is there any adult educated person on Earth who doesn't know about dinosaurs the first thought would be there is hardly anyone who has never heard about them indeed we learn about them as children when we barely start speaking cartoons toys drawings and then movies videos articles even ordinary ads the ancient lizards are are often shown in the most surprising places as a result the average city dweller knows more about dinosaurs than about a bird on a branch outside their window are there many who know what was before the dinosaurs what animals lived 100 million years before them or what fearsome beasts lived 50 million years after them we bet there are far fewer experts here but there must have been some creatures living on the planet at those times right and some of those creatures were scarier than the dinosaurs if not in size then in appearance today you're going to discover what ancient fish had a bite force twice stronger than a modern polar bear what ancient bird had a wingspan almost as large as an F-16 fighter jet what monster had the body of a bull and the head of a boar and and many more interesting things ancient animals scarier than [Music] dinosaurs dear viewers please like And subscribe to our channel it's easy to do and it will help YouTube a lot your likes will help its algorithms to select interesting content content and make it more accessible according to one of the most compelling hypothesis the first life on our planet appeared in the ocean so we will start with the Dwellers of the ancient ocean the hero of the first story is duncle osus a predator that rained in the depths of the devonian Seas 100 million years before the dinosaurs the genus dun leost includes several species we can talk not about all of them so let's get to know the most formidable one Dunkleosteus trelli let's take a look at it we have here an ancient fish with body fins and tail like those of fish living in the midw not near the bottom in biology such fish are called pelagic pay attention to the head of the Dunkleosteus an expert would immediately notice that it is not a plankton filter feeder or other consumer of marine minnows the size and shape of the Jaws clearly indicate it is a dangerous predator Hunter of large prey but the most interesting thing is that these intimidating Jaws do not have teeth a toothless Predator it's hard to believe but that's what it is the sharp protrusions you see in the mouth of the Dunkleosteus are not teeth but simply pointed edges of the jaw moreover the shapee of the jaw is such that the cutting edges are sharpened against each other when they clamp together not a bad Design After studying the mechanics and strength of the jaws of the Dunkleosteus the scientists made two key conclusions first they found that the Jaws could open so quickly that they sucked water in like a pump this works well when hunting smaller prey second they found that the Dunkleosteus had tremendous bite force for example calcul ulations on a 6 M long Dunkleosteus showed a bite force of 4,400 Newton 989 lb at the lateral edges of the Jaws and 5300 Newton 1200 lb at the points of the central protrusions for comparison the bite force of a present day polar bear is 2570 Newton that's half as much a bit bewildering isn't it these weapons allow the Dunkleosteus to easily deal with all but one prey in a minute you'll find out what this exception was and what role it played in the evolution of the Dunkleosteus now let's find out its size mass and speed the evidence at this point is contradictory as the full skeleton of an adult Predator has yet to be discovered some estimates put its length at 10 m 32 ft and weight in the range of 3 to 4 4 tons for the late devonian Seas this was the largest Hunter for such a solid size the Dunkleosteus was fairly fast it could swim at a speed of 32 to 40 kmph 20 to 25 mph that's a high speed for marine life of the Paleozoic Era as the largest and fastest Predator Dunkleosteus was at the top of the food chain it prayed on amenities sharks placoderm and and other Dunkleosteus yes yes this is the very same exception prey we mentioned above the fact of cannibalism is scientifically proven and allows for a very interesting hypothesis perhaps the brutal introspective competition served as one of the main tools for the evolution of the species the worst enemies of the Dunkleosteus were actually its Brethren so its defenses improved in this direction note that in the 50 million years of the species existence it developed nothing to protect the back half of its body it has remained open hence we can assume that this part of the body was rarely attacked and the defense there never appeared in the process of evolution apparently the Dunkleosteus attacked the victim's head when it came to assaulting its Brethren it's a rational tactic it hit the victim's most important organs without the risk of a return bite to its unprotected part of the body thus in the course of evolution those specimens with stronger defenses of the head the front part of the back and the abdomen gained an advantage as a result we see robust and tight fitting armor protecting these parts they greatly increase the chances of survival in case of lateral and frontal attacks by other Dunkleosteus of course this is just a hypothesis but it is quite plausible and recognized and other alternatives are less convincing for example let's imagine that the Dunkleosteus preferred to attack from the tail what would happen with this tactic there are few options here most likely the attacked Dunkleosteus would try to wriggle out and bite the aggressor tail it's a very interesting site two predators eating each other from the tail thus attacking the tail of the Rival Dunkleosteus itself risks losing its tail in any case it would receive serious damage in response and most likely die it is unlikely that such a method could have taken hold in the course of evolution what else can we say about dun leoas judging by the facts it was the Apex Marine predator of its time and was in harmony with its environment accordingly its extinct must have been associated with profound changes in that environment the extinction of duncle osius at the end of the devonian is associated with two peaks in the global Extinction process the kwasa event 372 million years ago and the hackenburg event at the devonian Carboniferous boundary 359 million years ago according to current scientists the hagenburg event put an end to the diversity of marine species in the devonian Seas there is no consensus on the causes of the extinction various hypotheses are suggested including such exotic ones as Supernova explosion or asteroid impact also there is a hypothesis that the growth of forests the movement of vegetation from coastal zones to the depths of the continent resulted in a lack of oxygen in the water of devonian coastal ecosystems it is easy to imagine the objections of the opponents of of this hypothesis it is impossible they would say the more forests the more oxygen in the atmosphere it's really so but the point of the hypothesis is the decrease of oxygen in the water not in the atmosphere there was less oxygen in the coastal Waters due to the increased mass of decaying organic matter this was the result of the forests growing deep Inland they changed the structure and composition of the soil enriching it with Organics River flowed changed accordingly river water carried a lot of Organics and other substances that stimulated the growth of microalgae into marine ecosystems as they died and decayed they took oxygen from the water the lack of oxygen first led to the extinction of lower lengths of food chains and then to the mass extinction of apex predators in addition sea currents may have changed during this period and a large amount of hydrogen sulfide from Deep Waters entered Coastal Waters The Mystery of the extinction of dunal osius is still waiting to be solved today one thing is known for sure a magnificent apex predator perfectly adapted to natural conditions completely disappeared from our planet the hero of our next story dor aspis also lived in the ocean depths of the early devonian about 415 to 395 million years ago Dori aspis was a jawless fish with an unusual body shape its remains were first discovered by Swedish phyto paleontologist Alfred Gabriel naor during an expedition in 1882 2 years later the find was studied and described by British zoologist Edwin Ray Lancaster he also gave the DOR aspice its first name scape has neori in the 20th century a British geologist Errol ior white began to study the Curious fish he completed the classification of the new species and it had to be named somehow white noticed that the outline of the fish looks like a combination of a spear and a shield taking the Greek names for these objects he gave the ancient fish the name Dori aspis of course we cannot say that this prehistoric fish was more terrifying than a dinosaur at least because of its negligible size according to available data its length did not exceed 15 cm 6 in nor can we say today how dangerous it was but it did look very intimidating it had a strange body the surface of the upper part of the body resembles a tortoise shell and the belly is flat and smooth the tail of the Dori Asus is long long flat and thin with spines on the edges there are two long almost round bony protrusions extending from the sides of the body in some species the protrusions resembled fins or wings and had serrations along the edges the purpose of these outgrowths is unknown perhaps they help the fish to float and balance in the midwater however their shape is far from that of a wing so this hypothesis is not widely supported by paleobiologists according to other versions the lateral protrusion serve for species recognition and also as a specific tool for digging up silt it is difficult to assess the plausibility of these options because it is still not clear what mode of Life Dori Asus had it is not proven that this fish was pelagic that is lived in the midwater but there is no evidence that it lived lived in the sediment area either it is difficult to determine the function and purpose of any part of the body of an unusual fish unless we know how and where this fish lived and how and what it fed on this is not good for science but you can give free reign to your imagination try to suggest your own version of the purpose of the lateral protrusion who knows maybe your hypothesis will push science forward by the way in the case of dor aspis this is not the only area for your hypothesis the point is that the situation with the purpose of the central Spike or in scientific terms rustrum is not clearer there is no unanimous opinion as to what dorius needed it for or how it was used either it is noteworthy that unlike in the case of modern fishes the spike is located under the mouth and this is quite rational the fish fish could throw up the bottom sentiment with the spike thus the fish immediately got all sorts of things thrown up from the body before its eyes and mouth if there is something tasty it could be quickly devoured remember that in the cruel world of natural selection eating faster means being more efficient and having a better chance of survival there is logic in such an explanation but again it all comes down to the lack of data what if dorius was actually a pelagic fish that lived not on the bottom but in the midwater then the whole reasoning is useless unfortunately there are far more questions than answers we know too little about this strange fish we believe that the main discoveries on Dori aspice are yet to come the subject of our next story is also partly connected with the evolution of life on Earth in this story we will present you not just one as usual but two ancient creatures mesosaurus and mosasaurus their names are very similar which sometimes leads to confusion despite the fact that these Predators were very different from each other in addition to external differences one of them is also famous for its special role in science further you will learn which one of them has helped science and how so let's talk about mosasaurus it was a very large sea Predator it is classified as a reptile from the order scata family Mosasaur genus mosasaurus according to this classification five species of mosasaurus are known today we describe the species mosasaurus hmani and everything that will be further described about mososaurus is about it mosasaurus lived in the Cretaceous Period of the Mesozoic Era about 145 to 66 million years ago fossilized traces of their existence have been found on all continents including Antarctica they inhabited warm shallow seas that were widespread in the late Cretaceous these ancient sea lizards were warm-blooded the vipus with a high metabolic rate an adult mososaurus could exceed 10 m 32 ft in length and weighed up to 70 tons their average lifespan was about 42 years mosasaurus fed on bony fish seapods sharks and marine reptiles sea turtles were its main prey in the last 20 million years of the Cretaceous Period mosasaurus drove out all their competitors represented by large mackerel sharks the last pliosaurus and earned the title of the top sea predator of their time mosasaurus became extinct about 66 million years ago along with dinosaurs and petaurus in a mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous Period as apex predators they significantly influenced the evolution of many sea animal species notably the evolution of mosasaurus gives us useful information about another interesting process we know that the ancestors of the mosasaurus lived on land so the evolution of this Predator helps us understand how the transition of a reptile group to an aquatic habitat occurred now let's talk about mesosaurus mesosaurus fossilized remains have been found in early permium sediments these sediments were formed 299 to 271 million years ago so scientists believe that mesosaurus lived in this period it had neither impressive size nor weight it was only about a meter 3. 3 ft long and it fed on small crustations and other minnows a seemingly unremarkable humble Saran but it played an important role in the history of earth science an important fact was that mesosaurus lived in fresh water it could not stay long in saltwater respectively it could not cross the ocean another important Point mesosaurus appeared almost simultaneously in South Africa and South America the German meteorologist Alfred wangner Drw attention to these details knowing that mesosaurus could not cross the ocean Winger decided that Africa and South America were once a single whole on this basis he proposed a theory of the continent's origin as a result of the splitting of an early supercontinent into several parts Parts wer published his hypothesis in 1912 later this idea after thorough revision turned into the modern theory of tectonic plate movement this is how mesosaurus from ancient times influenced modern science in a very unexpected area this is its role in science which we promis to tell you about you have to admit we have a lot to commend The Humble freshwater lizard for now let's move from the ocean to land and get to know amazing and fearsome creatures that lived after the dinosaurs in the late 1880s alont olist Carlos cako Amino and Francisco pascao Marino reported to the world the existence of forest Ros ancient flightless birds this fact led to the realization that the entire history of flightless birds is like like an iceberg the few species that live now are just the tip most of this iceberg is hidden in the past and part of the hidden history was the giant forest Ros which appeared in the paleogene after the extinction of the dinosaurs in total there are about 20 known species of them foros Ros roamed South America about 62 million years ago until the mid ply toine about . 3 million years ago an adult faracos reached 2.
5 M about 8 ft in height and weighed 150 kg 330 lb on average it had a large head and a bulky beak flattened on the sides the end of the beak had a shape of a large hook the ancient bird leaned on powerful legs with large claws on its toes these details unambiguously indicate the predatory mode of Life of these birds thanks to their long muscular legs porosos were able to stalk and chase their prey long and efficiently they were key predators in South America during its long geographic isolation about 2. 7 million years ago North and South America United the faunas of the continents began to blend and the faracos gained competitors the the Invaders were stronger so the local Predators lost to them and gradually became extinct one of the faros Titans wallery tried to escape this species made it to North America on foot but even there a cruel fate befell it the remains of this species were found in the south of the USA Today far oakos is of Interest not only as a bird that lived millions of years ago this species is of Great Value as a result of development in isolation one must agree that a bird that abandoned flying is an interesting evolutionary experiment there are still debates about the reasons for this and they may have a very interesting conclusion the fact is that natural selection plays a major role in evolution in a highly simplified form it works as follows features that are useful for survival and reproduction are strengthened while harmful ones eventually disappear along with their bearers they simply die out the main mechanism here is random mutations due to which features appear or disappear and natural selection only reinforces the successful version the role of natural selection in evolution is well known so the question is what was wrong with phakos we know for sure that it had no competitors which would have caused it to give up flying so why did its wings diminish greatly in the course of evolution why did it stop Flying it wasn't easy to find a reason but it was found it has to do with the behavior of these huge birds they didn't need to fly to find food to reproduce effectively they didn't want to fly just to admire the terrain from above flying may be a pleasant activity but it is very energy consuming and potentially risky the last two arguments were decisive and gradually led to the faracos to give up flying completely the wings of the faracos remained but gradually shrank to a size useful in an exclusively terrestrial life natural selection of course did not disappear it helped the flightless bird to get powerful legs and other features that allowed it to Excel without flying barakus became extinct around the middle of the pene about 1. 3 million years ago their closest present day relatives are seras two species of land Birds of Prey in South America their long slim legs are only a faint echo of the former glory of their Mighty ancestor the biography of Fus Ros tells us that after the Dinosaurs the birds managed to adapt to a purely terrestrial life and there were even territories where they ranked as the dominant Predators this is certainly an amazing transformation but you're probably wondering what happened to the sky did all descended to the ground and the sky stayed empty after the parod octal became extinct now you'll learn who got the Rains of the sky after the flying lizards meet argentavis according to Modern data argentavis lived in the territory of modern Argentina during the myosin Epoch about 23 to 5.
3 million years ago this means that in terms of time and place its biography overlaps with the biography of the hero of our previous story perus Ros argentus was about twice the size of the largest flying bird of today the andian Condor Argent Tas had a wingspan of about 7 m which is only 3 m less than that of the famous F-16 fighter in terms of size it could have rivaled the psaris but those had died out long before its appearance artiva weighed between 70 and 72 kg 154 and 159 lb the height or distance from the ground to the top of the standing bird reached 180 cm 6 ft just imagine yourself next to such a birdie you've probably started to wonder how such a giant even took off how high and how long could it Fly research in this area has led to interesting conclusions it turns out that the pectoral muscles and this is the main power machine of flight of argentus were smaller than those of other flying birds in percentage terms this means only one thing Argent Tas could not stay in the air for long continuous flapping its huge Wings most likely argentus relied on air currents and flapped its wings only during the takeoff and Landing phases thus the large Wings helped it to stay in the sky as long as necessary relying on the rising air currents in addition such Wings made it possible not only to soar in the sky but also to fly effortlessly in any direction to do this argentus gained altitude in the rising currents and then glided down in the desired Direction as a result arent Tas could fly long distances with almost no wasted energy this is an extremely energy efficient type of flight that is used by glider Pilots today takeoff was the most difficult task as its huge Wings inevitably touched the ground as it flapped it probably relied on air currents here as well it could run towards the wind so that lift force was generated and then use its strong legs to jump up into the air argentus might also have used a jump from the top of some Hill to take off now it's time to understand why it flew I hope none of you have been confused by this question apparently it flew to get food and scientists have found out what kind of prey it was looking for it is recognized that argentus was carnivorous but it was not an active Predator that is it did not attack and kill it had an inappropriate body shape and relatively weak pectoral muscles for this purpose the most likely behavior for Argent Tas was that of a scavenger the life of a scavenger is much more relaxed and success there is achieved through fewer energy WS as for competitors they were small Maman scavengers unable to confront arent Tas due to its size it is not difficult to answer the question of Who provided it with prey let's just remember that the main predators of myosin South America were flightless birds for us raidi which we have just described they could easily destroy large prey and perhaps it was these predators that provided the large amounts of car Aran that helped argentus to survive it only needed between 2. 5 and 5 kg 5. 5 to 11 lb of meat each day for its size that's a relatively small amount so what do we have in the end argentus had no threats in the air it could hover safely for hours and wait for its flightless counterpart to leave him something for lunch and it was satisfied with little thanks to its amazing Energy Efficiency low food consumption and special mode of hunting of Argent Tas LED paleontologists to the hypothesis that this bird was also relatively long lived it is now believed that its lifespan amounted to at least several decades thus Argenta survived according to the so-called K strategy let's explain a little bit what that is the K strategy is living within the boundaries of one's ecosystem without changing numbers the number of specimens is determined by the food reserves in the ecosystem with this strategy a small stable population of scavengers has a good chance of survival Argenta laid one or two eggs every 2 years so it had few nestlings according to the K strategy they stayed with their parents until they learned to find food on their own with this reproductive rate the number of other species did not increase but neither did it decrease since Argent Tas died mostly from old age and diseases other causes accounted for no more than 2% of the death rate although argentus was undoubtedly a successful Predator this did not save the species from Extinction it did not survive to the Pine and today only fossils of millions of years old prove its existence at this point we finished talking about flying and non-flying prehistoric birds it's time to move on to the most interesting animals After The Dinosaurs the mammals one of the most interesting ones is plat belladon it belongs to the genus of gamium extinct proban relatives of modern elephants they lived in Africa Eurasia and North America during the Meine and pine eras more than 15 million years ago in the pusin epoch after the merger of North and South America the faunas of the continents mixed and the Great American interchange took place and so gatherum got to South America as well the only territories they couldn't reach were Australia and Antarctica gum reached the peak of its diversity in the late myosin and became extinct in the PTO scine externally the platto belladon looked very much like an elephant it had two upper and two lower tusks but unlike modern elephants its upper tusks were bent downwards science doesn't know the reason for this although there must be a reason we know that Evolution doesn't tolerate useless things however the upper tusks are not the most interesting thing about plab belladon these bizarre mammals became known for their two tusks on the lower jaw they were without en Amo Broad and flattened horizontally which gave them a resemblance to the blade of a bayonet shovel in 1936 when describing Asian specimens of the genus platto beladon the famous paleontologist Henry Fairfield Osborne was the first to compare the lower pair of tusks to a coal shovel the comparison became firmly rooted and platti belladon has since been often referred to as a shovel tusk gum today of all the probos adans gum Still Remains the most popular object of study for paleontologists the main mystery of platto beladon is the purpose of the shovel-shaped Armament of the lower jaw presumably it has something to do with feeding but it is not known exactly how it was used accordingly it is not clear what the platto beladon FED on it was assumed that the lower tusks were used as a shovel for digging and raking plants there was also a version of cutting leaves off branches from trees another hypothesis was raking algae from the bottom of the freshwater lakes there was also an opposite conclusion platti beladon did not use its bone shovels at all when eating but the hypothesis of a shovel for algy was supported by a lot of scientists specific wear which was explained by the abras Ive effect of sand and clay on the shs supported it this is how he was drawn everywhere digging in Aquatic and Coastal vegetation after this hypothesis it would seem everything calmed down disputes quieted but in 1992 the scientific world was shaken up by the work of paleontologist David Lambert according to the results of the study with the use of modeling he concluded the lower jaw cut bark and branches later having examined the micro layer of the surface of the Tusk shovels the Chinese scientists came to the same conclusion moreover they noted that adult platell aons ate coarser food well it looks like it's time to depict plabel aons at lunch in a dense tropical forest although we cannot say for sure that the search for the truth has come to an end finally we invite you to learn about the fascinating Discovery story of another Predator that lived in Central Asia during the mid and late eosine Epoch about 45 to 36 million years ago the world learned about Andrew Saras from a skull discovered in Mongolia it was found by an expedition led by the American scientist paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews in inner Mongolia in 1923 the skull was found in the erdin manga sediments formed at the end of the mid eosine at first it was thought that the skull belonged to a giant suop forms from the intellon group these are extinct mamalian predators with a body resembling a bull and a head resembling a boar we immediately recall the ancient Greek myths about the minur right however this hypothesis didn't last long A year later the above mentioned paleont ologist Henry Fairfield Osborne determined the found skull belonged to a predator from the family Mason Chidi he also described the new predator and named it Andrew sares in honor of Roy Andrews the head of the expedition that found the skull when reconstructing andr sares it was found that its body length was 3.
8 to 4. 5 M 12. 5 to 13.
1 ft and its tail was 1 . 5 M 5 ft long the weight of this ancient Predator could have exceeded a ton 2200 lb considering that it had a skull 83 CM 2.
