look for a book called Great Big Guinea Pigs by Susan L. Roth...a great book to read out loud to guinea pigs and a lot of fun to read to yourself as well... (and yes i have the book)
I did some research ( because as a horse girl, horse size doesn't tell me much because they can weigh between a 100 up to 2100 kg ) the sources vary, it's weight could be 350, 800, 1000 and even 1500 kg depending on the source. Sources seem to be a little more consistent when it comes to dimensions, 2,7 or 3 m from nose to tail and 1.5 m in height ( which makes me wonder why there is this huge difference in weight estimates, because I can't believe it to be obese ) however everything is an estimate as the only thing that has been found is a skull ( of 53 cm ) and an incisor ( of more than 30 cm ) which has been found in 1987 by an amateur paleontologist, and it's finding has been published in 2008. So so far there isn't much to report on, but I bet when they know more eons will make a video. Also here is a link with some more info, www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2008/01/south-america-large-rodent-discovery-animals/
This channel is just magic. Not the first time I have jumped into a video with a thought of "this isn't exactly my area of interest" only to be thoroughly engaged, hence why I do it every time.
I could see a storm off Africa ripping a tree over into the ocean that a few families of rats took shelter from the storm and got carried out to sea. They could eat the remaining leaves of the tree that the storm didn't rip off to get the residual moisture for the week or so journey. When they made landfall in South America if there were few predators they would breed quickly and fill almost every niche.
Imagine more than one tree where they're standing upright with their roots tangled together in one giant, buoyant mass. I think it's conceivable that this raft could stay largely intact for a week or so out in the ocean and sustain life for that long considering that its hitchhikers could derive enough water from their food to survive.
Yeah, until we discover that these landmass were actually still connected in ways we haven't been able to grasp yet. For example they show the map of africa moving as a whole but skeletons of whales have been found in the sahara desert so ... it actually changed quite a lot and this mainstream theory of drifting continents is valid until we can do more advanced underwater researches.
Capybaras are just the kindest most adorable rodents ever. Great baby sitters as well but unfortunately everyone in the place the live in the same places as Jaguars, Anacondas and Caimans.
Dude capybaras are thuff. Some areas of south america are now seing a overpopulation of they becase the only anima that can hunt one frequently is a jaguar, and they are in danger.
I'm actually from Brazil. Here they might live without natural predators in some low density urban/rural areas being taken care by the townsfolk as cultural heritage and part of the local culture and identity
@@chadoftoons Imagine that news. Capybara crisi in south america, thousands or capybaras are going to the U.S. in the search of a better life. But local rodents fear they will take theyr jobs as dam builders and stick things.
I wasn't aware that anyone considered this to be impossible, as many Pacific islands could only have been colonized by terrestrial species via rafting. Hawaii, for example, is 2100 km from the nearest land mass, Midway, a coral atoll where no terrestrial species could have developed, and over 3000 km from the nearest continental land mass. Humans only arrived in Hawaii about 2000 years ago, and the diversity of Hawaii's terrestrial species shows that the vast majority of them had to have arrived long, long before that. Hawaii could ONLY have gotten terrestrial life via rafting, and the *current* distance between South America and Africa is less than the distance from Hawaii to anything habitable.
That's probably how some of the terrestrial inverts of the subantarctic got there too; some snail in the Falklands could've used the Furious Fifties or Roaring Forties to get to the Kerguelen islands and later used birds to spread to the Prince Edward, Amsterdam, Heard and Crozet chains.
@Cody Last Name You think a bird carried an animal 3000 km, then dropped it and it was still healthy enough to be alive? Albatrosses travel about 300 km per day, and they're the absolute peak of evolution for long-distance flight. You're saying that a bird grabbed prey and flew for at least 10 days without eating it, and the prey was healthy enough to reproduce after 10 days without food or water. Not to mention that this bird would have to be one adapted for long-distance ocean flight, but still hunt on land and be able to carry prey, something aquatic birds can't do because of their webbed feet.
I dunno about all that. Iwould take a look at this article on the origins of Hawaiian life. www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150625-islands-where-evolution-ran-riot
Can you do a video about Pronghorns and other extinct Antilocapridae? I never looked into them until recently, but it blows my mind to learn that 1) they are the fastest animal in the Western hemisphere because they adapted to outrun the extinct American cheetah, leaving them with a phantom adaptation, and 2) that their closest living relatives are giraffes and they only look like antelope from convergently evolving to fill the American prairie niche. Please!
Their adaptation still works really well because the rest of the predators were slower. So it still helps because they can basically outrun everything. Meaning predators have to really sneak up on them to even get a good chance.
This sounds like it could make an epic animated movie in the vein of Ice Age. You could reference the new world primates doing the same thing in response. "If those damn rodents can do it, we can do it better!" Throw in some animal pirates, social drama on the raft etc.
Give the animals names that spoof Viking and Italian explorers. Or was it mostly the Spanish that charted South America? Anyway, continental discovery spoof.
Hahahha. So cute to hear Kellie saying Capybara! Great Channel. In Brazil we call it capiVara (y and i sounds the same) and it is a very very common animal. Even in big metropolis you can find them. Very resilient. It's amazing to learn something about its origins...
I am brazilian and once I tried to eat capybara meat, but was very expensive. The restaurant told us the cook certified meat from farms, they can't hunt the wild capybaras.
@@flamencoprof I couldn't remember who said it or if that was the exact phrase. Laziness is a disease, so I looked it up. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and I will edit the original statement. Thank you for reminding me.
@@keithdurant4570 It was an observation rather than a command, but glad to see someone who can respond in a civilised way. I was just thinking of all those young people who wouldn't know about it. :-)
here is the thing, scientists tend to eliminate options out of ideology. The drifting contienents theory is the mainstream one, therefore everybody bites to it and every researches has to stick with it. That eliminates quite a lot of options... and discoveries. Did you know whales once swam in the sahara ? and not only in egypt but also in Mauritania and in chilean desert. The sea level went up and down, and so did some landmass that are now underwater. It's hard to prove but it will be one day and people will laugh at this kind of documentary.
for some reason the scene of the French Taunters from Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to mind...but then i have a strange sort of brain that goes off on wild tangents like that and leaves me to wonder what's going to happen next... oh look! a squirrel!!!! gotta catch it.... *runs off to chase squirrels in the rain*
Galapagos tortoises are theorized to gave evolved from sea turtles who traveled to the islands and never left. If so, then they were probably "blown" off course, like the finches.
If we have observed such raft migrations in the modern era, it seems almost certain that it must have happened quite a lot over thousands, let alone millions of years.
The island hopping rafting makes a lot more sense. I always wondered how they could cross without food and water, not be sick and weak, avoid predation, and find others of their kind to mate with. It was like chance upon chance falling in their favor.
Thats not wrong though, during the middle ages they would partake in Lent. During this time the only meat they could have was fish so basically everything was a fish including Puffins and some geese. If it touches water its a fish.
In the late 1800's, there was a court case here in the US where it was legally determined that Whales and Dolphins are, dispite of their similarities to mammals, in fact fish. The case was mostly due to taxation of fish as opposed to "sea mammals" such as Otters, Manatiees, and Seals, and becuase fish were taxed less the fishing industry back the "whales are fish" side. Plus there was a lot of religious rhetoric used in the argument thay wouldn't stand up in a modern court. The point of this is that there is actually a legal precedent for considering oceanic mammals as fish.
The life of the Earth I'd like to see a video on all of the different "lives" that the Earth has lived. The Earth has been covered in lava, covered nearly in ice, really warm, a series of ice ages, had one continent, had no continents, had no life for a very long time, had only bugs living on its land masses, had way more O2 in its atmosphere, and may have even been hit by a moon! (the Earth may have even had rings around it at one point!!!) These weren't just quick passing moments but millions of years! The Earth is an old lady with a trillion stories to tell. Can you give us a brief history on that to bring it back to life for us?
I'd also like to see PBS Eons due a brief 4.5 billion year timeline of all the geological epochs in the Earth's history! That would really help put things in perspective!
Caden Rolland I mean, that’s this whole channel. Like that’s it’s purpose. If you want videos that cover larger swaths of natural history go back to the earlier videos on this channel, like the one that gives a definition of eons and the one that was about plate tectonics. These more specifically focused videos are being made more frequently on this channel because the big thematic ones have already been done. They even have a playlist for those overview videos I believe. Enjoy!
The video was informative and awesome and but all through it, i couldn't stop admiring how metal this amazing woman seems with the braid, the tattoo and the sweet sweet intellectual voice.
Sleeve tattoos are this decade's tramp stamp. Not saying this lady is a tramp, I'm just pretty damn sure we will look back at this in disgust some day.
Fascinating! I just learn of the ancestral origins of my guinea pigs (love them with all my heart) and their wild relatives. Its very amazing how much diversity and unique wonders the animal kingdom truly display, and they triumph the odds to became a successful family of creatures. The poor critters lost at sea must have had it rough with little food or safe drinking water available to them, but they were survivors, and fate had been waiting for them in the distant land that will become their new forever home. I am grateful for their journey to the new world, because now I have two wonderful guinea pigs that I cherish. :) I love nature (even if its frighteningly brutal sometimes. But that's life.)
Great video, as always! You guys should do one on the origin of the Giraffoidea and all of the giraffe relatives that are extinct but looked super cool and odd. Other suggestions I have that I think would be great: evolutionary history of the Hemichordata, a deeper look at the Pterosauria (the mechanics of flight for members of this clade and the diversity of it), and the Rhynchocephalia and how the tuatara has managed to outlive all of its relatives! Keep up the good work!
Just some ideas: 1) The Evolution of the Theory: a metacommentary on the development of the theory, starting with Grecophilosophers into transmutation and upward, giving people a full understanding of how scientists are where we are today 2) ecosystems through the ages: talk about how the Pleistocene shaped many ecosystems into what we know today 3) the mysterious radiation of Amazonian birds, thought at one time to be the result of fragmentation during the Pleistocene but now it’s uncertain the Amazon rainforest was actually all that fragmented 4) any number more cladistic videos: cervids, bovids, felids, you already did equids, etc. 5) the evolutionary science of selective breeding and sire affect, get people to watch because of man’s best friend and the ‘one true master of us all’ (cats) 6) Talk about the de-ossification of Myxini, that could be fun, and what actually makes a vertebrate and an invertebrate... in fact... 7) vertebrate Evolution and the anatomical indicators we use to identify this evolution Just some ideas to throw out. As always superb work! :)
Thank you guys from the PBS Eons channel. Learning has never been more fun. I feel so lucky to be alive in this great time where information and learning is not exclusively for people who can afford university!
Biologists would love to know too! Unfortunately still very little is known about it, and last I heard we still don't have any transitional bat fossils, nor any clear pre-bat ancestors/relatives. Bats just pop up in the fossil record (I think about 50 mya) as clearly powered-flight capable animals. Though, I heard that genetic studies of bat lineage relationships suggest multiple independent origins of flight in bats, which is just wild
many small mammals, especially ones evolved in drought-heavy areas, get all their water from the plants and insects they eat. there are also some rodents that get nutrients from eating bark or dried grasses. a raft with some insects green plant matter nine feet long and three feet wide could then sustain probably one tiny mammal for a couple of months or several for a week or two. anyone whose ever been to a petshop may have noticed how well rodents tolerate living in cramped conditions: maybe this is a trait that helped south american rodents on their journey. its also possible that there were thick mangrove swamps or something similar all across the Atlantic, which would explain how monkeys got to south america.
Hey, I'm a subscriber from Brazil and I think I watched almost all videos. I'd like so much to see a video about the evolution of the sireneans. Your work is amazing!!
Makes sense, with exception of a few key area, the western coasts of Africa have some very shallow or very rocky shoals. If rodents were to raft over from Africa to anywhere else it would have to be from here.
I would love it if you guys did an episode on various dating methodologies. I'm not sure but I think carbon dating can't be used to date things on time scales of millions of years? So I'd love to know how the clay (and hence teeth) was dated to 41 million years. Also, the concept of genetic dating is very interesting. I'm sure there are even more techniques that allow scientists to piece together the ages of various fossils/rocks/etc. It would make a great video.
And those iguanas built electric radial saws to prepare their rafts with... you can tell from 6:53 Now, scientists are trying to figure out whether the iguanas designed and developed gasoline, or electric devices.
Maybe there were even rafting rodents evolved to survive floods, who then got carried away... Rodents today are known for drastically changing their homes, like us, sometimes building dams, sometimes eroding river beds, so why not floating homes?
fun fact, there are a couple of species of iguana native to Fiji, they could only have got there by rafting all the way across the Pacific. that's a very long way.
Yes but reptiles have a much lower metabolism than mammals plus they conserve water better. It is ot as "impossible" for them to survive an ocean float.
I would love to know how Creatures survived the Cretaceous extinction to live on today yet not one dinosaur besides bird species. What is known on that subject?
@Dan Ryan but crocodilians... Turtles... That prehistoric fish... What constituted one surviving and not the other especially in so many different ecosystems? The size point does make sense but crocodilians were huge before and after the extinction... I just would like to think there is more to it then small creatures survived but maybe you are right.
I think in some cases luck was also a factor. It wasn't like birds, crocodiles, mammals, snakes, etc were unaffected. The majority of them also died but not enough to make them completely extinct. Burrowing could've increased the chance of survival, animals that could live on dead/decaying matter also had a big advantage as did animals that didn't need a lot of food (by being either small, cold blooded or both).
One likely factor according to research is diet. Metabolically active animals such as Dinosaurs Pterosaurs and Mammals were all hit especially hard however the surviving groups in addition to their small size share a lot of physical characteristics with seed eating and or Cashing animals such as dentition in surviving mammals and toothless beaks adapted for eating seeds in the surviving lineages of birds. Looking at fossil beds that cover the end Cretaceous extinction such as the famous Hell Creek Formation show a devastation of all herbivores and carnivores(particularity insectivores) which at the time made up the bulk of both groups yet none of which appear after the extinction. Low activity animal groups such as Crocodilians and Salamanders on the other hand were virtually unaffected with in the case of salamanders well over 90% of species carrying on as if nothing happened. This supports the primary driver of extinction being complete ecological collapse Additionally recent core sample studies of the Chicxulub crater itself reveal that the impact site was particularly rich in volatile fine particulates such as hydrocarbons and sulfur which were ejected high into the atmosphere in quantities which models suggest could have led to up to three yeas of perpetual darkness. That would be sufficient to lead to a complete global collapse of the ecosystem resulting in a mass extinction of flora which resulted in a cascade of impacts that led to all primary consumers unable to supplement their diet to starve to death. Afterwards once the initial carrion boon was exhausted carnivores would similarly have succumbed. Only the lucky few mammals and birds that adapted to eat the non perishable seeds were able to hold on long enough for the sun to once again support photosynthesis allowing the food chain to reestablish or so the theory goes.
Wouldnt it be most reasonable to assume that rather than make one hazardous journey, the rodents likely made stops at those islands along the way? Then, they may have adapted and survived for even a few millenia before another hurricane or other chance occurrence yielded the circumstances to move to another island and then, over a few maybe hundred thousand years at most, they'd have made it to south america. That'd be fairly quickly by geologic standards regardless
Haha! That’s how we felt when we sailed across the Atlantic! Nothing looked more awe inspiring than when we saw our first island after almost a month at sea!
I don’t see why anyone would doubt rafting as an almost certain explanation - as noted we see it happening now within our own short timeline and back then we’re talking hundreds of thousands of years.
I feel like it's more possible they got the dates wrong on this one and they existed on the larger land mass before separation of the two masses rather than a group of rodents survived on a raft for months with food and water. It's not impossible you have to be crazy to think that our way of record keeping is always flawless especially with all the things that may shake it up that might throw us off a couple hundred thousand years like earthquakes and other natural phenomenon that can make it seem more recent than it is. I mean dont get me wrong our measurement its definitely pretty accurate but I think this is one of those goofs but who knows it's much more fun to believe rodents somehow traveled the sea.
...what if an African Swallow carried those Histricognathes there?? monty python jokes aside, all cavies are simply the cutest animals, I've owned guinea pigs and a chinchilla. Sad that most chinchillas are raised and sacrificed in horrible conditions for their fur. The only animal that deserves that are those who would do the same thing...it's the second reason I'd never buy a chin coat, first being the ridiculous price.
Capybaras are probably so chill because their ancestors were calm enough to not freak out and drown while being taken across the Atlantic Ocean by Lady Luck on a raft of lawn clippings and turds.
I live on the east coast of Florida, right about halfway between Miami and Georgia. After Hurricane Maria passed out in the atlantic, there were quite a few cold, hungry iguanas on the beach that likely came from Puerto Rico or Dominica.
Showing my guinea pigs this video so they can be proud of their seafaring ancestors
CaityCupcakes This is the most wonderful thing I have read on the Internet all day.
look for a book called Great Big Guinea Pigs by Susan L. Roth...a great book to read out loud to guinea pigs and a lot of fun to read to yourself as well... (and yes i have the book)
🤗🤗🤗
I ate guinea pig in Ecuador.... it was actually the best tasting chicken I ever had.
@@tomservo5007oh
Definitely want to know more about the horse sized rodents???!!!
I did some research ( because as a horse girl, horse size doesn't tell me much because they can weigh between a 100 up to 2100 kg ) the sources vary, it's weight could be 350, 800, 1000 and even 1500 kg depending on the source. Sources seem to be a little more consistent when it comes to dimensions, 2,7 or 3 m from nose to tail and 1.5 m in height ( which makes me wonder why there is this huge difference in weight estimates, because I can't believe it to be obese ) however everything is an estimate as the only thing that has been found is a skull ( of 53 cm ) and an incisor ( of more than 30 cm ) which has been found in 1987 by an amateur paleontologist, and it's finding has been published in 2008. So so far there isn't much to report on, but I bet when they know more eons will make a video. Also here is a link with some more info, www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2008/01/south-america-large-rodent-discovery-animals/
@@Cora.T This is awesome! Thank you for sharing this information, hopefully more examples turn up soon!
I want to know what they ate. Some rodents will chew on anything and I could iimagine them eating other animals given the opportunity.
there's an episode of South Park that tells you all about it...
@@jchesterphotography no problemo 😃, yeah me to
This channel is just magic. Not the first time I have jumped into a video with a thought of "this isn't exactly my area of interest" only to be thoroughly engaged, hence why I do it every time.
Hear, hear!!
Exactly! I just made a similar comment, that this is quickly becoming my favorite TH-cam channel!
video was interesting because it was secretly about Atlantis.
@@brentgreeff1115 Ratlantis
I could see a storm off Africa ripping a tree over into the ocean that a few families of rats took shelter from the storm and got carried out to sea. They could eat the remaining leaves of the tree that the storm didn't rip off to get the residual moisture for the week or so journey. When they made landfall in South America if there were few predators they would breed quickly and fill almost every niche.
Great theory
Imagine more than one tree where they're standing upright with their roots tangled together in one giant, buoyant mass. I think it's conceivable that this raft could stay largely intact for a week or so out in the ocean and sustain life for that long considering that its hitchhikers could derive enough water from their food to survive.
Yeah, until we discover that these landmass were actually still connected in ways we haven't been able to grasp yet.
For example they show the map of africa moving as a whole but skeletons of whales have been found in the sahara desert so ... it actually changed quite a lot and this mainstream theory of drifting continents is valid until we can do more advanced underwater researches.
@@jeanzlarg6686 we’re well aware of continental drift. we have whale skeletons since whales evolved in the sea between india/pakistán and africa
@@jeanzlarg6686 With modern GPS trackers we can literally measure the motion of continents, day by day. They're moving, no question.
Columbus: I've crossed the Atlantic Ocean and discovered America!
Guinea Pig: Hold my running wheel
Water bottle.
"Hold my pumpkin seed."
Not Columbus. Gross.
Pikachu used Surf
I think it is more accurate to use Bidoof.
@@itstoughtobehumaninaworldv1872 pikachu looks more similar and can learn surf
Yup, Pikachus are descendants of those sea faring rodents
@@bobbiusshadow6985 Alolan Raichu
It's supereffective!
A great example of "write it in a novel and people think it's unrealistic" type of things.
Nature is damned fascinating man!
"There are no cats in America
And the streets are lined with cheese"
Reference?
An American Tail
That's plausible
Puma and Jaguars : "go home. You're drunk."
@@pennavedc Rodents made it to South America before felines! But there were other predators there already so moot point from their perspective
Capybaras are just the kindest most adorable rodents ever. Great baby sitters as well but unfortunately everyone in the place the live in the same places as Jaguars, Anacondas and Caimans.
Dude capybaras are thuff.
Some areas of south america are now seing a overpopulation of they becase the only anima that can hunt one frequently is a jaguar, and they are in danger.
Well they're lucky they don't live in Eurasia continent
Sell em as pets if they are overpopulating im sure someone would take a couple
I'm actually from Brazil. Here they might live without natural predators in some low density urban/rural areas being taken care by the townsfolk as cultural heritage and part of the local culture and identity
@@chadoftoons Imagine that news.
Capybara crisi in south america, thousands or capybaras are going to the U.S. in the search of a better life.
But local rodents fear they will take theyr jobs as dam builders and stick things.
Rats 40mil years ago:
Hey bro wanna go swim ?
Rat: sure dude
40million years later:
I wasn't aware that anyone considered this to be impossible, as many Pacific islands could only have been colonized by terrestrial species via rafting. Hawaii, for example, is 2100 km from the nearest land mass, Midway, a coral atoll where no terrestrial species could have developed, and over 3000 km from the nearest continental land mass. Humans only arrived in Hawaii about 2000 years ago, and the diversity of Hawaii's terrestrial species shows that the vast majority of them had to have arrived long, long before that. Hawaii could ONLY have gotten terrestrial life via rafting, and the *current* distance between South America and Africa is less than the distance from Hawaii to anything habitable.
That's probably how some of the terrestrial inverts of the subantarctic got there too; some snail in the Falklands could've used the Furious Fifties or Roaring Forties to get to the Kerguelen islands and later used birds to spread to the Prince Edward, Amsterdam, Heard and Crozet chains.
@Cody Last Name You think a bird carried an animal 3000 km, then dropped it and it was still healthy enough to be alive? Albatrosses travel about 300 km per day, and they're the absolute peak of evolution for long-distance flight. You're saying that a bird grabbed prey and flew for at least 10 days without eating it, and the prey was healthy enough to reproduce after 10 days without food or water. Not to mention that this bird would have to be one adapted for long-distance ocean flight, but still hunt on land and be able to carry prey, something aquatic birds can't do because of their webbed feet.
I dunno about all that. Iwould take a look at this article on the origins of Hawaiian life.
www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150625-islands-where-evolution-ran-riot
Can you do a video about Pronghorns and other extinct Antilocapridae? I never looked into them until recently, but it blows my mind to learn that 1) they are the fastest animal in the Western hemisphere because they adapted to outrun the extinct American cheetah, leaving them with a phantom adaptation, and 2) that their closest living relatives are giraffes and they only look like antelope from convergently evolving to fill the American prairie niche. Please!
Their adaptation still works really well because the rest of the predators were slower. So it still helps because they can basically outrun everything. Meaning predators have to really sneak up on them to even get a good chance.
This sounds like it could make an epic animated movie in the vein of Ice Age. You could reference the new world primates doing the same thing in response. "If those damn rodents can do it, we can do it better!" Throw in some animal pirates, social drama on the raft etc.
Give the animals names that spoof Viking and Italian explorers.
Or was it mostly the Spanish that charted South America? Anyway, continental discovery spoof.
You have your pitch to DreamWorks ready!
Isn't this just continental drift but on plants and with rodents/monkeys?
Don’t let Disney hear about this. Pitch it to Laika! Stop motion animation would work perfectly for a story like this.
W a pole shift as one of the climate disaster doom
Ahoy matey's. Set sail for South America.
Aye aye captain Ratty
Fang zes d
I’ll let you know if I see any of them when we are sailing back across the Atlantic to come home!
PiRats.
Arrr.
@@jimkid1392 pie-rats.
Hahahha. So cute to hear Kellie saying Capybara! Great Channel.
In Brazil we call it capiVara (y and i sounds the same) and it is a very very common animal. Even in big metropolis you can find them. Very resilient. It's amazing to learn something about its origins...
I'm from Argentina the capibara are really cool animals
But are they delicious?
@@JimRiven haha yeah actually they are 🍗
@@hernanhenriquez6778 Argentina an Brazil should stop to sell beaf to sell capybara meat instead.
I am brazilian and once I tried to eat capybara meat, but was very expensive. The restaurant told us the cook certified meat from farms, they can't hunt the wild capybaras.
+Hernan Henriquez Argentina is basically the country of rats
"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Or something you haven't thought about yet (which is far more likely, in most cases).
Quotes should have attribution.
@@flamencoprof I couldn't remember who said it or if that was the exact phrase. Laziness is a disease, so I looked it up. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and I will edit the original statement. Thank you for reminding me.
@@keithdurant4570 It was an observation rather than a command, but glad to see someone who can respond in a civilised way. I was just thinking of all those young people who wouldn't know about it. :-)
here is the thing, scientists tend to eliminate options out of ideology. The drifting contienents theory is the mainstream one, therefore everybody bites to it and every researches has to stick with it.
That eliminates quite a lot of options... and discoveries.
Did you know whales once swam in the sahara ? and not only in egypt but also in Mauritania and in chilean desert.
The sea level went up and down, and so did some landmass that are now underwater. It's hard to prove but it will be one day and people will laugh at this kind of documentary.
This had me looking up why beavers are in the Americas and in Europe. Turns out they are two separate specious that are only superficially similar.
Very closely related species though.
for some reason the scene of the French Taunters from Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to mind...but then i have a strange sort of brain that goes off on wild tangents like that and leaves me to wonder what's going to happen next... oh look! a squirrel!!!! gotta catch it.... *runs off to chase squirrels in the rain*
Different species, same genus
I have read that the raft method helped put tortoises that would become Galapagos Tortoises and Iguanas on the Galapagos so long ago .
Ancestors if today's Lemurs migrating to madagascar is another good example that's has a lot of documented evidence
Galapagos tortoises are theorized to gave evolved from sea turtles who traveled to the islands and never left. If so, then they were probably "blown" off course, like the finches.
If we have observed such raft migrations in the modern era, it seems almost certain that it must have happened quite a lot over thousands, let alone millions of years.
I saw a cartoon about this as a kid. It was called "An American Tail."
That’s not what An American Tale is about
Haeleigh Yazitekin A rodent comes to America. Same difference lol.
Except one is prehistoric and the other came on a boat to the United States.
Haeleigh Yazitekin Ehh, Tomato Tomato...
Haeleigh Yazitekin I'm pretty sure it was just a modern day retelling of the classic story told in this video
The island hopping rafting makes a lot more sense.
I always wondered how they could cross without food and water, not be sick and weak, avoid predation, and find others of their kind to mate with. It was like chance upon chance falling in their favor.
I hope capybaras know not to give rides to any scorpions
'I can't help it', the scorpion said. 'It's my nature'
It's free real estate
@@EricWeberFilm That explains Trump's behavior, too.
@@EricWeberFilm Although, I like scorpions more.
Family Guy?
"These are fish."
- some Spanish priest.
*Estos son peces
or portuguese
Thats not wrong though, during the middle ages they would partake in Lent. During this time the only meat they could have was fish so basically everything was a fish including Puffins and some geese. If it touches water its a fish.
In the late 1800's, there was a court case here in the US where it was legally determined that Whales and Dolphins are, dispite of their similarities to mammals, in fact fish. The case was mostly due to taxation of fish as opposed to "sea mammals" such as Otters, Manatiees, and Seals, and becuase fish were taxed less the fishing industry back the "whales are fish" side. Plus there was a lot of religious rhetoric used in the argument thay wouldn't stand up in a modern court.
The point of this is that there is actually a legal precedent for considering oceanic mammals as fish.
Truly enjoy listening to this channel
The life of the Earth
I'd like to see a video on all of the different "lives" that the Earth has lived. The Earth has been covered in lava, covered nearly in ice, really warm, a series of ice ages, had one continent, had no continents, had no life for a very long time, had only bugs living on its land masses, had way more O2 in its atmosphere, and may have even been hit by a moon! (the Earth may have even had rings around it at one point!!!) These weren't just quick passing moments but millions of years! The Earth is an old lady with a trillion stories to tell. Can you give us a brief history on that to bring it back to life for us?
I'd like to see that. It'd probably need to be a full 3-hour playlist, rather than just a single 5-minute video.
*goes to grab popcorn*
@@thomassaldana2465 It could be as long as they wanted it to be, that's for sure. Last time that story was told it took 4.5 billion years.
@@cadenrolland5250 im down to see that count me in
I'd also like to see PBS Eons due a brief 4.5 billion year timeline of all the geological epochs in the Earth's history! That would really help put things in perspective!
Caden Rolland I mean, that’s this whole channel. Like that’s it’s purpose. If you want videos that cover larger swaths of natural history go back to the earlier videos on this channel, like the one that gives a definition of eons and the one that was about plate tectonics. These more specifically focused videos are being made more frequently on this channel because the big thematic ones have already been done. They even have a playlist for those overview videos I believe. Enjoy!
“What about the R.O.U.S.’s?”
“Rodents of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist.”
😱😱😱
This is by far my favorite channel on youtube
capybaras are friend shaped
yeah❤
yeah❤
yeah❤️
Now I'm imagining a family of Capybaras arriving in South America, off their tree raft, and just hugging any animal that doesn't try to attack them.
a capybara killed a dog near my home, they are generally friend but dont get mistaken
The video was informative and awesome and but all through it, i couldn't stop admiring how metal this amazing woman seems with the braid, the tattoo and the sweet sweet intellectual voice.
the sleeve tatt is also rather impressive
Sleeve tattoos are this decade's tramp stamp. Not saying this lady is a tramp, I'm just pretty damn sure we will look back at this in disgust some day.
I think she isn't attractive at all.
To each his own~
You are probably even more metal I suppose!
So rodents sailed the oceans blue and discovered the Americas more than 40 million years ago?
Take that Christopher Columbus! 😂
@OLD BIRD CHOZO
Nope.
it's not like columbus was even the first european to discover the americas
* take that Vikings *
David Rosner they were escaping king Julian ;) they didn’t want to move it move it anymore
Cristopher Columbus didn't "discover" anything. There were literally million of people already living here.
One of the best YT channels out there, always a joy to watch new episodes
7:52 - One of the most interesting human names I've ever heard. Very interesting indeed.
I LOVE THIS CHANNEL!!!
Fascinating! I just learn of the ancestral origins of my guinea pigs (love them with all my heart) and their wild relatives. Its very amazing how much diversity and unique wonders the animal kingdom truly display, and they triumph the odds to became a successful family of creatures. The poor critters lost at sea must have had it rough with little food or safe drinking water available to them, but they were survivors, and fate had been waiting for them in the distant land that will become their new forever home. I am grateful for their journey to the new world, because now I have two wonderful guinea pigs that I cherish. :) I love nature (even if its frighteningly brutal sometimes. But that's life.)
I have a perfect Chinchilla. Her ancestors braved the ocean before mine were walking on two legs. Now she rides my shoulders
Could you cover the evolution of blood?
Arthropods don't even need veins. I forget how their blood works. There are arthropods and mollusks that use copper instead of iron in their blood.
Seem like they have now.
Great video, as always! You guys should do one on the origin of the Giraffoidea and all of the giraffe relatives that are extinct but looked super cool and odd. Other suggestions I have that I think would be great: evolutionary history of the Hemichordata, a deeper look at the Pterosauria (the mechanics of flight for members of this clade and the diversity of it), and the Rhynchocephalia and how the tuatara has managed to outlive all of its relatives! Keep up the good work!
Rodents on a naturally made raft when they see South America
Rodents: Well shiver me timbers lads we have a new land to colonise
Love Eons too much! please explore more about Last Universal Ancestor and scientific attempts to create life from inorganic matter!
Has anyone told you that youre the best host on this channel? They should. all the time.
Great job on the graphics and especially on the presentation!!!
Just some ideas:
1) The Evolution of the Theory: a metacommentary on the development of the theory, starting with Grecophilosophers into transmutation and upward, giving people a full understanding of how scientists are where we are today
2) ecosystems through the ages: talk about how the Pleistocene shaped many ecosystems into what we know today
3) the mysterious radiation of Amazonian birds, thought at one time to be the result of fragmentation during the Pleistocene but now it’s uncertain the Amazon rainforest was actually all that fragmented
4) any number more cladistic videos: cervids, bovids, felids, you already did equids, etc.
5) the evolutionary science of selective breeding and sire affect, get people to watch because of man’s best friend and the ‘one true master of us all’ (cats)
6) Talk about the de-ossification of Myxini, that could be fun, and what actually makes a vertebrate and an invertebrate... in fact...
7) vertebrate Evolution and the anatomical indicators we use to identify this evolution
Just some ideas to throw out. As always superb work! :)
great ideas!
Thank you guys from the PBS Eons channel. Learning has never been more fun. I feel so lucky to be alive in this great time where information and learning is not exclusively for people who can afford university!
I'm always bummed when there's no Eons episodes during a week...
I'd like to know how bats evolved flight
Biologists would love to know too! Unfortunately still very little is known about it, and last I heard we still don't have any transitional bat fossils, nor any clear pre-bat ancestors/relatives. Bats just pop up in the fossil record (I think about 50 mya) as clearly powered-flight capable animals. Though, I heard that genetic studies of bat lineage relationships suggest multiple independent origins of flight in bats, which is just wild
@@KellyClowers They ended up making an episode covering bats, even if there's a lack of fossils for the bat's transition.
As a guinea pig owner, I could see my guinea pig just chilling as he drifted off in the ocean.
Amazing! Interesting as always, thank you PBS!
I get so excited whenever you guys post a new video. I love this channel!
"What do you want to learn about?"
Cave Hyenas! :D
many small mammals, especially ones evolved in drought-heavy areas, get all their water from the plants and insects they eat. there are also some rodents that get nutrients from eating bark or dried grasses. a raft with some insects green plant matter nine feet long and three feet wide could then sustain probably one tiny mammal for a couple of months or several for a week or two. anyone whose ever been to a petshop may have noticed how well rodents tolerate living in cramped conditions: maybe this is a trait that helped south american rodents on their journey.
its also possible that there were thick mangrove swamps or something similar all across the Atlantic, which would explain how monkeys got to south america.
Hey, I'm a subscriber from Brazil and I think I watched almost all videos. I'd like so much to see a video about the evolution of the sireneans. Your work is amazing!!
Makes sense, with exception of a few key area, the western coasts of Africa have some very shallow or very rocky shoals. If rodents were to raft over from Africa to anywhere else it would have to be from here.
Ok they pulled up
I love EOS! I wish that you guys were able to do more than one video a week. I enjoy learning from this channel so much. Thank you EOS! 😍
Thats my first time seeing India breaking off from between Madagascar and Australia and hit the Asian mainland. Woow.
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
I would love it if you guys did an episode on various dating methodologies. I'm not sure but I think carbon dating can't be used to date things on time scales of millions of years?
So I'd love to know how the clay (and hence teeth) was dated to 41 million years. Also, the concept of genetic dating is very interesting. I'm sure there are even more techniques that allow scientists to piece together the ages of various fossils/rocks/etc. It would make a great video.
And those iguanas built electric radial saws to prepare their rafts with... you can tell from 6:53
Now, scientists are trying to figure out whether the iguanas designed and developed gasoline, or electric devices.
They didn't need saws, their tree was blown down by a hurricane.
I really like the video but I wonder how hard it was for her not to laugh at 7:52
This was one of the most fascinating episodes to date and has opened my mind to new possibilities regarding animal and people group migration.
7:52
I’m sorry who...?
Joachim Macdonald I noticed too
From Guadeloupe....rare to be mentioned is this kind of videos !!!! Little things that makes you happy :)
Rat bois go across ocean
me and the bois going in a vacation
ratatouille on another level.
This is quickly becoming my favourite TH-cam channel!
Maybe there were even rafting rodents evolved to survive floods, who then got carried away...
Rodents today are known for drastically changing their homes, like us, sometimes building dams, sometimes eroding river beds, so why not floating homes?
Ah yes rodents, They could kill us out of cuteness and diseases.
Maybe the Capybara ancestors built dams like beavers and some of those got washed into and across the atlantic ocean. With Pre-capybaras on them.
thanks for the map!! i love when you guys do that!
I want to open a copy-service and call: -CopyBara-
San Sone ahahahahahahahahaha
If you serve beer and cocktails there too, you can call it CopyBarA.
bara (slang for barato) = cheap (spanish)
copybara = cheap copying (stationer's shop)
These are some of my favorite videos EVAR. Thank you PBS, I promise I won't try to convince congress to cut your funding!
7:52 what a name
fun fact,
there are a couple of species of iguana native to Fiji,
they could only have got there by rafting all the way across the Pacific.
that's a very long way.
Yes but reptiles have a much lower metabolism than mammals plus they conserve water better.
It is ot as "impossible" for them to survive an ocean float.
I would love to know how Creatures survived the Cretaceous extinction to live on today yet not one dinosaur besides bird species. What is known on that subject?
@Dan Ryan but crocodilians... Turtles... That prehistoric fish... What constituted one surviving and not the other especially in so many different ecosystems? The size point does make sense but crocodilians were huge before and after the extinction... I just would like to think there is more to it then small creatures survived but maybe you are right.
I think in some cases luck was also a factor. It wasn't like birds, crocodiles, mammals, snakes, etc were unaffected. The majority of them also died but not enough to make them completely extinct.
Burrowing could've increased the chance of survival, animals that could live on dead/decaying matter also had a big advantage as did animals that didn't need a lot of food (by being either small, cold blooded or both).
One likely factor according to research is diet. Metabolically active animals such as Dinosaurs Pterosaurs and Mammals were all hit especially hard however the surviving groups in addition to their small size share a lot of physical characteristics with seed eating and or Cashing animals such as dentition in surviving mammals and toothless beaks adapted for eating seeds in the surviving lineages of birds. Looking at fossil beds that cover the end Cretaceous extinction such as the famous Hell Creek Formation show a devastation of all herbivores and carnivores(particularity insectivores) which at the time made up the bulk of both groups yet none of which appear after the extinction. Low activity animal groups such as Crocodilians and Salamanders on the other hand were virtually unaffected with in the case of salamanders well over 90% of species carrying on as if nothing happened. This supports the primary driver of extinction being complete ecological collapse
Additionally recent core sample studies of the Chicxulub crater itself reveal that the impact site was particularly rich in volatile fine particulates such as hydrocarbons and sulfur which were ejected high into the atmosphere in quantities which models suggest could have led to up to three yeas of perpetual darkness.
That would be sufficient to lead to a complete global collapse of the ecosystem resulting in a mass extinction of flora which resulted in a cascade of impacts that led to all primary consumers unable to supplement their diet to starve to death. Afterwards once the initial carrion boon was exhausted carnivores would similarly have succumbed. Only the lucky few mammals and birds that adapted to eat the non perishable seeds were able to hold on long enough for the sun to once again support photosynthesis allowing the food chain to reestablish or so the theory goes.
Wouldnt it be most reasonable to assume that rather than make one hazardous journey, the rodents likely made stops at those islands along the way? Then, they may have adapted and survived for even a few millenia before another hurricane or other chance occurrence yielded the circumstances to move to another island and then, over a few maybe hundred thousand years at most, they'd have made it to south america. That'd be fairly quickly by geologic standards regardless
I would love to just own a huge plot of land with a lake, and have some of these guys living within the fencing of my property. Just chillin' there.
Haha! That’s how we felt when we sailed across the Atlantic! Nothing looked more awe inspiring than when we saw our first island after almost a month at sea!
You should make a video about the unique birds in New Zealand 👍
@Third time Lucky Well hello there, vaultboy!
Seconded.
Continents break up, and they split the kids among them.
(...Wow, that was so bad, I don't even hear crickets...)
“That’s got to be be the best pirate I’ve ever seen.”
“So it would seem.”
"When all other options have been ruled out, the logical option may be the most absurd."
-Sherlock Holmes
I don’t see why anyone would doubt rafting as an almost certain explanation - as noted we see it happening now within our own short timeline and back then we’re talking hundreds of thousands of years.
What happened to your latest video about birds?
Yeah I just clicked on it and it disappeared
So glad I saw this because I thought I was going crazy. I was in the middle of watching it and now it’s gone.
Very true. I was thinking youtube was acting crazy
Fazz Gaplant Ha, I watched it before it was removed.
I thought the whole channel had been deleted, what a relief
I feel like it's more possible they got the dates wrong on this one and they existed on the larger land mass before separation of the two masses rather than a group of rodents survived on a raft for months with food and water.
It's not impossible you have to be crazy to think that our way of record keeping is always flawless especially with all the things that may shake it up that might throw us off a couple hundred thousand years like earthquakes and other natural phenomenon that can make it seem more recent than it is. I mean dont get me wrong our measurement its definitely pretty accurate but I think this is one of those goofs but who knows it's much more fun to believe rodents somehow traveled the sea.
Tell me about brachiopods. One of my favorite fossils!
That makes me wonder how many creatures didn't make the journey... Imagine the relief those widdle wodents would have felt upon arrival!
...what if an African Swallow carried those Histricognathes there?? monty python jokes aside, all cavies are simply the cutest animals, I've owned guinea pigs and a chinchilla.
Sad that most chinchillas are raised and sacrificed in horrible conditions for their fur. The only animal that deserves that are those who would do the same thing...it's the second reason I'd never buy a chin coat, first being the ridiculous price.
Capybaras are probably so chill because their ancestors were calm enough to not freak out and drown while being taken across the Atlantic Ocean by Lady Luck on a raft of lawn clippings and turds.
You should do a video on the evolution of bats, or maybe more generally the evolution of flight among mammals.
I'm envious of that lady's hair. Her braid looks really nice.
Ok I pull up
My favorite show on youtube.
Great video.
I live on the east coast of Florida, right about halfway between Miami and Georgia. After Hurricane Maria passed out in the atlantic, there were quite a few cold, hungry iguanas on the beach that likely came from Puerto Rico or Dominica.
"no questions asked"
Capybara: "dhdhdgtnureeak?"
How closely related are North and South American rodents?
Your making it all up.
whoa whoa whoa 7:50 what is his name?? hehehehe
I had to stop and enable subtitles too for a moment xD
What an unfortunate middle name! XDXD (Unless, you know...he was into that sort of thing...I'm not one to judge. :P)
This is my favourite tv show.
Behind the scenes episode!!!! What is the process behind making your awesome videos? Thanks Steve!
OF COURSE, Steve.
I wish she could narrate all the science videos.