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Explore the fascinating journey of life on Earth as we delve into how dinosaurs rose to dominance and ultimately vanished, paving the way for mammals to grow into the giants we see today. Join us for an enlightening look at the past!
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00:08the giant asteroid slammed into earth and a while after that dinosaurs were gone you'd think there's
00:15nothing to be afraid of now but nope some pretty unique and scary beasts started to evolve after
00:21that back at that time mammals were going through significant changes it seems that some of them
00:26like those similar to horses and rhinos became giant and powerful very soon after the dinosaurs were gone
00:34when dinosaurs were in charge which was about 145 to 66 million years ago mammals were relatively
00:41small creatures most of the time they lived in the shadows of their much bigger enemies to avoid
00:47ending up as their dinner many of them weighed around 22 pounds or even less but when the
00:54dinosaurs went extinct mammals finally had a chance to take advantage of the new environment for
01:00example brontotherus it took this opportunity and grew to enormous sizes they started at around 40
01:08pounds and eventually reached weights of four to five tons in just 16 million years this sounds long but
01:15it's relatively short in geological terms their large body size gave them and some other mammals an
01:21advantage after the dinosaurs disappeared now they were the dominant and ferocious creatures others
01:27were afraid of brontotherus whose fossils have been found in north america got this cool name thunder
01:34beasts from the sioux people because they believed these fossils came from giant thunder horses that would
01:40roam the plains during thunderstorms and it's still a mystery how these thunder beasts got to grow so big
01:47so quickly one of the theory says that they gradually increased in size over time another option is they
01:55went through rapid bursts of growth but also had periods where they didn't quite change or maybe there
02:01was a mix of species some were small and some were bigger but in general more of them ended up
02:06growing large
02:07and scientists studied a family tree of 276 thunder beasts and realized the third option fits the best
02:17it's all competition in nature back in that time most mammals were small so there was fierce competition
02:24among smaller plant-eating animals when it came to food the larger ones like thunder beasts faced less
02:30competition for the resources they needed to survive so bigger species had more chances to stay while the
02:36smaller ones went extinct quickly so yeah the end of the dinosaur era doesn't mean the end of impressive
02:45and giant animals you'd also run away from for example i definitely wouldn't like to face this fella
02:51it kind of reminds me of a giant sloth at first but those evolved tens of millions of years later
02:58this giant lived somewhere between 50 and 60 million years ago in north america
03:04it was around eight feet long and had an unusually massive and thick body and legs its tail was very
03:11thick as well this beast must have used it to support itself and stand on its hind legs its skull
03:18was
03:18relatively short and small compared to its large body what's interesting is that it still had collar
03:24bones which are bones that most hooved animals don't have anymore here's something comforting that makes it
03:30less scary though they probably ate plants that were soft enough to chew easily
03:37now imagine a snake so big it could easily rival the size of a t-rex it's not some mythical
03:44creature
03:45from fiction movies but titanoboa the incredible beast that lived around 60 million years ago in the
03:51lush forests and rivers of south america it was the largest snake ever that we know about it was
03:58actually like the ancient ancestor of today's boas and anacondas that still live in the same region
04:04its body was a mind-boggling 42.7 feet long which is longer than a school bus to support its
04:11giant body
04:12titanoboa had about 250 vertebrae which are the bones that make up the backbone of animals imagine how
04:20much it needed to eat to maintain such a massive body that was as heavy as a small car it
04:27went after
04:27fish and crocodiles that lived in the waters and rivers of its home a snake taking down a crocodile
04:33it had to be a powerful beast titanoboa holds the record at the moment but scientists believe we might
04:40discover more fossils of snakes that could be even bigger than this one
04:46you know there has to be some scary crocodile on the list back in the dino era there were even
04:52crocodiles that were 40 feet long and enjoyed snacking on dinosaurs you can tell they haven't
04:58become less scary even after that this beast lived between 15 million and 55 million years ago in what is
05:05now venezuela peru and argentina it belonged to a group that was there during the time of the dinosaurs
05:12but like many others got to live their best years and thrived after the dinos disappeared
05:18unlike most crocodiles that stick to the edge of the water you could easily come across this one
05:23since it liked to take walks on the land to check what was happening around check out its flattened
05:29blade-like teeth they remind of those carnivorous dinosaurs even more than other crocodiles this
05:35adaptation helped with catching prey during its chill afternoon walks on land this fearsome
05:41creature could grow to over 20 feet long and weigh more than 3 000 pounds which is bigger than today's
05:48saltwater crocodiles
05:52even a rhinoceros came in the xxl size in those post-dino times this one whose name i can't even
06:00try to pronounce was a massive herbivore that lived in eastern eurasia it looked like a rhino but it still
06:07had some differences like its neck that was stretching over six feet long which made it look
06:12like a rhino with a giraffe's neck the creature stood more than 15 feet tall at the shoulder towering over
06:19most other animals of its time it looks slender but it's still incredibly heavy with its 33 000 pounds
06:26which is like two to three grown african elephants or even a small house
06:34one of the biggest carnivores that wandered ice age australia wasn't a mammal but this frightening
06:40reptile called megalania it could grow to be over 18 feet long which is more than twice longer than
06:47the komodo dragon one of the largest lizards alive today megalania had sharp curved teeth similar to those
06:54of komodo dragons which means its bite was extremely powerful and maybe even venomous this venom worked
07:01in a way it could have prevented its prey from healing property which means the poor animal would
07:07become weaker so megalania didn't even have to work that much to catch it after that first bite
07:12no matter where its prey would try to escape
07:17moving on to birds now an elephant bird stood almost 10 feet tall and weighed over a thousand
07:24pounds you could see it on the island of madagascar more than a thousand years ago which is not even
07:30that long ago compared to the others one of the multiple species of elephant bird was so big that
07:36it could rival some non-avian dinosaurs such as utiraptor when it came to size and its eggs were gigantic
07:44too just one egg could weigh more than 20 pounds which is heavier than a bowling ball the interior of
07:50its
07:50egg had a lot of space so much you could hold more than a hundred chicken eggs inside
07:59land and air weren't safe from big beasts where you couldn't be sure if it wanted to eat you or
08:04your
08:04salad and it was not much different in the water either you've heard of leviathan right it was an
08:11ancient powerful predator and a type of sperm whale but much larger and more fearsome than those we know
08:17today while modern sperm whales mostly eat squid leviathan probably had a little bit different diet
08:24which included other whales another giant predator was also roaming around the same time and place as
08:32leviathan who else but our dear megalodon shark scientists believed megalodon also went after other
08:40whales and the fight for the sweetest bite or even among each other was probably spectacular
08:47now dinosaurs ruled our planet for over 165 million years and some walk on our planet even today well
08:55at least some of their descendants our modern birds evolved from what used to be a scary group of meat
09:01eating dinosaurs we know as theropods it all started during the mesozoic era about 250 million years ago when a
09:09group of creatures called dinosaur morphs roamed earth they didn't look like those dinos that
09:14might have come to your mind like brontosaurus or t-rex but that's the group dinosaurs evolved from
09:20these creatures walked on all fours and were as big as house cats they didn't look as friendly though
09:26considering they were more like weird lizards with long thin limbs as you'd expect this group wasn't
09:31exactly at the top of the food chain but they were really fast and agile which helped them survive
09:39over time they adapted and started walking upright so their legs were under their bodies instead of out
09:45to their sides and over time dinosaur morphs started growing long tails and bigger leg muscles their necks
09:53became stronger to support the new position they were in and they even got extra hip bones that helped
09:58them move faster and more efficiently that's when dinosaurs came on the scene somewhere between 240 and
10:05230 million years ago their name comes from the word dinosauria which means terrible lizard the oldest
10:12dinosaur fossils belong to these fellows that lived in argentina this one is even older but we're still
10:18not sure if it's a real dinosaur or its relative dinosaur morph
10:25now considering the size of their ancestors dinosaurs weren't large at the beginning more like dogs or
10:31horses there weren't many species back then so if you could go back to that time you'd see a bunch
10:37of
10:37reptiles walking around on two legs but as time went by they adjusted to different environments and we got
10:44more interesting groups for example small and fast predators like this guy they all fall into the category
10:51of archosaurs a group that also includes pterosaurs yup their name may not imply it but these are not
10:58dinosaurs as some dinosaur morphs evolved into dinosaurs they got certain advantages like arms
11:04they could do much more thanks to that some could catch prey using their hands others could grasp branches
11:13now the freedom they got by moving their arms later helped some of them evolve into birds and start
11:19flying dinosaurs were probably warm-blooded it means they could stay active all the time they didn't
11:25depend on the conditions around them like for example reptiles do the latter are cold-blooded and they
11:31have to rely on their surroundings to regulate their body temperature dinosaurs didn't rule the animal
11:37kingdom for the first tens of millions of years of their existence either crocs were at the top of the
11:42food chain back then then the jurassic period hit and new kinds of dinosaurs showed up like those giant
11:49plant-eating dinosaurs for example seropods
11:55you know them dinos with long tails and necks that could eat plants at different heights such as
12:00brachiosaurus allosaurus is another famous dino from that time you will probably recognize spikes on the
12:07tail bony plates on the back you know good old stegosaurus the jurassic period was that time when
12:14dinosaurs started to get bigger and bigger then the cretaceous period came along and finally these
12:20magnificent beasts reached the peak of their fame that was the time when the mighty t-rex took the
12:25throne and got to the top of the food chain t-rex probably lived around 28 years but it reached
12:32adult
12:32size really fast now it wasn't easy to survive back then t-rex falls into the category of tyrannosaurs
12:43and scientists have found out those fellas were fierce even when they were at a pretty young age
12:48they discovered a fossil of a teenage tyrannosaur that was 75 million years old and it had two baby
12:54dinosaurs inside its stomach they realized that when tyrannosaurs were at a young age they went for small
13:01dinosaurs such as these guys their dino cousins as they grew older they started taking on bigger
13:07challenges like those peaceful giant dinosaurs that like to hang out with their group and eat plants
13:13but large predators weren't the only ones that would have made you shiver with fear
13:17that was also the time when fast and smart creatures called velociraptors show up they
13:23weren't some scaly dinosaurs that would catch their prey using those claws in the shape of sickles
13:27like shown in the movies their bodies were covered in feathers and they would grow up to a hundred
13:33pounds which is about the size of a wolf and to bust one more myth they didn't hunt in packs
13:40velociraptors probably prefer to hunt solo and use their claws not to slash their prey but to clutch it
13:50t-rex and velociraptor fall into the group called theropods we mentioned them at the beginning the
13:56creatures today's birds evolve from but even though velociraptors were covered with feathers
14:01they still couldn't fly their wishbones weren't shaped in a way to support flying and their arms
14:06were too short maybe it was better that way because during the cretaceous period flying
14:12dinosaurs called pterodons were the ones that took over the skies things had been going really great
14:18for dinosaurs until one unfortunate day 66 million years ago when an asteroid hit our planet it's not
14:26that the asteroid itself erased all the dinosaurs right away but it caused changes in the environment
14:32which made it way harder to survive at that time about 75 of animals living on our planet went extinct
14:42the asteroid was really big when it hit earth it created a giant crater in the yucatan peninsula
14:49and sent a lot of debris into the atmosphere which blocked the sun right away for months dense clouds
14:55of dust block sunlight our home planet was darker and colder than before which wasn't good for plants
15:02creatures that ate plants couldn't survive those changes either so it all turned into a chain reaction
15:07when most of the ecosystem collapsed when the dust finally cleared all those greenhouse gases that had
15:13formed after the impact made temperatures go way higher than they had been in a really short period of time
15:19all land animals that weighed more than 55 pounds were gone but not everything disappeared there were
15:27fewer plants but they were less affected than animals all because their pollen and seeds can survive
15:32really messed up conditions for a longer time so what we have today is basically the seeds we were left
15:39with back then after the asteroid hit flowering plants dominated our planet
15:47all non-bird dinosaurs went extinct too some species survived as birds at first those brave survivors were small
15:55but later birds evolved to bigger sizes now there's a study that says that if the asteroid had slammed into
16:02some other spot on earth the fate of many creatures and plants would have been very different if the rock
16:08had fallen maybe a couple of minutes later it would have hit deeper waters less rock would have
16:13vaporized and risen to block out the warmth and light coming from the sun in that scenario we'd probably
16:19still have dinosaurs around for example triceratops was one of the last dinos that had nothing in common
16:25with birds if the asteroid had missed our planet we would see some of them still roaming around but
16:32since evolution never rest may be in a little bit different form
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