Meridiungulata - South America's Former Hoofed Mammals 

It's amazing Meridiungulates likely evolved in isolation from other ungulates: a great example of convergent evolution

The Pronghorn and it's family would be really interesting. I know you already covered giraffes and their family but no one has really fully covered the Pronghorn. The saiga would also be really interesting.

It's crazy how diverse the world used to be

I can't keep track of any the names you're saying, but it's super interesting! Definitely gonna try and learn more about paleontology and memories some of the names of the families, species etc

Island South America was such an alien place; like Australia but on steroids. The loss of their unique local fauna during the Great American exchange is easily the largest focalized loss of biodiversity that occurred between the KT extinction and the rise of humans. Thanks for covering this oft overlooked fauna!!!

Ya know, I’ve been to both East Africa and South America, and it really struck me how devoid of large animals the Neotropical grasslands were in comparison to those of Africa and the Holarctic realm. South America once teemed with charismatic megafauna, and now people don’t even realize they used to be there as in other parts of the world. Kind of jarring.

Bravo! Mammalian paleontology takes often takes a backseat to dinosaurs and meridiungulates are practically ignored altogether. You da man!

I find it amusing humanity in this is represented by patchy.

The evolutionary relationships of merdiungulates is unknown, since it originated in South America it may actually be classified within Atlantogenata, making them closer to armadillos, sloths, anteaters, aardvarks, hyraxes, elephant shrews, tenrecs, otter shrews, golden moles, elephants, and sirenians than to true hoofed mammals.

Macrauchenia actually had a moose-like snout and not an elephantine trunk

Your channel is highly underrated compared to the quality of your videos. Thank you for focusing on these less known extinct lineages, and keep up the good work!

I used to believe most of the animals in the ice age movie were invented, but they are based in fossils, even the saber toothed squirrel 😆

This channel is fantastic, great content as always! Very informative.

2:35 The fact that Thomas Huxley has an animal named after him that's literally just his full name with no space and an extra letter makes me happy for some reason.

Love it! This channel is SO rad.

Faça um video mostrando como cada caracteristica dos mamiferos evoluiu e influenciou a outra. Por exemplo, as fendas no crânio dos sinápsideos permitiu músculos da mandíbula mais fortes (o que permitiu um focinho mais curto), mais espaço para o cérebro aumentar de tamanho, o desenvolvimento do ouvido, mastigação dos alimentos (o que levou a diferenciação dos dentes e permitiu o metabolismo de sangue quente, que também foi facilitado pelo diafragma que permitiu uma respiração melhor), etc.

Oh boy it's here! I waited in anticipation for this one, there are very few videos about this group of animals!

a lot of these would make great pets

Toxodontids have adapted very well to grassland habitat that was spreadung in the latter part of the Ceneozoic. They evolved cheek teeth that grew continuously to help with shearing. On the other hand astrapotheres and pyrotheres remained restricted to forests, though their teeth were also pretty weird. I wonder what these animals had wrong with their noses really. Macrauchenia with trunk/moose like nostrils, some toxodontids (I believe Nesodon) with prehensile upper lip (like a black rhino), Theosodon with it's nostrils facing upwards and of course the trunks of pyrotheres and astrapotheres. I hope we manage to extract the DNA of the last Toxodontids, it would be great to finally solve their phylogeny and maybe de-extinct them one day.

I once read an obscure newspaper article from a 1920's Argentine newspaper concerning a strange animal that had been shot by some farmers. Its description was very similar to a Toxodon.

Enjoyed the video, meridiungulata has always interested me especially given the taxonomic questions surrounding them. A video covering some metatherians such as sparassodonta or the various extinct marsupials of Australia would be interesting!

Amazing video!

Awesome! Ive been waiting for a video dedicated to the Meridiungulata. I don't think any other palaeohistory channel has made a video dedicated to them

Super cool! THis was really great.

I really like your videos

Great video love learning about taxonomy and convergent evolution

0:21 Peccaries: Are we a joke to you?

Thank you.

Couple of video ideas I would enjoy seeing is the origins as well as the phylogenetic structure of crocodilians, the split from squamata reptiles and "lizard like" reptiles (e.g. petrolacosaurus) origins of scorpions.... I enjoy these mammal vids but some other clades would be refreshing

The ancestors were small animals island hopping from North America and Africa, which then gave rise to large placental herbivore forms who precluded the metatherian sparossodonts from filling those ecological niches. The arrival of hystricognant rodents from Africa in the Miocene drove many of the smaller species into extinction because they were better adapted to fill the ecological roles they had occupied. South America’s later Northern arrivals are still unique as they exist nowhere else. Despite the Isthmus of Panama, in many respects thanks to the Andes, South America still remains an island continent.

Nice video 👍

Thank you!!! Super cool video and info. I like the pictures!! Such odd looking animals … kinda? It would amazing to see a video about the wildlife of Antarctica 🇦🇶 that went extinct! You mentioned one species briefly

Not sure why there are 2 down votes as this is an awesome video? Thank you for all your hard work!

Great video, I like the thumbnail with the british people.

Love the comments as well. Such an amazingly smart community! Get to learn from the video and the comments 😁

***Cetaceans as marine ungulates*** Are we a joke to you?

That was interesting thanks

Best exemples of convergent evolution

Good show

This is a superior paleo channel

What about oarfish? It would be great to see how they evolved.

LOL at the picture at :40 -- alas poor Derp-ungulata, you were just too thicc and cheerful for this world.

make a video on the Sthenurinae. they are my favourite extinct animals cuz they're so interesting

Lit up, turn up

One of my favorite Permian animals but hardly ever see videos made about it is the Moschops.

I love meridiungulates, mostly because there the main prey of some of my favorite prehistoric predators like the phorusrhacids, sparassodonts, and sebecids.

Make a video about cenozoic terrestrial crocodiles like quinkana and boverisuchus

Imagine being Elephants twice and not being *the* elephants lmao

So many creatures looking like they come from Star Wars movies

Can you do the Nimravidae

I have came to believe in convergent evolution. There seems to be preferred forms that thing tend to move into. A niche thing. Like a built in program to move towards certain forms.

I would suggest perhaps the ancient marsupials of Australia.

I think we need to bring back all the extinct Pleistocene Megafauna!!! We need to do it fast, especially South American Megafauna, it will be so cool.

Do you the video about raccoons evolution please I would really love that Christmas has already just ended and I can’t wait until you you know make more videos

Kinda wish they were still alive wit us

I would like to hear about the origin of Hyper Carnivores and how they diverged today

Please do a topic on cichild fish or even characidae fish. Cichlids are found in the Americas and Africa while the characidae are found in South America and Africa. A well known characid fish is the piranha and a majority of freshwater aquarium fish.

Great content & super interesting. To tell you the truth-so sick of dinosaurs (I had 4 boys...that's part of the culture). 65-33 million years ago was the most fascinating time in prehistory. Thanks.

My favorite animals are eagles 🦅 harpy and Philippine eagle. It would be amazing if you could have a video about the Haast's eagle 🦅 of New Zealand

Woow

Litopterns also went extinct during the Early Holocene.

Music a little too loud

I love the Ice Age movie

Can you do animals of india during the palegene

I tought these animals are related to horses

A video on the future with human impact to cause again thermal maximum ( as in paleogene Neogene)

They clearly looked like rhinos without horns or/and tusks.

Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis.

ok make a video about mammals just after the great dinosaur extension.

Hear me out… A chicken but with hooves.

Prehistoric turtles

i want to see the origin of animal and got touhou remix as bonus

Humans are always the reason (sad emoji)

That's a LATA different species

when did hoofed mammals first started to appear?

vista, ca

guanacos not camels

Too much music. Noise

It's funny because now there are no big mammals in South America

Audio is way too low. Had to skip.. Hopefully better next episode.

ok

Too bad they didn't last longer. It looks like some could have been domesticated.

"pales in comparison to other continents such as Asia and Africa"... Yeah sure... Check the following 2 statements to see why the one in the video is... Well... Not really fair.. "the US has a great many inhabitants, yet it pales in comparison to other countries such as China and India"... " the bronze medalist did an excellent job, and yet it pales in comparison to other contenders such as the silver and gold medalists..." South America actually has a great number of hoofed mammals. Due to recent discoveries and modern dna testing, it has actually been growing recently... So we have 2 camelids (plus 2, formally at least 3 domestic ones) 3 tapirs (possibly at least 4) 3 peccary species (possibly 4) And... At present at least 17 deer species, but possibly many more (more or less evenly distributed among the Andes and the lowlands) That makes it 25 for certain. Which is obviously more than Australia (0), but also more than North America (12-15) and Europe (the Wikipedia list mentions 20 but uses a very, very broad definition of Europe and includes the muskoxen and przwalski horse...) So yeah... Pales in comparison to Asia and Africa, but comes in a good third. Not bad at all!

The Thumbnail: "And he's doing that face again. Tim. TIM! I KNOW YOURE DOING THAT FACE! Can you like, chill? It wasn't funny the first time and it isn't funny now."

🚩🫀🚩

All of this animals are extinct

Isn't pretending fun?

Your pronunciation of Latin gave me a headache.

Woow

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