If you get extremely hot tropical or desert environments, chances are the top dogs are reptiles. Even jaguars get taken out by the largest black caimans.
@@cerovk6000 ....you do know that assuming "I'm crying" just tells me you are either one of the fans I'm on about😅 Because why would I be? If I wanted to be that smooth brained and focus on any perceivable bias this video gives me, it would actually reassure me. Not to mention I didnt say I like T-rex specifically but its well know that Carno elitists will just argue ad nauseam about who beats who All I said was that the author actually knew it could possibly happen so he put a lil asterisk to cover himself and his statement
there was another one in Europe called Dentaneosuchus, which was around the same size as Barina, crazy how archosaurs continued to rule even after their pinnacle.
They didn't rule and this video is exaggerating their capabilities. Like modern crocs or alligators the larger they are the more they become prey among their kind. And mammals are smarter than reptiles that they can outsmart them. A lion's paw can tightly grip the under neck of alligator with it's claws. And hyenas are knows to chew the eyes off from crocodiles or alligators whatever.
Barinasuchus and Dentaneosuchus were land crocodiles, far more mobile that their acquatic cousins, capable to run and they weighed probably over 1,5 tons: even a grizzly bear would have been a snack for them.
@@user-ti6ix5tn2oBig cats get eaten by crocodiles (and vice versa, tbf), but okay. An almost 2-tonne land crocodile would absolutely slaughter any mammalian land predator. This isn’t even up for debate. And crocodilians are smarter than most mammals, they use tools.
@@user-ti6ix5tn2oguess hamsters, lions, bears, and human tribes never show cannibalism I’ll agree the coordinated pack hunting we see in mammals isn’t common in reptiles, but mobbing is still a trait shared with crocodilians, monitor lizards, and even snakes Don’t forget we do see packhunting in some birds like the Harris hawk, birds in general are incredible with adaptation and intelligence not only showing insane problem solving, but also use tools, identify their reflection, and even use fire to hunt Mammals have their tricks, but reptiles aren’t to be looked down on, they have dominated the planet for over twice as long as mammals.
For all the scorn I've poured on the purile fetishisation of ancient hypercarnivores as monsters, I'd be a damned liar if I said I hadn't been haunted by the thought of being alone in the middle of the Llanos and suddenly seeing one of these things in the distance ever since I learned about it. I can't put my finger on why exactly, but _Barinasuchus_ gives me the creeps.
This thing wouldn’t make a sound, much like a comodo, would just start eating you alive. Wouldn’t get distracted by anything, would just bite you a couple times, position you in its mouth, then swallow you as a whole.
It's essentially big cat software running on crocodile hardware. Somewhere deep in our subconscious that must be a nightmarish combination. There's just also a brutality with how reptiles hunt and kill their food. At least it would probably be over quick.😅
I hope you get to make about Megistotherium, the largest known hypercarnivore land mammal. They're the closest we can get to a mammal equivalent of T.rex
For the longest time, when talking about why crocodiles survived the K-Pg extinction, I've heard it said they did so because they were semi-aquatic. Doubtless there were some species occupying that niche, but more were terrestrial, and it appears they came through it despite this. Perhaps their exothermic metabolism gave them an advantage, allowing them to binge feed as their modern aquatic relatives sometimes do today, and then fast for long periods of time. They may also have entered a state of dormancy, like hibernation or aestivation, that reduced their need for food even further. Whatever the mechanisms they employed, they came through it, and it wasn't because they were semi aquatic...
Ectothermy was certainty a major factor, and many notosuchians like the sebecids had low metabolisms. However, while numerous lineages of crocodilians and other semi-aquatic neosuchians survived, sebecids were the only land crocs to make it to the Cenozoic Era despite how successful they had been leading up to it. Therefore, the amphibious ecology of crocodilians does seems to have been a major factor behind their survival, which was likely since freshwater ecosystems were in general the least affected by the mass extinction.
It was the combination of living in a river environment (which was less affected) and having a low metabolism that allowed many crocodilians to survive despite their size. Another key role in survival was luck. Having features that where a benefit assisted in survival, but did not guarantee it. Likewise not having the optimal characteristics was no guarantee of demise. It is possible, if not likely, that only one species of sebecid survived, and there may be no explanation for its survival other than luck.
Crocodialians are fascinating. The Indo-Pacific Saltwater Crocodile as far as I know is unchanged designed for millions of years, they're bad and they're survivors. I wonder how they survived. They swim in fresh water and Saltwater, they dwell some on the land, and they kill just about anything they can grab, Males more so kill whatever on sight due to how big they get. To survive they need only to eat twice a year, but they often eat twice a month. They binge, fast, as they fast they do next to nothing but chill in water or on the bank. What makes them fascinating to me is how they could've just fed, if you walked in their domain, they WILL hunt you, if they get you, they just stash you in a water log for next week's feeding. Now, of the animals long dead like this one, it appears to me to be crocodilian. The historic family of Crocodilians have some bad ones, and some perplexing vegetarian Crocodilians.
yeah ecthotermy was 100% a major point, most if not all dinosaurs were warm blooded, meaning they did spend A LOT of energy on their giant bodies, so when food was rare and the sun just disappeared making the world cold, having an enormous body to warm would require a lot of energy, hence of why only small warm blooded lineages such as birds and mammala survived the event Now if you live on an echosystem where theres still food such ad rivers and oceans, and you dont need to warm your blood, heck yeah you can make it Dont get me wrong, most lineages of Neosuchia died out with the KT extinction, probably all lineages of warm blood crocodiles died on that event EXACTLY because of that, leaving only highly specialized ecthoterms alive
Great video. It is wonderful to see Barinasuchus getting more attention. I do think it is worth pointing out that it is now tied for the title of largest Cenozoic land predator with Dentaneosuchus (the sebecid shown at 2:26).
Also quinkana and the new ziphodont taxon of Pleistocene Australia could be possible contenders if more complete fossils are found. Also regarding Sebecids, the third largest species would be bretesuchus if I’m not mistaken.
Leave it to archosaurs to defiantly hold the middle finger to mammals even in their most dominant period. It's like attending someone's birthday party just to remind them yours was way cooler than their's.
For South America and Australia, the age of reptiles lasted a bit longer and it’s transition was not as clear cut. The held top apex predator spots for quite a long time into Cenozoic.
way more than twice and if we include crocodilophorms even more we just think of them as water based because the current ones are that, historically if theres no one there to beat them to the punch they will grow to be huge land predators
ever since I've heard about Barinasuchus and all the strange creatures of South America before it was connected to North America, I have been wanting to have a documentary or any other big paleo project about the continent from the Paleocene to Miocene. it's a shame that both Walking with Beast and Prehistoric Park skipped past just to feature Smilodon since many South Americans native fauna was already extinct before it had arrived. also, Amoahuacatherium did not live during the time South America was an island continent.
I have an idea for a documentary. Every episode focuses in one continent in one time period. Like, Late Jurassic Africa, Permian seas, Early Triassic Asia etc.
And they straight up copied African lions for the Smilodon episode. Identical lifestyle, something you could see in any documentary featuring lions. Really dull. The only thing I liked in that episode were the terror birds, but they are only shown being displaced by the cats (which did happen). The ones with Nigel Marven showed a bit more of South America, with terror birds in action, and taught me of the existence of Toxodon, the most bizarre megaherbivores among mammals.
Tyrannosaurus Rex reigned for perhaps over 3 million years, 10 times longer than us humans, and it took the earth nearly blowing up to take them out. They were truly badasses for being mostly terrestrial animals, though brief compared to the Barinasuchus’s 30mil yr span. However, the true titans of animal kingdom are the sharks. Looking in the eyes of a shark one is looking back 300 million years into the ancient world!
God I’ve been loving the history of land crocs. This beast is a well equipped land predator that nowadays we’ve only seen swim and pop out of water, not really hunt solely on land. I’d love to see one or more of these in Jurassic world, preferably as attack animals for a drug lord who got his hands on cloning tech and decided to use this creature. God just imagine running across one of these at night time.
Amazing video! Feels refreshing having a good source of paleontology education on youtube, also, I think covering Deinocheirus would make for a great video.
I like how every single time we talk about "the huge biggest thing we ever found" we ONLY have the skull and kind of try to guess, how heavy and large they actually were. The skeletons you see in museums are still mostly "reconstructions" from bonesplinters. That's why the scientists still call it estimates, although you think you see the real thing. Ever thought, that the animal you found might have had, I don't know, an unusually large skull? Dunkleosteus suffered this fate a short while ago, when they about halved his length in estimates. Still, a chonky boy nonetheless.
"Ever thought, that the animal you found might have had, I don't know, an unusually large skull?" No offense or anything, but that seems unlikely. The size estimates are giv en based on extent crocodiles, and as the video points out, even the low end estimates are massive. This isn't a dinosaur we have no idea about - crocodilians are relatively well documented. "Dunkleosteus suffered this fate a short while ago" That was a completely different incident, and frankly highlights an issue I think we should talk MUCH more about... that issue being paleontologists' reluctance to actually study the fossils. Dunkleosteus is not a classical case of "we overestimated the size based on a large head", because the new estimate reduced the HEAD'S size as well. Now, how could that be, when it's a placoderm, and literally its entire head is a massive bone plate? Because the fossils were documented ONCE, and ever since then paleontologists have probably been playing a game of telephone, where the size estimates got more and more out of hand over the years, while nobody actually looked at the fossils themselves. Ignoring that the new size estimate is based on eyeball-to-gill ratio of bony and cartilaginous fishes, as well as ONE, small placoderm, so it's another ridiculous, baseless, but nevertheless fantastical theory based on shaky foundations - because honestly, why would modern fishes have similar dimensions to those that lived 350 million years ago?... ignoring ALL THAT... Why wouldn't anyone actually check Dunkleosteus's skull size? If they did, they'd know that the 10 meter estimate was obvious exaggeration. This has nothing to do with estimation uncertainty, and everything to do with the laziness and lack of scientific rigor of the paleontological field.
Really interesting and well-put-together video. A mixture of art, diagrams as well as comparisons for context. Good narrations too, clear with a friendly delivery.
Barinasuchus should be around 1.7 Tons. Which would make it quite close in size to the Fasolasuchus, the largest land carnivore of all time (Excluding Dinosaurs)
I have to doubt a 'top of the food chain' land reptile would require such a large tail for defense, so I have to wonder what is was used for. It seems so cumbersome, it looks like it would slow it up enough to reduce it to a scavenger, and not a hunter. Maybe it was aquatic as well, and the tail was employed much like a crocodile's? This creature would still be extinct today, even if environmental change hadn't doomed it, because there is no way humans could have co-existed with this thing, and would have had to eliminate them.
The dwarf cuban crocodile has been known to gallop in short and very quick bursts, its likely barinasuchus would've ran rather like a long legged komodo dragon running up behind prey and biting down on its neck
It's really all about the definition of "land animal". Saltwater and Nile crocodiles can get bigger than any predatory mammal but are considered "aquatic", while the largest "land" carnivore, the Polar Bear, actually hunts mainly at sea...
People. Now go look up the Saurosuchus. It was another pseudosuchian, but it existed waaaaay on the other side of the age of dinosaurs. I think it maybe got to around half the size of a Barinasuchus(so still quite large) but superficially at least, looked VERY similar to it, which is very interesting!
I had never heard of this thing, and I did research on some gigantic prehistoric South American reptiles just a month ago! Since the Barinasuchus went extinct 11 million years ago, it wouldn't have been contemporary with the Proboscidean/mastodont you showed (they only appeared 800 000 years ago), but they would have lived alongside Purussaurus, one of the largest crocodilians to ever exist, and the ancestors of the enormous turtle Stupendemys. Prehistoric South America was the craziest place.
Facts 😂that’s all I keep thinking about is how insane South America was during the supposed era of the mammalian expansion and update. It’s like South America was a lost world/time capsule for the Archosaurs and allowed their ancestors niches to still be exploited in the climate all that time. Just imagine, I know it’s likely impossible but somewhere on this earth is a “Skull Island” esque continent that houses many so called extinct animals from a bygone era and our world powers are hiding the f#%€ out of this because it would only progress more the world into more weird ass wars and they want to keep everyone as the kind of docile sheep conditioning that were in.
Quite an incredible animal, though of course it wasn't anywhere near the largest crocodilian of its time. It would not want to run into its larger aquatic relative, Purussaurus...
Awesome species! Would be cool if the beast of the Cenozoic makes a figure of this species. Also regarding paleontology hope they find more barinasuchus material at a preservation level of Mesozoic baurusucchids of Brazil.
Great video. Personally the illustrations lead me to believe that it did not chase down prey but ambushed them for one reason. Its neck structure does not seem to offer visual head stability when it would run or gallop. Almost all land based predators that chase prey have necks and shoulders built perfectly to keep their eyes at a fixed position while running so they never lose their laser focus on the fleeing prey. Visual lock on a fleeing prey is obviously extremely important
So…to extremely over simply (and i mean EXTREMELY) Dinosaurs went out as the largest baddest things ever…to be almost immediately replaced with a dinosaur….lol
I do like to imagine getting sent back in time involuntarily, and subsequently being devoured by the various gargantuan carnivores! Very scary LOL I hate the thought of being helpless in the prehistoric ocean with those Mosasaurs about, I hate it 😅😆😰
I’ve said this in the comment section of another video about Barinasuchus. But it bares repeating. I guess Miocene South America didn’t get the memo that the archosaurs didn’t rule the Earth anymore.
“And although this does sadly mean that we cannot see or appreciate these creatures for ourselves” Get the “sadly” outta there homie I am absolutely and 100% glad I live in a world where I don’t gotta worry about getting smoked by a 45 foot tall reptile lmao
Why is nobody talking about the fact that they look like Drake's from mythology, like what if stories were passed down from ancient humans about these things!!!
what's astonishing about this creature is not the size, but the amount of time this thing was extant for. You rarely see that for apex predator creatures, let alone bottom tier creatures. To be able to thrive for a ~20 million years is absolutely insane given that most superpredators don't even last that long in the cenozoic.
I just imagined this thing having a tango with terror birds if it did coexist with them or perhaps other related sebechids for the spot of South American top predator
Longer and taller. But skinnier and less heavier than t rex. It also had a lesser bite force. It's like an elephant and a giraffe/ A Crocodile and a Gharial.
A close second might be: "Megalania (Varanus priscus) is an extinct species of giant monitor lizard,[1] part of the megafaunal assemblage that inhabited Australia during the Pleistocene. It is the largest terrestrial lizard known to have existed, reaching an estimated length of 3.5 to 7 metres (11.5 - 23 ft), and weighing between 97-1,940 kg (214-4,277 lb), but the fragmentary nature of known remains make estimates highly uncertain." Wikipedia
