Hi everyone, thanks so much for watching! Yes I am aware the audio could do with some improvement 😅 don’t worry, I’m playing around with audio levels and awaiting a new mic, so please enjoy in the meantime! 😊
there is fossil evidence that prooves t rex was an active hunter, i dont know why there still a debate on that (healed triceratops injuries from t rex teeth)
@@herni4713 what I meant there was that there WAS a debate, but tbh it was one I never subscribed to given how many hunting tools t.rex had, but thankfully the healed triceratops put that to bed 😊
If you actually read the books, it is the GOBLINS that associate with the Wargs. And my fellow Kiwi's works in film are NOT canon, he should be ashamed of himself, he totally failed in every possible way.
If it lived in an tropical forest environment it's more likely to be hunter focused than a top scavenger. Dense forests are a good place hunt large prey but a lousy place to find sufficient carcasses to sustain such a large animal.
@@blueguy2128 it absolutely WOULD survive bruh, just by eating things that are already dead. Do you know how many thing in a forest die just by falling out of trees? A lot. Think about how high up a tree is.
It makes me weirdly happy that with the constant debate on the internet about lions vs tigers, wolves vs cougars, tigers vs bears, etc... one constant remains. The most terrifying - and I don't just mean biggest or more dangerous, but actually f__king terrifying - terrestrial mammals to have ever lived are not some refined predator specialized to a hypercarnivorous diet; just a random, hippo looking thing with a hydraulic press for a mouth.
*Paleontologists have really done a good job of narrowing it down for us! It is a cross between a wolf, a lion, a pig, a hippo, a rhino, a ferret, a rabbit, a horse, and a hairless rat.*
This may be controversial, but I believe Andrewsarchus was the World's largest nectar feeder and flower pollinator. On its delicate hooves it would tiptoe through the lush fields of flowers supping up nectar with a specially evolved tongue.
A descendant of pigs and hippos with overwhelming bulk and bone crushing molars is a flower pollinator? That’s like a Honey badger being a “seed disperser”
The thing that always fascinated me about this era of mammals is the sheer level of biodiversity. I mean there were entire families of creatures that just no longer exist. And I don't know why but it always set my imagination a light more so than dinosaurs
That biodiversity was natural state of nature. Shen you look on what is left, its increfibly sad, at keast for me. Only a small percentage of big mammals remained.
Imagine being this hulking beast, the ancestor of the mighty hippo and father of whales, a creature with a hydraulic jaw, a monster the size of a tank… and your name is Andrew.
As it turns out, Andrewsarchus was a true ungulate (specifically, an artiodactyl), not a mesonychian. To be more specific, it was part of the same group of animals that includes hippos, cetaceans, and the now-extinct entelodonts. There are actually a surprising number of similarities between the skull of Andrewsarchus and that of entelodonts, and the prevailing view now is that it was a stem-entelodont, which is how it has been depicted recently. This has an impact on the size of Andrewsarchus, because it means that the old reconstructions based on the idea it was a mesonychian were misproportioned. As mentioned earlier, those reconstructions took into account the relatively large skulls of mesonychians, but entelodonts had even larger skulls, so the body was still reconstructed too large compared to the head. That said, this wasn't an extreme change-Andrewsarchus went from weighing around 1000+kg to weighing around 800+kg, still big enough to be a contender for the title of "largest predatory land mammal ever". The entelodont Daeodon was similar in size (its skull is slightly larger), and the larger specimens of the recently extinct bear Arctodus truly did exceed 1000kg; however, with Arctodus being shown to be a generalized omnivore, it's questionable whether it should be seen as a contender for the title, as generalized omnivores face fewer size limits than more specialized predators and thus can't really be compared to such animals. If we disqualify Arctodus for this reason, it comes down to a race between Andrewsarchus and Daeodon for the title of largest predatory land mammal ever. Then again, there has been discussion about just how predatory Andrewsarchus and Daeodon were, so they might face similar disqualification. Both animals have been (and often still are) assumed to be "mere" scavengers relying on carcasses or stolen kills, but this is just plain not energetically feasible for any vertebrate that isn't a terrestrial soaring flyer (because otherwise it takes way too much time and effort to find enough carcasses/kills), so that can be ruled out. Thus, the discussion comes down to the proportion of animals vs. plants in their diet. As mentioned earlier, entelodonts like Daeodon did have the ability to consume vegetation, but they still had a fairly extensive set of adaptations for eating other animals, and there are more than enough bite marks (including some from Daeodon) to indicate that they were eating meat fairly often, possibly even over half the time, though they still can't be seen as "pure" carnivores like cats. As for Andrewsarchus, its small sagittal crest (indicating small temporalis muscles) and a "pinched-in" rostrum have been taken as proof it didn't have the right jaw adaptations to hunt large prey. But while the temporalis muscles of Andrewsarchus were small, its massive zygomatic arches indicate it had huge masseter muscles, which would have given it a powerful bite anyways (this also applies to entelodonts, and can be observed in living hippos). Furthermore, living hippos have an even more "pinched-in" rostrum than Andrewsarchus, and that part of the skull in no way presents a weak point that prevents them from mauling large animals to death. So Andrewsarchus was perfectly capable of hunting. That said, the premolars and molars of Andrewsarchus may be more in line with an omnivore rather than a carnivore; while Andrewsarchus almost certainly killed large animals for food at least some of the time, we cannot be sure how often this took place. When it hunted, Andrewsarchus would likely have pursued its prey in the open (entelodonts were quite cursorial, at least for their size, and it stands to reason that a stem-entelodont would have been as well), and relied on its jaws alone to make the kill.
You're talking about the Arctotrherium... Artctodus too would be around that size.. but the amount of times the two have been mixed together is depressing... Especially considering they were quite different from each other morphologically
Andrewsarchus true body still debatable today some said head bigger than body some other said body also bigger and bulky i chose second option mean this creature surpass 1 ton if head bigger than body this animal only around 800kg
@@mhdfrb9971 If you care to name the motion capture actors who are also predators, I’ll be getting the engine stoked on the cancel train. Let’s do this.
I would assume it probably lived a lot like a modern grizzly bear. Large, omnivorous, no natural predators, and easily capable of bullying away any other predator from a meal.
When I first heard about Andrew over 40 years ago all the talk was about him being the animal that eventually became modern day whales. There has been debate about this but it is still considered a very distant cousin. Since there is only one Andrew maybe he is the Highlander of that era, "There can only be one".
@@Cody38Super No longer wolf... Or dog for that matter. More like a giant jackal, still dire. Its new Latin name is aenocyon dirus. I'd like to hear English-speaking people trying to pronounce that. :)
@@ObatongoSensei I didn't think it ever was?? I thought they've always known it was a genus from before/early split to the canids, kinda like the nimravids....cats before cats??
What I love about Andrewsarchus is it seems most reconstructions is how big its head looks lol, if they’re correct then it was a hilariously small body to head comparison, if they’re incorrect this was an incredibly large creature!
Found your channel like 2 days ago and then I got thinking "You know what would be cool" and here it is! With how little we directly know about this animal, good on ya for bringing up some of the world around it. Would love to see greater coverage on the mesonychians sometime! Or maybe even arctocyonids! All the weird stuff those primitive ungulates were up to. Either way - looking forward to whatever comes up. Keep up the great work!
I get the feeling it had a rather peculiar stomach acid cocktail and a specialized stomach and esophagus to maintain that. Jaws aren't that wide for no reason. Creatures with bipedal tendencies have gravity working in their favor, but for a quadruped to have a skull, jaw, and body like that I'd imagine it charging prey and swallowing them whole.
As an armchair enthusiast for this stuff, thank you for featuring Andrew! Bizarre animal which doesn't get a lot of attention. But I didn't realize all we have is a skull. That might damper the passions of a lot of nerds😉
It always takes literal years for new videos about Andrewsarchus to be posted let a lone any scientific updates. I wish as much research and field search for spinosaurs would go into this fascinating animal. The most enigmatic in the fossil record post dinosaur era imo.
I think, when discussing andrewsarchus, seems like it all comes down to that really bad dad joke from the school library when you were a little kid “what does a bull elephant have for lunch? Anything he wants!” Seems like it would be applicable here based on the predators, we know about from this time period.
I Love the ancient pigs , my dad is a artist and i was into since as a kid and i told my dad please draw those ancient pigs for my kindergarden T-shirts and he told me sorry son but your kindergarden friends will cry if i do that , lol , this is one of my favorite memorys from my childhood ...
I haven't checked size matches, but The Short Faced bear was pretty close to those dimensions and was pretty massive. Today's Polar and Kodiak Bears would be pretty close, also, as far as mammals go.
@@jasonstewart8363You are probably correct. The short faced bear had extra long legs and was taller, on the average, than Polar and Kodiaks. I haven't seen enough information on the SF's estimated weight, to the best of my memory, but they were pretty massive, as are the Polar and Kodiak.
@@justinsecrist1130 Thanks. I saw some information that stated that Andrewsarchus might have maxed at about 2 tons. I guess it's not worth any argument with the info on this video.
The amount of drawing that change you perspective of the animal is amazing. I bet it swims really well and has an incredible sense of smell. If a Bear and a Hippo had a baby...
Whenever I see the rough edges on some early mammal skulls like andrewsarcus and our similarly jagged depictions, I'm reminded of the hippopotamus skull and how filled out it's appearance is in comparison.
If you go up in the taxonomic hierarchy, the caniformia (dog-like) sub-order includes bears, dogs, racoons, walruses etc., while the feliformia (cat-like) sub-order includes cats, hyenas, mongooses etc. So you do have very large "dog-like animals": polar bears and grizzlys.
I don’t know... ... totally ignorant on this topic... But it’s interesting insightful and informative reading the comments. Nice video. Thank you for introducing me to the unknown to me.
How about a video on the megafauna of North America and up thru to Alaska? From Alaska and I hardly ever hear of what extinct animals lived up here thousands and millions of years ago. I know of some, but it would be neat to see a video from shortly after the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs to now. If possible.
It most certainly is possible! I have a lot scheduled over the coming weeks, but I'll be coming back and doing requests in the new year, so I'll add it to the list 🙂
Given the types of animals that shared it's habitat, coupled with it's hoof-like feet and elongated snout I wonder if it lived in the swampier environments. Powerful long jaws would make it easy to snap the bones of deer or flightless birds, but I wouldn't doubt it would make short work of turtles and large fish.
The Andrewsarchus specialized in social behaviors. They would often throw dinner parties for spirited conversation and would rely on their guests to bring tasty dishes for all to share.
This guy seems like a full-fledged omnivore more than anything else to me, specifically in the shape of the teeth in its skull. The molars in the back of its skull are flat-topped while the ones in front are sharp canines, which screams to me that Andrewsarchus could both tear flesh from bone and tear off plant material which it could then grind up with its molars. Pigs are also known to eat pretty much anything and everything, so referencing Andrewsarchus as pig-like is probably more accurate than we're aware of.
When I first heard of this creature, I wondered, "The Beast of Gevaudan?" Then again, Andrewsarchus was discovered in Mongolia, and it was too large to be the legendary carnivore of 18th Century France. Many thanks, Dino-gen, for this excellent and concise analysis of Andrewsarchus.
One of the most mysterious animals of the Cenozoic. Can't wait till new Andrewsarchus fossils are discovered, or at least some breakthroughs on its phylogeny are made.
Great! This creature has always held a special fascination for me and is more delightfully terrifying to me than even than an angry Allosaurus. Maybe it being mammalian makes it somehow more real. A big, hairy, stinking beast--can't beat it!
"Terminator-Hellpig" seems like a good name. Just found the channel, keep it up! :) The Chalicotherium or Giant Sloths were...well big, too. They could defend themselves at least, presumably. This terror would perhaps try to eat their offspring, some speculation 🤔😃
Sounds like it has a lot of characteristics similar to hyenas. Huge heads & jaws, teeth and a bite strong enough to chew through bone. Perhaps it was a pack hunter as well?
I think it makes sense to have filled a T. rex or cave bear niche like he said, bullying other animals away from their kills more than being a great hunter themselves.
Ok, they may not technically be pigs, but looking at that skull, it's either something that looks somewhat piglike, or it's half pig and half hell badger! I'm VERY glad that I wasn't around at a time when these things walked the earth! Especially with the technology of the day! It would need a hell of a big rifle to put one of those into the forever box!
Its gob is bigger than its throat. So I form the opinion based on that: it had fearless competition from its own kind, and thats why its head was like that. Even if its bite force was over 1000 psi its important to look at the surface area thats spread over
I swear, they are going to come out with a paper saying that it subsisted on grubs and larvae. In addition, they will put forth that it had both a keen sense of smell, as well as mole like bristles on it's snout, to help it locate it's small prey even on the darkest nights. Never forget: The spinosaur went from badass t rex of the marshes, to basically a giant crested newt.
I always come down on these sorts of beasts having a lifestyle more like bears. Omnivorous plus predation with a bit of scavenging. The main problem with scavenging is that in an ecosystem with scavenging birds, such as vultures, the birds have such a huge advantage in getting to the carcass first, what with their advantages of keen eye sight and the ability to fly. Anyone who has watched vultures in action in Africa knows that the vultures can locate and then strip a carcass clean in a matter of about ten minutes leaving little remaining. Pretty hard for a land animal to compete against that level of efficiency as a scavenger.
During the Gobi Desert Asiatic Expeditions of the AMNH, Dr. Walter Granger, in his field notes, recorded Andrewsarchus as a giant form of Entelodont. When Henry Fairfield Osborn read his notes and reviewed the skull, he criticized Granger, saying it was a giant Creodont. Granger said he should have recognized it as such and felt he was in error based on Osborns viewpoint. It's justice today seeing that Grangers original call was more accurate than Osborns ego centric critique. Subsequently, Roy Cahpman Andrew's the Expeditions leader was given the honor of having this giant early Artiodactyl skull named after him.
Has anyone every connected andrewsarchus to the legendary leucrotta? The coincidence of both being hooved carnivores is interesting. What if andrewsarchus, like celocanth, didn't go extinct millions of years ago, as presumed, but survived long enough to encounter primitive humans and inspire a mythological monster?
A similar (but smaller) creature resembling Andrewsarchus was shot in Montana in 1886. The natives called it Shunka Warak'in ("carries off dogs"). Although a photograph does exist of a stuffed specimen, there is some controversy about its existence.
Ever since I first saw this in Walking With series, I wondered the *possibility* of humans taming and riding them had they coexisted together. It'd be something *if* someone does an artwork of a (non-warrior) woman riding one.
The hangup with domestication comes down to behaviors in its natural ecology. Horses being domesticated while zebras never were. Consider what the two have to deal with, horses being out of the Caucasus Mountain ranges and nearby valleys.
I feel like this is likely where the cryptid known as the crocotta came from. Just go look up the description of the crocotta and look at this animal...it's more than accurate.
In my amateur opinion, I air of the side of predation. It would be very difficult for something large to rely heavily on scavenging. I feel like the idea that it would bully smaller animals away from prey in order to steal their meal is similar to what people used to think about T-Rex. As you said, not carnivores are strictly one of the other. So to me, I would say was most likely an ambush predator. Having a head that large, it would be difficult to run at speed for any real duration. But, without post-craneal remains, we can't really give a conclusive answer. It's all speculation. Nice video!
I do believe that Andrewsarchus are like Hyenas to an extent. When it comes to hunting prey and scavenging other predators kills, cause one must not be picky with what you can get. To sustain yourself and if your a mother with young anything goes. Andrewsarchus do seems like they, can also be like an ambush hunter. When it goes out hunting and will take advantage, when they see a already killed prey, and will bully other scavengers, away to eat.
If the only part they've found is the skull, then how can they determine that the skull was unusually large compared to the body? Couldn't they just assume a larger body?
Andy blows my mind. Body of a rhino, head of a wolf/alligator thingy. I need to see a life size skeleton! I know the intellidonts were very intelligent.
This very seriously makes me wonder about the mysterious Beast of Gevaudan, a massive and vicious still-unidentified predator that ravaged the French countryside from 1764-1767, which according to several contemporary sources was responsible for over a hundred deaths and which was finally slain by the famous expert royal hunter and tracker Jean Chastel. The numerous eyewitness descriptions of the Beast are all virtually uniform in regard to its enormous size and bizarre appearance and seem to be extremely and unsettlingly close to the attributes of the predator detailed here. A possible prehistoric remnant perhaps? The biggest regret is that the body of the Beast was apparently ordered to be burned by King Louis XIV - it supposedly stank so badly that it reportedly couldn't be properly taxidermed for display.
My first thought is a bear. Bears are Omnivores. They will eat other animals, scavenge dead and freshly killed carcasses, they also hunt fish and they will also eat berries and some leaves of plants. Lions will only eat meat but they’ll also work as scavengers and wolves will do the same thing. My guess is that this animal was probably more like a bear, I’m confused why it would have hooves because animals with hooves are deer, horses, antelopes and they eat grass and bark off of tree. So I don’t know. I’m sure there is another skeleton somewhere. I find it hard to believe that nobody has found this animal in a cave or in someone’s backyard yet.
The most reasonable answer is, I think, that it filled a niche like a bear. An apex predator but a total opportunist omnivore. Plenty capable of taking large prey but also happy to snack on more or less anything it could get.
Hi everyone, thanks so much for watching! Yes I am aware the audio could do with some improvement 😅 don’t worry, I’m playing around with audio levels and awaiting a new mic, so please enjoy in the meantime! 😊
Wait I thought the short faced bear was bigger
there is fossil evidence that prooves t rex was an active hunter, i dont know why there still a debate on that (healed triceratops injuries from t rex teeth)
Yeah, the audio... very frequently picks up the clack of your teeth coming together.
It's got that 1940s vibe to it
@@herni4713 what I meant there was that there WAS a debate, but tbh it was one I never subscribed to given how many hunting tools t.rex had, but thankfully the healed triceratops put that to bed 😊
They were domesticated by orcs, commonly referred to as wargs (war pigs) and fought in the wars of the rings in Middle Earth.
Well-reflected in the relevant and rigorous peer-reviewed literature.
🤣🤣🤣
If you actually read the books, it is the GOBLINS that associate with the Wargs.
And my fellow Kiwi's works in film are NOT canon, he should be ashamed of himself, he totally failed in every possible way.
"wargs" are wolves. Large hostile wolves. Nothing porcine about them. Think dire wolf, not andrewsarchus.
@@richardokeefe7410 It was a joke. Sorry you didn't catch that.
If it lived in an tropical forest environment it's more likely to be hunter focused than a top scavenger. Dense forests are a good place hunt large prey but a lousy place to find sufficient carcasses to sustain such a large animal.
Agreed, no way a scavenger that size could find corpses with so many decomposers around in a rain forest. Good luck with that lol
Not true. It’s more likely to be a scavenger if it lives in a forest.
@BT-su1yf bruh how. This isn't like a bear or something the theory is its in a RAIN forest. Scavenger the size of this thing wouldn't survive
@@blueguy2128 it absolutely WOULD survive bruh, just by eating things that are already dead. Do you know how many thing in a forest die just by falling out of trees? A lot. Think about how high up a tree is.
Damn, we got the rainforest experts here.
It makes me weirdly happy that with the constant debate on the internet about lions vs tigers, wolves vs cougars, tigers vs bears, etc... one constant remains.
The most terrifying - and I don't just mean biggest or more dangerous, but actually f__king terrifying - terrestrial mammals to have ever lived are not some refined predator specialized to a hypercarnivorous diet; just a random, hippo looking thing with a hydraulic press for a mouth.
Tbf hippos are terrifying. Surprisingly stealthy, fast, powerful and ill tempted enough to be belligerent when it comes to territory and young.
@@victory8928Fast runners, and even better swimmers. (Or should I say, “water jumpers” lol) And surprisingly agile for their size and shape.
It's funny because it was closely related to hippopotamus and cetaceans
@@bobcat24 yeah
Hippos make their sadistic cousins the orcas proud, they may be distant relatives but they still have that rage coursing through their veins.
*Paleontologists have really done a good job of narrowing it down for us! It is a cross between a wolf, a lion, a pig, a hippo, a rhino, a ferret, a rabbit, a horse, and a hairless rat.*
Basically they have no clue what the rest of it looked like past the skull
This may be controversial, but I believe Andrewsarchus was the World's largest nectar feeder and flower pollinator.
On its delicate hooves it would tiptoe through the lush fields of flowers supping up nectar with a specially evolved tongue.
Get that gold published asap.
I could visualize your description in my mind's eye, and it was both magically beautiful and absolutely ridiculous. Thank you for that!
I must be high. Where can I get more?
Ah, yes. The musical hum of their hooves, as they tiptoed en pointe between flowers to the tune of Tchaikovsky...
A descendant of pigs and hippos with overwhelming bulk and bone crushing molars is a flower pollinator? That’s like a Honey badger being a “seed disperser”
I knew Andy Serkis was an exceptionally talented actor and mimic but WOW this blew my mind!!!
The best comment
The thing that always fascinated me about this era of mammals is the sheer level of biodiversity. I mean there were entire families of creatures that just no longer exist. And I don't know why but it always set my imagination a light more so than dinosaurs
What I find romantic is that they were living alongside animals we would recognize, like rabbits and antelope.
That biodiversity was natural state of nature. Shen you look on what is left, its increfibly sad, at keast for me. Only a small percentage of big mammals remained.
Imagine being this hulking beast, the ancestor of the mighty hippo and father of whales, a creature with a hydraulic jaw, a monster the size of a tank… and your name is Andrew.
As it turns out, Andrewsarchus was a true ungulate (specifically, an artiodactyl), not a mesonychian. To be more specific, it was part of the same group of animals that includes hippos, cetaceans, and the now-extinct entelodonts. There are actually a surprising number of similarities between the skull of Andrewsarchus and that of entelodonts, and the prevailing view now is that it was a stem-entelodont, which is how it has been depicted recently.
This has an impact on the size of Andrewsarchus, because it means that the old reconstructions based on the idea it was a mesonychian were misproportioned. As mentioned earlier, those reconstructions took into account the relatively large skulls of mesonychians, but entelodonts had even larger skulls, so the body was still reconstructed too large compared to the head. That said, this wasn't an extreme change-Andrewsarchus went from weighing around 1000+kg to weighing around 800+kg, still big enough to be a contender for the title of "largest predatory land mammal ever". The entelodont Daeodon was similar in size (its skull is slightly larger), and the larger specimens of the recently extinct bear Arctodus truly did exceed 1000kg; however, with Arctodus being shown to be a generalized omnivore, it's questionable whether it should be seen as a contender for the title, as generalized omnivores face fewer size limits than more specialized predators and thus can't really be compared to such animals. If we disqualify Arctodus for this reason, it comes down to a race between Andrewsarchus and Daeodon for the title of largest predatory land mammal ever.
Then again, there has been discussion about just how predatory Andrewsarchus and Daeodon were, so they might face similar disqualification. Both animals have been (and often still are) assumed to be "mere" scavengers relying on carcasses or stolen kills, but this is just plain not energetically feasible for any vertebrate that isn't a terrestrial soaring flyer (because otherwise it takes way too much time and effort to find enough carcasses/kills), so that can be ruled out. Thus, the discussion comes down to the proportion of animals vs. plants in their diet. As mentioned earlier, entelodonts like Daeodon did have the ability to consume vegetation, but they still had a fairly extensive set of adaptations for eating other animals, and there are more than enough bite marks (including some from Daeodon) to indicate that they were eating meat fairly often, possibly even over half the time, though they still can't be seen as "pure" carnivores like cats. As for Andrewsarchus, its small sagittal crest (indicating small temporalis muscles) and a "pinched-in" rostrum have been taken as proof it didn't have the right jaw adaptations to hunt large prey. But while the temporalis muscles of Andrewsarchus were small, its massive zygomatic arches indicate it had huge masseter muscles, which would have given it a powerful bite anyways (this also applies to entelodonts, and can be observed in living hippos). Furthermore, living hippos have an even more "pinched-in" rostrum than Andrewsarchus, and that part of the skull in no way presents a weak point that prevents them from mauling large animals to death. So Andrewsarchus was perfectly capable of hunting. That said, the premolars and molars of Andrewsarchus may be more in line with an omnivore rather than a carnivore; while Andrewsarchus almost certainly killed large animals for food at least some of the time, we cannot be sure how often this took place. When it hunted, Andrewsarchus would likely have pursued its prey in the open (entelodonts were quite cursorial, at least for their size, and it stands to reason that a stem-entelodont would have been as well), and relied on its jaws alone to make the kill.
You're talking about the Arctotrherium... Artctodus too would be around that size.. but the amount of times the two have been mixed together is depressing... Especially considering they were quite different from each other morphologically
Andrewsarchus was the precursor for whale evolution, so unlikely it was an entelodontid.
You realize Arctotherium Angustidens used to exist right?
Andrewsarchus true body still debatable today some said head bigger than body some other said body also bigger and bulky i chose second option mean this creature surpass 1 ton if head bigger than body this animal only around 800kg
Could this thing be capable of running after its prey to exhaustion?
Don't know if Andrewsarchus was more likely a predator or scavenger, but we can say that it revolutionised the art of motion capture acting
They can be both
@@mhdfrb9971 If you care to name the motion capture actors who are also predators, I’ll be getting the engine stoked on the cancel train. Let’s do this.
😂
So another amazing thing about this creature was its green fur.
I would assume it probably lived a lot like a modern grizzly bear. Large, omnivorous, no natural predators, and easily capable of bullying away any other predator from a meal.
I'd love to see you do something on Anteosaurus, being quite possibly the largest synapsid land carnivore of all time
That's another on the new year's list 😉
Someone needs to make a [full practical effects] horror movie out of this beauty.
I sat next to Andrew Sarchus in primary school. Strange kid. Hairy. Aggressive. Did not play well with others. I wonder what he is doing now.
When I first heard about Andrew over 40 years ago all the talk was about him being the animal that eventually became modern day whales.
There has been debate about this but it is still considered a very distant cousin. Since there is only one Andrew maybe he is the Highlander of that era, "There can only be one".
I'd love to hear your take on the dire wolf, considering its recent taxonomic reclassification
Is it no longer a wolf......or no longer dire?
@@Cody38Super No longer wolf... Or dog for that matter. More like a giant jackal, still dire.
Its new Latin name is aenocyon dirus. I'd like to hear English-speaking people trying to pronounce that. :)
Same
@@ObatongoSensei I didn't think it ever was?? I thought they've always known it was a genus from before/early split to the canids, kinda like the nimravids....cats before cats??
@@ObatongoSensei "Eno-saion"
Andrewsarchus was actually quite closely related to whales, with whales being artiodactyls.
What I love about Andrewsarchus is it seems most reconstructions is how big its head looks lol, if they’re correct then it was a hilariously small body to head comparison, if they’re incorrect this was an incredibly large creature!
Found your channel like 2 days ago and then I got thinking "You know what would be cool" and here it is! With how little we directly know about this animal, good on ya for bringing up some of the world around it. Would love to see greater coverage on the mesonychians sometime! Or maybe even arctocyonids! All the weird stuff those primitive ungulates were up to.
Either way - looking forward to whatever comes up. Keep up the great work!
Thank you so much! Glad you've been enjoying the channel! I have a a lot planned for the new year so I'll be sure to add Mesonychians to the list 🙂
Andy Serkis is actually a human actor. He played someone named Gollum in the Lord of the Rings history of the Earth. He's not a dinosaur!
Ha Ha Ha! 😂🤣
I get the feeling it had a rather peculiar stomach acid cocktail and a specialized stomach and esophagus to maintain that. Jaws aren't that wide for no reason. Creatures with bipedal tendencies have gravity working in their favor, but for a quadruped to have a skull, jaw, and body like that I'd imagine it charging prey and swallowing them whole.
As an armchair enthusiast for this stuff, thank you for featuring Andrew! Bizarre animal which doesn't get a lot of attention. But I didn't realize all we have is a skull. That might damper the passions of a lot of nerds😉
It always takes literal years for new videos about Andrewsarchus to be posted let a lone any scientific updates. I wish as much research and field search for spinosaurs would go into this fascinating animal. The most enigmatic in the fossil record post dinosaur era imo.
I think, when discussing andrewsarchus, seems like it all comes down to that really bad dad joke from the school library when you were a little kid “what does a bull elephant have for lunch? Anything he wants!” Seems like it would be applicable here based on the predators, we know about from this time period.
It is so DARN refreshing to see fossil study acknowledging the 🤷♂️ factor. 🥂
I Love the ancient pigs , my dad is a artist and i was into since as a kid and i told my dad please draw those ancient pigs for my kindergarden T-shirts and he told me sorry son but your kindergarden friends will cry if i do that , lol , this is one of my favorite memorys from my childhood ...
I haven't checked size matches, but The Short Faced bear was pretty close to those dimensions and was pretty massive. Today's Polar and Kodiak Bears would be pretty close, also, as far as mammals go.
Polar bears are hypercarnivorous.
I was under the impression that the short faced bear was the largest. It was massive and stood well over the polar bear.
@@jasonstewart8363You are probably correct. The short faced bear had extra long legs and was taller, on the average, than Polar and Kodiaks. I haven't seen enough information on the SF's estimated weight, to the best of my memory, but they were pretty massive, as are the Polar and Kodiak.
@@wmden1I seen video on it said up to 2500 pounds
@@justinsecrist1130 Thanks. I saw some information that stated that Andrewsarchus might have maxed at about 2 tons. I guess it's not worth any argument with the info on this video.
The amount of drawing that change you perspective of the animal is amazing. I bet it swims really well and has an incredible sense of smell. If a Bear and a Hippo had a baby...
Andy Serkis should play the role or voice-act an Andrewsarchus character.
Whenever I see the rough edges on some early mammal skulls like andrewsarcus and our similarly jagged depictions, I'm reminded of the hippopotamus skull and how filled out it's appearance is in comparison.
It's always been strange to me that there are 800 pound cats but no 800 pound canines.
If you go up in the taxonomic hierarchy, the caniformia (dog-like) sub-order includes bears, dogs, racoons, walruses etc., while the feliformia (cat-like) sub-order includes cats, hyenas, mongooses etc. So you do have very large "dog-like animals": polar bears and grizzlys.
Always wondered how Andy serkis consistently shows a primal nature in his roles.
I don’t know...
... totally ignorant on this topic...
But it’s interesting insightful and informative reading the comments.
Nice video.
Thank you for introducing me to the unknown to me.
I never really thought about the idea that after dinosaurs got wiped other animals existed apart from the ones we live with today. Pretty cool
How about a video on the megafauna of North America and up thru to Alaska? From Alaska and I hardly ever hear of what extinct animals lived up here thousands and millions of years ago. I know of some, but it would be neat to see a video from shortly after the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs to now. If possible.
It most certainly is possible! I have a lot scheduled over the coming weeks, but I'll be coming back and doing requests in the new year, so I'll add it to the list 🙂
As an artist, I absolutely love the massive shape that is the Andrewsarchus.
Watched the full video through. Really good job editing and what not I wish you much success with this TH-cam channel
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
If this creature ever get put into movies, you'll know who's gonna do the motion capture...
Can't wait to include one in a prehistoric scene!
Given the types of animals that shared it's habitat, coupled with it's hoof-like feet and elongated snout I wonder if it lived in the swampier environments. Powerful long jaws would make it easy to snap the bones of deer or flightless birds, but I wouldn't doubt it would make short work of turtles and large fish.
1:29 THOSE GUYS. Absolutely terrifying in Ark. They take so many tranquilizers to knock out, and they’re so fast… and that freaky healing ability!
The Andrewsarchus specialized in social behaviors. They would often throw dinner parties for spirited conversation and would rely on their guests to bring tasty dishes for all to share.
This guy seems like a full-fledged omnivore more than anything else to me, specifically in the shape of the teeth in its skull. The molars in the back of its skull are flat-topped while the ones in front are sharp canines, which screams to me that Andrewsarchus could both tear flesh from bone and tear off plant material which it could then grind up with its molars. Pigs are also known to eat pretty much anything and everything, so referencing Andrewsarchus as pig-like is probably more accurate than we're aware of.
I remember this thing from Walking with Beasts, I loved the trilogy of life documentaries as a kid.
When I first heard of this creature, I wondered, "The Beast of Gevaudan?" Then again, Andrewsarchus was discovered in Mongolia, and it was too large to be the legendary carnivore of 18th Century France. Many thanks, Dino-gen, for this excellent and concise analysis of Andrewsarchus.
Did you get so knowledgeable by working at the Daily Planet or are all Kryptonians big fans of Earth animal history?
-L. Luther
We have large databases on Krypton, but I don't what this daily planet is, I'm not Clark Kent...
Crap, you didn't say his name did you?....
One of the most mysterious animals of the Cenozoic. Can't wait till new Andrewsarchus fossils are discovered, or at least some breakthroughs on its phylogeny are made.
So Andy Serkis is actually a prehistoric creature? No wonder he made such a convincing Gollum.
Great! This creature has always held a special fascination for me and is more delightfully terrifying to me than even than an angry Allosaurus. Maybe it being mammalian makes it somehow more real. A big, hairy, stinking beast--can't beat it!
This reminds me of the Thylacine. Kind of like a Bear-Hippo-Thylacine, haha. Weird-looking creature.
"Terminator-Hellpig" seems like a good name. Just found the channel, keep it up! :)
The Chalicotherium or Giant Sloths were...well big, too. They could defend themselves at least, presumably.
This terror would perhaps try to eat their offspring, some speculation 🤔😃
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it 🙂 they certainly could, I'm looking forward to covering them!
Thats a French Bull dog, very scary at first glance but they’re mostly gassy and cant hold their head up
Mad, awesome video, at which point did it transition into acting ?
2:37
I like how they went ahead and drew a peen on it, like we'd all leave incomplete if we didnt see one.
i like the way you present this as the saddest news in the world
Sounds like it has a lot of characteristics similar to hyenas. Huge heads & jaws, teeth and a bite strong enough to chew through bone. Perhaps it was a pack hunter as well?
I have heard that too many packs a day is what caused their extinction.
I think it makes sense to have filled a T. rex or cave bear niche like he said, bullying other animals away from their kills more than being a great hunter themselves.
I think both the North American short-faced bear and, especially, the South American arctotherium angustidens were larger than Andy Serkis.
I feel like the ark one is a pretty ok reconstruction,granted not as big,or having a tank saddle
I look forward to scientists finding a more full fossil of this big mammalian carnivore. Exciting!
Thank God you can't have Mammals without Mammeries! ! !
Pace and inflection was niiiice bruh!
Thanks! Glad to see I'm improving 😅
@@dino-gen ofcourse, I expected nothing less, my man!
Interferium was a robust animal as well.
Ok, they may not technically be pigs, but looking at that skull, it's either something that looks somewhat piglike, or it's half pig and half hell badger! I'm VERY glad that I wasn't around at a time when these things walked the earth! Especially with the technology of the day! It would need a hell of a big rifle to put one of those into the forever box!
Its gob is bigger than its throat. So I form the opinion based on that: it had fearless competition from its own kind, and thats why its head was like that. Even if its bite force was over 1000 psi its important to look at the surface area thats spread over
I swear, they are going to come out with a paper saying that it subsisted on grubs and larvae. In addition, they will put forth that it had both a keen sense of smell, as well as mole like bristles on it's snout, to help it locate it's small prey even on the darkest nights. Never forget: The spinosaur went from badass t rex of the marshes, to basically a giant crested newt.
I always come down on these sorts of beasts having a lifestyle more like bears. Omnivorous plus predation with a bit of scavenging. The main problem with scavenging is that in an ecosystem with scavenging birds, such as vultures, the birds have such a huge advantage in getting to the carcass first, what with their advantages of keen eye sight and the ability to fly. Anyone who has watched vultures in action in Africa knows that the vultures can locate and then strip a carcass clean in a matter of about ten minutes leaving little remaining. Pretty hard for a land animal to compete against that level of efficiency as a scavenger.
This thing is the embodiment of the phrase, “OH LAWRD HE COMING.”
During the Gobi Desert Asiatic Expeditions of the AMNH, Dr. Walter Granger, in his field notes, recorded Andrewsarchus as a giant form of Entelodont. When Henry Fairfield Osborn read his notes and reviewed the skull, he criticized Granger, saying it was a giant Creodont. Granger said he should have recognized it as such and felt he was in error based on Osborns viewpoint. It's justice today seeing that Grangers original call was more accurate than Osborns ego centric critique. Subsequently, Roy Cahpman Andrew's the Expeditions leader was given the honor of having this giant early Artiodactyl skull named after him.
Even though it's diet is in limbo I still wouldn't want to be anywhere near one.😢
The beast of Dartmoor video was an amdrewsarchus and now that’s my new head canon
Has anyone every connected andrewsarchus to the legendary leucrotta? The coincidence of both being hooved carnivores is interesting. What if andrewsarchus, like celocanth, didn't go extinct millions of years ago, as presumed, but survived long enough to encounter primitive humans and inspire a mythological monster?
A similar (but smaller) creature resembling Andrewsarchus was shot in Montana in 1886. The natives called it Shunka Warak'in ("carries off dogs"). Although a photograph does exist of a stuffed specimen, there is some controversy about its existence.
I literally just discovered the shunka warak'in yesterday. What a coincidence to see it mentioned again!
I could have sworn I saw my former boss somewhere amongst these.
taming a boar that's 6 feet at the shoulder shouldn't have been a problem for early aggies.
There are legends of a giant bird who could transport people and speak a few hundred human words when tamed.
2:39 I like this reconstruction the best
So that's why he's able to play animals so well
Ever since I first saw this in Walking With series, I wondered the *possibility* of humans taming and riding them had they coexisted together. It'd be something *if* someone does an artwork of a (non-warrior) woman riding one.
The hangup with domestication comes down to behaviors in its natural ecology. Horses being domesticated while zebras never were. Consider what the two have to deal with, horses being out of the Caucasus Mountain ranges and nearby valleys.
Prehistory warfare, using them as cavalry. It's like orcs riding wargs.
those mammals were basically pigs,boars,hippos,seals,whale, wolves and mustelid giant mixtapes
Being related to pigs, this thing was probably an absolute tank.
I keep hearing Andrew Serkis, and now i cant get the image of him in a big mammal suit pretending to be one of the herd.
The Andrewsarchus reminds me a lot of the fantasy beast the leucrotta tbh.
I feel like this is likely where the cryptid known as the crocotta came from. Just go look up the description of the crocotta and look at this animal...it's more than accurate.
In my amateur opinion, I air of the side of predation. It would be very difficult for something large to rely heavily on scavenging.
I feel like the idea that it would bully smaller animals away from prey in order to steal their meal is similar to what people used to think about T-Rex.
As you said, not carnivores are strictly one of the other. So to me, I would say was most likely an ambush predator. Having a head that large, it would be difficult to run at speed for any real duration.
But, without post-craneal remains, we can't really give a conclusive answer. It's all speculation. Nice video!
The farther along the description goes the more horrific it gets
Somewhere in our subconscious ancestral memory came the desire to make .50 BMG small arms.
I do believe that Andrewsarchus are like Hyenas to an extent. When it comes to hunting prey and scavenging other predators kills, cause one must not be picky with what you can get. To sustain yourself and if your a mother with young anything goes.
Andrewsarchus do seems like they, can also be like an ambush hunter. When it goes out hunting and will take advantage, when they see a already killed prey, and will bully other scavengers, away to eat.
If the only part they've found is the skull, then how can they determine that the skull was unusually large compared to the body? Couldn't they just assume a larger body?
Maybe they're going off of the muscle that connects the head to the neck as being massive which could mean a big ass head lol
Andy blows my mind. Body of a rhino, head of a wolf/alligator thingy. I need to see a life size skeleton! I know the intellidonts were very intelligent.
Yup. This creature would make Emperor Palpatine shite his pants.
This very seriously makes me wonder about the mysterious Beast of Gevaudan, a massive and vicious still-unidentified predator that ravaged the French countryside from 1764-1767, which according to several contemporary sources was responsible for over a hundred deaths and which was finally slain by the famous expert royal hunter and tracker Jean Chastel. The numerous eyewitness descriptions of the Beast are all virtually uniform in regard to its enormous size and bizarre appearance and seem to be extremely and unsettlingly close to the attributes of the predator detailed here. A possible prehistoric remnant perhaps? The biggest regret is that the body of the Beast was apparently ordered to be burned by King Louis XIV - it supposedly stank so badly that it reportedly couldn't be properly taxidermed for display.
The moment I saw the skull I thought "big hog"
Whatever it was, I can tell you just by looking at it, I sure wouldn't want to walk up on that thing.
A better cam and microphone, and this channel will blow up for sure. You are a great presenter and storyteller.
FIngers crossed! New mic has arrived and will hopefully be getting a better camera soon! Thank you, really glad you enjoyed it 🙂
@@dino-gen Your awesome!
Boars were like, "Yeah. Let's be like that."
It’s strange that it is younger than dinosaurs yet no complete or partially complete fossil was found
"Wolf-headed bison" is a great image for a Weird West setting monster, though.
My first thought is a bear. Bears are Omnivores. They will eat other animals, scavenge dead and freshly killed carcasses, they also hunt fish and they will also eat berries and some leaves of plants. Lions will only eat meat but they’ll also work as scavengers and wolves will do the same thing. My guess is that this animal was probably more like a bear, I’m confused why it would have hooves because animals with hooves are deer, horses, antelopes and they eat grass and bark off of tree. So I don’t know. I’m sure there is another skeleton somewhere. I find it hard to believe that nobody has found this animal in a cave or in someone’s backyard yet.
The most reasonable answer is, I think, that it filled a niche like a bear. An apex predator but a total opportunist omnivore. Plenty capable of taking large prey but also happy to snack on more or less anything it could get.
That would be a painful ending.