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@@ronaldshepherd5992you are hurting your cause more than you think with those random stoopid comments. Why should we believe a book that was written a few thousand years ago? What in that book or in the world points to the christian god being the one and only truth? If you can answer me in some convincing way we can start talking about the bible.
@@ronaldshepherd5992 I witnessed the corpse of your god. I feasted upon his rotten, divine flesh. And the gift was mortality, wickedness and arrogance. The very nature of humanity. There is nothing left, but a rotten carcass of your madeup religion you have created in shame of your deeds. And it was you who killed them, and we shall feast from them, from the world, piece by piece, that you have created, until it meets the same fate as the Carcass of your so called God.
The Trunk is the key to the Elephants massive size because, unlike other herbivores, elephants don't need long flimsy necks to reach the tops of trees. Elephants can grow larger and sturdier than non-trunk herbivores.
Interesting to see how the small Kiwi and Giant Elephant Bird are also more closely related to each other than to ostrich, just like the small forest elephant and Paleoloxodon Namadicus are more closely related to each other than to the modern African elephant.
When 'Kiwi' arrived in New Zealand (although extremely extremely rare to find any fossil's in NZ from time periods outside of the Holocene and younger for land creatures ,there Is one rare site from the Miocene ,where assorts of bones and live was persevered including some Kiwi bones which showed they were 1/4 the size as they are today 20 million years ago .There was already the Moa ancestors here in the Miocene ,so the Kiwi couldn't fill in that niche of giant land bird ,also a giant ground Parrot was found living at the same time ,similar to the Kakapo but super sized ( Kakapo (flightless ) is the largest parrot alive today ,although only about 200 birds left of them today) so the kiwi had to find it's own niche ,amongst NZ's other birds living here in the Miocene .
A cow is more closely related to all the whales and dolphins than it is to a horse. And a wolf is more closely related to a sheep than to tasmanian wolf. Convergent evolution :)
I have read that the closeness in genetic relations between the African forest elephant and Paleoloxodon namadicus has been overstated. Not completely sure though.
I mean many Middle-earth creatures resemble prehistoric animals. Oliphaunt: p. namadicus Fellbeast: pterosaur, confirmed by Tolkien himself, unlike in pj adaptation that looks like wyvern Wargs: dire wolf, extinct large hyena or boropaghine dogs Kine of araw (Boromimr's or gondorian horn made from these animal): auroch or steppe bison Elven elk (pj's movie only): megaloceros Wingless Dragon like glaurung: giant megalania Hobbit: Homo floriensis Great Eagle: Haast Eagle
It is hard to evaluate biggest size without a large data set because you might have a Shaq fossil or a Kevin Hart fossil. Need to account for intra-species size variability.
@@yourfriendlyneighborhoodghost. Believe me there are at least hundreds of millions of people with Kevin Hart stature. The average south east asian are about 5'3-5'5 in height for men. And that is average. It means half of them are below that. For women it's 4'11 to 5'2. I assure you, from south east asia alone you'd get 300 million people with a height range of 5'1 to 5'4
Weightwise, I can believe it. Dinosaurs cheat the system just like birds do by having all kinds of air sac bullshit thru their bodies so they're typically lighter than whatever an equivalent-sized mammal would be, which some scientists suspect is another reason dinosaurs got so big.
If a 16 foot tall, 18 ton Namadicus were the average adult of its species...imagine an exceptionally-sized 36 ton one, 20 feet at the shoulder! This would basically be Peter Jackson's Mumakil.
@@touchstoneaf I think the original mumakil from the books were closer to a real elephant in size. Peter Jackson exaggerated their size in the films for dramatic effect.
I wonder why it grew so big in the first place? The theoretical arms race between Sauropod and Therapod Dinosaurs make sense but there were no titanic mammalian predators to force this size.
There could have been an arms race at one time but this elephant species proceeded to do so well that the predator just couldn't keep up. That, or we haven't found the predator it would have to race against just yet. Update: This is the first comment I've made that received 100 likes and I'm really proud of the subject material in which I got it. :)
There were no predators so everyone could eat all the time, at that point other giant animal that eat a lot become the biggest rivals to fuel growth, this might have also been the case for the giant sauropods despite the occasional giant predator taking one out.
You can see a trend that as the elephant gets larger, the torso slopes more from the bottom of the femur to the top of the shoulder to form a right angle triangle, increasing its structural stability and allowing it to carry more weight without negatively affecting the spine. These animals were probably extremely sturdy and athletic for their size.
That there once again will come a truly huge specimen of the African Bush Elephant, is doubtful. Trophy hunters took out the biggest and healthiest specimens a long time ago. I do not think we will ever see anything like the 11 ton elephant that was killed in Angola in the fifties, ever again.
Yeah...the smaller the population of an animal becomes, the less likely you are to see true giants(among giants) in a species. Sadly, today there are just a little over 400,000 African elephants left in the world. Just to put it into perspective: In 1900, there were 10 million of them, and in 1800, there were 25 million of them. In a little over 200 years, their population has been nearly dwindled down to nothing, compared to what they once were. In a healthier population, even going back 70-80 years ago, seeing truly HUGE specimens within their population was not uncommon.
my man considerin a regular elephant weigths 5-6 ton seein 10 ton bois are absolute unit even among their kind, imagine how big can be the biggest trike when a regular une weigth 12 ton.
@@megamente78495-6 are indian male elephant 6-7 tonnes are African elephant. But some indian elephant can reach 6+ tonnes and some African elephant reach 8 tonnes
when watching this video, i had to think about the scenes from the second and third "Lord of the Rings"-Movie. and today i learn once again what interesting species our own real world ones had. and the sad thing is, i - like many other people - like big animals, despite knowing how many great small animals exist(ed) out there who don´t get even a fraction of the recognition, the humongous big species are always getting.
The interesting thing is that The Lord of the Rings is suposed to take place in the real world, but in the distant past. In the book itself, Tolkien says that in the ancient world there were giant elephants. Middle earth is just Eurasia…
The story from huge zulu elephant hunts was that they had a group of people attack from the front as distraction, with a few brave men with an ax, attacking from behind, to chop through a rear achilles tendon. That disabled the elephant.
@@raylopez99... that isn't anywhere near where the Zulu people are from, though... the Zulu People are from Southern Africa, the Great Rift Valley is in Eastern Africa...
@@kilroy6547I'm pretty sure jokes are supposed to be funny and not some lame overused reference to some popular media. But then again mentally stunted individuals laugh at anything. Still don't make it a joke.
Grey as a mouse Big as a house Nose like a snake I make the earth shake As I tramp through the grass Trees crack as I pass With horns in my mouth I walk in the South Flapping big ears Beyond count of years I stump round and round Never lie on the ground Not even to die Oliphaunt am I Biggest of all Huge, old, and tall If ever you'd met me You wouldn't forget me If you never do You won't think I'm true But old Oliphaunt am I And I never lie
Gray giant, roaming wide, Trunk twisting, nature's guide. Ears fanning like great sails, In jungle deep, where daylight pales. Tusks of ivory, sharp and grand, Treading softly on forest land. Eyes gleaming with ancient tales, Majesty in every trail. In moon's glow or sun's fierce light, A marvel, an inspiring sight. Elephant, wise and vast, A legend from the past.
@@torbenkristiansen2742 I've seen the movies but didn't read the books. The giant elephants seen in the 2nd and 3rd movies was surely based on these extinct animals.
@@RagShop1 I don't think Tolkien based his Elephaunts on scientific discovery, he probably used myth and his imagination to land on something that actually existed. Tolkien had a way around human experience and mythology rarely seen before or since.
I have just come across your channel, and I now have to spend my Saturday watching all of your videos 😅. I look forward to all of your work in the future.
Good video! Paleoloxodon needs more recognition! I have a brilliant eofauna model of one. A herd of paleoloxodon feature in chapter 16 of Carnian Street.
There are several species of both. The largest Mastodon was Borson's Mastodon/Zygolophodon, which actually rivalled this elephant in mass with weights in the 14 to 18 ton category. Mastodons in general seem very robust. Mammoths are sadly not quite as impressive but they are still enormous. The largest mammoths for now seem to be the steppe and southern mammoths with weights of 11 tons on average, but the former seems to be the largest overall as a 4.5 meter tall 14.3 ton specimen was found.
Which country are you from, and would you be a college student/college graduate? I only ask out of genuine curiosity and so I can offer some other channels if you like this one and want to learn more about topics like these. May I suggest a quick google of "Taxonomic Hierarchy" for a better understanding of what _genus_ really means.
Since the modern forest elephant is more closely related to paleoloxodon then the african bush elephant, should we change its genus name to something else? Or to paleoloxodon as well?
More recent work suggests the genetic result in the forest elephant is likely due to crossbreeding between Loxodonta and Palaeoloxodon rather than the forest elephant emerging directly from the Paleaoloxodon lineage. There is also evidence of gene transfer between Palaeoloxodon and mammoths & Asian elephants = male elephants seem to be happy to mate outside their species.
Being that huge meant that even newborns would've been too big for all but the largest macropredators to take down. That said, it would've had ridiculously long gestation rate & been incredibly sensitive to habitat conversion. It isn't a coincidence that the Proboscidians that came after them were more modest in size; widespread ecosystem restructuring over the course of the Pleistocene effectively doomed most of the megafauna that carried over in the Pliocene. Blaming Humans for that just reveals how many so-called "scientists" have an anti-natalist bias.
No scientists are claiming that these megafauna were solely brought to extinction by humans, they just list humans as one of many contributing causes, which is true, I don't see how this is in any way anti-natalist. Though I also have no doubt plenty of species were wiped out by humans, which is just expected when any invasive species enters a new environment, there's a reason Africa still has the most megafaunal species left and it surely cannot all be coincidental that many species went extinct shortly after humans arrived in a region.
Scientists "blame humans" because plenty of megafaunal extinctions very coincidentally match perfectly with the arrival of humans. Plus the African megafauna managed to survive just fine, probably due to living alongside early humans and adapting to them early. I'm not saying climate and habit change didn't contribute to their extinction, but you can't pretend that humans didn't play a massive role as well
@@yissibiiyte When you coincide for 30,000 years (or longer) before the decline takes place this argument fails to hold water. Human history/diaspora occured much earlier than scientists predicted when they talked about Native Americans or Eurasians slaughtering Pleistocene megafauna to extinction. Now we know that the mass conversion of an entire biome i.e. the Mammoth Steppe into Boreal Conifer Forest was actually the main driver of the extinction/decline for most of these species. Only the ones that could adapt to open grasslands or denser forests were able to survive. As the Mammoth Steppe was more like a Temperate Savannah it mimicked the conditions/niches we find in modern Africa. There even to this day we see Pleistocene megafauna persist in Subsaharan Africa despite millennia of coexistence with people because their habitats have remained (mostly) intact. This is simply not the case with the Holarctic Realm.
As you said, these representatives of megafauna have long gestation periods and low offspring numbers. It doesn't take much to drastically reduce the numbers in a relative short amount of time, especially if these animals had little to fear of natural predators before.
@@Vulcano7965 not at all, in fact also many 'rapid' animals were extinct, but you cannot explain why the horses or elaphants survived in the Old world but not in the new world one. And vice versa for some other species.
I have read that the closeness in genetic relations between the African forest elephant and Paleoloxodon namadicus has been overstated. Not completely sure though. Those 2 species are still very interesting though! Very solid video!
I presume pre-civilisation humans only hunted megafauna when they were in a compromised position, such as traveling beneath an elevated position, in a drought, in the period they just left the herd and are inexperienced and smaller, while in water, or constricted without a way to retreat or fight back. This would still cause a lot of extinction as megafauna populations tend to be pretty low in general, adding any significant predation from virtually 0 is a a big jump, and the megafauna might make decisions to avoid human hunting that would reduce their numbers e.g. avoid migrating.
I wonder if the head crest had massive muscles attached to it for head movements, which makes perfect sense considering the other features attached to its head like tusks!
Perhaps dinosaurs didn’t stop growing during their life, like crocodiles, and just got bigger and bigger until their size killed them so the fossils we find are untypical and for most of their lives dinosaurs were slightly smaller.
There are some specimens of giant Hadrosaurs that could rival Paleoloxodon in size (although they are fragmentary). Still, Paleoloxodon namadicus is a very impressive elephant that gave even the Paraceratherium a run for its money.
A paleoloxodon was 18-19 tons heavy and 6.7 (without teeth) meters long and 4.3 meters tall. The shantungosaurus was 16 tons heavy and 15 meters long and 5 meter tall. The shantungosaurus was in relationship to paleoloxodon bigger. (I know in sience size is defined by the weight of the animal). Shantungosaurus was a hadrosaur.
This video does show a lot of, hopefully, facts about what type of animal had ever existed. So now I can imagine thousands of all kinds of animals. A lot of different kinds of animals.
3:08 I love it how they included Thanos on that size comparison there. Wait. Oh! They even made his scientific name "Mad titan". Wow, that shit's funny!
Maybe they could have. But when these animals lived, humans were hunter-gatherers and nomadic. The domestication of animals is a relatively recent phenomena in human history.
@@J.D.Vision Yeah I have, and it's an interesting hypothesis. But it generally talks about possible advanced civilizations on this planet millions of years ago. If there was an advanced civilization on this planet within modern human history(as far back as 200,000 years ago), we would have found some sort of evidence of that by now. In terms of geologic time, that's not that long ago. We for surely would have found evidence of an advanced civilization that was present when Paleoloxodon was roaming the planet. And that would mean we(Homo Sapiens) would be on the planet along with this advanced civilization. Now something that may have been on the planet tens, to hundreds of millions of years ago, would be a different story. That would be sufficient time for nearly all of the evidence of a possible advanced civilization, to be completely erased by time.
Anyone knows if the huge elephants in Lord of the rings are based on one of these species? PS: Obviously they weren't as huge as the ones from the movies.
I remember coming across that genetic study for a paper I did in college. Finding out that the Forest elephant was closer to the Paleoloxodon than the bush elephant blew my mind!
Nigel: I’ve heard that mainly, these large apes, they’re bread eaters mainly. They go for any kind of bread. David: And yet as a race they’ve developed no baking skills… Nigel: None whatsoever, no… David: But they still feed on bread primarily. Derek: They’re not a race, though they’re a genus… Nigel: Well, some of them are smarter than others, you can’t really…. David: They’re a culture. Derek: They’re a genus and a sub culture. David: They’re not a counter culture though. You think of the baboons as being a counter cultural ape… Nigel: The smaller monkeys are mainly bread eaters as well… David: Well I know a bloke with a monkey that eats soup. Onion soup with crumbly bits on top….
Grey as a mouse, Big as a house, Nose like a snake, I make the earth shake, As I tramp through the grass; Trees crack as I pass. With horns in my mouth I walk in the South, Flapping big ears. Beyond count of years I stump round and round, Never lie on the ground, Not even to die. Oliphaunt am I, Biggest of all, Huge, old, and tall. If ever you'd meet me You wouldn't forget me. If you never do, You won't think I'm true; But old Oliphaunt am I, And I never lie. -J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers
Wanna See Something More Interesting: ruclips.net/video/iZ_iLxygKjY/видео.html
The video may not have been updated yet, but in case you noticed to small cuts towards the end of the video, I had to remove two small sections
Isn’t Shantungosaurus like twice that weight?
You showed the wrong map of India. Why?
"That still only counts as one!"
-Gimli
22 tons no match for legolas!
@@ronaldshepherd5992 read some hoes
@@ronaldshepherd5992found the absolute idiot. Didn't take long.
@@ronaldshepherd5992you are hurting your cause more than you think with those random stoopid comments. Why should we believe a book that was written a few thousand years ago? What in that book or in the world points to the christian god being the one and only truth?
If you can answer me in some convincing way we can start talking about the bible.
@@ronaldshepherd5992 I witnessed the corpse of your god. I feasted upon his rotten, divine flesh.
And the gift was mortality, wickedness and arrogance. The very nature of humanity. There is nothing left, but a rotten carcass of your madeup religion you have created in shame of your deeds.
And it was you who killed them, and we shall feast from them, from the world, piece by piece, that you have created, until it meets the same fate as the Carcass of your so called God.
The Trunk is the key to the Elephants massive size because, unlike other herbivores, elephants don't need long flimsy necks to reach the tops of trees. Elephants can grow larger and sturdier than non-trunk herbivores.
Good point.
@@kirbywaite1586 Thanks. I concluded this once I saw the thumbnail of the absolute unit that is the Namadicus.
That function like sauropod neck. Elephants can pick up food without moving to much than expanding less energy.
@ahmedshaharyarejaz9886 They must have been majestic.
The trunk is important, but sauropods make it clear other options are available.
Interesting to see how the small Kiwi and Giant Elephant Bird are also more closely related to each other than to ostrich, just like the small forest elephant and Paleoloxodon Namadicus are more closely related to each other than to the modern African elephant.
When 'Kiwi' arrived in New Zealand (although extremely extremely rare to find any fossil's in NZ from time periods outside of the Holocene and younger for land creatures ,there Is one rare site from the Miocene ,where assorts of bones and live was persevered including some Kiwi bones which showed they were 1/4 the size as they are today 20 million years ago .There was already the Moa ancestors here in the Miocene ,so the Kiwi couldn't fill in that niche of giant land bird ,also a giant ground Parrot was found living at the same time ,similar to the Kakapo but super sized ( Kakapo (flightless ) is the largest parrot alive today ,although only about 200 birds left of them today) so the kiwi had to find it's own niche ,amongst NZ's other birds living here in the Miocene .
Also the woolly rhino is most closely related to the Sumatran, while being in a size range and lifestyle more similar to the white.
A cow is more closely related to all the whales and dolphins than it is to a horse. And a wolf is more closely related to a sheep than to tasmanian wolf. Convergent evolution :)
I have read that the closeness in genetic relations between the African forest elephant and Paleoloxodon namadicus has been overstated. Not completely sure though.
Its got to be some sort of universal/evolutionary joke to have happened multiple times
Can you imagine the damage caused when one of these giants went through a period of musth 💀
💀 indeed
Absolutely catastrophic.
It would be like a tornado or typhoon ripped through the area.
O H. G O D. NO.
Imagine a patagotitan in musth💀
@@Tyranosaur678 rip everything in a 10 mi radius
So basically, the Elephant and Rhino remain the two largest land mammals of all time.
Hippos are larger than most types of rhinos
@@DanM-pw9nl Still doesn't negate my comment.
You're right, I just want them to get props too@@Wakanda5515
And the blue whale is the largest animal to ever existed, period.
@@00x0xx No one is arguing with you on that.
Megafauna are so cool to learn about tbh. Wild how we now have much fewer giants around these days.
Wild to think that humans saw these animals, and hunted them down with literal rocks
That’s just what they want you to think
@@mvalthegamer2450js showed how much better we are
@@mvalthegamer2450sharp rocks and exhaustion!
@@personeater747 And numbers, traps, and fire.
So Oliphaunts were REAL. Good job Tolkien
Now we just need to find one of these big critters that had four tusks.
@@gunsgalore7571There was one elephant (modern African Bush) that had four full sized tusks. You can see them at the Explorer’s Club in New York.
Glad I wasn't the only one thinking of the Oliphaunts from LOTR when I saw this.
I mean many Middle-earth creatures resemble prehistoric animals.
Oliphaunt: p. namadicus
Fellbeast: pterosaur, confirmed by Tolkien himself, unlike in pj adaptation that looks like wyvern
Wargs: dire wolf, extinct large hyena or boropaghine dogs
Kine of araw (Boromimr's or gondorian horn made from these animal): auroch or steppe bison
Elven elk (pj's movie only): megaloceros
Wingless Dragon like glaurung: giant megalania
Hobbit: Homo floriensis
Great Eagle: Haast Eagle
Wait til the Ents get their reveal.
It is hard to evaluate biggest size without a large data set because you might have a Shaq fossil or a Kevin Hart fossil. Need to account for intra-species size variability.
lmao
There aren't many shaqs or kevin in human species, so most likely preserved specimens would be of a normal person. 😅
@@yourfriendlyneighborhoodghost. Believe me there are at least hundreds of millions of people with Kevin Hart stature. The average south east asian are about 5'3-5'5 in height for men. And that is average. It means half of them are below that. For women it's 4'11 to 5'2. I assure you, from south east asia alone you'd get 300 million people with a height range of 5'1 to 5'4
But despite all that, what remains is what remains. Healthy scepticism of course but run with it a bit
@@artemesiagentileschini7348cannot believe there’s an entire country that is at the same height as kevin hart...
Thanos for scale
Ah yes Thanos is an ELEPHANT
This comment made me spit out 🥤 my drink
3:07
I want comic book Wolverine for scale as me and him are similar in height
I think this was a case of a regular elephant getting ahold of pym particles
Who would have guessed that there once was an elephant larger than T. rex.
Weightwise, I can believe it. Dinosaurs cheat the system just like birds do by having all kinds of air sac bullshit thru their bodies so they're typically lighter than whatever an equivalent-sized mammal would be, which some scientists suspect is another reason dinosaurs got so big.
Not just this one, the Steppe Mammoth and Columbian Mammoth were also larger than T.rex.
The largest African elephants today, weigh more than a T-Rex.
@@IspeakthetruthifyEhhh, not since cope and bertha
Not really. There were probably been bigger t rexes
3:32 Mumei what are you doing standing with that Brontosaurus😂?
Only civilization itself can measure up to Dinosaurs.
Aha! Thank goodness I was not the only one to notice her there
Even Joakim from sabaton is hanging out with a Diplodocus
Omg I just noticed
she was tiny but i recognized the silhouette lol
3:08 why is thanos in the comparison 😭
"Look Mr. Frodo! It's an Oliphant!"
I love that this kind of in-depth content is out here for us all to just dig into. Thank you.
If a 16 foot tall, 18 ton Namadicus were the average adult of its species...imagine an exceptionally-sized 36 ton one, 20 feet at the shoulder! This would basically be Peter Jackson's Mumakil.
You mean Tolkien's, :-)
@@touchstoneaf I think the original mumakil from the books were closer to a real elephant in size. Peter Jackson exaggerated their size in the films for dramatic effect.
Or a 23ft salty
I love how some other members of the Paleoloxodon genus were shorter than a human
Correct. They were called embryos.
@@kbishop94 I'm referring to the Mediterranean species which were cases of insular dwarfism
@@GTSE2005 Understood. 👍🏻
(I was jk anyway. 🙃)
as said in the video....
I'm now imagining an alternate timeline where tiny elephants are commonly kept as pets.
I wonder why it grew so big in the first place? The theoretical arms race between Sauropod and Therapod Dinosaurs make sense but there were no titanic mammalian predators to force this size.
Adult Elephants today have no preditors
There could have been an arms race at one time but this elephant species proceeded to do so well that the predator just couldn't keep up. That, or we haven't found the predator it would have to race against just yet.
Update: This is the first comment I've made that received 100 likes and I'm really proud of the subject material in which I got it. :)
Oxygen levels and climate probably
Could have been competition with other herbivores
There were no predators so everyone could eat all the time, at that point other giant animal that eat a lot become the biggest rivals to fuel growth, this might have also been the case for the giant sauropods despite the occasional giant predator taking one out.
You can see a trend that as the elephant gets larger, the torso slopes more from the bottom of the femur to the top of the shoulder to form a right angle triangle, increasing its structural stability and allowing it to carry more weight without negatively affecting the spine. These animals were probably extremely sturdy and athletic for their size.
That there once again will come a truly huge specimen of the African Bush Elephant, is doubtful. Trophy hunters took out the biggest and healthiest specimens a long time ago. I do not think we will ever see anything like the 11 ton elephant that was killed in Angola in the fifties, ever again.
Yeah...the smaller the population of an animal becomes, the less likely you are to see true giants(among giants) in a species. Sadly, today there are just a little over 400,000 African elephants left in the world. Just to put it into perspective: In 1900, there were 10 million of them, and in 1800, there were 25 million of them. In a little over 200 years, their population has been nearly dwindled down to nothing, compared to what they once were.
In a healthier population, even going back 70-80 years ago, seeing truly HUGE specimens within their population was not uncommon.
We will with mountains of creatinine and a dream
my man considerin a regular elephant weigths 5-6 ton seein 10 ton bois are absolute unit even among their kind, imagine how big can be the biggest trike when a regular une weigth 12 ton.
@@megamente78495-6 are indian male elephant 6-7 tonnes are African elephant. But some indian elephant can reach 6+ tonnes and some African elephant reach 8 tonnes
Yeah it's called evolution. We will probably see less elephants with tusks as well.
Missed opportunity to name it "Oliphauntus Mumakili"
when watching this video, i had to think about the scenes from the second and third "Lord of the Rings"-Movie. and today i learn once again what interesting species our own real world ones had.
and the sad thing is, i - like many other people - like big animals, despite knowing how many great small animals exist(ed) out there who don´t get even a fraction of the recognition, the humongous big species are always getting.
The interesting thing is that The Lord of the Rings is suposed to take place in the real world, but in the distant past.
In the book itself, Tolkien says that in the ancient world there were giant elephants.
Middle earth is just Eurasia…
The one in the thumbnail is even painted similar to them
@danielarato4021 that's one of the reasons that the story was so successful in my opinion. It's told like it's historical fact instead of fantasy
The exact same picture came to my mind.
@@danielarato4021in the book I think elephants were normal-sized, they were scaled up in the films for dramatic effect.
The story from huge zulu elephant hunts was that they had a group of people attack from the front as distraction, with a few brave men with an ax, attacking from behind, to chop through a rear achilles tendon. That disabled the elephant.
Sounds like urban legend, or rather, savannah grasslands legend. More likely fire used to stampede the herd off a cliff or into a spiked trap.
@@raylopez99 What cliff? It's the African Grasslands.
@@grimnir8872 The African rift in Kenya's grasslands....big cliffs in the flat plain, where humanity originated.
@@raylopez99... that isn't anywhere near where the Zulu people are from, though... the Zulu People are from Southern Africa, the Great Rift Valley is in Eastern Africa...
@@arthurteddy91Zulus are far from farther north. They migrated there after genociding other tribes.
Where that Thanos from Marvel, Joakim from Sabaton and Mumei from HoloLive in those size comparisons?
I'm laughing my ass off right now XD
Great video about a truly amazing animal! Thank you for making it.
Imagine if Namadicus survived long enough to be used in wars like the Crusades.
Well it did, didn't you see lord of the rings?
@@deividaskiznis906 oliphaunts are like 40 tons xd
@@deividaskiznis906when you believe a fantasy movie is rl:
@@pierre-samuelroux9364 when you have no idea how a joke works.
@@kilroy6547I'm pretty sure jokes are supposed to be funny and not some lame overused reference to some popular media. But then again mentally stunted individuals laugh at anything. Still don't make it a joke.
The Joakim from Sabaton comparrison got me so confused for a sec but now i just realise that ur a cool dude
I often look for these types of scaling pics when I'm comparing the sizes and shapes of things. I really understood the information, great job!
Great Video! Paleoloxodon is such an amazing animal.
A real life Oliphaunt from LOTR. Epic.
Nothing makes me happier than the biggest mammal ever being another elephant.
Grey as a mouse
Big as a house
Nose like a snake
I make the earth shake
As I tramp through the grass
Trees crack as I pass
With horns in my mouth
I walk in the South
Flapping big ears
Beyond count of years
I stump round and round
Never lie on the ground
Not even to die
Oliphaunt am I
Biggest of all
Huge, old, and tall
If ever you'd met me
You wouldn't forget me
If you never do
You won't think I'm true
But old Oliphaunt am I
And I never lie
That's great; you should publish it.
Gray giant, roaming wide,
Trunk twisting, nature's guide.
Ears fanning like great sails,
In jungle deep, where daylight pales.
Tusks of ivory, sharp and grand,
Treading softly on forest land.
Eyes gleaming with ancient tales,
Majesty in every trail.
In moon's glow or sun's fierce light,
A marvel, an inspiring sight.
Elephant, wise and vast,
A legend from the past.
@@RagShop1 It is from "The lord of the Rings". By J.R.R. Tolkien. The lines were spoken by the fictional character "Samwise Gamgee".
@@torbenkristiansen2742 I've seen the movies but didn't read the books. The giant elephants seen in the 2nd and 3rd movies was surely based on these extinct animals.
@@RagShop1 I don't think Tolkien based his Elephaunts on scientific discovery, he probably used myth and his imagination to land on something that actually existed. Tolkien had a way around human experience and mythology rarely seen before or since.
I have just come across your channel, and I now have to spend my Saturday watching all of your videos 😅. I look forward to all of your work in the future.
Good video! Paleoloxodon needs more recognition! I have a brilliant eofauna model of one. A herd of paleoloxodon feature in chapter 16 of Carnian Street.
same here i collect the eofauna models as well...they are very accurate...
One of my favorite animals. Good job on the video!!
It makes sense! If nowadays elephants can handle being so huge, then in the past they should've been enormous
3:31 Surprise Mumei, for scale.
Nice catch!
Leave it to Elephants and Rhinos to be the Two largest land mammals ever
This is amazing! Elephants bigger than some dinosaurs! They would have had no enemies apart from humans! 22 tonnes, they were massive!👍
There are a lot these channels on the Tube, this is one of the best IMO.
So, Yujiro vs giant elephant was based of this
Very exciting. Great video. The relationship to the African forest elephant is something I didn't know until now.
I noticed no mention of the Mastodon or the mammoth. Where do they fit in this?
What do you mean by that?
Maybe he meant "just" the mammoth. Mastodons aren't at big as this particular mammoth so they didn't discuss it
There are several species of both.
The largest Mastodon was Borson's Mastodon/Zygolophodon, which actually rivalled this elephant in mass with weights in the 14 to 18 ton category. Mastodons in general seem very robust.
Mammoths are sadly not quite as impressive but they are still enormous. The largest mammoths for now seem to be the steppe and southern mammoths with weights of 11 tons on average, but the former seems to be the largest overall as a 4.5 meter tall 14.3 ton specimen was found.
RUclips seems to have an uptick in Palaeoloxodon vids lately; it’s amazing with the interest in this prehistoric megafauna.
Loved it, great video. Nothing wrong with a big ol elephant
Recently subscribed to this channel so some terms are still new i.e. genus. Learning a lot though!
Which country are you from, and would you be a college student/college graduate? I only ask out of genuine curiosity and so I can offer some other channels if you like this one and want to learn more about topics like these. May I suggest a quick google of "Taxonomic Hierarchy" for a better understanding of what _genus_ really means.
Since the modern forest elephant is more closely related to paleoloxodon then the african bush elephant, should we change its genus name to something else? Or to paleoloxodon as well?
More recent work suggests the genetic result in the forest elephant is likely due to crossbreeding between Loxodonta and Palaeoloxodon rather than the forest elephant emerging directly from the Paleaoloxodon lineage. There is also evidence of gene transfer between Palaeoloxodon and mammoths & Asian elephants = male elephants seem to be happy to mate outside their species.
@@Ozraptor4
I guess the bulls love exotic ladies xD
I love so much Palaeoloxodon, and i bought its Eofauna figure. The charismatic giant!
Being that huge meant that even newborns would've been too big for all but the largest macropredators to take down. That said, it would've had ridiculously long gestation rate & been incredibly sensitive to habitat conversion. It isn't a coincidence that the Proboscidians that came after them were more modest in size; widespread ecosystem restructuring over the course of the Pleistocene effectively doomed most of the megafauna that carried over in the Pliocene. Blaming Humans for that just reveals how many so-called "scientists" have an anti-natalist bias.
No scientists are claiming that these megafauna were solely brought to extinction by humans, they just list humans as one of many contributing causes, which is true, I don't see how this is in any way anti-natalist. Though I also have no doubt plenty of species were wiped out by humans, which is just expected when any invasive species enters a new environment, there's a reason Africa still has the most megafaunal species left and it surely cannot all be coincidental that many species went extinct shortly after humans arrived in a region.
Scientists "blame humans" because plenty of megafaunal extinctions very coincidentally match perfectly with the arrival of humans. Plus the African megafauna managed to survive just fine, probably due to living alongside early humans and adapting to them early. I'm not saying climate and habit change didn't contribute to their extinction, but you can't pretend that humans didn't play a massive role as well
@@yissibiiyte When you coincide for 30,000 years (or longer) before the decline takes place this argument fails to hold water. Human history/diaspora occured much earlier than scientists predicted when they talked about Native Americans or Eurasians slaughtering Pleistocene megafauna to extinction. Now we know that the mass conversion of an entire biome i.e. the Mammoth Steppe into Boreal Conifer Forest was actually the main driver of the extinction/decline for most of these species. Only the ones that could adapt to open grasslands or denser forests were able to survive. As the Mammoth Steppe was more like a Temperate Savannah it mimicked the conditions/niches we find in modern Africa. There even to this day we see Pleistocene megafauna persist in Subsaharan Africa despite millennia of coexistence with people because their habitats have remained (mostly) intact. This is simply not the case with the Holarctic Realm.
As you said, these representatives of megafauna have long gestation periods and low offspring numbers.
It doesn't take much to drastically reduce the numbers in a relative short amount of time, especially if these animals had little to fear of natural predators before.
@@Vulcano7965 not at all, in fact also many 'rapid' animals were extinct, but you cannot explain why the horses or elaphants survived in the Old world but not in the new world one. And vice versa for some other species.
Loved the Thanos image at 3:08!
It's amazing that we don't hear of these. Instead we only hear of Mammoths and Mastodons.
How did they go extinct?
Lack of supermarkets
I have read that the closeness in genetic relations between the African forest elephant and Paleoloxodon namadicus has been overstated. Not completely sure though. Those 2 species are still very interesting though! Very solid video!
I presume pre-civilisation humans only hunted megafauna when they were in a compromised position, such as traveling beneath an elevated position, in a drought, in the period they just left the herd and are inexperienced and smaller, while in water, or constricted without a way to retreat or fight back.
This would still cause a lot of extinction as megafauna populations tend to be pretty low in general, adding any significant predation from virtually 0 is a a big jump, and the megafauna might make decisions to avoid human hunting that would reduce their numbers e.g. avoid migrating.
Amazing! Why have I never heard of this giant elefant before?
3:30 Unexpected Nanashi Mumei cameo.
Was rather surprised to see her there
I wonder if the head crest had massive muscles attached to it for head movements, which makes perfect sense considering the other features attached to its head like tusks!
3:30 Sabaton Vocalist and Nanashi Mumei
Man do I love videos like these. Thanks!
Perhaps dinosaurs didn’t stop growing during their life, like crocodiles, and just got bigger and bigger until their size killed them so the fossils we find are untypical and for most of their lives dinosaurs were slightly smaller.
I can't believe i never heard of this beautiful creature!
Is it a possibility or already well known that at a certain level of evolving to giant sizes, size becomes a means of efficiency rather than defence
There are some specimens of giant Hadrosaurs that could rival Paleoloxodon in size (although they are fragmentary). Still, Paleoloxodon namadicus is a very impressive elephant that gave even the Paraceratherium a run for its money.
To be fair, some species of hadrosaurs were longer and havier than Paleoloxodon
Indeed. Shantungosaurus is estimated to have been 15 metres in length and weighed 17 tonnes.
Also wanted to sag that XD
Good work as always
Came here just to see Mumei at 3:32 :D
A paleoloxodon was 18-19 tons heavy and 6.7 (without teeth) meters long and 4.3 meters tall. The shantungosaurus was 16 tons heavy and 15 meters long and 5 meter tall. The shantungosaurus was in relationship to paleoloxodon bigger. (I know in sience size is defined by the weight of the animal). Shantungosaurus was a hadrosaur.
I wonder how many of these “species” were close enough to interbreed and if there was a speciation continuum.
This is fantastic and incredible
Science: the paleoloxodon.
Lotr fans: the mumakil(oliphant)
I didn't know why this was recommended to me until I saw 3:30 lol
3:31- Oh hi :D
I love your channel and calm explanations. Very interesting and informational. Thanks :)
This video does show a lot of, hopefully, facts about what type of animal had ever existed. So now I can imagine thousands of all kinds of animals. A lot of different kinds of animals.
3:08 I love it how they included Thanos on that size comparison there. Wait. Oh! They even made his scientific name "Mad titan". Wow, that shit's funny!
I came because i heard mumei was here. I brought berries to
Thanos give me chuckle,but mumei make me burst out laughing
I wonder if these magnificent mammals could've been domesticated like modern elephants 🐘, imagine 🤔 the possibilities.
Maybe they could have.
But when these animals lived, humans were hunter-gatherers and nomadic. The domestication of animals is a relatively recent phenomena in human history.
@Ispeakthetruthify • Maybe... 🤷
Ever heard of the Silurian hypothesis? 🤔
@@J.D.Vision Yeah I have, and it's an interesting hypothesis. But it generally talks about possible advanced civilizations on this planet millions of years ago.
If there was an advanced civilization on this planet within modern human history(as far back as 200,000 years ago), we would have found some sort of evidence of that by now. In terms of geologic time, that's not that long ago. We for surely would have found evidence of an advanced civilization that was present when Paleoloxodon was roaming the planet. And that would mean we(Homo Sapiens) would be on the planet along with this advanced civilization.
Now something that may have been on the planet tens, to hundreds of millions of years ago, would be a different story. That would be sufficient time for nearly all of the evidence of a possible advanced civilization, to be completely erased by time.
Umm........even modern elephants were never domesticated. Tamed maybe, but never domesticated. There's a difference.
And still qute unpredictable and dangerous@@JoshTrager-j9g
Definitely came to this video after watching the Monster Face off between Paleoloxodon and T.rex
Anyone knows if the huge elephants in Lord of the rings are based on one of these species? PS: Obviously they weren't as huge as the ones from the movies.
I'm sure fell beasts in books also were described looking like pterosaurs rather than wyverns.
its actually based on Stegotetrabelodon because its have four tusk just like Mumakil in PJ movies
I remember coming across that genetic study for a paper I did in college. Finding out that the Forest elephant was closer to the Paleoloxodon than the bush elephant blew my mind!
I dunno, I think Shantungosaurus gives it a run for it's money with the upper estimates being 20 tons.
still havnt found many charcara or giga skellys yet either...their upper maximum may yet shine through
Palaeo could've reached at least 15 to potentially 22 tons in weight, carcha and giga aren't touching that, at all. @@rexy132
i absolutely agree with you
All the unbelievable species this planet must have seen over the years knocks my mind off
And we humans have been directly responsible for the demise of thousands of them. Let that sink in.......
3:32 Mumei for scale
Cool! Love the information.
Still smaller than an Oliphant ...
everytime i see an elephant skull i'm reminded that i need to troll my next DnD group into thinking it's a cyclops
Nigel: I’ve heard that mainly, these large apes, they’re bread eaters mainly. They go for any kind of bread.
David: And yet as a race they’ve developed no baking skills…
Nigel: None whatsoever, no…
David: But they still feed on bread primarily.
Derek: They’re not a race, though they’re a genus…
Nigel: Well, some of them are smarter than others, you can’t really….
David: They’re a culture.
Derek: They’re a genus and a sub culture.
David: They’re not a counter culture though. You think of the baboons as being a counter cultural ape…
Nigel: The smaller monkeys are mainly bread eaters as well…
David: Well I know a bloke with a monkey that eats soup. Onion soup with crumbly bits on top….
Paraceratherium is still considered the biggest land mammal currently, but still, great video!
Eh, i'm pretty sure palaeo weighs more than para, with the upper estimates being 22t while para is 17t, I may be wrong though.
It's close, but Paleo is considered bigger, even if by just a small margin.
Oliphant!
They still only count as one!
@@AlbertaGeek LoL
Wonderful channel❤😊
Leave it to the Elephants to be the biggest mammals of all time.
"And they lived happily ever after"
Fairy tale like a mug. Asteroid, comet etc.
Grey as a mouse,
Big as a house,
Nose like a snake,
I make the earth shake,
As I tramp through the grass;
Trees crack as I pass.
With horns in my mouth
I walk in the South,
Flapping big ears.
Beyond count of years
I stump round and round,
Never lie on the ground,
Not even to die.
Oliphaunt am I,
Biggest of all,
Huge, old, and tall.
If ever you'd meet me
You wouldn't forget me.
If you never do,
You won't think I'm true;
But old Oliphaunt am I,
And I never lie.
-J.R.R Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers
amusing really...never heard of that but iv saw the movies...
Great vid respect from Ireland 🇮🇪 👏 👍
Ahhh the Lord of the Rings elephants
Love this video I just love elephants
Palaeoloxodon namadicus a Pleistocene giant pachyderm
for your great content..editing..and easy to listen narration you earned my sub..
1:13 How do they know that elephant's name was Carl?
0:15 That one dinosaur in the image that felt left out and snuck in lol
where
What are you on?
The terror bird
@@FishNamedWallIf he’s one of them people, I suppose he saying this cuz they are dinosaurs.
@@dagtheking5739 uhh… yeah. They are dinosaurs. Birds are dinosaurs. All of them are