How Ocean Currents Turned Whales into the Largest Animals that have Existed 

Me after college

I know it's not exactly the same, but consider how humans react to starvation. Women's menstrual cycles go on hold, fat reserves in breasts and thighs are consumed. In men sex drive stops and semen production drops. In extreme cases you can hardly tell the difference between a man and a woman on the verge of starvation except by carefully looking at the bone structure. I'm not sure how much you could study this without running into some nasty ethical problems, but it makes sense that if you barely have the calories to survive, your offspring won't be doing much better.

Axolotls do this too

My wife says I revert to my juvenile form whenever I make a joke, which cccurs often!

​@@tipwilkin, Eels don't develop sex organs until they near their final end. They live gender-less in freshwater rivers and streams for decades (a lifespan of up to 90 years); but one day they leave for the ocean, developing reproductive organs while traveling at sea and simultaneously absorbing their own stomach and intestines as they swim towards an unknown destination to breed and die. The baby Eels make their way to freshwater streams and rivers, and the cycle begins again.

I agree - miss the splash also

Me too, it's really jarring in a way to watch a mothlight video without the splash! I understand that channels evolve their intros and outtros, but being with someone from the beginning means you get to experience the changes

We all love the splash! Has a deeply calming effect and just got my mind ready for a mothlight video.

Yes - the "plooop." 😀

I miss it; the old sploosh and chirp.

I'm similar, they're one of the channels I watch to fall asleep

Useful to know at 2.30 am when I often lay awake for 3 hours

same

If you like space as much as animals, I recommend adding Astrum to the list

:nerd:

Chortle... That is a new word for me. I don't think I've ever seen or heard that. Thanks for the new word!

Only channel I have notifications for

😮😮

Its a special day

get hyped

WOOOOO!

indeed

there was one video where he switched the background music completely, but he then reverted to the old stuff, thankfully.

Same

The biggest animal THAT WE CURRENTLY KNOW OF to ever exist...

That is a fascinating question in and of itself. Do you think that there is some sort of 'silurian hypothesis' for animals as well?

A few years ago they found partial fossils of an ichthyosaur that in life might have been able to contend to be the biggest animal ever.

Before the orca shows up

Unfortunately Disney only makes sequels now

@@luanasari5161 That's half the plot right there!

In case you should know, both baleen whales (suborder Mysticeti) and toothed whales (suborder Odontoceti) are split into two major groups, with the baleen whales being split into the infraorders Balaenicephalia and Balaenopterocephalia, the Balaenicephalia infraorder is split into the superfamilies Cetotherioidea for the monotypic families Eschrichtiidae and Cetotheriidae and Balaenoidea for the monotypic families Balaenidae and Eubalaenidae, while the rorquals (family Balaenopteridae) are the only extant family of both the superfamily Balaenopteroidea and the infraorder Balaenopterocephalia and the toothed whales being further split into the infraorders Physeterimorpha and Delphinomorpha, the Physeterimorpha infraorder is split into the superfamilies Ziphioidea for only the family Ziphiidae and Physeteroidea for the families Kogiidae and Physeteridae, while the Delphinomorpha infraorder is split into the superfamilies Delphinoidea for the families Orcinidae, Monodontidae, Phocoenidae, and Delphinidae and Platanistoidea for the families Iniidae and Platanistidae.

I am no specialist, so I don't know exactly, from what I understood: A lot of the phylogeny of current animals is based on genetics. So, for extinct animals, it's a lot harder to work, we of course have morphology that is still a good indicator (even for the weirdest groups indicated by genetics, we can find morphological clues, it's just not the most visibles ^^), but it's harder and we can't check if we made a mistake ^^' Paleontologists tend to avoid placing the common ancestor of creatures in a specific group. The common ancestor should not be understood as a real creature that existed precisely 30 MY ago, it's more like a virtual construct, created by scientists to help their understanding of the world. ANd finally, a lot of answers in paleontology, if we want to be accurate and not make too much speculations is: we don't know, and we will probably never know. It's the most frustrating part of paleontology (that and the fact that 99% of the extinct species probably never left any fossiles XD) TLDR: We don't know and will probably never know, because it happened too far in the past ^^

Clint's reptiles has some good videos along those lines

Dont be shellfish

But it's reversed right? Heresy!

i swear i'm going to present this to a flat earther asking what if

@@Eye_Exist lol

Lol creepy

You're going to get nothing but garbage from AI. It is spell auto-incorrect writ large.

I woukd think different epochs would have different circulation patterns especially when there were supercontinents and perhaps no ice at the poles.

Very good question.

Because pinniped evolution into an aquatic lifestyle started later than whale evolution. Pinnipeds are still semi-aquatic and wouldn't survive in land with a whale-sized body, although you can see that they're clumsy in land. Give them a few million years and they'll start being fully aquatic, then they can grow larger