WTH was Koolasuchus?
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- Опубліковано 20 вер 2024
- Koolasuchus lived in polar Australia, and was the last of a long lineage which stretches back to before the first dinosaurs. But what was it, and how was it adapted to its cold polar climate?
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Hearing that Koolosuchus likely went extinct due to Australia moving north makes me wonder whether tamnispondyls were able to survive longer on Antarctica itself. It could even be thinkable they survived the KPG extinction there (with them likely being able to go into some kind of hibernation like most land based KPG survivors) and lived untill the glaciation of Antarctica
Kooolasuchus was the peak epitome of uberamphibians that have never been abandoned their sigma grindset unlike most if not all their modern relatives except giant salamander
As far as very online sigma, vs. whatever mindset goes yeah, kinda. But it worked out for those other amphibians, and not Koolasuchus, so who was the real sigma?
@@RaptorChatter the giant salamander is.
@@RaptorChatter it is certainly not the giant madagascar frog beelzebufo that is for certain
The real sigma was Prionosuchus! You should cover them!
I think the reason the Temnospondyls went extinct is because the crocodilians once they got big enough just started eating them, the Temnospondyls we're essentially abnormally large salamanders, they didn't have the armor a crocodile has, and wouldn't have stood a chance, and I haven't even mentioned the death roll.
The giant amphibians may have just been ripped apart by these newcomers that were both competitors and predators to them.
It would be cool and also sad to find a fossil with teeth marks in it from a crockodillian maybe closer to the fall of them is whare your find it but that would be direct evidence for the theory.
It's possible, and we really don't know much about its growth rate, so it also could have just had such a slow life cycle because of the cold that once warmer weather and faster breeding animals showed up they couldn't keep up. There's a lot we just don't know for sure.
Koolasuchus was definitely a cool type of temnospondylid, but most of them were awesome for their time (the earlier portion of it) like the monster pig frog Broiliellus reiszi from New Mexico. Now, why go for Halloween in that ubiquitous T rex costume everyone else is wearing when you could go as Koolosuchus, you just need fabric and a massive industrial strength toilet seat! Another great job!
Honestly, I need to look more into the pre-Triassic temnospondyls, because this is the first time I heard about Broiliellus and it seems cool as heck.
That's silly.... They didn't name them that because they were "cool". They were given the name because they smoked a very specific brand of menthols, and not Newports. I know this, because my grandson told me all about it. He had a job in the pre-Victoria region during the cretaceous, as a hunter-gatherer.
The aridity of the Triassic really did a number on the temnospondyls.
Given how that aridity existed alongside monsoonal environments that are generally pretty supportive to amphibians today, I'm not sure that it can neatly be blamed on that.
@@sampagano205 climate instability+higher general aridity+pseudosuchians+ratio
@@khanlikestoogivebigsucc7375 Not necessarily right? Their heyday was before the Permian-Triassic extinction event, but evidence seems to suggest that they were still successful during the Triassic. Surely then was it not the Jurassic that did a number on the temnospondyls? At least the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event?
@@SuperTah33 yeah TJ definitely had a part in it and falls under the whole climate thing, but even before that, they were generally declining to the benefit of phytosaurs. Additionally, even with the extinction of phytosaurs at the end Triassic, pseudosuchians still beat them in securing the semi-aquatic ambush role in most places.
@@khanlikestoogivebigsucc7375 Hmm I can see perhaps where there is a difference in interpretation, as what I have read and this video seems to suggest that things still went well during the Triassic. Perhaps diversity did decline after the Permian-Triassic extinction event, but some forms were still very successful and widespread, as evidenced for example by Anaschisma in the video. Otherwise, true decline seems to be better evidenced after the T-J extinction event (lack of evidence from the Raetian aside). I can see phytosaurs joining the aquatic carnivore guild and forcing temnospondyls into more specialised roles, but not excluding temnospondyls as the pseudosuchians did.
General Koolasuchus could only be brought to justice by Postman Postosuchus and his motley band of unlikely heroes.
If you know you know.
The Postman movie?
Interesting to imagine how Australia's climate changed not due to changes in the global climate, but because of the continent itself moving north. I wonder how much it moved every year.
That's the same for all continents and land masses. The UK was a tropical paradise back in the Carboniferous, complete with reef systems like Australia's today. Far cry now as cold rain hits the rocks deposited in this period. By the Permian-Triassic it was an arid desert in equatorial climates. Back to coral reefs in the tropics by the Jurassic.
Koolasuchus is one of my favorite prehistoric creatures, they're just big blobs with teeth and I can appreciate that 😌
as can I, somedays they definitely are my spirit-animal for exactly that reason 🤣
@@hiddenwoodsben SAME!! 😂😂
I love this channel! Just the right amount of paleo-nerdiness! Thank you so much.❤
Thanks!
You didn't too bad saying G'day mate 👍 and a G'day from Australia I actually didn't realise that koolasuchus came from here but walking with dinosaurs was so amazing and love your channel
Thanks! And also thanks for the accent compliment.
I remember the section of walking with dinosaurs that it was in, I've always thought it was super cool ever since
(Pun intended)
They're really neat, and their addition I think makes the episode flow better. But as for accuracy I think it's missing a bit. But I'd rather have that story telling over being perfectly accurate about an animal we know very little about.
@@RaptorChatter I like that it tried to balance both, without claiming to be 100% accurate (and since paleontology is constantly changing and updating what we know about all kinds of ancient life). I watched it as a little kid and it's something that I've found interesting ever since. My mind was blown that there were ever dinosaurs and even amphibians anywhere that cold. (Let alone that something that looks like a salamander was that big, it blew my mind as a kid)
Indeed, it was very kool
Mesozoic Temnospondyles are kind of like Cenozoic Notosuchians as that both where living fossils for their time.
That's honestly a good comparison, and I should do a video on them at some point
Wait. Boar crocs lived THAT long!? I mean, there’s a lot of “not of their time” animals today, but good for those guys.
I really love this video series - please keep them coming :D
We will do so! And if you're interested be sure to check the patreon where you can vote on which organism we pick!
Welcome to Australia
Could it have had a luring contraption like an angler fish or a tongue shaped like a wrom to lure aquatic prey close to it's mouth? I would think it sat at the bottom and waited for prey to swim by, like contemporary aquatic ambush hunters.
Seems plausible considering we see that in fish and reptiles like snapping turtles.
That's possible, but with what is in my opinion a suction feeder, unlikely. Alligator snapping turtles for example rely on luring in prey and then closing on them quickly, rather than sucking them in as in suction feeding. There are other animals which use suction though, so alligator snapping turtles may not be the most accurate. representation.
Suction-feeding is a method best used in ambushes, so the niche it fills is similar to the lure-fishing you describe, but more generalized (you can use it opportunistically, like if you just run into a fish, while the lure method is optimized for ambush-hunting)
Koolasuchus, meaning "cool proto crocodile amphibian thing".
Koolasuchus' name reminds of mid-late '90s Modern Rock band (whom, incidentally, I believe were an Aussie act -- or maybe Kiwi), Kula Shaker!
Fun fact the dwarf Allosaurus from the same episode of walking with dinosaurs was Australovenator
I’ve never heard of this guy until now. They’re so funky looking! This was a very great video! :D
Lepospondyls as a group is probably so problematic that when paleontology decides to abandon it, suddenly the relationships between early amphibians will probably be much easier to understand.
Also fair! Amphibian and temnospondyl evolution has so many questions that there's not a lot which we can't know very well. So covering the bases in a video like this is the best strategy in my opinion, and if anything comes out as hard evidence for or against one phylogeny I'll report on that when it happens. But very accurate that there could be easier ways to manage amphibian evolution with the lepospondyls.
Merch suggestion for the Raptor Chatter store: Koolasuchus toilet seat covers!
If we had the ability we absolutely would! I actually first hear the idea from Dr. Adam Marsh at Petrified Forest NP, so they really should be the people to sell those.
Wow, didn't know the crocodile hunting method from WWD was inaccurate. Great video!
Probably inaccurate. It's still possible. But without a more complete fossil it's hard to tell. Even in crocs, there's only a few which go for on shore prey, and the longer jaws help them with that, so I'd find it unlikely in Koolasuchus.
Ever since that episode I've loved kooolasuchus it always stood out in the episode and was amazeing to watch and with more sciance for it now it keeps getting cooler it's a shame they fell thoe it would be cool to find a fossil near their downfall with crocodile teeth marks in it to prove the theory that they got out compeated and possibly over hunted to extinction possibly theirs a few more Triassic fossils yet to be found that will give us clues to it who knows.
Yeah, it's really unfortunate that it, as the last one, is so poorly known. It's be great if we could get some more fossils of it, or if there were exposures of rocks containing their interactions with crocodylians.
Laughing at the variations of UA-cam captions for temnospondyls:
Temnus bundles
10 responses
10 to spondyls
Tennis bundles
Tenderness bundles
Tennerness bundles
*A cool giant prehistoric amphibian*
But yeah this video does it better and I love it for it
Amphibianish*. Not necessarily an amphibian, but also not not an amphibian. There's a lot of debate, and the idea that Koolasuchus fit somewhere in between is nice, but until we get more fossils it's hard to say for sure.
For a glance I thought that was swimming centipede 😂. Heck No!
"In fact: near me, in the part of the Colorado Plateau where I'm at..."
Me, who also lives on the Colorado Plateau: _Perks up._
NAU at least has a decent geology program. So for undergrad it is great. But if you want real paleo experience you'll want to reach out elsewhere on the plateau there’s plenty of other schos with better paleo.
love to see my favourite prehistoric non-dino being covered!!
Koolasuchus -the last stand of giant amphibians.
Could you a video reviewing the “Walking with Dinosaurs” series to see how much science has changed over the decades?
heheh, I just finished Journey to the Center of the Earth, was just thinking the same thing, lots of basic awareness of fossils and geology, and such an interestingly different interpretation, but at the same time, also clearly working in an hypothesis environment...
“My ancestors were Caecilians….”
“You meant Italian Sicilian? You meant Italian Sicilian, right?”
*slithers back into the pond from whence I came*
… are we sure it’s dead? It is Australia after all.
Kool-AID LIVES IN ANARTICA!!!
I need this graphic now, and will let my wife/ editor/ graphic designer know.
If giant salamander is anything to be based on, they must be very tasty.
I wish it was more common to use animals on emblems or currency. I want to see the bald eagle on the dollar bill instead 😂
Surprisingly to me both the Japanese giant salamander and American hellbender salamanders have a reputation for being rather vicious. I wonder if koolasuchus was the same?
Maybe. The giant salamanders and hellbenders are actually the only members of their family, so there could be a familial relation there too.
Hey you're a Koolasuchus!
Koolasuchus: (puts on a pair of sunglasses) A pretty damn Koolasuchus.
You are a natural at explaining paleontology . I hope you are able to earn a living doing this.
Me too! lol, thanks!
In the movie " John Carter" this Salamander is like a pet and super fast.
Amphibious creature. They are sort of like a salamander and had unusual teeth.
Honestly i am not surprised that the koolasuchus skull has not been published yet. Its not exactly 'Richmond Pelycotilid' levels of procrastination. Apparently still writing a description after 20 years.
I agree. There's a lot of fossils in collections which still await description, so Koolasuchus is not at all a unique case. But it is unfortunate when trying to understand this specific animal.
@@RaptorChatter yeah i totally agree.
Its just really weird. Going and seeing nothing has changed about that superb marine reptile, whilst Australian palentologtology has exploded. I mean gone are the days of minmi, muttaburrasaurus(here i display my blatant Queensland bias lol), some footprins and whispers of polar allosaurs, ornithimimids and ceratopsians. And one of our most spectacular fossils has been just left behind.
"There are questions about where amphibians come from". Uh, water? 😎🤪😎
You're not wrong, but I don't like it.
That head is somewhere between a monkfish and a viper/rattlesnake.
According to the papers I have read caecilian and frog/salamanders arise from different grouos within Temnospondyli. If it's the case Lissamphibia pretty much equal Temnospondyli and they didn't get extinct at all.
And that is absolutely one hypothesis about it. But we really don't have anything super conclusive. So it's a totally reasonable statement to say they didn't die, but I did at least try to separate out the large ones like Koolasuchus from modern amphibians.
Another great vid
I hope we can soon start playing God w CRISPR and making creatures
If you would like more information (and references) about Koolasuchus' hunting style most likely being suction feeding, potential forms of brumation for this creature, reproduction, life cycle, and MULTIPLE theories behind its extinction, feel free to check out my in-depth video on Koolasuchus:
ua-cam.com/video/FkDESgVH-KU/v-deo.html
There were *Temnospondyls* that were huge, with one cosplaying as a *Salt-Water Crocodile* (living in the salty waters of estuaries & river deltas), only at 9+ meters long *Prionosuchus* was humungeous!
Their enormous mouths were typically filled with rows of needle-like teeth, some even in the roofs of their mouth. Some had pseudo-tusks (one even having two holes in the upper mandible which allowed the tips of the tusks to protrude through, looking like very strange nose studs). The back of their craniums had a pair of odd bumps, each of which resembled the ball of a ball & socket joint, perhaps allowing for greater neck mobility.
There is still some debate, with Prionosuchus being estimated to be about 5-6m by most researchers, but it was definitely interacting with salt water regularly. Assuming it was similar to amphibians it would be the only major excursion they had into even brackish water. Which is so cool about it.
I'm digging the different backdrop!
We are too! Now just to get some different backing lights to add a bit more variation to the back!
I love this channel
Thanks!
You can say mate mate, as an English man I highly approve and I'm sure that our Ozzy mates will too, cheers mate 👍
I Have A Question Can You Make A Video About Prionosuchus?
Maybe someday, and there's definitely other temnospondyls and amphibian relatives I want to talk about, so it's up there on the list of those.
@@RaptorChatter Alright
They're still around. You'll see them lumbering around in suburbs of Melbourne. And -- ten feet? They get a LOT bigger than that!
Ancient water animals are so cool
how were the CO2 levels of the distant past discovered by modern scientists?
So there's a few methods, but one of the main ones is by looking at the ratio of certain isotopes, like 18 Oxygen and 16Oxygen in rocks like carbonates to make climate assessments. I'm not a paleoclimatologist, but it is a field in geology, and has other methods, I'm just not super familiar with all of them.
haha salamander go brr
I used Koolasuchus as the basis for a monster in a fantasy story. Unfortunately, my beta reader just called it a crocodile.
Permian Extinction was harshest in the sea as I’ve heard
Also probably on land, there's a lot of ongoing research about it, and it may have actually happened on land first, and then the oceans were effected.
Yeah it was a mass extinction
All I know is that it was pretty kool.
it's a salamander acting tough.
Never heard of this, certainly a kool animal!
If Koolasuchus was still alive it probably would've had the same aggressive behavior towards humans behind crocodiles while alligators are less aggressive compared to their cousins the other crocodilians especially in water since they weren't really good walkers on land in my opinion
An amphibian with interesting teeth. Kind of reminds me of a giant salamander or a huge newt.
The opposite of warmlasukas
In some ways yeah. There's some neat research on relatives from warm areas.
Did Temnospondyls have a tadpole stage? This may have been the filter as baby crocs are pretty much ready to go on hatching.
We don't think so. Apachesaurus comes from the Petrified Forest in AZ, and it was shown to be a juvenile or larval stage of the larger Anaschisma. The amount of metamorphosis these would have undergone is also really hard to tell about. I recommend this blog by Dr. Bryan Gee who specializes in temnospondyls for more bryangee.weebly.com/blog/easter-eggs
@@RaptorChatter Thanks.
Perhaps if antarctica had never glaciated then the Temnospondyls wouldve never gone extinct
I wish. They're so neat.
Wonder what the meat would taste like.🤔🤔
Looking forward to other big boi ancient amphibians
Cool, all I need know about a basal salamander, called Koolasuchus! 🔥😈🔥
Fuck me that's not something you want meet down a dark alley! 😐
Koolasuchus is clearly the last Gigachad of its era, and then modernism came..
And now we have ponies & rainbow 🦄🌈
That size graphic!
THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A PARADOX CLODSIRE
It really should have been, it'd have been perfect!
Koolasuchus video 👀👀👀👀👀👀 you dont know how fast i clicked when i saw this on my homepage 🤣
my states fossil emblem lets gooooooo 🥳🥳🥳
Woo! Glad to have a few Australians here, hope my fake accent at the beginning wasn't too upsetting.
in english accent: gday
me: dies
look like some kind of salamander
this is great, thanks
Do you think this thing was the inspiration for clodsire?
No, I think Clodsire was more based on the Axolotl. Which is incidentally what I named mine.
@@RaptorChatter Quagsire was based of an axolotl, but Clodsire was apparently based off an “Iberian ribbed newt”, because it can extend poisonous spines out of it’s body. I had to look it up.
So did anyone make that toilet seat cover?
As far as I know, no. But I'd buy one if it existed.
Yea nah your aussie greeting was fine mate, better than most you see round the joint
- When a fossil is discovered in an English speaking country:
"Hey mates! This episode is themed around Australia!"
- When a fossil is discovered in a Latin American country:
"This fossil was found somewhere in South America"
Im Argentine, in my country there were found some of the most important
Dinosaurs ever discovered, yet no Paleontology channel ever says anything
about us, they just say "This Dinosaur is from South America"
🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷 ¡LOS MEJORES DINOS SON ARGENTINOS! 🇦🇷🇦🇷🇦🇷
Not even Argentinosaurus?
@@TheJhtlag Depends on the channel. But the great majority Ive watched only go into the detail of the country and the area when its usa, uk, Europe, Australia. When its Asia, Africa or América del Sur they only mention the continent.
Argentina has the most important Museum of Natural History in Latin America (it was featured in Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and National Geographic, my Biologic teacher worked for NatGeo) and yet they never say anything about my country. Nothing, sip.
Of course this is not always the case, but for English speaking channels its the norm.
@@RobleViejo As an aussie, all I can say is oof. Honestly that sucks a lot.
Koolasuchus are cool.
And now I want a custom toilet seat...
*YOOO, IT’S KOOP AID!*
axolotl ancestor... awesome...
Not quite an ancestor, more like a cousin to that ancestor.
Koolasuchus was cool 😎
Kinda looks like Woola from John Carter of Mars
Urban legend has it that as the number of _andrias japonicus_ began to dwindle in the wild, the Japanese government deemed it safe to adopt Western-style toilets. Prior to this, unwitting commode seekers would squat into the open mouth of _a. japonicus_ and find themselves devoured.
good show
Apology accepted. ;D
A cool climate during the cretaceous was actually not cool at all. At the poles there were temperate temperatures. It as a hug amount warmer on earth than it is today. So apart from not being a crocodillian (suchus) it also did not really live in a cool climate.
It big salamander
Wth was koolasuchus? Koolasuchus was kool
The opposite of a Warmasuchus.
I saw koolasuchas, I clicked.
Actually your g'day mates was reasonably close. I'm an Aussy.
Man I thought I butchered it on the first take and just committed. This does make me feel better about doing the accent for my dnd game though!
Coolsuchus 😎😎
Wow you just blew my mind, that generally the larger an organism gets, the more of a generalist it becomes. Obviously this is generally because you got like blue whales that only eat krill or elephants that are strictly herbivores, but when you look at something like a bear..
Even things like lions! They're carnivores, but they'll eat anything, it's not like they specialize on buffalo, but they'll eat rabbits and warthog and smaller things too!
Oi bruv, the southern most part of Australia is Tasmania.
IDK. It's one of those things which varies by region. Like Hawaii is technically in the US, but is separate as far as plate tectonics go, and has an entirely distinct indigenous group. Without knowing much about Tasmania I'm not sure I could put it confidently in either category. If you know more about those cultures and the tectonics feel free to let me know for the future!
@@RaptorChatter Like all of Australia, Tasmania varies indigenously with its people and its animals, but as far as I am aware it is still connected by plate and an under sea ridge. So it would be the most southern part of Australia.
they look creepy...
🗿
Sigh! Aussie!
Yeah, At least I apologized? Also I know I ain't good at it. If I do a fossil from Minnesota, maybe I'll try that accent dontcha know. lol
....so a big salamander. I noticed less and less appeal to scifi geoLOGIC time scale lately....prob the growing identification of false nerd evo gandist stuff. Cheers! Almost pity the pseudo nerds...they always had such a ...charming lev of imagination:)