Is This The Oldest Dad In The Fossil Record?
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- Опубліковано 25 тра 2022
- Fossil evidence suggests Diictodon used burrows to breed, and that a parent stayed behind to feed and protect their young. And the parent that stayed behind? It might’ve been the male.
Thanks to Julio Lacerda ( / juliotheartist ) and Ceri Thomas (nixillustration.com) for the Diictodon reconstructions featured in this episode.
Thanks to Corwin Sullivan, Diane Scott and Robert Reisz for their image demonstrating Diictodon's sexual dimorphism. And thank you to Roger M.H. Smith, Kenneth D. Angielczyk, Julien Benoit, and Vincent Fernandez for allowing us to show images from these burrow discoveries! doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2021...
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References: docs.google.com/document/d/1l...
Sadly we won't ever know what Dad jokes were told.
This is the true tragedy of this fossil discovery.
yeah, but we Diictodon't know what these jokes were
@@bagea there it is
We'd need to learn the language first.
@Pokémon Spears I don't bite.
“Dad we’re extinct.”
“Hi extinct! I’m dad!”
“…dad our species is literally falling apart this is not the time.”
I wish media these days would talk more about the variety and uniqueness of life in the Paleozoic Era and life from the Paleocene epoch to the Pliocene epoch. Whether it's movies or documentaries they always spend too much on Dinosaurs and Ice Age that they are shoving back all the other animals that make up the prehistoric worlds.
Indeed. SMH at sensationalism.
In fairness, the fossil record probably has to newer fossils, even then, the earlier cenozoic is very neglected, with whales being pretty much all that gets attention
Even within the Mesozoic, the Triassic gets little attention besides the start & end, and the former is just because of The Great Dying.
Not to mention most of the Cretaceous gets screwed over by the Maastrichtian, which feels unfair as that's only the last 5-6 million years of the longest geological period in the Phanerozoic eon.
I agree! The Paleozoic is so interesting because life was going wild with experiments and things were unstable. The Mesozoic was relatively stable in comparison.
I want to see someone do the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event (GOBE), I think that would be really cool and interesting.
It’s likely that both the males and females cared for them in a similar fashion to birds.
With birds, the males _and_ females take care of the offspring. This would make sense in this case because, what we often associate with mammals, such as mammary glands, hadn’t developed yet and wouldn’t for another 150+ million years. As a result, food would have to be brought to the babies in some form, which means both the male and female are equally capable of tending to the young.
Yeah but even in birds, a lot of species only have female parental care
@@michaellevesley3578 Solitary male
Care is more likely to be found in fish and birds.
In cassowaries it´s male who take care of young ones while female try to have so much eggs as possible. Obviously we have not enough evidence for Diictodon doing something like that but it´s on table.
It's also possible that they've misidentified which morph is female.
Platypus, no memories but still make milk.
I wonder if the sexual dimorphism wasn't because the males were competing with other males, but more because the males were primary caregivers and needed to be able to defend their brood. I imagine a larger size and big tusks would be just as useful for scaring off potential threats as scaring off potential rivals.
If this is true they might not be males at all. Maybe the females are the larger ones with tusks to protect the young.
I would say the first question to answer would be whether Diictodon laid eggs or gave birth to live young. If females laid eggs, seeing parental behaviours more similar to birds wouldn't be surprising. In most ratite species, the female leaves after laying the eggs and it's the males that take on all care of the offspring. Imagine if the reason that males were found with the young wasn't because it just happened to be their turn but they were the primary/sole caregivers to the offspring. I think that would be super cool.
they are to old for placentas they couldn't have given live birth like how sharks do.
@@JoelFeila I wasn't completely sure. But I did have an idea overnight. What if the tusks of the males are a defensive structure used to protect themselves and their offspring. And the lack of tusks on females could indicate they didn't participate in raising the young. Someone should research that.
@@DragonFae16 the closest thing we have today to a Diictodon are Monotremes. Platypuses, echidnas, they lay eggs.
True about ratites but these would be closer to reptiles than birds. In some reptiles the females are larger than the males. As mentioned above tusks can be used to defend the burrow not just fight for mates
supposing the female is smaller is supposing they were quite mammal-like. In egg-layer, the female is quite often much bigger. (one third in bird of prey, about that in frogs from memory...)
Every time Therapsids are discussed in Eons videos, my brain just can't wrap my head around them. I guess it's one of those consequences of learning over-simplified, elementary school taxonomy where the definition of mammal, or bird, or reptile is totally static. Even if I can't grasp them philosophically, I'm happy when they're talked about in these videos, because it helps reformulate these concepts in my head.
I took AP Biology in high school and even I didn't learn how cladistics worked until I was an adult. My teacher even claimed the textbook was wrong in saying protists weren't a real kingdom because they don't all descend from the same common ancestor.
Kind of curious on how they figured out which set of sexual dimorphic traits were for male and female respectively.
I wondered that too; I have a certain feeling that they just guessed "ah obviously male is the big one with tusks" without any direct evidence, people tend to do that, but it is also possible it's more based on some stuff in the hips (is that an approiate term for quadrupeds?) that might give clues to their genitals. Not sure tho.
@@nerdyspinosaurid From what I've read, there are a few ligament insertions in the mammalian pelvis that help show where a uterus would be anchored. So possibly, they've found something similar?
@@nerdyspinosaurid I really doubt that they just guessed. These are paleontologists, not "people" who "tend to do that"
@@matthewthompson8625 The people who tend to guess have no idea how paleontologists do things, so they just project their own experiences onto the paleontologists.
Well, through research and study and comparative analysis, of course. I’ll trust the palaeontologists before random people on the internet.
Diictodon is such an interesting critter. It's like a naked mole rat crossed with a nondescript lizard and bird. It's a shame they didn't survive to see us.
They’re probably lucky they didn’t. We tend to ‘extinct’ lower life forms pretty indiscriminately. 😔
Pessimism aside, totally agree about them being interesting- AND CUTE!
If they had, we probably wouldn’t even recognize them as the same animal. Evolution would have changed them I’m sure
If therapsids, like diictodon, are ancestors to modern mammals, then, perhaps they did survive.
@@jessicaclark7130 ermm we’re gonna skip over crocodilians? Basically still the same before & after the dinosaurs.
They look like tortoises with no shell 😅
the most important fossil discoveries are often the saddest. These cute families were suddenly killed while cuddling in their burrows. the babies didn’t have a chance
Went to the national museum of Scotland a few days ago with my girlfriend, we were in Edinburgh for a few days, we live on the west coast. was able to impress her by naming most of the prehistoric skeletons without looking at the descriptions, all thanks to you amazing guys at PBS eons. The fact I was able to impress my girlfriend is cool, but the fact I was able to name all those skeletons and models based on what they looked like is awesome!! Thanks guys, only then I realised how much you've taught me just by watching your videos when they come out. I wish I could afford a membership or patreon subscription but when I can I definitely will!! Keep it up guys you're teaching lots of people more than you can imagine!!! ❤️
Learning more about prehistoric animal behavior is super facinating to me. Like they were real animals with real inner lives. Like I can't help but wonder if the father's played with their offspring to teach them how to be adults? Did the babies play in the dirt and practice digging holes? Did they play fight to learn self defense? It's so facinating and it makes me smile seeing stuff like this
No, probably they just curled together for protection and maybe had simple play routines, like running from place to place like rabbits.
@@stefanostokatlidis4861 it is all speculative no one can be sure but I do think you're probably more accurate
I know!! this is exactly why i love this channel, my imagination goes wild
The older I've gotten, honestly, the weirder I've found it when people ARE surprised about male parental care in the fossil record because *gestures broadly at the animal kingdom; points specifically at seahorses*
It's like when people try to argue that homosexuality is unnatural.
*Motions towards almost every mammal*
*Points specifically at rats*
@@nicodarsh it is as natural as infertility.
@@rizkyadiyanto7922 what do you mean by that /genq
@@-ari-arts-4300
I think his point is that two daddies don’t make babby, so nothing gets passed on
@@spindash64 male swan couples will find a female, mate with her, then chase her away from the eggs so the pair can be happy dads to the cygnets. And it’s been found, in some penguins, a female couple will find a male couple, and then the girls will give one of the eggs to the boys. Both couples get to be parents, and they stay with their preferred mate. Which I think is adorable
Absolutely loved the analysis. I've often wondered how parental care evolved in the first place. Is it something that has always existed? I wouldn't think so, thus it must have developed and changed over time, right? I'd love to see a video on that.
Parental care has evolved many times, not only in vertebrates. Colonial insects brood and feed their young, and at least some scorpions carry their young on their backs, cutting up insects with their mouths and passing the bits back to feed them.
I would love to see a video about prehistoric humans and childcare. The concept of the two parent nuclear family was not the norm: it was a lot more communal than that, based on extended family, clans and tribes with childcare being shared among many parents, for the simple reason that the whole of life was like that - it's how we evolved and it was more time-efficient that way when living with extremely scarce resources. Only when property and inheritance started to be a thing, and with it the question of legitimacy, did we end up with an individual man as head of a household. But even a hundred years ago among the poor there was a lot more sharing of responsibilities with grandparents, aunts, uncles and family friends, because people tended to live in the same place for many generations and they had less time and less technology to devote to childcare.
i absolutely love evolution, it's insane to think that this ALL, billions of different ways to survive and thrive on this planet, happened by sheer coincidence, just beautiful
You guys should've posted this on fathers day
Maybe having two parents taking care of the offspring doubled he chances of finding food for the young and ensuring the species' survival?
Also works for homo sapiens.
If that was the case, it would've evolved in the majority of mammal species.
@@WanderTheNomad No, because it isn’t always advantageous to every species. Plus that isn’t how evolution works. Just because something is advantageous doesn’t mean it will evolve everywhere. Evolution isn’t a logic game.
@@katherinegilks3880 If the starting conditions are similar enough, then similar features would evolve. I don't see why what OP said would only apply to this species and not the majority of therapsids.
@wanderthenomad
Because there is never only one strategy which might confer a selection pressure for genes to spread.
It might be advantageous for the offspring to have parental care from both parents, but it can be more advantageous for the genes of the father if he doesn't stick around to focus on one brood.
If the father can breed with more partners and create many broods of offspring, his genes may spread more widely.
Since the males are bigger and have larger tusks, and the females wouldn't have mammary glands, it may be possible that the male sticks around as a more robust protector while the smaller female is better at sneaking around to forage for food.
It might also be possible, hypothetically, that the male and female could have different coloration: the female having coloration oriented towards camouflage and the male having coloration oriented towards displaying for females and frightening predators.
They look like such cute, cuddly little boys. and so responsible and parental too?! Ahhh!~ Perfect animals, 100% perfect.
I am curious if the species laid eggs and at what stage of development were the young born? Were they well ossified and able to feed themselves? Was is parental care something like protection from creditors, or was it feeding too?
Because the species was a herbivore, I suspect that it could feed the young with the first feces to get beneficial bacteria for plant digestion. They were something like the rabbits of the Permian.
I need protection from my creditors too
The Oldest Dad ever found? Imagine the Dad-jokes it could tell!!
Loving the new podcast :) And the latest episodes are awesome! Thank you for sharing
Glad to see another upload. Ancient therapsid groups are so interesting and mysterious and aren't as well known as the dinosaurs, so it's really cool to see you cover evidence of parenting behaviors in diictodon burrows from that long ago.
PS today's episode's host is stunning.
I just wanted to say that your podcast is such a great addition to the channel, quality content, engaging subjects, please keep it up, I’m hungry for more 😄
Parental care amongst some species of birds is quite intriguing too. The French Partridge for instance. The female lays 2 clutches of eggs in 2 separate nests. She incubates one clutch whilst her mate incubates the other.
A fascinating peek into the past that shows things weren't so different from now. Thanks, Eons!
Can you please do a video about elephant evolution?
Yes!
Y’all are great! Since finding this ch I’ve been listening almost everyday. Learned so much awesome stuff :)
Love these videos and the channel!
I love your channel! So many new things to learn✨
This episode felt so short!!! It was so interesting 😊
Such an interesting video~👍
Thank you for sharing this~
You guys do great work! Please discuss the fossilization process, how the minerals work and exchange.
This entire episode was a nice, if only temporary, distraction from these depressing times.
I LOVE YOUR CHANNEL..so jazzed a short of yours came across my feed today. New subby.
Nice presentation by the host this time. 👍
This woulda been a great dads day video
Very good one, one of my favs so far
Ok the new presenter is very good at the job! Soothing voice and very easy to listen to and understand! Cool Story with lots of interesting facts too.
This was very awesome
even tho the content is out of nowhere.. I still want to watch and listen... in the end i forgot everything this channel taught.
Babe, wake up. PBS Eons just posted a new video
Michelle is so, so good at this. They've been a great addition to the show.
🤔 . . . Just double checking: did they give live birth OR were they still egg layers? If egg layers, then that would mean they’re similar to certain bird species where females laid their eggs in nests built by males; that if the female is impressed, she’ll make with the male, lay her eggs, & then leave. Didn’t become a xenopsychologist for nothing!
More than likely, they probably didn’t give live birth back then. I think that as far as we can tell, live birth is only as old as the last common ancestor of mammals and marsupials.
I'm no expert or anything, but assuming they are like birds because they lay eggs seems a bit weird, mammals are the only ones who don't lay eggs, while reptiles, birds, fish, and insects all do, and even then, there's the platypus. If eggs were inherent to birds, then yeah maybe, but I'm not gonna assume that, say, a snake behaves like a bird just because they both lay eggs.
They’re technically not birds, @@NicaremE. The best term is reptomammals: reptiles with mammalian traits. What I was expressing was, at the very least, a theory based on what we do know & such…
Hey, one of the authirs of the paper you presented is Julien Benoit! I know him! He showed the Wits University fossil collection last week. There were a bunch of Diictodon fossils, so much that he said they were probably never gping to study most of them, and if I wanted to cut into some of them for my own study I could go ahead no problem.
Question do they know for sure that the larger tusked individuals are male and not just a species like eagles where females are larger than males or where aggression is primarily between females like Hyenas etc.
could their tusks be used to dig the burrows not fighting?
I thought my man was doing the video, I was excited 😔
I did an internship at a lab where that synchrotron they used is in France 😄 v cool
I have never heard of diicodon before now but now that I have seen them I'm sad they are not around still. They were as cute as kittens.
Maybe, since they were egg layers and didn't provide milk, the females simply laid the eggs and left the male to care for the young. It's happened with other egg-laying species.
I wish there were description on what species of mammal they were showing for the paternal care segment
Didn't even know these things existed! Those renders were darn cute too lol.
do you think you will do long form podcasts in the future?
I was wondering if you could do an episode on hummingbirds? Why are they only found in the Amercias? Did their extreme adaptations appear before in evolution?
I start catching the mysteries of deep time podcast when I go on walks and I absolutely love it, I'm all caught up now.
Hey great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great (repeat a million times) grandad!
Please check aquarium fish parental care:
Apistogramma, Symphysodon discus, Dario Dario, Betta splendens, Gasterosteus aculeatus, sea horses... to see how parental care is common in fishes too, with a number of instances where the father takes unique care of the fry
Male gharials take care young juveniles. Archosaurs are often interesting parents
Even today there are several fathers in the animals kingdom, such as rheas, glass frogs and seahorses. It's refreshing to see the roles switched for a change.
Indeed, it's rare for a reason, but, uh, life finds a way.
I love science so much ! Diictodon really was a such a fascinating ancestor
I like how this video went through several different names.
I’d love to see a video about teethed whales (like the livyatin melvillei) I think you’ve touched on it in previous videos but it would be awesome to see in more depth
You describe examples of sexual dimorphism in Diictodon, but how do you know which of the sexes was male and which female?
2:48
Just hang on for less than two minutes..👍🏼
@@elh305 You should work on your reading comprehension.
@@dorongrossman-naples9207 Wow. You just had to insult someone trying to help you? You're not impressing anyone.
@@helmaschine1885 I'm not insulting anyone and I'm not trying to impress anyone, either. They just didn't understand what I was asking.
@@dorongrossman-naples9207 Eons are science communicators, not scientists. They don’t know any more than what they presented in the video. Check the sources that they presented and you will probably get more information, albeit not as pared down for non-scientists.
new children's book: "Diictodon has 2 Dads"
awesome 👍👍
My first thought was to show this to my dad :)
This video makes me wanna give my dad a big hug and a much better father's day gift this year...just sayin'
Shout out to Kimberleigh Tommy, the writer of this episode. She's a well renowned curator at the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa.
Bravo!!!
Perfect! 👏🏻🔥
Fossils are like paintings or other pieces of art. They just casually existed back then but now they create the path for the future
Sending this to my dad on father's day
That's gotta be the cutest dino ever!! Adorable dads for the win!
Just in time for Father's Day!
Two questions out of curiosity: Do we know for sure whether the specimens assigned to "male" and "female" Diictodons really belong to the same species? And do we know for sure that the smaller specimens without tusks wete femeles, e. g. because of eggs within their skeletons? After all, the male is not always the bigger sex.
Such structures usually exist in males since females have more costly reproductive organs, so males utilize this "surplus" to develop such features
wait they could find a dad from the dino age but they cant find mine?
@Gi Gi yea that’s true. You must of done a lot of research to give a clarity from your dad leaving
Gg easy no re
Look behind you
Let's hope this father didn't just go "alright ima head out" and just left for a day leaving his children
It’s just like my dad left me to get the milk
Thank you.
Shout out to Colton, taking the place of the missed and dear Steve!
Wasn't expecting my weekly dose of Eons to taste this bittersweet
The joke at the end was Gold
I love Eons. Hank, Kallie and Blake are so great!
So I agree that the evidence points to diictodont adults having significant skeletal differences depending on sex. What is the evidence for which sex was the larger one with tusks?
Watch the video again... They talk about what you're asking
Gee I don’t know. Look at existing mammals who have tusks🙄 Like elephants. Also they have enough fossils to make conclusions like that because they have many examples and in those examples, the larger male has larger tusks. Like it’s not that hard if you think about it
@@GrEaTDemOnBlade could you point out where in the video when need to look or say what was said. I had this question from as soon as they started talking about sexual dimorphism, but did not notice anything.
@@galois6569 From minute 3:00 onwards they discuss all this. What is the evidence? Well larger fossils with tusks indicate males, as well as other signs that indicate dimorphism.
2:48
Just hang on for less than two minutes..👍🏼
can u talk about therocephalians like gorynychus and how it changed the thinking of how predators could adapt into different niches to survive like become the dominant predators then shrink then grow again to become dominant predators again.
He is the one who started with the Dad jokes
Great‼️😊
Can you review Prehistoric Planet?
Imagine the jokes he'd tell....if only we could speak with it, the wit of ancients. How wistful
It's so sad that we never got to meet these animals alive.
"try a lil bite" :)
If anyone hasn’t yet started the podcast I can’t recommend it enough. It’s actually just as good as the videos. Maybe better, just because I prefer podcasts
can you do an episode about rhamphorhynchoid?🙂
Maybe a situation like emus and other birds where the female leaves the eggs for the male to raise?
Love me some Eons.
Did they also find fossilized dad jokes?
They used my joke! Awesome! I was proud of it!
gee - this is tricky - watching (re-watching?) - this as part of 'Survival of the Flops'. first - _this_ is NOT a 'flop' - people are busy = this is awesome content - THIS - vs - the other one - honestly can not decide = both educational, entertaining, fascinating ... (if you want to know more - only a few days left to vote - check out 'community' tab')
Can you guys pls make a video on how and when and why birds evolved complex calls
I actually chuckled
Just daddys taking care of the family. The female was probably out foraging.