Why don't you get to think of a suggestion and creating a TH-cam Videos all about the Bizarre Bird Species called a Shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) 👞 🐦 on the next Bizarre Beasts maybe next month in June coming up next?!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️👍👍👍👍👍
I have a serious question for people using a thing like this, is it because you can't sleep due to lights/sounds etc? I used to live a somewhat rough life early on so I got used to sleeping with sounds and lights(along with sun) without any issues. I always thought this was normal until I heard that a lot of people are struggling which came as a surprise to me. Makes me wonder how long it took to adapt to in the first place. To be completely honest I do need some sort of sound going on to be able to sleep so that's the downside I have a hard time sleeping in complete silence but that isn't an issue when you're living in a big city.
I already have the Manta Sleep Mask Pro from a different sponsored video and use it every day at work to take naps on my 15-minute breaks. I work in a warehouse, but finding a spot to snooze in is pretty simple. Just need three tall totes: 1 as a seat and the other 2 stacked very strategically like a table. The mask is cool cause the eye cups are modular and can be pulled off and reoriented on the mask itself due to velcro. The cups also don't put pressure on your actual eyeballs like generic sleep masks do since they're cup shaped rather than flat.
In the future, we will either create mutually beneficial relationships with all of these people and animals whom we haven't yet met (such as these rails) which will be worth defending, or we will be guilty of being "Against" these harmonious relationships. Some things never become less modern. People who love their job and wouldn't mind being left alone have freedom and are subject to their own intrapersonal "judgement" regarding any mistakes which they've made while "under oath". This is what guides people toward success. Some of us have no identity, nor oath. It seems like the oath is like a fountain from which identity is granted. So our focus on safety is superfluous, but success/progress are NOT. What if we were trying to MORE than simply get things "back to normal"? Do you want things to be Better Than Normal for the first time? What's the Oath for that? What's the identity of people who want things to be Better than normal? Do they not have identities yet? We don't yet have a "Steve Irwin-ist" era of journalism where "history is defined by the victor".
@@seanrowshandel1680ark survival evolved story is that humans and everything on earth is Mosul extinct (except humans on genesis ships in stasis) and we leftbhind technology able to recreate any life that ever lived and even alter its code
Thank you for not falling down the aforementioned media rabbit hole of “this bird evolved twice” and instead establishing the probable distinction between the two iterations. And regardless, this was a very interesting video, as per usual!
Fun fact! Their use in railroads led to breeding programs and an explosion in their populations, but it was ultimately the coming of cars and paved roads that led to their decline
That would be pretty wonderful. All the stinky plants, exploding plants, plants that just ALWAYS choose violence, plants that will both sting you AND can be used to soothe the sting they just made, plants that give you sun sensitivity for extended periods of time...
My favorite name for a flightless rail is an Atlantic species, the Inaccessible Island Rail. Named for its home island, which is not so much hard to get to as hard to set foot on.
Oh, I am an equal opportunity lover of fluffy chicklets 😂 we are birb folks over here. I agree about the color difference, all black growing into more colorful is somewhat unusual.
What an odd poetry that the thing we think of as "the most bird-like" thing about birds - their flight - is something they "seem to hate doing" since it's so energy intensive, and is one of the first things they ditch given half a chance and no penalties for doing so.
If I had a nickle for every time a flightless aldabra rail evolved on the Aldabra atoll I'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right?
@@greywolf7577 I feel like every day he starts a new channel that I then tell TH-cam to block, only for me to get recommended a new video from him on another channel the next day.
Behaviorally they really remind me of chickens. Chickens do the same things. I have one who always tried to eat the little brown mole on my leg. It's like they get fixated on an image and decide "i'ma try to eat that"
@@mattfleming86 They think it is something like a tick or maybe something that is stuck on you like part of plant you brushed up against or dead skin as many species of birds will clean other animals of things like ticks or build up of dead skin and plant material. Same thing is happening in the video the bird sees something like a small bug or dead skin and wants to eat it. Even birds like crows will do this when it comes to ticks which shows just how common the behavior is.
Bizarre beast suggestion: Nothobranchius killifish Shortest lifecycle of a vertebrate species. Nothobranchius Fuzeri mature, spawn, and die within three months. They lay there eggs in mud that dries out for months until rain comes again. Bonus: they're super colorful and cool looking!
OMG YES killifish are so cool! I have a species of longer living ones and its interesting how their eggs have a far longer incubation period then most fish of that size. I guess that is because their ancestors where seasonal fish that readapted to a "normal" livecycle. I don't know if this is actually the case for this genus (Epiplatys), but i heard that there is genetic evidence in some killifish, that they have switched between stategies multiple times in the past, which is just evolution at it's finest.
Thank you for remaining pro-science, pro-reality in the ugly face of anti-scientific nonsense, ‘intelligent’ design silliness, and mass belief in stupid conspiracies! This channel and the others from these creators are a lovely breath of fresh air. Fresh, tropical, island air, even!
Then again hope these aren't the science deniers that believe in non-binary as it's a trend I am noticing. If going to be fully pro-science then you must throw all unscientific stuff out the window.
@@MaoRatto nonbinary identities aren't anti-science, they're an application of the social sciences and the social construct of gender identity. Please stop acting like everything that makes you feel funny inside is somehow fake
Wow, those rails have deep and enduring beef with crabs, I'll bet the crabs have a tendency to predate rail eggs and young chicks. Or they just don't like the look of ocean bugs? 🤔
It seems to me that this is just convergent evolution, but happening at different times. Rather than two species of far different classifications evolving into similar forms, it's two species of far different times evolving into similar forms.
Your wording is incorrect by not presenting valid comparisons, but that aside, one point; convergence doesn't require the taxa to be contemporaneous, so that part is irrelevant.
please do an episode on the Aldabra tortoise the second largest tortoise in the world and they are endangered. And you can get one from a reputable breeder causeway they are being bred commercially be aware they are the second largest tortoise they can weigh up to 500 lbs. And they're very very friendly.
@@foxgloved8922 aldabras are not endangered. They're all over their native environment. Galapago tortoises, ARE endangered, and you can't get them. Totally different species.
Aldabra tortoises are vulnerable (just one step from endangered) according to Wikipedia and PBS and IUCN. So @shaden0040's comment was incorrect, but there is indeed concern about the species. IUCN's website states their status was assessed in 1996, which is 28 years ago; I wonder if they are doing better or worse now. The IUCN website notes that (in 1996, I assume) "population severely fragmented", "continuing decline of mature individuals", "continuing decline in area, extent, and/or quality of habitat".
When you're a paleontologist and someone says "Matrix": "Ah, the sediment or rock that encloses a fossil. Fascinating!" When you're a movie fan and someone says "Matrix": "Red pill or blue pill? Welcome to the real world, Neo!"
So basically, it's a case of convergent evolution with a common ancestor. A evolved into B, and then later A evolved into C; B and C just happen to have similar traits because they evolved under similar (basically identical) conditions and started from the same form. Neat!
The book "Improbable Destinies" is about this feature of evolution. It covers evolutionary experiments with introducing lizards to tiny islands in the Caribbean and allowing tiny fish to colonize pools upstream.
Penguins are flightless birds but water is a second home to them, many birds like seagulls can float, so the question is, did those rials go extinct when the island flooded? Or did some of them float to another island somewhere and return later after some evolutionary tweaking.
I've come to believe, over time, that there is 'evolve gene' functioning in every living thing i.e. Evolution is not chance, nor accidental. Rather than just saying that a species "lost the ability to fly", I say that this rail 'thought' the wings away. i.e. A wish gene. In this case, wings became a nuisance, so over time less energy was put into growing an unnecessary accessory. Thus, we will come to see what evolution really is - If an animal desires longer legs, it gets longer legs.
Unaddressed question, can the flightless Aldabran rails still mate successfully with the Madagascan root stock? are they separate species or sub-spieces? if the flightlessness evolved in 16,000 years from the same root stock and they can still successfully breed with their root stock it is conceivable that the pre-flood sub-species could breed successfully with their post flood cousins.
The thing that gets me, if that bird evolved on that atoll that could have been swallowed up by waves... What obscene ungodly impossible level of probability had to happen for that atoll to not get swallowed up by waves for the millions of years needed?
How do we tell the difference between rail evolution and rail manifestation of ancestral flightless trait manifesting in the presence of their ground-foraging, low-predator island lifestyle? Are there species of birds that have adapted from flightless to flight, and back again, the way some animals have gone from aquatic to land back to aquatic?
You are right! Dodo's are related to pigeons! We were just saying that they are the most famous flightless bird that lived on an island in the Indian Ocean, not that they were also rails.
What I found interesting was in the scenes where you see the bird pecking at a relatively large crab, I noticed that it was a female crab carrying eggs and the bird isn't so much pecking at the crab as much as it is stealing the crabs eggs. That is one way to keep the land crab population under control.
Is the rail going after the crab, or the eggs it's carrying on it's underside? It looked to me like they were just trying to pluck off a few eggs, not take out the entire crabby boi.
Species translates to something like “semblance/form.” When the word was first used by scientists they meant “these all have the exact same form and do the exact same thing.”
So this isnt two identical evolutions of the same parent species, but this _near_ identical evolution of the same parent species raises an interesting evolutionary possibility: could iterative evolution be a factor in the development of traits that are reinserted into the parent population? Say theres an island that is periodically connected to the mainland when sea levels drop where flightless birds evolve during periods of isolation, that are then reintroduced to their flying relatives when the island becomes connected again. The level of speciation isnt so radical that the two populations can't interbreed, so the flightless gene is taken up by the flying population. This process repeats many times until enough copies of the flightless gene get introduced to the flying population that it primes the flying population to evolve flightlessness at the drop of a hat. Or something similar. I was actually thinking about hammerhead sharks, but i dont think there's any evidence that they went through iterative evolution.
Coral atolls form at the top of seamounts, many of which are extinct volcanoes. Extinct volcanoes inevitably collapse, resulting in gradual subsidence and causing what was once an island paradise to sink beneath the waves. No sea level rises necessary. It just is what it is. That said, the ups and downs of sea level adds it's own consequences to this and, what can I say? It's never easy!
i mean, if they’re omnivorous, an island bird, & alive today, that makes me think that they could’ve just swam? have we observed them swimming to find food before? cuz an atoll is a great place to learn, especially if your home regularly becomes flooded. if you’re caught up in a storm at sea, it’s probably safer at the edge of the water then amongst the clouds
That could have happened but it's not the most obvious solution. Birds fly, duh, but particularly the family of Gruiformes (also features cranes) are less keen on actual swimming than proper waterfowl (Anseriformes). So comparing the behaviour of extant relatives the proposal of flying from Madagascar to Aldabra is more logical. It is the first hypothesis scientists in ornithological evolution tend to explore to explain species distribution. In addition, rails and crakes are often found near aquatic habitats and feature some adaptations for living on wet surfaces or in the water. But pedalling along the 420km from Madagascar to Aldabra (or the other way around) across an ocean would be a rather extraordinary feat for a bird that's poorly adapted to marine life, without any accidents on the way.
@@NewAge374 Could the rail have swum over from a nearby island, rather than from Madagascar? Or been swept from one nearby island to another on a raft of storm debris?
@@JaniceinOR I don't remember what the video showed exactly but Madagascar would've been the closest island where the ancestral species of rail comes from. What you say sure is possible, but the point of my earlier comment was to say that it's not the most likely origin, which means you need stronger evidence to suggest it compared to the theory of re-evolving that this video proposes.
@NewAge374 Thank you for clarifying the relevant geography (that Madagascar is the closest other land, and that it is 420 km away). I had not looked at a map, and other comments had sounded as if there were nearby islands.
In New Zealand we have 2 that are flightless and another 2 that are/were getting that way.... .....before the greatest selection pressure of all time showed up that is.
I would hope that certain birds like that would develop the ability to at least float on top if the water. A lot like how Ducks do.. Obviously they won't have the waterproofing effect that most birds that evolved to interact with water have developed
If Michael Levin's work is correct, then genes just code for proteins. The body plan is somehow stored in electrical potential across the cells of an organism. I'd be interested to see how that would impact evolution. If genes aren't all that important for a body plan, then what affects changes in body plans?
Iterative evolution is kind of amazing because it shows how strong selective pressures and strict niches can generate the "same" species multiple times.
I believe it would be more likely that these flightless rails evolved and probably crossbred with flighted rails, who took the genetics away from that area for a time, and then once reintroduced those genetics remain predominant. Meaning that the rail never d evolved or re. Evolved. But simply the genetics, we're already transfixed in its genome
Might be interesting to check the mainland population of white-throated rails, and see if there's a low but non-zero incidence of chicks being hatched among them that lack the capacity for flight. Off the atoll where predators are prevalent, such a trait would rate as a genetic flaw that incurs a fatal disability, but on the atoll it's a harmless energy-saver.
Awwww... those little black fluffybutt Rails are adorable! 🖤🖤 And this is (as Hank mentioned) like how things like to become crabs, except in birds, so it's not really so surprising, IMO. Interesting, yes - very! But not horribly strange. 😊
if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, smells like a duck, eats like a duck, raises young like a duck, exhibits all the exact same behaviors as a duck, evolved from the same older bird as a duck, is indistinguishable from a duck even under close scrutiny and under many microscopes, it might not be a duck, because one protein in it's RNA sequence is slightly different. yeah that tracks logically.
A pair of identical twins fit that definition yet clearly aren’t the same person. These birds are a case of convergent evolution, just at 2 different points in time. There’s no reason to think that they would even be genetically similar either because it’s likely that the founder population in both cases had some differences. They literally can’t be considered the same species because the birds there today are not descended from the ones that used to live there.
I feel sorry for the larger crabs, it looks like death by a thousand cuts. I am not sure that the crab would be able to kill the bird any faster. I assume the occasional bird misjudges the strength or speed of a crab and gets clamped.
What if these birds crossbreeds and are like feral pigs where when they enter a certain area, their recessive genes or different methylation pattern on phenotype expression become active. When they enter a different environment, the environmental stress forces them to activate or de methylate enough genes to make their offspring express a different phenotype. If that’s the case then these birds never really went extinct as much as the phenotypic variant went dormant as there were no environment that could utilize it.
I thoughts dodos were columbids like i swear its been pretty solidly confirmed using genetics and anatomical similarities that the dodo and rodrigues solitaire were pigeons the 'rail' on Reunion was also an ibis upon a small amount of googling the only thing i found connecting any of these animals to rails was allegedly fringe theories from the 1800s
The Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) of Mauritius was most definitely NOT a species of rail, but rather a species of flightless pigeon from the family Columbidae (pigeons and doves). The same goes for the Rodrigues solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria) from the neighboring island of Rodrigues. Yet, species of flightless rail did indeed coexist (and also went extinct) with both the Dodo and the Rodrigues solitaire on each island, that being the Red rail (Aphanapteryx bonasia) and Rodrigues rail (Erythromachus leguati) respectively. And on Reunion, there was the Réunion rail (Dryolimnas augusti), also lost to extinction. Other extinct representatives of the Rail family found in the Mascarene Islands were the Mascarene coot (Fulica newtonii) and the hypothetical Réunion swamphen (Porphyrio caerulescens).
This feels like the scientific version of reincarnation. There was a species here before, a lot like you, and they suffered a tragic fate. Then you came along, and started evolving in the same way they have, despite the fact that you are a different entity
He called them "flightless birds". I think people are just interpreting the video as saying they're related to rails because the immediate follow-up example is another rail species.
Oh, so as global warming causes sea levels to rise again, there will be more extinctions? Or, can we set up preserves to hold enough of each endangered species to maintain it? Seems we fell down on that for one rhino species.
Call me callous or whatever but I don't really see the point of preserving an animal that is specifically evolved for one island that no longer exists, unless we've got some amazing plan to dredge it back up again. Maybe you could keep a zoo populations for study but where the hell are you going to put a wild reserve? Usually these conservation programmes seek to protect/restore the habitat by using the endangered species as a figurehead, but you can't just start rewilding a patch of sea.
@@AbiSaysThings On your point about where we would put them, we also have to deal with the question of whether they might become an invasive species. No, I don't think you're callous for considering all the possibilities. I'd rather be realistic and think things through than be idealistic and impulsive. Thanks for the comment.
@@feuerlingwell no because like I say you're usually trying to preserve or restore their natural habitat. If that natural habitat is one island which is now underwater, it's pretty hard to get it back.
@@TesserIdyes that's exactly my thinking! It would be lovely to save them but ultimately you're going to have to destroy some other habitat - probably a different rare island habitat - just to give them some space. Probably we should focus on not letting sea levels rise so much that this is an issue.
Similar to the Eastern Coyote, a newcomer to the Eastern US and a recent wolf-coyote hybrid, which has filled the niche of the nearly extinct Red Wolf, which was probably also a wolf-coyote hybrid from tens of thousands of years ago.
Check out Manta Sleep here bit.ly/3OVmdhe and make sure to use bizarrebeasts for 10% off your order! And then, take a nap!
Why don't you get to think of a suggestion and creating a TH-cam Videos all about the Bizarre Bird Species called a Shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) 👞 🐦 on the next Bizarre Beasts maybe next month in June coming up next?!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️👍👍👍👍👍
Wish we'd see aldabra rails cohabed with aldabra tortoises in zoo's they're so cute
I have a serious question for people using a thing like this, is it because you can't sleep due to lights/sounds etc? I used to live a somewhat rough life early on so I got used to sleeping with sounds and lights(along with sun) without any issues. I always thought this was normal until I heard that a lot of people are struggling which came as a surprise to me. Makes me wonder how long it took to adapt to in the first place. To be completely honest I do need some sort of sound going on to be able to sleep so that's the downside I have a hard time sleeping in complete silence but that isn't an issue when you're living in a big city.
I already have the Manta Sleep Mask Pro from a different sponsored video and use it every day at work to take naps on my 15-minute breaks. I work in a warehouse, but finding a spot to snooze in is pretty simple. Just need three tall totes: 1 as a seat and the other 2 stacked very strategically like a table.
The mask is cool cause the eye cups are modular and can be pulled off and reoriented on the mask itself due to velcro. The cups also don't put pressure on your actual eyeballs like generic sleep masks do since they're cup shaped rather than flat.
Cant seems to use the code, is it exclusively for US?
The species didn’t re-evolve, the part just got recast
clever…
In the future, we will either create mutually beneficial relationships with all of these people and animals whom we haven't yet met (such as these rails) which will be worth defending, or we will be guilty of being "Against" these harmonious relationships.
Some things never become less modern. People who love their job and wouldn't mind being left alone have freedom and are subject to their own intrapersonal "judgement" regarding any mistakes which they've made while "under oath". This is what guides people toward success. Some of us have no identity, nor oath. It seems like the oath is like a fountain from which identity is granted. So our focus on safety is superfluous, but success/progress are NOT. What if we were trying to MORE than simply get things "back to normal"? Do you want things to be Better Than Normal for the first time? What's the Oath for that? What's the identity of people who want things to be Better than normal? Do they not have identities yet?
We don't yet have a "Steve Irwin-ist" era of journalism where "history is defined by the victor".
@@seanrowshandel1680ark survival evolved story is that humans and everything on earth is Mosul extinct (except humans on genesis ships in stasis) and we leftbhind technology able to recreate any life that ever lived and even alter its code
Mostly not Mosul
hey mark that spoiler alert :)
Thank you for not falling down the aforementioned media rabbit hole of “this bird evolved twice” and instead establishing the probable distinction between the two iterations. And regardless, this was a very interesting video, as per usual!
Did you expect otherwise from this channel ?
Honestly I ignored all media coverage of this until I saw this video and.... it ended up so interesting
It didn’t even talk about the bird…
I mean anyone with 2 braincells know the distinction bro.
@@carlosandleonno, science needs taught, humans don’t inherently know anything
Rail vs Crab looks like a real life Pokémon battle
"Rail uses peck. It is not very effective"
Or maybe Another Crabs Treasure?
It really looks like a turn based fight 😂😂
@@jamesoshea580 "Crab waves claw - misses."
@@FischerNilsArail uses bird dance and it's attack increases
so sad that all the rails went extinct in the 1800s when they were killed to make railroads
Fun fact! Their use in railroads led to breeding programs and an explosion in their populations, but it was ultimately the coming of cars and paved roads that led to their decline
@@Lolibeth Facts.
Boo - but also, bravo!
When my sustainability analyst sister says taking the train is more environmentally friendly than driving my car. No, Mikaela, train is murder!
Yes but it was necessary. It made the extinction of Indians, scientific name: native Americans, much easier.
So we didn't get a re-release.
We got a remake.
Perfect description 😂
The clip where the rail starts pecking the tortoise and the tortoise looks like it’s going “hey cmon man”
i would love to get a plants series like this. Theres SO many weird plants. Sandbox trees and exploding cucumbers!
Also i would love to consult if something were to come of that...
Check out floralogic
Yes! and the Gympie Gympie from Australia
That would be pretty wonderful. All the stinky plants, exploding plants, plants that just ALWAYS choose violence, plants that will both sting you AND can be used to soothe the sting they just made, plants that give you sun sensitivity for extended periods of time...
That would be awesome!!
"Did This Bird Really Evolve Twice?"
crabs: amateurs
This is why the rail is out for those crabs
Peace was never an option in the re-evolution community
@@primevalrex7266 The rails are leading an uprising against the crabs. It's a revolution
Trees: 😎
Crabs are ugly tho so who really won?
@@mhead1117 your mom is ugly
but seriously, do not insult crabs in my presence
My favorite name for a flightless rail is an Atlantic species, the Inaccessible Island Rail. Named for its home island, which is not so much hard to get to as hard to set foot on.
I was just interested until they showed the clip with the chicks OMIGOSH, THE ADORABLE RAIL BABIES! They are so FLUFFY!!!!!❤❤❤
It's the do-do bird 2.0!
Tbf most birds chicks are fluffy. :D
I also found it interesting how the babies are completely black but the adults are different colors.
Oh, I am an equal opportunity lover of fluffy chicklets 😂 we are birb folks over here. I agree about the color difference, all black growing into more colorful is somewhat unusual.
Agreed, they’re little babies!! They’re friend shaped for sure
What an odd poetry that the thing we think of as "the most bird-like" thing about birds - their flight - is something they "seem to hate doing" since it's so energy intensive, and is one of the first things they ditch given half a chance and no penalties for doing so.
If I had a nickle for every time a flightless aldabra rail evolved on the Aldabra atoll I'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right?
"Only 2x? Those are rookie numbers."~ Crabs
Omniman: “What’s another 17,000 years? I can always start again. Make another bird!”
Thank you for reminding me about the Reunion swamp hen, I'd forgotten about it since Brady last mentioned it
IS THIS MAN ON EVERY TH-cam CHANNEL????
Wait until you meet Simon Whistler.
@@greywolf7577 I feel like every day he starts a new channel that I then tell TH-cam to block, only for me to get recommended a new video from him on another channel the next day.
There’s 10 people somehow creating every channel lol
Science channels
Why does the rail at 2:15 have to be so rude? The Aldabra tortoise is just minding its own business
Straight up just poking him in the eye. That’s so rude!
Behaviorally they really remind me of chickens.
Chickens do the same things. I have one who always tried to eat the little brown mole on my leg. It's like they get fixated on an image and decide "i'ma try to eat that"
@@mattfleming86 They think it is something like a tick or maybe something that is stuck on you like part of plant you brushed up against or dead skin as many species of birds will clean other animals of things like ticks or build up of dead skin and plant material. Same thing is happening in the video the bird sees something like a small bug or dead skin and wants to eat it. Even birds like crows will do this when it comes to ticks which shows just how common the behavior is.
Bizarre beast suggestion: Nothobranchius killifish
Shortest lifecycle of a vertebrate species. Nothobranchius Fuzeri mature, spawn, and die within three months. They lay there eggs in mud that dries out for months until rain comes again. Bonus: they're super colorful and cool looking!
OMG YES killifish are so cool! I have a species of longer living ones and its interesting how their eggs have a far longer incubation period then most fish of that size. I guess that is because their ancestors where seasonal fish that readapted to a "normal" livecycle. I don't know if this is actually the case for this genus (Epiplatys), but i heard that there is genetic evidence in some killifish, that they have switched between stategies multiple times in the past, which is just evolution at it's finest.
YES KILLIFISH ARE SO COOL
That bird : HELLO BOYS, I'M BAAAACK
Ah no, wrong bird. It's Quaids rail that's attributed with that particular call.
Thank you for remaining pro-science, pro-reality in the ugly face of anti-scientific nonsense, ‘intelligent’ design silliness, and mass belief in stupid conspiracies! This channel and the others from these creators are a lovely breath of fresh air. Fresh, tropical, island air, even!
Then again hope these aren't the science deniers that believe in non-binary as it's a trend I am noticing. If going to be fully pro-science then you must throw all unscientific stuff out the window.
@@MaoRatto nonbinary identities aren't anti-science, they're an application of the social sciences and the social construct of gender identity. Please stop acting like everything that makes you feel funny inside is somehow fake
"Part of a train track" (Dad joke alert!) :-D
im more concerned with how insanely cute these rails are oml
"Only native flightless bird living on an island in the indian ocean"
- me in Australia fighting off emus daily......
Wow, those rails have deep and enduring beef with crabs, I'll bet the crabs have a tendency to predate rail eggs and young chicks. Or they just don't like the look of ocean bugs? 🤔
I mean, the crabs already won the first round, with that whole extinction of the first rail so... Maybe the new birds want generational revenge?
They're tasty
“I will gradually peck all the tasty bits from this pinchy bug.”
It can be all of the above. It's rarely if ever that black and white when it comes to nature.
We talking bout species that will each eat they own kind the moment any red shows from an injury
It seems to me that this is just convergent evolution, but happening at different times.
Rather than two species of far different classifications evolving into similar forms, it's two species of far different times evolving into similar forms.
Your wording is incorrect by not presenting valid comparisons, but that aside, one point; convergence doesn't require the taxa to be contemporaneous, so that part is irrelevant.
@@Dr.Ian-Plect Thanks, Doc!
“Crab-shaped” is such a delightful descriptor.
Wild that I had never heard the word gallinule before! We do have one species in Britain and it's super common, but we call it them moorhens.
Thanks!
Always good to see and hear Hank Greene!
please do an episode on the Aldabra tortoise the second largest tortoise in the world and they are endangered. And you can get one from a reputable breeder causeway they are being bred commercially be aware they are the second largest tortoise they can weigh up to 500 lbs. And they're very very friendly.
Usually endangered animals can’t be bought because, breeders or not, rareness encourages poaching. What’s different in this case?
We have done an episode on giant tortoises! th-cam.com/video/v_g9S0Ys-p8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=9L_F0vwKV-PdVpVg
@@foxgloved8922 aldabras are not endangered. They're all over their native environment.
Galapago tortoises, ARE endangered, and you can't get them.
Totally different species.
@@keithfaulkner6319 thanks for the clarification. OP made it sound like they are advocating for purchasing an endangered animal.
Aldabra tortoises are vulnerable (just one step from endangered) according to Wikipedia and PBS and IUCN. So @shaden0040's comment was incorrect, but there is indeed concern about the species. IUCN's website states their status was assessed in 1996, which is 28 years ago; I wonder if they are doing better or worse now. The IUCN website notes that (in 1996, I assume) "population severely fragmented", "continuing decline of mature individuals", "continuing decline in area, extent, and/or quality of habitat".
Wasn't the dodo a flightless pigeon, rather than a rail?
i think he meant that there's more extinct rails rather than dodos being rails
Technically I'm pretty sure dodos are part of the Paleaognathae
@@theapexsurvivor9538 no, I checked. They're definitely part of the Columbidae (pigeons).
He didn't say they were rails, just another flightless bird in the area!
the correct term for siniment around a fossil is called a matrix.
When you're a paleontologist and someone says "Matrix":
"Ah, the sediment or rock that encloses a fossil. Fascinating!"
When you're a movie fan and someone says "Matrix":
"Red pill or blue pill? Welcome to the real world, Neo!"
Let’s say: “near identical adaptations of the same root species evolved on two separate occasions”
So basically, it's a case of convergent evolution with a common ancestor. A evolved into B, and then later A evolved into C; B and C just happen to have similar traits because they evolved under similar (basically identical) conditions and started from the same form. Neat!
The book "Improbable Destinies" is about this feature of evolution. It covers evolutionary experiments with introducing lizards to tiny islands in the Caribbean and allowing tiny fish to colonize pools upstream.
Nature said "extinct". Bird said "nuh uh"
Penguins are flightless birds but water is a second home to them, many birds like seagulls can float, so the question is, did those rials go extinct when the island flooded? Or did some of them float to another island somewhere and return later after some evolutionary tweaking.
I've come to believe, over time, that there is 'evolve gene' functioning in every living thing i.e. Evolution is not chance, nor accidental.
Rather than just saying that a species "lost the ability to fly", I say that this rail 'thought' the wings away. i.e. A wish gene.
In this case, wings became a nuisance, so over time less energy was put into growing an unnecessary accessory.
Thus, we will come to see what evolution really is - If an animal desires longer legs, it gets longer legs.
Unfortunately that isn't how it works. Though it would be great if we could just wish for wings and then fly about for a bit.
Unaddressed question, can the flightless Aldabran rails still mate successfully with the Madagascan root stock? are they separate species or sub-spieces? if the flightlessness evolved in 16,000 years from the same root stock and they can still successfully breed with their root stock it is conceivable that the pre-flood sub-species could breed successfully with their post flood cousins.
The thing that gets me, if that bird evolved on that atoll that could have been swallowed up by waves... What obscene ungodly impossible level of probability had to happen for that atoll to not get swallowed up by waves for the millions of years needed?
Damn the rail was weaving like a boxer against that crab lol
I noticed that Hank carefully avoided mentioning the third rail.
How do we tell the difference between rail evolution and rail manifestation of ancestral flightless trait manifesting in the presence of their ground-foraging, low-predator island lifestyle? Are there species of birds that have adapted from flightless to flight, and back again, the way some animals have gone from aquatic to land back to aquatic?
Cetaceans and sirenians are both fully, secondarily aquatic.
Was the dodo not related to pigeons ? Is there new evidence out ?
You are right! Dodo's are related to pigeons! We were just saying that they are the most famous flightless bird that lived on an island in the Indian Ocean, not that they were also rails.
@@BizarreBeasts Ah ok. Then i misunderstood. Thanks
If had a nickel for every time a flightless rail evolved on Aldabra, I'd have two nickels; which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
Bird versus crab. A rivalry as old as time.
I love rails. They are one of my favorite groups of birds.
Flightless bird crabification
What I found interesting was in the scenes where you see the bird pecking at a relatively large crab, I noticed that it was a female crab carrying eggs and the bird isn't so much pecking at the crab as much as it is stealing the crabs eggs. That is one way to keep the land crab population under control.
Is the rail going after the crab, or the eggs it's carrying on it's underside? It looked to me like they were just trying to pluck off a few eggs, not take out the entire crabby boi.
Cool, I was not expecting to see Hank Green here when I clicked on this video
It should be noted that the variations of evolution are all the same evolution. It is only the circumstances that change.
Species translates to something like “semblance/form.” When the word was first used by scientists they meant “these all have the exact same form and do the exact same thing.”
Carl Linnaeus.
Thanos: I am inevitable.
Some atoll bird: 🐦
Always interesting, thank you.
This birb always comes back
So this isnt two identical evolutions of the same parent species, but this _near_ identical evolution of the same parent species raises an interesting evolutionary possibility: could iterative evolution be a factor in the development of traits that are reinserted into the parent population?
Say theres an island that is periodically connected to the mainland when sea levels drop where flightless birds evolve during periods of isolation, that are then reintroduced to their flying relatives when the island becomes connected again. The level of speciation isnt so radical that the two populations can't interbreed, so the flightless gene is taken up by the flying population. This process repeats many times until enough copies of the flightless gene get introduced to the flying population that it primes the flying population to evolve flightlessness at the drop of a hat.
Or something similar. I was actually thinking about hammerhead sharks, but i dont think there's any evidence that they went through iterative evolution.
Coral atolls form at the top of seamounts, many of which are extinct volcanoes. Extinct volcanoes inevitably collapse, resulting in gradual subsidence and causing what was once an island paradise to sink beneath the waves. No sea level rises necessary. It just is what it is. That said, the ups and downs of sea level adds it's own consequences to this and, what can I say? It's never easy!
ありがとうございます！
i mean, if they’re omnivorous, an island bird, & alive today, that makes me think that they could’ve just swam? have we observed them swimming to find food before? cuz an atoll is a great place to learn, especially if your home regularly becomes flooded. if you’re caught up in a storm at sea, it’s probably safer at the edge of the water then amongst the clouds
That could have happened but it's not the most obvious solution.
Birds fly, duh, but particularly the family of Gruiformes (also features cranes) are less keen on actual swimming than proper waterfowl (Anseriformes). So comparing the behaviour of extant relatives the proposal of flying from Madagascar to Aldabra is more logical. It is the first hypothesis scientists in ornithological evolution tend to explore to explain species distribution.
In addition, rails and crakes are often found near aquatic habitats and feature some adaptations for living on wet surfaces or in the water. But pedalling along the 420km from Madagascar to Aldabra (or the other way around) across an ocean would be a rather extraordinary feat for a bird that's poorly adapted to marine life, without any accidents on the way.
@@NewAge374
Could the rail have swum over from a nearby island, rather than from Madagascar? Or been swept from one nearby island to another on a raft of storm debris?
@@JaniceinOR I don't remember what the video showed exactly but Madagascar would've been the closest island where the ancestral species of rail comes from.
What you say sure is possible, but the point of my earlier comment was to say that it's not the most likely origin, which means you need stronger evidence to suggest it compared to the theory of re-evolving that this video proposes.
@NewAge374
Thank you for clarifying the relevant geography (that Madagascar is the closest other land, and that it is 420 km away).
I had not looked at a map, and other comments had sounded as if there were nearby islands.
This seems like Zelda games lore shenanigans
In New Zealand we have 2 that are flightless and another 2 that are/were getting that way.... .....before the greatest selection pressure of all time showed up that is.
I would hope that certain birds like that would develop the ability to at least float on top if the water. A lot like how Ducks do.. Obviously they won't have the waterproofing effect that most birds that evolved to interact with water have developed
How long has this channel existed and how did I not know about it!?
Please upload more rail vs crab footage!!!!
5:16 that crab is really pissed
This tactic might work on the dodo next year
If Michael Levin's work is correct, then genes just code for proteins. The body plan is somehow stored in electrical potential across the cells of an organism. I'd be interested to see how that would impact evolution. If genes aren't all that important for a body plan, then what affects changes in body plans?
a correction, dodo is a pigeon relative not a rail.
Evolution never ends!
Flight is a disadvantage...until it's a huge advantage.
Omg they’re just little guys
All dogs were the same breed 5,000 years ago.
They don't evolve twice. They were just island boys...
Hank your new hair looks so great! I hope you think so as well. Keep up the awesome.
Iterative evolution is kind of amazing because it shows how strong selective pressures and strict niches can generate the "same" species multiple times.
« Defining a species can be messy »
_PTSD throwback to Clint’s Reptiles crazy phylogenetic trees_
man-like man-like man-like monkeys be like 👁️👄👁️
North American rails are so secretive and hang out deep in swamps, it's such a thrill when you get to see one!
Interesting, but when the atoll sank what says the birds, tho flightless, didn't just swim to other atolls?
I believe it would be more likely that these flightless rails evolved and probably crossbred with flighted rails, who took the genetics away from that area for a time, and then once reintroduced those genetics remain predominant.
Meaning that the rail never d evolved or re. Evolved. But simply the genetics, we're already transfixed in its genome
Might be interesting to check the mainland population of white-throated rails, and see if there's a low but non-zero incidence of chicks being hatched among them that lack the capacity for flight. Off the atoll where predators are prevalent, such a trait would rate as a genetic flaw that incurs a fatal disability, but on the atoll it's a harmless energy-saver.
4:50 Who else heard "that we know of" in Lindsay's voice?
Awwww... those little black fluffybutt Rails are adorable! 🖤🖤 And this is (as Hank mentioned) like how things like to become crabs, except in birds, so it's not really so surprising, IMO. Interesting, yes - very! But not horribly strange. 😊
so a creature with the same pieces, on eye level at least, put together a very similar puzzle 😱
if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, smells like a duck, eats like a duck, raises young like a duck, exhibits all the exact same behaviors as a duck, evolved from the same older bird as a duck, is indistinguishable from a duck even under close scrutiny and under many microscopes, it might not be a duck, because one protein in it's RNA sequence is slightly different.
yeah that tracks logically.
A pair of identical twins fit that definition yet clearly aren’t the same person. These birds are a case of convergent evolution, just at 2 different points in time. There’s no reason to think that they would even be genetically similar either because it’s likely that the founder population in both cases had some differences. They literally can’t be considered the same species because the birds there today are not descended from the ones that used to live there.
I feel sorry for the larger crabs, it looks like death by a thousand cuts. I am not sure that the crab would be able to kill the bird any faster. I assume the occasional bird misjudges the strength or speed of a crab and gets clamped.
What if these birds crossbreeds and are like feral pigs where when they enter a certain area, their recessive genes or different methylation pattern on phenotype expression become active. When they enter a different environment, the environmental stress forces them to activate or de methylate enough genes to make their offspring express a different phenotype. If that’s the case then these birds never really went extinct as much as the phenotypic variant went dormant as there were no environment that could utilize it.
Eistein's definition of insanity is attempting the same wrong answer repeatedly with no adjustment after it fails.
Question: do the rail birds eat the crabs? Or are they pecking at the crabs because they are annoyed?
I was wondering the same thing. The crabs look too big for the rails to eat, though.
I thoughts dodos were columbids
like i swear its been pretty solidly confirmed using genetics and anatomical similarities that the dodo and rodrigues solitaire were pigeons
the 'rail' on Reunion was also an ibis upon a small amount of googling
the only thing i found connecting any of these animals to rails was allegedly fringe theories from the 1800s
some evolve to become crabs and some become... barnacles. yeah, they are the same freaking family
Someone in distant past invented rail gun and wiped them out.
The Dodo (Raphus cucullatus) of Mauritius was most definitely NOT a species of rail, but rather a species of flightless pigeon from the family Columbidae (pigeons and doves). The same goes for the Rodrigues solitaire (Pezophaps solitaria) from the neighboring island of Rodrigues.
Yet, species of flightless rail did indeed coexist (and also went extinct) with both the Dodo and the Rodrigues solitaire on each island, that being the Red rail (Aphanapteryx bonasia) and Rodrigues rail (Erythromachus leguati) respectively.
And on Reunion, there was the Réunion rail (Dryolimnas augusti), also lost to extinction.
Other extinct representatives of the Rail family found in the Mascarene Islands were the Mascarene coot (Fulica newtonii) and the hypothetical Réunion swamphen (Porphyrio caerulescens).
What if some of them were just holding their breath until the island came back?
This feels like the scientific version of reincarnation. There was a species here before, a lot like you, and they suffered a tragic fate. Then you came along, and started evolving in the same way they have, despite the fact that you are a different entity
"I... am inevitable."
-This bird, apparently.
I thought Dodos were pigeons .
Yep. Me too. And according to wikipedia as well.
He called them "flightless birds". I think people are just interpreting the video as saying they're related to rails because the immediate follow-up example is another rail species.
Oh, so as global warming causes sea levels to rise again, there will be more extinctions? Or, can we set up preserves to hold enough of each endangered species to maintain it? Seems we fell down on that for one rhino species.
Call me callous or whatever but I don't really see the point of preserving an animal that is specifically evolved for one island that no longer exists, unless we've got some amazing plan to dredge it back up again. Maybe you could keep a zoo populations for study but where the hell are you going to put a wild reserve? Usually these conservation programmes seek to protect/restore the habitat by using the endangered species as a figurehead, but you can't just start rewilding a patch of sea.
@@AbiSaysThings by that logic we shouldn't work to preserve _any_ animals that are suffering from habitat destruction
@@AbiSaysThings On your point about where we would put them, we also have to deal with the question of whether they might become an invasive species. No, I don't think you're callous for considering all the possibilities. I'd rather be realistic and think things through than be idealistic and impulsive. Thanks for the comment.
@@feuerlingwell no because like I say you're usually trying to preserve or restore their natural habitat. If that natural habitat is one island which is now underwater, it's pretty hard to get it back.
@@TesserIdyes that's exactly my thinking! It would be lovely to save them but ultimately you're going to have to destroy some other habitat - probably a different rare island habitat - just to give them some space. Probably we should focus on not letting sea levels rise so much that this is an issue.
Similar to the Eastern Coyote, a newcomer to the Eastern US and a recent wolf-coyote hybrid, which has filled the niche of the nearly extinct Red Wolf, which was probably also a wolf-coyote hybrid from tens of thousands of years ago.
The eastern coyote also tends to have a percentage of domestic dog mixed in with the wolf DNA.
Just reading about the Inaccessible Island Rail on Wikipedia and had to come back to this.