I read more into that account and yeah the Icelandic hunters were paid by a rich merchant to collect some Great Auk. Specifically they ran up behind the breeding pair and strangled them to death with their bare hands, not knowing that they killed off the last of the Great Auk in 1844. In the 1850s there were claims of sightings but none were ever proven
@@bolbyballinger yah exactly! the hunters thought that the great auks brought about a bad omen since it was storming so they chased the auks stomped on the egg, killed one, and took one captive and held it in a room in a shelter. They didn't know what to do as the storm got more powerful so they decided to murder the auk by beating it to death with the belief that it would calm the storm.
It's crazy to think there was actual documentation of the last 2 of a breeding pair in a species before extinction...and we STILL killed them. Hopefully in the future there will be more stories about how humanity managed to rescue some species from extinction rather than deliberately causing it.
I didn't expect the sad part to be this sad. The description of chasing the last two auks was so saddening. We literally chased to them to the last corner and ended them there 😭
Just imagine Female auk: oh husband our eggs are missing,.... Oh wait some one is coming RUN!! Male auk: wife RUN TO THE SIDE THEY WILL CHASE ME *They both(humans) proceed to Chase them both to the side* Wife auk: husband if i will have a second life it would be with u I lov- *gets killed* Husband auk: I love you to- *gets killed*
The whole "race to grab them as they go extinct" bit reminds me of how there was a push to hoard southern bluefin tuna meat as they got closer to extinction, on the idea that it would become valuable (thankfully they haven't got extinct yet).
if you think that's stupid, then you should know that when we started mining for guano (seabird poop, which is extremely valuable, and dispute over these mining rights is one of the reasons of War of the Pacific between Chile and Peru & Bolivia) on small South Pacific islands off the coast of Peru and Chile, we actually hunted these birds. We ate the goddamn thing that actually produces guano, drove the rest away from their nesting ground, extracted guano for a short while before it depleted (who could have guessed?). It's the epitome of human's short-sightedness, a Golden Egg story play out in real life..
@@oldrabbit8290 they hunt the birds to stop the rival country from getting guano, or to decrease supply to increase price? Or was it hunters acting independently not caring about guano because they work in the hunting industry, not the guano industry?
I feel like the Great Auk is one of the primary candidates for de-extinction projects. We have a similar living Auk (the Razorbill), we have DNA-filled specimens, and habitat still exists. Introducing penguins in their place is like introducing lions to the American west. Cool idea, pretty good reasons, but probably best to wait for actual de-extinct American Lions.
I lived in Southeast Alaska in the late 1990s. A solitary penguin was caught in a net near the Prince of Wales island. Most people wrote it off as an aquarium escapee... but what if it wasn't?
There have actually been attempts at releasing penguins on isolated islands in Northern Norway. The first time it was 4 king penguins in 1936. One was killed by a woman thinking it was some kind of demon emerging from the water, the other 3 disappeared. The second time in 1938 it was over 20 Macaroni and Gentoo penguins. They tried to take care of them, but this time they seemed to get depressed and sick, refusing to eat and eventually dying. The last ones were set free, but also died the same way.
It's so strange to think that since Auks were originally called Penguins, all the Penguins alive today are technically "false penguins", analogous to false crabs.
EXACTLY ! In French we still call the true penguins "pingouins" and we call the fake ones "manchots". We are the only country in the world which didn't change the name of true penguins(auks and razorbills). fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Pingouin
The second he showed the first painting of the Great Auk, instead of a photo, I immediately knew the answer was a very common one to "Why did X go extinct?": "We killed them all."
Yep, we did it again mom. Sorry mother earth. Another check on humanity's for love for it's mother earth. Maybe if we stopped polluting mother earth would tell the mosquito's to vanish for six month's? I'll ask a flat earther what he thinks... uh huh... uh huh... oh... ok.. so it seem's alien's are real so we must worship corn. Damned flat earthers. Can you see we dont want to worship corn! Popcorn ok! But not corn! Eh i don't know. I tried my best to make somebody smile today. Yay!
We're on that list too. We are going to kill all humans with pollution, radioactivity, or disease. We all goin to die. Oh I know, let's give up hunting and gathering so we can cut down all the forests. Over fish/hunt/pasteurized animals to mono culture extinction. Yay! Let's hear it for the morons of the planet! Us
What's really wild is that when the Earth was warmer, Antarctica would have been ice free, but since it's at the South Pole would still have been completely dark for half the year and light for half the year. That would have been wild for the animals and especially plants living there.
I didn't even consider that... How in the hell did plants survive? Let alone it used to be covered in forests, wasn't it? Or did most of the plant life already die off by the time it moved that far south?
Perhaps you aren't a native speaker of english, and i'm not either, but i think you tried to say "lit" instead of "light", as in the english for 'iluminado'. Also yeah, it would have been a weird wild world
24-hour night at the poles doesn't mean it's totally dark the entire time, the sun is just below the horizon so there is *some* sunlight, just not a lot
Fun fact: "Arctic" comes from "Arctos" which means 'bear'. It's called the Arctic region because it's where basically the only animals you'll encounter are bears. "The Arctic" = "The land of bears". Conversely, "The Antarctic" = "The land of not bears".
Yes and no - Antarctic is like antipodes - anti means opposite, so Antarctic means opposite to the arctic region. Also arctic may be related to the constellation of the bear, rather than necessarily of the animal location. Bears existed all over Europe, not just in the North.
@@andrewmole745 Yeah but up in the Arctic is where the *big* bears are. And yes, constellation of the bear, but also the Polar Bear. Yes, you could be boring and pedantic and say that "Antarctic means "the land opposite from the land under the constellation of the bear", but for all the difference it's going to make, I'll stick with the more fun interpretation.
There's a beach here in Perth where you can see hundreds of blue penguins nesting on offshore rocks. This time of year is their mating season. It's pretty neat.
There was a penguin that wandered off to a man's house in rio de janeiro and they became friends :) every year the penguim would come back visit the guy, and they hugged and all that
We here in New zealand and this isn't a gloat. We have blue penguins nest under houses and around the place. Such cool creatures but real loud at times
17:47 „What did cause the demise of the Great Auk? Come on, you already know.“ *pausing and gesturing, trying to tell us that he killed them all by him self*
@@thefolder3086 only if these penguins somehow manage to make all the natural resources disappear. Erasing the profit motive behind the destruction of the Arctic habitat
Some researchers in Alaska in the 80's tried to release some that had been raised in captivity but they all developed a respiratory disease and died. They were fine in captivity being fed store bought fish but the wild food apparently had some bug that they were not immune to from what I heard while working for a nearby oil company at the time.
My first encounter with the concept of the Great Auk was playing Assassin's Creed: Rogue. It features a sailing region that is based on the waters around Newfoundland in winter in the 1700s (pre-American Revolution), and seeing large tuxedo-patterned birds jumping into the water is not particularly uncommon. I believe my immediate response was "wtf Ubisoft, why are there penguins in Canada?" (Yes, Newfoundland didn't become part of Canada until 1949, I know.) So I looked up "Assassin's Creed: Rogue penguins" and discovered that Great Auks used to be a thing.
@@KarlMarxBR700 Sadly there's also a great deal of historical inaccuracy baked into it, and not just the stuff about the Assassin/Templar metaplot. And it's gotten increasingly bad just how far off they're willing to deviate. AC Valhalla is pretty close to pure fiction....it's a pity they didn't really put much effort into communicating that fact.
@@rashkavar Dude anyobody should know enough about history that a disclaimer should not be required. If people are dumb enough to think magical ghosts from valhalla are real thats on them.
The story of the great auk is definitely a sad one. I remember reading about it as a kid in some books I had 35 years ago. I will say however, the closest living bird most similar to the great auk is a bird called a razorbill auk. They are smaller, they can fly, and live in many of the same areas that the great auk lived in.
Just when I was wondering if you might talk about the Great Auk, you did and with a VERY detailed and accurate explanation. I learned about their lives and subsequent extinction 3 years ago when I was visiting Iceland. In fact, that tour I was on brought us to the coast right off across from the Eldey. I felt so angry and sad when I learned about what happened back in the 1800's...
@Safwaan I mean, its still a pretty good option though, especially if a species needs to be reintroduced, the only reason we havent done it is because its incredibly hard
From what I remember, some work was done to protect the Great Auk’s but it took too long to come into force and didn’t do enough, and they effectively gave up on trying to protect them because they felt it was too late.
@@lopil4566 If you had any idea about ecosystems, micro-ecosystems, and the necessity of a large, fast predator which helps balance an entire region in the North Atlantic and South Pacific balance its self out, you wouldn't sound so stupid. It's not about denying consumers a product, it is about keeping the ocean functioning the way nature intended it to. I know you either do not eat tuna, or are poor and hate people who can afford it, but get off that kind of idealism of "if I can't have it, fuck them and it" while you still can.
Mate that excerpt… I’ve actually got goosebumps. That broken egg could have been the very literally last chance the birds had. And we just… took it away. And then discarded it when we saw it was broken, just to add insult to extinction, Rough.
I mean, unless the Auk had developed asexual reproduction a single egg is just delaying the inevitable at best. As a side note the first story I'd been told about the Great Auk's extinction said that the hunters purposefully stomped on the egg. This story was happier by comparison.
@@bolbyballinger yeah same thing i always think when ppl say this sounds rough but somehow at this point killing the last two ,,was ,,, well the better option these two animals would have never repopulate everything 1. the great auk only layd one single egg ech years 2. it would not needet logn bevore massiv inbreed would have killed them off anyway and that these two would not fell victim to orcas ,polarbears or so one while fishing .... we should have stopped this long ,,,long bevor only two where left
The actual story (from a readers digest article I read from the 70s). When the men found the last pair, they snapped their necks. The last egg was smashed by the boot during the stuggle. It's fucking heartbreaking.
Well the 1800s was a horrible century for animals. We as humans were just getting to the peak to establishing new societies. Industrialization, colonized, imperialism, bird eggs were plucked with no regard for the continuation of the species. Dont forget whaling, animal pelts, rhino horns. I wish we could compare how many species went extinct in the 1800s to the 1900s, and the 2000s. As inefficient as it is to preserve the infertile panda bear. I guess its just the guilt of what we did to whales, dodos, nearly did to the bald eagle. As an English speaker, I'm just curious how other cultures view animal and environmental preservation. How do the chinese feel about bamboo forests, or south Americans about and the amazon. Its easy for us due to us being 1st world. But land use is still economic gain. So after we Americans make so much money from our lands there's the desire for 2nd and 3rd world to become more financially successful too.
@@ericolens3 Atlas Pro has a good video about the Amazon, and how the countries within it feel the need to use it for its economic purposes. If you haven’t seen it, highly recommend it.
"Pingouin" is the French vernacular name of Northern hemisphere Great Auk _(Pinguinus Impennis_ extinct in the XIXth century) and Razorbill _(Alca Torda)._ Southern hemisphere penguins _(Spheniscidae)_ are called "manchots".
@@simongloutnez589 Les guillemots ou macareux sont abusivement appelés pingouins car ce sont des alcidés, mais c'est de plus en plus rare. Généralement, on limite l'appellation "pingouin" aux petits pingouins, dernier représentant de la famille _Alca._
I live on an island in the far north of Norway, I have been told by many people, aswell as read it in old newspapers, that they tried releasing penguins into the wild, but they all disappeared, I assumed hunted by predators.
just because they eat fish, doesn't mean they can/will eat any fish. keep in mind that the seasons are reversed which probably messed with them, since they breed and feed seasonally. it seems like the Norwegians who did it tried to make sure they were put in places where there were no or few predators, like isolated islands near Lofoten. but it probably wasn't enough.
Very cool and educational video! I had no idea there were once giant people-sized penguins! And your explanation of why they haven't migrated to the Arctic region is GENIUS.
Absolutely fascinating! I'd never heard of the extinct prehistoric human-sized penguin (wow!!) and the specific challenges of species migration across N/S climactic zones is not something I'd intuited either? Well-done video format too. Definitely subscribing to learn more! 😊
I looked at the thumbnail and thought - oh, an old video I haven't yet seen, how peculiar. And then it hit me that it was a brand new stuff and I got so excited :D
I've read that a southwest European cave painting from tens of thousand years ago features three great auks. They, I read, are shown in action, two challenging each other and a third, presumably a female, standing by. The behavious shown, I read, is very like that of razorbills, a very similar smaller species that can fly. It looks as if the cave artists had observed behaviour at a breeding site. But great auks have only ever nested on islands far enough off shore that land predators couldn't swim there. So, these Ice Age artists appear to have had boats capable of getting there. And maybe they had to, maybe they had already reduced land-based prey to the point that they needed to risk the ocean. The book ("The Seabird's Cry" by Nicolson) thinks that this might be the oldest depiction of any bird of any kind anywhere in the world. It looks as if the process of exterminating them began the moment we (people) were able to get to one of their offshore island colonies.
An interesting fact: earlier when showing all the breeding islands for the great awk, one of the ones shown at Iceland, just a short way from Eldey, is Geirfuglasker, which literally translates to Great Awk Skerry (geirfugl being Icelandic for the great awk, and likely where the name "garefowl" comes from). This breeding ground however didn't disappear due to hunting (though it probably would've) but rather because of a volcanic eruption, literally resulting in the whole island submerging and forcing the Awks using it to relocate their breeding grounds to the neighbouring Eldey (literally "fire island". The whole area was volcanically active after all) Just a fun fact
I cried so hard the first time I heard the story of the great auk. It would be nice if they could one day be revitilazed from all those samples collected.
Why is everyone that replied to you an asshole? People always act like someone’s dumb for having an empathetic nature toward animals and loss of life. It’s okay to feel strong emotions toward things outside the norm. Doesn’t mean that what you feel and feel for doesn’t matter.
One of the reasons I love what you do - is the way you manage to openly say "whats the problem with loosing nature" so to say - we are. I am an environmental manager and I am afraid to talk with people about ecology, they will probably hate me or find negative or aggressive if I will say the truth. Especially on the question how to "save nature".
I think at the time the great Auk was being hunted to extinction it wasn't still widely accepted/realized at least by Euroapeans that species could go extinct. Because God's creaations couldn't just disappear from the Earth or something like that
I know that in the late 1700s and early 1800s that was still a widely held belief but by 1844 enough research had been done so that Europeans acknowledged animals could die out. That actually ties into the Great Auk because people began to notice they were becoming more rare. Museum and rich collectors in Europe wanted some Great Auk specimens and as the video points out they quickly hired people to get the last of the birds
Doubtful, the most acceptable explanation was that it was God's will, if the creator didn't intercede with a miracle, then it's not up to us mere sinners to contradict divine wisdom, or anything like that.
Flightless Cormorant of Galapagos. Most seabirds can also swim, it's just a trade-off, you can't be excellent at both without giving up one so most have stuck with both. The exception is unless there are conditions where they can evolve flightlessness like on islands where there are no predators. Like what happened to the auk, penguin and flightless Cormorant ancestors. Explained well in PBS eons th-cam.com/video/HMArjGQwLvY/w-d-xo.html
The case of the Galapagos penguin is an interesting one, they actually aren't that far from colonising the northern hemisphere. The western coasts of the Americas are actually quite cool, which is generally the case with the western sides of big landmasses with the exception of a warm water zone around the equator. We also see this in Africa but with its tropical zone being larger. If some penguin vagrants where to cross the distance from the Galapagos Islands to say Baja California they would be free to colonise the northern Pacific. And there already are northern elephant seals in California so why not penguins?
The great skua that lives round Antartica appears to have made the crossing directly. The great skua (aka bonxie) of the north Atlantic seems to be descended from the Antarctic birds without any intermediate forms. Skuas can fly strongly. Who knows what chance led to some crossing an immense width of warmer seas.
This video solves my doubt that why the zoo in my country just keep a flock of penguin in just an aircon display part, never in a freezing cold like Antarctica. They might be that tropical penguin.
can you explain to me why this "The western coasts of the Americas are actually quite cool, which is generally the case with the western sides of big landmasses with the exception of a warm water zone around the equator." happens , I remember my teacher of geography saying the same thing but I didn't have chance to get more details about it that time.
@@carelgoodheir692 I didn't know that, animal migration and colonization in general looks very interesting. The case of the cattle egret is an interesting one, it is an originally old world species but in the 1930s it was First sighted it the Guyanas and by the 1970s had colonised most suitable habitats in the new world. I don't know what drove and enabled them to cross the Atlantic, but if they managed to do that, why didn't it happen earlier. I have the feeling that for some reason those types of colonization have been more prevalent in the modern era for some reason, and that's not even talking about the artificially introduced species.
@@kittenastrophy5951 Keep in mind that even though they live in tropical areas they are still adapted to much cooler water temperatures than for instance the Caribbean waters. I remember being quite disappointed and even angry that they didn't live in ice pools or that they didn't throw ice cubes into the water when I was a kid. I thought they were overheating 😂
Wow. The most informative and the best look at any possible sides (especially up to migration and evolution towards all environments to pass through for the journey) about this. It makes me wonder how it's affected and would affect us Inuit today. The thing is, penguins DO have a name in our native Inuktitut language which makes me wonder if they've been around inside our four thousand year time line. They're called "Pittiulaa". And yes they would be one of the easiest prey up here, no doubt.
Possibly, and this is just me theorizing, occasionally penguins have made it north, but their populations always tended to go extinct? That would explain the existence of the word. Or was that what the Great Auk was called in your language and it was applied to penguins as well due to their obvious physical similarities? Interesting nevertheless!
I’m really enjoying these videos more than your older works! It’s great to have these better visuals, and not only is your face great to see, but it really helps with the pacing!
I'm gonna give you the homeland of the Auks; The Rockall Plateau. It's an earlier version of Iceland that would have been largely above sealevel during the ice-age.
I love this channel so much already, I’ve always loved geography and in recent years I’ve been getting very into evolution and extinction and finding out why animals are the way they are, and thanks to this channel I’ve found that there’s a name for this topic, and I’ve found a channel full of great videos to watch! Thank you so much for making such great content! I never knew there were so many varieties of penguins, but I did know about the Great Auks. It’s such a shame they went extinct.
So strange to hear "penguin don't live in the North" as a French... since in French the ”auk” are called "penguins", and "penguins” are called "manchots” for us ....
I really like man’s body language and expressions when he talks, he could probably explain to me everything without even speaking. Keep up the great work!
@@dj33036 hey you gotta add some flair to prevent your voice overs from becoming boring. You have to pick some sort of gimmick, unless you just naturally have the voice of David Attenborough
I kept a pocket sized book about the sory and extinction of the great auk when I was 5. Kept it with me and even took it to school when I was 8. I loved that book. - My father around the same time made a collection of auk eggs out of clay and I remember the clay models of auks standing on a rock or being half submerged in water paddling like the other still living bird. He told me a kid broke their necks, and stomped on their last egg. I don't know why I didn't look up the true story of what happened sooner. And I'm glad to have found out. But I think I will keep saying that story. It's close enough to the truth, perhaps even closer.
Dire Penguins... Grizzly Penguins... Werepenguins... could even have something akin to a "Dragon-Penguin(s)" or "elemental" penguins. Could even go full Merpenguin- Mermaid/man + Penguin... like a Hippocampus, but a chubster byrd. Even go for the DEEP SEA penguins, and get Lovecraftian over here! Octo-penguins, Kraken Penguins... Angler Penguins, Crustaguins. (Crustacean-like penguins) Geezus... what have you done to ME!? XXD
Honestly as he was talking I was thinking about what if we just released some polar bears onto Antarctica. They would have a field day with those penguin breeding grounds
If I'm not mistaken, at the time the Auk faced overhunting, extinction wasn't a commonly accepted theory and thus a rare animal is just that, a rare valuable animal. Though I could be wrong
It's a strange irony that one of the 9 breeding grounds you mention of the Great Auk was St. Kilda. Where I live in Melbourne, Australia, one of the best places to see wild Blue penguins (we usually call them Little Penguins here) is St. Kilda pier, all the way on the opposite side of the earth to Scotland.
You might usually call them Little Penguins, but most of us NON-CITY coastal dwellers know them as Fairy Penguins, as they were called in, like, forever.
Awesome video! Little blue penguins (also known as kororā or fairy penguins) are definitely one of the most adorable penguins around. But it's not alone, we've actually got a few other penguin species here in New Zealand! We have two crested penguins, the tawaki penguin in Fiordland (southwestern part of the South Island), and another on the Snares Islands further south. We also have the hoiho (yellow-eyed penguin), in the southeastern part of the South Island. I suppose a lack of land predators allowed the new cold-adapted penguins to re-diversify very well once they made it back to New Zealand.
This is one of your best videos! I still remember your channel as somewhat of a "hidden gem" and I love it seeing grow. You put things in such a good perspective and your video explains so well the evolution of a species over millions of years, including the (usually missing) geographical changes. Please keep it up, you are awesome!
I love the term Pinguin Paradox - not just for it's alliteration, but also because the example is just so vivid. I'm going to try and remember that one!
Very good and informative video! A sad "Grooooh" from the plushy Emperors sitting on my desktop for the sad story of the Great Auk. It was really no question why they are not around anymore - the main reason for animal extinction hasn't changed in the last 2000-3000 years: us.
I wonder if some puffins will elvolve into great Auks over time. Also the story of the great auk extinction makes me glad that we have synthetic insulation materials now that although they surely are not as beautiful as great auk feathers, they can be created without so much poaching
The razorbill resembles the great auk moreso than the puffin does. Razorbills are also better divers, whereas puffins are less clumsy on land and more graceful in the air.
Glad someone of your caliber is finally paying attention to what happened to the Great Auk. Hope you're going to include how the last three died, it's heart wrenching but a good illustration of the 19'th century mindset towards threatened species. Edit: ... Thank you, well done. Here's the part you might not have been able to include due to demonetization concerns, if anyone wants to read it: _"The bird that Jón got went into a corner but [mine] was going to the edge of the cliff. It walked like a man ... but moved its feet quickly. [I] caught it close to the edge - a precipice many fathoms deep. Its wings lay close to the sides - not hanging out. I took him by the neck and he flapped his wings. He made no cry. I strangled him."_
22:10 It's never a good idea to introduce a non-native species to a foreign place, even if they superficially resemble another distantly related species. There's a good chance they'll become invasive, destroy local ecosystems, wipe out native species, & become huge pests. Australia for example introduced cane toads & cats to control both native & non-native pests, now many native species are either extinct or endangered, they also became pests themselves. Australia has plenty of superficially toad-like frogs, as well as cat-like marsupial quolls, but it didn't stop those invasive species from destroying everything. It's best to reintroduce locally extinct species, introduce a similar closely related species, or wait until cloning becomes a viable option to better "right our wrongs".
Its a obvious no-shit bad idea when we are very naive about the consequences. Also, it can be unintentional or had a surprising good benefit (not that it happens often).
Thank you, I was about to comment the same thing. Please stop thinking we can just put a species somewhere like they're pieces of a machine that'll work as predicted, because they won't.
You mean to say, that the destructive quality when put in a new environment is not exclusively a human trait but is also observed in other species? Interesting.
@@-luke-3125 You are too limited in intelligence and literacy for your first science and nature video to be one of this caliber. Go back to spatial playthings like your blocks. Meanwhile, the rest of us will hope that whatever sub-species of homo sapien you belong to goes extinct fast ...
Penguins: Oh no, we are fat, flightless and cannot migrate far :(( Arctic terns: Yeah, we travel every year from Arctic to Antarctica for summer vacation :D
You have obviously never seen Penguins in their natural environment. It is NOT on land, it is in the water. Underwater a Penguin is anything BUT fat and slow. Penguins go to land primarily to either nest or in some cases rest, just as Arctic Terns and Albatrosses will occasionally land to rest or nest. Otherwise Penguins spend their entire lives at sea.
Great reference and voice feature from Knowing Better, when are you going to make an appearance on his channel? He does the most TH-cam crossovers of any other TH-camr I am familiar with.
I was enchanted by the Fairy Penguins of Phillip Island, Victoria Australia as a young child. Absolutely adorable. Keeping cats and dogs out is critical.
The Greak Auk would be extremely hard due to the lack of viable DNA sources and close relatives to it. Mammoths are more likelier because we have actually blood and hair samples plus they were decently related to the Asian elephant which could be the surrogate parent. But even then we still gotta research the mammoth DNA
@@Spongebrain97 It would be hard, very hard, but as they lived in a frozen environment and part of the reason we might be able to clone mammoths is we find them frozen periodically. The way I see it we need to conduct a frozen scavenger hunt! With mammoths there is also the issue of breeding them with Asian elephants, closest relative, and the Asian elephant is also endangered. While she is pregnant with a mammoth she can't be pregnant with another elephant. Still, I want my Pleistocene Park.
@@helenhobbs5472 Problem is Auk's lived on isolated rocks with not much soil to speak of. They didn't get buried as mammoths did and would have simply been left exposed to aerial scavengers and even wind and waves. And that's assuming they died on the rocks rather than in the water.
8:52 Penguin is not a Genus, but a common name for an Order. Waters around the Galapagos are very cold, because of the Humboldt current that brings water from Antarctica. Saying that the Galapagos penguin is adapted to the tropics is a bit of a wrong statement.
the water may be cold but the islands and the climate are still tropical and the penguins still spend time out of the water so have had to adapt to the tropical climate of the islands in the exact way he explained with the feet designed to release body heat which would be a detriment in cold environments. the temperature of the waters around the Galapagos dont change anything he said
@@okapijohn4351 for sure, because at high altitude the climate is different. but all penguins live at sea level and they nest and sleep on land, so calling this species of penguin tropical is accurate because we humans are biased so we think of them as land-dwelling even if they do most of their characteristic activities in the water.
Maybe someone already highlighted this but i want to say that in french we actually call "pingouins" the auk's family and the birds who live in the south hemisphera are called "manchots". Well even french people don't know the difference between the two. And actually there is still the "little auk" (Alca Torda) alive and this bird can actually fly ! Anyway best regards from France !
In France we use the word "Pingouin" to designate only the family of the oak. Our equivalent of the "penguin" of the english is "manchot" in french. The similarity of our "pingouins" and the "penguins" of the english speaker create many confusion. More and more french aren't able anymore to separate pingouin and manchot using the later only to designate the Emperor Penguin.
We are the only country in the world which didn't change the name of the true penguins(pingouins), hope that does not change, and that the manchot remains a manchot !
I have really enjoyed these last two videos! The graphics are amazing and it really seems like you put so much effort into the videos. Everything is well thought out and it is all explained in ways that would make sense to anyone even if they don’t have a degree in science. I would love if you continued to talk about birds as that is what initially brought me to your channel. Keep up the great work!
Atlas Pro: **starts to mention the great auk**
Me: **intense depressed crying**
All it took was him saying do you want the happy or the sad first and I knew
omg I know my heart plummeted when he said its name
his name is Caelan
Penguinus impennis? Yes I have a mind of a 12 year old... now I feel bad for laughing
Its more like dissapointing than sad, knowing something will never come again.
That excerpt of the final breeding pair of the Great Auk really hit me in the heart.
I read more into that account and yeah the Icelandic hunters were paid by a rich merchant to collect some Great Auk. Specifically they ran up behind the breeding pair and strangled them to death with their bare hands, not knowing that they killed off the last of the Great Auk in 1844. In the 1850s there were claims of sightings but none were ever proven
The first story I'd heard about it had the hunters purposefully stomp on the egg afterward. So this version was decidedly happier to me.
@Safwaan did you just call Native Americans a different species?!?!
@@bolbyballinger yah exactly! the hunters thought that the great auks brought about a bad omen since it was storming so they chased the auks stomped on the egg, killed one, and took one captive and held it in a room in a shelter. They didn't know what to do as the storm got more powerful so they decided to murder the auk by beating it to death with the belief that it would calm the storm.
It's crazy to think there was actual documentation of the last 2 of a breeding pair in a species before extinction...and we STILL killed them. Hopefully in the future there will be more stories about how humanity managed to rescue some species from extinction rather than deliberately causing it.
I didn't expect the sad part to be this sad. The description of chasing the last two auks was so saddening. We literally chased to them to the last corner and ended them there 😭
Can't say I didn't warn you!
That last sentence made me laugh and now I feel bad
Legit you can run but you can't hide
The dodo and tazmanian tiger seemed sadder to be honest, along with my unreal expectations. We are all here for a good time not a long time.
Just imagine
Female auk: oh husband our eggs are missing,.... Oh wait some one is coming RUN!!
Male auk: wife RUN TO THE SIDE THEY WILL CHASE ME
*They both(humans) proceed to Chase them both to the side*
Wife auk: husband if i will have a second life it would be with u I lov- *gets killed*
Husband auk: I love you to- *gets killed*
When the first penguin arrived in the north and realized that the habitat was already occupied by auks: "Well, this is aukward"
Thank you
good one xD
Great-Grandpa told us the time he swam up north
Haha
Auk-upied?
The whole "race to grab them as they go extinct" bit reminds me of how there was a push to hoard southern bluefin tuna meat as they got closer to extinction, on the idea that it would become valuable (thankfully they haven't got extinct yet).
if you think that's stupid, then you should know that when we started mining for guano (seabird poop, which is extremely valuable, and dispute over these mining rights is one of the reasons of War of the Pacific between Chile and Peru & Bolivia) on small South Pacific islands off the coast of Peru and Chile, we actually hunted these birds. We ate the goddamn thing that actually produces guano, drove the rest away from their nesting ground, extracted guano for a short while before it depleted (who could have guessed?).
It's the epitome of human's short-sightedness, a Golden Egg story play out in real life..
yet
How long does their meat last?
@@oldrabbit8290 they hunt the birds to stop the rival country from getting guano, or to decrease supply to increase price?
Or was it hunters acting independently not caring about guano because they work in the hunting industry, not the guano industry?
@@موسى_7 because it's a cheap and readily available source of fresh food on these islands, instead of buying their own supply from the mainland..
I feel like the Great Auk is one of the primary candidates for de-extinction projects. We have a similar living Auk (the Razorbill), we have DNA-filled specimens, and habitat still exists. Introducing penguins in their place is like introducing lions to the American west. Cool idea, pretty good reasons, but probably best to wait for actual de-extinct American Lions.
NO, the great auk should be the first on the list !
@@paulochon7692 why May i ask?
Because its a penguin? Duh
how about mammoth instead?
@@skyfeelan Too much appeal for me to get a pet mammoth.
I'd absolutely need one, and that wouldn't be good for anybody; including the mammoth.
I lived in Southeast Alaska in the late 1990s. A solitary penguin was caught in a net near the Prince of Wales island. Most people wrote it off as an aquarium escapee... but what if it wasn't?
Or even... what if it was actually an Auk?
@@AtlasPro1 SAVED THE AUK? OH YES FINALLY
@@AtlasPro1
Don't do that
Don't give me hope
Did it survive? Now I want to know what happened to the damn thing!
@@AtlasPro1 Unfortunately no. The Alaskan bird was an adult Humbolt penguin from Peru, almost certainly a hitchhiker on a fishing boat.
There have actually been attempts at releasing penguins on isolated islands in Northern Norway.
The first time it was 4 king penguins in 1936.
One was killed by a woman thinking it was some kind of demon emerging from the water, the other 3 disappeared.
The second time in 1938 it was over 20 Macaroni and Gentoo penguins. They tried to take care of them, but this time they seemed to get depressed and sick, refusing to eat and eventually dying. The last ones were set free, but also died the same way.
bruh the first one was hilarious, the second was awful
Wow.. very interesting. Almost like their penguin brains are finely tuned for a very specific locale.
@@dirtypure2023 or maybe in 1938 we kept the penguins in captivity because we didnt know any better
I'd imagine they'd be very confused by the shift in seasons, being animals that breed only at certain times of the year.
@@slaytronic for some reason it made me laugh 😂
It's so strange to think that since Auks were originally called Penguins, all the Penguins alive today are technically "false penguins", analogous to false crabs.
EXACTLY ! In French we still call the true penguins "pingouins" and we call the fake ones "manchots". We are the only country in the world which didn't change the name of true penguins(auks and razorbills). fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Pingouin
Crabs, false or not, should be scratched from the record.
@@petefluffy7420 carcinisation will make sure that never happens lol
@@caitlinforster8189 In fact we are kinda like crabs
so in the Arctic Islands the Penguins became "ICE- OLATED"😮😮!
The second he showed the first painting of the Great Auk, instead of a photo, I immediately knew the answer was a very common one to "Why did X go extinct?": "We killed them all."
Yep, we did it again mom. Sorry mother earth. Another check on humanity's for love for it's mother earth. Maybe if we stopped polluting mother earth would tell the mosquito's to vanish for six month's? I'll ask a flat earther what he thinks... uh huh... uh huh... oh... ok.. so it seem's alien's are real so we must worship corn. Damned flat earthers. Can you see we dont want to worship corn! Popcorn ok! But not corn! Eh i don't know. I tried my best to make somebody smile today. Yay!
We're on that list too. We are going to kill all humans with pollution, radioactivity, or disease. We all goin to die. Oh I know, let's give up hunting and gathering so we can cut down all the forests. Over fish/hunt/pasteurized animals to mono culture extinction. Yay! Let's hear it for the morons of the planet! Us
@@dakotadingler764 shut up
@@goldfishpanic6652 Rude
@@goldfishpanic6652 are you a flat earther? 😄
What's really wild is that when the Earth was warmer, Antarctica would have been ice free, but since it's at the South Pole would still have been completely dark for half the year and light for half the year. That would have been wild for the animals and especially plants living there.
I didn't even consider that... How in the hell did plants survive? Let alone it used to be covered in forests, wasn't it? Or did most of the plant life already die off by the time it moved that far south?
Now you've got me wondering how Icelandic fauna deals with the midnight sun
Perhaps you aren't a native speaker of english, and i'm not either, but i think you tried to say "lit" instead of "light", as in the english for 'iluminado'. Also yeah, it would have been a weird wild world
@@bungalo50 they hibernate, but what do the plants do????? Are they deciduous?
24-hour night at the poles doesn't mean it's totally dark the entire time, the sun is just below the horizon so there is *some* sunlight, just not a lot
Fun fact: "Arctic" comes from "Arctos" which means 'bear'. It's called the Arctic region because it's where basically the only animals you'll encounter are bears. "The Arctic" = "The land of bears". Conversely, "The Antarctic" = "The land of not bears".
Yes and no - Antarctic is like antipodes - anti means opposite, so Antarctic means opposite to the arctic region. Also arctic may be related to the constellation of the bear, rather than necessarily of the animal location. Bears existed all over Europe, not just in the North.
@@andrewmole745 Yeah but up in the Arctic is where the *big* bears are. And yes, constellation of the bear, but also the Polar Bear. Yes, you could be boring and pedantic and say that "Antarctic means "the land opposite from the land under the constellation of the bear", but for all the difference it's going to make, I'll stick with the more fun interpretation.
Rather the land opposite of bears
There's a beach here in Perth where you can see hundreds of blue penguins nesting on offshore rocks. This time of year is their mating season. It's pretty neat.
Perth, Australia? It can’t be Perth in Scotland, because of the penguins you mentioned.
There was a penguin that wandered off to a man's house in rio de janeiro and they became friends :) every year the penguim would come back visit the guy, and they hugged and all that
We here in New zealand and this isn't a gloat. We have blue penguins nest under houses and around the place. Such cool creatures but real loud at times
Also in Victoria, Blue Penguins like to show up near piers. Literally saw a group at St Kilda.
Fairy penguins.
17:47
„What did cause the demise of the Great Auk? Come on, you already know.“
*pausing and gesturing, trying to tell us that he killed them all by him self*
Ok just a little thought. I’m not suggesting you to do it just a thought experiment. Could we save polar bears by releasing penguins in the Arctic?
First saw the title and immediately thought, "There were *once* penguins in the Artic...."
@@thefolder3086 only if these penguins somehow manage to make all the natural resources disappear. Erasing the profit motive behind the destruction of the Arctic habitat
@@niklasjockel1515 isn’t the lack of food the main cause of their extinction?
@romeo angeles neither do penguins
As a geologist, you won me over with the amazing tectonic displays to explain early penguins' paleogeography!
Some researchers in Alaska in the 80's tried to release some that had been raised in captivity but they all developed a respiratory disease and died. They were fine in captivity being fed store bought fish but the wild food apparently had some bug that they were not immune to from what I heard while working for a nearby oil company at the time.
Also polar bears and wolves would end up decimate the penguin population
@@russelwestbrick4141 then lets just introduce the penguin in the arctic after polar bears went extinct. problem solved.
@@harrytheprince6951 hate to break it to you, but when Al Gore was born, there were 7,000 polar bears. Today, only 30,000 are left.
@@harrytheprince6951 bruh polar bear is necessary for that ecosystem
@@russelwestbrick4141
Penguins can live in places with land predators, as Humboldt, Magellan and African penguins prove.
My first encounter with the concept of the Great Auk was playing Assassin's Creed: Rogue. It features a sailing region that is based on the waters around Newfoundland in winter in the 1700s (pre-American Revolution), and seeing large tuxedo-patterned birds jumping into the water is not particularly uncommon. I believe my immediate response was "wtf Ubisoft, why are there penguins in Canada?" (Yes, Newfoundland didn't become part of Canada until 1949, I know.)
So I looked up "Assassin's Creed: Rogue penguins" and discovered that Great Auks used to be a thing.
NewFoundLand? Great Auk? You guys are smart
In Northern Germany we have Lummen which is a type of auk that can also fly although not very well.
That's why I love Assassin's Creed. I've learned so much playing it.
@@KarlMarxBR700 Sadly there's also a great deal of historical inaccuracy baked into it, and not just the stuff about the Assassin/Templar metaplot. And it's gotten increasingly bad just how far off they're willing to deviate. AC Valhalla is pretty close to pure fiction....it's a pity they didn't really put much effort into communicating that fact.
@@rashkavar Dude anyobody should know enough about history that a disclaimer should not be required. If people are dumb enough to think magical ghosts from valhalla are real thats on them.
The story of the great auk is definitely a sad one. I remember reading about it as a kid in some books I had 35 years ago. I will say however, the closest living bird most similar to the great auk is a bird called a razorbill auk. They are smaller, they can fly, and live in many of the same areas that the great auk lived in.
Thank you so much for this info, was very sad after knowing the great auk's extinction
Just when I was wondering if you might talk about the Great Auk, you did and with a VERY detailed and accurate explanation. I learned about their lives and subsequent extinction 3 years ago when I was visiting Iceland. In fact, that tour I was on brought us to the coast right off across from the Eldey. I felt so angry and sad when I learned about what happened back in the 1800's...
@Zeno the Filipino ye
@Safwaan I mean, its still a pretty good option though, especially if a species needs to be reintroduced, the only reason we havent done it is because its incredibly hard
A grand testament to humanities foolishness and short sightedness. Makes me want to make those scientists in Wuhan look like rookies.
@@a-ramenartist9734 actually we're doing it with I think the white rhino
The Polynesians were the penguins of humanity colonizing islands by mastering seafaring transport.
Yeah, and Polynesians probably couldnt fly either
@@Peanutbetter27 _probably_
Hmm...
@@anin871 or perhaps its because the dutch stole the native height LOL
@@ivanzero8854 LMAO
@@Peanutbetter27 hahaha
From what I remember, some work was done to protect the Great Auk’s but it took too long to come into force and didn’t do enough, and they effectively gave up on trying to protect them because they felt it was too late.
That is too bad
were you there
The extinction of the auks is like killing someone just so you can go to their funeral.
Blue Fin Tuna becomes more expensive the rarer it is...
Capitalism without consequence...😑 Supply and demand without a future concern.
@@ոakedsquirtle That's why we gotta conserve the tuna. The sushi is just too tasty to be extinct 😉
@@dorian4646 let them extinct, then nobody could eat tuna
@@lopil4566 If you had any idea about ecosystems, micro-ecosystems, and the necessity of a large, fast predator which helps balance an entire region in the North Atlantic and South Pacific balance its self out, you wouldn't sound so stupid. It's not about denying consumers a product, it is about keeping the ocean functioning the way nature intended it to. I know you either do not eat tuna, or are poor and hate people who can afford it, but get off that kind of idealism of "if I can't have it, fuck them and it" while you still can.
@@dorian4646 Tuna is farmed, so it is as conserved as it can be. Farmed animals will never go extinct as long as humans exist.
Mate that excerpt… I’ve actually got goosebumps. That broken egg could have been the very literally last chance the birds had. And we just… took it away. And then discarded it when we saw it was broken, just to add insult to extinction,
Rough.
I mean, unless the Auk had developed asexual reproduction a single egg is just delaying the inevitable at best.
As a side note the first story I'd been told about the Great Auk's extinction said that the hunters purposefully stomped on the egg. This story was happier by comparison.
@@bolbyballinger yeah same thing i always think when ppl say this
sounds rough but somehow at this point killing the last two ,,was ,,, well the better option
these two animals would have never repopulate everything
1. the great auk only layd one single egg ech years
2. it would not needet logn bevore massiv inbreed would have killed them off anyway
and that these two would not fell victim to orcas ,polarbears or so one while fishing ....
we should have stopped this long ,,,long bevor only two where left
The actual story (from a readers digest article I read from the 70s). When the men found the last pair, they snapped their necks. The last egg was smashed by the boot during the stuggle. It's fucking heartbreaking.
Well the 1800s was a horrible century for animals.
We as humans were just getting to the peak to establishing new societies.
Industrialization, colonized, imperialism, bird eggs were plucked with no regard for the continuation of the species.
Dont forget whaling, animal pelts, rhino horns.
I wish we could compare how many species went extinct in the 1800s to the 1900s, and the 2000s.
As inefficient as it is to preserve the infertile panda bear. I guess its just the guilt of what we did to whales, dodos, nearly did to the bald eagle. As an English speaker, I'm just curious how other cultures view animal and environmental preservation.
How do the chinese feel about bamboo forests, or south Americans about and the amazon. Its easy for us due to us being 1st world. But land use is still economic gain. So after we Americans make so much money from our lands there's the desire for 2nd and 3rd world to become more financially successful too.
@@ericolens3 Atlas Pro has a good video about the Amazon, and how the countries within it feel the need to use it for its economic purposes.
If you haven’t seen it, highly recommend it.
My jaw dropped the moment you said “why do you think I’ve only been showing pictures of the Auks?” and my mouth was wide open for the next few minutes
"Pingouin" is the French vernacular name of Northern hemisphere Great Auk _(Pinguinus Impennis_ extinct in the XIXth century) and Razorbill _(Alca Torda)._ Southern hemisphere penguins _(Spheniscidae)_ are called "manchots".
Also a few birds that we call pingouing in french do fly.
@@simongloutnez589 Les guillemots ou macareux sont abusivement appelés pingouins car ce sont des alcidés, mais c'est de plus en plus rare. Généralement, on limite l'appellation "pingouin" aux petits pingouins, dernier représentant de la famille _Alca._
wtf is XIX
@@plant5875 19
@@plant5875 Is this not an english thing ? To write centuries with roman numbers?
18:22 "what you think is your greatest power could be the one and worst weakness" -Sun Tzu
This video was pure quality content. You deserve more likes. I'll watch the other videos in this series!
I live on an island in the far north of Norway, I have been told by many people, aswell as read it in old newspapers, that they tried releasing penguins into the wild, but they all disappeared, I assumed hunted by predators.
just because they eat fish, doesn't mean they can/will eat any fish. keep in mind that the seasons are reversed which probably messed with them, since they breed and feed seasonally.
it seems like the Norwegians who did it tried to make sure they were put in places where there were no or few predators, like isolated islands near Lofoten. but it probably wasn't enough.
Rip the majestic Great auk
My first thought seeing the title.
😩
It wasn't so great. It was ok.
The Okay-ish Auk.
RIP great auk may you not be forgotten
@@ProfezorSnayp missed opportunity; Aukay-ish
Very cool and educational video! I had no idea there were once giant people-sized penguins! And your explanation of why they haven't migrated to the Arctic region is GENIUS.
The Great Auk is arguably how humans discovered that extinction was even possible. Extinction was not a known phenomenon at the time.
Sounds kinda stupid.
Which is amazing because...well, why do you think all those ice age species like the mammoth and saber tooth tiger went extinct?
@@mikerivera373 Mammoths and Saber Tooth Tigers had not been discovered.
@@WylliamJudd hadn’t been discovered by the modern Europeans. Prehistoric humans could tell you all about them lol
@@mikerivera373 Prehistoric is marginally correct. Mammoths were still around when the Pyramids were being built.
Fun fact: there are just as many penguin species that live in temperate climates as in polar climates.
You've could been just type 'fact' not
fun fact, most facts aren't even fun
@@lester8836 you must be at partiest
@@lordspamsammich7280 dude, social distancing.
Zzzzzzzzzzz boring
@@yudistiraliem135 dude most countries allow parties
Absolutely fascinating! I'd never heard of the extinct prehistoric human-sized penguin (wow!!) and the specific challenges of species migration across N/S climactic zones is not something I'd intuited either? Well-done video format too. Definitely subscribing to learn more! 😊
I looked at the thumbnail and thought - oh, an old video I haven't yet seen, how peculiar. And then it hit me that it was a brand new stuff and I got so excited :D
Exactly my thoughts
I've read that a southwest European cave painting from tens of thousand years ago features three great auks. They, I read, are shown in action, two challenging each other and a third, presumably a female, standing by. The behavious shown, I read, is very like that of razorbills, a very similar smaller species that can fly. It looks as if the cave artists had observed behaviour at a breeding site. But great auks have only ever nested on islands far enough off shore that land predators couldn't swim there. So, these Ice Age artists appear to have had boats capable of getting there. And maybe they had to, maybe they had already reduced land-based prey to the point that they needed to risk the ocean. The book ("The Seabird's Cry" by Nicolson) thinks that this might be the oldest depiction of any bird of any kind anywhere in the world. It looks as if the process of exterminating them began the moment we (people) were able to get to one of their offshore island colonies.
Yawn.
@@nastybastardatlive Whatever, troll
@@nastybastardatlive ADD? There are medications for that.
Quite intresting, i might read the book.
I'd never get around to reading such a book. So, thanks for sharing that snippet. Much appreciated... 👍
An interesting fact: earlier when showing all the breeding islands for the great awk, one of the ones shown at Iceland, just a short way from Eldey, is Geirfuglasker, which literally translates to Great Awk Skerry (geirfugl being Icelandic for the great awk, and likely where the name "garefowl" comes from). This breeding ground however didn't disappear due to hunting (though it probably would've) but rather because of a volcanic eruption, literally resulting in the whole island submerging and forcing the Awks using it to relocate their breeding grounds to the neighbouring Eldey (literally "fire island". The whole area was volcanically active after all)
Just a fun fact
I cried so hard the first time I heard the story of the great auk. It would be nice if they could one day be revitilazed from all those samples collected.
Ew wtf
That'll be good news to poachers
I hope you cry about things that actually matter too.
Why is everyone that replied to you an asshole? People always act like someone’s dumb for having an empathetic nature toward animals and loss of life. It’s okay to feel strong emotions toward things outside the norm. Doesn’t mean that what you feel and feel for doesn’t matter.
@@solemn_opossum6290 I don't know why people are assholes, but they are pretty clearly demonstrating why the great auk went extinct.
I am learning a lot more of Biogeography before I even started learning it in school
schools and universities are mostly redundant since the 2010s at least in the western world
@@pridefulobserver3807 they teach us things we wont even need in the real world except english
I didn't even know what biogeography was oof
I love this channel
you're likely not even gonna learn much biogeography in school anyways (assuming you're in high school)
One of the reasons I love what you do - is the way you manage to openly say "whats the problem with loosing nature" so to say - we are. I am an environmental manager and I am afraid to talk with people about ecology, they will probably hate me or find negative or aggressive if I will say the truth. Especially on the question how to "save nature".
I think at the time the great Auk was being hunted to extinction it wasn't still widely accepted/realized at least by Euroapeans that species could go extinct. Because God's creaations couldn't just disappear from the Earth or something like that
One more proof why religions suck.
I know that in the late 1700s and early 1800s that was still a widely held belief but by 1844 enough research had been done so that Europeans acknowledged animals could die out. That actually ties into the Great Auk because people began to notice they were becoming more rare. Museum and rich collectors in Europe wanted some Great Auk specimens and as the video points out they quickly hired people to get the last of the birds
@@Napoleonic_S *christianity
@@stirpsromana Nah man, all religion sucks.
Doubtful, the most acceptable explanation was that it was God's will, if the creator didn't intercede with a miracle, then it's not up to us mere sinners to contradict divine wisdom, or anything like that.
Penguins: *Gives up flight to gain swimming*
Cormorants: "Pathetic."
Flightless Cormorant of Galapagos.
Most seabirds can also swim, it's just a trade-off, you can't be excellent at both without giving up one so most have stuck with both. The exception is unless there are conditions where they can evolve flightlessness like on islands where there are no predators. Like what happened to the auk, penguin and flightless Cormorant ancestors. Explained well in PBS eons th-cam.com/video/HMArjGQwLvY/w-d-xo.html
Then there's Anhingas and Darters that are basically submarines that can aslo soar as well as an eagle.
PBS eons explains it well th-cam.com/video/HMArjGQwLvY/w-d-xo.html
@@garrethdsouza3655 i have a question. Is chicken also a bird like a long time ago before they evolved to chicken?
@@shirosan9824 chickens are still birds. They can literally fly with their chicken wings?
Fascinating story! Many thanks for doing such a beautiful job if telling the story of penguins. This channel rocks! ❤🎉😊
The case of the Galapagos penguin is an interesting one, they actually aren't that far from colonising the northern hemisphere.
The western coasts of the Americas are actually quite cool, which is generally the case with the western sides of big landmasses with the exception of a warm water zone around the equator. We also see this in Africa but with its tropical zone being larger.
If some penguin vagrants where to cross the distance from the Galapagos Islands to say Baja California they would be free to colonise the northern Pacific.
And there already are northern elephant seals in California so why not penguins?
The great skua that lives round Antartica appears to have made the crossing directly. The great skua (aka bonxie) of the north Atlantic seems to be descended from the Antarctic birds without any intermediate forms. Skuas can fly strongly. Who knows what chance led to some crossing an immense width of warmer seas.
This video solves my doubt that why the zoo in my country just keep a flock of penguin in just an aircon display part, never in a freezing cold like Antarctica. They might be that tropical penguin.
can you explain to me why this "The western coasts of the Americas are actually quite cool, which is generally the case with the western sides of big landmasses with the exception of a warm water zone around the equator." happens , I remember my teacher of geography saying the same thing but I didn't have chance to get more details about it that time.
@@carelgoodheir692 I didn't know that, animal migration and colonization in general looks very interesting. The case of the cattle egret is an interesting one, it is an originally old world species but in the 1930s it was First sighted it the Guyanas and by the 1970s had colonised most suitable habitats in the new world. I don't know what drove and enabled them to cross the Atlantic, but if they managed to do that, why didn't it happen earlier.
I have the feeling that for some reason those types of colonization have been more prevalent in the modern era for some reason, and that's not even talking about the artificially introduced species.
@@kittenastrophy5951 Keep in mind that even though they live in tropical areas they are still adapted to much cooler water temperatures than for instance the Caribbean waters.
I remember being quite disappointed and even angry that they didn't live in ice pools or that they didn't throw ice cubes into the water when I was a kid. I thought they were overheating 😂
Wow. The most informative and the best look at any possible sides (especially up to migration and evolution towards all environments to pass through for the journey) about this. It makes me wonder how it's affected and would affect us Inuit today. The thing is, penguins DO have a name in our native Inuktitut language which makes me wonder if they've been around inside our four thousand year time line. They're called "Pittiulaa". And yes they would be one of the easiest prey up here, no doubt.
Possibly, and this is just me theorizing, occasionally penguins have made it north, but their populations always tended to go extinct? That would explain the existence of the word. Or was that what the Great Auk was called in your language and it was applied to penguins as well due to their obvious physical similarities? Interesting nevertheless!
I love the club penguin ref. Props.
Anyone Else Start Crying When The Great Auk Was Mentioned? Rest In Peace, My Beloved Northern Penguins, Rest In Peace.
oh good god...Humans eliminated the screwworm fly from North America (as far as we know). Grab a tissue.
@@dcpack Why can't we do the same with mosquitoes
@@jamestoliman9081 Bats eat mosquitoes. So we should all adopt a bat.
To summarize: Why are there no penguins in the arctic? Because we killed them.
Why can't we just send penguins to the arctic? Because we'd kill them.
The year is not 1800 anymore, if some penguins were added they could be protected
@Shoenheim Being called dumb by you wouldn't even be that bad, get a grip.
@@user-yj4qz5lo6k polar bears give zero fucks about your protection laws
@@BFjordsman Apparently you didn't watch to the end either.
@@Toast_94 I watched it. And my statement still holds true and had nothing thing to do with others comments
I'm a simple person: I see a video about my favorite animal, and I watch the video.
(So glad I've watched your videos lately to see this one!)
I’m really enjoying these videos more than your older works! It’s great to have these better visuals, and not only is your face great to see, but it really helps with the pacing!
It's wonderful that this channel gives so much attention to places like Antarctica and the Sahara.
Evolution is soo simple and yet it is soo interesting.
I'm gonna give you the homeland of the Auks;
The Rockall Plateau.
It's an earlier version of Iceland that would have been largely above sealevel during the ice-age.
Thanks, I never thought I'd own some land one day
@@samarkand1585 Sometimes our largest real estates are the friendships we make along the way.
I love this channel so much already, I’ve always loved geography and in recent years I’ve been getting very into evolution and extinction and finding out why animals are the way they are, and thanks to this channel I’ve found that there’s a name for this topic, and I’ve found a channel full of great videos to watch! Thank you so much for making such great content! I never knew there were so many varieties of penguins, but I did know about the Great Auks. It’s such a shame they went extinct.
So strange to hear "penguin don't live in the North" as a French... since in French the ”auk” are called "penguins", and "penguins” are called "manchots” for us ....
Linguistics are fun
not in quebec ;)
@@ianism3 What?! Ben oui, Manchots live in the South, Pingouins in the north, meme chose au Quebec..?
@@ianism3
french larper
I really like man’s body language and expressions when he talks, he could probably explain to me everything without even speaking. Keep up the great work!
Oh no he's becoming italian
The way he stresses syllables can get a bit annoying, but the information is great.
@@treker2379 If he sat on his hands he'd probably explode.
@@dj33036 hey you gotta add some flair to prevent your voice overs from becoming boring. You have to pick some sort of gimmick, unless you just naturally have the voice of David Attenborough
My god NO ! The opposite for me, drives me nuts
I did not expect to hear Knowing Better on your channel and it was a surprise to be sure but a welcome one :)
As silly as it sounds, you’ve revived my natural hunger for knowledge. Your videos are so interesting and well made! Thank you!
But what's the computerized speech?
"why arent there any penguins in the arctic?"
"there used to be"
i cri
I cri too
I cri evry tiem
I mised the pingu, i think, i cri
i cri cause pingu ded
Me cri
I kept a pocket sized book about the sory and extinction of the great auk when I was 5. Kept it with me and even took it to school when I was 8. I loved that book. - My father around the same time made a collection of auk eggs out of clay and I remember the clay models of auks standing on a rock or being half submerged in water paddling like the other still living bird. He told me a kid broke their necks, and stomped on their last egg.
I don't know why I didn't look up the true story of what happened sooner. And I'm glad to have found out. But I think I will keep saying that story. It's close enough to the truth, perhaps even closer.
"Well, this sucks." - Private (after arriving in antarctica)
Omg I snorted laughing 😆
U mean Pirate?
@@daflowstate4977 no
@@daflowstate4977 he meant the one from the movie Penguins of Madagascar..
@@caloyski4094 oh they had names?
Giant Penguins would really fit in an arctic-climate D&D campaign (Dire Penguins?)
i'm writing that down, 2.3mt tall penguins who will pinch your head off if you try to fk with them
Thanks for the idea!
Dire Penguins... Grizzly Penguins... Werepenguins... could even have something akin to a "Dragon-Penguin(s)" or "elemental" penguins. Could even go full Merpenguin- Mermaid/man + Penguin... like a Hippocampus, but a chubster byrd. Even go for the DEEP SEA penguins, and get Lovecraftian over here! Octo-penguins, Kraken Penguins... Angler Penguins, Crustaguins. (Crustacean-like penguins)
Geezus... what have you done to ME!? XXD
Thank you for saying 'Niche' instead of 'Nitch'. Kudos to you sir.
Now for the polar opposite of why there are no polar bears in Antarctica.
long time ago antartica is inaccessible by bear from mainland, way to far.. and artic is closer to mainland back then.
Honestly as he was talking I was thinking about what if we just released some polar bears onto Antarctica. They would have a field day with those penguin breeding grounds
@@jatzi1526 Just what those scientific outposts need. Polar bears bashing on their doors.
The word Arctic comes from Arctos which is Greek for bears. So Arctic = land of bears. Antarctic = land without bears.
@@graemerigg4029 Interesting! +1
22:31 makes more sense to bring the great auk back, from what i know its one of extinct species with a lot of genetic material, so yeah
If I'm not mistaken, at the time the Auk faced overhunting, extinction wasn't a commonly accepted theory and thus a rare animal is just that, a rare valuable animal. Though I could be wrong
Atlas Pro :"Why are there No Penguins in the Artic?"
God Emperor Penguin of Pengukind: "YET. "
I’m so glad i found this channel, the light puns and pure enthusiasm with teaching always makes me interested in anything you have to say
this channel is excellent I shared this video with my professor in my Biology class and he approves
It's a strange irony that one of the 9 breeding grounds you mention of the Great Auk was St. Kilda. Where I live in Melbourne, Australia, one of the best places to see wild Blue penguins (we usually call them Little Penguins here) is St. Kilda pier, all the way on the opposite side of the earth to Scotland.
You might usually call them
Little Penguins, but most of us NON-CITY coastal dwellers know them as Fairy Penguins, as they were called in, like, forever.
Awesome video! Little blue penguins (also known as kororā or fairy penguins) are definitely one of the most adorable penguins around. But it's not alone, we've actually got a few other penguin species here in New Zealand! We have two crested penguins, the tawaki penguin in Fiordland (southwestern part of the South Island), and another on the Snares Islands further south. We also have the hoiho (yellow-eyed penguin), in the southeastern part of the South Island. I suppose a lack of land predators allowed the new cold-adapted penguins to re-diversify very well once they made it back to New Zealand.
First time viewer. Loved the video!
This is one of your best videos! I still remember your channel as somewhat of a "hidden gem" and I love it seeing grow. You put things in such a good perspective and your video explains so well the evolution of a species over millions of years, including the (usually missing) geographical changes. Please keep it up, you are awesome!
I love the term Pinguin Paradox - not just for it's alliteration, but also because the example is just so vivid. I'm going to try and remember that one!
Very good and informative video!
A sad "Grooooh" from the plushy Emperors sitting on my desktop for the sad story of the Great Auk.
It was really no question why they are not around anymore - the main reason for animal extinction hasn't changed in the last 2000-3000 years: us.
I wonder if some puffins will elvolve into great Auks over time. Also the story of the great auk extinction makes me glad that we have synthetic insulation materials now that although they surely are not as beautiful as great auk feathers, they can be created without so much poaching
There some speculative evolution concepts about flightless puffins
The razorbill resembles the great auk moreso than the puffin does. Razorbills are also better divers, whereas puffins are less clumsy on land and more graceful in the air.
Glad someone of your caliber is finally paying attention to what happened to the Great Auk. Hope you're going to include how the last three died, it's heart wrenching but a good illustration of the 19'th century mindset towards threatened species.
Edit: ... Thank you, well done. Here's the part you might not have been able to include due to demonetization concerns, if anyone wants to read it:
_"The bird that Jón got went into a corner but [mine] was going to the edge of the cliff. It walked like a man ... but moved its feet quickly. [I] caught it close to the edge - a precipice many fathoms deep. Its wings lay close to the sides - not hanging out. I took him by the neck and he flapped his wings. He made no cry. I strangled him."_
this was an incredibly detailed and informative video! just found your channel and I'm loving it
I think the Penguin Paradox would be more aptly named as the Latitudinal Dilemma.
Not as catchy a name, though.
I never expect to shed a tear watching Atlas Pro
seriuosly, the dodos and the pengiuns are the most fascinating videos so far.
22:10
It's never a good idea to introduce a non-native species to a foreign place, even if they superficially resemble another distantly related species. There's a good chance they'll become invasive, destroy local ecosystems, wipe out native species, & become huge pests. Australia for example introduced cane toads & cats to control both native & non-native pests, now many native species are either extinct or endangered, they also became pests themselves.
Australia has plenty of superficially toad-like frogs, as well as cat-like marsupial quolls, but it didn't stop those invasive species from destroying everything. It's best to reintroduce locally extinct species, introduce a similar closely related species, or wait until cloning becomes a viable option to better "right our wrongs".
Actually, no is always a bad idea.
Josh, shut
Its a obvious no-shit bad idea when we are very naive about the consequences. Also, it can be unintentional or had a surprising good benefit (not that it happens often).
Thank you, I was about to comment the same thing. Please stop thinking we can just put a species somewhere like they're pieces of a machine that'll work as predicted, because they won't.
You mean to say, that the destructive quality when put in a new environment is not exclusively a human trait but is also observed in other species? Interesting.
Wow. Exceptional scientific content and storytelling. I think this is your best one yet.
Amazing work on your video, learned a lot. I subbed, looking forward to watching your videos man.
you know why? Ark players keep harvesting them for organic polymer
Ah I miss my Ark days. Clobbering penguins with the club was so satisfying.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 killing kairukus for organic polymer
Thanks for making this about me and my ancestors
We went to Maui last year. We saw the silverswords up by the top of Haleakalā. We saw chickens everywhere in Kihei.
I had guessed the "happy" answer. The sad answer was a great addition. I had not idea.
Great video! Keep up the good work!
You mention the Great Auk and I feel my heart shatter, remembering that it's extinct... because of us.
boohoo circle of life, species go extinct, but no its bad when we do it and we can ignore when other animals do it, get a grip
@@-luke-3125 You are too limited in intelligence and literacy for your first science and nature video to be one of this caliber. Go back to spatial playthings like your blocks. Meanwhile, the rest of us will hope that whatever sub-species of homo sapien you belong to goes extinct fast ...
@@janetskola9867 ironic
@@janetskola9867 lol ok
4:49 Penguins be like "Man, I lived in Antarctica before it was cool"
Penguins: Oh no, we are fat, flightless and cannot migrate far :((
Arctic terns: Yeah, we travel every year from Arctic to Antarctica for summer vacation :D
You have obviously never seen Penguins in their natural environment. It is NOT on land, it is in the water. Underwater a Penguin is anything BUT fat and slow. Penguins go to land primarily to either nest or in some cases rest, just as Arctic Terns and Albatrosses will occasionally land to rest or nest. Otherwise Penguins spend their entire lives at sea.
@@alganhar1 I think zg is making fun of the theory, not the penguins.
@@marieindia8116 funny how evolution does its trial and errors
I would genuinely watch a full length movie about the history of the auks
i think i'd just cry for the whole duration ngl
I read about the auk in an old book about extinct species and races when I was a kid. Fascinating stuff.
The question about how the Penguine evolved rose to my mind just about 6 hours ago and by no means I was expecting a depressing video like this!
Great reference and voice feature from Knowing Better, when are you going to make an appearance on his channel? He does the most TH-cam crossovers of any other TH-camr I am familiar with.
Maybe I already have 😯
Knowing Better is obnoxious as all hell, and is often factually wrong or misleading in his videos. I wouldn't watch a single video of his.
@@Nemo_Anom example?
I was enchanted by the Fairy Penguins of Phillip Island, Victoria Australia as a young child. Absolutely adorable. Keeping cats and dogs out is critical.
"We had something penguinish but then we killed it"
*Immediately starts looking up if we can clone it.*
To the person who liked this: we canot clone it. Yet.....
@@helenhobbs5472 They are working on it
The Greak Auk would be extremely hard due to the lack of viable DNA sources and close relatives to it. Mammoths are more likelier because we have actually blood and hair samples plus they were decently related to the Asian elephant which could be the surrogate parent. But even then we still gotta research the mammoth DNA
@@Spongebrain97
It would be hard, very hard, but as they lived in a frozen environment and part of the reason we might be able to clone mammoths is we find them frozen periodically. The way I see it we need to conduct a frozen scavenger hunt!
With mammoths there is also the issue of breeding them with Asian elephants, closest relative, and the Asian elephant is also endangered. While she is pregnant with a mammoth she can't be pregnant with another elephant. Still, I want my Pleistocene Park.
@@helenhobbs5472 Problem is Auk's lived on isolated rocks with not much soil to speak of. They didn't get buried as mammoths did and would have simply been left exposed to aerial scavengers and even wind and waves. And that's assuming they died on the rocks rather than in the water.
8:52 Penguin is not a Genus, but a common name for an Order. Waters around the Galapagos are very cold, because of the Humboldt current that brings water from Antarctica. Saying that the Galapagos penguin is adapted to the tropics is a bit of a wrong statement.
the water may be cold but the islands and the climate are still tropical and the penguins still spend time out of the water so have had to adapt to the tropical climate of the islands in the exact way he explained with the feet designed to release body heat which would be a detriment in cold environments. the temperature of the waters around the Galapagos dont change anything he said
Tropics are defined by the line of longitude not temperatures.
@@TheMichaelMonroeDoctrine of course, but it doesn't make a llama that lives in the tops of the Andes at latitude 0 a tropical animal.
@@okapijohn4351 you’re getting to caught up on labels.
@@okapijohn4351 for sure, because at high altitude the climate is different. but all penguins live at sea level and they nest and sleep on land, so calling this species of penguin tropical is accurate because we humans are biased so we think of them as land-dwelling even if they do most of their characteristic activities in the water.
Maybe someone already highlighted this but i want to say that in french we actually call "pingouins" the auk's family and the birds who live in the south hemisphera are called "manchots". Well even french people don't know the difference between the two. And actually there is still the "little auk" (Alca Torda) alive and this bird can actually fly !
Anyway best regards from France !
In France we use the word "Pingouin" to designate only the family of the oak. Our equivalent of the "penguin" of the english is "manchot" in french. The similarity of our "pingouins" and the "penguins" of the english speaker create many confusion. More and more french aren't able anymore to separate pingouin and manchot using the later only to designate the Emperor Penguin.
We are the only country in the world which didn't change the name of the true penguins(pingouins), hope that does not change, and that the manchot remains a manchot !
I was looking for that comment...
I have really enjoyed these last two videos! The graphics are amazing and it really seems like you put so much effort into the videos. Everything is well thought out and it is all explained in ways that would make sense to anyone even if they don’t have a degree in science. I would love if you continued to talk about birds as that is what initially brought me to your channel. Keep up the great work!