The Incredible Journey to the World Before the Dinosaurs | Earth History Documentary

life appeared on our planet more than 3.5 billion years ago this one lived through periods where the ice extended until the equator as well as sweltering periods without ice at the poles the tropical forests of these geological eras have become today the habitat of reindeer the sea level exceeded the present level by 200 meters or 650 feet transforming the continents into archipelagos then it went down 100 meters or 330 feet below the present level creating stretches of land that are now submerged the continents moved closer together and then further apart the animals 600 million years old are like something out of a science fiction movie although dinosaurs are the Undisputed stars of the Mesozoic period we often forget that 400 million years before their existence a multitude of animals preceded them foreign one way or another their Universe mutated following climatic changes the lack of food or the arrival of new Predators most species failed to adapt and became extinct nevertheless they left their traces on Earth by lingering in fossils thus these remains provided a detailed picture of what life was like on Earth before the dinosaurs foreign traveler good morning today we're leaving for a distant journey in the heart of the proterozoic era and Paleozoic eras that is to say more than 400 million years ago before the reign of the Dinosaurs a journey into the past to discover surprising and exciting animals a journey where you will discover our planet devastated by the worst Extinction episodes has ever known but before leaving for a new Incredible Adventure think of liking the video and subscribing to the channel to not miss anything thank you all have a good trip [Music] let's go back in time far far before the era of the dinosaurs when the Earth was only a huge snowball totally frozen covered with glaciers from the poles to the tropics [Music] when volcanic eruptions produce CO2 in large quantities a greenhouse effect was created allowing the planet to warm up the ice melted and different land masses came together to form a supercontinent called rondinia this one is surrounded by a unique ocean called morovia [Music] scientists used the appearance and disappearance of animals to divide the historical periods of the Earth's evolution these periods are in turn divided into eras this set of four eras covers the last 635 million years let's begin our journey at the edicardian period between 635 and 542 million years before our era this marks the end of the upper proterozoic era and the beginning of the history of aquatic fauna on the bottom of morovia bacteria and microbes brought by the rain began to take life in 1946 Australian geologist Greg Sprigg was having lunch in the hills of ediacara Australia suddenly he noticed strange jellyfish-shaped imprints and 600 million year old rocks he had just made one of the most important fossil discoveries of all time the dickinsonia paleontologists estimate based on fossils found in Australia and Russia that the oldest animal lived in the sea some 560 million years ago dick and Sonia this soft-bodied animal was oval and covered with grooves formed by the sections of its body although it could grow up to 1.4 meters or 4.6 feet long it was as thick as a sheet of cigarette paper it was only a few millimeters thick wasn't an animal a plant or a mushroom to answer this question it was necessary to wait until 2018 when a team of paleontologists detect an Australian fossils molecules of fat specific to multicellular animals however this discovery is not enough to certify that dick and Sonia belongs to the Animal Kingdom it would just as well be related to jellyfish or sea anemones or even be a giant flattened worm in 1957 three English school children found a leaf-shaped fossil in a forest in Lancaster Shire which they brought to a geologist at the local University named charnia masoni it looks like a fern the discovery of other charnia fossils and formerly submerged rocks indicate that it did not belong to the plant kingdom this animal lived in deep water where the lack of light did not allow plants to develop since its Discovery other specimens were extracted from rocks located in Canada Russia and Australia charnia had no skeleton or shell and its body was soft most of the fossils are about 20 centimeters long however a related species reported from Canada chania wardi was up to 2 meters or 6.5 feet long it is assumed that it anchored itself to the seabed with a disc or Spike and grew like a leaf on its stem not having a mouth or an intestine it probably fed by filtering or absorbing nutrients from the water as do its close relatives today the crinoids another fossil dating from the edacaran period also comes from the ediacara Hills named kimberella this animal measured up to 15 centimeters long five centimeters wide and four centimeters high that is to say up to six inches long two inches wide and two inches high it had a single wide muscular foot for moving around a soft yet robust shell was dedicated to retracting its soft body in case of threat in certain rocks imprints of the passage of camberella present a dentition [Music] would it be the ancestor of the snail it has all the characteristics that we find today in this animal and we can clearly claim that kimberella is the oldest mollusk still in the hills of idiokara paleontologists made the discovery of other fossils including Trebek idiom this animal lived in shallow water with a diameter of four centimeters or almost two inches it was buried in the seabed leaving just a few millimeters of its hemispherical body exposed on the top three grooves started from the center and curved towards the edges like the Bretton triscal these created whirlpools that channeled water to three Wells on the upper side of the animal thus it could extract food particles to the researchers the closest relatives of the Trebek Gideon today could be anemones or starfish the first animal to have a shell is called claudina and it seemed very widespread fossils were found in limestone rocks in Africa Asia North and South America Europe and Antarctica its show consisted of a stack of open cones forming a tube which corresponded to its habitat the largest specimens measured 15 centimeters or 6 inches long and six millimeters wide how did it feed what was its way of life did it land on the sea floor or could it bury itself there all of this remains a mystery in any case the way these marine animals fed probably clarified the water and enriched its oxygen content this favored the appearance of more mobile animals more energetic as well as the development of their eyes holes drilled in some claudina shells inspired temp set predation by one animal on another thus the stage is set for the great confrontation to come between predators and prey in the Paleozoic Era at the end of the proterozoic era rondinia the supercontinent of the time broke up into several continents first of all around 560 Ma three continents detached and became individualized laurentia Siberia and the immense gondwana laurentia includes the current North America without New England and Newfoundland but with the north of Ireland and Scotland Siberia corresponds to present-day Russia as for gondwana it includes Africa South America Antarctica India China southeast Asia Australia and southern Europe 520 million years ago a new continent named baltica broke away from rondenia it is similar to Northern Europe progressively the openings of a new ocean the iapedus separates laurentia from baltica and gondwana the Cambrian Period begins marking the beginning of the Paleozoic Era and the appearance of New Life exclusively Marine the most famous fossil site of the Cambrian Period is located in British Columbia Canada it is the Burgess Shale discovered in 1909 by the paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott this deposit has delivered exceptionally well-preserved remains of a rich Fauna of invertebrates that lived in the middle Cambrian 520 million years ago if you had been diving during the Cambrian Period looking for macroscopic fauna you would certainly have encountered hallucinogenia in 1977 a strange fossil caught the attention of the British paleontologist Simon Conway Morris extremely thin it measured only two centimeters in length less than one inch long with a soft trunk bristling with spines it was supported by 10 pairs of high legs as if it walked on stilts the seven pairs of hind legs were equipped with claws which must have been used to move as for the three pairs of front legs longer and thinner they seem to be covered with a kind of feathers were they sensory organs or did they have the function of retaining food suspended in the water and bringing it to the mouth surrounded by teeth the second hypothesis seems plausible because an opening in the head is lined with spines also further back we find in the throat a set of teeth and the shape of needles it is assumed therefore that the food was chewed once and then a second time swallowed in the throat thanks to the latest advances in electron microscopy the hallucigenia fossils also reveals a pair of dark spots on its head these could correspond to the eyes as a result of these scientific advances allowing a more accurate description of hallucigenia scientists linked it to Annika Forrest a group represented by the parapates verm before animals living in tropical forests their relatives of the arthropods which include Crustaceans and insects another strange animal from the group of anthropods Intrigue scientists it is wawaxia the first fossilized specimens were discovered in the Burgess Shale but others have been found in China Russia Australia and the Czech Republic its ovoid body five centimeters or two inches long was covered with eight rows of overlapping plates called sclerites the sclerites which acted as a carapace to escape Predator attacks were topped by two rows of spikes that could reach up to five centimeters or two inches in height moreover the scales of this natural armor loaded with microscopic structures reflected the light like the back of a beetle this was enough to Dazzle and dissuade attackers from approaching werewaxia was hospitable to say the least because according to the examination of fossils it turns out that shells similar to a clam lived on its back it is therefore assumed that will waxia simply lay on the sea floor and never buried itself food can sebacteria found on the ocean floor to tell the truth Specialists are struggling to agree on where will waxia fits in the tree of life some point to its close relatives among the modern Marine worms others suggest that since its mouth organ is reminiscent of that of a snail it would be its ancestor then there are those who believe that it is neither a worm nor a mollusk but a representative of a distinct group now extinct among the anthropods the star of these geological eras Remains the tripolite they were ubiquitous in the Cambrian seas and occupied every type of habitat from coral reefs to the ocean floor for over 270 million years to date over 20 000 species have been recorded tribolites come in all shapes and sizes from the size of a fingernail to 70 centimeters or 30 inches most species were 3 to 10 centimeters long or one inch to four inches long its body was divided into three parts simultaneously in the direction of the width and in that of the length it had a head composed of three lobes from which it took its name a thorax and a tail the head included a central part bordered of two cheeks which carried the eyes composed of hundreds of facets similar to those of a dragonfly the body was split into additional segments each carrying two attachments such as a tenna mouth organs or legs this body pattern differed from species to species some had spines that stretched and twisted into odd shapes While others had eyes perched on stalks above their bodies most of them roamed the seabed In Search of food and their morphology gave them a great ability to live in their aquatic environment their diets were varied Predators scavengers so eaters or even filter feeders their closest existing relatives are thought to be spiders and scorpions a distant cousin of the trilobite the Marella was dubbed the lace crab by paleontologist Charles Doolittle Walcott who made its Discovery in the Burgess shale they abounded in the Cambrian Waters as more than 25 000 specimens were discovered measuring up to 2.5 centimeters or up to one inch it has two long extensions of the top of the head which go backwards giving it a horseshoe look further down two pairs of Slender antenna at the mouth probably allow it to orient itself on the Sandy Bottom another pair of mobile appendages at the lower level of the head more robust and provided with hairs had perhaps a function of propulsion to help it move the rest of the body is composed of 17 to 26 segments so how did the Marella feed several hypotheses are put forward it could be a hunter and scavenger or did it filter water with the help of its multiple legs equipped with filiform excresences the mystery remains [Music] let's continue our discovery of strange Cambrian Marine creatures with the cephalopod nectocaris Terex although very little is known about this animal fossils collected from the Burgess Shale provide invaluable insight into the anatomy and lifestyle of this primitive creature its cylindrical body soft and flattened when viewed from above was two to five centimeters long or up to two inches it had two dorsolateral fins resembling a hybrid of Rey and Squid probably allowed it to swim quickly and agilely in the water also it had two long tentacles in the extension of its rigid head the nectokeris is a singular creature because it is endowed with a pair of rod-shaped eyes from the base of its mouth a sort of flexible cone opens onto an internal cavity containing a pair of gills this chimney is reminiscent of the siphon a tubular organ of today's cephalopods which they use to swim backwards scientists assume that nectokeris used it to propel itself through the water it probably fed on small organisms such as Plankton and bacteria while living in Shallow Waters near shore all of these anatomical features are consistent with the hypothesis that natural Keras Terex is the ancestor of octopuses and squids here is one of the most fascinating animals of the Cambrian opobenia its Anatomy is quite strange its body of seven centimeters or three inches soft and segmented gives it a shrimp-like appearance [Music] it had five eyes perched on small stalks two in front and three in the back as well as a flexible proboscis ending in kind of a claw which was probably used to bring food to the mouth in the absence of powerful jaws it had to feed on soft food by extracting worms from the ground Opa benia was devoid of legs the 15 segments of the body were bordered of articulated lobes which perhaps supported crawling and swimming the caudal fin in the shape of a fan reminds a little of that of the lobster this one must have helped it to move and to direct itself many scientists saw an opebenia a unique specimen but the careful comparison of numerous living or fossil species led the researchers to relate it to other animals with soft and segmented body even by far to arthropods foreign let's make room now for the Cambrian sea monster anomalocaris its body resembles that of a giant shrimp since it is up to one meter long or three feet it was a formidable Hunter the largest aquatic predator of this period armed with spikes the mouth organs hang under the head its round mouth flattened and composed of plates looks like a camera shutter it's prey of choice probably tribolites because paleontologists have observed bite marks on some specimens corresponding to its jaw however paleontologist James Whitey Hagedorn suggested that this Predator was unable to eat the hard shelled prey so anomalocaris may have fed on Tribulus during the mutation period but it was certainly more of a threat to worms from Greenland to Australia a few dozen specimens have been found in Cambrian rocks the shape of the mouth Parts varying from one species to another it is assumed that they differed in their diet some appear to have specialize in predation While others scavenged the muddy seabed or filtered water to capture tiny creatures with a diameter of two centimeters or one inch the compound rod-shaped eyes were as large as any insects and had up to 16 000 facets even after the appearance of fish anomalocaris remained one of the largest Marine creatures until the ordovician period about the size of an inch picaya gracillins was not particularly large not exceeding five centimeters in length it is one of the oldest known species of the Cordic group to which all vertebrates belong including man pikaya looked like an eel he did not have a skeleton but a nocta cord a flexible cartilaginous structure that ran along its spindle-shaped body like a spinal column a hundred Maya mirrors small muscular packets separated by connective tissue allowed pikaya to swim while undulating the entrails of certain specimens contain fossilized mud an indication that it grazed the sea floor [Music] by the presence of muscles nerves and blood vessels scientists evoke a distant relationship with fish reptiles and other animals with skeletons however certain aspects of its morphology still remain enigmatic for example those two long tentacles at the top of the head and those multiple pairs of small appendages just below on the ventral side [Music] Milo kaninja is also part of the group of cordates smaller than the Kea its body does not exceed the size of a paperclip their fossils come from The Mao chinchon Shale in shenzhang southern China it resembles a fish with fins muscles a skull and even gills many researchers consider it to be the first known vertebrate although it does not have a bony structure but a soft cartilage skeleton thus during the Cambrian life took off in an unprecedented way this period was a springboard for the explosion of aquatic animal diversity observed During the ordovician period the ordovician period spans 65 million years beginning 500 million years ago it is the period of greatest Continental fragmentation in the Paleozoic the beginning of the closure of the iopedus ocean brings laurentia closer to baltica the Caledonian orogeny then takes place which is at the origin of the old masses of Europe in North America including the Appalachians the opening of the reik ocean separates avalonia from gondwana avalonia named after the mythical island of Avalon where Excalibur King Arthur's sword was forged included England Wales Southeastern Ireland northern France Nova Scotia and New England as for the tornquist sea it separates baltica and avalonia this period saw a new explosion of animal diversity the fossil records show an increasing number of deep water species Plankton aphagius animals swimming in the open ocean and predators well equipped to catch them built up by sponges and other creatures the reefs grew and multiplied providing shelter for more animals at the same time some took their first steps on land and brief excursions out of the water leaving their footprints on the shore the vegetation at that time was mostly moss and lichen much of the Primitive fauna lived in the shallow Seas close to shore but for any animal that could swim far enough the open ocean offered a vast territory new food resources and perhaps fewer predators along with Crustaceans and other arthropods nautiloid is a mollusk cousin to squid and octopus by the fossils found in rocks of the ordovician 470 million years old they they proved that they were present in the whole world they are animals that gradually adapted to life in deep water it is thought that the first nautiloids were plank divorce that went up and down in the water filling the cavities of their shells with gas and then emptying them to do this they modified the chemical concentration of their body fluids increase of this concentration transfers the water of the shell towards the body thus the latter fills with gas when the quantity of gas contained in the Shell Rises the animal Also Rises and conversely then the nautiloids gained in Mobility they moved by projecting a jet of Water by a hole close to the head and hunted with the help of their tentacles which carried the food to the hard beak While most had shells only about 10 centimeters long others were huge and could reach up to 6 meters or 20 feet at the time they were at the top of the Aquatic food chain damaged fossil shells showed that the nautiloids probably attacked each other traces of color preserved on some fossils even suggest that some species practice camouflage indeed on the upper half of the shell gray and brown bands allowed the animal to blend into the dark Waters [Music] imagine a giant tadpole and you'll have a good idea of the aspect of the first vertebrates among these soccer Bumpus Jean very is one of the oldest and best known it is often presented as the pioneer of animals with complete skeleton with the maximum length of 25 centimeters or 10 inches it is particularly surprising by its head equipped with bony shields on the top and bottom these shields probably protected it from predators especially large invertebrates the rest of the body was covered with long scales it had no jaws and had to pick up or suck up food from the bottom of the water then crush it at the level of the throat the eyes were located between two small nostrils and the mouth was armed with very thin plates the Saka bombast evolved in Shallow Waters close to the shore some fossils have scratches on their belly made by scraping the sea floor today the largest animals in the sea are vertebrates namely whales and sharks although some deep sea squids compete closely with them but hundreds of millions of years ago huge specimens ruled the Seas including the taragotus anglicus its name means winged fish because the Swiss naturalist Louis agassus was the first to describe it in 1839 believed it was a large fish [Music] in fact it belongs to a group of extinct arthropods otherwise known as sea scorpions with a body that could reach up to 1.8 meters or six feet it was related to the giant europterids other species were however smaller only about 50 centimeters most of them lived in shallow water but their appearance around the same time and points of the planet separated by vast oceans the test that they were perfect swimmers taragotus moved with four pairs of legs a fifth pair looked more like flippers it was armed with two four limbs two powerful claws perfect for seizing and killing its prey its eyesight must have been excellent because it was endowed with a pair of gigantic lateral eyes added to a second pair of smaller eyes placed in the center of its head its body was built for swimming and its Flat Tail was probably used as fins to propel itself despite its large size and fearsome appearance taragotus anglicus ultimately did not survive the catastrophic mass extinction that ended its aquatic reign Aquatic ancestors of millipedes use the carcinoids are arthropods with an external skeleton a pointed tail and an articulated body with up to 28 pairs of legs about the size of a large shrimp of about 10 centimeters or 4 inches they look more like a cross between a lobster and a woodlouse the rocks that contain the oldest recorded fossils of euthy carcinoids date from the end of the Cambrian scientists suggest that they were the first animals to venture onto land where the shoreline was lined with microbes and bacteria a meal served on a platter if you could reach it at low tide moreover venturing out of the water offered a way out of Predator attacks a major Extinction event occurred at the end of the ordovician marked by The Disappearance of 85 percent of existing species it affected bottom-dwelling organisms such as tribuliths echinoderms and brachiopods as well as pelagic forms such as nautiloids this mass extinction has been linked to the glaciation occurring at the time the South Pole was then located on the current Niger and a large part of gondwana was covered by a thick ice cap twice as large as the current Antarctic ice cap as a result sea levels dropped by 50 meters or 165 feet drying out the shallow Seas where life once flourished in addition an anoxic event which is an extreme decrease in oxygen levels in seawater destabilizes the ecosystem of marine life what wasn't ocean teeming with life is now an ocean of desolation this crisis lasted for one to two million years to give way to the solorian period 435 million years ago at the beginning of this third Paleozoic period which began 444 million years ago and lasted for more than 28 million years the melting of the polar ice caps caused a general rise in the levels of the oceans and shallow seas that covered the Continental shelves [Music] after the closure of the tornquist ocean the avalonian landmass welded to the laurentia and baltica land masses thus the continent of the old red Sandstone abbreviated cvgr is formed today variously called La Europa your America and La Russia the immense continent gondwana is then separated from the cvgr by the rayic ocean and the Paleo tethus the silurian marks the beginning of the age of fishes with the development of agnathic vertebrates that is to say fishes without Jaws possessing a bony external armor named ostracidarms [Music] however jawed vertebrates otherwise known as nathastoms which appeared in the ordovician are also present it was in the silurian that the terrestrialization of invertebrates I.E oligocchates arthropods and gastropods occurred the oldest plant macro fossils are from the solarian but they are rare mass extinctions of the late ordovician life proliferated and diversified again coral reefs are numerous on the island arcs bordering the panthelassa and the Paleo tethus as well as on the bottom of shallow Seas the generalized warm climate allows them to largely exceed the inter-tropical zone the corals are mainly tetrachorlierids also called rugo's corals and tabulate emblematic animals of the silurian are the ureterids already present in the ordovician their history continued and they were never so Diversified both in shape and size the most important event among vertebrates is the appearance of the jaw formed from the second branchial Arc of the agnatha the first jawed vertebrates or nathastones were the acanthodians with spiny fins and the placoderms whose front part of the body was enclosed in a bony carapace appearing in the lower solarian the placoderm was the first vertebrate with movable jaws and teeth it also inaugurated an even number of fins which later evolved into Limbs and terrestrial vertebrates specimens of a 380 million year old species found in the gogo formation a fossil site in Western Australia contained fossilized embryos the placiderm is thus one of the first known vertebrates to have produced well-developed young instead of laying eggs but the most obvious and strange thing about placiderm is the Bony plates that cover the head and upper body this armor proves that the silurian Seas were a merciless environment where fishes devoured each other not to mention the threat of invertebrate Predators such as nautiloids and sea scorpions the placoderm waited for its prey lurking on the sea floor or hunting in the open sea Dunkleosteus stands out as the largest placiderm being able to reach up to six meters long and equipped with jaws capable of exerting a force of 500 kilograms other specimens on the contrary fed on Marine plants for example Titanic this one of the most impressive by its 8 meter or 25 foot length and its weight of one ton was deprived of teeth no doubt it filtered Plankton and suspension in the water like the current whale shark nevertheless giant placidarms were rare and the majority of them measured between 30 centimeters and one meter or between 10 inches and 3 feet [Music] distributed throughout the world placiderms lived in fresh water or in the sea when they became extinct at the end of the devonian they left the oceans to two groups the bony skeleton fishes to which most of today's fishes belong and which include the ancestors of terrestrial vertebrates and the soft cartilage sharks and Rays according to acanthodian fossils sharks along with their cousins the rays are the descendants of this group of nathastone vertebrates which appeared some 400 million years ago akanthodians are characterized by long bony spines located at the front of their pectoral fence but also of their dorsal and anal fins their body was covered with tiny and quadrangular scales like sharks they have a heterocursal tail which means that it has two unequal lobes some akinthodians were predators who had large eyes to spot prey others without teeth were content to filter water these Predators flourished all over the world colonizing seas and rivers wanting to become extinct in the Permian around 250 million years before our era [Music] the invasion of the continents continued with the appearance of the first terrestrial anthropods and larger plants like cooksonia terrestrial life is limited to a narrow Wetland band around rivers and lagoons the best candidates for the title of land animal Pioneers are the ancestors of today's millipedes and scalopendras the myriapod group pneumodesmus pneumani was a relatively small creature measuring just over two centimeters long however its most striking feature was its large number of legs it had up to 40 pairs the holes running along its body allowed it to breathe bringing oxygen to its cells they also attest that the animal lived on land paleophonus is one of the oldest known scorpions although its exact size is unknown it was probably no more than eight centimeters or three inches long this small size may have been an adaptation to the lack of food available at the time its ovoid body was flat and its long tail had a Stinger at the end the most striking feature of paleophonus is its large claw-like arms these may have been used for capture and defense and could have posed a serious threat to smaller prey on the vegetation side A Primitive type of plant appeared the cooksonia the size of cooksonia varied from a few centimeters to a meter in height its microscopic analysis reveals a functional vascular system this allowed it to transport water and nutrients from the soil through the stem thus ensuring a constant supply of water thus cooksonia could easily adapt and survive hot and dry spells stomata have also been noted in cooksonia fossils these are small holes in the wall of the cuticle allowing gas exchanges with cells it is thus about its respiratory system without which it would not have succeeded in developing deprived of roots leaves and flowers it is composed of thin branched stems these stems end in a trumpet-shaped structure called a sporangium which is used to disseminate spores far from the plant to colonize the surrounding area [Music] small plants dominated the continents for 40 million years they were an important stepping stone in the evolution of land plants their descendants include some of today's most familiar plants such as ferns mosses and flowering plants also by spreading oxygen in the atmosphere and stabilizing soils they also participated in the arrival of land animals foreign the devonian is located between the silurian and the Carboniferous this period extends from 418 to 359 million years before our era the devonian period is marked by The Disappearance of the reaic ocean which allows the supercontinent gondwana to continue its slow drift towards La Russia it was during this period that the transition from fish to tetrapods animals with four Limbs and a neck took place as well as the appearance of hexapods grouping insects and arthropods with three pairs of legs apart from the panthelasa most of the Paley ocean inherited from the lower Paleozoic closed during the devonian resulting in a paleogeographic configuration of the pre-pangia type the first forests were established in the equatorial regions of La Russia participating in the photosynthetic activity that allowed the development of the ozone layer [Music] all these events took place under a globally warm climate responsible for the development of oxidized silicoclastic sediments the old red sandstone and carbonate rocks were reformations proliferated the uniformly warm climate of the early devonian period favored the development of reefs the building animals are invertebrates living in colonies called stromatopores tabulate corals and tetrachoral lyre corals from the silurian period still cover the ocean floor plastoderms continued to dominate the ecosystems thus Dunkleosteus these formidable predators are challenging the Giant urotarids although they were already present at the time sharks were not yet the Supreme predators of the Seas they were joined by various representatives of groups of scaly fishes namely the actinitarians the canthodonians and sarcoterogians [Music] graptolites classified among algae sponges hydrazoans bryozoans and Terra Bronx disappeared at the end of the lower devonian only one family of benthic graptolites passes into the Carboniferous [Music] the bottom of the Seas is still dominated by brachiopods of which only relics remain in our presencies bivalve mollusks become Diversified and abundant shellfish in the shallow Waters of the coast as is still the case today the large nautiloid mollusks begin to decline but to give rise to the aminoids ubiquitous and Mesozoic Seas kinoderms mainly crinoids or sea lilies formed locally real underwater Meadows devonian fishes can be divided into two major groups the agnathans jawless fishes and the nathastoms or jawed fishes [Music] of these two groups the agnathans were the one that had the most difficulty in surviving the great biological crises of the late devonian of the six groups known at the time four will die out and of those that survived only a handful of species remained today with the lampreys and hagfish [Music] among the naphtha stones the fates will be diverse on the one hand the last akanthodians disappeared after the devonian like the last placoderms on the other hand sharks and Rays will prosper until our days several subgroups of sarcateragians appeared during the devonian and one of them was the origin of the first tetrapods a remarkable evolutionary success with today 29 000 species not counting all those that have become extinct nowadays only about 10 species of fish with the koalak ants and the lungfish belong to the sarcoterogeneans concerning the actinitarians these fish endowed with raythens it is an undeniable evolutionary success with nearly 29 000 species crisscrossing the Waters of the planet today which makes it the largest group of vertebrates eustenitarian was one of the sarcateragians that could have gone on to conquer dry land it had a pair of pelvic fins and a pair of fleshy pectoral fins each connected to the body by a single bone these bones are similar to those of the Bony limbs of land-dwelling tetrapods amphibians reptiles birds and mammals in these fish with fleshy fins the swim bladder is modified to allow air breathing as for the Bony limbs they were used to paddle in the water but also to crawl on the shore all indications are that Houston a Terran could reach 1.8 meters or 6 feet in length however most paleontologists agree that it never really emerged from the water the tiktolic thanks to certain aspects of its Anatomy seems close to land animals it was discovered on Ellesmere island in the Canadian Arctic archipelago measuring up to 2.5 meters or 8 feet it has a flattened head which is able to turn thanks to a mobile neck holes which could be assimilated in nostrils could probably allow it to breathe on Earth it spins credited with solid bones and a joint comparable to that of a wrist could have helped it to lift itself thus equipped it could undoubtedly move in Shallow Waters but also travel short distances on the banks like the crocodile it must have roamed rivers and swamps using its powerful fins and mobile neck to hunt other fish which it tore apart with its sharp teeth from The Impressions left in the rocks in which its fossils were found it is assumed that tiktolik did not stay out of the water for long the transition from fish to tetrapod is one of the key events in the history of terrestrial life leading to the colonization of the Earth's surface by vertebrates nevertheless two major problems had to be solved for this change to occur being able to breathe out of water and moving by walking acanthastega and ichthyostega are among the oldest recorded legged vertebrates they therefore provide essential Clues to this mystery acanthastega Bridges the gap between fish species with robust limb-like fence such as those from tiktaalik and the first animals capable of living on land the acanthastega fossils are about 60 centimeters long it had a flat head gills to breathe in water and a large caudal fin ideal for swimming but it was also equipped with lungs allowing him to breathe air on the surface judging by its morphology and the fossilized aquatic plants from the Greenland sites where it was found it lived in rivers and shallow marshes it paddled with its legs through the vegetation in search of small prey its webbed feet ended in eight toes however the lack of joints means that the legs probably struggled to support its weight on the ground as for a theostega it is characterized as a large cousin of the cantastega since it could exceed one meter he also had to live mainly in the water as its powerful caudal Fin and gills testify however it seems better adapted to terrestrial life because it's ribs and its seven-fingered limbs are more robust thus more able to support weight however it was unable to walk like the current terrestrial vertebrates it may have had to use its front legs to crawl like a seal as for the hind legs they were probably used for additional support this development of terrestrial and Aquatic Life was disrupted by the third great biological crises in the history of the Earth 374 million years ago a new mass extinction took place at the transition between the frosnian and feminion two stages of the devonian period if the ordovician mass extinction was a single brutal event the devonian mass extinction is reflected in various events spread over 3 million years there is a climatic warming where the temperature reached 30 degrees Celsius or 86 degrees Fahrenheit in addition numerous extraterrestrial impacts weakened the biosphere and the bowels of the earth under present-day Siberia an ocean of magma is boiling ready to explode a giant plume is formed it is detached from the magmatic material ready to explode to pierce the Earth's crust superheated gases are expelled from the depths of the Earth the water starts to boil the underwater earthquakes destroy the reefs the eruptions are disproportionate thousands of tons of molts and rock or in the oceans a lack of oxygen occurs worldwide at the end of the frosnian this phenomenon was named kellwaser event lava comes into contact with seawater and generates toxic substances such as Metals silver gold chromium iron magnesium and others the ocean is contaminated the Marine fauna is devastated gases are released into the atmosphere releasing carbon dioxide in massive quantities and slowly the air becomes loaded with greenhouse gases temperatures rise in ocean currents stop the water reaches more than 30 degrees Celsius or more than 86 degrees Fahrenheit at the equator it is Desolation The Aquatic environment is dying 250 000 years after the first eruption the Earth continues to pour magma atmosphere being saturated with carbon dioxide the vegetation explodes and invades the surface of the Earth leaves have been falling for several thousand years rotting on the ground and forming the first layer of humus on the planet this nutrient-rich soil is carried by The Rains and flows into the Seas absorbed by the algae they grow uncontrollably stealing all the oxygen asphyxiating The Aquatic Life the coasts are infested and saturated with plants these eruptions which until now have been occurring at Sea are beginning to occur on land the air becomes charged with sulfur dioxide methane and carbon dioxide huge eruptions occur gigantic clouds of Ash several kilometers high are pushed back into the atmosphere the planet is emptied of its entrails it is chaos on Earth the sky darkens the burning ashes fall on the continents fires break out all over the world the sun no longer penetrates the atmosphere it is a volcanic winter temperatures around 30 degrees Celsius or 86 degrees Fahrenheit drop by 20 degrees Celsius or 68 degrees Fahrenheit the Plankton constituting the basis of the food chain is eradicated the fish eggs are decimated it's a heckatoo the Salvation comes from the trees producing oxygen the temperatures end up stabilizing the seasons reappear in the life diversifies again this Extinction took away between 50 and 70 percent of the species on Earth beginning of the Carboniferous the continents La Russia and gondwana reformed into a single continent little Pangea to the east the ocean that exchanged little Pangea is called protothetis these Continental masses are surrounded by the super ocean panthelasa this movement of tectonic plates causes the level of the oceans to rise drowning a large number of plants in the Seas more and more fish with bones appear however the oceans are dominated by akinoderms and crinoids that swarm on their bottom in immense luxuriant swamps besides the anthropods that reign supreme tetrapods and amphibians appear in the devonian as well as the first reptiles foreign [Music] devonian ferns gradually gave way to bark and Seed trees during fires or floods these trees and plants were buried their decomposition followed thus preserved under a growing organic matter this plant matter buried deeply and heated during millions of years is transformed into coal this process is called carbonization 330 million years ago the conditions of coal formation were so favorable that the period was named Carboniferous the masters of the Carboniferous rainforests were a group of vascular plants the most common of which is called lepidodendron this Majestic plant which could climb up to 30 meters or 100 feet in height had a trunk of one meter in diameter the initial growth was upward rapid and unbranched when this single massive shoot reached the canopy then the trees opened into a beautiful crown of branches the tips of which carried cones containing the spores [Music] another terrestrial plant from the Carboniferous period glossateras was found in the rocks of South America southern Africa Madagascar India and Australia despite the fact that this plant is one of the main constituents of coal little is known about it it was a woody plant with a trunk of 80 centimeters in diameter we can therefore imagine that the height of glossateras could also reach 30 meters or 100 feet the Carboniferous was an era of giant insects dragonflies the size of a large bird cockroaches as big as a mouse or scorpions of more than 50 centimeters or more than 20 inches but the Golden Palm goes to arthropleura the largest invertebrate of this period [Music] although no complete fossil has yet been found scientists agree that according to the study of fragments and fossil traces it could have reached 2 meters in length and 50 centimeters in width I.E 7 feet in length and 20 inches in width this relative of the modern millipede was covered with a thick and heavy carapace made of chitin plates a hard substance present in the exoskeleton of insects it lived in tropical swamps covered with forests of tree Ferns and other primitive plants no fossilized mouths had yet been found so scientists assume it was herbivorous as fossilized droppings attributed to arthropleura contain plant spores the Lander pet and wood eye was discovered in the famous Scottish deposit of East kirkton inside Hollow fossil tree trunks one can imagine that it is a last Refuge these small amphibians found to protect themselves from a mud flow which was fatal to them the morphology of bolander patent is particular with its rounded skull and its elongated body of about 20 centimeters it looks like a salamander its wrists and its ankles well ossified and robust suggest a terrestrial locomotion it has a large tympanic opening on the back of the skull forming a rounded window very useful for detecting surroundings it is one of the rare fossil amphibians to have about 40 teeth on its upper jaw while there are only about 20 on the lower jaw its diet was thus carnivorous even insectivorous as for reptiles and lizards hilonimus qualifies as the oldest specimen the first discovery of hyalonymous fossils dates back more than 150 years on the Canadian island of Nova Scotia which in the Carboniferous period was in the tropics these were buried inside a hollow fossilized tree stump these trees grew far from the water a sign that hylanomas had evolved enough to spend its life on land it lived by roaming the forests in search of insects and millipedes its body measured approximately 25 centimeters or 10 inches long including its tail onymous reveals the dawn of reptiles and with them the appearance of the amniotic egg which allowed them to free themselves from The Aquatic environment vertebrates could then colonize the Earth and reptiles dominated it for more than 200 million years animal life and the Carboniferous was also characterized by the development of giant insects Mega neura stands out as the ambassador of gigantic dragonflies with its 30 centimeter or 10 inch long and it's 70 centimeter or 30 inch long wingspan it could be compared to the size of a modern pigeon flying over rivers and lakes it fed on small insects that it could spot with its piercing eyes so what is the reason for the disproportionate size of the animals of the Carboniferous period the question is still being debated however the most common explanation lies in the oxygen content of the air today it is at 21 it climbed to 35 percent in the Carboniferous this enormous supply of oxygen came from the Lush vegetation of the forests since oxygen promotes growth insects amphibians and other invertebrates took advantage of it solitary or Colonial corals build important reefs in the warm Waters of the paleothelia brachiopods echinoderms and mollusks also developed in this last group The goniotites are of great stratigraphic interest while some stegocephalins experience the terrestrial environment others evolve in aquatic environments the is the case of crested jirious scotocus this giant tadpole fossil was discovered in Old Mines near Edinburgh it was up to two meters long for more than six feet in length with its imposing skull and atrophied limbs crassajirious scotocus evolved like a snake in Shallow fresh water also its pelvis and its spinal column little ossified allowed a certain flexibility carnivorous with the pisgivorous tendency it had several fangs inside its mouth including one on the palate moreover its cranial kinematics comparable to that of snakes a test that the animal could open its jaws widely thus swallowing prey much larger than itself [Music] another crazy stegospholis lived in the Carboniferous period it is spathacephalus miris of modest size its skull of about 20 centimeters or almost 8 inches in the shape of a flattened disc resembles a frisbee we notice on the upper top strange bean-shaped orbits very close to each other perhaps these sheltered eyeballs glands or Electro sensory organs allowed it to detect its prey another characteristic of spathacephalus is its dentition it carries multiple tiny teeth but no fangs the bone of the lower jaw alone counts nearly 120 teeth the end of the ladder was equipped with small barbules which indicates that it had to swallow large quantities of water and mud which it filtered to extract small invertebrates or fish in the upper Carboniferous the planet cooled down again and although La Russia continent experienced relatively mild temperatures the same was not true to the South indeed the gondwana continent is partly covered with ice and this will last some 80 million years until the beginning of the Permian the Permian began about 295 million years ago it will last about 50 billion years this period will close the Paleozoic Era [Music] the landmass Siberia kazakhstania welded to gondwana this new Collision led to the formation of Pangea 450 million years after the breakup of rondinia foreign blocks remain outside of Pangea these are North and South China the waltz of the continents tends to modify the climate and consequently the Earth offers a new face the lands of the Carboniferous want swampy humid with Lush vegetation gave way to vast arid deserts and mountain ranges formed as a result of collisions of Continental masses [Music] during the Permian the global sea level continued to drop until it reached a level close to our oceans today to the east of Pangea we find the tepthus ocean as for the west of this Mega continent it is bordered by the immense and unique ocean the Fanta Lassa in its Center the young continent Pangea which extends almost from one pole to the other is subject to extreme and highly variable climatic conditions indeed temperatures can vary from zero degrees to 40 degrees Celsius in the same day I.E between 32 degrees Fahrenheit and 104 degrees Fahrenheit the South Pole remains Frozen since the glaciation that began at the end of the Carboniferous period as for the rest of the continent the climate is rather dry and arid buy this reunification of the Continental masses the terrestrial fauna was rather uniform among the Continental vertebrates reptiles became predominant and progressively supplanted the amphibians we witness the rise of amnios although today's amphibians are small their ancestor eriops did not go unnoticed its fossils were discovered in the lower Permian rocks of Texas and New Mexico it is one of the major representatives of the temna spondals a group of amphibians whose lifestyle was semi-aquatic and semi-terrestrial areops could reach 2 meters or seven feet in length its short and Powerful legs were composed of four fingers for the front legs and five fingers for the hind legs the tail was modest in size and was a little over a third of the animal's total length skull was huge Broad and flat its predatory mouth revealed numerous sharp teeth it probably divided its life between the swamps and the mainland where it could feed on small fish and land animals however arios has a major Predator it is dimetrodon although it looks like a dinosaur it is not its ancestor dimetrodon belongs to the group of synapsids which predates the dinosaurs it is one of the oldest super Predators living at the top of the food chain its name includes about 10 species whose size ranges from 60 centimeters to nearly 5 meters that is to say between 25 inches and 16 feet the most massive specimens could reach 300 kilograms or 660 pounds await Superior to that of an adult grizzly its jaw Bears formidable crenellated teeth and pointed canines at the front its bite must have been very effective in killing cutting and devouring large amphibians and fish it had a powerful tail muscular and robust legs its back was composed of long spines in the shape of veil posed on the vertebrae scientists have long wondered about the role of this dorsal sail some paleontologists have suggested that this sale could have served as camouflage among the long Reeds as reinforcement of the spine or even served to regulate body temperature other scientists say the backseal was a colorful adornment to attract mates or intimidate rivals the truth may be a mixture of several theories the spectacular Permian crisis appeared 252 million years ago it constitutes the greatest ecological catastrophe in the history of the Earth it is marked by a drastic reduction in marine life 96 of species left their lives in the adventure the reformations are once again in the front line other animals living near the bottom suffer an identical fate brachiopods are strongly reducing their diversity as well as bryozoans and echinoderms in particular crenoids according to Scientific estimates 75 percent of terrestrial animal and plant species have become extinct including almost all reptiles the causes of this Extinction are still debated the most often cited causes are ocean anoxia a major volcanism in Siberia a significant drop in sea level or a combination of all of these causes however the hypothesis of volcanism dominates the vast flows of lava that extend over 2 million square kilometers would have profoundly altered the earth's climate thus many areas remained uninhabitable plants seem to be the first to be affected indeed a study of fossilized pollen grains rocks and sediments in Australia showed High quantities of nickel for the period in question according to the researchers it came from Siberia vaporized by volcanic eruptions it spread in the atmosphere to be deposited in various geographical points gradually it poisoned the plant life which declined The Disappearance of plants then affected the entire food chain first herbivores then carnivores nickel also polluted the oceans which were already suffering from global warming also the Earth's temperature rising to 50 degrees Celsius or 122 degrees Fahrenheit caused the evaporation of methane from the oceans a greenhouse gas that would have worsened this natural global warming by decreasing the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere the Permian Triassic crisis thus marks the end of the Paleozoic and the beginning of the Mesozoic several species survived this mass extinction Specialists call them the Fauna of the catastrophe [Music] among them the istrosaurus a mammalian reptile resembling a cross between a dog and a boar a distant ancestor of the present mammals that spread over the surface of Pangea [Music] as life continued to evolve new species would soon emerge dinosaurs would dominate the Earth throughout the Mesozoic period [Music] foreign

Channel: Wondody | The World of Odysseys

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Keywords: wondodi, science, space, documentary, earth, space documentary, galaxy, milky way, black hole, universe, venus, mars, saturne, life on venus, life on mars, colonize, atlantide, moon, nasa, abyss, ocean, maya, nature, extraterrestrial, alien, history, big bang, solar system, sun, life, water, history of the earth, dinosaur, extinction, extinction of dinosaurs, dinosaur documentary, origin of life, animal documentary, history documentary, natural documentary, dinosaurs documentary, dinosaurs, jurassic world

Id: fiMbyQ3Io28

Length: 73min 14sec (4394 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 02 2022