These creatures gave me such bad nightmares when I first saw them, but they’re really interesting when you think about it, I’m glad to see them getting covered on this channel
There is nothing scarier than uncanny british TV CGI. Primeval Torchwood fairies and abaddon Doctor Who Werewolf All completely fucked and nightmare fuel for children not because they look real but specifically because they don’t.
I'd say it's unlikely that the merqueen is the only female we're seeing- a bull elephant seal can afford to hog beaches since one male gets reproductive value from all the females it can guard, but a female only benefits from one male and enough beach to reproduce in safety. Kicking out all the other females would be making them the only target! Instead, I'd suggest that many of the smaller individuals are actually other adult females, and the largest female's size is caused by- and used for- dominating other females to co-opt them for the queen's offspring. A similar process of an alpha female growing larger in response to their own dominance can be seen even in other mammals, such as meerkats and naked mole rats. Both of these also live in the arid low-resource environments we suspect the mercreatures evolved in, and the behaviour could easily have been derived from from modern primates' use of younger females as babysitters. This would also fit the 'lardering' of live prey we see smaller individuals using to store food; males and subordinate females could either be saving prey for the queen's offspring (possibly as a teaching tool), or hiding it in enclosed spaces so the queen can't steal it from them.
Interesting thoughts - the molerat queen analogy is quite a prevalent one. In a lot of other species too with significant sexual dimorphism you can also get varieties of morphs like with sneaky males and such.
Personally I would find it more interesting if colony was entirely female. If resources are limited then maybe they would be like sea turtles when the females come to shore but males are completely aquatic. They then could prey on different prey helping the colony.
According to the Primeval tie in gamebook, the Merqueen isn't a normal female, she's similar to a mole rat queen: the main female who is the only one who reproduces for the whole colony, with the other females looking like males and acting as nurses until the current Queen dies, at which point, the females battle until one remains who bulks up and becomes a new queen. Been reading it up for a hopeful campigan, and wanted to add because I'm curious if this makes more or less sense lol. Great video!
13:42 sidetracking from the mer, but it really surprises me that male northern elephant seals dive to such "shallow" of depths, when the males of the southern species are only beaten by beaked whales in the deepest dives of any tetrapod. Truly shows how even superficially similar animals can behave extremely differently in some regards.
Yup, southern elephant seals effectively have reversed foraging patterns of males being incredibly deep divers and the females being shallow pelagic foragers. Presumably this is due to environmental differences, but it'd be cool to see a similar study done for southern ones.
Speak for yourself. The future fungus was terrifying. I had nightmares for days after I first saw it. And I was scared of fungi for a long time. Everything else was fascinating for me.
It's great to see someone giving some love to good old primeval, that show was a huge part of my childhood and my interest in creatures, I hope to see you cover some of the other future creatures as well like the zombie fungus, camflage beast and megopteran and off course your monster hunter content is fantastic keep the good work up
@@zionleach3001 aye it would have been so easy to be stupid and cheesy but they had some serious moments, I kinda fell off after series 3 tho the last episode I remember was one with a egyptian crocodile thing and that's it, il need to rewatch the show at some point lol
@@bradleythomas3 I was still quite young when the fungus episode happened and I remember acutaly being scared of it as a kid, kinda like the dodo worm parasites did, I must have had a real deep fear of parasites as a kid lol
@@stormerjc9493 makes sense, parasites can be scary things. Imagine a cordyceps that took over the whole body, far worse than it is with insects. Worse than last of us, it straight up dissolves the host to become it's own independent creature! such a good show!
I feel like japanese macaque's would be the most likely common ancestor. It's not just the love some have for hot springs but there are some communities being studied and fed by researchers near the coasts that even use the salty sea water to "season" the food given to them. It's been long known these monkeys learn behaviors from older members, creating what are essentially unique cultures to each troop. What's more it seems that it is matrilineal based, as in the females are more dominant at least in the sense that they are more directly passing on these traits to their offspring. This could easily translate into later generations putting more focus on their female offspring as they will bring up the next generation, teaching them what is necessary to survive and thrive which could lead to females naturally growing larger as they are acessing more nutrients. Not to mention the fact their ancestors originated on an island could make the transition to sea life a tad more necessary. Only other candidate would be Barbary Macaques in my mind as they live near the Mediterranean sea and I feel like starting out in a vast inland sea (lake) would give them a better head start as many MANY years into the future it would likely open up and the oceans of the world would be open to them. As they'd have a slight head start in living in large bodies of salt water and needing to use it to travel great distances for resources, once access to the oceans open up they might be able to get ahead thanks to already being somewhat adapted for long distance swimming in sea conditions
I would love to see you do a video on the late Evolve video game series, specifically analyzing the nature and the planet of Shear. The creatures had a lot of thought put into their designs and it would be a shame to let that creativity go unnoticed.
I've got an interesting suggestion for you to look at. You should take a look at the unique animals and ecology of Dark Sun, an old D&D setting as well the setting for the Prism Pentad book series ((all of which are available on UA-cam as audiobooks for free.)) and a few other books as well. The jist of the setting is that an ancient war has turned the world in a desert wasteland, a very fantasy Mad Max thing going on. Pretty much all the plants and animal are either entirely unique or unique modified versions of existing animals different to our own world. Back a while ago you said you wanted to see a fantasy setting where animals had evolved to use magic like humans and thats the case in Dark Sun. All animals have evolved to use Psionics ((one of three magic systems seen in the setting)) to some degree. In the beginng of the Third Prism Pentad book a character is trying to Psionics to posses the mind of a Kank ((a sort of giant domestic beetle used a beast of burden)) in order to spy on the main character. However the Kank ends up overpowering the character's will with its own psionic defenses and posses his mind instead. He then proceeds to have his body run around on all fours scratching at the walls as he is locked into a fierce mental battle with the creature to regain control over his own body. Its a very unique and i'd love to see the setting get some love in the modern day.
Psionics are the literal opposite of magic. Magic takes energy from the PMPlane and shapes probability into a specific outcome. Psionics relies on *literal* brain energy DIRECTLY from the individual to DELETE probability. Magic in Dark Sun is forbidden for a very specific reason.
Ah, the nostalgia. They do look very much like Gorillas crossed with Elephant Seals. If you look at the skull of Elephant Seals, especially the toothy males, they look quite like the side profile of the heads of the Mer Creatures. I always found these things crazy. But it stops being so crazy when you see videos of Elephant Seal 'beachmasters' scaring off (albeit smaller, not fully grown) Great White Sharks from his area. There are literally videos on UA-cam of Elephant Seal Bulls scaring off Great White Sharks _in the water_ by B-lining straight for them. The shark is like, 'f this' and thrashes it's tail and gets the hell out of there before it gets a nasty bite. I'm sure they play cat and mouse quite a lot. But the thing is, the very biggest adult Great White Sharks will be able to fatally attack even these big chungus Elephant Seal Males, but it really comes down to which one bites first. If a big bull male can scare off the smaller ones just by swimming closer, I think the adult/large 18-22 footer sized GWS will be having a bad day if they pick the wrong 'beachmaster' to go after. Yes, the GWS still has the advantage but even those big lads among the GWS must be wary with some of the bigger Elephant Seals. Part of the reason why the Bull male Elephant Seals are so 'proactive' in defending their areas, is because the female ones don't really stand _any_ chance against large GWS unless they can swim away and come up onto the beach. The massive blubbery hides of the males gives them a bit more of a saving grace if bitten by a big GWS, but naturally these wounds are still horrific if they bite hard enough. I kind of imagined, back in the day, that these Mer Creatures were living in the same time as the 'Future Shark' and having similar back and forth situations with them. The proboscis of the Future Shark could be used to pluck smaller Mer Creatures from their resting spots, but the bigger Mer Creatures could absolutely just go ape on a Future Shark if it wasn't careful (and the Hybodont like spines on the Future Shark, made me think of a defensive adaptation against the bigger Mer Creatures) They are still kinda crazy as a concept for a future animal, but Mer Creatures definitely aren't _impossible_ as such. Just a bit, mad. AKA classic Primeval then!
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Long-tailed Macaque, which I believe would be a plausible ancestor of the Mer. I live where these monkeys are native to, and they are called Crab-eating Macaques or Diving Macaques for a reason - they swim around the mangroves and estuaries for crustaceans, shellfish, snails and fish for food. In fact, it’s a behaviour that’s often showcased in zoos in South-east Asia.
You should definitely cover the Camoflage Beast next from primeval, argueably the scariest creature to come from the show, and some day cover the future bugs and the Tree Creepers (Aboreal Raptors)
At one point in our history I think it was theorized we could have become aquatic. For a few thousand years our distant ancestors lived on the shores/beaches and seemed to show early signs of evolving in that direction, but we eventually moved back to land and left it behind.
Something tells me we wouldn't have gone aquatic, given that if it was a few thousand years ago, rather than tens/hundreds of thousands of years ago, we would have had fire, which is an extreme advantage we would have been intelligent enough not to give up.
@@kingpotato7183 Just body fat, hairlessness was to make us sweat more easily. Body fat itself is still shaky, I've only ever seen it used by obese people to justify being obese.
@@bradleythomas3 I'm just saying that this theory is used to explain certain aspects of us, personally I don't believe it. As for body fat, it regulates our hormones and keeps us warm (that's why Scandinavians have a higher percentage of bf compared to Africans diets plays s huge affect aswell) also helps with surviving famines
For the next video, I think Gammoth would be fun to talk about Her armored limbs may be an adaptation for cold ground and her head definitely seems to be for repelling attacks from things like Tigrex and Barioth and trying to reduce predation from Ukanlos; the latter being the only wyvern able to hunt adult Gammoth, but even then with difficulty. The coloration of baby Gammoth are white to hide in snow from Tigrex but may turn into a grayish brown like a popo in juvenile stage and would either become white again as a smaller male or blue and red as a warming display for adult females. I think males are white and live in herds like a reverse of actual elephants due to the fact that a herd of female Gammoth seems odd
A great video! I actually have a suggestion for a future video: perhaps you could cover the animals that are featured in After Man or The New Dinosaurs? That would be quite interesting. Speaking about futuristic creatures, have you ever watched the Future is Wild series?
I was a mer in another lifetime, so I absolutely love this! Found it almost by accident (though of course it's the algorithm that explains everything) and I'm SO glad! Thank you for helping me speculate.
Great video. But you forgot to mention the mer creatures' singing abilities and how they shed their skin. I'd have been interested to see what conclusions you would have drawn on that from examining primate, pinniped and possibly cetacean biology.
Speaking of the future shark, what kind of pressure would drive a shark to develop such traits as it had, given large predatory sharks have used the same relative body plan for a while now?
Very educational video as always! It's always a good day when you can settle down to watch them! Have you considered perhaps doing more videos on Primeval? Not necessarily a full-on review, but maybe discussions on Tree Creepers (arboreal dromaeosaurs), future fungus, Camouflage Beast/Gremlin (maybe it's an evolved monkey or lemur?) or the giant bugs that fought the Future predators? It would be great to hear your take on them!
Personally, I always thought the Mer Creatures looks either goofy or creepy. I guess the creepy look of the males was intentional, but I thought the queen looks goofy. But this video made me more interested in them, so, I don't know.
Interesting idea for a video would be talking about the complex relationship between black diablos, barroth and the batesian mimicry of nightshade paloumu. The monopolization of the same food source it and barroth share could cause some interesting interactions between the species. I'm Also curious who came first, base or nightshade paloumu considering the assortment of adaptations nightshade has for living in desert habitats.
You might not see this, but I think it would be really interesting if you did a video on the Glyphids from Hoxxes IV from Deeprock Galactic, would be nice for you to speculate on their evolution, even though they're aliens and that kinda breaks a rule of specs evo.
Now... take this opinion with a grain of salt, as I am no expert, but the best analogue that I can think of for the extreme sexual dimorphism and female dominance over males is something like the bonono's female-centered system on steroids. Though, we'd be talking about apes rather than monkeys. Perhaps the extreme conditions of the future could've incentivized the Mer's ancestors to favor this system since most of a troop's resources would've gone to the females to ensure that they could raise their offspring, and with time, this system became more extreme, with females taking dominance and eventually reaching the point that we see in the series
You mentioned the shark that appeared, so could the evolution of the Mercreatures be from seals evolving to live life more so on land rather than in the water? Cause I do remember the shark having a long tongue like thing in its mouth that could have possibly been evolved to grab the seals off of rocks on the shore line giving the seals reason to need to move more inland to survive.
19:24 tackling cryptids like good old ones like vamps or werewolves as a holloween special may be cool, if you haven't got a solid idea already to celebrate the upcoming spooky month.
The real question is why they went to such efforts to take people to the future, as well as store them rather than just take them right there after snatching them. Is it some sort of courtship routine, where the lad with the tastiest human gets a good time with the queen? Going by the theory that males are more risk-free hunters, humans are extremely dangerous to hunt, tending to be armed with weapons that were not only effective against the males, but even made short work of the queen herself.
Maybe the male / female sex ratio is so skewed because have a larger bias for males and the mer creatures could be using dispersal Some modern day primates have large troops and use dispersal to allow for gene flow. The males may be smaller because there’s a surplus of them. Both genders may also be extremely violent with one and another. the males might viciously compete for the females attention and I’ve noticed that females have enlarged canines on the bottom and top jaw which is an indicator of physical fitness. My hypothesis is that mer creature males live in large colonies and compete for the merqueens attention to have the right to mate, with only the most violent males being selected by the dominant female.
Alatreon from Monster Hunter isn't really the sort of animal you'd try to apply realism to, but one detail about it has really gotten under my skin. The base of Alatreon's tail appears unusually thick and bulbous, and looks like Alatreon has massive Caudofemoralis muscles. This reminds me of the 8:00 mark of your Deviljho video where it was highlighted that these muscles at the base of the tail were for efficient walking over long distances. It would be odd for a dragon seen flying regularly to be adapted for effecient walking. This may just be a style over substance design choice from Capcom but it may be worth exploring further.
Heya dude, I really enjoy your fleshed out aspect on the theory of evolution of the Future Predator and the Mer. Please can you do more about the Cameo Beast and the Megopteran?
given the apparent aridity of the mer homeland, it's possible that the loss or reduction in land-based food sources drove the mer's ancestors to the ocean and made adaptations for coastal/oceanic foraging advantageous.
@@unnaturalhistorychannel even if is a joke is a fun and interesting way to look at It , If humans had devasted the land so bad that they had to go to the sea in order to survive and lost most of their inteligence to save energy because of the low opition of food
Mer is one cooler future creatures from primeval. It is kinda goofy but it can be scary at times. I think it's descendant of baboons with social hierarchy similar to that of the molerats with dominant queen.
I definitely agree that the first 2 seasons of Primeval were the best, but 3 and 4 I feel were decent in their own right while 5 was just meh. On the topic of Impossible Pictures, one topic that I think would be interesting to discuss is Prehistoric Park and maybe how viable such a concept would be.
I think with Prehistoric Park, the idealism goggles are well and truly on, because it somehow happens in a world where random bad guys wouldn't be flocking to such a park to take the animals away or steal DNA samples. Kind of the classic Jurassic Park conundrum with these ideas. Also, in a more recent sense, like with the Jurassic World films (not that I particularly like those, it is just a fair comparison) People being people, I can see hordes of random bad guys just constantly trying to steal animals from the enclosures and so on and so forth. They could have military grade defences put in staffed by the literal military, but at that point I don't know if it would be cost effective to run. On the upside, it would likely receive a hell of a lot of donations and crowdfunding, because people love Dinosaurs etc and want to see them. So if it were real, and could be looked after properly, _maybe_ there could be a way of getting everything to run smoothly without too many baddies spoiling the show. I just have a feeling that humanity would find a way to spoil things (this is why we can't have nice things etc) P.S - Seasons 1 and 2 of Primeval were the best, hands down, but Season 3 tried to do something new and wasn't too bad. Just a shame about the Cutters. I just feel as though after S3 ITV pulled the plug on real interest and then it was just on life support after that, mainly managing to continue by filming for cheaper rates in Ireland (honestly, it did) And the less said about the one season wonder of the peculiar Canadian spin-off with the brief cameos from Connor, the better. Such a shame how it all went down the pan because ITV just, did not, and would not, care. S4 was better than S5 but S4 and S5 together are very different to S1-S3. It's pretty much two different shows at that point. In some ways Primeval 'peaked' in S3. In terms of the most iconic episodes and classic imagery, and species, it was definitely in S1 and S3. In terms of dramatic storylines, probably S2 and interestingly ambitious concepts, again, S2. But S1 had the most mystery and wonder. It had the worst animation, by far, but that doesn't mean it was lacking for spirit. If anyone is feeling this weird, 'anywhere but nowhere' feeling about S4 and S5, it is because they were pretending it was London and Southern England as base of operations, but filmed largely in Northern Ireland for lack of budget. And it had been so long since the 'glory days' of S1 and S2. S3 tried to do a thing and it objectively has the most fascinating future episodes and what they did with the Future Insects and Future Predators etc was great. I just wish that Cutter didn't have to go. It was held together by the force of his presence and when he was gone, that was basically it. A lot of S3 is cool and all but also can be described as filler. S2 was were Primeval tried to really break into it's stride, and did, for a while. But S1 is still my favourite in terms of how much adventure there was in it. How much mystery and nostalgia. S1 has the most potential in a lot of shows of course. Oh and, ironically, I am now sometimes trying to make up my mind if Primeval was a good idea full-stop. I always wanted a Walking With Dinosaurs II (I have literally been writing my own version of WWD II lol, among other things) and although I know that Impossible Pictures and Haines & Hodges basically thought it was done and dusted after WWM (2005), I was sure that there was more left for them to do. I know there were spin-offs and that they did this and that in other specials, but it really was such a shame WWD II never got off the ground. They should have just gone for it. My honest feelings now are divided, on Primeval, because I think Haines & Hodges may have been too distracted by wanting to make their show with humans in it. All the way back during the production of WWD (1999) which lasted from 1996 to 1999, the idea of Jurassic Park like/or at least vaguely inspired, Dinosaur show with people running around, was certainly something they wanted to look into. In some ways, it's like they wanted it as a feather in the cap of their production careers, in television, to hammer out some concepts about a TV show with live action actors and animated prehistoric creatures. Obviously it was hammed up to 11 with Primeval with some really cheesy moments and dialogue. But I still love Primeval. It just feels like, in a weird way, they were so determined to try their hand at that, that they abandoned a winning formula for making natural history drama documentary style recreations of lost worlds. And it was such a shame.
When I first saw these creatures, I thought they were future walrus. P.s could you do a episode on the FUTURE FUNGUS. Of season 3. That was nightmare fuel for me.
I never thought much of Primeval when it was new, but that doesn't stop your speculative zoology videos from being fun and interesting. Is Primeval worth returning to? I also wonder if you have any interest in Metroid
When it was announced this would be your next video, I almost immediately watched the episode that had the Mer creature in it. That and these guys already served as ideal reference material to create my own take on Marygr, a scrapped Monsterverse kaiju. Edit: haven't decided yet? Why not a vote. Make a list of 5-10 monsters you want to cover next, have the community vote, and why. Obviously the Black dragons & Purple Panther are out of the question.
@@joshuas22 I haven't seen it yet because I watched it off my sister's friend's HBO Max account, who she let us use. However, one day, she did something with it and now we don't have access to HBO Max.
I always thought they evolved from humans😭. I have no idea why though as it makes no sense in terms of the story and in terms of common sense. It must have just been something my brother jokingly said. Also, I love this show, and it’s so good to someone doing a video on it, they’re so rare for a show so good.
I always assumed that the "aquatic humans" theory seemed fairly likely so I'm surprised you would disparage it. Could you explain or direct me to the right sources to let me know what I'm missing?
There's effectively no real evidence backing it up besides coincidence. Rae TC, Koppe T (2014). "Sinuses and flotation: does the aquatic ape theory hold water?". Evolutionary Anthropology is one read, here is another too : johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/pseudoscience/aquatic_ape_theory.html
I thought this was a pretty crazy idea and an interesting concept to emphasize the fact that evolution does not favor intelligence. Kind of a tragic end for the story of humanity.
I don’t want to sound arrogant or anything, but am I the only who remembers one of the main characters of the ‘Primeval’ tv series speculating that the “Mer Creatures” were actually the descendants of Humanity? I’m only asking this because it was never brought up in the video and I’m genuinely curious to know what other people think. Especially those who are very scientifically minded like the guy in the video.
I think it is also possible that some of the smaller Individualismus are female, but remain Malelike because of the presence of an alpha female. Basically a reversed Urans uthan
These creatures gave me such bad nightmares when I first saw them, but they’re really interesting when you think about it, I’m glad to see them getting covered on this channel
Also First!!
There is nothing scarier than uncanny british TV CGI.
Primeval
Torchwood fairies and abaddon
Doctor Who Werewolf
All completely fucked and nightmare fuel for children not because they look real but specifically because they don’t.
@@sbraypaynt YES! EXACTLY!
I thought I was the only one 😂
You think these are scary, try the future fungus in season 3 they eat the skin off the bones and leave a husk of what was once a human.
I'd say it's unlikely that the merqueen is the only female we're seeing- a bull elephant seal can afford to hog beaches since one male gets reproductive value from all the females it can guard, but a female only benefits from one male and enough beach to reproduce in safety. Kicking out all the other females would be making them the only target!
Instead, I'd suggest that many of the smaller individuals are actually other adult females, and the largest female's size is caused by- and used for- dominating other females to co-opt them for the queen's offspring. A similar process of an alpha female growing larger in response to their own dominance can be seen even in other mammals, such as meerkats and naked mole rats. Both of these also live in the arid low-resource environments we suspect the mercreatures evolved in, and the behaviour could easily have been derived from from modern primates' use of younger females as babysitters. This would also fit the 'lardering' of live prey we see smaller individuals using to store food; males and subordinate females could either be saving prey for the queen's offspring (possibly as a teaching tool), or hiding it in enclosed spaces so the queen can't steal it from them.
Interesting thoughts - the molerat queen analogy is quite a prevalent one. In a lot of other species too with significant sexual dimorphism you can also get varieties of morphs like with sneaky males and such.
Personally I would find it more interesting if colony was entirely female. If resources are limited then maybe they would be like sea turtles when the females come to shore but males are completely aquatic. They then could prey on different prey helping the colony.
@@Zach124869 that’s a really interesting take
Oh shit its dawn
@@Krona-fb4dn hello i live here sometimes
According to the Primeval tie in gamebook, the Merqueen isn't a normal female, she's similar to a mole rat queen: the main female who is the only one who reproduces for the whole colony, with the other females looking like males and acting as nurses until the current Queen dies, at which point, the females battle until one remains who bulks up and becomes a new queen.
Been reading it up for a hopeful campigan, and wanted to add because I'm curious if this makes more or less sense lol. Great video!
13:42 sidetracking from the mer, but it really surprises me that male northern elephant seals dive to such "shallow" of depths, when the males of the southern species are only beaten by beaked whales in the deepest dives of any tetrapod.
Truly shows how even superficially similar animals can behave extremely differently in some regards.
Yup, southern elephant seals effectively have reversed foraging patterns of males being incredibly deep divers and the females being shallow pelagic foragers. Presumably this is due to environmental differences, but it'd be cool to see a similar study done for southern ones.
When I first watched Primeval as a kid these were just as terrifying as the future predator to me!
Speak for yourself. The future fungus was terrifying. I had nightmares for days after I first saw it. And I was scared of fungi for a long time. Everything else was fascinating for me.
@@DryptosaurusDavid thought I was the only one who was scared of the fungus monster as a kid 😭😭
@@sosa2mars welcome to the club
It's great to see someone giving some love to good old primeval, that show was a huge part of my childhood and my interest in creatures, I hope to see you cover some of the other future creatures as well like the zombie fungus, camflage beast and megopteran and off course your monster hunter content is fantastic keep the good work up
Me too. I appreciated how they played a absurd premise serious, like Doctor Who.
@@zionleach3001 aye it would have been so easy to be stupid and cheesy but they had some serious moments, I kinda fell off after series 3 tho the last episode I remember was one with a egyptian crocodile thing and that's it, il need to rewatch the show at some point lol
Such a good show, the parasitic fungus is still a favourite of mine.
@@bradleythomas3 I was still quite young when the fungus episode happened and I remember acutaly being scared of it as a kid, kinda like the dodo worm parasites did, I must have had a real deep fear of parasites as a kid lol
@@stormerjc9493 makes sense, parasites can be scary things. Imagine a cordyceps that took over the whole body, far worse than it is with insects. Worse than last of us, it straight up dissolves the host to become it's own independent creature! such a good show!
These Primeval speculation videos are fantastic!
I can’t wait for the Megopteran video.
- The ARC Minister
I feel like japanese macaque's would be the most likely common ancestor. It's not just the love some have for hot springs but there are some communities being studied and fed by researchers near the coasts that even use the salty sea water to "season" the food given to them. It's been long known these monkeys learn behaviors from older members, creating what are essentially unique cultures to each troop. What's more it seems that it is matrilineal based, as in the females are more dominant at least in the sense that they are more directly passing on these traits to their offspring. This could easily translate into later generations putting more focus on their female offspring as they will bring up the next generation, teaching them what is necessary to survive and thrive which could lead to females naturally growing larger as they are acessing more nutrients. Not to mention the fact their ancestors originated on an island could make the transition to sea life a tad more necessary. Only other candidate would be Barbary Macaques in my mind as they live near the Mediterranean sea and I feel like starting out in a vast inland sea (lake) would give them a better head start as many MANY years into the future it would likely open up and the oceans of the world would be open to them. As they'd have a slight head start in living in large bodies of salt water and needing to use it to travel great distances for resources, once access to the oceans open up they might be able to get ahead thanks to already being somewhat adapted for long distance swimming in sea conditions
Babe wake up, new banger just dropped
7:08 man the creature designers did a good job with the Mer, it's reptilian looking on the surface but also uniquely primate-like
I would love to see you do a video on the late Evolve video game series, specifically analyzing the nature and the planet of Shear. The creatures had a lot of thought put into their designs and it would be a shame to let that creativity go unnoticed.
Wait, hold on, the really big dominant ones are the females? Does that not therefore make them tomboys?
The ultimate tomboys it seems!
Bright, don't get ideas.
Male wife merboys?
Even WoKe Movement are in the animal Kingdom
@@reallycantthinkofausername487 Do not the mer
I've got an interesting suggestion for you to look at. You should take a look at the unique animals and ecology of Dark Sun, an old D&D setting as well the setting for the Prism Pentad book series ((all of which are available on UA-cam as audiobooks for free.)) and a few other books as well. The jist of the setting is that an ancient war has turned the world in a desert wasteland, a very fantasy Mad Max thing going on.
Pretty much all the plants and animal are either entirely unique or unique modified versions of existing animals different to our own world. Back a while ago you said you wanted to see a fantasy setting where animals had evolved to use magic like humans and thats the case in Dark Sun. All animals have evolved to use Psionics ((one of three magic systems seen in the setting)) to some degree. In the beginng of the Third Prism Pentad book a character is trying to Psionics to posses the mind of a Kank ((a sort of giant domestic beetle used a beast of burden)) in order to spy on the main character. However the Kank ends up overpowering the character's will with its own psionic defenses and posses his mind instead. He then proceeds to have his body run around on all fours scratching at the walls as he is locked into a fierce mental battle with the creature to regain control over his own body.
Its a very unique and i'd love to see the setting get some love in the modern day.
Psionics are the literal opposite of magic. Magic takes energy from the PMPlane and shapes probability into a specific outcome. Psionics relies on *literal* brain energy DIRECTLY from the individual to DELETE probability. Magic in Dark Sun is forbidden for a very specific reason.
Ah, the nostalgia. They do look very much like Gorillas crossed with Elephant Seals. If you look at the skull of Elephant Seals, especially the toothy males, they look quite like the side profile of the heads of the Mer Creatures. I always found these things crazy. But it stops being so crazy when you see videos of Elephant Seal 'beachmasters' scaring off (albeit smaller, not fully grown) Great White Sharks from his area. There are literally videos on UA-cam of Elephant Seal Bulls scaring off Great White Sharks _in the water_ by B-lining straight for them.
The shark is like, 'f this' and thrashes it's tail and gets the hell out of there before it gets a nasty bite. I'm sure they play cat and mouse quite a lot. But the thing is, the very biggest adult Great White Sharks will be able to fatally attack even these big chungus Elephant Seal Males, but it really comes down to which one bites first. If a big bull male can scare off the smaller ones just by swimming closer, I think the adult/large 18-22 footer sized GWS will be having a bad day if they pick the wrong 'beachmaster' to go after.
Yes, the GWS still has the advantage but even those big lads among the GWS must be wary with some of the bigger Elephant Seals. Part of the reason why the Bull male Elephant Seals are so 'proactive' in defending their areas, is because the female ones don't really stand _any_ chance against large GWS unless they can swim away and come up onto the beach. The massive blubbery hides of the males gives them a bit more of a saving grace if bitten by a big GWS, but naturally these wounds are still horrific if they bite hard enough.
I kind of imagined, back in the day, that these Mer Creatures were living in the same time as the 'Future Shark' and having similar back and forth situations with them. The proboscis of the Future Shark could be used to pluck smaller Mer Creatures from their resting spots, but the bigger Mer Creatures could absolutely just go ape on a Future Shark if it wasn't careful (and the Hybodont like spines on the Future Shark, made me think of a defensive adaptation against the bigger Mer Creatures) They are still kinda crazy as a concept for a future animal, but Mer Creatures definitely aren't _impossible_ as such. Just a bit, mad. AKA classic Primeval then!
I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Long-tailed Macaque, which I believe would be a plausible ancestor of the Mer. I live where these monkeys are native to, and they are called Crab-eating Macaques or Diving Macaques for a reason - they swim around the mangroves and estuaries for crustaceans, shellfish, snails and fish for food. In fact, it’s a behaviour that’s often showcased in zoos in South-east Asia.
You should definitely cover the Camoflage Beast next from primeval, argueably the scariest creature to come from the show, and some day cover the future bugs and the Tree Creepers (Aboreal Raptors)
joy has returned to me.
At one point in our history I think it was theorized we could have become aquatic. For a few thousand years our distant ancestors lived on the shores/beaches and seemed to show early signs of evolving in that direction, but we eventually moved back to land and left it behind.
Something tells me we wouldn't have gone aquatic, given that if it was a few thousand years ago, rather than tens/hundreds of thousands of years ago, we would have had fire, which is an extreme advantage we would have been intelligent enough not to give up.
I know this theory, this theory is used to explain our "hairlessness" and body fat
@@kingpotato7183 Just body fat, hairlessness was to make us sweat more easily. Body fat itself is still shaky, I've only ever seen it used by obese people to justify being obese.
@@bradleythomas3 I'm just saying that this theory is used to explain certain aspects of us, personally I don't believe it. As for body fat, it regulates our hormones and keeps us warm (that's why Scandinavians have a higher percentage of bf compared to Africans diets plays s huge affect aswell) also helps with surviving famines
Hmmm, all of this specevo is making me wonder, will you ever tackle some content or creatures from The Future is Wild?
For the next video, I think Gammoth would be fun to talk about
Her armored limbs may be an adaptation for cold ground and her head definitely seems to be for repelling attacks from things like Tigrex and Barioth and trying to reduce predation from Ukanlos; the latter being the only wyvern able to hunt adult Gammoth, but even then with difficulty. The coloration of baby Gammoth are white to hide in snow from Tigrex but may turn into a grayish brown like a popo in juvenile stage and would either become white again as a smaller male or blue and red as a warming display for adult females. I think males are white and live in herds like a reverse of actual elephants due to the fact that a herd of female Gammoth seems odd
Wait Gammoth is a species right?
Why do people call it a she?
Are the female ones the ones you hunt?
@Purple Emerald ah thanks
A great video! I actually have a suggestion for a future video: perhaps you could cover the animals that are featured in After Man or The New Dinosaurs? That would be quite interesting. Speaking about futuristic creatures, have you ever watched the Future is Wild series?
I was a mer in another lifetime, so I absolutely love this! Found it almost by accident (though of course it's the algorithm that explains everything) and I'm SO glad! Thank you for helping me speculate.
Great video. But you forgot to mention the mer creatures' singing abilities and how they shed their skin. I'd have been interested to see what conclusions you would have drawn on that from examining primate, pinniped and possibly cetacean biology.
Absolutely love your primeval spec evos. Please please do more :)
Literally loved Primeval and these things terrified me as a kid
These videos are a pleasant time whenever, whatever the subject is, even if I’m unfamiliar with the source material. Thanks.
Speaking of the future shark, what kind of pressure would drive a shark to develop such traits as it had, given large predatory sharks have used the same relative body plan for a while now?
The answer is actually quite simple, competition from species that pressure their evolution for size/aggression
been waiting for this one, great job brah
Can you please do a video on the Quagga? It is such a fascinating creature that died out as recently as the 1880s.
I'm not 100% sure if I'm remembering correctly but I think they briefly mention in the show that the Mer were what's left of humans in the future.
Animal Planet: "Check out our specbio look at what real Mermaids would be like!"
What real mermaids would actually look like:
Let's all try to repress that awful memory.
Great to see more Primeval content on UA-cam!
You should definitely go over the yaujita or predator from the predator series.
Very educational video as always! It's always a good day when you can settle down to watch them! Have you considered perhaps doing more videos on Primeval? Not necessarily a full-on review, but maybe discussions on Tree Creepers (arboreal dromaeosaurs), future fungus, Camouflage Beast/Gremlin (maybe it's an evolved monkey or lemur?) or the giant bugs that fought the Future predators? It would be great to hear your take on them!
Personally, I always thought the Mer Creatures looks either goofy or creepy. I guess the creepy look of the males was intentional, but I thought the queen looks goofy. But this video made me more interested in them, so, I don't know.
Interesting idea for a video would be talking about the complex relationship between black diablos, barroth and the batesian mimicry of nightshade paloumu. The monopolization of the same food source it and barroth share could cause some interesting interactions between the species. I'm Also curious who came first, base or nightshade paloumu considering the assortment of adaptations nightshade has for living in desert habitats.
Return to fishe
Reject monke.
This was the clade which, when faced with that choice, said, "Both."
You might not see this, but I think it would be really interesting if you did a video on the Glyphids from Hoxxes IV from Deeprock Galactic, would be nice for you to speculate on their evolution, even though they're aliens and that kinda breaks a rule of specs evo.
reject monke, return to walrus
Banger thumbnail
One of my favorite channels
Now... take this opinion with a grain of salt, as I am no expert, but the best analogue that I can think of for the extreme sexual dimorphism and female dominance over males is something like the bonono's female-centered system on steroids. Though, we'd be talking about apes rather than monkeys.
Perhaps the extreme conditions of the future could've incentivized the Mer's ancestors to favor this system since most of a troop's resources would've gone to the females to ensure that they could raise their offspring, and with time, this system became more extreme, with females taking dominance and eventually reaching the point that we see in the series
You mentioned the shark that appeared, so could the evolution of the Mercreatures be from seals evolving to live life more so on land rather than in the water? Cause I do remember the shark having a long tongue like thing in its mouth that could have possibly been evolved to grab the seals off of rocks on the shore line giving the seals reason to need to move more inland to survive.
I was just looking these up last night. Crazy how you put up a video on them the next day 😂
19:24 tackling cryptids like good old ones like vamps or werewolves as a holloween special may be cool, if you haven't got a solid idea already to celebrate the upcoming spooky month.
Thank you for this episode! I’ve been eagerly waiting for it. Please cover more Primeval speculative animals
I didn't even know this show existed up until now. I suppose it's going on the list.
Idk what corner of youtube i got lost in but i had a crackin time, thanks man!
I had no idea that seals outside of leopard ones could be large prey predators.
The real question is why they went to such efforts to take people to the future, as well as store them rather than just take them right there after snatching them.
Is it some sort of courtship routine, where the lad with the tastiest human gets a good time with the queen? Going by the theory that males are more risk-free hunters, humans are extremely dangerous to hunt, tending to be armed with weapons that were not only effective against the males, but even made short work of the queen herself.
Maybe the male / female sex ratio is so skewed because have a larger bias for males and the mer creatures could be using dispersal
Some modern day primates have large troops and use dispersal to allow for gene flow. The males may be smaller because there’s a surplus of them.
Both genders may also be extremely violent with one and another. the males might viciously compete for the females attention and I’ve noticed that females have enlarged canines on the bottom and top jaw which is an indicator of physical fitness.
My hypothesis is that mer creature males live in large colonies and compete for the merqueens attention to have the right to mate, with only the most violent males being selected by the dominant female.
My favorite future creature from primeval.
'It's Merbin time'
So, quick question, do you plan on making another video like this on the Megopterans?
Alatreon from Monster Hunter isn't really the sort of animal you'd try to apply realism to, but one detail about it has really gotten under my skin. The base of Alatreon's tail appears unusually thick and bulbous, and looks like Alatreon has massive Caudofemoralis muscles. This reminds me of the 8:00 mark of your Deviljho video where it was highlighted that these muscles at the base of the tail were for efficient walking over long distances. It would be odd for a dragon seen flying regularly to be adapted for effecient walking. This may just be a style over substance design choice from Capcom but it may be worth exploring further.
Heya dude, I really enjoy your fleshed out aspect on the theory of evolution of the Future Predator and the Mer. Please can you do more about the Cameo Beast and the Megopteran?
The thumbnail has me *CRYING*
I'm glad someone noticed it!
given the apparent aridity of the mer homeland, it's possible that the loss or reduction in land-based food sources drove the mer's ancestors to the ocean and made adaptations for coastal/oceanic foraging advantageous.
Shame they only appeared in 2 episodes. They were pretty cool.
I'm shocked that none of this mentioned how it was heavily implied in the show that the Mer are descended from humans and are thus posthumans
I don't know if i'm wrong but i heard that the Mer are supose to descend from humans
I think that was just a joke from Cutter
@@unnaturalhistorychannel even if is a joke is a fun and interesting way to look at It , If humans had devasted the land so bad that they had to go to the sea in order to survive and lost most of their inteligence to save energy because of the low opition of food
Love your vids man keep it up! I have a question tho, how are you enjoying primal season 2?
Mer is one cooler future creatures from primeval. It is kinda goofy but it can be scary at times. I think it's descendant of baboons with social hierarchy similar to that of the molerats with dominant queen.
Claudia Brow- Jenny Lewis lol. But great video, these were very very cool creatures in the show.
Glad I’m not the only one who knows this show
I definitely agree that the first 2 seasons of Primeval were the best, but 3 and 4 I feel were decent in their own right while 5 was just meh. On the topic of Impossible Pictures, one topic that I think would be interesting to discuss is Prehistoric Park and maybe how viable such a concept would be.
I think with Prehistoric Park, the idealism goggles are well and truly on, because it somehow happens in a world where random bad guys wouldn't be flocking to such a park to take the animals away or steal DNA samples. Kind of the classic Jurassic Park conundrum with these ideas. Also, in a more recent sense, like with the Jurassic World films (not that I particularly like those, it is just a fair comparison) People being people, I can see hordes of random bad guys just constantly trying to steal animals from the enclosures and so on and so forth.
They could have military grade defences put in staffed by the literal military, but at that point I don't know if it would be cost effective to run. On the upside, it would likely receive a hell of a lot of donations and crowdfunding, because people love Dinosaurs etc and want to see them. So if it were real, and could be looked after properly, _maybe_ there could be a way of getting everything to run smoothly without too many baddies spoiling the show. I just have a feeling that humanity would find a way to spoil things (this is why we can't have nice things etc)
P.S - Seasons 1 and 2 of Primeval were the best, hands down, but Season 3 tried to do something new and wasn't too bad. Just a shame about the Cutters. I just feel as though after S3 ITV pulled the plug on real interest and then it was just on life support after that, mainly managing to continue by filming for cheaper rates in Ireland (honestly, it did) And the less said about the one season wonder of the peculiar Canadian spin-off with the brief cameos from Connor, the better. Such a shame how it all went down the pan because ITV just, did not, and would not, care. S4 was better than S5 but S4 and S5 together are very different to S1-S3. It's pretty much two different shows at that point.
In some ways Primeval 'peaked' in S3. In terms of the most iconic episodes and classic imagery, and species, it was definitely in S1 and S3. In terms of dramatic storylines, probably S2 and interestingly ambitious concepts, again, S2. But S1 had the most mystery and wonder. It had the worst animation, by far, but that doesn't mean it was lacking for spirit. If anyone is feeling this weird, 'anywhere but nowhere' feeling about S4 and S5, it is because they were pretending it was London and Southern England as base of operations, but filmed largely in Northern Ireland for lack of budget. And it had been so long since the 'glory days' of S1 and S2. S3 tried to do a thing and it objectively has the most fascinating future episodes and what they did with the Future Insects and Future Predators etc was great.
I just wish that Cutter didn't have to go. It was held together by the force of his presence and when he was gone, that was basically it. A lot of S3 is cool and all but also can be described as filler. S2 was were Primeval tried to really break into it's stride, and did, for a while. But S1 is still my favourite in terms of how much adventure there was in it. How much mystery and nostalgia. S1 has the most potential in a lot of shows of course.
Oh and, ironically, I am now sometimes trying to make up my mind if Primeval was a good idea full-stop. I always wanted a Walking With Dinosaurs II (I have literally been writing my own version of WWD II lol, among other things) and although I know that Impossible Pictures and Haines & Hodges basically thought it was done and dusted after WWM (2005), I was sure that there was more left for them to do. I know there were spin-offs and that they did this and that in other specials, but it really was such a shame WWD II never got off the ground. They should have just gone for it. My honest feelings now are divided, on Primeval, because I think Haines & Hodges may have been too distracted by wanting to make their show with humans in it. All the way back during the production of WWD (1999) which lasted from 1996 to 1999, the idea of Jurassic Park like/or at least vaguely inspired, Dinosaur show with people running around, was certainly something they wanted to look into.
In some ways, it's like they wanted it as a feather in the cap of their production careers, in television, to hammer out some concepts about a TV show with live action actors and animated prehistoric creatures. Obviously it was hammed up to 11 with Primeval with some really cheesy moments and dialogue. But I still love Primeval. It just feels like, in a weird way, they were so determined to try their hand at that, that they abandoned a winning formula for making natural history drama documentary style recreations of lost worlds. And it was such a shame.
When I first saw these creatures, I thought they were future walrus. P.s could you do a episode on the FUTURE FUNGUS. Of season 3. That was nightmare fuel for me.
Poggerific
I am curious if you were ever going to do a video on the second season of Primal once all of the episodes were out and whatnot?
Of course!
@@unnaturalhistorychannel cool! 🙂 I'm genuinely curious to see your thoughts on the different societies this season depicts.
I never thought much of Primeval when it was new, but that doesn't stop your speculative zoology videos from being fun and interesting. Is Primeval worth returning to? I also wonder if you have any interest in Metroid
You should explore the mermaids from Mermaids: The Body Found. Not many people have covered them
I think many try to repress the memories of that program.
@@unnaturalhistorychannel An interesting chaotic nightmare that's alluring out of morbid curiosity is the best way to describe it
I thought the first question was
"So how does it taste?"
That name switch killed me
When it was announced this would be your next video, I almost immediately watched the episode that had the Mer creature in it.
That and these guys already served as ideal reference material to create my own take on Marygr, a scrapped Monsterverse kaiju.
Edit: haven't decided yet? Why not a vote. Make a list of 5-10 monsters you want to cover next, have the community vote, and why. Obviously the Black dragons & Purple Panther are out of the question.
Great video
I know I'm late to this video, but in the show, it was implied that the mer were future humans.
Love these primeval videos
Hey Unnatural History Channel can you please review Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal season 2
Of course!
@@unnaturalhistorychannel I'm gonna avoid watching that until I watch Season 2. Not making the same mistake with Season 1.
@@aasminecrafter if you haven’t seen s2 yet it’s some good shit man
@@joshuas22 I haven't seen it yet because I watched it off my sister's friend's HBO Max account, who she let us use. However, one day, she did something with it and now we don't have access to HBO Max.
@@aasminecrafter sorry to hear that. If I were you I’d avoid adult swims yt and forums discussing primal at all, spoilers are everywhere
Wtf did I just sit through?
I always thought they evolved from humans😭. I have no idea why though as it makes no sense in terms of the story and in terms of common sense. It must have just been something my brother jokingly said.
Also, I love this show, and it’s so good to someone doing a video on it, they’re so rare for a show so good.
Hey this might be weird but where do you find all of these studies when I try to search for studies on google i just find stuff from news outlets.
I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure Cutter says that they are us in the future.
More of Primeval please👌
I hope you do more on primeval
When are you going to cover Megopteran
The Mer kind of look like pigs/boars. The strong jaw bone and long skull, tusks, nostrils. Even the eyes are similar except for the colour
Can you make a video about the alien from Nope
I need to see it first!
Return to Tradition < Return to Monke < Return to Da Sea < Return to Sea Monke
I always assumed that the "aquatic humans" theory seemed fairly likely so I'm surprised you would disparage it. Could you explain or direct me to the right sources to let me know what I'm missing?
There's effectively no real evidence backing it up besides coincidence. Rae TC, Koppe T (2014). "Sinuses and flotation: does the aquatic ape theory hold water?". Evolutionary Anthropology is one read, here is another too : johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/pseudoscience/aquatic_ape_theory.html
could you do video of the camo beast?
Mer creatures are still my favorite future creature
More Primeval Videos please
The true and most Pausible Ocean Man! 🧜
I thought this was a pretty crazy idea and an interesting concept to emphasize the fact that evolution does not favor intelligence. Kind of a tragic end for the story of humanity.
I don’t want to sound arrogant or anything, but am I the only who remembers one of the main characters of the ‘Primeval’ tv series speculating that the “Mer Creatures” were actually the descendants of Humanity?
I’m only asking this because it was never brought up in the video and I’m genuinely curious to know what other people think. Especially those who are very scientifically minded like the guy in the video.
I think it is also possible that some of the smaller Individualismus are female, but remain Malelike because of the presence of an alpha female. Basically a reversed Urans uthan
What are these from?
Why is it pogging
ALGORITHM LETS GOOOOO
Someone just watched Star Trek voyager and the Aquatics got a cameo.