The Mosasaurs the Last Grand Marine Reptiles
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ส.ค. 2021
- In the late 1700s a giant skull was discovered in the Netherlands. It belonged to a group of long extinct sea monsters known as mosasaurs but at the time dinosaurs hadn't even been discovered and science as we know it was still in its infancy. It turns out that all though this was one of the first prehistoric creatures known to science they were actually one of the last groups of giant marine reptiles to rule over the ocean.
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LATE 1700S a guy who hasn't got any access to modern science says the mosasaur is related to monitors, to this day this is still believed to be true, mindblowing
All scientific knowledge is simply things being built over previously known information. That's how science progresses.
Late 1700s... He didn't have access to "modern science", but he did have access to monitor skulls. ;) Compare the skull of a mosasaur to the skull of a monitor and it's not that difficult to see that they're probably closely related.
Besides, tiny nitpick here - in the late 1700s, science of the late 1700s would've been considered modern
@@christianv-h3278 yeah and we've seen many times how accurate those assessments are. Hell, we can't even agree on which hominids are which still. And we've had to rely on DNA and electron microscopes to make some more definitive classifications of fossils. So the fact that that dude may still be correct is worth being awed
Cuvier was a genius, the first true paleontologist ever.
Wasn't this guy an opponent of evolution, how did he think any species were related?
The most surprising thing was that car-sized ammonite tbh I didn't know they could grow so big!
Same here!
Remember their shells were ballasts which could be filled with air allowing them to adjust their buoyancy it has been hypothesized that like modern squid they may have evolved to use ammonia gas to control buoyancy. In particular like modern squid the lack of soft fossil preservation under Lagerstatten conditions stands out as unusual given that their fully soft bodied cousins were able to be exceptionally well fossilized under those conditions preserved down to the detail of individual melanosomes. Interestingly there has been a recent potential fossil ammonite and it notably lacks its shell (i.e. the animal's shell was separated from it after death. If the shell was a ammonia ballast this would be expected since it would allow the animal's remains to become acidic to resist decomposition. The ammonia hypothesis is based off of modern squid which use ammonia within their soft bodies to control their buoyancy after having lost their hard shell a change which occurred during the early Cenozoic likely driven by the evolution of echolocation within cetaceans. It is notable that squid around this time completely disappear from the fossil record in their entirety. However as squid are very much still around in our oceans we know they didn't go extinct. It has since been discovered that the ammonia they used to maintain buoyancy within their bodies rather than contained within a shell like the ammonites would have likely done. Experiments have verified that the ammonia prevents the conditions needed for fossilization to occur and assisting in the decomposition of the animal after death even under ideal fossilization conditions thus we have direct evidence that the adaptation of ammonia is a very real possibility for cephalopods since it has evolved at least once.
While much of ammonite biology is poorly understood the few samples of ammonite feeding apparatus suggest very fine comb structures rather than a predatory beak suggesting that at least some ammonites were suspension feeders/filter feeders.
@@Dragrath1 What does it mean for cephalopods to use ammonia?
@@barneyrubble4293 Ammonia is basic (Ph 11.6) and thus prevents all known soft bodies fossilization pathways which require acidic conditions.
Basically it prevents all forms of soft bodied fossilization.
The gas is buoyant in water making it a natural solution for evolution to select as a lifting gas but the consequence is that unless any organism which evolves to adapt this mechanism of buoyancy has mineralized parts we will never be able to know it existed as even the perfect soft bodied fossilization conditions will fail to fossilize (i.e. the ammonia destroys the dead organism resulting in amorphous organic sludge preventing fossilization)
@@Dragrath1 your comment made me realize that ammonite and ammonia both might have the same root word. I wonder what it means.
These are the best videos on TH-cam. Makes me feel like a kid again learning about all these animals and history. Keep up the great work!!!
We are all kids while watching this channel.. 🤟🥂
Why a kid? Feels like learning about a lot of things should be normalized rather than be a young people thing, couldn't imagine phasing out of it when I'm older.
@@kinggenderman1874 because I have specific memories of being younger and learning about dinosaurs, etc. I agree learning shouldn’t be a young persons game but haven’t heard of a stigmatization about it being a young person game before. As adults we often have jobs that take up a considerable amount of our time so watching videos like this can remind us when we were younger and learning about these same subjects.
Brett, my friend, I hate to burst your bubble. But this is just story telling. Darwin saw farmers breeding sheep into woolier sheep and he extrapolated it into a fish turning into a reptile, etc...No evidence to back it up. Finches beaks, by the way, wax and wane with the weather. The info for both types of beaks is already in the genome.
@@bolapromatoqueejogodecampe9353 lol
PBS Eons and Moth Light Media uploading on the same day is a rare treat
The thought of people discovering dinosaur bones for the first time is so funny to me. Some guy in a canyon finds a femur bigger than he is and he's like *"WHAT THE FUCK, THERE BE MONSTERS HERE"*
Not far from where I live , a tiny museum has a near full skeleton of one of the largest mosasaurs ever found. You cant appreciate how huge they were until you see Bruce up close and personal.
Bruce cruised the inland sea in north america eating whatever she felt like.
A female named Bruce? That's interesting, but why not?
How's ya Bruce?
Bruce donnit again.
Named after the shark prop from Jaws?
Actually mosasaurs werent that big, biggest of them werent bigger than sperm whales and most of them were quite small
"The Mosasaurs the Last Grand Marine Reptiles"
Sea turtles: and I took that personally
FAIR ENOUGH
Even turtles today arent anything like their extinct relatives
I mean technically we don't even know whether turtles are true reptiles or not.
it baffles me how relatively recent paleontology is
Science as we know it is pretty very recent
People have been unearthing fossils for millennia but it wasn't science-based, as science as a discipline only began its development as a formal discipline only toward the end of the 18th century, or maybe its beginning. Prior to that, and going all the way back to the classical era, B. C. times, fossils were regarded as the remains of gods, demi-gods, great heroes like Achilles and Hercules and mythical beasts like cyclops, dragons, chimeras, hydras and krakens and so on.
The fact that mosasaurs are surprisingly closely related to living families of lizards has made me wonder why no reptiles tried to fully adapt to marine ecosystems again after the K-PG Extinction. Early Paleogene oceans would have seemed like a perfect environment for a lizard or crocodilian to take advantage of a world where virtually all large Mesozoic predators had gone extinct and many ecological niches were available, and mammals still weren't diverse enough to try and make a livelihood out at sea yet. The Paleogene Thermal Maximum in particular would've seemed like a perfect time for a new resurgence of marine reptiles, and while marine mammals likely would have eventually superseded them as global temperatures cooled in later epocks the fact there were no major reptilian evolution experiments in the Cenozoic oceans has always felt very strange to me.
U do know theres sea snakes and the almost fully aquatic marine iguanas
@@imin2461 You forgot sea kraits too. I never said there were no new marine reptiles in the Cenozoic. What I'm saying is there was no adaptive radiation that created a massive biodiversity that fundamentally shaped the dynamics of ocean ecology like icthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs did in the Mesozoic and what cetaceans would eventually do in the Cenozoic. There was roughly a 15 million year gap at the start of the Cenozoic where the ancestors of whales hadn't evolved enough adaptations for a long-term ocean existence that lizards or crocodilians could have exploited to firmly cement their presence in the global ocean biosphere again before the first true whales evolved, yet they never did for unknown reasons.
@@Xnaut314 wait, kraits are not snakes?
Sea kraits are snakes, but they are not directly related to true sea snakes. Sea snakes and sea kraits were two independent lineages of snakes that separately adapted to ocean life through convergent evolution. The key difference between them is that true sea snakes give live birth, while sea kraits lay eggs in sea caves with air pockets.
@@Xnaut314 thank u for this fact, the more i learn
There's something special about monitor lizards that I always suspect, and this video reaffirms it.
Monitors are also one of the most interesting lizard groups to study generally given how theyre a pretty young group overall which is incredibly morphologically diverse.
They also have a really remarkable story of convergent evolution with the teiiad lizards. Which have not only evolved similar body plans, but also convergently evolved high intelligence as part of their package if adaptations for hunting large vertebrate prey.
Teiids have also been found to be partially warm blooded, being one of only two Squamates (the other being the genus Python) with partial endothermy. Scientists are studying Tegu metabolism to try and find out how endothermy evolved in mammals and avian dinosaurs (birds). Its been found that Tegus and pythons ramp up their metabolism during mating season, so warm bloodedness might have evolved for mating purposes.
@@thegreatcat2095 knowing people who keep pet Tegus as pets one other point with their metabolism is their bursts of endothermy is actually just generally very useful for everything.
@@sampagano205 komodo dragons parthenogenesis ability was jaw dropping. I'm not sure if other monitors can do that, but just imagine if mosasaurs were able to, at least the smaller species. Pretty stunning if true. Besides monitors including komodos are excellent swimmers. Komodos can dive upto 10-15 feet so it's no surprise mosasaur ancestors (dallasaurus and one more species from which all mosasaurs descended) adapted to the sea almost overnight.
I work in a quarry, now a museum with guided tours, very similar to the one the Mosasaurus was first discovered in. We have a perfect replica of a Mosasaurus jawbone. Its one of the stops that captures the most attention, being face to face with such a giant prehistoric beast is very special.
This channel is so cool, always manages to scratch itches I didn’t know I had... like, I never realized how much I really wanted to learn about this group of animals in the fossil record lol
The way you explain how they figured these things out is better than any class I’ve taken
Even though it would be terrifying, i miss the megafaunas of old.
Me too. Although it is kind of neat not to have your car flattened by a giant horned Horse-sloth or whatever weird shit the past came up with. Or a sabre toothed moose lion for that matter 😁
As a mosasaur researcher, on behalf of all the might sea dragons: FUCK YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!
However, I will say that we have definitive mosasaurids older than Dallasaurus. The best known is the basal russellosaurine Tethysaurus nopcsai from Lower Turonian (93.9 mya) Morocco, and even skull fragments and teeth from other Tethysaurinae have been found in Europe from the Turonian
I more of a drake kind of guy
@@CAWCarcharo34 what do you do as a mosasaur researcher? What new things do you find? How many people do what you do? Where do you find your evidence? That is amazing - if it’s true.
@@rbanerjee605 at the moment I am an Master’s student researching basal mosasaurids. The research is still on going. I have to examine collected specimens. It can be a blessing and a curse
I like that the earliest mosasaur is basically just a giant water monitor in terms of morphology.
You have amazing story-telling skills and I love that you have applied them to something not usually told as a story. I love learning about these creatures and all that has happened in the far past. Thank you for making these videos
the ground beneath kansas is full of mosasaurs, you can see multiple fully reassembled skeletons at the KU natural history museum. I miss when the midwest was a giant ocean fr we had some cool fish here
These reptiles really lived _right until_ the end-Cretaceous extinction event.. like there's mosasaur fossils from Denmark that have been found a few dozen centimetres away from the K-T (K/Pg) boundary.
Nothing better than a little moth light before bed.
Thanks for your efforts man, your videos are excellent and always the highlight of my subscriptions
New moth light media video lets go
"Mosasaurs are actually more closely related to snakes."
So mosasaurs are basically sea dragons? That's awesome.
No, sea dragons are related to sea horse
@@Noname-67 That fish ist just named dragon because it vaguely resembles one.
Mosasaurs actually meet the definition of dragons.
@@Noname-67 Corvus means "sea dragons" in the mythical sense.
@@rbanerjee605 Asian dragons don't breathe fire. Ancient Greek dragons don't breathe fire. Neither do Iörmungandr, Nidhöggr, Quetzalcoatl or Apep. The only dragons that breathe fire are those in medieval Europe, and in modern literature inspired by that.
The only consistent traits are that they're serpent-like and powerful or dangerous, and that applies to mosasaurs. Of course, there is no rigid definition of dragons, but personally, I consider fire-breathing an arbitrary distinction.
@@corvus_da nah, myth about dragon in south east asia can breath fire
One scary thought is that for some giant creatures we've found fossils of, it's entirely possible it could just be a juvenile and we don't know. Or many fossils of the same creature could by chance all be small specimens. Seeing how all living animals have occassionaly unusally huge specimens. If you think any t-rex or sauropod is huge, imagine seeing an unusually large specimen of those animals.
The sauropods were probably the upper limit of how big a living thing can get, as least on land.
Strange. I ddin't get the notification for this video
me neither
It was published just minutes ago.
Same!
I always feel like these videos are made so quickly considering their amazing quality
It says a lot about mosasaurs that they could rise to the top and overtake older marine reptiles like pliosaurs and ichthyosaurs in that amount of time.
This is really interesting
I love your videos man, really makes me remember the days where I would print out dinosaur profiles and just be fascinated by them!
The Cretaceous is my favorite anthropological era. It’s species just epitomize the word prehistoric to me.
My favorite group of extinct animals! Thanks for the video, it's great!
Wow! I'm from Croatia an I've never heard of aigalosaurus!
Very nicely done, subscribed. It's nice to hear the contribution of George Cuvier to our knowledge being acknowledged- he is largely responsible for laying the foundations of evolutionary theory.
cheers from sunny Vienna, Scott
I was watching your megalania video when this video pop up
Fascinating, I didn't realize mososaurs came so late and that ichthyosaurs we're not contemporary...
So much more interesting!
I feel like we need a shoutout video to some artists and their works. I notice a lot of the same names in about every upload
Mosasaurs still "swim" in the deserts of Australia:
Goannas, such as the perentie!!!
Betty interesting I'm learning
Monitors are vicious
Can u imagine this creaTure?
I feel like bringing up the desert monitors as swimming is kind of weird. A large portion of monitor species are actually semi aquatic. The most abundant species of monitor in the world is probably the Asian water monitor. The prevalence of semi aquatic behavior in monitors and their close relationship to mosasaurs actually implies that being semi aquatic is the ancestral condition for both groups.
In South and Southeast Asia, we have the big water monitor lizard, and those guys are excellent swimmers too! I hope that humanity will get our shit together and fix our damages to the ecosystem, just so that perhaps one day, these water-loving monitor lizards may spawn a second wave of giant Mosasaur-like animals! Although the ocean is dominated by cetaceans and large sharks right now, so that might be a little difficult :D
Never knew there were ammonites that could get as large as a person. Super cool video!
Fantastic video, thank you !
Basically the Mosasaurs was the last time Lizard could be the superior predators of their time,and dominate it,also this was another very awesome Moth Light Media video,and I love it.
Also I wish y'all amazing people a great day.
That's just not true, because there are living lizard apex predators. In recent evolutionary history there was also a giant species of varanid that only went extinct a few hundred thousand years ago that would have been the top predator in all of Australia.
If you use a monophyletic definition of lizards you've also got boas and pythons which are also top predators.
The argument that lizards are now relegated to small animal niches is kind of silly, if lizards have shown anything in evolutionary history it's a remarkable ability to adapt themselves to many different niches from apex predators to being able to fill niches that are normally filled by invertebrates like the micro geckos.
I referring to mass,and the time before humans
You could argue the Mosasaurs were the only time lizards were superior predators.
Monitor Lizards ARE apex predators...
Congratulations on 300k!!!!!
Love your videos bro! Can’t wait for the next one
You are my new favorite channel.
Never knew the Mosasaurus was named after the Maas river. cool!
Fascinating stuff as always. Giant marine reptiles are so cool, and I love how you referenced how people thought about fossils before modern science was established
Great video
I love your videos
Wow! I learned a lot watching this video!
I love love your content 🙏🏼
Just subscribed. Good stuff.
Love your work. ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you very much. This is a very interesting video and I learned a lot.
Great video 😊
I dont think it was found in Holland but in the Netherlands? But you are the expert here. :)
You're right. Maastricht is as far from Holland as you can get in the Netherlands (Holland is two out of the twelve provinces). I think he meant to refer to the Netherlands, not Holland
Great timing. I've been looking up Mosasaur stuff lately (and also playing Ark)
Your voice is so soothing to hear
Thats a pretty big amount of patrons for 200k subscribers. Great content seems to build a great community.
Love it!, Thanks!
MLM-You are the premier paleontological channel on TH-cam. Thank you!
Fascinating. And well presented.
I love this guy's videos, so detailed and interesting!!! Keep up the good work
I love this channel
great video
Please do a video about the evolutionary Historie of birds/avian dinosaurs. You’re doing an amazing job here on this channel keep it up
Lovely content. :-)
I love these guys, so charismatic. I do wish the video had talked a bit about why they may have gone extinct, though.
Chicxulub. Phytoplankton and sea plants would've had all the same trouble as land plants, resulting in a similar ecological collapse.
I had no idea the first discovery of a mosasaur skull played such an important role in scientists even figured out that particular animals went extinct in the first place, highly intriguing!
Do the evolution of crayfish
Wow amazing!!
New Moth Light Media? I click.
I love getting baked and watching these
I'd always assumed mosasaurs were related to the plesiosaurs and pliosaurs. when he started calling them 'lizards' I was like... 'wait a moment... he doesn't seem the sort to make that kind of rookie error...' But I was the one with a gap in my knowledge. I'm actually astounded that they're genuinely thought to be closer to lizards than the other large Mesozoic predatory reptiles. A really astounding example of convergent evolution. Would be nice to know what (if any) evidence there is or interactions between mosasaurs and the superficially similar pliosaurs during the periods they overlapped.
Mosasaurs didn't evolve until after pliosaurs went extinct. They filled the niche left behind from their extinction. It is amazing how similar they ended up being.
Thanks! I've always wondered how it was possible for a new species to break into the then current meta and completely dominate since all niche already filled. A small extinction event took out the other species make total sense.
It's also worth saying that if niches are filled the deck is "just" stacked against you, it's not impossible to still outcompete the existing groups from that starting point if you have advantages over them in those niches.
@@sampagano205 how does a upstart competitor come out on top of established species in a given niche? Dogs VS Cats come to mind when the continents joined but that is 2 well established predators in direct competition. While in this case, they started off as small amphibious reptiles and somehow grew to dominate the oceans, what would give them such huge advantage that they climbed all the way to the top of the food chain when there were plenty of massive sea predators?
Please share your wisdom.
Also how modern economics works. Good luck starting your own company in a niche that is already filled.
You mean the Netherlands, not Holland.
It was found near Maastricht, which isn't in Holland but is in the Netherlands.
Kind of weird that Holland and Netherlands are often confused as synonyms. It wasn't until recently I learned that Holland is not it's own country at all. And I live in Europe!
Yeah! New video.
Ichthyosaurs, pliosaurs & plesiosaurs all preceded mosasaurs, but the latter replaced them. Is it possible that mosasaurs were venomous? Their snake relatives, and possibly Komodo monitors, are.
That would give them an edge, but would it fossilise?
Komodo dragons don't produce venom. instead they have very toxic bacteria in their saliva, just like modern house cats. I know it may sound like I'm splitting hairs but venomous implies that a creature produces the venom itself.
@@99bulldog they are venomous that myth was debunked
If it was like a snakes it would be but if it's like a komodo dragon, well we struggled to find them in living specimens
Mosasaur venom seems unlikely because they do not have the features associated with venom in living animals, and while venom is widespread in the group of squamates mosasaurs are a part of, medically significant venoms used in hunting is much rarer, with most of them using their venom as part of the process of digesting already captured food.
@@99bulldog That has been debunked like @Jacob Masten said research has identified an anticoagulant venom injected into their mouth as they bite
Fascinating history
good show
Love the videos. You should talk about the evolution of the axolotl. It for some reason is popular nowadays
Because they're adorable
God I love your channel !!!
When are you going to finally compile a playlist?!
very cool
I'd recommend you to make a video on turkeys when thanksgiving comes along
Hopefully you can do the evolution of crocodilians! (crocs, gators, caimans). would love to see how their evolution and branching happened
The title is interesting: "The Mosasaurs the Last Grand Marine Reptiles"
Thing is, the saltwater crocodile is a "grand" marine reptile in it's own right, reaching lengths of over 20 Ft. But unlike the mosasaurus it's actually still alive and thriving today. I don't think the saltwater crocodile is appreciated enough. It's practically a living breathing fossil that's been around since the dinosaurs and other prehistoric marine reptiles.
Wrong, salties are about 5my old, far from the non-avian dinosaurs.
pOggy i love your vid mothman
Don't stop man
I had to chuckle at the paleo art of Platycarpus as it's tail fluke was discussed. The smug look on its' face said it all!
It's so bizarrely fascinating that the sea equivalent of the T rex was basically a big aquatic lizard
Could you do a video on Basilosaurus?
So they have an "aquatic snake theory"!?
There are aquatic snakes. I mean, where I live sea snakes are a constant reminder of how much the sea hates our hairless asses.
Awesome !!!! =thumbs up= !!!!!
Megalosaurus is believed to be the first dinosaur ever described scientifically. British fossil hunter William Buckland found some fossils in 1819, and he eventually described them and named them in 1824.
The title needs a comma.
Imagine being the first dude to stuble upon something like this
A part of me wonders what they would’ve tasted like, for some reason.
SUSHI
@@E-E.ADVENTUREGEARS Nah, they’d probably be more like a gator. Which is pretty good
Not just any lizards but monitors.
I have a fossilised mosasaur tooth!! I don't know which species it was from though. maybe I should try and figure it out but that would take a LOT of research.
The maximal shell diameter of a discovered Parapuzosia seppenradensis partial shell was extrapolated to be a whopping 4,50 meters when complete.That's the biggest of the few that were found from this species. So realistically, one could expect even bigger shell diameters from this kind of cephalopod. Compared to his actual barrel, a guy like Diogenes might have called something like that "a pretty luxurious home" ;-)
I’ve been really wondering this for a while - when a species adapts to live in water for example, is it a long process of the species living in and around water which results in them adapting to the environment or is there a sudden mutation that allows them to move in to water? sounds dumb but rlly wondering
In general fully aquatic tetropods like Mosasaurs, whales, seals, and their peers evolve from species which spend a lot of time around the water. But it's less that the fully aquatic animals are better adapted for the environment than it is just that the animals around water or spending more significant amounts of time in it are better positioned to become fully aquatic when the opportunity exists to do that. That can kind of sound like hair splitting, but it's worth noting that semi aquatic animals are actually usually extremely well adapted to their environment. Because living around the water and being able to go into it at need and leave at need actually lets them have the best of both worlds in a lot of cases. They can take advantage of resources on land and in the water, and if a predator that lives primarilly on land or primarilly in the water goes after them they can flee into the place where the predator isn't.
@@sampagano205 Ah thanks that makes a lot of sense. 🙏