Dive into the secrets of ancient ocean life as we explore the incredible discovery of a massive 'ichthyosaur' fossil. This remarkable creature, weighing a mind-blowing 45 tons, unveils fascinating clues about the evolution of modern whales! Join us on this epic paleontological adventure and witness the ancient giants that once roamed our planet! Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell to stay tuned for more awe-inspiring discoveries!
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#brightside
Animation is created by Bright Side.
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Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Listen to Bright Side on:
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD...
Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id...
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https://www.eastnews.ru
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 A pod of dolphins is happily playing near the water's surface in the North Pacific
00:09 Ocean on a sunny day.
00:11 They're about as happy as can be, until the surface of the water begins to ripple.
00:19 It becomes more pronounced, like a possible tsunami or an underwater volcano preparing
00:24 to blast.
00:25 Their instincts tell them to high-tail it out of there, but they don't know which way
00:29 is the safest path out.
00:31 Abruptly, a tremendous roaring sound fills the air.
00:35 The water explodes outwards as a giant whale bursts into the air.
00:42 Hello, mama!
00:44 Wait, that's no whale.
00:46 It's an ichthyosaur, a giant sea dragon-type monster from the Triassic period.
00:52 It's a massive 55 feet long and weighs 45 tons.
00:56 It doesn't look too dissimilar to a dolphin, but this sea monster isn't any cousin.
01:02 The dolphins scatter back beneath the water.
01:04 Fortunately for them, the ichthyosaur is not interested in having them for lunch.
01:09 It's merely playing as well.
01:11 This particular species is far more used to eating marine mollusks, smaller fish, and
01:16 squid.
01:17 But there's nothing in sight, so it disappears back below the surface, swimming majestically
01:22 with its huge fins and long, eel-like tail.
01:26 It had once roamed the land, but like other prehistoric land reptiles, including modern-day
01:30 whales and dolphins, it returned to the sea and evolved over millions of years.
01:36 Its limbs have been transformed into flippers.
01:39 Some species had digits on their flippers, or phalanges.
01:42 They could almost pass for human hands.
01:45 Well, hello there!
01:46 Some possessed a dorsal fin.
01:48 Their heads were pointed, and their jaws contained conical teeth to catch smaller prey.
01:54 They had large eyes, probably used for seeing in deep waters.
01:58 Their tail fin made for a powerful stroke.
02:01 Like some other sea creatures, they could breathe air and were warm-blooded.
02:06 They were sleek and as beautiful as some of today's ocean creatures.
02:10 Unexpectedly, an underwater time vortex opens in front of it, sucking in everything in its
02:16 path like an underwater black hole.
02:18 The ichthyosaur disappears inside, flailing about, unable to control its journey back
02:24 into the deep past.
02:25 Soon, it spat out again, into its own natural timeline of the Triassic period, during the
02:31 early dinosaur age, approximately 247 million years ago.
02:36 It swims with others of its kind.
02:38 They lived in herds or hunting groups.
02:41 While varying forms evolved worldwide, such as the smaller myxosaurus, let's stay with
02:46 this one because it will eventually find its way into modern human hands.
02:51 In evolutionary terms, the ichthyosaurs lasted for a very long time, millions of years.
02:57 There are many complex factors involved with how they became extinct, but in simplistic
03:02 terms, environmental changes brought out declines in smaller food groups and more brutal predatory
03:08 groups.
03:09 Some fish had evolved as well and became too fast for the ichthyosaur.
03:13 So we will leave our poor friend here, unable to find enough food and losing out to the
03:18 tougher competition.
03:20 It's hungry, tired, and weak.
03:22 It simply drifts away with the currents, eventually finding itself resting on the ocean floor.
03:32 Millions of years passed.
03:34 During the Triassic and Jurassic era, sea levels gradually ebb away, exposing vast regions
03:39 of the desert.
03:41 The area we're focusing on became Nevada in the western part of the United States.
03:46 During the Cretaceous period, a volcanic island chain formed.
03:50 Geological upheaval continued, bringing the ocean floor up into modern mountains.
03:56 Embedded in the rock, well, you can guess, not only ancient invertebrates, but more modern
04:01 creatures such as mammoths and giant sloths.
04:04 What an incredible array of wildlife!
04:08 But we're not here for them today.
04:10 Let's find out what happened to our friend.
04:12 Jump forward in time again to 1998.
04:16 The place, the Augusta Mountains of northwestern Nevada, or more specifically, a place called
04:21 Fossil Hill.
04:23 Protruding out of the rock were a few vertebrates.
04:26 Researchers could tell whatever creature it belonged to.
04:29 It was clearly enormous.
04:31 It was so embedded in the rock and complex that the excavation took many years.
04:36 In September of 2011, the excavators found more of the beast, the well-preserved skull,
04:42 forelimbs, and chest region.
04:44 It wasn't until 2015 that the now obviously giant ichthyosaur could be fully extracted.
04:51 The surviving fossils were a skull the size of a fully grown man, a shoulder, and a flipper-like
04:57 appendage.
04:58 Even then, it took a helicopter to move it.
05:03 The team named the new species Cymbospondylus yungorum.
05:07 Cymbospondylus is a Greek word meaning "spine."
05:10 Let's call this one Ichthyosaur Spiny from now on, because it should have a name by now.
05:15 And let's face it, it's a lot easier to pronounce.
05:19 Spiny was airlifted to the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles and further shipped
05:23 to the University of Bonn in Germany.
05:26 The study was undertaken by vertebrate paleontologist Martin Sander and his colleagues while collaborating
05:31 with the University of Mainz.
05:33 It was a unique and truly electrifying find, as the marine reptile was the largest animal
05:38 ever discovered from this time.
05:40 "As far as we know," stated Martin Sandler, "it was even the first giant creature ever
05:45 to inhabit the Earth."
05:47 You can think of Spiny as the underwater T-Rex of his time.
05:51 He's also quite remarkable, as his type lived only three to five million years after a mass
05:56 extinction event known as the Great Dying.
06:02 It happened roughly 252 million years ago.
06:06 It took out approximately 90% of the world's life forms.
06:09 What caused it?
06:11 The short version is elevated temperatures and increased acidification in the oceans.
06:16 Once one part of the food chain extinguishes, it causes a domino effect, as you can imagine.
06:22 Soon, there's little left to eat, and only the sturdiest can survive.
06:27 The atmosphere also had high levels of carbon dioxide.
06:31 Theorists argue that giant volcanic eruptions caused this in Siberia, known as the Siberian
06:36 Traps.
06:37 It was the largest volcanic eruption in the past 500 million years.
06:42 The eruptions lasted a staggering 2 million years.
06:46 Large volumes of basaltic lava covered a large area of Siberia.
06:50 Even today, the site is covered by about 3 million square miles of basaltic rock.
06:56 Other theories say that an asteroid caused the Great Dying, rather than the volcanoes.
07:01 In any regard, the impact was the same, and 81% of Earth's marine species and 70% of the
07:07 land-based vertebrae species were no more.
07:10 There have been numerous mass extinction events, but Spiny's size and existence are extraordinary
07:18 compared to the Great Dying.
07:20 It usually took 9 million years for species to recover and grow to this size, but he came
07:26 into being in less than half that time.
07:29 Using sophisticated computer models, the researchers examined the likely food web running through
07:33 the area now known as Fossil Hill.
07:36 They recreated the ancient environment through the available data, finding that marine food
07:41 webs must have supported giant creatures like the ichthyosaurs.
07:45 The theory is that our Spiny fed on a diverse and rich diet of marine mollusks, known as
07:51 ammonoids, that flourished from 1 to 3 million years after the Great Dying.
07:55 The now extinct ammonoids filled the ecological void following the mass extinction and had
08:00 excellent living conditions without much prey to interfere with them.
08:05 Ichthyosaurs also evolved rapidly because they were the first more giant creatures to
08:09 populate the world's oceans.
08:11 The mollusks they fed off were also exposed to less competition.
08:16 Spiny had a massive food supply.
08:17 He chowed down like there was no tomorrow.
08:20 Unlike whales that become large due to eating foods like plankton, Spiny and his fellow
08:25 species grew big on the ammonites, and it took them a much shorter time.
08:29 That's a good message for you kids to eat healthily!
08:32 The exciting thing for us today is that these results show that marine ecosystems can build
08:37 up and respond well to such dramatic changes as climate, atmosphere, or water conditions.
08:43 They may have had different pathways, but some ichthyosaurs and whales have similarities.
08:49 They both have large sizes and a lack of prominent teeth.
08:53 Storm whales dive deep to hunt giant squid.
08:56 Spiny hunted similarly.
08:57 They use a type of filter feeding to extract the food from the water.
09:02 Our friend likely ate fish and possibly squid, and ever smaller ichthyosaurs.
09:07 Ouch!
09:08 Other ichthyosaur forms had lots of teeth, with a skull more like a giant lizard.
09:13 They had razor sharp teeth.
09:16 Ichthyosaurs swam the ancient oceans for nearly the whole of the dinosaur age.
09:20 Ichthyosaur fossils have been found in many other countries, such as England, Norway,
09:24 Japan, Germany, Colombia, China, and Australia.
09:28 They were the underwater planet rulers of their day.
09:31 As the sun sets 250 million years ago, we might imagine Spiny having a better outcome
09:36 than he ultimately did and popping his head out of the water to watch the orange hues
09:41 of the pristine sky.
09:43 He pauses for a moment before, once again, dipping underwater to join his friends, swimming
09:48 happily away with the herd, looking for food and adventure in the deep blues of the Triassic
09:53 Ocean.
10:00 Wanna high five a sea creature?
10:02 Well, put your flipper, I mean hand up, for the Tasmanian red handfish.
10:07 This fish doesn't swim like a fish.
10:09 It walks.
10:10 It uses its flipper-like hands to stroll around on the ocean floor.
10:15 These bottom walkers are disturbed by swimmers and boats a lot.
10:19 Some people even want to take them home as pets.
10:22 I think it's better to just give them a wave and swim on by.
10:26 The vampire squid.
10:28 Its species name is Vampyroteuthis infernalis, which translates to "vampire squid from
10:35 hell."
10:36 Oh yes, this vampire squid means to terrify everyone with its name.
10:40 Its dark red color, its spikes at the bottom, and the scary fact that it can basically turn
10:45 itself inside out.
10:48 The vampire squid loves putting on a good show, but it's as harmless as a kitten is
10:52 to humans.
10:54 It's as if Dracula scared the pants off you, but he didn't have blood-sucking fangs.
10:59 The vampire squid feeds on food particles from plants and animal matter floating near
11:04 the ocean's surface.
11:05 Since they're not predators, they need good defensive strategies, and their vampiric look
11:10 is designed to ward off large creatures who want to eat them.
11:14 Turning themselves inside out is a defensive mechanism since the spiky areas in the inner
11:18 skin are more intimidating.
11:20 They also shoot out a substance that does not have color, but is packed with bioluminescent
11:26 particles to distract predators.
11:29 The vaquita.
11:31 Going out on a boat off the coast of Mexico sounds like the perfect vacation.
11:35 The sun, the blue water, the most endangered sea creature… wait, what?
11:41 The vaquita isn't dangerous, but don't expect it to stick around to say hello or
11:45 sign any autographs.
11:46 It's incredibly shy.
11:49 This little cow, that's what it means in Spanish, is one tiny sea mammal.
11:53 With those black markings around its eyes, it looks more like a sea panda to me.
11:58 Seeing one should make you feel very special.
12:00 They're on the brink of extinction, mostly because they get caught by accident in fishing
12:04 nets.
12:05 It's estimated that there's only 10 left in the wild.
12:10 The blue dragon.
12:12 This little creature looks like something out of a kid's fantasy movie.
12:15 It's called the blue glaucus, casually referred to as the blue dragon or blue angel.
12:21 It can be found in many places, the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
12:25 It's kind of a mollusk and it only grows to be about an inch long.
12:30 What you think is the back is actually the mollusk's bright underbelly.
12:34 It regularly floats on its back so that its blue colors help it camouflage with the water's
12:38 waves.
12:39 The blue dragon isn't just pretty, it's also smart.
12:43 It usually feasts on Portuguese man o' wars, also known as Fisalia fisalis.
12:49 The blue dragon stores their stinging cells for later use, in essence, stealing their
12:53 defensive mechanisms.
12:55 When the blue dragon is threatened, it releases those stinging cells it's stored, directing
13:00 them at an enemy to sting them with more power than the Portuguese man o' war would have
13:04 been capable of.
13:06 As they can store a huge amount of stinging cells, they can be a threat to humans.
13:10 So if you find one, don't pick it up.
13:12 It's best to admire it from a distance.
13:15 The barrel-eye fish.
13:17 If you ever wanted to have Superman's x-ray vision, looking at the barrel-eye fish will
13:21 make you feel like you gained that superpower at some point in your life without even realizing
13:26 it.
13:27 The barrel-eye has a transparent head, so you can see how their eyes and brain look
13:31 inside.
13:32 This magnificent creature lives in the deep sea.
13:36 This is the lowest level of the ocean, where strange creatures roam in near-freezing temperatures
13:41 and constant darkness.
13:43 They're exposed to water's pressure that's almost 1,000 times that of the surface.
13:48 If the idea of the deep sea sends a shiver down your spine, stay tuned to learn about
13:53 another of its creatures later on.
13:56 The barrel-eye fish can be found in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
14:00 You might be wondering, "Why, oh why, would a fish have a see-through head?"
14:05 And that would be a fair question.
14:07 Since the species was discovered in 1939, it was believed that the fish's eyes were
14:11 set to see straight ahead and couldn't move.
14:14 So it was assumed that they had tunnel vision.
14:17 Scientists Bruce Robinson and Kim Riesenbichler from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
14:22 recently discovered that the fish can move its eyes vertically to see through the top
14:26 of its translucent head, thus noticing if there are predators or prey nearby.
14:32 The transparent head also allows more light to enter so they can detect prey better.
14:37 It's believed that the barrel-eye fish eats jellyfish and small fish species.
14:43 If you dive in the ocean at night, you might be lucky enough to see how orange ball coralimorph
14:48 blooms in the dark.
14:50 But make sure to be quick because as soon as you turn on your flashlight to take a good
14:54 look, it will retract its tubes back into itself.
14:58 The Megalodon The whale shark isn't the biggest shark known
15:02 to humans.
15:03 If the entire shark species were a kingdom, the prehistoric Megalodon would be the ruler
15:07 of the sea.
15:08 Megalodon roamed the ocean a long time ago, oh, about 15.9 to 2.6 million years back between
15:15 the early Miocene and late Pliocene eras.
15:18 While they've long been extinct, people are still amazed to learn about these gigantic
15:22 sea beasts.
15:24 Megalodon could reach anywhere between 45 feet to 60 feet in length with jaws more than
15:29 6 feet wide.
15:31 A fossil of a tooth that once belonged to a Megalodon measured at 7 inches.
15:36 Needless to say, I'm pretty stoked that these guys have long been extinct.
15:40 But there's still some adventurers out there hoping to meet this monster one day.
15:45 The Dumbo Octopus This adorable creature or creepy creature,
15:50 or however you want to see it, is officially called Grampotiuthis.
15:54 More casually, it's referred to as the Dumbo octopus named after the Disney character.
15:59 Though Dumbo, the elephant, not the octopus, was teased for his big ears, it's highly
16:04 unlikely that this adorable octopus gets teased by its water neighbors.
16:09 They are the deepest living octopuses, living in the deep sea.
16:13 And you know how scary that place is.
16:15 They're only about 8 inches tall, and spend their days hovering just above the sea floor
16:20 eating snails, worms, and other food they find in the current or near ocean vents.
16:25 There are nearly 17 species of Dumbo octopus, and they all have differences in height, color,
16:31 and body parts.
16:32 If you can't get enough strange animals, you'll be glad to learn that the deep sea
16:36 has barely been explored by humans.
16:38 So keep an eye out.
16:40 There are bound to be more fascinating animals discovered in the deep in the future!
16:45 The sea angel.
16:47 These creatures might look and sound pretty cute, but their diet is far from sunshine
16:51 and lollipops.
16:53 Their favorite food are sea butterflies.
16:55 They lay mucus traps for them and wait in ambush.
16:59 The squat anemone shrimp.
17:01 This shrimp is tiny, only 0.5 inches.
17:05 It's also known as a dancer shrimp because of its peculiar behavior.
17:09 When agitated, it raises its bottom above its head and does a little dance.
17:14 Divers also say it readily jumps on their hands and cleans them.
17:19 The coconut crab.
17:21 This guy may look pretty creepy, especially when the sun goes down.
17:24 Mature coconut crabs are around 3 feet in length.
17:28 Their preferred foods are coconuts, but they can also hunt down lizards and even large
17:33 birds.
17:35 The slender snipe eel.
17:37 Slender snipe eel is a slim and long creature that's still a mystery for marine scientists.
17:43 It's 4 feet long and it has at least 750 bones in its spine, which is much more than any
17:49 other animal in the world.
17:51 The sea pen.
17:52 Sea pen is 7 feet long and it has a lot of varieties, but most of them look indeed like
17:58 a pen or a quill.
18:00 The similarity is even more striking when the animal has a water-filled bulb that anchors
18:04 it to the floor.
18:06 The Persian carpet flatworm.
18:09 This creature looks indeed like a carpet, despite being very small by comparison.
18:14 It's only 4 inches long, able to become both male and female.
18:18 It doesn't really mate with other flatworms.
18:20 Rather, it fights them for the right to bear posterity.
18:24 The flamingo-tongued sea snails.
18:26 Tourists love these extraordinary snails for their pretty colors.
18:30 Thinking it's a shell, but in fact, the shell is quite dull and hidden underneath colorful
18:34 soft tissues.
18:36 They eat softer toxic parts of corals and store their toxins to protect themselves.
18:41 (upbeat music)