The Worlds First Apex Predator
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- čas přidán 12. 10. 2023
- It's hard to imagine an ecosystem without a major predator but like any other ecological niche there would have to have been a period without one until an animal evolved to fill the gap. Before big cats and killer whales or giant theropod dinosaurs o sharks there where much more ancient predatory animals that sat at the top of the food chain.
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Sources:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37403...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22158...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.nature.com/articles/s4159...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
www.nature.com/articles/530268a
bmcecolevol.biomedcentral.com...
This thought just hit me: Imagine how this animal went extinct so long ago, and for all that time nothing thought about it, or even knew it existed. It was as if it hadn't existed. And now, hundreds of millions of years later, a creature is somehow able to perceive them.
I had the thought. The amount of fossils we've found is incredible, but there's still more to find. And of those to find, how many of them are unobtainable? How many have been reabsorbed to the mantel and lost forever? How many have been destroyed by an earthquake? Now taking that unknown number and multiply it by possibly billions... that's how many different species of fauna and flora have inhabited this earth. It's crazy to even wrap your head around it all. And sad part is we will never know it all because some potential knowledge and evidence is lost forever.
Very underrated and deep comment
But that's the thing, it's hard to say for sure how big of an impact Anomalocaris had on the evolution of other animals, including our pre-fish ancestors. Perhaps the presense of an apex predator pressured them to become faster swimmers, which was eventually one of the factors allowing vertebrates to dominate over arthropods (and other invertebrate groups).
@@OtonHenkithat isnt the point of his comment
@@Kurtis11266 I responded mainly to the "It was as if it hadn't existed" part.
Drawings of Cambrian animals fail to express how small everything was
You could say the same about satellite images of Earth
They really just don't give a sense of scale. At least with dinosaurs, you can use somewhat familiar plants, but the Cambrian is just such an alien time.
Or big, as Cambrian animals came in 2 shapes, tiny and huge
*An 8 meter squid would like to know your location*
@@ack7 that’s like half the size of our largest squids, although being soft bodied they may as well have had a larger one that just never fossilized
Tribute to Anomalocaris
HOW CAN YOU SEE INTO MY EYES
True
LIKE OPEN DOORS, LEADING YOU DOWN INTO MY CORE
Miss him so much 😢
I love how a random video from 15 years ago became a wildly recognizable meme solely thanks to the Algorithm
Though the question still remains: if this animal didn't hunt trilobites, what left the scratch marks on the shell of that fossil?
Aliens
Probably a closely related animal
Defense mechanisms usually develop because an animal gets hunted and it doesn't make them invulnerable, just more likely to survive.
Turtles and armadillos still get hunted by other animals after all.
I did
An archaeologist who just had a French manicure?
😭 Boy was it such a such a sad day when the very last Anomalocaris died. You will always be sorely missed.
❤
Close my eyes, only for a moment, then the moments gone
Rip
Anomalocaris died but its sister dracarys remained
It was a different time, when men were men.
In these chaotic times it brings me immeasurable calm to listen to your soothing narration and watch a video on the awesome breadth and wonder of our Earth's natural history. Thank you.
Exactly how I feel. It is not just a refuge in nature, but in time as well.
Same, I started listening to this channel a couple years ago during a time where I was having major health complications, and it would literally soothe my pain and help me breathe. The brief intro to this channel instantly calms my nerves to this day.
"These times" arent more chaotic than any other
@themug406 you don't know what's going on in this dudes life, maybe things are more chaotic for him than they are for you. Maybe his car just got totaled and his workplace got burned down. You probably just hear 'chaotic times' and think he's talking about covid or something.
when imagining these animals moving, i think we should remember that the cambrian was literally the first time complex bodies with muscles controlled by nerves and brains had existed. anomalocaris would probably move very slowly and clumsily compared to the dynamism of predators today, but since their prey were in the same boat, it would have still been an effective hunter for the day
it's just like Spore.
You are right they probably did not have brains 🧠 before, but nerves, nervous systems, and muscles existed in the Ediacaran before it.
@@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavanaearliest dating brain fossils go all the way back to early Cambrian period. But surely, not all organisms would have evolved one at the same time, so yeah there probably were a lot of brainless animals roaming around, not all though
That could've been the Ediacaran.
@@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana
The common ancestor of bilaterians might have had a brain, and they lived in the Precambrian.
I love these early life videos. There is something particularly fascinating about them, and wondering what their world would have been like, and how complex life might have been.
Same here. I'm actually much more interested in the Cambrian creatures than I am in dinosaurs.
Anomalocaris has managed to stay my favourite prehistoric creature for 8 years. Truly the peak of evolution lol
1 strange shrimpy boi
15 years for me
Lies
You're right, evolution LOL!
Perhaps we have different peaks...
Mankind has turned earth into the hottest and coldest place measured in the universe. We're on the verge of manufacturing the power of stars. We have ascended beyond predator and prey to create our own future through total manipulation of everything around us. Watching this video alone is probably backed by more than 1,000 patents/inventions.
I see us humans as riding the peak of evolution. To the point we dabble in it ourselves. Dogs, chickens, horses, pigs, cats, etc. Have all been modified by humans using evolution to provide superior traits and benefits to us. What did this worm thing do? Eat stuff, wow. If it was tasty enough and lived today, it might be a threatened species demanding high prices @ sushi restaraunts like blue fin tuna is.
It still impresses me that people are able to pull details out of fossils. Fossils are just pretty cool.
Anomalacaris tributes still impact the internet to this day.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers the "tribute" era of CZcams. Batman tributes, t rex tributes, dunkleosteus tributes...
It should be noted that the anomalocarid lineage actually made it to the early Devonian, which is seen in the late surviving member of the group Schinderhannes Bartelsi. Even more insane is the fact that this animal is part of Hurdiidae, a lineage from the Late Cambrian, which means that there is a very long ghost lineage leading back to the Cambrian from the Devonian.
how could you point this out w disregard to the giovachian period and the overlapping lineage of the crustaciceanites and turbicareans? …..bush league
here's a fun fact,schinderhannes bartelsi,was a devonian radiodont,so the radiodonts (And possibly dinocaridida as a whole) actually may have survived for a lot longer than previously thought and we just rarely get to find them in younger rock formations due to preservation bias
Im sure theres a 2nd grade lesson on sentence structure out there you can look up
@@themug406 other than capitalization and spacing(which you really shouldn't be expecting in a youtube comment to begin with), the only mistake is the comma after Schinderhannes bartelsi
@@themug406no, that’s a perfectly fine sentence right there. The real issue might be your environment as it seems that you are unaccustomed to interacting with someone so busting-full of ideas and enthusiasm. A shame, really.
The Royal Ontario Museum has a wonderful display with this and other Cambrian lifeforms. It also has with it a genuine fossil of the oldest life on Earth, a relatively recent discovery from well into the Boring Billion. So cool to see it made real like that!
Is that Gucci Mark Felton?
@@DakotaofRaptors It's J.C. Felton
Anomalocaris is my favorite prehistoric animal. I sometimes wonder, if they discover multicellular fauna in the ocean underneath Europa's ice, might it look something like Anomalocaris?
I keep wondering the same thing!
Barotrauma
It’ll look an awful lot like James Cameron in a submarine
@@tiberiusdawn2042 The pressure at the bottom of Europa's ocean is thought to be equivalent to that of a theoretical 13-26km-deep ocean on Earth. The deepest point in the Pacific is about 11km down, so perhaps not really that much of a difference between the two. Something like Anomalocaris could surely survive higher up, closer to the ice.
@@noahdavis7570 Or Leonardo DiCaprio half way down to the Titanic after Kate Winslet wouldn't pull him on board her raft? Seriously, the pressure at the bottom of Europa's ocean is probably greater than the deepest point in the Pacific, but higher up the pressures are roughly comparable.
I've for a long time found Anomalocaris fascinating because how little it resembles any currently extant animal lineage, same story as with Tullimonstrum, so I am quite grateful for this video. Interesting to learn how weird Cambrian deep sea life got in general compared to modern day animals.
this is fascinating. weirdly enough hearing about these animals that are once lived on earth makes me appreciate the cool animals that we're able to coexist with now
The fact that fairy shrimps have a similar body plan as Anomalocaris is just fascinating, is like seeing a small prehistoric animal
Wouldn't be surprised if early, more basal radiodonts looked similar to fairy shrimp
I love these paleontology videos. Especially the Cambrian period and the other periods in the paleozoic era are fascinating to me. Haikouichthys, Cameroceras, Pterygotus, Dunkleosteus, Hynerpeton, Arthropleura... So many interesting animals!
Bravo, keeping me glued to my seat for a creature the fizzled out four hundred million years ago. Top tier work.
I really want to know what they tasted like
Maybe like shrimp, or lobster. If not, chicken is the default
I guess the spiky grabbing bits are perfect to hold soft and slippery prey rather than hard shelled prey.
Love it! Anomalocaris is one of my favourite prehistoric organisms ever since I first saw it in BBC's walking with monsters documentary back in the day 😁
Ever since I saw Pim D's video on Anomalacaris I've been fascinated by them. And now I get an Anomalacaris video from u. Today's a good day.
The animal that inspired Anorith and Armaldo.
mantis shrimp always reminds me of this creature
Watching these videos before bed is perfect. They are calming, interesting and read in a soft and pleasant voice 👌
Some time before i found a short video matching a shell indentation and this predator's "teeth". I thought "wow, a rare video about such a rare animal". Now you make a much more in-depth video about the animal. Leave it to moth light to educate us on some of the most obscure, yet very interesting topics
So basically, this was the arthropod's attempt at becoming fish.
Their evolution is before arthropods, and they are called radiodonts. So they are not a derived arthropods but rather arthropods are derived from Anamolocaris relatives. For example, they don't have jointed legs. They are lopopodian's attempt to swim freely.
@@ShunkUp Do you have any literature references that support your claim? Everywhere I checked, I saw them classified as part of arthropoda. A sister group to all extant arthropods, but arthropods nonetheless.
@@mg4361 here is a link. If you Google can see the tree showing the general relationship. I'd be interested in your sources that they are arthropods also? Tying to understand your counter point.
@@ShunkUp Sorry, but you didn't post anything, at least nothing is visible. Here's a nice overview of arthropod phylogeny: Gregory D. Edgecombe, Arthropod phylogeny: An overview from the perspectives of morphology, molecular data and the fossil record, Arthropod Structure & Development, Volume 39, Issues 2–3, 2010,
@@mg4361 yea it keeps being deleted. Title is this. An early Cambrian euarthropod with radiodont-like raptorial appendages
WAKE ME UP
"sunshine only lasted 21 hours"
Did you mean the day? I'm assuming part of that included nighttime
This is my Roman Empire. THANK YOU for this awesome video!
No way my man posted about my favorite creature. We love and appreciate you
I always get excited when you drop a new video!!
Wow, one million views in less than 10 days! I'm so happy this channel is doing well. Quality content.
Sorry, I got a bit long on my post. Although it's good stuff!
I knew Anomalacaris soon as I saw the image.
Nice video! 👍🏻
It was really neat to learn about on those "Walking with Dinosaurs" and the other "Walking with" episodes as a kid. Pretty accurate in build and dimension to what the creatures actually were.
They said if it didn't hunt this or that how did it get damaged and have scratches?
First it was covered in a exo shell like armor. So "scratches" are unlikely. Perhaps it got in a fight with another Anomalacaris and it got "flexed" and that cracked it's rigid shell.
The really interesting thing is in the Precambrian - Cambrian "Explosion" all life on earth went from tiny, simple and microbial and plant like life forms and suddenly jumped to large, complex definitely animal life forms without anything for them to have evolved from!!
It's crazy! Like they just popped up out of nowhere fully formed!!
When Darwin came up with and was further developing the theory of evolution he wrote that if we continue to dig and don't find anything for life in the Cambrian to have evolved from then he must be wrong and there must be a creator!
Well... uh... we have dug and dug all over the world as deep as possible and we haven't found ANYTHING! WOW! Really?!
Yep! Obviously there really is nothing to find that those large complex life forms to evolve from! Ok. So what now?!
Do we just keep working the theory of evolution or just not talk about it and act like everything is fine and there's no issue to deal with regardless of the fact that there is no longer evidence for it and there actually is evidence against the theory of evolution?! And just not teach or tell about what Darwin himself wrote?!
Or is it time to face and realize the Truth and Facts?
Let's not hold humanity back because someone wants to continue to make big money and have their positions of power, authority, influence, admiration, comfort, wealth and decision making?!
I personally want to know the truth and facts. I want to know what actually happened!
None of us were around when all this happened so we don't know what conditions it was under at all times in the past! Maybe our methods of testing aren't giving us the correct results because we aren't accounting for things we weren't aware of or different conditions. Heck we calibrate our instruments and equipment based on things we know for sure, but we have only been here for a little while so we can't be sure! That test result may be fine and accurate for something a few thousand years old, but anything older than that could have been under different conditions so our calibration doesn't work for things older than that! So we can't say that we are for sure about any of the big stuff.
We say that the laws of physics can't change, but we have been watching a particle called the Muon and it was a very stable particle for many decades. Then several years ago all of the sudden it started breaking the laws of physics! We have actually been observing this happen and it's very obvious that it is breaking the laws of physics, but we don't see any big articles or news reports about it!
So carbon could have been produced in stars or collected or lost at a different rate than we know of now! So all methods of carbon dating could be wrong! The universe and the earth could be billions of years older than we think or only a few thousand years old! We don't know and right now we can't tell for sure! The age of the earth could be off by thousands, millions or even billions of years!
Perhaps the laws of physics changing every so often is just part of it's natural cycle!
Think about this. If the earth really is billions of years old then how can we say anything we observe consistently in just the tiny few thousand years we know we have been around is the normal pattern?! We can't! Not for sure!
Maybe it's time we rethink a lot of things!
I want to get on with that future of shining mirrored silver cities surrounded by healthy green forest on a beautiful blue ocean shore somewhere!
I know it sounds corny, but you get the point.
We are never going to get there if we don't start getting it right!
Let's stop being prideful and insisting that we are right if evidence shows we are actually wrong. Let's get it right and make it better!
Sorry, I got off on a bit of a rant there. lol. 😆 Oops!
Again Good video. Thanks! 👍🏻
An intellectually honest person would not only rely upon quote-mining from a long-dead scientist, he would have looked into a subject rather than assuming he already knew everything... and realized that the absence of evidence is not immediate license for wild speculation when the most parsimonious explanation that doesn't require inventing entirely new and heretofore undescribed forces is that we simply haven't found what we're looking for.
Unfortunately for you, not only have we found fossils of complex life predating the Cambrian Explosion, enough that we can speculate on the ancestry of Cambrian life, it appears that the "Explosion" part of that is a bit of a misnomer, being more an artifact of the sparse fossil record from that far back than an actual event.
One of my favorite species of ancient animal life.
I KNEW it!!!
No WAY was something THAT early was so specialized!
I love this channel 🤟
I wish you mentioned Schinderhannes bartelsi, a small hurdiid radiodont from the early devonian which had a much different body to the rest of its relatives
It really isn't considering new radiodont fossils seem to have a huge variety of adaptations ranging from armor, to filter feeding, to benthic living, to bizarre body plans including what appear to be ballast shells and 3 plus eyes. The fact that they ALL died out despite the wide array of adaptations is one hell of a mystery.
@@higgsbonbon They were likely outcompeted by fish-like body plans as free-swimmers. I think the fact that free-swimming arthropods has not really caught on since the extinction of the radiodonts is telling.
@@DJFracus Yeah that makes sense. Though they had all the opportunity to make that adaptation too but it never happened, I guess a lot of those outcomes really are just dumb luck.
Cool shrimp bro
Oh boy a new video. 😊
I love your videos so much, please keep up the great work !!
compact and informative. clearly worded and orginized. youve got a new subscriber my freind. this is up there with channel quality like pbs eons.
Thanks for this, I really enjoy the subject of early life.
Truly a once in a timeline animal!
I love those fossils at 4:33 with golden haloes like some kinda Elden Ring enemy
Always liked Anomalocaris, great work as usual.
I've yet to have a video about anomalocaris show up in my sub-feed without getting at least a lil bit excited, I love these goobers so much
I love this animal
I like winding down/ napping to your cadence /tone. Long live moth light
New video! Saw thumbnail. "Anomalocaris!" was my excited thought!
I love that so many creatures want to be crustaceans, I do too tbh
If there were one of those things living in my bathtub, I would move.
I always enjoy a new video about anomalocaris. Just wish there was more info about them. They look and sound like a fascinating creature.
0:45 Someone left a perfectly good scimitar here. :3
Great video. As always.
Keep up the good work!!
the goat uploads once more
For the first predator they made it great, and this video was absolutely great
Can you make a video about the evolution of Branchiopods? Triops are known to have lived with the dinosaurs, but the interesting part is that wikipedia says their ancestors are from the ocean. How can a sea creature from salty water evolve to master freshwater vernal pools alongside this special reproduction?
I'm betting it was preadapted by developing a tough egg case for the shoreline.
Finally! new video!
What is interesting is that these early animals are like finding life on a different planet with an environment different than our present modern day Earth.
Incredible content as always, thanks!
Very well done.
you forgot to mention Schinderhannes bartelsi! :P
The meta was wild back then. We've really stepped up our game since then. It's crazy to think what's going to happen with further build optimization... Actually, thinking about it, I assume it'll just be return to crab...
Unfortunately Power creep wasn't kind to them
@@fastrockproductions9788 power creep isn't kind to anyone... Except sharks. Sharks are power creep
I forgot about this guy. I loVe this guy. Thankx algorythim...
My favorite prehistoric creature
And together with Anomalocaris and the Radiodonts there were also some big Lobopodians that were the apex predators of the Cambrian seas, things like Kerygmachela, Pambdelurion and Omnidens which although fragmentary it's estimated to be between 1-1.5 meter (some estimates also say it was around 2 meters but Idk how reliable they are). It would be cool if you would make a video on these cool underrated animals as well.
In the past months I've watched almost all your videos and I've learned from them more than I learned from all my biology and history classes combined. I would love to have the possibility to support your work somehow as I find it to be one of the most valuable available in CZcams.
You should really consider opening a patreon account or just enabling the "tip" option for each video (I'm not sure what it's called exactly).
Keep up with the great content, I'm always waiting for your new videos! 😊😊😊😊
He shout out his patreon supporters at the end??
@@lukeheych8708 Yes you are right. I've watched so many of his videos that I got used to stop them before they finish. As you seem to know a lot, if not everything, could you please give me directions on how to become a patreon? I've never done this before.
@marcosrou in the description there is a link to sign up
@@Dman6779 thanks!
I can’t tell you how excited I was to see you do a video on Anomalocaris!
Burgess Shale! What an amazing story it tells.
I wonder if you could do an episode on the Lobopodians, the other group of giant Cambrian stem arthropod predator.
I second this idea. Lopopodian are stem radiodonts, radiodonts are stem arthropods. So basically just keep going back down the evolution tree. Hallucigenia is one of many lopopodian. They are an awesome lineage. That said, they evolved before arthropods so they had to make a living other ways than exclusively eating arthropods.
Love that the first super predator also became the first huge filter feeder.
But if the lashing injuries on Trilobites don't come from Anomalocaris, because the shells would have caused damage to their appendages... then where do these injuries come from?
Other trilobites, of carnivorous kind?
@@melanimatejak6821 not big enough
@@D-angelin.Moarar Wheren't there some trilobites 30 centimeters long?
Keep in the mind the study is just one of many and I personally didn’t buy it myself for a couple of reasons.
Great video! I would love to see a separate video on the Ediacara biota. They are often overlooked, and misunderstood. It is fascinating that Dickinsonia seems to be the first organism with bilateral symmetry (and potentially the ancestor of all organisms with bilateral symmetry?)
So nice off to learn aboat newe dinosawrs! Tanks to u
cambrian period my beloved
All other Phanerozoic fauna emerged and descended from existing fauna. But at the Cambrian explosion animals appeared de novo, from nothing. This was the very first appearance from single called ancestors of complex energetic animals, made possible by rising oxygen levels (caused by the Cryogenian glaciation). This was nature’s very first attempt at animals, designed on a blank sheet of paper. That is what makes the Cambrian fauna so wonderful.
Cool. Thanks for sharing.
Pour one out for Anomalocaris, the OG killer arthropod
the best part about him is when he starts moving, he doesn't stop until he exterminate his enemies
Anomalocaris is probably the first prehistoric animal I’d choose to actually be able to truly see what it looked like & how it acted in its environment. It’s just so fascinating.
Favorite animals. They are just so unique.
1:20. That's Antelope Canyon. It's half way between the east side of the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley. That makes for a trio of excellent destinations that you could see in a couple of days.
The real OG
I wonder what its mouthparts are derived from
I have my anomalocaris plushie right beside me as I'm watching this lol.
Hi fellow anomalocaris plushie owner
Great video
Looks like an animal HP Lovecraft would have dreamt up!
I have an Anomalocaris shirt. A lot of curious questions from strangers and opportunities for me to go on about the Cambrian Explosion and the Burgess Shale lol
@mothlightmedia1936 would you ever consider doing the evolution of eyes, considering how many different times eyes have evolved over the eras? Many thanks, seriously enjoy your content and have been viewing a while
Thank you for that nice informative piece. I would like to have your take on the Francevillian biota (Gabon 2.1 Ga) where there seems to be a false start at multicellularity not very long after the GoE. Merci.
Never clicked faster, love your videos! Hope youre doing well man
Anomalocaris, let's go!
One of if not my favorite extinct animal
I still think an earlier one will be found
wake me up inside
ANOMALICAAAAAAAAARIS!!!!
what about the acorn weevil? they have a similar mouth as Opabinia
Opabinia's mouth was behind the trunk. The "pincer" at the tip is a pair of appendages similar to those of Anomalocaris, but the "upper lip" segment that they grew out of was elongated into a trunk. Opabinids were really just specialised relatives of the Anomalocaridids.