WTH was Koolasuchus? 

As far as very online sigma, vs. whatever mindset goes yeah, kinda. But it worked out for those other amphibians, and not Koolasuchus, so who was the real sigma?

@@RaptorChatter the giant salamander is.

@@RaptorChatter it is certainly not the giant madagascar frog beelzebufo that is for certain

The real sigma was Prionosuchus! You should cover them!

It would be cool and also sad to find a fossil with teeth marks in it from a crockodillian maybe closer to the fall of them is whare your find it but that would be direct evidence for the theory.

It's possible, and we really don't know much about its growth rate, so it also could have just had such a slow life cycle because of the cold that once warmer weather and faster breeding animals showed up they couldn't keep up. There's a lot we just don't know for sure.

Honestly, I need to look more into the pre-Triassic temnospondyls, because this is the first time I heard about Broiliellus and it seems cool as heck.

That's silly.... They didn't name them that because they were "cool". They were given the name because they smoked a very specific brand of menthols, and not Newports. I know this, because my grandson told me all about it. He had a job in the pre-Victoria region during the cretaceous, as a hunter-gatherer.

as can I, somedays they definitely are my spirit-animal for exactly that reason 🤣

@@hiddenwoodsben SAME!! 😂😂

Given how that aridity existed alongside monsoonal environments that are generally pretty supportive to amphibians today, I'm not sure that it can neatly be blamed on that.

@@sampagano205 climate instability+higher general aridity+pseudosuchians+ratio

@@khanlikestoogivebigsucc7375 Not necessarily right? Their heyday was before the Permian-Triassic extinction event, but evidence seems to suggest that they were still successful during the Triassic. Surely then was it not the Jurassic that did a number on the temnospondyls? At least the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event?

@@SuperTah33 yeah TJ definitely had a part in it and falls under the whole climate thing, but even before that, they were generally declining to the benefit of phytosaurs. Additionally, even with the extinction of phytosaurs at the end Triassic, pseudosuchians still beat them in securing the semi-aquatic ambush role in most places.

@@khanlikestoogivebigsucc7375 Hmm I can see perhaps where there is a difference in interpretation, as what I have read and this video seems to suggest that things still went well during the Triassic. Perhaps diversity did decline after the Permian-Triassic extinction event, but some forms were still very successful and widespread, as evidenced for example by Anaschisma in the video. Otherwise, true decline seems to be better evidenced after the T-J extinction event (lack of evidence from the Raetian aside). I can see phytosaurs joining the aquatic carnivore guild and forcing temnospondyls into more specialised roles, but not excluding temnospondyls as the pseudosuchians did.

That's the same for all continents and land masses. The UK was a tropical paradise back in the Carboniferous, complete with reef systems like Australia's today. Far cry now as cold rain hits the rocks deposited in this period. By the Permian-Triassic it was an arid desert in equatorial climates. Back to coral reefs in the tropics by the Jurassic.

They're really neat, and their addition I think makes the episode flow better. But as for accuracy I think it's missing a bit. But I'd rather have that story telling over being perfectly accurate about an animal we know very little about.

@@RaptorChatter I like that it tried to balance both, without claiming to be 100% accurate (and since paleontology is constantly changing and updating what we know about all kinds of ancient life). I watched it as a little kid and it's something that I've found interesting ever since. My mind was blown that there were ever dinosaurs and even amphibians anywhere that cold. (Let alone that something that looks like a salamander was that big, it blew my mind as a kid)

Indeed, it was very kool

That's honestly a good comparison, and I should do a video on them at some point

Wait. Boar crocs lived THAT long!? I mean, there’s a lot of “not of their time” animals today, but good for those guys.

Thanks! And also thanks for the accent compliment.

Thanks!

Seems plausible considering we see that in fish and reptiles like snapping turtles.

That's possible, but with what is in my opinion a suction feeder, unlikely. Alligator snapping turtles for example rely on luring in prey and then closing on them quickly, rather than sucking them in as in suction feeding. There are other animals which use suction though, so alligator snapping turtles may not be the most accurate. representation.

Suction-feeding is a method best used in ambushes, so the niche it fills is similar to the lure-fishing you describe, but more generalized (you can use it opportunistically, like if you just run into a fish, while the lure method is optimized for ambush-hunting)

Yeah, it's really unfortunate that it, as the last one, is so poorly known. It's be great if we could get some more fossils of it, or if there were exposures of rocks containing their interactions with crocodylians.

If we had the ability we absolutely would! I actually first hear the idea from Dr. Adam Marsh at Petrified Forest NP, so they really should be the people to sell those.

We will do so! And if you're interested be sure to check the patreon where you can vote on which organism we pick!

Welcome to Australia

Amphibianish*. Not necessarily an amphibian, but also not not an amphibian. There's a lot of debate, and the idea that Koolasuchus fit somewhere in between is nice, but until we get more fossils it's hard to say for sure.

Probably inaccurate. It's still possible. But without a more complete fossil it's hard to tell. Even in crocs, there's only a few which go for on shore prey, and the longer jaws help them with that, so I'd find it unlikely in Koolasuchus.

Also fair! Amphibian and temnospondyl evolution has so many questions that there's not a lot which we can't know very well. So covering the bases in a video like this is the best strategy in my opinion, and if anything comes out as hard evidence for or against one phylogeny I'll report on that when it happens. But very accurate that there could be easier ways to manage amphibian evolution with the lepospondyls.

NAU at least has a decent geology program. So for undergrad it is great. But if you want real paleo experience you'll want to reach out elsewhere on the plateau there’s plenty of other schos with better paleo.

heheh, I just finished Journey to the Center of the Earth, was just thinking the same thing, lots of basic awareness of fossils and geology, and such an interestingly different interpretation, but at the same time, also clearly working in an hypothesis environment...

We are too! Now just to get some different backing lights to add a bit more variation to the back!

Thanks!

I need this graphic now, and will let my wife/ editor/ graphic designer know.

There is still some debate, with Prionosuchus being estimated to be about 5-6m by most researchers, but it was definitely interacting with salt water regularly. Assuming it was similar to amphibians it would be the only major excursion they had into even brackish water. Which is so cool about it.

Me too! lol, thanks!

Maybe. The giant salamanders and hellbenders are actually the only members of their family, so there could be a familial relation there too.

And that is absolutely one hypothesis about it. But we really don't have anything super conclusive. So it's a totally reasonable statement to say they didn't die, but I did at least try to separate out the large ones like Koolasuchus from modern amphibians.

You're not wrong, but I don't like it.

Fuck me that's not something you want meet down a dark alley! 😐

I agree. There's a lot of fossils in collections which still await description, so Koolasuchus is not at all a unique case. But it is unfortunate when trying to understand this specific animal.

@@RaptorChatter yeah i totally agree. Its just really weird. Going and seeing nothing has changed about that superb marine reptile, whilst Australian palentologtology has exploded. I mean gone are the days of minmi, muttaburrasaurus(here i display my blatant Queensland bias lol), some footprins and whispers of polar allosaurs, ornithimimids and ceratopsians. And one of our most spectacular fossils has been just left behind.

Maybe someday, and there's definitely other temnospondyls and amphibian relatives I want to talk about, so it's up there on the list of those.

@@RaptorChatter Alright

Woo! Glad to have a few Australians here, hope my fake accent at the beginning wasn't too upsetting.

So there's a few methods, but one of the main ones is by looking at the ratio of certain isotopes, like 18 Oxygen and 16Oxygen in rocks like carbonates to make climate assessments. I'm not a paleoclimatologist, but it is a field in geology, and has other methods, I'm just not super familiar with all of them.

We don't think so. Apachesaurus comes from the Petrified Forest in AZ, and it was shown to be a juvenile or larval stage of the larger Anaschisma. The amount of metamorphosis these would have undergone is also really hard to tell about. I recommend this blog by Dr. Bryan Gee who specializes in temnospondyls for more bryangee.weebly.com/blog/easter-eggs

@@RaptorChatter Thanks.

Not quite an ancestor, more like a cousin to that ancestor.

Also probably on land, there's a lot of ongoing research about it, and it may have actually happened on land first, and then the oceans were effected.

Yeah it was a mass extinction

No, I think Clodsire was more based on the Axolotl. Which is incidentally what I named mine.

@@RaptorChatter Quagsire was based of an axolotl, but Clodsire was apparently based off an “Iberian ribbed newt”, because it can extend poisonous spines out of it’s body. I had to look it up.

In some ways yeah. There's some neat research on relatives from warm areas.

It really should have been, it'd have been perfect!

Not even Argentinosaurus?

@@TheJhtlag Depends on the channel. But the great majority Ive watched only go into the detail of the country and the area when its usa, uk, Europe, Australia. When its Asia, Africa or América del Sur they only mention the continent. Argentina has the most important Museum of Natural History in Latin America (it was featured in Discovery Channel, Animal Planet and National Geographic, my Biologic teacher worked for NatGeo) and yet they never say anything about my country. Nothing, sip. Of course this is not always the case, but for English speaking channels its the norm.

@@RobleViejo As an aussie, all I can say is oof. Honestly that sucks a lot.

Man I thought I butchered it on the first take and just committed. This does make me feel better about doing the accent for my dnd game though!

IDK. It's one of those things which varies by region. Like Hawaii is technically in the US, but is separate as far as plate tectonics go, and has an entirely distinct indigenous group. Without knowing much about Tasmania I'm not sure I could put it confidently in either category. If you know more about those cultures and the tectonics feel free to let me know for the future!

@@RaptorChatter Like all of Australia, Tasmania varies indigenously with its people and its animals, but as far as I am aware it is still connected by plate and an under sea ridge. So it would be the most southern part of Australia.

Even things like lions! They're carnivores, but they'll eat anything, it's not like they specialize on buffalo, but they'll eat rabbits and warthog and smaller things too!

Yeah, At least I apologized? Also I know I ain't good at it. If I do a fossil from Minnesota, maybe I'll try that accent dontcha know. lol