Paleo Profile - Bunch of Prehistoric Fish

hello hello yeah yeah yeah usual spiel about how I wish I could make videos more often but life always gets in the way today this was supposed to be a Halloween themed episode somewhat but whatever you got it now in oh crap I just looked at the calendar we're back with paleo profiles in this episode is all about outlandish and or a giant fish species throughout Earth's history the oceans rivers and lakes of Earth have always been shrouded in a cloud of mysticism go to any village or town beside a body of water and you're bound to hear some bizarre tales and folklore about things that might lurk just below the surface Japanese folklore speaks of many mysterious sea in Lake Monsters the tsunade or Beach stroker is said to have swam just offshore of western Japan the creature was never seen in its entirety a sailor would only be able to glance a huge fluke covered in Barb's and spines emerge from the sea this tail would attempt to snare unfortunate humans who sailed too far from the shallows namazu was a colossal catfish in Japanese mythology it is said to reside in the mud under the island chain being restrained by a massive stone crushing its head however the catfish size was so massive that when it thrashed about it created earthquakes with its tail European sailors created similar legends about Giants sea serpents mermaids and tusk monstrosity which inhabited the far reaches of medieval maps and charts the culture of the Solomon Islands believed an entire race of intelligent shark like humanoids that used fish derived tools inhabited the Pacific Ocean and could be found on voyages where they would try to kill unlucky Mariners the water with its murky depths and vast abysus has always been considered a pretty scary place to us land goers it represents something we have yet to tame and because of this we seem to fear what inhabits that darkness our imaginations expect there to be some kind of Leviathan residing within this alien world of fluidity and weightlessness heck the Bible as well as the texts of other religions even hints in some places that in order to create the universe itself God had to slay the physical embodiment of the abyss often represented as a sea serpent that existed before the world and it's corpse to create the foundation for earth in the sky yes I'm serious and well for the most part our fears are to be somewhat warranted as science and prehistory makes such legends and mythologies look tame by comparison paleontology has revealed countless real sea river and lake monsters that we know for certain actually existed this will basically be a compilation highlighting various bizarre giant aquatic species from throughout prehistory mainly just fish a what's a prehistoric fish list without Megalodon I've already talked a bit about this truly terrifying shark in the past video but I'd like to return it briefly with some new information Megalodon is often considered by many to merely be a scaled up version of a modern great white shark with basically the same proportions body shape etc whoever this might be mistaken the Pliocene titan is solely known from its teeth in vertebra it is true that early on Megalodon and great whites were first considered extremely close relatives to the point they were considered to be in the same genus however this is now considered mistaken Megalodon and great whites might not have been as closely related as you might think and the similarities they have with one another are believed not to be of close relation but of convergent evolution in fact Megalodon is closest related to a now fully extinct group of sharks called the o2 dot kids in whites are closely related to mako sharks with mega and whites on opposite sides of the family tree in this model great whites are closely related to Makos than they are megalodons this information might have large impacts on how Megalodon looked in life it might not have been the oversized white as once thought oh dude on Ted's are just like Megalodon very poorly known outside to fossilized teeth so we're unsure how they would look in life they might have looked quite different than whites however judging from their distant relation additionally as I have discussed in my Giants video scaling up an animal and calling it a day isn't exactly how gigantism works a change in size and niche for an animal Clary's evolutionary and biological baggage with it in this stays true for aquatic as well as terrestrial organisms a great white's body shape and anatomy is only used for an animal of that size and of that niche the tail fluke for instance may need to be proportionally larger and wider than a whites to thrust such an enormous animal through the water this larger more crescent-shaped tail as well as smaller ventral fins reduces drag while swimming this build is common in many large aquatic animals like whale sharks whales and tuna and is likely to have been similar in Megalodon perhaps a Megalodon would resemble a basking shark or a whale shark more in its body shapes been a great white the snout of Megalodon might have been blunter and shorter Megalodon did in fact hunt prey that certainly would have been heavier and thicker than a great whites the thing is we simply don't really know how exactly Megalodon would have looked in life and I think assuming it's just a big great white is mistaken and I'd like to see an in-depth discussion on what this animal really in life would likely look like an interesting thing I know is I would like to add is the fact Megalodon would very likely be in the category of animals that reach a size where they are big enough to be their own ecosystems in a sense Megalodon likely would have been a hub for countless parasites and similar smaller organisms much like some whales and even some sharks are today shark eating barnacles are known to embed themselves in the skin of lantern sharks remoras and other opportunistic fish species likely would have been constantly followed a Megalodon throughout the seas I bet a Megalodon would have been accompanied by an entourage of smaller animals which used it as an easy way to get a meal and protection I really want to highlight that our image of Megalodon is changing and it might not have been the supermassive great white depicted in media it might have been a weird snub nosed creature with a massive tail and a skin blanketed with smaller organisms the Kim Kim fossil formation in North Africa is probably the most fascinating fossil bed ever discovered and has been shrouded in mystery since its discovery its story is one of a forgotten Eden and lost knowledge and they're now close to lifeless desert in North Africa during the 20th century the German paleontologist Ernest Romer had discovered the remains of countless new and bizarre species he had in fact uncovered the fossil beds of what was once a thriving and vibrant ecosystem a hundred million years old unlike any ever seen during the mid Cretaceous period 94 million years in the past what would become Africa was as of yet unconnected with the rest of the world the lanta koushin was still young with South America much closer to Africa than usual in India was its own separate landmass floating out in the middle of the Kim Kim formation was located on the north coast of the African continent close to the equator it was a massive River Basin on the edge of an ancient sea Chris cost with estuaries swamps and rivers it was probably comparable to the Amazon River Basin up today in its fertility in richness and this richness allowed the primeval landscape to breed Giants from stomata suka such enormous pancake mouths crocodilian several monstrous fish species and of course the massive theropods like Carcharodontosaurus and Spinosaurus two of the largest predators ever known to man only scraps of information have survived concerning most of these creatures however the chemcam formation has been shrouded a mystery ever since the Second World War mainly due to the fact that most specimens were utterly destroyed by Allied bombs and of what did survive are only known from a few teeth fragmented bones and scales and as a result they remain largely estimates nonetheless kimkim remains a fascinating paleontological marvel the formation has been a bit of an anomaly and basically all prehistory as far as its ecosystem and ecology goes it seems to have been one of the most prosperous and fertile locations in the world as it supported an absurd amount of animals of truly massive signs as a stye agree Milla straights the average trophic levels that is the number of levels in the ecosystems food chain in relation to the average body size of the members of said food chain is unheard of the average body length of the fish in the ecosystem is much larger than anything we have today and surpasses some of those of seas and oceans needless to say the fish of kimkim were oddly massive the fish here are often the largest of their respective groups and it appears that the Kim Kim created a Giants of all shapes and sizes the largest known lungfish selfish coelacanths and bikers all called this river basin home probably the most famous of these fish due to being the favorite snack of a certain Jurassic Park villain no dinosaur villain is anka Priestess uncle priestess was a species of sawfish distant relatives to sharks and rays just as its modern relatives it would have sported a toothed rostrum resembling that of a saw modern saw fish can get pretty large with some rare specimens reaching 25 feet long but on Capri STIs regularly grew to such a length the rostrum alone of these guys was around 2.5 meters 8.2 feet long the rostrum would have been studded with electro receptors which would allow the fish to detect hiding prey on the river bottom the barbs of the snout itself would likely have been used in the same manner of its relatives when a prey item was discovered it would quickly be torn to shreds imagine this but several times bigger Kim Kim was also home to a giant species of lungfish Neos sarah totus or rito diss the naming is a bit unclear at the moment lungfish also known as salamander fish are one of us tetrapods closest fishy cousins in their primitive air-breathing lungs of which they are named after and therefore thinned body structure reflects this the giant lung fish of the Kim Kim is only known from its tooth plates but from them we can estimate that this creature was huge might have been man-sized in life due to its size and likelihood to breathe air this creature might have been the Kim Kim equivalent of the Amazons arapaima Aran igneous just like many of these Kim Kim fish is poorly known today it only exists in stromer's original illustrations of his discoveries all that was discovered of it was a very large compressed vertebrae which was destroyed thankfully for us a new discovery in the Kim Kim formation of a giant fish which has been named concave at tectum might be a close relative or may be the same species of stromer's loss giant with this information we can determine that peroneus belonged to a now extinct fish group known as the I'm not even going to try to pronounce that name because that looks ridiculous this group is known for its strangeness and matured body shapes in particular banana meais they almost said banana they're the concave at tectum specimen discovered more recently was estimated to be 3.5 meters long Stormers original appearance might have been even larger a massive fish indeed odds are this guy was a gentle giant feeding on plankton just like a whale shark another giant fish species that it lived in the Kim Kim was ma Sonia the largest coelacanth discovered coelacanth aka not so living fossils once dominated Earth's ecosystems being incredibly widespread in diverse ma Sonia best illustrates this as it barely resembles its distant modern deep-sea relatives and was huge just like everything else in the Kim Kim last but not least there was ba wittiest the largest member of the bikers in yes I believe I'm saying that right I think it literally is Spikers he looked at that and was like oh crap I'm gonna butcher this as I always do but I think it's literally just pronounced bikers bikers are a rather primeval looking Bunch possessing fins that almost resemble those of the back plates of a Stegosaurus the bikers around today are often relatively small and live primarily in rivers in Africa just like lungfish they sport a pair of air breathing lungs due to them being commonly found in poorly oxygenated waters bawah ts was 9.8 feet long and due to its size might have been mistaken for a dinosaur if you ever saw it's strange body shape near the surface this diverse population of fish formed the basis for the dying of the largest predator we know of the famous Spinosaurus without these strange goliaths the Goliath of the Goliath though wouldn't have been able to exist because of this the Kim Kim appears to have been a rare chance in Earth's history it seems an ecosystem as rich and plentiful as this only comes once in a while as conditions have to be just right to allow animals to grow so large and so diverse but such a perfect storm as this one might have occurred many times in the past with different players taking up the roles of giants Kim Kim was as close to a mythical Eden as you can conceivably get it with its estuaries and streams literally bubbling over with leviathans in all shapes it would have been an anglers dream the River Monsters guy would probably have a field day with his formation needless to say the lesser known and now largely lost members of the Kim Kim definitely need more love and attention I totally wish Walking with Dinosaurs or some kind of documentary like it ever had an episode on the formation I'm guessing it might be a little bit like The Walking with beasts episodes on basilosaurus just with basilosaurus replaced with Spinosaurus and the sharks and stuff replaced with giant fish relatives leads XTS is a relatively famous prehistoric fish that lived during the middle Jurassic it is the largest fish excluding wheels and dinosaurs which depending on your definition of fish might still be considered fish ever discovered but as with most fossil animals much of it is known from scattered remains of sections of the body so these are largely estimates as a result much confusion has been made over how large leads Ichthus actually got with estimates varying wildly from around 30 feet to as large as 115 feet in reality most of the fossils that have been discovered have been interpreted by modern paleontologists to illustrate that most individuals were much smaller than what most meaty depictions show Ariston the most complete specimen is calculated to be nine to ten metres long about 29 to 33 feet and most other specimens are between 7 to 12 metres 20 30 to 39 feet however isolated body parts have been discovered and might support much larger sizes specimen Galman v 3 3 6 3 also known as big Meg no relation is estimated to be 37 to 49 feet long the largest specimen ever discovered was in HM p1 0 1 5 6 also known as the Gill basket due to the fact that the individual is only known from its Gill basket easy enough this specimen had an estimated 52 feet in length and would have been by far the largest and the oldest individuals ever discovered 45 years indicated by growth rings it seems the 100 foot long estimates largely based off of Gill basket sizes often seen in media depictions might have been miscalculations as later paleontologists have determined that the Gill basket grows disproportionately in size even so these more conservative estimates made a picture of a massive animal nonetheless Lee Dexys was part of an extinct group of Rhea fishes known as the pecky khador maids they were a rather unusual group in the relationship to other fish at the moment is unclear as you probably know Lee Dixie's was a filter feeder and occupied a niche similar to that of baleen whales of today as gentle giants drifting about the warm Jurassic seas these much more fishy whales might have been the prey of plesiosaurs like like pleura Don which was not as big as it is in walking dinosaurs as is closer in size to a great white shark in real life than a Megalodon leezak sees also coexisted with strange marine crocodilians that convergently evolved flukes like dolphins and even more interestingly there is evidence that mentoring ranked this fed on really Dixie's a tooth was discovered imbedded in the bone of allah thick seas mean that seen in chase by sea monsters is actually surprisingly accurate leaves 'ok these are an almost mythical animal when you think about it the gargantuan fish is the real Muhammad of medieval Islamic cosmology or a special on a giant fish creature as big as an island or hydrous from shadow of colossus one can only dream of seeing a sea teeming with these giants swimming just below the surface and last but certainly not least we have the strange the bizarre the crazy he loco prime again like megladon or leaves ik these odds are is that you have heard of this guy it's a weird shark looking thing with an awesome saw thing on its mouth however just like mag and lead odds are your image of this creature is wrong to some extent most media depictions of Healy depict it as a giant shark with a myriad of different theories regarding the placement of bizarre spiral toothed world thing and this was to be expected as of until 2013 ish we really didn't have a good idea of what he'll occur Prine looked like in life due to the fact all we had we're these weird buzz saw-like things and nothing else so what the hell Capri did they look like our just saying that pun hurt me I'm sorry I'm really sorry about that well we finally got a good idea what helical Pines look like with the discovery of a new specimen with a jawline preserved around the infamous saw tooth whirl thing paleontologists were able to discover that the tooth structure grew inside the cartilaginous lower jaw of the animal the upper jaw was toothless this discovery made basically almost every depiction of helical brines inaccurate and Illustrated that the teeth likely were used when slicing cephalopods and small fish with repeatedly slashing its lower jaw and forcing the bits into the back of the throat unlike sharks these jaws would not shed and grew in curved brackets additionally it was discovered that he looka prions closest relatives were not sharks but in fact chimeras a distant relative to sharks rays in sawfish like their Sharky cousins they possess cartilaginous skeletons which is probably why for the longest time we didn't know what healy looked like at all the only surviving members of this group are ghost sharks rat fish and spook fish which nowadays are restricted to the abyss but as helical prions illustrate this group at one time was diverse and abundant so odds are that helical ion probably resembled a rat fish more than no shark in life of these strange not sharks Gila crime was not alone with its strange two structures a relative by the name of Ed Estes had equally strange scissor-like teeth which belonged to an anima about the size of a great white he look a prion size estimates vary but based on the largest tooth world's put the largest members around 6 meters 20 feet in length these giant chimeras thrived in Earth's oceans before the dinosaurs between the Carboniferous and the Permian mass extinction they cruised across the vast panthalassic super ocean one of the largest bodies of water in earth's history and being many times larger than our modern Pacific the end of the chimeras dominance was marked by the catastrophe that ended the reigns of countless animal groups and paving the way for their Sharkey brethren to fill the void and well that's all for now Earth's waterways have been always fascinating to me perhaps the fish we have discovered only represent a pitiful fraction of all that once swimmed in their depths so let's get out there and find some more and that note thanks for watching hope you enjoyed this video and my return to prehistory stuff next video on thinking is going to be me covering those dinosaur and human footprints walking alongside each other and seeing if there's any truth to them or not alright see guys thanks for watching .

Video Description:

I'm finally back after such a long break. I've been really busy and I try to make these vids when I can. In this video I discuss a few almost-mythical prehistoric fish that actually existed in Earth's past. I discuss a few famous ones like Megalodon and Heliocoprion to a few obscure ones like the giant fish of the Kem Kem which where the food of Spinosaurus. Hope you enjoy!

January 24, 2021 Tags : biology , evolution , fish , Heliocoprion , Jurassic , Kem Kem , megalodon , oceans , Paleo Diet , paleontology , prehistoric , sea monsters , Spinosaurus , Video

Subscribe by Email

Follow Updates Articles from This Blog via Email