw662 unless there was another species before who was more intelligent than us and considered doing the stuff we do but thought better of it so left no sign of their intelligence
@@jamiek645 yeah no you likely have to develop to a degree that would cause you to leave substantial evidence in the fossil record in order to realize and choose not to cause the damage advance society can
I'm fascinated by the sheer scale of things specially time, in this channel.
Very rapidly... 3 million years.
Look at whale's 50 million years...
Imagine being lost for 3 days, vs 50 days...
But yeah, stunning amounts of time!
Kind of puts things in perspective
Unnecessary commas and periods
@@donotreply8979 your comment is unnecessary lol, the original one wasn’t that bad.
I'm from Nevada, and the ichthyosaurus is our state fossil. Thanks for the ending credit acknowledgment of my people, the Northern Paiute!
Yes indeed! I thank them for indigenous acknowledgment, too!
I mean yall do kinda look like them 😂
Okay, now this is weird.
I hadn’t thought about cymbospondylus since I was a little kid, and suddenly earlier today I remembered they existed and how cool they sound.
And now this video has come out, teaching me about the exact subject I thought about looking into only a few hours ago.
I love when things like that happen
It's usually moments like this that make you question reality.
Nigel Marvin?
Yeah cuz most kids remember the latin name 🙊
Probably psychic. Be careful.
Such rapid appearance of animal this size after the most devastating mass extinction is incredible.
Extinction events open up a lot of environmental niches so some really exciting explosions of evolutionary change can happen afterwards! It’s pretty wild!
I’m surprised dunkleosteus reaching 30 feet and being a massive powerfully built fish isn’t considered the first “giant”
40 foot Parahelicoprion: I got you.....
@@manzac112 Dunkleosteus is from the Devonian, a couple sneezes before the Parahelicoprion's Permian.
As far as i know, Dunkleosteus was the first giant apex predator.
It's been my favorite prehistoric animal ever since they found feathers on raptors.
@@Games_and_Music well maybe vertebrate, orthocone and jaekelopterus were earlier and very big and its a stupid classification "giant" whatever that means
@@TheHortoman Orthocones are the name of a certain type of shell. It's not a species. Some orthocones can be quite long, but I'm not sure if the longer ones actually predate Dunkleosteus.
Sea scorpions could reach impressive sizes for their time, but they were still dwarfs compared to Dunkleosteus.
Love the fact that I can't imagine how large something is (ichthyosaurs, whales) without having a visual reference
Yep
Need that banana for scale.
With the cold blooded lizards, the laws of scale make gigantism very helpful: The length growing linearly, the surface grows with the length squared and the volume with length cubed, the volume over surface ratio keeps growing. In cold environments like the sea this helps the ability of a predator to move more quickly and to maintain heat it collected when dwelling near the surface in regions warmed by sunlight for longer and maintains the heat of its own metabolism generated when active. So it's not a surprise bigger ichtyosaurs were a success.
That's alot of english for me not too be able too understand a word.
@@rafikioftatooine5268 It mainly is the maths.
Lenth: L
Area L²
Volume: L³
If you double the length of a body, its surface area gets four times a big, its volume eight times as much as it was before.
The loss of heat from a body is proportional with its surface area. The bigger a body is, the smaller the ratio of volume over area gets, so the heat loss gets less. Muscles produce warmth when working, also with cold blooded animals. A big cold blooded being will thus have some of the advantages of warm bloodedness by just becoming very big.
Ichtyosaurs were warmblooded. We have direct evidence of it as fossils of them were found with blubber. Modern cetaceans, seals and even polar bears have it to keep them warm in the cold water.
@@alioramus1637 Does a heat insulating feature suffice to say a species was able to actively control its warmth via metabolism? Still a stunning and highly interesting bit of info for which I thank you! ^^)
…pretty sure ichthyosaurs were warm-blooded dude
I find icthyosaurs so fascinating. I just love looking at the specimen at my local museum. I consider myself lucky to have been able to see the collection at the London museum of natural history, that was really fantastic
3 million years for such an impressive change its incredible!
can you please make a video about megalania it's a giant komodo dragon that lived in Australia.
I remember seeing this animal in Impossible Pictures’ Sea Monsters trilogy. It was one of the first truly big sea reptiles of the Mesozoic.
A episode about colorados flourisants rare fossils is needed. We would know little of that eras small animals without them and the site. But another great ep here
knew that some ichthyosaur species (like Shonasaurus and Shastasaurus) got as big as the biggest modern day whales but never heard of this one until now, thanks for the video
Isn't it possible that the way icthyosaurus reproduced also played an important role in their quick transition to gigantism?
What do you mean, doggie style?
Probably missionary
Doubtful, it was just live birth. No different from most marine reptiles.
Fishy style
That adorable big-eyed conodont! I love how cute some of the depictions in these videos are.
These evolutionary biology videos are great! it's awesome PBS is putting out these accessible and informative snapshots of time. It makes people I know what to become paleontologists!
You’re telling me this thing was a real-life Subnautica monster? That’s cool.
"Multiple Leviathan class lifeforms have been detected in this area are you sure what your doing is worth it?"
I like how in every artist rendition you can see Ichthyosaurs going "AAAAAAAAAA" 😂❤
Now this is more like it! This is the detail and quality that I expect from Eons. Keep these up.
Lizard seals, lizard dolphins and lizard sharks, the ichthyosaurs are amazing.
I saw Cymbospondylus at the LA NHM the day after it was described, and let me tell you, it was HUGE. The skull alone was taller than I am, and probably weighed a couple hundred pounds.
I love your t-shirt Callie! Looking forward to the eventual installation of the Mary Anning statue in Lyme Regis. I also love ichthyosaurs, and I love this channel! Great stuff all around. :)
Hey, great video as always!
I really love the first episode of the podcast, it was amazing to listen to and I was sad when it already ended after 18 minutes. Can't wait for new episodes!
Yeesssssss.
More of this type of content, please!
I can’t like this hard enough.
Also, you’re my favorite host.
Is there an elasmosaur episode yet?
Why is it’s neck so long?
Is it possible that a few survived to inspire myths like Loch Ness?
Are they more related to ichthyosaurs or specific dinosaurs?
Are pterosaurs more like birds than dinosaurs like velociraptor or stegosaurus ?
Is apatosaurus or triceratops more like modern birds than pterosaurs?
What were gorgonopsids and other Paleozoic megafauna like?
Just trying to suggest topics for episode.
Thanks for making this everyday everyone.
I wonder how long they would have gone before they all came colossal crabs...
On a side note, what variety of intelligence was there for ancient earthlings like these? Was there any inclination of tool use like there is with modern dinosaurs and some modern synapsida? Are there any hypotheses on trapping during hunting? Or play during adolescence? I'm super curious about what we've learnt!
oh i didn't know about dinosaurs using tools? is it for cracking eggs?
@@MarkWTK They use them for opening seeds and reaching food in difficult places, such as within long, narrow hollow structures.
Tool use in the water is quite difficult. Probably we wouldn’t find any signs of tool use and play in cetaceans if they were all extinct by now. We would say just massive animals adapted for predation. Probably in life they had some intelligence, but we don’t know. Their way of growth was different though. Mammals nurse their young with milk. Probably those animals were going to be able to eat immediately. So no adolescence in the same way as in mammals.
i love binge-watching all of PBS Eons' vids (and their shorts too!) especially when im about to wakey-wakey from the drowsiness doing my own business. thank you guys, keep em coming.
In honor of Women's History Month, English fossil hunter and paleontologist Mary Anning discovered the first identified Ichthyosaurs in 1811 at age 12.
1811 also saw the publication of Jane Austen's first novel "Sense and Sensibility".
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
And she's wearing her Mary Anning Rocks shirt! The status is in its final stages of casting and will be displayed soonish!
There's also a film featuring her played by Kate Winslet.
Saoirse Ronan sits on her face at one point.
Gotta love the host-to-animal size comparison. Dinos and related animals got BIG.
It’s amazing how quickly they evolved. It makes me wonder who evolved fasted in the fossil record.
Humans are one of the contenders for that honor!
Insects?
Probably fish and insects
I'm a simple man: I see a new Eons video, I click the hand up
The sheer difference in scale of life on earth is something truly wonderful, to see a living blue whale in the wild is one of the top points of my bucket list.
Bruh this channel has got me hooked and I’m learning about this stuff rn in class
*meme of guy checking out girl (Eons) while next to offended girl (Teacher)*
Can you guys possibly make a video on how and when animals first learned to instinctively fear humans? I know its a tricky one!!
I just got the idea when a bird came up to the birdfeeder outside my bedroom window, but flew off without feeding as soon as it noticed me, and it got me thinking...
Please please do a video on how dogs turned into seals. Nov 28 2018 Hank talked about it in a video and I've waited for it ever since lol
5:44 that seems like a misleading way to phrase that. All ecosystems are most productive at the lowest level of the food chain. Its not possible for them to not be. That's *why* baleen whales can be so big, because they exploit the more productive lower levels instead of the less productive higher levels.
Sounds a lot like capitalism
As always, you delivered a very complicated knowledge in a very simple way. /and that contribution note at the end was very nice.
Fascinating. Could you do a video on the ceratopsians?
I genuinely love this channel so much. I'm far from an expert or even close to knowledgeable on any of these subjects but they fascinate me greatly. These videos are so easy to digest and delivered in a way that makes them easy to understand even for noob like me ^^ Thanks to all of you at Eons for your continued work, I wish I could afford to support you more
If there's an afterlife of any type, I sincerely hope I could be provided the ability to view, observe and learn about all life to ever exist.
In that case you’ll spend most of eternity learning about bacteria and nematodes. Rather you than me!
Honestly I hope when I die I get to learn about everything like that. The ability to scroll through time, zoom in on certain animals, learn about how the universe works...
I'd always thought the hereafter could be much like that. Heaven, to me, is a place where everyone is reunited again and you will learn all you ever wanted to know.
I uh...misjudged their size until you put up the size reference compared to you. That's a really big reptile!! It's so interesting how they had some of the first large creatures and I mostly love them for their eyes- so big!!
Dear Santa, for Christmas I would love to get an Eon's episode on Island continent South America ecology. Maybe it will come true in time for Christmas.
Idea for a new episode: Why are the biggest species in the seas not fish? Is there a natural size limit for fish?
Great idea
I think mammals are so much more warm-blooded and have huge brains, they're driving even sharks towards extinction.
I think breathing air with a high O2 content may have something to do with that.
Note, some sharks can get really huge such as Megalodon, and the extant whale shark. The ray-finned Leedsichtis problematicus is estimated to have been even larger, at least 17 m.
Wow what an interesting episode. Ivhthyosaurs were actually the first giant animals on earth!!!! Wow, that's a fun fact. Don't forgot to do evolutionary history of both tyrannosaurids, pinnipeds and also sea birds as well.
WOW WOW WOW WRITE NORMALLY PLEASE
@@donotreply8979 their writing WAS normal, what are u talkin about
It's always a treat to learn more about dinosaurs. Not until today did I learn of the behemoth that's the main star of this episode.
Also, this is my first time visiting the channel, and already like what I'm seeing so far.
The little animal guy in the beginning of the video is a cute little guy! 😍
I just want to thank Michelle for her cheerful voice and intonation! It's somehow both cheerful and calming.
Getting really large is a deadly game, the slightest reduction in underlying biomass and you starve.
"Are you still walking on land?"
"Yeah."
"OMG, that's so Permian."
When they acknowledged indigenous lands my heart melted
Thank you for acknowledging indigenous peoples.
I miss you Steve, I hope you're ok
He's hiding from the colossal ichthyosaurs.
Probably my favorite RUclips channel.
I just realize you guys don’t have a dedicated Plesiosaur video, I hope you make one!
8:32 I see that salmon just chilling there.
Nice job on the subtle sound design on this one.
Honestly, I always get stumped when these guys are like: "It was a rapid change"
Me: "So... like, ten years?"
Them: "2 million years"
😭😭😭
I love the passion in your voice! Makes learning entertaining.
Thank you for acknowledging the indigenous cultures
Please do a video on the major extinction events that have happened in Earth's history! These get mentioned in videos such as this one, so it would be nice for a video which focuses on them so we can refer back to that video when we want more context in a video such as this! 😁
"the rise of the giant ichthyosaurs began with a global ecological catastrophe" aw jeeze man I cant wait to see what new species come out of extinction in the Anthropocene ;-;
Actually, it's quite wonderful to imagin what wonderful forms of life will come around after we finish making our upheaval in geological timescale. Even Premian-Triassic wasn't as destructive as we are. I guess humans can only wonder what mind-blownig
creatures will emerge from our failures in a few million years. I personally root for cephalopods to become mangrove dwellers and then full-blown arboreals.
The only way to save Earth from dolphin dominance xD
Pigeon, sparrow, rat, roach, ant, or cat?
Totally missed out on mentioning Shonisaurus by name. Would've loved here so details on THE largest icthyosaur ever.
I find it fascinating that Shonisaurus might have grown bigger than modern blue whales! Ben G. Thomas has a video about that species, in case you follow his chanenl.
Can you make a video about what determines whether plentiful resources leads to a high population vs larger body size?
Love your content, wish you’d post more often if possible ?
Yes, my favorite marine animal
Such a Great Vid!!! New Content is so well Presented!!!
That conodont caught me completely by surprise! It looks like a pop-art meme.
The Mary Anning Rocks shirt, on display again! Yes! And a perfect episode for it! Love it!
If this discovery was made before Walking With Monsters Sea Monsters, the Cymbospondylus experience could've been scarier.
Now I wonder what and when the first giant soft bodied invertebrate was. Obviously not this big, but without hard parts I doubt we'd ever know or at least be certain we got the right ballpark.
Hi PBS Eons. A big fan of your channel and have been following your channel for few years now. Excellent content and interesting way of presenting it. Love from India. I have a request in that I want to know more about birds evolution and classification from kpg onwards. In general most of the videos are about big animals and the videos on birds and arthropods are bit less.
Very neat video! They were fascinating critters, for sure. 🙂
was questioning why a pbs project would have/need a patreon and then i remembered, oh! viewers like you!
Something I've always wondered is whether ichthyosaurs were ectothermic or endothermic. Fish obviously are cold-blooded but scientists think dinosaurs were endothermic or misothermic, and the archosaurs of today (crocodilians) are ectothermic. I guess this question extends to the other marine reptiles like mosasaurs and plesiosaurs.
Even with fish it's not so simple. Tuna are warm-blooded, for example.
Well they’re known as marine reptiles, not marine dinosaurs for a reason - they were reptiles and presumably cold blooded.
Great whites are actually warm blooded too
@@greva2904 But Birds are also reptiles and are warm-blooded. So being a reptile does not necessarily mean an animal is ectothermal.
@@greva2904 That's not really a relevant distinction. "reptile" aren't really a meaningful category, and it certainly isn't when it comes to body temperature. It's only really relevant when talking about the skeletal structure or reproduction.
Any Kallie content is always great Kallie content \o/
Best balance of narration voice, pun delivery and joy over topics presented =D
Blake is the most excited about some very weird topics haha
I'm surprised Shonisaurus wasn't mentioned in this video. That being said, Icthyosaurs are cool marine reptiles
I don’t know why but I feel a deep primordial fear of the deep water and seeing these creatures makes me shudder.
You guys are amazing with these disclaimers regarding indigenous peoples. This is often disregarded and I’m happy to see that some people take this into account when creating content
I can give you the best honor i can give: watching your videos while eating
Love this episode! Also I love your shirt Callie. Where is it from and how do I also get one? 😁
Illustrations were fantastic. I got my love of dinosaurs (and my l33t readin skilz) from a picture book on dinosaurs I got from the museum when I was little, and I've been hooked ever since. (Seriously, sounding out Archaeopteryx at 7 gave me a big boost)
It’s interesting to think that Ichthyosaurs lived closer temporally to the ancient Egyptians than the beginnings of the Triassic period.
That just blew my mind
Excellent content as always! Kallie, your shirt is super cool. Share a link for purchase?
I like how you emphasized the name “fish lizards!” Like they gave it themselves millions of years ago.
"It's a cymbospondylus! One of those large aquatic reptiles, the icthyosaurs...!"
-Some british time-traveling wildlife man probably
Enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up as a support
Great video. Thanks for informing me about a group of creatures. extinct. that I know little or nothing about. ;-)
The fact that this animal grew so huge so quickly, but then died off just as quickly makes perfect sense. When you compare it to economies which usually either grow steadily, and are stable and long-lived OR are the "boom and bust" we know too well, we discover that this ichthyosaur went bust.
So glad she's still on the channel, not sure why but i was worried she'd been replaced by the new girl (who's cool too ofc). She's my absolute favorite presenter on the channel! 🦕
I'd love a video on the rise and fall of the perissodactyls, please and thank you!
Way to go! PBS must have been impressed, Katrina!!
Excellent video, as always! But I'd like to raise a small contention. In the video, it's said that marine animals did not reach gigantic sizes again after the ichthyosaurs until whales appeared. However, three other Mesozoic marine reptile groups, the Pliosaurs, Elasmosaurs, and Mosasaurs, also reached gigantic sizes. Each group produced members in excess of 10 meters in length, about the same size as Cymnospondylus and some whales.