Were These The First Animals? 

WW3 is too darned close.

At least one of the creatures has a direct descendant alive today so not a failed species there. It was a type of medusae that has a “rooted” phase as well as a swimming/floating phase.

@@casteretpollux we can only hope so.

If we go extinct then yes, we will have also been a failure

@@baconcheesezombie Homo sapiens have been around for 100,000 years not 100 million years, so yes

nor can we find any starter animals for Cambrian animals that I seen of.

@@RedRocket4000 The explanation, that I've heard, for that is that the starter animals were around in the Ediacaran era but they were so small we haven't found their fossils.

The thing is, evolution can result in vastly different results based on various pressures. Take chordates for example, the phylum that contains all animals with a backbone or vertibrates. It also contains sea squirts which, if you told me without some pretty strong evidence that they were more closely related to us than jellyfish and hydra, I would not believe you. Likely in the transition between ediacrine and Cambrian, there were massive selection pressures that forced life at that time to evolve into new forms at a rapid pace or die.

@@nobodyspecial2053 I suspect something figured out how to eat those handy pancake-critters lying on the sea bottom and things took off from there.

@@ComradeArthur And that initial something, like someone mentioned, were probably too small for fossils.

Yeah it's always all for the Cambrian, but almost never the Ediacarian ! Well to be fair, we know a lot less about the Ediacarian so it's not surprising.

I had forgotten all about these!! I feel like I need an Ediacaran t shirt ...

Yeah….I love the Cambrian animals, they are awesome….but the ediacaran fauna I have been finding more interesting in over the past decade or more….

@@MostlyPennyCat watched that so many times. Used to drift off to sleep with David Attenborough's soothing narration

@@MostlyPennyCat Huh. No, but I will look it up now. Well not NOW now. After I've finished this video. :)

Feel like a time machine would improve any profession tbh

@@h3069 historians would demand first dibs

paradoxes, not even once

I would choose the time one hundred thousand years after the dinosaur extinction event. Would explain what we have today and some earlier forms which didn't survive.

I did a story tangentially related to this. A group of researchers are on an expedition to research earlier humanity with a time machine; however, the machine is sabotaged and they're sent back to the late Jurassic Period with no way home. All they can do is try to survive. I unfortunately lost the google doc it was in alongside my old highschool account, but I think about it sometimes.

For a moment I thought you wrote: "The naturalist David Attenborough grew up in this era. He was an avid fossil..." Then I reminded myself. "Ok, he's old. But not THAT old..."😂

Indeed. He frequented Bradgate Park, which was where he found his passion for narture

I believe he discusses that in The Origins of Life.

@@falkjanen5050Well, to be fair, it would have at least said he was an _avid_ fossil, implying David managed to be spry for his timeless age.

Which is something I always found funny. Because Cambrian life already was pretty damn complex, so while there is the idea of the cambrian explodion, all the stuff had to develop in its basics first.

You got fossilized 🗿

I came looking for this comment and was not disappointed.

Who abandons an omelet??

Very good point.

True

+point

Agree, absolutely love the narration style the level of technical depth, visuals and the subtle sound track. Thanks for filling my life with such a powerful way of enlightenment.

Very mcuh agree with that assessment!

I love the narration, everything about this channel and history of the universe is phenomenal. Keep up the good work.

Agreed!

saaaaaataaaaan!!!!! ban sience!!!!

He was recognised, a whole period is named after the name he had given to his fossils.

He also got an ediacran fossil named after him.

I hope he made a proper whack of cash finding oil, too. That’d be lovely. Stupid rich AND vindicated?

@@cloverazar5315 He actually did become rich and later used the money to acquire a large piece of land, which he later transformed into a wilderness reserve.

Problem was his wish to include his findings with the Cambrian era which was promptly rejected.

Well his brother Richard made a mutant dinosaur park back in the 90's

To be fair these videos are about 5% actual information and 95% poetry in incredibly slow narration about what this or that scientist had for breakfast on the day he discovered something.

@@zarlg Yes, that's what makes these vids great. A lazy 60 second tick tock can say "here's a pic of animals from the Cambrian." I'm on RU-vid for the hour long deep dives into the details of what happened, how we know, why the discover was made, the context of the world when it was made, etc. etc. etc.

@@zarlg all your comments are just mad about a docuseries on youtube lole

​@@zarlgTrue, but the videos are still pretty cool. Gives you a lot of time to think about it philosophically too. Where did we come from, what was life back then etc

came here 2 say this- quality ovr quantity! i so look forward 2 ur videos- keep up the incredible work m8!!!

And you make them available on RU-vid for free. 👍

Quality > quantity, friend. Raise the bar from the average, phoned in reaction videos or reality TV.

These guys have 5 channels to run hence the posting quantity

@@Hulivilivoo no no no.

Just tell your teacher that your a man who feels like identifying as a woman and you will have their undivided attention 😢

@@ObjectiveEthics wow that's so funny! i'm honored you commented, i've never met a professional clown before!

@@moosekababs Glad you approve. Stick around kid, the jokes on you and they only get better.

⁸88>8⁸

Reginald Sprigg discovered the first of these creatures in Australia in 1946. The age is named after he Ediacara ranges here down under. It’s shameful that nobody remembers him and his discoveries were ignored. Mason gets the credit.

That's not saying much considering the state of the discovery Channel these days.

@@brianjensen5661 They still had good docs even if they fell off. I hope this channel blows up someday

This stuff is so interesting that I decided I had to become a geologist, and I did! It’s the best career in the world, really.

it's all stock footage, but well put together, and the narrative is well written. I would recommend David Attenborough's 'First Life' documentary - really superb.

This is why it boggles my mind that broadcast TV still exists or that there’s a stigma associated with RU-vid. Why in the world would you watch the old legacy TV stations and their productions?

I know right. Thinking of 600,000,000 years before present makes me laugh at myself. It's so unfathomable how long ago that was yet their shadows remain for us for us to observe. How unbelievably fascinating. I found fossils recently of plants in Japan which were laid down yesterday compared to ediacaran fossils. Incredible story of life on this planet.

How could tree be your ancestor?

@@goodman4093 Is this an honest question or trollbait? Nobody here said trees were direct ancestors.

“If a time machine could serve up to you your 200-million greats grandfather, you would eat him with sauce tartare and a slice of lemon.” Richard Dawkins

@@goodman4093 - A tree could not. But trees were a much, much later evolutionary branch. In fact, that order of events is probably reversed as It seems probable that heterotrophs existed first, then autotrophs, which would eventually include your trees, evolved later.

Do you remember spore?

So there's hope for us all.

Cell stage spore is very clearly Cambrian. None of these sea pen looking ediacaran creatures. You could probably replicate anomalocaris in cell stage and I know you can replicate opabinia within like 2 or 3 evolutions from the start of the game.

yes! - discovered by one of the five just as they were leaving in a rush to be home 'in time for tea'...

If I wasn't currently in an insomniac haze, I'd go on and on about how much I love this comment. But for now, I'll simply share with you an incredibly beautiful paper that is very relevant to your comments. It's by Ole Peters and Alex Adamou, entitled, "the Ergodicity solution to the cooperation puzzle." Here is the abstract so you get an idea, I hope you enjoy it :) "When two entities cooperate by sharing resources, one relinquishes something of value to the other. This apparent altruism is frequently observed in nature. Why? Classical treatments assume circumstances where combining resources creates an immediate benefit, e.g. through complementarity or thresholds. Here we ask whether cooperation is predictable without such circumstances. We study a model in which resources self-multiply with fluctuations, a null model of a range of phenomena from viral spread to financial investment. Two fundamental growth rates exist: the ensemble-average growth rate, achieved by the average resources of a large population; and the time-average growth rate, achieved by individual resources over a long time. As a consequence of non-ergodicity, the latter is lower than the former by a term which depends on fluctuation size. Repeated pooling and sharing of resources reduces the effective size of fluctuations and increases the time-average growth rate, which approaches the ensemble-average growth rate in the many-cooperator limit. Therefore, cooperation is advantageous in our model for the simple reason that those who do it grow faster than those who do not. We offer this as a candidate explanation for observed cooperation in rudimentary environments, and as a behavioural baseline for cooperation more generally."

This comment deserves more 👍

Or the mouth and digestive structures we're not seeing were one organism of a colony, and disconnected themselves from the rest when they could tell the other tissues were damaged or dying. Or the digestive structures carried bacteria-like symbionts inside them just like we do, that turned around and digested those parts so quickly after they died that they were already gone before these imprints formed. Or .. who knows what? Hopefully someone will find real evidence soon.

I can only speak for myself on this one, but like the proto-animals and siphoniphores, I am also a ‘creature’ made up of multiple micro-organisms that each fulfill a different role in the community (me, I am the community) from collecting food, to transporting nutrients around the body. I guess the only interesting thing about me is that some of my cells combine with some of other people’s cells and produce new microbial communities, and those communities will probably also be able to use the internet. I think about this a lot.

@@maseratidyce3587 same here, the blurry, squibbly lines we've decided to draw to separate areas of complex, interconnected systems are something I (we? sounds kinda self-absorbed) wonder about often. Why stop at 'a human is a sapient microecosystem' and not look further? Intentionality aside, our actions impact our environments as much as vice versa; perhaps it is worth occasionally considering the health of the greater organism you are a mobile sapient subunit of.

I remember PBS eons did a video about Dickinsonia. Very interesting.

is there such a thing as a "totally unrelated form of life"? anything that is, or was, alive on this planet bears some kind of relationship with every other organism now, or in the past. even a fungus is a closer than we think (or want to admit) relative

Punctuation will make your writing easier to read.

this was still too loud & annoying.

Absofuckinglutely. This feels like an honest-to-god documentary

though the music here was unnecesarilly loud.

@@DanteLikesRocki feel like it goes up and down in volume it's weird but i don't mind it

@@schnoz2372 normally that's fine, but if im trying to fall asleep and it becomes loud all of a sudden, it gets annoying .

All the channels the Kelly brothers own are equally phenomenal. They are truly gems on RU-vid.

I totally agree with you. Pete's natural story telling ability, and the connections he makes really transport your mind to a different space. I find these videos calming when I'm trying to deal with overwhelming stress/my PTSD. And, I love that I'm learning about the world at the same time. I share his channels often because they're something that's brought me so much peace and enjoyment. 🍀✌️😎

Isn't it wonderful when something like this can take us outside ourselves? Anhedonia is a difficult symptom to cope with, and I, too take great comfort in anything that can break through. Hope things improve for you. Bright blessings.

I'm happy for you that this channel gives you some joy. And I hope you'll find other possibilities to cope with the depression.

My Depression is Hormones, go to an Endocrinologist and a Dietician

This is also how I get my brain to stop being so cruel to me. It is sometimes overwhelming (in a good way) when our beautiful planet breaks through the haze. It brings me so much peace to know that we are a blip in the timeline of earth, to look at all of the amazing things that came before us and to wonder about what will come after.

She didn't know the yellow sea!? Damn

@midnightfairycase2145 no idea if you are trolling but I'll take it 👊

Only flies hadn't evolved yet..😆🤪

The series might never be over! It’s a marathon not a sprint though and we all lead extremely busy lives. New vid coming very very soon. It’s a goodun!

I'm asking!

@@jkatttt1699 For some good outcrops, check out Bradgate Park (deer sanctuary and nature reserve on an old manor estate. My favourite place in the whole world), Outwoods nr Loughborough, Grace Dieu woods in Thringstone (there is also a 12th century abbey ruin to the north of the woodland, with a neolithic ritual stone in the field to the west of the abbey), Cademan Woods in Whitwick, and Beacon Hill. All stunning locations.

@@MotoHikes New areas for walkabouts now added to my list. Thanks so much, and Happy Christmas!

@@MotoHikes beacon hill during the fireworks on bonfire night is great. 👌

@@bjdefilippo447 Enjoy! Leicestershire is really overlooked when it comes to places of natural beauty in the UK. Merry Christmas!

care to elaborate?

Good point confirming the lie would be a good idea especially as it so crazy it has to have a source of something even if it modern in type.

Unfortunately that is a human tendency that is more universal than a stand-out exception.

@TishaHayes yep. And it's one where even when you are as self conscious as I am. Constantly remembering my place and centering myself. I still occasionally will find myself being dismissive of claims or new ideas that have legit possibilities and have to go read. I also will find myself just accepting stuff without additional evidence simply because it came from a source I've used prior. And then I remember that Sci show can mess up . Like when they called azidoazide azide the most sensitive explosive every made and have done so repeatedly despite hundreds of papers and demonstratrations showing that no it's not.

But what would have prompted the evolution of mineralization? I'm certain predation must have evolved first, and I'd hazard a guess that the Cambrian explosion was more likely caused by the evolution of the first predator, which in turn led to the evolution of mineralization. I'd also hazard a guess that the first ever predator was probably a free floating jellyfish.

I think that you would have to try to figure out what concentration of chemicals would have to be necessary and for how long to support some creature of that size.