Mustelids are so fascinating and intelligent! There was a documentary on a honey badger living on an animal rescue preserve and he escaped containment multiple times. Once he used a stick that he carried on his back to climb out of the enclosure, and another time he and his companion unlatched a gate using teamwork.
Stoffel is an OG and a Legend!!! He would break out of his enclosure just to go f#*k with the lions. He often chose violence and when he wasn't terrorizing the other animals he would break out just to grief his keeper and then stand on his hind legs and dance on him literally saying "u need to do better" !! 😅 Stoffell is an Alpha honey badger lol
I've been studying paleontology for years, and somehow I never knew giant mustelids were a thing. These would've been so cool and terrifying to see today, putting the wolverine and honey badger to shame.
@@robdabanksI'd like to imagine these beasts were like their smaller cousins in that they wouldn't back down from taking on a much larger carnivore for a meal.
@@ConstantChaos1Except with horses, you don't have to worry about the possibility of them turning on you and eating you. A war ferret might do that under certain circumstances.
@weirdredpanda not so fun fact, while less likely horses can and have done that, most "vegetarian" animals regularly eat meat and when driven to it by anything from hormones to hunger horses will actively hunt usually small animals but they aren't picky once they do make the switch. In my area it happened a couple decades back and a few stories going back a bit further (not not reliably verifiable)
I try not to think about that era because quite frankly the giant river otters in South America are terrifying enough. Otters are like super predators and I am so glad they are small.
Mustelids have always been a huge pet peeve of mine (thanks to some unpleasant experiences) and this video is just what I needed to see today. Thanks a lot.
So interesting! Well, there's still the giant otter, right?! They're so massive, and our crew got them on camera facing a jaguar, we must say, they are brave.
Excellent on the video on giant mustelids, my friend! My favorite species of the Mustelidae are the Wolverine, the Giant Otter, and the Snowstlker from the Future is Wild. And please continue to make more videos on these strange and wonderful prehistoric animals.
Always more to learn. I'm halfway through the video and I'm still waiting for them to mention giant river otters because I mean those things are terrifying and they're still alive today. To put it into perspective, that species is Apex in the River systems where they're found to the point that they periodically just slaughter all of the crocodilians in the area. They don't always do this, probably because the crocodilians aren't entertaining enough, but it's pretty rare for the crocodilians to come out on top when they come in direct conflict with each other.
It's incredible to think of an otter as big as a lion! I think that in the future with the extinction that will happen in millions of years these "mega weasels" could return. I imagine that when predators like hyenas, animals like meerkats could take their place (a mix between Timon and Bazai from Disney's "Lion King"), a possible evolution of the meerkats and become a sort of cross between the Jurassic Park raptors and the Disney hyenas. Since meerkats stand upright so often, they may use their front paws for injure the prey until death.
@@weirdredpanda This work of speculative evolution seems a bit too trivial to me. I'm not saying it can't happen, on the contrary it is very realistic: seals already derive from animals similar to otters, and the ambulocetus natans was an ancestor of whales (even if it looked like a cross between an otter and a crocodile).
YAY!! thank you for making video about paleo mustelids, i wasn’t expecting this😳 hope you will return to this mischievous family one more time, i absolutely love mustelids and it hard to find more documentary videos with them ;0(
Sea Otter mating habits, on the other hand, are incredibly NOT cute, and violent in a way that mustelids can be. I do think that sea otters could one day evolve into a true giant marine mammal the way other mammalian lineages have (whales, manatees, seals, and seal lions, etc.), another frontier for mustelids to "conquer". However, I think coexistence with humans means it's probably never going to happen, more of a "if humans never existed" type scenario. edit: Sorry, more a random comment, not a critique as sea otters look adorable!
@@petebyrdie4799subjectively, I must be like the only person ever to not find that species especially cute. Yes they are cute, but they are not especially cute. I think River otters are a lot cuter personally. And there are many other species that I would say are way more cute than any members of this group.
I honestly think the giant mustelids like Ekorus or Enhydriodon wouldn't have been as aggressive as their modern counterparts, because mustelids are as aggressive as they are because of how small they are compared to their predators. Even the largest mustelids are relatively small
Oh they're not just that way because of predators, they're that way at their prey. There are plenty that live in areas that don't have giant predators that are absolutely insane. They don't get the same level of coverage because they don't go and be insane at megafauna which people find fascinating, because they don't live where there's a ton of megafauna, but they are if anything worse than the ones that are classically known.
@@obamacares8386 You're talking about South American giant river otters. There are also much smaller river otters in North America. North American river otters are not potentially threatening to humans like the South American ones are, but I don't think of any mustelids as docile. They are all ferocious relative to the animals they prey on.
Mustelidae is thought to be both the oldest and the most successful group of animals in the order of Carnivora. There are 66-70 different Species and they likely appeared before the canines.
Having been a ferret-father to three kittysnakes, I am a little sad we were robbed of gigantic mustelids but on the other hand I know what cataclysmic mischief they would get up to XD
It wasn't that long ago I discovered Hippos and Whales are closely related. Since then, I've been fascinated by this idea that they might actually interact somewhere, maybe Orcas on the African coast? Interaction between a pod of Orcas and hippos or maybe even elephants would be something remarkable to witness. Does it ever happen?
it's true that hippos are the closest living relative to the whales, but whales diverged at least 54 million years ago so I'm not sure I would call that "closely related"
I was hoping you would talk about them someday! Glad the day has finally come! xD Amazing video as always, however I have a question, which mustelid were you drawning? o.O
I used to give (already dead feeder) mice to my ferrets as a treat. They would eat EVERYTHING. You could hear them crunching through bones like potato chips
An advantage of scavenging frozen carcasses is that the meat doesn't spoil and could last for days. And if you're the only one with teeth that can handle it, you don't even have to hide it.
sorry if this is a dumb question, but how was it elected that mustelids are the most widespread family in carnivora? like, even if you discount pets, felids and canines are also everywhere but antartica aren’t they?
@@gerryhouska2859yeah but mustelids also aren’t native to australia, but i just played back the video and realized they never said that mustelids are the most widespread so my question didn’t make sense anyways, i heard wrong lol;)
What! That’s crazy how they get so big. I need to know more. I have been watching you guys for so long and love all the research and information that goes into your videos. ❤
Could you make a video about singapore's birds and animals? That will be amazing! Also the Mustelids are very interesting and wouldn't have know about Mustelids. 😁😁😁❤i had aways love your videos🎉🎉
I wonder if all mustelids are immune to venoms and where that trait first evolved? Additionally 8:47... very good depiction of an animal in the wild being hunted by a mustelid. 10 bonus points!
I'm imagining since these giant Nile otters we're around only 3 million years ago, there's a good chance that some of them killed or were killed by hominins with spears and handaxes
