This was a very fun and timely video as I might know a guy working on a video about all of the Palaeognathae right now... Your series on island evolution sounds amazing!
I’ve been convalescing with COVID and these episodes have kept me from going stir crazy and refreshing lessons I had decades ago. What is really amazing is just how much the thinking and ideas have changed in the last 45 years since I took these classes in college. An old dog can relearn. You do have to speak up and repeat yourself a few times, but we can still get it.
Little correction: You said "half billion square kilometer land mass", but Madagascar has only half a million km² (as shown as number). But the video is very good, as I expect from you.
Big pumice raft islands. This is how big birds got around. edit had to add. I don't mean to be a twit, but, Darwin started getting the idea of natural selection because of pigeons. Rich folks back in Darwin's day bred "Fancy Pigeons". Check them out, so cool. He had also knew farmers selected animals for their traits. However, the wild array of selections of pigeon breeders got him wondering if that's how nature come up with all the "wild" designs. Pigeons are cool. They've been awarded metals during wars. They were the thing that sparked Darwin's imagination. Pigeons are super smart and can be trained to do a wide variety of tasks. Pigeons have even been turned into weapons by evil scientists working for armies. Pigeons can do math. Pigeons are friendly, can dance, and have intense relationships with their partners. I'm sure there's more. I'll stop.
I think the extinction of the largest bird species can be also several causes. We always tend to search for 1 cause when we talk about extinction, but like mentioned in the video it could be a mix of causes. Like habitat loss , disease brought with domestic animals, egg hunting for example. I think most extinctions we see in the history of the world are a combination of factors that causes the extinction of most species.😀 Thanks again for a great video and explanation 👍😀
Excellent. Timmy the Azz-hat. I'm actually very interested in the Moa, can it be classified as a Elephant bird ? and it's relationship with the NZ giant eagle.
While vorombe titan was the largest and heaviest and reached 9.8ft and 10ft, The South Island giant moa was the tallest reaching 11ft or 12ft standing at max height
Are there animals that evolved on an island and later found success on the main land? I‘m asking because the connection to the mainland often meant extinction for island animals from what i‘ve learned
Madagascar was discovered and populated by humans surprisingly late, from people coming from a surprising direction, east. Btw I just leared about giant fossas.
YOU NEED TO GET AHOLD OF ATLAS PRO! He has a multipart series about Island gigantism/Dwarfism which is the best ive ever seen. He also the first person I seen talking about whar he dubs "biogeography" which is the Grouping areas of the earth not just in terms of Geography, but in Mixed form of Geography, climatic, and then those two things combined into its evolutionary pressures on the Biology of that region. He would be an incredible person to do a co-video with on this subject!
@Paleo Analysis He hasn't made a video in like 2 months. He has been moving, and honestly probably would enjoy being able to put something out that doesn't have to be huge to get him back into the swing of things. even if it is just a small cameo on topics he already knows about. I also loved his videos on "islands that aren't islands" talking about like bikail lake
Biogeography as a concept and name is quite a lot older than Atlas Pro. Alfred Russel Wallace's work in the Malay Archipelago and his Wallace Line were really influential to the development of the field. The 50s and 60s saw some classic work on the topic, especially E.O. Wilson's Theory of Island Biogeography. Its absolutely fascinating how biogeography intersects with paleontology. Especially during the last Ice Age when some islands today were connected to continents and others weren't, especially in the Mediterranean and Indonesia.
I think I can speak for all Australians that we are very grateful Cassowaries can't fly. We are running out of them as their mortal enemies, the car, is winning the battle but if they could fly they'd wipe out humans. They are MEAN birds. Maybe, like the Dodo, Elephant Birds didn't taste good? Maybe Kiwis were bigger?
Fantastic video, the elephant birds massive size amazed me when I first heard of it. At the same i was never surprised our species played a role in its decline because seeing how huge their eggs were I thought to myself "that would be a gigantic mountain of scrambled eggs."
Dont forget about lakes, AKA reverse islands. Some of the most interesting examples of this phenomenon are in likes such as Lake Baikal, Lake Matano, Lake Titicaca, and the various African rift lakes. Lake Baikal in particular is a very strange place, it even has very difficult to explain seals.
The seals are just normal seals. They have not been separated from other seals long enough to evolve anything special. The giant Lake Baikal freshwater sponges are the real evolutionary showstoppers.
The fact the seals are so typical is what makes them strange, they are most closely related to the Caspian seal which lives very far away. We also just dont know how they got there or how long they have been there in general. Also the sponges are really cool, same with amphipods. Its basically a mini ocean, too bad its not being well managed.
@@eljanrimsa5843 the reason the seals are interesting is because we still don't really know how tf they even got to Lake Baikal, their closest relatives live like 4400 km away
@@Dell-ol6hb There were multiple occasions when Lake Baikal and the Caspian Sea where it's nearest relative live were linked via giant glacial lakes and remnants of the ancient Tethys Ocean. Because there was more than one occasion we can't tell which one it was, that's the whole mystery here. I guess scientists would need a fossil from an intermediate form somewhere before they can say more about this.
@@peterbreis5407 simple logic = evolution: every pair of sister species has had an intermediate form! Same actually goes for any two species, regardless of being "closely related" or not.
I feel like a problem with other Paleo TH-camrs is that they repeat themselves too much and are redundant. I usually end up not watching the whole video. I love this channel because it's not so repetitive and I feel like I'm learning new information every minute I'm watching rather than having the same facts repeating over and over! Keep up the great work 💖
I call bs on all those animals developing flightlessness. It is yet another example of lazy non-science passed as science to the masses. How convenient it is FOR THE SO CALLED SCIENTISTS to dismiss the mystery so easily.
yeah iv noticed that the same way when comparing Paleo Analysis to other paleo youtubers, constant feed of info with little repetition which is very nice and what i like about Paleo Analysis
@@AlbertWillHelmWestings2618 Dang. I guess that makes me super lucky that Paleo Analysis is the first paleo TH-camr I ever found (and the only one I am subscribed to).
I learned about the elephant bird around age 7? And was OBSESSED! On a family trip to the zoo, a keeper was talking about flightless birds, and had eggs on display. She had a chicken egg for reference. When I asked what bird the biggest egg came from, she said, “Take a guess. Where do you think it came from?” I happily answered, “The elephant bird!” I had no idea they were extinct yet! This poor woman was shocked, and completely speechless. After a bit, she looked at Mom, who just sighed and said, “She learned about them two months ago. The library has had to request obscure books from elsewhere so she can keep reading about this bird.” The keeper finally told me, “That’s a pretty good guess, but I don’t have any of those. This egg came from an ostrich, though. Those are the biggest living birds in the world. I’m sorry that the elephant bird is long gone… like the dinosaurs.”
"I’m sorry that the elephant bird is long gone… like the dinosaurs" ... of course that is wrong, sadly most people don´t know that, almost every week from paleo-youtubers to Elon Musk always claiming "the dinosaurs died out" when they didn´t. Sadly dying out is true for moas and madagassian giants, both like others eg the dodo and Rodriguez solitaire being wipe out by humans. "The library has had to request obscure books from elsewhere" ... sigh, yeah adults would like to keep children dumb
Hats off to the keeper for acknowledging that she didn't really know much about the Elephant Birds. Your story also reminds me of my long forgotten quest of finding information on certain extinct tree species included in the video game Zoo Tycoon: Dinosaur Digs. The poor man at the museum couldn't help me with that quest or my broken Latin when I was 10.😅
Y'know... You made me realize channels like these and other edutainment channels are made for kids like us who loved learning everything about something.
@@icarusbinns3156 nothing against the zoo keeper in 1998, didn´t mean her any offense. But so many people still don´t know or accept that birds are dinosaurs today. So the more often it is mentioned the better.
BUT IM THE BIGGEST BIRD IM THE BIGGEST BIRD! IM THE BIGGEST BIRD IM THE BIGGEST BIRD🦤🦤🦤🦤🦤🦤 Post-Video Edit: Damn it humans, killing all the megafauna, can’t have shit on Earth.
If you delve deeper into Fosters Rule, I’d love to get your speculation on how an island ecosystem, like Hatzeg, could even support large sauropods long enough for them to shrink in size. I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around the length of time needed for that evolution without the large creatures stripping the island bare
@@stevenschnepp576 I appreciate the size reference of the island. It’s my own ignorance for not googling Hatzeg island. I still imagine there’s got to be some pressure on vegetation when you account for possible herd size and different groups at that.
Birds are related to theropod dinosaurs but ratites long necks and small heads relate more to sauropods. Could it be junk DNA from Dinosauria in general... hmmm.
Really enjoyed your video! Having spent the 1970s In Hawaii, I became fascinated with the local ecosystems, and with island ecology in general. One of my main references at the time was "Island Ecology," by Sherwin Carlquist. It has probably gotten dated by now, but it's worth looking for. One of the many peculiar Hawaiian ecosystems is that found in lava tubes, which are caves left behind by flowing lava. The only energy input to these little mini-ecosystems is tree roots growing down through the ceilings of these caves, so each cave has evolved its own suite of critters that feed on the roots, or feed on the critters that eat the roots. There are blind wolf spiders, and a bunch of blind insects as well. Then there are the carnivorous inchworms, which feed on any of the hundreds of Drosophila (fruit fly) species. And the giant dragonflies...I could go on and on... And other island groups have equally interesting ecosystems. There are lots of ways to go if you're interested in studying island ecosystems!
No doubt. Childbirth had about a 10% fatality rate for most of human history, and babies were smaller [Largely due to poor nutrition]. If women were consistently birthing 20% of their body mass that mortality would be absurd [Absurder? 10% is already stupid high] and humans would be long extinct by now. Cheers!
Tale. This is so cool. By the way, I have difficulty communicating because I had a stroke in Broca’s area, the part of the brain that controls speech. 2/8/2021 but I lived again. (My wife helped me compose this.)
Glad your still with us Kodiak, had brain surgery in 05 to remove a 4 inch long cyst on my brain, have been having seizures ever since, then fought stage 4 cancer. Lost 7 inches of my small intestine on that one. I just recently started losing my memory from the seizures, I do kind of understand. My ex also had a stroke, she's still struggling with it, but she just recently went back to work. Keep your head up, trust in the Lord and he will provide. ❤
I'll watch a video, hit the like button and then forget about it a couple minutes later, so I'll check that I actually did it. When I noticed I was losing my memory I would get very short-tempered and snap at people and I hated that, so I started making notes and watching videos like this and ones about physics and astronomy, all kinds of stuff. It really seems to help, but, you find what works for you. Wishing you the best! - Dave from Alaska
Interesting video. It would be nice to see your analysis of New Zealand birds and reptiles, due to the islands shifting, submerging and the volcanic changes.
Island ecology and evolution is one of the most fascinating subjects in all of paleobiology. Some of the most unique ecosystems and species come from islands. It’s really awesome to hear that you’ll be dedicating so much well deserved attention to them. Hats off
@@sydhenderson6753 No. 40kph (=24mph) is more realistic. I've been chased by elephants a number of times, and if they could do 40mph I wouldn't be replying to you.
I'd love for you to make a video on the ecological history of Antarctica... It's dinosaurs and how it's ecosystem evolved differently to other continents. Would be so fascinating! Loving all the New Zealand content (let's go kiwis!). Love how many of the flightless birds shown in the video I recognise from various backyards I've lived in across the country... please keep up the incredible work!!
Second all that! 😊 Recognised both bird species & some of the aerial bush shots used in this episode, and would looove to see some paleo-Antarctic coverage! Wish we had gotten elephant birds in Aotearoa, they sound even cooler than the moa! 😆
The fact that humans and Elephant Birds coexisted for so long before the Elephant Birds died out probably points to less predation of these animals by humans. I imagine that there were some efforts by the inhabitants of Madagascar to limit their hunting of these birds as they became rarer. I personally have my suspicions that this wasn't the only case where humans actually limited their impact on the environment, because the Greenland Norsemen did the same when it came to hunting seals. Rather than hunting the land-going seals they focused on the ice sheet staying seals, otherwise those other seals would have quickly died out. The probably a whole branch of archeology and biology(and probably history) that focuses on this question as it would be too easy to say humans did it and leave it at that. Besides that, I didn't even realise that there probably existed multiple species of Elephant Birds😅
I'd like to imagine there are still elephant birds somewhere out there. Maybe a big yellow one with a shaggy mastodon friend, hiding out somewhere in New York.
Love the TierZoo shout-out, & the appearance of so many NZ birds! 🥰 In light of our local moa I've always found extinct ratites pretty interesting, & this episode was just fascinating! Particularly appreciated the explanation of why birds are the ones that tend to experience insular gigantism rather than dwarfism. So weird how so many ratite species all went the flightless route in so many different environments!
I was watching the older videos from the complete history of the earth series and started talking to my girlfriend about South America being separated for millions of years and even mentioned the elephant bird but I didn’t tell her where it was from bc I couldn’t remember. So I get on TH-cam 4 hours later and a see a video about the bird I was talking about is on my feed and not only that it was the same TH-camr! That’s super crazy and awesome. Nice video bro.
Have been listening to these while recovering in hospital and can't wait for the next "history of" episode. Thank you for these. Have really enjoyed them
Everytime I watch a video about a new cool extinct animal to learn about its always pains me that every single fricking time its humans wiping them out and it sucks I wont get to see em
I wonder if the genus has a genetic susceptibility to losing flight. While i can see it being a big coincidence it makes more sense to me if their common ancestor was already a (relatively) few steps short of that too
Maybe it is not about losing flight but being good at growing big fast which a lot of other birds did not do even if they discovered the islands earlier. Dropping flight is then just a consequence. Think of it as them running the old dinosaur program.
Maybe you can do a video on the Wrangel island mammoths or the dwarf elephants on Crete. Another fun one could be all the weird little micro habitats that used to exist on various islands in the Mediterranean.
I'd have sworn I'd seen an argument that ostrich eggs were about as big as an egg could be because oxygen has to filter through the shell to the developing bird. Maybe elephant birds had a mutation which produced more porous shells that were still strong enough to support the weight of the egg.
"If it hadn't been for humans" is true of most recently extinct species. That's part of the appeal to resurrecting the mammoth - they're the victims of one of mankind's earliest sins against nature.
Possibly, however it should be noted that humans were not responsible for the drying out of Madagascar. This was happening with or without us so it may also have been an inevitably that the elephant bird could have died out as its habitat disappeared.
@@stevenschnepp576 I find it a little incredulous to believe that humans were the prime factor in the extinction of Eurasian mammoths since they'd been living with H. sapiens for ~30,000 years prior to their extirpation from most of Siberian and had been living with Neanderthals for hundreds of thousands of years.
@@jamestang1227 Look at it less like we ate them all and more at what we do as keystone species. We were a selection pressure they were ill-adapted for, which helped push them over the edge while being ecologically stressed.
@@stevenschnepp576 I would say if a species interacts with a predator for tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands of years with Neanderthals), it has likely ecologically adapted to its presence. You'd have better luck blaming humans for island extinctions we've certainly caused than the Eurasian megafaunal extinctions.
How many flightless parrots are there? One? There must have been something about the physiology of the ratite last common ancestor that predisposed it towards evolving flightlessness in certain sorts of environments. About humans killing (or not) adult elephant birds -- it would not have been that hard. Nothing a couple guys or gals with a few slender wooden shafts tipped with small stone dart heads couldn't have managed. That they _maybe_ didn't kill them very often is potentially quite interesting. One might speculate wildly that they had some idea that eggs were more valuable than their carcasses -- in other words, let's not kill them all so that we can continue to grab an egg as needed. An egg from one of those birds no doubt would have been a fantastic food item in terns of caloric and nutritional value.
You should do a collab with the Atlas Pro channel on the effects of islands on evolution. He's already done videos about the biogeography of islands, so I think a video where the two of you work together would be really cool.
Been finding a few new channels to subscribe to over the holiday period including a couple of paleo channels. I just found your one tonight and really like it. Visually well presented, informative, but also light and refreshing. Much more akin to listening to a friend tell you something than sitting at a lecture. A nice channel that I have now subscribed to. Great stuff.
I would argue that many species grow larger not because of the lack of predators, but because it puts them, or more specifically their offspring, in the 'too big' range for predators. In my country of New Zealand, we have kiwis, which aren't large, but have the largest egg by bodyweight of any bird. Baby kiwis are just big enough to be safe from moreporks, the main nocturnal predator in pre-European New Zealand. We also had the moa, which was preyed upon by the Haast's eagle, and which would explain its large size. The larger they grew, the safer they would be from the giant eagles. This would also explain why the Haast's eagle grew so large, as they were in an arms race with the largest birds on the island.
10:20 - Sorry but that narration about H. sapiens expansion (and megafauna extinction) is very much WRONG. The expansion of H. sapiens began long before the end of the last Ice Age, probably some 100-125 thousand years ago in the case of Southern Asia (> 64 Ka to Australia, >50 Ka to Europe, >17 Ka to America) and did not involve megafauna extinction systematically (African and South Asian megafauna such as elephants still exist today). Madagascar was one of the last places settled by humans however, already in the Iron Age (almost yesterday) and by people who arrived from a very different ecosystem (SE Asia) in which fire agriculture was common (as was in Africa, which may have also contributed). While our species was surely involved in many of megafauna extinctions (to which exact degree is debatable, case by case), Madagascar is almost by definition a unique case no matter how you look at it.
one thousand? ONE? JUST ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO these things were still whooping ass on Madagascar? there were 10ft tall nightmare birds that were global contemporaries with CHARLEMAGNE??? god this planet is so weird 11/10
It should be remembered that the elephant bird and co. survived the glacial and interglacial periods of our current ice age. This means it survived the forests contracting and expanding; the birds were under stress and then able to regrow its numbers when more favoured climatic conditions returned. It was humans, the ancestors of the Malagasy, and all they do, that caused the death knell of the elephant bird.
8:00 from the title to 8min in. more than a dozen times reading dumbly "the elephant bird" like there was ever only one single individuum, when there a re at least 4 DIFFERENT accepted SPECIES!
Ratites, or paleognaths, are weird in general, and almost seem to be predisposed to evolving away derived bird traits. Recent fossil evidence suggests that, unlike previously thought, their jaw structure (which is simpler than in any other living bird, causing their beak to be far less mobile) is not a basal trait that they retained because they separated from the last common ancestor between them and all other living birds(the neognaths) before the evolution of a more mobile beak, but that their ancestors used to have a neognath jaw structure and lost it in favor of a structure more similar to non-avian dinosaurs and pre-modern avians. They've also repeatedly evolved flightlesness (obviously not the only birds to do so, but every living ratite is either completely flightless or at best only capable of short-distance flight, and ratites have repeatedly lost the ability to fly even when not living on islands) and more "primitive" feathers (something not seen in all flightless birds: the kakapo and dodo for example don't display this, though neither do all ratites). There just seems to something about these birds that seems to make them try very hard to evolve back into non-avian theropods.
I don't think that these birds evolved to be flightless independently. I am of the opinion that they were all surfing birds, because that is much cooler.
This was a very fun and timely video as I might know a guy working on a video about all of the Palaeognathae right now... Your series on island evolution sounds amazing!
I'm starting to wonder if Dinosaur December ever really ended. 👀
@@PaleoAnalysis Not in our hearts.
@@PaleoAnalysis question, why don’t you talk about the intelligence of the Tyrannosaurus rex is the MAIN topic??????
@@PaleoAnalysisending of one dino December is just the start of the evolution of a new one
I’ve been convalescing with COVID and these episodes have kept me from going stir crazy and refreshing lessons I had decades ago. What is really amazing is just how much the thinking and ideas have changed in the last 45 years since I took these classes in college. An old dog can relearn. You do have to speak up and repeat yourself a few times, but we can still get it.
Poor Tim Tim! I wouldn’t want to face off against a giant emu-esque bird. Emus are scary enough!
I'd love to hear more about this iguana sized, arboreal crocodile, Mr. Therapsid, sir.
Little correction: You said "half billion square kilometer land mass", but Madagascar has only half a million km² (as shown as number). But the video is very good, as I expect from you.
Big pumice raft islands. This is how big birds got around. edit had to add. I don't mean to be a twit, but, Darwin started getting the idea of natural selection because of pigeons. Rich folks back in Darwin's day bred "Fancy Pigeons". Check them out, so cool. He had also knew farmers selected animals for their traits. However, the wild array of selections of pigeon breeders got him wondering if that's how nature come up with all the "wild" designs. Pigeons are cool. They've been awarded metals during wars. They were the thing that sparked Darwin's imagination. Pigeons are super smart and can be trained to do a wide variety of tasks. Pigeons have even been turned into weapons by evil scientists working for armies. Pigeons can do math. Pigeons are friendly, can dance, and have intense relationships with their partners. I'm sure there's more. I'll stop.
As soon as you said "giant egg" I wondered if the kiwi would be mentioned. Evolution gave a huge middle finger to the kiwi
I think the extinction of the largest bird species can be also several causes.
We always tend to search for 1 cause when we talk about extinction, but like mentioned in the video it could be a mix of causes.
Like habitat loss , disease brought with domestic animals, egg hunting for example.
I think most extinctions we see in the history of the world are a combination of factors that causes the extinction of most species.😀
Thanks again for a great video and explanation 👍😀
Excellent. Timmy the Azz-hat. I'm actually very interested in the Moa, can it be classified as a Elephant bird ? and it's relationship with the NZ giant eagle.
While vorombe titan was the largest and heaviest and reached 9.8ft and 10ft, The South Island giant moa was the tallest reaching 11ft or 12ft standing at max height
Exactly, but how often did moas raised their heads to these hights 🤔
This channel is awesome. I am so happy it popped into my feed.
Are there animals that evolved on an island and later found success on the main land? I‘m asking because the connection to the mainland often meant extinction for island animals from what i‘ve learned
Madagascar was discovered and populated by humans surprisingly late, from people coming from a surprising direction, east. Btw I just leared about giant fossas.
What does all the large flightless birds have in common? Gondwanaland, Which shared plants, Marsupials, Penguins, Parrots and flamingos
Island discoveries? Yes please! ^^
Wow !! He's one big Turkey !!😀🦃🦃🦃🦃
YOU NEED TO GET AHOLD OF ATLAS PRO!
He has a multipart series about Island gigantism/Dwarfism which is the best ive ever seen. He also the first person I seen talking about whar he dubs "biogeography" which is the Grouping areas of the earth not just in terms of Geography, but in Mixed form of Geography, climatic, and then those two things combined into its evolutionary pressures on the Biology of that region. He would be an incredible person to do a co-video with on this subject!
Atlas Pro is slightly out of my league I think 👀
@Paleo Analysis He hasn't made a video in like 2 months. He has been moving, and honestly probably would enjoy being able to put something out that doesn't have to be huge to get him back into the swing of things. even if it is just a small cameo on topics he already knows about.
I also loved his videos on "islands that aren't islands" talking about like bikail lake
lol I just realized he now finally has a million subs. I found him back when he didn't have more than 100k
@@FFNOJG Awesome, maybe you are good luck then! 👍
Biogeography as a concept and name is quite a lot older than Atlas Pro. Alfred Russel Wallace's work in the Malay Archipelago and his Wallace Line were really influential to the development of the field. The 50s and 60s saw some classic work on the topic, especially E.O. Wilson's Theory of Island Biogeography.
Its absolutely fascinating how biogeography intersects with paleontology. Especially during the last Ice Age when some islands today were connected to continents and others weren't, especially in the Mediterranean and Indonesia.
I think I can speak for all Australians that we are very grateful Cassowaries can't fly. We are running out of them as their mortal enemies, the car, is winning the battle but if they could fly they'd wipe out humans. They are MEAN birds. Maybe, like the Dodo, Elephant Birds didn't taste good? Maybe Kiwis were bigger?
Aepyornithiformes are truly magnificent animals the largest avian dinosaurs to have ever lived
These are so fun. Thank you broseph
Fantastic video, the elephant birds massive size amazed me when I first heard of it. At the same i was never surprised our species played a role in its decline because seeing how huge their eggs were I thought to myself "that would be a gigantic mountain of scrambled eggs."
Why oh why must humans b so destructive?They seem to feel it is their right to destroy such awesome creatures.And they are still doing it!!
@@susanmccormick6022 mainly China nowadays.
Actually Socotra is the oldest island we still have today.
The incredible elephant bird
Moa are fascinating. Their beaks worked like secateurs, perfect for browsing on shrubs.
Great video! First one I've seen of yours, look forward to more videos :D
A 2 gallon egg kinda blows my mind
Islandification is interesting, great video, these videos inspire awe and wish we could go into the past and see these animals
The Elephant Bird is truly the BIGGEST BIRD 🦤
Dont forget about lakes, AKA reverse islands. Some of the most interesting examples of this phenomenon are in likes such as Lake Baikal, Lake Matano, Lake Titicaca, and the various African rift lakes. Lake Baikal in particular is a very strange place, it even has very difficult to explain seals.
The seals are just normal seals. They have not been separated from other seals long enough to evolve anything special. The giant Lake Baikal freshwater sponges are the real evolutionary showstoppers.
The fact the seals are so typical is what makes them strange, they are most closely related to the Caspian seal which lives very far away. We also just dont know how they got there or how long they have been there in general.
Also the sponges are really cool, same with amphipods. Its basically a mini ocean, too bad its not being well managed.
@@eljanrimsa5843 the reason the seals are interesting is because we still don't really know how tf they even got to Lake Baikal, their closest relatives live like 4400 km away
@@Dell-ol6hb There were multiple occasions when Lake Baikal and the Caspian Sea where it's nearest relative live were linked via giant glacial lakes and remnants of the ancient Tethys Ocean. Because there was more than one occasion we can't tell which one it was, that's the whole mystery here. I guess scientists would need a fossil from an intermediate form somewhere before they can say more about this.
@@peterbreis5407 simple logic = evolution: every pair of sister species has had an intermediate form! Same actually goes for any two species, regardless of being "closely related" or not.
IM THE BIGGEST BIRD IM THE BIGGEST BIRD
IM THE BIGGEST BIRD IM THE BIGGEST BIRD.
@@griffenbaum I’M THE BIGGEST BIRD I’M THE BIGGEST BIRD!
IM THE BIGGEST BIRD
I’M THE BIGGEST BIRD I’M THE BIGGEST BIRD
IM THE BIGGEST BIRD IM THE BIGGEST BIRD
I feel like a problem with other Paleo TH-camrs is that they repeat themselves too much and are redundant. I usually end up not watching the whole video. I love this channel because it's not so repetitive and I feel like I'm learning new information every minute I'm watching rather than having the same facts repeating over and over! Keep up the great work 💖
I call bs on all those animals developing flightlessness. It is yet another example of lazy non-science passed as science to the masses. How convenient it is FOR THE SO CALLED SCIENTISTS to dismiss the mystery so easily.
yeah iv noticed that the same way when comparing Paleo Analysis to other paleo youtubers, constant feed of info with little repetition which is very nice and what i like about Paleo Analysis
I hate repetition. I do cut the video short every the I'm subjected to it.
Enjoying the heck out of this channel.
@@AlbertWillHelmWestings2618 Dang. I guess that makes me super lucky that Paleo Analysis is the first paleo TH-camr I ever found (and the only one I am subscribed to).
@@nerysghemor5781 Lol same. It was a pretty random recc. And a good one for a change
I learned about the elephant bird around age 7? And was OBSESSED! On a family trip to the zoo, a keeper was talking about flightless birds, and had eggs on display. She had a chicken egg for reference. When I asked what bird the biggest egg came from, she said, “Take a guess. Where do you think it came from?” I happily answered, “The elephant bird!” I had no idea they were extinct yet! This poor woman was shocked, and completely speechless. After a bit, she looked at Mom, who just sighed and said, “She learned about them two months ago. The library has had to request obscure books from elsewhere so she can keep reading about this bird.”
The keeper finally told me, “That’s a pretty good guess, but I don’t have any of those. This egg came from an ostrich, though. Those are the biggest living birds in the world. I’m sorry that the elephant bird is long gone… like the dinosaurs.”
"I’m sorry that the elephant bird is long gone… like the dinosaurs" ... of course that is wrong, sadly most people don´t know that, almost every week from paleo-youtubers to Elon Musk always claiming "the dinosaurs died out" when they didn´t. Sadly dying out is true for moas and madagassian giants, both like others eg the dodo and Rodriguez solitaire being wipe out by humans. "The library has had to request obscure books from elsewhere" ... sigh, yeah adults would like to keep children dumb
Hats off to the keeper for acknowledging that she didn't really know much about the Elephant Birds.
Your story also reminds me of my long forgotten quest of finding information on certain extinct tree species included in the video game Zoo Tycoon: Dinosaur Digs. The poor man at the museum couldn't help me with that quest or my broken Latin when I was 10.😅
Y'know... You made me realize channels like these and other edutainment channels are made for kids like us who loved learning everything about something.
@@gshaindrich this was 1998, when it happened. She was trying not utterly confuse a young child.
@@icarusbinns3156 nothing against the zoo keeper in 1998, didn´t mean her any offense. But so many people still don´t know or accept that birds are dinosaurs today. So the more often it is mentioned the better.
BUT IM THE BIGGEST BIRD IM THE BIGGEST BIRD! IM THE BIGGEST BIRD IM THE BIGGEST BIRD🦤🦤🦤🦤🦤🦤
Post-Video Edit: Damn it humans, killing all the megafauna, can’t have shit on Earth.
“BIRD HEAVY LIVES!”
~Pootis Bird
Can't have sh*t in the holocene💀💀💀
You can tell how much fun he had making that end card
Note: Elephant bird chasing Tin-Tin while name of patreon "Crispy Fried Chicken" scrolled past.
If you delve deeper into Fosters Rule, I’d love to get your speculation on how an island ecosystem, like Hatzeg, could even support large sauropods long enough for them to shrink in size. I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around the length of time needed for that evolution without the large creatures stripping the island bare
It was about 80,000 square kilometers, so it's not like they were crammed onto a postage stamp.
@@stevenschnepp576 I appreciate the size reference of the island. It’s my own ignorance for not googling Hatzeg island. I still imagine there’s got to be some pressure on vegetation when you account for possible herd size and different groups at that.
Birds are related to theropod dinosaurs but ratites long necks and small heads relate more to sauropods. Could it be junk DNA from Dinosauria in general... hmmm.
@@jamesstader6650 Oh, my, no. In fact, the long necks and small heads are present in other therapods, too.
Really enjoyed your video! Having spent the 1970s In Hawaii, I became fascinated with the local ecosystems, and with island ecology in general. One of my main references at the time was "Island Ecology," by Sherwin Carlquist. It has probably gotten dated by now, but it's worth looking for. One of the many peculiar Hawaiian ecosystems is that found in lava tubes, which are caves left behind by flowing lava. The only energy input to these little mini-ecosystems is tree roots growing down through the ceilings of these caves, so each cave has evolved its own suite of critters that feed on the roots, or feed on the critters that eat the roots. There are blind wolf spiders, and a bunch of blind insects as well. Then there are the carnivorous inchworms, which feed on any of the hundreds of Drosophila (fruit fly) species. And the giant dragonflies...I could go on and on... And other island groups have equally interesting ecosystems. There are lots of ways to go if you're interested in studying island ecosystems!
Wow you’re lucky you had a chance to see a lot of birds that are now extinct since the 70’s
As a woman, those eggs are painful to even think about. 😮
Think about how they would have tasted!
Just ask the Kiwi
@@TheDuckyDino Yeah, OUCH.
No doubt. Childbirth had about a 10% fatality rate for most of human history, and babies were smaller [Largely due to poor nutrition]. If women were consistently birthing 20% of their body mass that mortality would be absurd [Absurder? 10% is already stupid high] and humans would be long extinct by now.
Cheers!
Don't forget-it was the heaviest bird that ever lived, so that kinda offsets the massive size of the egg.
Tale. This is so cool. By the way, I have difficulty communicating because I had a stroke in Broca’s area, the part of the brain that controls speech. 2/8/2021 but I lived again. (My wife helped me compose this.)
Glad your still with us Kodiak, had brain surgery in 05 to remove a 4 inch long cyst on my brain, have been having seizures ever since, then fought stage 4 cancer. Lost 7 inches of my small intestine on that one. I just recently started losing my memory from the seizures, I do kind of understand. My ex also had a stroke, she's still struggling with it, but she just recently went back to work. Keep your head up, trust in the Lord and he will provide. ❤
I'll watch a video, hit the like button and then forget about it a couple minutes later, so I'll check that I actually did it. When I noticed I was losing my memory I would get very short-tempered and snap at people and I hated that, so I started making notes and watching videos like this and ones about physics and astronomy, all kinds of stuff. It really seems to help, but, you find what works for you. Wishing you the best!
- Dave from Alaska
Interesting video. It would be nice to see your analysis of New Zealand birds and reptiles, due to the islands shifting, submerging and the volcanic changes.
Absolutely fantastic video Paleo! Keep up the amazing work and Thank You for making fun and enjoyable content!
the elephant bird cry activated my kitten, she attacked the speaker lol
Madagascar is a very big island but is fourth biggest not third as you stated coming after Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo.
I am most definately, the largest non avian dinosaur
Birb
Moas are borbs, as they were too big to be birbs
Island ecology and evolution is one of the most fascinating subjects in all of paleobiology. Some of the most unique ecosystems and species come from islands. It’s really awesome to hear that you’ll be dedicating so much well deserved attention to them. Hats off
I imagine their mobility was the bird equivalent to it's namesake, it didn't run in the strictest sense, it just plodded along somewhat quickly.
I've read that elephants can simply walk at 40 mph.
@@sydhenderson6753 No. 40kph (=24mph) is more realistic. I've been chased by elephants a number of times, and if they could do 40mph I wouldn't be replying to you.
I'd love for you to make a video on the ecological history of Antarctica... It's dinosaurs and how it's ecosystem evolved differently to other continents. Would be so fascinating!
Loving all the New Zealand content (let's go kiwis!). Love how many of the flightless birds shown in the video I recognise from various backyards I've lived in across the country... please keep up the incredible work!!
Second all that! 😊 Recognised both bird species & some of the aerial bush shots used in this episode, and would looove to see some paleo-Antarctic coverage! Wish we had gotten elephant birds in Aotearoa, they sound even cooler than the moa! 😆
I laughed so hard at the Kiwi and their egg problem. I knew that info before this video, but I have never seen anyone put it in such an hilarious way.
As a small modern bird, I find the subject fascinating.
Thank you for your informative and fun videos.
He’s da biggest bird
WHATTTTTTTT I REQUESTED THIS VIDDD! I can’t wait!!!!!!!!!!!!
BIRD HEAVY LIVES!
Thank you for requesting this Video
The fact that humans and Elephant Birds coexisted for so long before the Elephant Birds died out probably points to less predation of these animals by humans. I imagine that there were some efforts by the inhabitants of Madagascar to limit their hunting of these birds as they became rarer.
I personally have my suspicions that this wasn't the only case where humans actually limited their impact on the environment, because the Greenland Norsemen did the same when it came to hunting seals. Rather than hunting the land-going seals they focused on the ice sheet staying seals, otherwise those other seals would have quickly died out.
The probably a whole branch of archeology and biology(and probably history) that focuses on this question as it would be too easy to say humans did it and leave it at that.
Besides that, I didn't even realise that there probably existed multiple species of Elephant Birds😅
I'd like to imagine there are still elephant birds somewhere out there. Maybe a big yellow one with a shaggy mastodon friend, hiding out somewhere in New York.
I feel the idea for a sitcom germinating in my brain!
Love the TierZoo shout-out, & the appearance of so many NZ birds! 🥰 In light of our local moa I've always found extinct ratites pretty interesting, & this episode was just fascinating! Particularly appreciated the explanation of why birds are the ones that tend to experience insular gigantism rather than dwarfism. So weird how so many ratite species all went the flightless route in so many different environments!
Elephant bird the closest thing reality ever gave us to the Chocobo.
Turns out, this bird was actually The Word.
I was watching the older videos from the complete history of the earth series and started talking to my girlfriend about South America being separated for millions of years and even mentioned the elephant bird but I didn’t tell her where it was from bc I couldn’t remember. So I get on TH-cam 4 hours later and a see a video about the bird I was talking about is on my feed and not only that it was the same TH-camr! That’s super crazy and awesome. Nice video bro.
Have been listening to these while recovering in hospital and can't wait for the next "history of" episode. Thank you for these. Have really enjoyed them
Everytime I watch a video about a new cool extinct animal to learn about its always pains me that every single fricking time its humans wiping them out and it sucks I wont get to see em
Eat an ostrich egg and you will know that’s it’s a real possibility that humans considered elephant bird eggs an omelette of last resort.
I wonder if the genus has a genetic susceptibility to losing flight. While i can see it being a big coincidence it makes more sense to me if their common ancestor was already a (relatively) few steps short of that too
Maybe it is not about losing flight but being good at growing big fast which a lot of other birds did not do even if they discovered the islands earlier. Dropping flight is then just a consequence. Think of it as them running the old dinosaur program.
Really great stuff, keep it up. And, yes, the island thing is really interesting.
Its wild to think how we were so close to being able to witness these animals yet we know so little about them
I wish these birds never went extinct and we could keep them as pets.
They would be pets in the same way horses are, way too big to keep at home.
A two gallon sized egg is about 128 medium sized chicken eggs, forget feeding a family this thing could feed a whole tribe,
You are such a great presenter and writer. Thanks for the always engaging content!
It's Barak Obama
What's the source for your claim at 14:10 about Columbus? He never went to Madagascar, wtf.
As the "Bigest Bird" song becomes popular how fitting
Keep doing your thing man, really appreciate your videos
Wow. I would NOT have expected the closes relative of the Aepyornids to be the Kiwi.
IM DA BIGGEST BIRD IM DA BEST BIRD 🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🌎
The quality of your videos just keeps getting better and better, it's an absolute pleasure to watch you grow!
14:30 Christopher Columbus went to Madagascar??
So I wasnt the only one who spotted this mumbo jumbo...Columbus was never on Madagascar. The first european reached it shores only in 1500...
Love the videos, I learn so much new stuff every time and I love the Tim-Tim bits, they always manage to make me smile. Thank you for your hard work 😊
Oh Tim-Tim... It's amazing you've lived even this long.
Oh man i wonder what kind of a sounds a bird like that could produce, the extant ratites have some really unique crazy low frequency calls
We should bring the elephant bird and the moa back
For food? Absolutely.
@@mikes5637 You really don't care about nature don't you?
Maybe you can do a video on the Wrangel island mammoths or the dwarf elephants on Crete. Another fun one could be all the weird little micro habitats that used to exist on various islands in the Mediterranean.
Yes! Mini-elephants FTW.
I'd have sworn I'd seen an argument that ostrich eggs were about as big as an egg could be because oxygen has to filter through the shell to the developing bird.
Maybe elephant birds had a mutation which produced more porous shells that were still strong enough to support the weight of the egg.
In other words, had humans never landed on Madagascar, it's entirely possible that the elephant bird would still exist today.
"If it hadn't been for humans" is true of most recently extinct species. That's part of the appeal to resurrecting the mammoth - they're the victims of one of mankind's earliest sins against nature.
Possibly, however it should be noted that humans were not responsible for the drying out of Madagascar. This was happening with or without us so it may also have been an inevitably that the elephant bird could have died out as its habitat disappeared.
@@stevenschnepp576 I find it a little incredulous to believe that humans were the prime factor in the extinction of Eurasian mammoths since they'd been living with H. sapiens for ~30,000 years prior to their extirpation from most of Siberian and had been living with Neanderthals for hundreds of thousands of years.
@@jamestang1227 Look at it less like we ate them all and more at what we do as keystone species. We were a selection pressure they were ill-adapted for, which helped push them over the edge while being ecologically stressed.
@@stevenschnepp576 I would say if a species interacts with a predator for tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands of years with Neanderthals), it has likely ecologically adapted to its presence.
You'd have better luck blaming humans for island extinctions we've certainly caused than the Eurasian megafaunal extinctions.
Let’s address the elephant bird in the room
I will never get tired of people freaking out at kiwi eggs. 😆
Warm greetings from New Zealand, love your content! ✌
How many flightless parrots are there? One?
There must have been something about the physiology of the ratite last common ancestor that predisposed it towards evolving flightlessness in certain sorts of environments.
About humans killing (or not) adult elephant birds -- it would not have been that hard. Nothing a couple guys or gals with a few slender wooden shafts tipped with small stone dart heads couldn't have managed. That they _maybe_ didn't kill them very often is potentially quite interesting. One might speculate wildly that they had some idea that eggs were more valuable than their carcasses -- in other words, let's not kill them all so that we can continue to grab an egg as needed. An egg from one of those birds no doubt would have been a fantastic food item in terns of caloric and nutritional value.
You should do a collab with the Atlas Pro channel on the effects of islands on evolution. He's already done videos about the biogeography of islands, so I think a video where the two of you work together would be really cool.
Don’t know what you heard……
I see Paleo Analysis uploads a video - I PRESS LIKE before I watch it , because I know it is going to be gold as always !
Been finding a few new channels to subscribe to over the holiday period including a couple of paleo channels. I just found your one tonight and really like it. Visually well presented, informative, but also light and refreshing. Much more akin to listening to a friend tell you something than sitting at a lecture. A nice channel that I have now subscribed to. Great stuff.
Can we please get a citation for Columbus' alleged visit to Madagascar? I can't find any references to such a trip.
I would argue that many species grow larger not because of the lack of predators, but because it puts them, or more specifically their offspring, in the 'too big' range for predators. In my country of New Zealand, we have kiwis, which aren't large, but have the largest egg by bodyweight of any bird. Baby kiwis are just big enough to be safe from moreporks, the main nocturnal predator in pre-European New Zealand. We also had the moa, which was preyed upon by the Haast's eagle, and which would explain its large size. The larger they grew, the safer they would be from the giant eagles. This would also explain why the Haast's eagle grew so large, as they were in an arms race with the largest birds on the island.
Let's not forget about the Eyles' harrier
10:20 - Sorry but that narration about H. sapiens expansion (and megafauna extinction) is very much WRONG. The expansion of H. sapiens began long before the end of the last Ice Age, probably some 100-125 thousand years ago in the case of Southern Asia (> 64 Ka to Australia, >50 Ka to Europe, >17 Ka to America) and did not involve megafauna extinction systematically (African and South Asian megafauna such as elephants still exist today). Madagascar was one of the last places settled by humans however, already in the Iron Age (almost yesterday) and by people who arrived from a very different ecosystem (SE Asia) in which fire agriculture was common (as was in Africa, which may have also contributed). While our species was surely involved in many of megafauna extinctions (to which exact degree is debatable, case by case), Madagascar is almost by definition a unique case no matter how you look at it.
"biggest bird"
(Sigh)
(Checks comments)
I'm the biggest bird
I'm the biggest bird
I'm the biggest bird
(waffle house has found its new host)
one thousand? ONE? JUST ONE THOUSAND YEARS AGO these things were still whooping ass on Madagascar? there were 10ft tall nightmare birds that were global contemporaries with CHARLEMAGNE???
god this planet is so weird 11/10
Where in this coment section is big bird🤣
It should be remembered that the elephant bird and co. survived the glacial and interglacial periods of our current ice age.
This means it survived the forests contracting and expanding; the birds were under stress and then able to regrow its numbers when more favoured climatic conditions returned.
It was humans, the ancestors of the Malagasy, and all they do, that caused the death knell of the elephant bird.
And this goes world wide.
Agreed
HE'S THE BIGGEST BIRD HE'S THE BIGGEST BIRD
8:00 from the title to 8min in. more than a dozen times reading dumbly "the elephant bird" like there was ever only one single individuum, when there a re at least 4 DIFFERENT accepted SPECIES!
You got it wrong Terence is DA BIGGEST BIRD🕊🕊🦅🦅🦉🦉🦆🦆🦢🦢🐧🐧🐥🐥🐤🐤🐔🐔🐓🐓
I can't be the only one that wondered throughout the video how Elephant Bird tasted, maybe it's just because I'm Dutch.
Ratites, or paleognaths, are weird in general, and almost seem to be predisposed to evolving away derived bird traits. Recent fossil evidence suggests that, unlike previously thought, their jaw structure (which is simpler than in any other living bird, causing their beak to be far less mobile) is not a basal trait that they retained because they separated from the last common ancestor between them and all other living birds(the neognaths) before the evolution of a more mobile beak, but that their ancestors used to have a neognath jaw structure and lost it in favor of a structure more similar to non-avian dinosaurs and pre-modern avians. They've also repeatedly evolved flightlesness (obviously not the only birds to do so, but every living ratite is either completely flightless or at best only capable of short-distance flight, and ratites have repeatedly lost the ability to fly even when not living on islands) and more "primitive" feathers (something not seen in all flightless birds: the kakapo and dodo for example don't display this, though neither do all ratites).
There just seems to something about these birds that seems to make them try very hard to evolve back into non-avian theropods.
I don't think that these birds evolved to be flightless independently.
I am of the opinion that they were all surfing birds, because that is much cooler.
I did not realize that Pixar’s UP was sorta based on a factual past.