It seems like a 50/50 chance at this point that any given recent discovery will have been from the back of a drawer somewhere. Heck! I'm sure you probably heard about the remains of the last Thylacine that was recently found in a drawer. More familiar historic critters aren't safe from this phenomenon either, apparently!
I'm sick of every single thing being "new" when they kinda look like that bigger one over there. WHERE ARE THE JUVENILES AND YOUNG ADULT DINOS??? we don't know. We keep naming them new things because getting your name in the history book is more important than correctly identifying your "new" creature.
@@aftersexhighfives I mean, this happens, sure, but look at what happened with "Dracorex hogwartsia." It was found to be a juvenile Pachycephalosaurus. There was also the heated debate about a decade ago about whether or not Triceratops was a juvenile Torosaurus, but it was found to not be the case. So, it's not really true that paleontologists just aren't thinking of these things, but rather that discoveries can only reflect the evidence at hand, and we're still learning about how development in dinosaurs worked. I don't think assuming wrong doing off hand really serves anyone.
The vampire name is in part due to it having spiked "teeth" instead of suckers. When you see one inverted looking like a hedgehog it's a lot less cute. They definitely not give good hugs.
I worked on a construction job in a residential neighborhood in Los Angeles a few weeks back. The job was shut down when prehistoric critter bones were dug up. It's just a few miles from LaBrea Tar pits but just a few feet from houses.
Did you get to sneak a peak at some of the fossils? It must be really cool to see something being unearthed like this, your team got to see the critters for the first time in millions of years
@Nina Dmytraczenko Hi, yes. In fact I took some photos. I would be happy to share them with you or anyone interested, but I'm not sure how to do that through UA-cam comments. Maybe email? I'm not particularly internet savy. I don't know if that's appropriate.
@@tonyb1968Hi! Maybe you could turn them into a slideshow and post it on your channel? I feel that would be the best way to share on your account. I’d honestly love to see the pictures you took!
I'm suprised the new discoveries about Spinosaurus weren't mentioned. Probably because they will be outdated again in a few weeks, haha. The never ending struggle with Spinosaurus will continue in 2023.
Well to be fair that’s because we probably would have got all of this out of the way of the original spinosaurus skeleton wasn’t drawn before then being destroyed in ww2. We could have got all the kinks out over the years. But now the problem is that it’s been depicted inaccurately and its relatives might have looked much different than it.
Ill never forget the scene from Meet the Robinsons where the dinosaur had a translator and hes trying to get someone but theyre hiding in a corner and he laments "IVE GOT A BIG HEAD! AND LITTLE ARMS!"
Huh I'd always just assumed large carnivores had small forelimbs so they could have heavier heads and keep their balance. The head of a T rex weighed as much as a small car, if it had massive arms too it would need like a 40 foot long tail to function. Nice to see science catching up to my random assumptions.
I feel like it’s akin to bird balance. We have emus that literally won a war against people, and they never had forelimbs or useful wings. The balance really is the crux of it, imo. If flightless birds like emus didn’t have superb control over how they use their heads and necks, they simply wouldn’t be as formidable. Once the arms became less useful in terms of acquiring prey or getting around, it makes sense that evolution would hone the biggest asset they had, which is mobility. The loss of their arms (especially without the development of wings that can be tucked back into a more streamlined form) would allow them to climb and navigate heavier vegetation and rocky terrain without having to worry about what their front, weaker legs were doing and would allow them to concentrate on the 2 legs that allowed them the best way to get around. Like, as humans we *didn’t have hands* but still remained upright, I’d say we’d fair better if our front limbs were smaller and our hind parts were stronger because it would give us more certainty when trying to cross hazardous terrain quickly. If I can’t use 2 of my limbs to grab things but I’m still stuck upright, I’d rather not have them in lieu of stronger, more capable back limbs and a giant maw.
It isn't even so much a balance issue, it is a space competition issue. Their shoulder blades have lot's of room for muscle attachement, but the neck muscles and arm muscles compete for space, if you want more space for stronger neck muscles=heavier head, then your arm muscles need to take up less space, so they get reduced in size and strenght to accomodate that. And some abelisaurids go to the extreme where the arms are barely funtional.
@@staceyhollerauer6712 Not only Emus but Sparrows too. Humans actually fought 3 wars against birds, the Australians, the Chinese and the Italians. The Italians were the only one winning their war, lol. Not to forget that one time how Goats outsmarted Apachii attack helicopters but then again, goats aren't birds still a funny to know.
Hey! I live very close to where the Meraxes Gigas was found, like two hours away by car. Good to know we contribute to the fossil record. The museum in Plaza Huincul is really cool.
OMG that pic of Meraxes Gigas! I'm always interested but every once in a while I'm transported if you will. That may be my new "Dino Crush" it happens so often as so many discoveries are made. Awesome work and upload as usual, Thank you and Happy Holidays to ALL involved!
Wasn't there an entirely preserved leg with skin of a dinosaur discovered this year? I thought that this was going to be the biggest news in paleontology.
We might be waiting for the papers to get published, I’d imagine that would take a bit of time depending on just how much information we can get from the find!
Yes and I'm sure we'll hear all about it in 2056 when there are some scientists who aren't hustling to get money or wasting their time being consultants on some vapid entertainment media project for long enough to do some real work.
I similarly think this, too. Like how a kiwi bird has those tiny, vestigial wings or arms. And I always think of chickens strutting around like how dinosaurs used to. I also imagine tyrannosauruses (tyrannosauri?) jumping like kangaroos because I think they have similar mechanics. And I just think it's funny.
It is already known that tyrannosaurs didn’t have wings or feathers, the fingers in wings are bonded togethers, tyrannosaurus fingers could also cary 400 lbs each.
I would love to see a video summarizing what we believe about the when/where the different animal kingdoms split from each other. For example how diapsids split into the ancestors of lizards (lepidosaurs) and archosaurs (predecessor to dinosaurs and crocodilians)
The T-Rex loved tossing his food into the air and catching it in his mouth. The creature thus evolved for optimization of this consumption style. Early humanoids attempted to copy this but never quite had the same success, as evolution shows, with our lanky arms and small mouths. We still see this activity enacted by some with M&Ms, etc.
I always had a feeling geckos were ancient 🦎 considering they have the most variation and most sub species of any genus in the squamate order to date!!! Geckos for the win!!!! 2023!!! I am so excited about this discovery!
I never grow tired at watching Jon play. He's really good at guitar and lightening fast. As a 'guitarist' myself, I really appreciate anyone who can play that well.
it should come as no surprise that people working throughout biology (be it botany, paleontology, ichthyology, ornithology, herpetology, entomology...you get it) are also giant nerds. and/or pun lovers. look up the frog genus Mini for a laugh 😂
i wish i would have gone with my childhood dream of being a paleontologist, unfortunately the difficulty of finding a job where you ear a living kept me from ever persuing it
It’s never too late for anything!! You could make the next new discovery of 2023 in your own state! Get out there! You don’t have to be a paleontologist!
The problem I have with the Trex arm theory is that its tiny predecessor, Moros intrepidus, already has that basic shape with small arms, and all of the intermediaries have it too. So it has nothing to do with their massive size.
Maybe it is just a shape that works well for predators. Modern birds, large and small, follow that form factor, wings tucked back to allow forward striking of the head?
I kind of wondered if it was relative head size during early development. For example, you have an egg with a curled up, not quite ready dino inside. Because its head is tucked forwards, a larger skull would run out of room pretty quick with large arms in the way. Smaller arms meant a more developed or larger head prior to hatching. From what i've seen, the size of the trex means large legs are needed to support its weight, so combine a large head and large legs and there's not much room for arms left in the egg. But that's just me pulling random ideas from...somewhere...and applying the kind of logic that sounds good if you don't think about it too hard. I'm most likely wrong, but all 3 of the examples were thicc legged bipedal dinos with heads that look disproportionally large.
Several years ago, I found some fossilized bones in some hardened gray clay in a creek bank. I took them to our local museum to see if they might want to put them in one of their displays but they never contacted me back. She did try to help me identify them and we think that they are from a giant ground sloth that lived in that area around 80,000 years ago. It was my first and only fossil find other than shark teeth. One of those being from a Megalodon from what we were told.
Very professional! Enjoyed every minute. At one time we'd need to pay $$ in order to get this information. But now we have this great content come forward, I believe out of the love of the subject. Great job!
I seem to recall earlier in 2022, it was suggested the tiny arms of the T-Rex was to protect themselves and other dinosaurs when there would be a feeding frenzy. (I'm still skeptical). Personally, I think it was because, millions of years later, comedians and little kids could do silly T-Rex impressions, flailing around tiny arms, for a cheap laugh.
If group feeding or intraspecific combat was common among large theropods, it would make sense to have reduced forelimbs. As if feeding becoming highly aggressive and one Tyrannosaur accidently chomped on one of their limbs, it would be a grizzly wound and potentially deadly. It would also make for an easily crippling wound if Tyrannosaurs fought among eachother. So it was likely best arms were kept small to limit the likelihood of them being injured, amputated, or torn off completely.
This year has been full of great discoveries. In my eyes the dinosaurs Jakapil, Maip, Meraxes, daurlong and natovenator are the top 5 new dinosaurs of 2022
Crocodiles can literally eat anything no matter how large. If they're too large to kill - they'll just tear off a chunk to eat. Maybe a limb, maybe just a large chunk of muscle. That's why crocodiles and thus alligators have survived so well for so long. They're as close to a perfect predator and survivalist as you could get in the macro predator world.
5:33 I wanna do a _Fresh Prince of Bel Air_ themesong joke about this prehistoric lizard, but honestly, I just can't be arsed. It'd take much more time and creativity than I have rn.
One cool detail about Meraxes gigas is that the second toe from the middle (the first one touching the ground) had an enlarged claw. It was nowhere nearly as disproportionately large or sharp as those of dromaeosaurs (raptors), and given its anatomy it couldn't be held up either. Overall it looked more like a cassowary claw. The use is still uncertain of course, but it's a weird thing to find in such a large predator!
Oh! It's balance! If you grow the head bigger and keep the arms the same size, it'll be front-heavy, won't balance as well and won't be as successful, so selective pressure removed the largest arms. That seems obvious now...
I love this I remebr watching prehistoric Park as a kid and there was a dinosucus a Croc that was huge that lived 75 million years ago and it showed them hunting parasarolephus when they went down to the water for a drink.
@@cweaver4080 Lmao, sent it to one of my buddies in Sask and he was shocked. It is kind of unfortunate when a science program can't get something wrong, that one would think is impossible to mess up.
Did they ever do anything with the hypothesis that large bipedal dino carnivores evolved tiny front arms to reduce the chance of their arms getting bitten by their colleagues while they were all leaning in to tear meat off carcasses and subsequently potentially getting infected and killing them?
hm, but i believe they were solo hunters, not pack animals. my hypothesis is they were simply an energy burden. they weren't needed, so they went. like our tails!
I can't decide whether getting a newly discovered squid that provides fascinating insight into evolution named after you is a compliment or an insult. On the one hand, advancing science. On the other hand, being likened to an ancient tentacled horror.
Dinosaurs also probably developed small arms, due to the fact they’re the easiest and most vulnerable target for competing mates or other large predators. If you ever see crocodiles fight or wound eachother it is almost always their front limbs that get bitten and torn off. Smaller arms, smaller target. Smaller wound.
Its weird to hear people talk about Meraxes Gigas as if it isnt named after a relatively obscure dragon from Game of Thrones. Just the absolute tonal whiplash of hearing "Meraxes" in a non-fiction educational video.
The idea of a fossil in a box that has been in the back of a museum for decades and someone decided to take a glance at it themselves and going "Oh wait". But with time, a piece that has been looked at before can reveal more with a different view.
I'm still amazed at evolution's incremental adaptive or non-maladvaptive changes over long time spans, especially given the lack of intelligent design in the process.
Tiny arms reduce the weight of the forepart of the body, enabling the dino to stand upright with ease or to run with the body held horizontally. We see te same thing in birds, especially the ostrich and cassowary. The T. rex and its relatives had an addiional aid to do this with their long tails, which acted as a counterbalance. There were probably other uses for "tiny" arms, which were actually quite big by human standards.
Small arms could be the result of creatures switching from walking on 4 legs to 2. Those born with smaller front legs would be easier to protect and survive if it was forced to switch to bi pedal. Maybe there was a flood where some creatures couldn't float/swim but also couldn't reach the surface without standing on two legs but their rigid spines and tails made it harder.
Yes! I caught that too. Meraxes was Queen Rhaenys's (Aegon's sister wife, not Corlys's wife) dragon who was killed in Dorne. Daemon's dragon is Caraxes.
Hey Complexly team, happy new year! I get that dinos = views, but would love to hear more about the stunning non-reptilian discoveries made over the last year. Huge advances in our understanding of the Ediacaran biota, for example! Thanks to the whole gang for your work. :)
It's funny that there was any debate about crocs eating dinosaurs. They literally just eat what then can get their teeth into. Between sharks and crocs we can probably trust that their behavior hasn't changed that much over the millennia
I swear, there are only two types of discoveries: 1. We found this brand new species in someone's backyard, but it turns out we had 200 other samples at the back of the museum. 2. Great new guys, the whateveris whocaresaur had FOUR toes instead of three :)
Maybe the arms grew smaller to help the theropod become more streamlined thus allowing it to travel faster with less effort through the thick mesozoic atmosphere. Which the empirecal evidence shows us was at least 10 bars pressure. In reference to air bubbles found in amber dating back to the mesozoic.
I love when new paleontological discoveries happen because someone opened a drawer in the back of a museum for the first time in decades lol
It seems like a 50/50 chance at this point that any given recent discovery will have been from the back of a drawer somewhere. Heck! I'm sure you probably heard about the remains of the last Thylacine that was recently found in a drawer. More familiar historic critters aren't safe from this phenomenon either, apparently!
I'm sick of every single thing being "new" when they kinda look like that bigger one over there. WHERE ARE THE JUVENILES AND YOUNG ADULT DINOS??? we don't know. We keep naming them new things because getting your name in the history book is more important than correctly identifying your "new" creature.
I lived in a drawer in the back of a museum for a year and no one noticed.
Well when the tech gets that dramatically better within a decade, its worth opening some old drawers
@@aftersexhighfives I mean, this happens, sure, but look at what happened with "Dracorex hogwartsia." It was found to be a juvenile Pachycephalosaurus. There was also the heated debate about a decade ago about whether or not Triceratops was a juvenile Torosaurus, but it was found to not be the case. So, it's not really true that paleontologists just aren't thinking of these things, but rather that discoveries can only reflect the evidence at hand, and we're still learning about how development in dinosaurs worked. I don't think assuming wrong doing off hand really serves anyone.
The way abelisaurids position their arms naturally (swept back) means they were the first creatures ever to be doing the Naruto run.
That sort of confirms the theory as well. The smaller and further back the arms are, the better balanced the animal will be with a larger head.
Would that make them Narutosauruns ?
Ahahahaha this is necessary knowledge to gather. Yes.
@@cody8121 The person who popularizes the thing gets to name the thing. In a 1000 years it will have a completely different name.
@@FArkhanor hahaha gold!
The vampire name is in part due to it having spiked "teeth" instead of suckers. When you see one inverted looking like a hedgehog it's a lot less cute. They definitely not give good hugs.
The spikes are just for show and are actually soft, fleshy and completely harmless.
I originally thought the name was for the cape that the arm's web looked like :p
Now I need to look that up
i, too, was fooled once.
Hugs 2/10
@@hydroids the spikes act like combs, trapping food particles for the 'squid' to consume
I worked on a construction job in a residential neighborhood in Los Angeles a few weeks back. The job was shut down when prehistoric critter bones were dug up. It's just a few miles from LaBrea Tar pits but just a few feet from houses.
Did you get to sneak a peak at some of the fossils? It must be really cool to see something being unearthed like this, your team got to see the critters for the first time in millions of years
@Nina Dmytraczenko Hi, yes. In fact I took some photos. I would be happy to share them with you or anyone interested, but I'm not sure how to do that through UA-cam comments. Maybe email? I'm not particularly internet savy. I don't know if that's appropriate.
@@tonyb1968Hi! Maybe you could turn them into a slideshow and post it on your channel? I feel that would be the best way to share on your account. I’d honestly love to see the pictures you took!
I'm suprised the new discoveries about Spinosaurus weren't mentioned.
Probably because they will be outdated again in a few weeks, haha. The never ending struggle with Spinosaurus will continue in 2023.
Well to be fair that’s because we probably would have got all of this out of the way of the original spinosaurus skeleton wasn’t drawn before then being destroyed in ww2. We could have got all the kinks out over the years. But now the problem is that it’s been depicted inaccurately and its relatives might have looked much different than it.
@@kevinstephenson3531 And, yet again, it's the fault of the bri' ish😶🌫️
Hello im from 2040 and we know that spinosaurus was actually a manatee like crocdile eating fish and being very fat
@@Dracovenatrix 2050 here. It was actually little green men from Arcturus.
@@KaiHenningsen im talking about spino
Tiny arms are the "poster child" for use it or lose it. Happy New Year SciShow!
Ill never forget the scene from Meet the Robinsons where the dinosaur had a translator and hes trying to get someone but theyre hiding in a corner and he laments
"IVE GOT A BIG HEAD! AND LITTLE ARMS!"
"And i'm not quite sure how this plan was thought through..... Master?"
@@catelynh1020
The scene was even funnier in context because it was the exact same thing a _different_ mind controlled minion told Bowler Hat Guy
Huh I'd always just assumed large carnivores had small forelimbs so they could have heavier heads and keep their balance. The head of a T rex weighed as much as a small car, if it had massive arms too it would need like a 40 foot long tail to function. Nice to see science catching up to my random assumptions.
I feel like it’s akin to bird balance. We have emus that literally won a war against people, and they never had forelimbs or useful wings. The balance really is the crux of it, imo. If flightless birds like emus didn’t have superb control over how they use their heads and necks, they simply wouldn’t be as formidable.
Once the arms became less useful in terms of acquiring prey or getting around, it makes sense that evolution would hone the biggest asset they had, which is mobility. The loss of their arms (especially without the development of wings that can be tucked back into a more streamlined form) would allow them to climb and navigate heavier vegetation and rocky terrain without having to worry about what their front, weaker legs were doing and would allow them to concentrate on the 2 legs that allowed them the best way to get around.
Like, as humans we *didn’t have hands* but still remained upright, I’d say we’d fair better if our front limbs were smaller and our hind parts were stronger because it would give us more certainty when trying to cross hazardous terrain quickly. If I can’t use 2 of my limbs to grab things but I’m still stuck upright, I’d rather not have them in lieu of stronger, more capable back limbs and a giant maw.
@@staceyhollerauer6712 Kudzu & some viruses have won a wars against humans, it appears it isn't too difficult and not much for bragging rights
I feel the same way about how I came up with epigenetics in middle school
It isn't even so much a balance issue, it is a space competition issue.
Their shoulder blades have lot's of room for muscle attachement, but the neck muscles and arm muscles compete for space, if you want more space for stronger neck muscles=heavier head, then your arm muscles need to take up less space, so they get reduced in size and strenght to accomodate that.
And some abelisaurids go to the extreme where the arms are barely funtional.
@@staceyhollerauer6712 Not only Emus but Sparrows too.
Humans actually fought 3 wars against birds, the Australians, the Chinese and the Italians.
The Italians were the only one winning their war, lol.
Not to forget that one time how Goats outsmarted Apachii attack helicopters but then again, goats aren't birds still a funny to know.
Another great episode, thanks for your work on making the scientific discoveries of varying fields accessible to people
Hey! I live very close to where the Meraxes Gigas was found, like two hours away by car. Good to know we contribute to the fossil record. The museum in Plaza Huincul is really cool.
I'd love to see you guys do a Crash Course Paleontology someday! 🙏🏻
OMG that pic of Meraxes Gigas! I'm always interested but every once in a while I'm transported if you will. That may be my new "Dino Crush" it happens so often as so many discoveries are made. Awesome work and upload as usual, Thank you and Happy Holidays to ALL involved!
Some dinos small arms are akin to the tiny nub wings on terror birds. Kinda makes sense they are becoming vestigial.
@joeshabado1431: *vestigial
Iftfy.
Wasn't there an entirely preserved leg with skin of a dinosaur discovered this year? I thought that this was going to be the biggest news in paleontology.
Might have been discovered, but not fully researched and written about quite yet.
We might be waiting for the papers to get published, I’d imagine that would take a bit of time depending on just how much information we can get from the find!
i hope to hear about that soon it sounds cool
Yes and I'm sure we'll hear all about it in 2056 when there are some scientists who aren't hustling to get money or wasting their time being consultants on some vapid entertainment media project for long enough to do some real work.
How would skin survive, millions of years, think if that, millions, it would've had to be in a vacuum
My theory is the small arms are wings like with chickens and Im sticking to that because I love the idea of giant dinos having chicken wings
Or they could be more like the tiny wings on ostriches. Completely useless for flying but adorable
I similarly think this, too. Like how a kiwi bird has those tiny, vestigial wings or arms. And I always think of chickens strutting around like how dinosaurs used to. I also imagine tyrannosauruses (tyrannosauri?) jumping like kangaroos because I think they have similar mechanics. And I just think it's funny.
It is already known that tyrannosaurs didn’t have wings or feathers, the fingers in wings are bonded togethers, tyrannosaurus fingers could also cary 400 lbs each.
I would love to see a video summarizing what we believe about the when/where the different animal kingdoms split from each other. For example how diapsids split into the ancestors of lizards (lepidosaurs) and archosaurs (predecessor to dinosaurs and crocodilians)
The T-Rex loved tossing his food into the air and catching it in his mouth. The creature thus evolved for optimization of this consumption style. Early humanoids attempted to copy this but never quite had the same success, as evolution shows, with our lanky arms and small mouths. We still see this activity enacted by some with M&Ms, etc.
🤣🤣🤣
I always had a feeling geckos were ancient 🦎 considering they have the most variation and most sub species of any genus in the squamate order to date!!! Geckos for the win!!!! 2023!!! I am so excited about this discovery!
I never grow tired at watching Jon play. He's really good at guitar and lightening fast. As a 'guitarist' myself, I really appreciate anyone who can play that well.
Wow, they literally named a holotype after a dragon from Game of Thrones. That's awesome.
I caught that too and paused to look it up
Wonder if GRRM knows?
And Gary gigax!
There's a horned toad or something named for Smaug, too!
it should come as no surprise that people working throughout biology (be it botany, paleontology, ichthyology, ornithology, herpetology, entomology...you get it) are also giant nerds. and/or pun lovers. look up the frog genus Mini for a laugh 😂
i wish i would have gone with my childhood dream of being a paleontologist, unfortunately the difficulty of finding a job where you ear a living kept me from ever persuing it
That's the magic of capitalism!
It’s never too late for anything!! You could make the next new discovery of 2023 in your own state! Get out there! You don’t have to be a paleontologist!
It's better to have it as a hobby, because then you don't get sick of it. Now go digging!
@@Laurpud You can never get sick of doing something you love!
@@Laurpud My question is go digging where? Most places are private property, and most of the rest are government property.
I love knowing that Crocs haven't changed much, it makes me feel even luckier to even looking at a video of them
learning about them dinos at 1 am
6am! Dino friends.
I Disliке тнis уоuтuвег весаusе му соптепт is веттег
That would be me if this video came out at 1 am here
5 PM louisville ky
2355
T Rex's tiny arms are an evolutionary adaptation to keep them from biting their fingernails off. And fingers. And arms.
Meraxes... wait is that a Song of Ice and Fire references?
*googles*
IT IS
Dude! I need to check that out then 😄
The problem I have with the Trex arm theory is that its tiny predecessor, Moros intrepidus, already has that basic shape with small arms, and all of the intermediaries have it too. So it has nothing to do with their massive size.
Perhaps it's about _relative_ head mass?
@@alterego3734 yeah. Maybe it is a good shape that allows them to get big successfully.
Maybe it is just a shape that works well for predators. Modern birds, large and small, follow that form factor, wings tucked back to allow forward striking of the head?
Small arm size is a trait conferred by a gene that is obviously still advantageous to subsequent Dino’s.
I kind of wondered if it was relative head size during early development. For example, you have an egg with a curled up, not quite ready dino inside. Because its head is tucked forwards, a larger skull would run out of room pretty quick with large arms in the way. Smaller arms meant a more developed or larger head prior to hatching.
From what i've seen, the size of the trex means large legs are needed to support its weight, so combine a large head and large legs and there's not much room for arms left in the egg.
But that's just me pulling random ideas from...somewhere...and applying the kind of logic that sounds good if you don't think about it too hard. I'm most likely wrong, but all 3 of the examples were thicc legged bipedal dinos with heads that look disproportionally large.
Several years ago, I found some fossilized bones in some hardened gray clay in a creek bank. I took them to our local museum to see if they might want to put them in one of their displays but they never contacted me back. She did try to help me identify them and we think that they are from a giant ground sloth that lived in that area around 80,000 years ago. It was my first and only fossil find other than shark teeth. One of those being from a Megalodon from what we were told.
Very professional! Enjoyed every minute. At one time we'd need to pay $$ in order to get this information. But now we have this great content come forward, I believe out of the love of the subject. Great job!
Meraxes. Nerds. Love it.
I think the bigger question isn’t why T Rex had tinier arms than other dinosaurs, it’s why it KEPT functioning arms
I thought the short-arm T-rex evolutionary quandary would be more satisfying than it had back problems cuz its head too big
Ratites are dinosaurs... But did the forearm shrinking, to the point of deletion in some lineages.
Thanks for the 22 Wrap. So many good wrap ups dropped today
Don’t forget the three new saber toothed cats! Adeilosmilus, Taowu, and Longchaunsmilus!
Squamate is one of my favorite words now, right up there with foraminifera, denisovan,
and tuatara :)
I seem to recall earlier in 2022, it was suggested the tiny arms of the T-Rex was to protect themselves and other dinosaurs when there would be a feeding frenzy. (I'm still skeptical). Personally, I think it was because, millions of years later, comedians and little kids could do silly T-Rex impressions, flailing around tiny arms, for a cheap laugh.
Imagine being such a lucky ASoIaF nerd that your fan-name dino shaped dino science
If group feeding or intraspecific combat was common among large theropods, it would make sense to have reduced forelimbs.
As if feeding becoming highly aggressive and one Tyrannosaur accidently chomped on one of their limbs, it would be a grizzly wound and potentially deadly.
It would also make for an easily crippling wound if Tyrannosaurs fought among eachother.
So it was likely best arms were kept small to limit the likelihood of them being injured, amputated, or torn off completely.
This year has been full of great discoveries. In my eyes the dinosaurs Jakapil, Maip, Meraxes, daurlong and natovenator are the top 5 new dinosaurs of 2022
Crocodiles can literally eat anything no matter how large. If they're too large to kill - they'll just tear off a chunk to eat. Maybe a limb, maybe just a large chunk of muscle.
That's why crocodiles and thus alligators have survived so well for so long. They're as close to a perfect predator and survivalist as you could get in the macro predator world.
Am I still laughing at the hug joke? Perhaps 😂
MORE PALEONTOLOGY YESSSSSS
Don't be silly! Dinosaurs needed tiny arms to type in chats! D dryone knows that.
5:33 I wanna do a _Fresh Prince of Bel Air_ themesong joke about this prehistoric lizard, but honestly, I just can't be arsed. It'd take much more time and creativity than I have rn.
One cool detail about Meraxes gigas is that the second toe from the middle (the first one touching the ground) had an enlarged claw.
It was nowhere nearly as disproportionately large or sharp as those of dromaeosaurs (raptors), and given its anatomy it couldn't be held up either. Overall it looked more like a cassowary claw.
The use is still uncertain of course, but it's a weird thing to find in such a large predator!
8:42 "But the jury's still out on which group gives better hugs." Cuddlefish do, of course!
Interesring, and very well presented ! Thank you !
”The jury is still out on which one gives the better hugs”
Obviously it's the one that also gives ten tickles. 🤓🐙🦑
Tiny arms for the T. Rex are somewhat similar to the tailbone for us: a vestigial appendage that lost its function through disuse.
Oh! It's balance! If you grow the head bigger and keep the arms the same size, it'll be front-heavy, won't balance as well and won't be as successful, so selective pressure removed the largest arms. That seems obvious now...
I love it. "Scientists discover a thing donated 35yrs ago" is a great start for pretty much any genre of movie or book.
I love this I remebr watching prehistoric Park as a kid and there was a dinosucus a Croc that was huge that lived 75 million years ago and it showed them hunting parasarolephus when they went down to the water for a drink.
Great channel! Very well written scripts!
This was such an amazing episode!! Love this!!!
I would love a slightly longer video where the person presenting takes breaths, I always feel like the person speaking is about to pass out!
Damn, I didn't realize they moved Drumheller from Alberta to Saskatchewan. That's the biggest news in this whole video!
Alberta? Saskatchewan? Are those in Texas?
@@cweaver4080 Lmao, sent it to one of my buddies in Sask and he was shocked. It is kind of unfortunate when a science program can't get something wrong, that one would think is impossible to mess up.
@@cweaver4080 politically? Yes.
Did they ever do anything with the hypothesis that large bipedal dino carnivores evolved tiny front arms to reduce the chance of their arms getting bitten by their colleagues while they were all leaning in to tear meat off carcasses and subsequently potentially getting infected and killing them?
hm, but i believe they were solo hunters, not pack animals. my hypothesis is they were simply an energy burden. they weren't needed, so they went. like our tails!
I can't decide whether getting a newly discovered squid that provides fascinating insight into evolution named after you is a compliment or an insult.
On the one hand, advancing science. On the other hand, being likened to an ancient tentacled horror.
Dinosaurs also probably developed small arms, due to the fact they’re the easiest and most vulnerable target for competing mates or other large predators. If you ever see crocodiles fight or wound eachother it is almost always their front limbs that get bitten and torn off. Smaller arms, smaller target. Smaller wound.
I'm sure someone will be able to recover the DNA of a tyrannosaurus rex and insert some chicken wing DNA to make a flying t-rex.
I’m pretty sure DNA is really hard to get from older animals, so no dinosaur mutants yet.
Chickens are notoriously poor flyers, but chicken rex might fry up pretty nice.
Very good video, really enjoyed it... thanks for posting! Hope you all have a great New Year!
At this point Dinosaur December is becoming a thing with every channel
Happy new year ❤️
I Disliке тнis уоuтuвег весаusе му соптепт is веттег
I want an Australia based jurassic park. Will make the others look friendly and not poisonous enough
Stefan is my favorite presenter.
Fascinating and very well presented.
Thanks for the video! This is all super neat stuff!
I imagined the t-rex used its arms for holding a mate/ holding prey.
Its weird to hear people talk about Meraxes Gigas as if it isnt named after a relatively obscure dragon from Game of Thrones. Just the absolute tonal whiplash of hearing "Meraxes" in a non-fiction educational video.
30 mins until 2023! Long live 2022 and all its relics!!!
The idea of a fossil in a box that has been in the back of a museum for decades and someone decided to take a glance at it themselves and going "Oh wait".
But with time, a piece that has been looked at before can reveal more with a different view.
I'm still amazed at evolution's incremental adaptive or non-maladvaptive changes over long time spans, especially given the lack of intelligent design in the process.
Tiny arms reduce the weight of the forepart of the body, enabling the dino to stand upright with ease or to run with the body held horizontally. We see te same thing in birds, especially the ostrich and cassowary. The T. rex and its relatives had an addiional aid to do this with their long tails, which acted as a counterbalance. There were probably other uses for "tiny" arms, which were actually quite big by human standards.
So one of the greatest discoveries of the year was basically discovering a fossil in a museum?
Antique Crocodiles turned out to be like modern crocodiles according to the newest amazing discoveries 🐊
---source SciShow
4:42 _An Ancestral Scottish Lizard_ sounds like either a Shoegaze band name or an SCP. Or both.
"Jury's still out on which give better hugs" well that would be the cuttlefish! ("cuddle"fish...)
Convergent evolution- the coolest wrench ever thrown into the engine of science
Small arms could be the result of creatures switching from walking on 4 legs to 2. Those born with smaller front legs would be easier to protect and survive if it was forced to switch to bi pedal. Maybe there was a flood where some creatures couldn't float/swim but also couldn't reach the surface without standing on two legs but their rigid spines and tails made it harder.
Always interesting, thank you.
Since they've discovered that dinosaurs had feathers I prefer to imagine their call wasn't "RRRROOOAAAARRRR".
It was "BAHK BAHK"!
The cuddle fish give the best hugs obviously, although the octopi are the most likely to give any
3:05 game of thrones reference? Nice
So many things are referenced in taxonomic names (and other scientific fields, looking at you pikachurin)
@@_Quxyz Sonic Hedgehog and it's antagonist, Robotnikin? :p
Wait, Meraxes? Like Daemon's dragon? I love it!
Yes! I caught that too. Meraxes was Queen Rhaenys's (Aegon's sister wife, not Corlys's wife) dragon who was killed in Dorne. Daemon's dragon is Caraxes.
@@squee599 ah, yes I mixed them up. Thanks!
@@MaiiOrduna easy to do! Much like their riders their names all sound alike!
Hydrosaur was good eatin'.
Hey Complexly team, happy new year! I get that dinos = views, but would love to hear more about the stunning non-reptilian discoveries made over the last year. Huge advances in our understanding of the Ediacaran biota, for example! Thanks to the whole gang for your work. :)
It's funny that there was any debate about crocs eating dinosaurs. They literally just eat what then can get their teeth into. Between sharks and crocs we can probably trust that their behavior hasn't changed that much over the millennia
I swear, there are only two types of discoveries:
1. We found this brand new species in someone's backyard, but it turns out we had 200 other samples at the back of the museum.
2. Great new guys, the whateveris whocaresaur had FOUR toes instead of three :)
sauroktonos is a pretty cool name. It means lizard killer
I really can't bring across how much I wish I would be able to pet a dinosaur.
I Disliке тнis уоuтuвег весаusе му соптепт is веттег
pet a bird, those are the only dinosaurs left
Cassowaries are the closest you’ll get
Just visit congress
find a chicken
Hell yeah I love Scishow
I think it’s hilarious that they named one ancient fossil after another ancient fossil 😂
Yeah not sure if it was a compliment or an insult😂
Thanks for the history lesson. Very interesting. And appreciated. from 🇬🇧👍👍 an old cockney gal
Y’all should watch Paleo rewind
Esse canal é excelente parabéns pelo trabalho . Good job is excelente..
Awesome video. There’s just one thing I don’t get: how do you crack those jokes without pausing or breaking a laugh… 😂
Fastest I've ever seen was a 6:58 in Joust when the matchmaker decided to take the day off. I think we only got 10 kills to their 1.
Ohhhhh I hope they do this again next year
Naming one of the oldest "vampire octopi" after the living fossil currently at the head of the US.
Scientists, your humour isn't lost on us, rock on!
Maybe the arms grew smaller to help the theropod become more streamlined thus allowing it to travel faster with less effort through the thick mesozoic atmosphere.
Which the empirecal evidence shows us was at least 10 bars pressure. In reference to air bubbles found in amber dating back to the mesozoic.