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"It's hard to imagine a species so globally wide spread that it would survive basically everywhere," he said as a representative of just such a species
Yes. Proximity is only one significant parameter amongst so many others, like ocean currents, wind directions, etc. For example, it's easier to reach the Azores with a sailing ship from the Americas than it is from Spain, Portugal, or northern Africa. It's actually so hard to get there that these islands aren't to be found on any sea map prior to the 14th century.
You pretty much gave a great explanation right at the start. Whales are basically there own micro-habitats, they can easily have hitchhiking algae and microorganisms
Yes, clearly, they contribute whatever they have living in their GI tract to the local ecosystems wherever they go, and they've got other micro-flora and -fauna in and on them, just like humans
This, I was going to write the exact same phrase. First thing that came to mind - whales bring many species to the poles, either through their poop, stuck in their mouths or attached to their skin. I'm more curious which species are too large to void that possibility.
My first thought too, they basically gave the clue themselves. I would even go so far to say its impossible for whales to NOT carry over microbes, think of all the species specialized in cleaning large marine animals.
I was thinking that since the last ice age started around 100,000 years ago, and ended around 12,000 years ago, there was plenty of time for species to move from one cold pole to the other, and not evolve so much that they became unable to produce fertile offspring with each other
You know, I was worried when Scishow Space went away, that we wouldn't be getting any more of Reid and Savannah. So glad that's not the case! Fascinating video.
When you think about how harsh the environment has been before, it’s not too far fetched to find life thriving in the poles, caves, chemical pools, and magma vents on the proverbial paradise that earth has been the last -10,000 years.
"We'll establish a colony on Mars" mfs when you ask them if we can even establish a year-round colony on Antarctica without needing the only supplies it ever gets being shipped or flown in there.
We could establish a colony on Antarctica, we just don't _care._ Though power on Mars would be easier, since we could just use solar power satellites to beam the power down: not necessarily impossible for Antarctic colonies, but the horizon + orbital physics makes it much harder (essentially for the same reason as day and night will sometimes last for weeks there...).
It's (relatively) easy to get to Antarctica, why would we (science) need an all year long outpost?! Having one for around 6 months of the year is much cheaper.
It could simply be that once they move to the other pole it would be extremely disadvantageous for them to lose any adaptions to that environment. Imagine losing the ability to tolerate cold in either poles. It would be fatal. They probably hitch a ride on whales, deep ocean currents or storms.
That would be like saying that animals would never evolve because it would be extremely disadvantageous for them to lose the genes for having a functioning hearts and brain. Imagine losing a functioning heart or brain. It would be fatal. And yet, we see a huge variety of animal species. Just because one gene is critical to life does not lead to all further adaptation being halted. Put another way, the fact that a small fraction of bipolar organisms' genes code for cold tolerance does not in any way prevent mutations on the other 99% of their DNA. And the mutations on that other 99% of DNA could eventually lead to speciation.
@@eljanrimsa5843 It would be a fitting irony if the species that destroyed such bipolar migrants as the Eskimo Curlew would ultimately end up replacing them in that role, using one of the very tools employed in overhunting them, no less.
Very cool video! My favorite part was at 5:18 when it was specified that the current is off the northern coast and not the southern coast of Antarctica
Very interesting, and something I've been thinking about from time to time. Nice to get an answer to what's _(possibly)_ going on. SciShow never disappoints.
Wouldn't it make sense for isolated populations at the poles to remain genetically similar, especially for microscopic species? They are facing very similar environments, after all, and so wouldn't they naturally converge towards similar adaptations?
In terms of natural selection pressures from the similar environments, yes! However, even if most protein sequences are highly conserved, there is also genetic drift over time. That is, inconsequential "silent" mutations randomly occur and and then randomly become the population norm at a pretty steady (slow) rate. If there is no contact between the two populations for long stretches of time, then their genomes should diverge from each other in these silent ways, which we can observe by sequencing their DNA.
I was thinking the same thing, also if they spread in the ice age it would extend polar species ranges enough and once they were there they wouldn’t genetically diverge that much because they’re already suited to the environment!
Genes under selection would likely have convergent mutations, but most studies using phylogenetics to identify and differentiate species would use "neutral" markers. Neutral markers are regions of DNA that are not under selections (positive or negative) and the chance that isolated populations or species will have multiple identical mutations of these DNA regions are very rare.
Another plausible type of transport could be birds, whales or fish being "dirty", small organisms hitching a comfy ride in protected spots. This means that the feasible travel time can be longer than what's implied by being spread via droppings.
1:07 I think this was supposed to be 12,000 miles. In kilometers, they're about 20,000 km apart, which makes sense because that's about half the Earth's circumference in kilometers (40,000 km).
He probably means straight through the earth, not over land. The polar diameter of the earth is just over 12,500km so their closest points being 12,000km makes sense
@@brieoconnor9824 It doesn't make sense in this context, unless we're talking about animals with the ability to travel underground in a straight line between the poles.
I thought that initially, and then I did the maths; 12,000km is 108 degress of lattude difference (the kilometre being, by original definition, one 10,00th of the distance between the equator and the poles(for the nitpickers; the metre was defined as one ten-milllionth that distance, I know; but that's 10,000km anyway :-})), so if we centre that on the equator, we get plus or minus 54 degrees - which the presenter stated was the edge of the Arctic and Antarctic biomes. I'm not a fan of this presenter (just don't like his style; these things happen, and that says as much about my taste in presenters as it does about his style of presentation), and whilst I criticised his use of the misleading term "dark side of the moon) in a sci show space episode, I've not yet spotted any factual errors in his or any other presenters episodes in SciShow. In short, the SciShow team are just that good that if you think they've made an error, it's worth checking your assumptions (and where appropriate, doing the maths), as it's more likely that your assumptions are wrong than that the SciShow team got it wrong! IMHO, of course.
3:31 I actually think that the reason of sharing so much DNA is both reasons! They where common all over the planet long ago and they only survived at the poles.
my immediate thought when you mentioned whales, was that they unintentionally carry them. as well as boats, just like they carry barnacles. (as well as maybe sharks, or some other animals)
I just noticed a graphic mistake. The bit at about 0:35 where it shows the Arctic and Antarctic regions “From space”, the Arctic is spinning the wrong direction. It should spin anticlockwise when looking down onto it. Antarctica is spinning the correct direction. As SciShow is a northern hemisphere production, I’m surprised the mistake wasn’t the other way around with Antarctica back to front.
That's the first time I've heard the word bi-polar used outside of my profession in mental health. Made me go "huh?... wait, yeah, that's right grammatically. I'll be damned."
I think of 2 ways for single celled organisms to travel, 1st is hitchiking with larger organisms to other pole, 2nd is evolving around the same time when snowball earth happened then the same organisms just got seperated in time without evolving too much and sticking to similar environments but in different places
Crowberries are found in sub-arctic regions on the northern hemisphere, typically in mountain areas. *And* they are found on the Falkland Islands (I've seen the plants myself), but nowhere in between.
I mean, some time ago those places weren't icy caps on the poles. It was at some point a rich land with vegetation. Last polar shift changed it to what we have now, but even that is starting to change.
Well if the environments are similar even if far apart, then you wouldn't expect much divergent evolution because the selection pressures would be the same, and likely what the species was already well adapted to. What would be interesting would be to look for fossils of these species in the space between and if found, date them. That could be evidence that they crossed during an ice age.
This may be due to the survivor paradox in which the fertilized eggs don't germinate until conditions are right. That is why you don't see them all over, they need to know all stages of the organism.
Could be that those anthropods spread all over but the ones at the poles didn't diverge because the environment was so similar as to not facilitate change, while the ones in more temperate regions with more biodiversity felt more selective pressure to evolve in different ways.
What about ballast water from ships? If the ship tok on water for ballast ( to keep the ship stable) in the north and then traveling south? And then removing some of that ballast for some reason - that would easily spred a lot of different things. A lot of species have been distributed to Norway in this way
There’s one ecosystem you forgot to mention with these bipolar creatures. The last place you find them is living in my house, as my wife is quite the bipolar specimen
Creo que se podría ver en registro fósil el pasado de ambos polos desde el carbonífero para ver mejor esto de las especies biológicas, cumplirse lo que mencionan aún más. Buen video.
A combination of animals and winter growth is probably how bipolar plants can be moved from one polar region to another. Example, different species of birds feed on and defecate seeds from *cool or cold mountainous* areas, from the Canadian Rockies to the Andes. From the Andes range down to Antarctica.
Whoa, shifting definition Batman. At the beginning of the video define spieces as ability to interbreed, then half way through change it change it to genotype that can only be noticed with genetic testing.
Is it though? Species thrive at certain latitudes, it makes sense that they are able to do so either negative or positive as both sides contain similar temperatures
It has been known for a very long time that some biological organisms are opportunistic enough to hitch a ride on other species to facilitate their spread. Not so very long ago people were up in arms about a flotilla of sorts making its way across the ocean due to concerns over the potential for introducing invasive species into already fragile ecosystems.
It could be that some species that technically have populations everywhere could have larger and more noticable populations near the poles, possibly due to fewer predators or competitors.
The best way to think about life of Earth is layers of species that exist across multiple time periods of major epochs. Species are separated by both time and distance. All layered over each other in between major heating and cooling extremes. Otherwise, we wouldn't have things like plants and trees which are much different than other forms of life that we're more familiar with.
Not being found in the in-between pit stop areas of migrating animals isn't actually evidence against them being carried by those animals. They could be dropped all along the way by any number of long-migrating seabirds, and simply unable to establish a foothold in the pit stop regions due to outcompetition by species that didn't have to "invest" in cold weather survival.
The reason for "slow" evolution may be that they may have "already" achieved evolutionary perfection. They have been around for longer than anything else…
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🙃🙃🙃
"It's hard to imagine a species so globally wide spread that it would survive basically everywhere," he said as a representative of just such a species
But to be fair we are somewhat unique in our ability to adapt our environment to us, rather than having to adapt to it.
Yea, it should be a given that we are the exception, lol
@@geekehUK Yes, that is a unique ability of our species, and that affects the evolution of human beings on the most basic level.
@Empty Glass we did, in minor ways we adapted physically.
In more major ways we adapted our behaviour/behaviours.
The species
It's cool to me that New Zealand plants have way more in common with South American ones, than with Australian ones.
Yes. Proximity is only one significant parameter amongst so many others, like ocean currents, wind directions, etc. For example, it's easier to reach the Azores with a sailing ship from the Americas than it is from Spain, Portugal, or northern Africa. It's actually so hard to get there that these islands aren't to be found on any sea map prior to the 14th century.
@@lonestarr1490that's so interessant!
Wow
@@lonestarr1490 I'm sure its to do with tectonics. No species are crossing the long ocean other than marine life
It makes sense if there's an ice wall and the world is flat
You pretty much gave a great explanation right at the start. Whales are basically there own micro-habitats, they can easily have hitchhiking algae and microorganisms
Yes, clearly, they contribute whatever they have living in their GI tract to the local ecosystems wherever they go, and they've got other micro-flora and -fauna in and on them, just like humans
This, I was going to write the exact same phrase. First thing that came to mind - whales bring many species to the poles, either through their poop, stuck in their mouths or attached to their skin. I'm more curious which species are too large to void that possibility.
My thoughts too
My first thought too, they basically gave the clue themselves. I would even go so far to say its impossible for whales to NOT carry over microbes, think of all the species specialized in cleaning large marine animals.
I was thinking that since the last ice age started around 100,000 years ago, and ended around 12,000 years ago, there was plenty of time for species to move from one cold pole to the other, and not evolve so much that they became unable to produce fertile offspring with each other
The Arctic tern must _love_ polar summer, since it migrates between the poles to get two summers a year.
I mean there is no night at polar summer so that's something maybe( definitely not)
Honestly it sounds like an awesome ecosystem and the best time to enjoy said ecosystem, if you're built for it
Well by the time it gets there it needs another holiday
Maybe they are afraid of the dark 😂
Possibly carrying forams?
Pretty crazy that humans as a species are bipolar
😂😂
You could say that.
I am insane
good joke... icy what you did there
@@GangGang1 I believe 🙏 *you*
You know, I was worried when Scishow Space went away, that we wouldn't be getting any more of Reid and Savannah. So glad that's not the case! Fascinating video.
When you think about how harsh the environment has been before, it’s not too far fetched to find life thriving in the poles, caves, chemical pools, and magma vents on the proverbial paradise that earth has been the last -10,000 years.
"We'll establish a colony on Mars" mfs when you ask them if we can even establish a year-round colony on Antarctica without needing the only supplies it ever gets being shipped or flown in there.
We could establish a colony on Antarctica, we just don't _care._ Though power on Mars would be easier, since we could just use solar power satellites to beam the power down: not necessarily impossible for Antarctic colonies, but the horizon + orbital physics makes it much harder (essentially for the same reason as day and night will sometimes last for weeks there...).
Not a whole lot of mineral resources to exploit
It's (relatively) easy to get to Antarctica, why would we (science) need an all year long outpost?!
Having one for around 6 months of the year is much cheaper.
@@spindash64 that we haven’t discovered
There is still A colony.
"How the HELL do these whales get there?!"
" they swim...."
Science.
Power of the whalevolution.
I figured the Arctic would have more because there are more land masses nearby to have species drift to and from it
It could simply be that once they move to the other pole it would be extremely disadvantageous for them to lose any adaptions to that environment. Imagine losing the ability to tolerate cold in either poles. It would be fatal. They probably hitch a ride on whales, deep ocean currents or storms.
That would be like saying that animals would never evolve because it would be extremely disadvantageous for them to lose the genes for having a functioning hearts and brain. Imagine losing a functioning heart or brain. It would be fatal. And yet, we see a huge variety of animal species. Just because one gene is critical to life does not lead to all further adaptation being halted.
Put another way, the fact that a small fraction of bipolar organisms' genes code for cold tolerance does not in any way prevent mutations on the other 99% of their DNA. And the mutations on that other 99% of DNA could eventually lead to speciation.
or ships
@@eljanrimsa5843 It would be a fitting irony if the species that destroyed such bipolar migrants as the Eskimo Curlew would ultimately end up replacing them in that role, using one of the very tools employed in overhunting them, no less.
@@eljanrimsa5843 or balogna
@@eljanrimsa5843Or polar explorers that routinely migrate between the poles with bags of equipment, parasites and even domesticated animals .
Very cool video! My favorite part was at 5:18 when it was specified that the current is off the northern coast and not the southern coast of Antarctica
There is a portal that cuts through the spirit world. Also a princess became the moon. It's all very scientific.
And The Sun rules earth brutally. Willfully deliberately. With such a dark sense of humor!
@@duewhit310 Everything changed when the fire nation attacked.
@@JeffreyOller did jerry springer have one last big smile when USA at large is more like his show than ever?
@@duewhit310 When the world needed him most, he vanished.
@@JeffreyOller we needed him?.........
😕
I'm frankly more shocked that Denmark, Scotland and North Ireland are deemed polar areas.
If not for the gulf current it would be obvious.
It feels weird seeing Reid on regular SciShow. Not complaining; always loved his presentation over on SciShow Space.
Very interesting, and something I've been thinking about from time to time. Nice to get an answer to what's _(possibly)_ going on. SciShow never disappoints.
Wouldn't it make sense for isolated populations at the poles to remain genetically similar, especially for microscopic species? They are facing very similar environments, after all, and so wouldn't they naturally converge towards similar adaptations?
I don’t think so. They might make the same adaptations to the in environment but their DNA would probably be different.
In terms of natural selection pressures from the similar environments, yes! However, even if most protein sequences are highly conserved, there is also genetic drift over time. That is, inconsequential "silent" mutations randomly occur and and then randomly become the population norm at a pretty steady (slow) rate. If there is no contact between the two populations for long stretches of time, then their genomes should diverge from each other in these silent ways, which we can observe by sequencing their DNA.
Physiologically similar? Sure, that's what convergent evolution is basically. But genetically similar? Not even close.
I was thinking the same thing, also if they spread in the ice age it would extend polar species ranges enough and once they were there they wouldn’t genetically diverge that much because they’re already suited to the environment!
Genes under selection would likely have convergent mutations, but most studies using phylogenetics to identify and differentiate species would use "neutral" markers. Neutral markers are regions of DNA that are not under selections (positive or negative) and the chance that isolated populations or species will have multiple identical mutations of these DNA regions are very rare.
It's weirder still how neither penguins nor polar bears live at the same pole, and how few people know that...
I thought that it was common knowledge that penguins live in the south and polar bears in the north.
@@speed65752 it is. Except to greeting card manufacturers 😁
I had a sad feeling about the Eskimo Curlew when the mention came with a drawing instead of a photograph, and I was right :(
Another plausible type of transport could be birds, whales or fish being "dirty", small organisms hitching a comfy ride in protected spots. This means that the feasible travel time can be longer than what's implied by being spread via droppings.
I love this host, he seems so comfy in front of the camera! 🎉❤
He's one of the best.
1:07 I think this was supposed to be 12,000 miles. In kilometers, they're about 20,000 km apart, which makes sense because that's about half the Earth's circumference in kilometers (40,000 km).
He probably means straight through the earth, not over land. The polar diameter of the earth is just over 12,500km so their closest points being 12,000km makes sense
@@brieoconnor9824 It doesn't make sense in this context, unless we're talking about animals with the ability to travel underground in a straight line between the poles.
@@MicraHakkinen I'm not saying that's the most useful way of measuring it, I'm just pointing out that that's probably what they did.
I think they were just measuring from the edge of one polar region to the edge of the other, instead of frome pole to pole.
I thought that initially, and then I did the maths; 12,000km is 108 degress of lattude difference (the kilometre being, by original definition, one 10,00th of the distance between the equator and the poles(for the nitpickers; the metre was defined as one ten-milllionth that distance, I know; but that's 10,000km anyway :-})), so if we centre that on the equator, we get plus or minus 54 degrees - which the presenter stated was the edge of the Arctic and Antarctic biomes. I'm not a fan of this presenter (just don't like his style; these things happen, and that says as much about my taste in presenters as it does about his style of presentation), and whilst I criticised his use of the misleading term "dark side of the moon) in a sci show space episode, I've not yet spotted any factual errors in his or any other presenters episodes in SciShow.
In short, the SciShow team are just that good that if you think they've made an error, it's worth checking your assumptions (and where appropriate, doing the maths), as it's more likely that your assumptions are wrong than that the SciShow team got it wrong! IMHO, of course.
Biologists who have studied the topic their whole lives: why are they in both poles?
Me with my galaxy brain: because it's cold and they like it.
3:31 I actually think that the reason of sharing so much DNA is both reasons! They where common all over the planet long ago and they only survived at the poles.
And due to the envirement changed very little over a very long time.
Me before watching this: I'm going to blame Arctic terns
Edit: I was wrong :(
** shakes fist at sky ** why didn't I think of SHOREBIRDS???? I've heard of shorebirds!!!!!
0:32 missed opportunity to say they're "polar opposites" has anyone already said this?
has anyone commented this yet?
5:15 "begins off the northern coast of antarctica" isnt every coast the northern coast?
1:33 Oh. So are Scotland and Northern Ireland in the Arctic now?
my immediate thought when you mentioned whales, was that they unintentionally carry them. as well as boats, just like they carry barnacles. (as well as maybe sharks, or some other animals)
Arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) breeds on Arctic and wintering on Antarctic. The longest known migration of all.
Randomly, there is a sled dog who made it to both the North and South pole.
third possibility: they are hitching rides with whales or some other animal that migrates
I just noticed a graphic mistake. The bit at about 0:35 where it shows the Arctic and Antarctic regions “From space”, the Arctic is spinning the wrong direction. It should spin anticlockwise when looking down onto it. Antarctica is spinning the correct direction. As SciShow is a northern hemisphere production, I’m surprised the mistake wasn’t the other way around with Antarctica back to front.
glad to know that antarctica had a special water supply just for bottoms that’s very thoughtful of them!
Ah! To be the first to view a SciShow! Bucket list glory! 😂🎉
Sorry bud, you’re second
Sorry, you weren't the first here. You weren't even in the first ten.
5:16 “off the northern coast of Antarctica”
Yeah, you might need to be more specific. 😅
I love your channel anyway ❤
That's the first time I've heard the word bi-polar used outside of my profession in mental health. Made me go "huh?... wait, yeah, that's right grammatically. I'll be damned."
I hope SciShow keeps going forever. Like Doctor Who.
I saw this moderator the first time today. And instantly fell in love with his voice.
Nice to know my mom is one of these species.
I think of 2 ways for single celled organisms to travel, 1st is hitchiking with larger organisms to other pole, 2nd is evolving around the same time when snowball earth happened then the same organisms just got seperated in time without evolving too much and sticking to similar environments but in different places
Crowberries are found in sub-arctic regions on the northern hemisphere, typically in mountain areas. *And* they are found on the Falkland Islands (I've seen the plants myself), but nowhere in between.
I mean, some time ago those places weren't icy caps on the poles. It was at some point a rich land with vegetation. Last polar shift changed it to what we have now, but even that is starting to change.
Well if the environments are similar even if far apart, then you wouldn't expect much divergent evolution because the selection pressures would be the same, and likely what the species was already well adapted to. What would be interesting would be to look for fossils of these species in the space between and if found, date them. That could be evidence that they crossed during an ice age.
This may be due to the survivor paradox in which the fertilized eggs don't germinate until conditions are right. That is why you don't see them all over, they need to know all stages of the organism.
Always interesting, thanks.
Have you been on holiday, Reid? Nice to see you again!
The swallow may fly south with the sun or the house martin or the plover may seek warmer climes in winter, yet these are not strangers to our land
"Ice age is here, right in your town
Antarctica, look what you've done"
what landmass are you showing at 0:38 for the artic?
It's technically not a landmass but a mass of ice located at the North pole
3 minutes ago... decent enough. Glad I can catch this before leaving.
I like the clean shaven look! Good info too!
This guy is like a cartoon character
Could be that those anthropods spread all over but the ones at the poles didn't diverge because the environment was so similar as to not facilitate change, while the ones in more temperate regions with more biodiversity felt more selective pressure to evolve in different ways.
What about ballast water from ships? If the ship tok on water for ballast ( to keep the ship stable) in the north and then traveling south? And then removing some of that ballast for some reason - that would easily spred a lot of different things.
A lot of species have been distributed to Norway in this way
There’s one ecosystem you forgot to mention with these bipolar creatures. The last place you find them is living in my house, as my wife is quite the bipolar specimen
5:18 I would like to see the non-northern coast please
"off the northern coast of Antarctica", that got me a chuckle, as Antarctica has no other type of coasts!
Hey, a new host!
Cool vid.
They live on both poles because i took them there. Youre welcome.
who is this new guy? he speaks like reading a poem, or singing. I like it!
Creo que se podría ver en registro fósil el pasado de ambos polos desde el carbonífero para ver mejor esto de las especies biológicas, cumplirse lo que mencionan aún más. Buen video.
5:15 Isn't the entire coast of Antarctica the Northern Coast?
A combination of animals and winter growth is probably how bipolar plants can be moved from one polar region to another.
Example, different species of birds feed on and defecate seeds from *cool or cold mountainous* areas, from the Canadian Rockies to the Andes. From the Andes range down to Antarctica.
Except that theory only applies to 1/4 of the relevant plant species? What about the other 3/4?
Thank you!
Whoa, shifting definition Batman.
At the beginning of the video define spieces as ability to interbreed, then half way through change it change it to genotype that can only be noticed with genetic testing.
Looking good, Reid
WOW! How interesting. I love to learn new things 🙂
They just moved a bit up/down and wrapped around the map on the other side, easy explanation :P
Glad to know I can survive in both poles
Is it though? Species thrive at certain latitudes, it makes sense that they are able to do so either negative or positive as both sides contain similar temperatures
1:25 Lmao 😂
My guess is they're using the same underground tunnel system
Godzilla uses to show up where ever he dam well wants. "0_o"
I want to see bipolar bears. I know it would ruin the penguins but it would fufill the pun.
It has been known for a very long time that some biological organisms are opportunistic enough to hitch a ride on other species to facilitate their spread. Not so very long ago people were up in arms about a flotilla of sorts making its way across the ocean due to concerns over the potential for introducing invasive species into already fragile ecosystems.
They are not currently in contact.
They just have not changed since they were separated by the end of snowball earth.
This man talks at the perfect speed
Shades of Naboo. Maybe they travel from one pole to the other through the plant's core.
5:16 "The northern coast of Antarctica" all the coasts of Antarctica are the northern coast
I’ve always wondered about this!
Arctic and Antitarctic 🥶🥶🥶
It could be that some species that technically have populations everywhere could have larger and more noticable populations near the poles, possibly due to fewer predators or competitors.
I can’t believe u didn’t mentioned they could of got there during the ice age
The best way to think about life of Earth is layers of species that exist across multiple time periods of major epochs. Species are separated by both time and distance. All layered over each other in between major heating and cooling extremes. Otherwise, we wouldn't have things like plants and trees which are much different than other forms of life that we're more familiar with.
Haven't you guys done episodes on "Snowball Earth"?
It is entirely possible that such microbes evolved together long ago in the time of Pangea and were only separated by the separation of the continents
Before I saw the narrator I was thinking “wow Neil Degrasse Tyson doesn’t sound at all condescending in this video”
Who else thinks its aliens messing with us :)
A whale is surely an entire traveling habitat.
Not being found in the in-between pit stop areas of migrating animals isn't actually evidence against them being carried by those animals. They could be dropped all along the way by any number of long-migrating seabirds, and simply unable to establish a foothold in the pit stop regions due to outcompetition by species that didn't have to "invest" in cold weather survival.
Maybe they're using the spirit bridges as seen in Avatar TLoK. 🤓
The reason for "slow" evolution may be that they may have "already" achieved evolutionary perfection. They have been around for longer than anything else…
They are all chilling at the bottom of the ocean, so we cannot find them lol
Missed ya bud!
"The northern coast of Antarctica" 5:18, wouldn't that be the entire coast of Antarctica?
Why wasn't the Arctic Tern up for consideration in the plant dispersal theory?
10000km ... sounds like the reason why those hudsonians are known as hudsonians. They take a bit of a break and keep on
easy: they use the portals to the spirit world to travel between the north and south poles
way to give flat earthers more ammo