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Speaker 1: Hey, are you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind?

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 1: it's Saturday. It's vault time. Uh. This episode originally aired

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Speaker 1: on February two, and it's on the phenomenon of Paleo Burrows.

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Speaker 1: Shall we go into the Tunnel's rob Let's venture in

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 1: I think today we're doing tunnels, Is that right? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we're going to venture into some strange tunnels in the earth. Um.

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Speaker 1: I don't know about you, Joe, but I love a

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Speaker 1: good creepy tunnel story. Um. You know, any caliber of

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Speaker 1: motion picture. If you have like a subway tunnel and

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Speaker 1: you have a monster sham going around down there, even

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Speaker 1: possibility of a monster shambling around down there, I'm generally

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Speaker 1: on board. Oh yeah, I mean it's one of the classics.

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Speaker 1: And you know your your your your fairy tale types.

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Speaker 1: One of the big ones is you've got to go

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Speaker 1: into the underworld, right, and what's what's closer in physical

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Speaker 1: reality to an underworld than cave or a tunnel. Caves

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Speaker 1: and tunnels, I mean, humans have have long been fascinated

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Speaker 1: by them. You know, we see a cave, we want

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Speaker 1: to get in there. We need to know what's going on,

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Speaker 1: We need to find out what kind of sacred uh

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Speaker 1: secrets are contained in there. And so, you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: also continually fascinated by tales of of you know, modern

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Speaker 1: tunnel systems, abandoned tunnel systems from from further back in history. UM.

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Speaker 1: I also love a good you know, tunnel of unknown

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Speaker 1: origin stories such as the Strange Tunnels and the Hyperion

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Speaker 1: novels or oh another a film in this case that

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Speaker 1: had some strange tunnels. There's the whole tunnel plotline in

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Speaker 1: Jordan Peel's two thousand nineteen film US. Yeah. Yeah, that one.

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Speaker 1: Let's not spoil anything about that. I'm not gonna spoil anything,

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Speaker 1: but it does open with a with a fun text

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Speaker 1: crawl uh quote. There are thousands of miles of tunnels

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Speaker 1: beneath the United States, abandoned subway systems, unused service roots,

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Speaker 1: and deserted mind shafts. Many have no known purpose at all.

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Speaker 1: So I instantly I was, you know, on board for that.

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Speaker 1: I love a good informational legend like that. And the

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Speaker 1: fun thing about that quote is that it's a It's

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Speaker 1: a fun one to ponder over because, on one hand,

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Speaker 1: it's sort of true. There are a lot of of

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Speaker 1: of abandoned tunnel systems in the United States, some with

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Speaker 1: some pretty engaging stories about them at times. You know,

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Speaker 1: old minds, abandoned subway projects, abandoned subway lines. I'm a

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Speaker 1: real I'm a real sucker for that sort of thing. Um. Also,

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Speaker 1: you know, ultimately, I think this is the filming question

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Speaker 1: is one that maybe doesn't you know, I supposed to

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Speaker 1: take it completely seriously and think, well, there's this entire

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Speaker 1: system of of tunnels and who knows what's going on

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Speaker 1: down there. But it also reminds me of what we're

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Speaker 1: talking about here today, uh, the story of mysterious tunnels

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Speaker 1: uh and caves caverns in South America. Now, what makes

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Speaker 1: today's example really interesting is normally you're going to think

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Speaker 1: about your your mysterious tunnels in two categories. One is

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Speaker 1: one is obviously you know, a cave of geological origin,

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Speaker 1: you know, uh, oh, you know here, here's a millions

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Speaker 1: of years old cave with with stalactites and stalagmites, clearly

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Speaker 1: a water formed cavity of some type. But then the

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Speaker 1: other bucket, of course is who made this tunnel? What

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Speaker 1: human doug this and for what purpose? But actually, uh,

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Speaker 1: those two categories leave out leave out another option, don't they? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it's not aliens. The fun thing about this is

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Speaker 1: you don't need aliens to get to the you know,

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Speaker 1: the wow moment, to the to the amazing content of

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Speaker 1: this particular topic, because we're still we still seem to

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Speaker 1: be dealing with a non human entity, a non human

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Speaker 1: will behind these um, these these tunnels or caves or

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Speaker 1: or burrows, Uh, is probably more appropriate to call them

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Speaker 1: these paleo burrows of South America. They're not the work

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Speaker 1: of of a pre Columbian society. Uh, they're older and

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Speaker 1: they're quite impressive. Well, but as we dive in here,

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Speaker 1: I want to mention that that one of my main

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Speaker 1: sources here is an excellent book that came out, I believe,

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Speaker 1: in seventeen by Anthony J. Martin, a paleontologist at Emory

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Speaker 1: University here here in Atlanta, titled The Evolution Underground Burrows, Bunkers,

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Speaker 1: and the Marvelous subterranean world beneath our feet. Um, I've

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Speaker 1: been meaning to cover this book in some form or

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Speaker 1: another for a while and I saw it on the

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Speaker 1: shelf again. I was like, all right, today's the day

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna bust this book out and see

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Speaker 1: what grabs my attention. So I haven't read this yet,

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Speaker 1: but my interest is p aeked because I like, you

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Speaker 1: love a tunnel burrow, a din under the earth. But

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Speaker 1: I was familiar with Anthony J. Martin's name, and I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure, but I think it was because he was

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Speaker 1: one of the authors of research from two thousand seven

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Speaker 1: that was famous for documenting the first fossil evidence of

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Speaker 1: a dinosaur, the Dug Tunnels. Did you read about this? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is covered in the in the in the book.

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, there's something some wonderful illustrations, and even in

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Speaker 1: one case I believe a bit of folk art depicting

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Speaker 1: these creatures, which I loved. Uh So the brief rundown

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Speaker 1: on this The paper where they described this find came

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Speaker 1: out in two thousand seven and Proceedings of the Royal

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Speaker 1: Society b Biological Sciences. It was by David J. Verikio

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Speaker 1: Anthony J. Martin and Yoshihiro Katsura, and it was called

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Speaker 1: first trace and body fossil evidence of a burrowing Denning dinosaur.

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Speaker 1: So this fossil find came from a formation in southwest

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Speaker 1: mont Hannah's near the border with Idaho. I think it's

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Speaker 1: called the Black Leaf formation, and this formation dates back

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Speaker 1: to the mid Cretaceous period. The find consisted of both

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Speaker 1: the trace fossil of the borough itself as well as

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Speaker 1: skeletal fossils found inside. The skeletal fossils were of one

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Speaker 1: adult and two juveniles, which apparently all died and were

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Speaker 1: fossilized inside the burrow. The dinosaur was a member of

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Speaker 1: a previously undiscovered species of Ornithia, which the author's name

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Speaker 1: or Ricto dromius cubicularis. And that genus name, or Ricto dromius,

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Speaker 1: that means digging runners. That gives you a hint of

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Speaker 1: like the two main talents of the stat build of

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Speaker 1: this dinosaur. These would have been herbivorous dinosaurs that lived

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Speaker 1: roughly ninety something million years ago. And so one question

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Speaker 1: you might wonder is, well, how do we know that

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Speaker 1: the dinosaurs we found inside actually made the tunnel or

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Speaker 1: burrow instead of I don't know, finding a naturally occurring

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Speaker 1: hollow or tunnel made by some other mysterious creature. Well,

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Speaker 1: it seems likely that the dinosaurs themselves made it because

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Speaker 1: of the creatures anatomy and because of its relationship to

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Speaker 1: the burrow. So, in the words of the author's quote,

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Speaker 1: the features of the snout, shoulder, girdle, and pelvis are

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Speaker 1: consistent with digging habits. So it has multiple anatomical adaptations

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Speaker 1: you would expect to find in a creature that specializes

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Speaker 1: in digging. Like it's got a snout that is sort

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Speaker 1: of fused together in a way that would make it

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Speaker 1: kind of a good shovel for like kicking soil back

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Speaker 1: and forth, and its skeletal structure seems well put together

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Speaker 1: to kind of brace itself with the back limbs or

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Speaker 1: the pelvis as it uses its four limbs to dig

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Speaker 1: and and throw soil out behind it. Yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: something that's h that's touched on with various organisms in

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Speaker 1: this book. That no organism needs the tools for burrowing

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Speaker 1: or digging. But it's not just the you know, that's

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Speaker 1: something on matter of having claws or some sort of snout.

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Speaker 1: It also needs uh, like the body to back it up.

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Speaker 1: And so we can look at the bodies of many

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Speaker 1: of these organisms that are extinct now and we can

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Speaker 1: we can make very informed uh guess is about what

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Speaker 1: their body had evolved to do. Right. You need the

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Speaker 1: right kind of chassis to give you leverage with which

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Speaker 1: to dig, because you remember, your digging is not just

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Speaker 1: about what the hands are doing in the front. The

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Speaker 1: four limbs scraping away at things. You all, the bracing

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Speaker 1: is really important. You gotta hold your ground while you're scraping. Yes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can't just put a big scoop on the front

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Speaker 1: of your um, I don't know your prius and say

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Speaker 1: you're gonna go out and start moving earth around. But

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Speaker 1: another clue that that the dinosaurs inside this burrow dug

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Speaker 1: it were the fact that the burrow almost perfectly matches

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Speaker 1: the width and breadth of the torso of the adult.

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Speaker 1: So it seems like this is a burrow of the

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Speaker 1: right size to have been dug by the adult dinosaur.

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Speaker 1: And adult is found along with two juveniles inside the borrow,

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Speaker 1: and they were found with no bite marks or anything

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Speaker 1: on the bones, no signs of of carnivore bone assemblies

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Speaker 1: like you might sometimes find where you know, carnivore is

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Speaker 1: dumping all the bones from its recent meals. So it

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Speaker 1: looks like this was not just a tunnel dug by

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Speaker 1: a dinosaur, but one that an adult dinosaur lived inside

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Speaker 1: with its juveniles, and this would provide evidence of a

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Speaker 1: case of extended parental care in dinosaurs, something that I

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Speaker 1: think was uh less well evidenced and more controversial at

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Speaker 1: the time. And based on the size of the juveniles,

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Speaker 1: it appears that this parental care had gone on for

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Speaker 1: at least several months. Yeah, yeah, this is a This

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Speaker 1: is in stark contrast to some of the hypothesized ways

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Speaker 1: that say, giant sauropods would have dealt with their young.

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Speaker 1: I remember discussing that on the podcast, where like at

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Speaker 1: least one hypothesis was the like the eggs kind of

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Speaker 1: just fall out and they just rolled out the side

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Speaker 1: and then they do their thing. So yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: totally different parenting strategy. Anyway. The authors of this paper

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Speaker 1: note that vertebrates today create burrows, of course for a

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Speaker 1: number of reasons. Some actually use tunneling as a as

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Speaker 1: a food foraging strategy, trying to get underground food. Some

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Speaker 1: use it for escaping predators. That's a common one as

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Speaker 1: a type of shelter that protects you, and some use

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Speaker 1: it for avoiding the elements in harsh environments. But the

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Speaker 1: other half of the equation is that this animal, or rictodromus,

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Speaker 1: was also a cursor, which means a runner. Remember the

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Speaker 1: name means digging runner. And the authors of this paper

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Speaker 1: say that if we look at analogies today, running animals

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Speaker 1: that create burrows tend to do so for a pretty

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Speaker 1: specific reason, which is they create them as dens for

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Speaker 1: rearing their young. So, once you give birth to young,

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Speaker 1: the young and the juveniles are pretty vulnerable for a

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Speaker 1: while until they get bigger, big enough to run around

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Speaker 1: and defend themselves like an adult can, and so a

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Speaker 1: den provides a place to protect the young while they're

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Speaker 1: growing and still vulnerable. Now, Joe, you included a fabulous

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Speaker 1: bit of paleo art here from this uh this study.

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Speaker 1: This is actually in the book as well. Um. I

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Speaker 1: love a good bit of paleo art. But here we

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Speaker 1: see the parent, we see a cutaway of the burrow,

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Speaker 1: and we see the two young dinos at the bottom.

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Speaker 1: I like that the paleo artist in this case has

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Speaker 1: chosen to depict the adult Erictodromius as Sam the Eagle

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Speaker 1: from the Muppets as a very severe eyebrow and uh

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Speaker 1: and and a very well I think this is anatomically

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Speaker 1: accurate the beak like mouth. Yes. Well, anyway, sorry if

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Speaker 1: that was a digression from the paleo burrows, but I

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Speaker 1: just wanted to say, Yeah, so you're looking at this

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Speaker 1: book by Anthony J. Martin, and Martin has a history

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Speaker 1: with with the Diggers. Yeah. And Martin knows his his

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Speaker 1: tunnels and his his burrows here, and so he he

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Speaker 1: discusses the paleo burrows in the Evolution Underground, uh, pointing

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Speaker 1: out that geologists in Argentina and Brazil noted these burrows

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Speaker 1: back in the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties. Uh. Some

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Speaker 1: had partially or wholly filled with sediment, but others remain

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Speaker 1: quite open. Uh. They were cutting a variety of soft um, igneous,

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Speaker 1: metamorphic and set and sedimentary bedrock. So we're talking about

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Speaker 1: we're talking about rock here. That's one of the the

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Speaker 1: important and I think really impressive things about about this. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Some of some were visible in outcrops, others as cylindrical chambers.

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Speaker 1: There are some actually some wonderful photographs you can find

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Speaker 1: online and attached to various um articles about these papers

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Speaker 1: about these Uh, they're quite impressive. They look just like

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Speaker 1: a tunnel cut through a rock. You can, uh, you

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Speaker 1: know that you they look like that. They look like

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Speaker 1: real tunnels. We're not just talking about just an indention

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Speaker 1: in the side of a hill. Yeah. Some of them

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Speaker 1: look like somebody brought in the boring machine, like a large,

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Speaker 1: like several meter wide, basically circular, cylindrical tunnel. Others are smaller,

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Speaker 1: more compact, or more kind of a half moon shape.

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Speaker 1: But I just wanted to flag it. This was interesting

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Speaker 1: because so Martin notes that the people had previously observed

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Speaker 1: these things in the twenties and thirties in Argentina and Brazil. Now,

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Speaker 1: I had been reading about the paleo burrows in some

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Speaker 1: articles that came out in seventeen, and those articles were

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Speaker 1: were essentially saying that that nobody had ever reported these

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Speaker 1: things until just recently, that they just sort of come

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Speaker 1: on the radar. But it seems like Martin has turned

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Speaker 1: up some other previous reports of of these things. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that that's what seems to be the case. But the

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Speaker 1: important thing is that they weren't exactly sure what they

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Speaker 1: were looking at here now, and that over the decades

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Speaker 1: to follow, hundreds of these caves were uncovered, with a

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Speaker 1: lot of concentration in the area of what is now

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Speaker 1: Rio Grande do So in southern Brazil. Um others, other

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Speaker 1: of paleo burrows of this nature are simply undiscovered. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I've seen a total number express somewhere around like fifteen hundred,

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Speaker 1: and again they're likely others as well that haven't been

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Speaker 1: discovered or will never be discovered, you know. Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: reporting I was reading said that most of these are

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Speaker 1: clustered in kind of a kind of strange geographical bands,

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Speaker 1: like right in this area in southern Brazil, but not

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Speaker 1: further south than like Uruguay. But then if you go

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Speaker 1: even further south, there are some more down further into Argentina. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So the archaeologists came back and they were studying them

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Speaker 1: with renewed interest in the seventies and eighties, and they

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Speaker 1: hypothesized that these were surely the work of human beings

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Speaker 1: Martin Wrights quote. Considering their proportions and geological setting. This

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Speaker 1: was a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, as they superficially resembled human

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Speaker 1: made tunnels and chambers in Cappadocia and elsewhere. Now Capa

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Speaker 1: Dosia Is is noted here as u is a place

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Speaker 1: that in what is modern day Turkey where you have

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Speaker 1: these hit wonderful historic cave houses that can still be

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Speaker 1: seen today. Um, Joe, you might be interested to also

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Speaker 1: note that they filmed parts of your The Hunter from

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Speaker 1: the Future here. Yes, there there are quite clear signs

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Speaker 1: of the movie has scenes of of the of its

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Speaker 1: muscly superstar reb Brown scuttling around over these beautiful rock formations.

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Speaker 1: I think he fights a dinosaur in what is clearly

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Speaker 1: Cappadocia than now. While some of these paleo burrows, again

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Speaker 1: in South America, who were too small to have served

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Speaker 1: as anything other than hiding places for children, um, he

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Speaker 1: writes that others were large enough to have potentially been

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Speaker 1: human dwellings. The largest word as wide as thirteen feet

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Speaker 1: or four meters. Um, they were six point six feet

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Speaker 1: tall or you know, or two meters, and they were

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Speaker 1: more than three hundred and thirty feet long or about

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Speaker 1: a hundred meters in length. So again, well, you know,

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Speaker 1: in many of these cases, we're not just talking about uh,

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Speaker 1: some sort of a narrow burrow, but but something that

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Speaker 1: that that a that a family or a small group

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Speaker 1: could have lived in. Quote. Moreover, some tunnels connected with

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Speaker 1: one another or join larger sub spherical chambers to make

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Speaker 1: more complicated networks. Once put together, some of these spaces

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Speaker 1: feasibly could have served as underground homes for families or

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Speaker 1: small communities. A few even contain petroglyphs showing that pre

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Speaker 1: Columbian people entered at least some of them. And as

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Speaker 1: we've we've touched on already, and there's a there's a

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Speaker 1: long history of humans using naturally occurring caves, if not

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Speaker 1: for shelter, then for for other purposes, be it like, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, a burial or some sort of sacred purpose,

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Speaker 1: or in some cases, you know, we're not sure exactly

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Speaker 1: what that purpose might have been. Uh. And then we

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Speaker 1: have excellent examples of places like Cappadocia, which we just mentioned,

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Speaker 1: which demonstrate that if local geologic conditions are conducive to excavation,

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Speaker 1: then homes can be manufactured in the substance of the earth.

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Speaker 1: There are also various traditions of pit houses partially buried

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Speaker 1: or excavated homes. Again, it just kind of depends on

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Speaker 1: the culture what's available there in the given environment. But

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Speaker 1: in looking at these paleo burrows, researchers begin to notice

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Speaker 1: things that made it less likely that humans built these

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Speaker 1: particular tunnels at all. So, first of all, while artifacts

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Speaker 1: and petroglyphs did factor into some of these sites, we

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Speaker 1: did not find anywhere near the amount of human bones

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Speaker 1: and human artifacts that we'd expect to find at a

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Speaker 1: place where humans lived. Humans visited, but they did not

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Speaker 1: seem to live here. And this is something that you know,

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Speaker 1: you think of any of any of the episodes we've

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Speaker 1: record or anything you read about about ancient sites of

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Speaker 1: human habitation, you have, you know, you have these layers

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Speaker 1: you can go through. You can you can essentially sort

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Speaker 1: through the garbage of human civilizations and learn what they

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Speaker 1: were up to and how long they were there. And

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Speaker 1: in these cases, it does not seem like there is

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Speaker 1: there are enough artifacts, enough remains or even enough you know,

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Speaker 1: um petroglyphs uh to indicate that they were here. And

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Speaker 1: that's another thing. Petroglyph rarity in these tunnels indicated. According

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Speaker 1: to Martin quote folks were not inspired enough to hang

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Speaker 1: out in these places and make art. Another fact, and

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Speaker 1: this gets into the artifact issue as well, is indigenous

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Speaker 1: people's in south eastern South America did not have access

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Speaker 1: to the right materials for rock carving tools, and no

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Speaker 1: evidence of of said tools were found. So, again getting

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Speaker 1: back into the that the lack of artifacts to support

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Speaker 1: the the idea that humans made these uh these burrows

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Speaker 1: uh and or lived here. So during the nighties, researchers

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Speaker 1: began to turn their attention away from human beings. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They looked at the scale of these caves and tunnels.

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Speaker 1: The small child size tunnels that we mentioned, they decided

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Speaker 1: were likely the result of of a smaller burrowing prehistoric

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Speaker 1: animals such as giant armadillo. But the grand caves and tunnels,

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Speaker 1: the ones in which human families or communities could have

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Speaker 1: potentially lived. A new hypothesis emerged for these architects, and

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Speaker 1: it's it's not human beings. It's not flowing water or

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Speaker 1: you know, natural geologic processes. It is the giant ground sloth.

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Speaker 1: The big boys, the big boys. Yeah, so um, I

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Speaker 1: know we've talked about sloths, uh, extant sloth species on

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Speaker 1: the show before, and I guess giant ground sloths have

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Speaker 1: come up but at least a time or two. But

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Speaker 1: I don't think we've really discussed like what they were

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Speaker 1: and why they're so cool, because today we have in

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Speaker 1: the world, I believe, six extant species of our boreal sloths.

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Speaker 1: You know, they live in the trees, and these are

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Speaker 1: certainly weird and wonderful animals. Um. I'll be the first

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Speaker 1: to admit that they can be a bit of a

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Speaker 1: bore if you encounter them in the zoo. You know,

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Speaker 1: they're typically just um, you know, bunched in the corner

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Speaker 1: of a of an exhibit, you know, just chilling or

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Speaker 1: staying warm. Uh. But I find that they often look

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Speaker 1: like a like a wig hanging on a hook. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and uh, I mean I'm not commenting on their their

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Speaker 1: happiness or lack of happiness there, but they're not as interests.

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Speaker 1: They're not magical to behold. But in the wild, uh,

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Speaker 1: they come off like these just strange elemental spirit beings.

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Speaker 1: I had the privilege to glimpse one in the wild

349
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Speaker 1: ones and it was just magical. It's got like this

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Speaker 1: kind of thing that like slowly emerges out of the

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Speaker 1: canopy and the distance and you glimpse it for a

352
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Speaker 1: short amount of time and then it's gone. They're also

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Speaker 1: magical in a different way if you get up close

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Speaker 1: enough to see their face, because they often appear to

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Speaker 1: be smiling. Yes, they have very the their faces are

356
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Speaker 1: in this wonderful place that where they you know that

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Speaker 1: we lean into anthropomorphizing them veryther easily. They look kind

358
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Speaker 1: of like they're smiling. They look a little a little dirty,

359
00:21:01,600 --> 00:21:04,520
Speaker 1: which is you know which, which is cute too? Cuteness

360
00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:08,159
Speaker 1: um and yeah, and don't even get it started on

361
00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:12,440
Speaker 1: baby sloths absolutely adorable. So we have today three toad

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Speaker 1: slots and two toad slots. This refers to the four

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Speaker 1: limbs only, and these represent two distantly related families that

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Speaker 1: experience convergent evolution to our boreal life. Okay, so the

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Speaker 1: sloth lineage is not one that that always existed in

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Speaker 1: the trees. The species we have today are the ones

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Speaker 1: that happened to move into the trees at some point

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Speaker 1: in in in deep history. That's right. Yeah, Because plenty

369
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Speaker 1: of these other slots or or slothes if you, if

370
00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:45,800
Speaker 1: you were rather believe it's the British pronounciation, um, many

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00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:48,520
Speaker 1: of them were ground slots, and in some cases we're

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Speaker 1: talking giant ground slots, and these can be quite impressive.

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Speaker 1: I've enjoyed looking at at bones, you know, fossil exhibits

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Speaker 1: of these over time. There's also a wonderful, full scale,

375
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Speaker 1: muddy and shaggy recreation of of of a ground slot

376
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Speaker 1: at Atlanta's own firm Bank Museum of Natural History. I

377
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Speaker 1: don't know if you've been over to see this, Joe,

378
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Speaker 1: but it's in the walk Through Time in Georgia exhibit. Yeah.

379
00:22:13,600 --> 00:22:16,040
Speaker 1: I have been through that before, though I don't remember

380
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Speaker 1: exactly what this one looks like. I wonder if there's

381
00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:21,320
Speaker 1: a picture of it online. Hold on, Oh yeah, okay,

382
00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:25,399
Speaker 1: here it is. I remember this now. Okay, this sloth

383
00:22:25,520 --> 00:22:29,680
Speaker 1: needs a bath. First of all, it is filthy. It

384
00:22:29,920 --> 00:22:34,000
Speaker 1: looks really gross. Yeah, it's it's it's it's impressive. I

385
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Speaker 1: imagine it's been I don't know how long it's been there,

386
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Speaker 1: but it has to have been impressing school children for

387
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Speaker 1: for quite a while at this point. And I hope

388
00:22:40,320 --> 00:22:44,880
Speaker 1: that if at some point they they they change anything

389
00:22:44,880 --> 00:22:47,920
Speaker 1: in that exhibit, they keep the sloth. Uh. This would

390
00:22:47,920 --> 00:22:51,239
Speaker 1: have been a keep it dirty, Keep it dirty, keep it,

391
00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:54,480
Speaker 1: keep it, keep it on display. Uh, this would have

392
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Speaker 1: I believe this would have been an airmatherium, which was

393
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Speaker 1: a giant ground slow that would have lived four point

394
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Speaker 1: nine million years ago to around eleven thousand years ago.

395
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Speaker 1: And it was It was a pretty big big guy,

396
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Speaker 1: rivaling but not surpassing the megatherium in size. Now, megatherium,

397
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Speaker 1: this is the this is the biggest of the known

398
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Speaker 1: ground sloths of prehistoric times. Uh. Megatherium is Latin for

399
00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:25,560
Speaker 1: the great beast. Oh, I've never put that together before.

400
00:23:25,600 --> 00:23:28,560
Speaker 1: The theory um theoryum being beast. But that would be like,

401
00:23:29,119 --> 00:23:31,480
Speaker 1: as in the word thee amorphic, taking the form of

402
00:23:31,520 --> 00:23:35,600
Speaker 1: a beast. Yeah. So these guys reached heights of twenty

403
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:39,720
Speaker 1: ft or six meters and they probably weighed roughly four tons. Uh,

404
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:42,600
Speaker 1: you know, dealing with the adults here obviously. Um. It

405
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:45,879
Speaker 1: was simply put the sloth as mega fauna fear and

406
00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: feeling that filling that niche in the in the ecosystem,

407
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:53,240
Speaker 1: A giant eating machine that didn't have to worry too

408
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:56,399
Speaker 1: much about predators, ate a lot to maintain their enormous

409
00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 1: bodies and then also slept a lot to digest it.

410
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 1: This particular, a guy would have been as big as

411
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Speaker 1: an elephant, and it exceeded at the time only in size,

412
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Speaker 1: uh you know, concerning mammals by some terrestrial mammals, by

413
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:12,520
Speaker 1: some mammoths during its day. So this was a huge animal.

414
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Speaker 1: And while there are some I think these are mainly controversial.

415
00:24:16,200 --> 00:24:21,120
Speaker 1: There's a controversial hypothesis that it might have been partially carnivorous, uh,

416
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Speaker 1: you know, perhaps feasting on scavenged dead animals, such as

417
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:28,920
Speaker 1: I believe the glyptodonts, but it's wildly thought. I believe

418
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Speaker 1: that they were merely selective herbivores, though there are some

419
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Speaker 1: ground slots that I think there there's more robust evidence

420
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Speaker 1: that they may have been sporadically omnivorous, such as the

421
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:43,919
Speaker 1: Mila don Darwini. There was I believe a two thousand

422
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Speaker 1: twenty one study looking at the copper lights of it,

423
00:24:47,240 --> 00:24:51,400
Speaker 1: the fossil pooh of this particular slot, and they determined that, yeah,

424
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Speaker 1: it was probably scavenging some meat here and there to

425
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:57,280
Speaker 1: to make things to make ends meet. Though as we've

426
00:24:57,280 --> 00:25:00,359
Speaker 1: discussed on the show several times, they're actually u quite

427
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:04,400
Speaker 1: a there's quite robust documentation that many animals we think

428
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:08,240
Speaker 1: of as pretty much strictly herbivorous, will in some strange

429
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:12,760
Speaker 1: occasions eat meat. Right. Nature is just pretty opportunistic. I mean,

430
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:17,760
Speaker 1: it's gonna take what it gets. Yeah, So you know

431
00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:21,479
Speaker 1: that this is just a starter on just how weird

432
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 1: and strange these uh, these these sloths truly were. I mean,

433
00:25:25,640 --> 00:25:28,560
Speaker 1: they're they're huge. There's the there's this idea that some

434
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:30,720
Speaker 1: of them are also eating a little meat here and there.

435
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:33,760
Speaker 1: But then when you start realizing that, Okay, looking at

436
00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:37,440
Speaker 1: these paleo burrows, we're talking about giant ground sloths. They

437
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,520
Speaker 1: were not just digging in mud and dirt. They were

438
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:44,399
Speaker 1: burrowing through rock. Uh, We're just in a whole different

439
00:25:44,400 --> 00:25:47,879
Speaker 1: dimension of wonder here. In my opinion, Martin writes that

440
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:51,439
Speaker 1: as paleontologists in Argentina and Brazil started looking closer at

441
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:54,240
Speaker 1: the at the the paleo burrows, they begin to find

442
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:56,960
Speaker 1: clear signs that they were made. They seem to have

443
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,119
Speaker 1: been made by giant sloths. They were so for of

444
00:26:00,119 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 1: all they saw there were groove marks in the walls

445
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: that matched the size and claw account of ground slots,

446
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,000
Speaker 1: usually two toad and then also the dimensions of the

447
00:26:10,040 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 1: tunnels pointed towards the slots. These were not smooth and

448
00:26:13,119 --> 00:26:17,240
Speaker 1: cylindrical tunnels, but quote a series of semi elliptical chambers

449
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 1: with flat floors but ceilings that's that were possibly buffed

450
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:25,879
Speaker 1: out into concave shapes by the sloths backs and the

451
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 1: resulting complexes of tunnels and rooms. Again this this feeling

452
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 1: that you're going into a multi chambered subterranean habitat. These

453
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:37,120
Speaker 1: were likely the result of many generations of ground slots

454
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 1: returning to a given sight year after year, So not

455
00:26:41,680 --> 00:26:43,879
Speaker 1: just one creating this, but you know, coming back to

456
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:48,160
Speaker 1: the same location and uh and essentially adding onto it. Right,

457
00:26:48,200 --> 00:26:51,239
Speaker 1: And from what I was reading these paleo burrows, they

458
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:55,120
Speaker 1: vary greatly in like size and complexity, right, So some

459
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 1: are just sort of a straight cylinder that that goes

460
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 1: aways in and and then terminates. But there are these

461
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:04,160
Speaker 1: other ones like you're talking about that have these uh

462
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: more elaborate branching tunnels and sometimes open up into what

463
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:12,560
Speaker 1: appeared to be kind of rooms inside. Yeah, yeah, and

464
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:14,919
Speaker 1: these you know, I guess we could if you know,

465
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:18,520
Speaker 1: it's it's difficult to compare these types of constructions to

466
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:21,400
Speaker 1: human constructions, but you know, it's kind of like thinking about, well,

467
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:24,919
Speaker 1: think about a newspaper shop. Sometimes it's a freestanding place

468
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: out here on on a street with nothing around it.

469
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:30,639
Speaker 1: Other times, well it's it's got this thing next to

470
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 1: it and this other thing, and it gets depends on

471
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:35,439
Speaker 1: just how much uh sloth activity was going on in

472
00:27:35,480 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: that given spot, like how how prime this location was

473
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 1: for the burrows, and how many generations of of of

474
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 1: animals were coming back to this place and digging these

475
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:55,359
Speaker 1: spaces out and redigging, thank thank, thank Okay. So another

476
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:58,000
Speaker 1: interesting point of comparison based on the articles I was

477
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:01,600
Speaker 1: reading versus Martin's take on this, is that the stuff

478
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:04,440
Speaker 1: I was reading made it seem like it was less

479
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 1: well agreed on what what exactly had made these tunnels

480
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: and why, and that the ground slots and extinct species

481
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:16,679
Speaker 1: of armadillos where the main contenders. But it sounds like

482
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:20,879
Speaker 1: Martin is is way more on the sloths side. Yes, yeah,

483
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:22,520
Speaker 1: And and he writes when you when you look at

484
00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:27,160
Speaker 1: giant ground sloth anatomy as well, especially um uh skellow

485
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 1: doth the ethereum and gloss ethereum, you find that their

486
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:34,640
Speaker 1: claw hands have these closely spaced thick fingers that make

487
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: for quote natural shovels when applied against soft rock. Uh.

488
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:41,000
Speaker 1: They also had, you know, coming back to our example earlier,

489
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 1: they had the muscle to back it all up. They

490
00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:46,280
Speaker 1: had the four limbs and the shoulders. He compares it

491
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 1: to the muscles necessary for a galloping power, like a

492
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 1: galloping horse, except that in this case it's applied to digging.

493
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 1: So instead of running, this is this is power that's

494
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 1: clearly meant to dig. Also, their center of gravity was

495
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: more towards the ear of the body, which he indicates

496
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:03,840
Speaker 1: would be would be more in line with a creature

497
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 1: that's burrowing. Now, these two species that he ends up

498
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:09,760
Speaker 1: writing about, they're not they're not quite as big as

499
00:29:09,760 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 1: the megathereum. But Martin he compares them to automobile. So

500
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:17,240
Speaker 1: he says that the skelet ethereum was the size of

501
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 1: a Smart fort Woe electric car. These are these kind

502
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 1: of mini car. I didn't really know what these were called,

503
00:29:23,000 --> 00:29:26,360
Speaker 1: but you see them how driving around. Oh yeah, okay,

504
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: I didn't know what these were called either, but yeah,

505
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 1: they're they're like the little little cars the I don't

506
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:34,239
Speaker 1: know which you could like compact electric cars, you might

507
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 1: see it, you imagine driving around some European city or something,

508
00:29:38,640 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 1: right right, Uh, And then he says that gloss ethereum

509
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:45,240
Speaker 1: was more of the size of an average midsize car.

510
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:48,680
Speaker 1: That you know, we do some some car ads for

511
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: this show occasionally, and I think we need to start

512
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:55,280
Speaker 1: asking the advertisers to indicate what species of it of

513
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 1: extinct ground sloth was the size of this vehicle, so

514
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: that you know, listeners will be a little bit more

515
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 1: informed about their potential auto purchases. Now what Martin doesn't

516
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 1: really discuss megathereum in his book. It's but it seems

517
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: like megatherium may have burrowed as well. I found some

518
00:30:12,360 --> 00:30:16,280
Speaker 1: articles that we're talking about the megathereum and and burrowing possibilities.

519
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 1: But this kind of blew me away. There's at least

520
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: one hypothesis out there that megatherium might have have been hairless,

521
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 1: like like a naked mole rat, like a towering naked

522
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 1: mole rat. Uh yeah, And I included uh, a bit

523
00:30:34,640 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 1: of paleo art here um indicating what this might have

524
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 1: looked like. I found it completely strange and wonderful. Oh yeah,

525
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: because you shared this with me and well, he looks

526
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: like the engineers from the Alien franchise. Yeah, you managed

527
00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:52,000
Speaker 1: to even find a pose from one of the engineers

528
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:54,000
Speaker 1: where it's it's it looks like they're they're doing the

529
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:57,000
Speaker 1: same pose here. Yeah. I wish I could have done

530
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: it though. What would have been perfect is if it

531
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 1: was the engineer but he had the mask on, like

532
00:31:01,040 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 1: when they find the body in the original Alien. Oh goodness, Yeah,

533
00:31:04,040 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 1: because the this naked giant sloth head, it's fleshy head

534
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 1: with it's it would have, you know, probably had a

535
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 1: pretty like fleshy lip situation for uh, for all of

536
00:31:15,360 --> 00:31:20,680
Speaker 1: the delicate consumption of of tree bits. Uh. Yeah, it

537
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:22,680
Speaker 1: would have it looked it looks a lot like that

538
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:25,840
Speaker 1: mass that they wear in those in those movies. Okay,

539
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,440
Speaker 1: so wait a minute, did you did you credit this

540
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:33,240
Speaker 1: hypothesis yet? No, I haven't yet because the comment Okay,

541
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:39,160
Speaker 1: this is a hypothesis by a paleontologist from Uruguay, Richard A. Farina.

542
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:41,920
Speaker 1: He wrote a paper in two thousand and two titled

543
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 1: Megathereum the Hairless Appearances of the Great Quaternary Sloths, arguing

544
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: that this is in part because modern large this may

545
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 1: be the case he's arguing in part because modern large

546
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: mammals such as elephants and rhinos are mostly hairless to

547
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,880
Speaker 1: prevent overheating and hot climates. Okay, so, as far as

548
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:04,760
Speaker 1: I'm aware, this is not the dominant view of of

549
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 1: of these ancient ground slots, but this is one idea.

550
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 1: This is funny because I came across yet another paper

551
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:13,160
Speaker 1: where one of the two authors is the same guy,

552
00:32:13,280 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: Richard Farina. Uh. This one was from nine in Proceedings

553
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: of the Royal Society B by Farina and somebody named R. E. Blanco,

554
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 1: And this one is called Megatherium the Stabber. That's the

555
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 1: title of the paper. And this one hypothesizes. Now you

556
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 1: may have already sort of touched on this when when

557
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 1: talking about the the different ideas about the diets of

558
00:32:35,280 --> 00:32:39,440
Speaker 1: these slots. But here Farina and Blanco are looking at

559
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:44,080
Speaker 1: characteristics of the remains of of the giant ground sloth

560
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 1: of of Megathereum and saying maybe it wasn't so herbivorous.

561
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 1: They write, uh, quote, Megatherium american um had morphological features

562
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,680
Speaker 1: that are better explained by its having had carnivorous habits

563
00:32:57,760 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: rather than by solely herbivorous ones. Specifically, the question of

564
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 1: its four arms having been designed for optimizing speed rather

565
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 1: than strength of extension is addressed. So they argue that

566
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 1: the anatomy of the four arms is such that this

567
00:33:11,800 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: is an animal that would have been using vicious attacks

568
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:19,280
Speaker 1: with its claws rather than just sort of uh slow

569
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: slow extending actions of like tearing branches out of trees

570
00:33:23,040 --> 00:33:25,560
Speaker 1: or something. And then they also say that the high

571
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 1: mechanical advantage of the megatherium's biceps would have made it

572
00:33:29,440 --> 00:33:32,800
Speaker 1: possible for the animal to have lifted and carried heavy weights.

573
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 1: And they're like, well, what if this means it was

574
00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 1: like turning animals over to get at the soft underbelly.

575
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if anybody agrees with this today, this

576
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 1: seems this seems possibly out there. But I like the

577
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 1: idea that Verena has has made a career, at least

578
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:55,480
Speaker 1: partially on on proposing alternate interpretations of the megatherium. Yeah,

579
00:33:55,520 --> 00:33:57,400
Speaker 1: I think I I did look at part of this paper.

580
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 1: The idea I think is that glyptodonts it would have

581
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 1: been like turning the glip to dot over and then

582
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: using the claws and the forearms to like dig into

583
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:10,239
Speaker 1: the belly and start eating the flesh thing, flip it

584
00:34:10,280 --> 00:34:12,880
Speaker 1: and then stab with the claws. Yeah, and I'm not

585
00:34:12,920 --> 00:34:15,760
Speaker 1: sure entirely if we're talking about a a living glipto

586
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 1: dot or a dead one. If we're ultimately talking is

587
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 1: he arguing like the this was the Mighty Hunter or

588
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: that basically it's eating a lot of plants, but if

589
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:26,480
Speaker 1: it finds a dead glipto dot, yeah, it's going to

590
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:28,839
Speaker 1: flip it over and dig in a little bit. They're

591
00:34:28,840 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 1: saying predatory behavior. So again, again I want to be

592
00:34:32,239 --> 00:34:34,680
Speaker 1: very clear, I've not found any indication that this is

593
00:34:34,719 --> 00:34:39,600
Speaker 1: a widely accepted interpretation of of megatherium remains. But interesting,

594
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:42,960
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, that's funny. Alright, So coming back to

595
00:34:43,000 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 1: paleot burrows, um, one of the big remaining questions, and

596
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 1: ultimately I guess one of the big remaining mysteries is Okay,

597
00:34:50,120 --> 00:34:52,520
Speaker 1: so if we if we're gonna go with the hypothesis

598
00:34:52,600 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 1: that these were dug out by giant ground slots, why

599
00:34:57,520 --> 00:34:59,520
Speaker 1: did they burrow in the ground, why did they seem

600
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:02,000
Speaker 1: to come act to the same places, uh, you know,

601
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:06,920
Speaker 1: year after year, generation after generation and maintain these spaces.

602
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:09,440
Speaker 1: So Martin gets into this because the whole book is about,

603
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:11,719
Speaker 1: you know, deals with questions of why animals do this,

604
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:14,480
Speaker 1: Why is the burrow advantageous, Why is it helped you know,

605
00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 1: why in some cases did it enable certain creatures to

606
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:21,800
Speaker 1: survive cataclysms on the earth? Well, well, Martin points out that, Okay,

607
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,040
Speaker 1: if we're looking at the small opaleo burrows, we're looking

608
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:27,440
Speaker 1: at the work presumed to be created by giant armadillos.

609
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 1: He thinks they likely burrowed for the same reason that

610
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 1: modern armadillos do. It's just it's safer underground. It allows

611
00:35:33,520 --> 00:35:38,000
Speaker 1: them to hide somewhere that major predators cannot go. And um.

612
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 1: And so you know, these ancient armadillos, even though there

613
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 1: they were bigger than what we have today, they would

614
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:47,440
Speaker 1: still have to avoid things like sabertooth cats and short

615
00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 1: faced bears. But when we look at the great ground

616
00:35:51,560 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 1: slots here, digging tunnels so big that they wouldn't have

617
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 1: been able to keep these predators out, you know, we

618
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: have a slightly different situation. Uh, And we're also dealing

619
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:04,359
Speaker 1: with creatures that were they were you know, large enough

620
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:07,160
Speaker 1: in some cases that they probably didn't really have to

621
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:10,279
Speaker 1: worry about these predators, not while they were healthy at

622
00:36:10,280 --> 00:36:12,799
Speaker 1: any rate, and you know, not when in uh, you know,

623
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: certainly when you get into you know, young being around,

624
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:17,480
Speaker 1: that's just a different situation. But you know, they're not

625
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 1: as threatened by these predators, and they also are not

626
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: creating spaces that would adequately protect them anyway. Yeah, so,

627
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 1: I mean these are kind of the perks of being megafauna,

628
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:32,839
Speaker 1: with only climate change and human hunting seeming to be

629
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:37,400
Speaker 1: big enough threats to to end their reigns. According to Martin,

630
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:41,400
Speaker 1: the most popular current hypothesis here is that the primary

631
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 1: reason that ground the giant ground sloths um dug these

632
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 1: tunnels was ultimately to cope with a climate that was

633
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 1: drier than today's. So the idea here is the cave

634
00:36:52,080 --> 00:36:55,759
Speaker 1: would have maintained more human conditions as well as an

635
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: average temperature, thus helping the animal out no matter what

636
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: the side temperature, as if it's colder or hotter than

637
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 1: what would be comfortable for the organism. Now that is

638
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 1: interesting and it also makes me think about how I

639
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:14,320
Speaker 1: think it's certainly the case that when animals get bigger,

640
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:20,399
Speaker 1: they have more heat dissipation problems to worry about, right right, right,

641
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:23,840
Speaker 1: So so that, Yeah, this hypothesis seems to revolve, you know,

642
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 1: roughly around that like how does this this, this, uh, this,

643
00:37:26,920 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 1: this large ground sloth maintain appropriate body temperatures? And um,

644
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 1: I can only guess how this might mash or not

645
00:37:36,320 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 1: mesh with Farina's hairless ground sloth hypothesis, Like does a

646
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:45,480
Speaker 1: hairless ground sloth would it need to climb into a burrow?

647
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 1: Even more, I don't know. This is not something that

648
00:37:48,719 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 1: I think experts have weight in on that I have seen.

649
00:37:51,960 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 1: As a side note, I will say that I did

650
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:56,839
Speaker 1: notice that looks like giant ground sloths do feature into

651
00:37:56,880 --> 00:38:00,160
Speaker 1: some video games. I wonder if anyone has been inspired

652
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 1: by Phonina's hypotheses and decided to make them aggressive and

653
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 1: maybe they come up and like they if you're in

654
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 1: a vehicle, they turn your vehicle over and like dig

655
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:12,800
Speaker 1: you out through the bottom of the vehicle. Ground slots

656
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 1: the naked stabber. Yeah. Now, as as I mentioned earlier,

657
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 1: the ground slauce we're talking about, they did overlap with

658
00:38:21,800 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 1: human beings for for at least a short time, and

659
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:26,959
Speaker 1: it seems like human beings probably had played a major

660
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 1: role in their extinction. Um, you know, there there there

661
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 1: have been sites where we find evidence of of butchery

662
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 1: taking place with the with these giant ground sloths. So

663
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 1: ultimately human beings survived, some arboreal sloth survived, but the

664
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:46,040
Speaker 1: age of the giant ground sloth um came to any end. Okay,

665
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:48,399
Speaker 1: So this is not super related to what we're talking about.

666
00:38:48,440 --> 00:38:50,160
Speaker 1: But did you happen to read that thing about the

667
00:38:50,200 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 1: giant ground slots and the paper arguing that that like

668
00:38:54,280 --> 00:38:56,360
Speaker 1: twenty two of them that were found dead, all in

669
00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 1: the same place, died in a in a poop related

670
00:38:59,080 --> 00:39:03,400
Speaker 1: mass casualty incident. No I did not. Uh. So the

671
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 1: paper was published in paleo Geography, Paleoclimatology and Paleoecology in

672
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 1: in by Lindsay at all uh and it was documenting

673
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:18,760
Speaker 1: a large death assemblage from the from the late place

674
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 1: to scene in a place called tonke Loma in the

675
00:39:21,840 --> 00:39:26,840
Speaker 1: southwest of of Ecuador. And so it was this place

676
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:30,280
Speaker 1: that had the remains of at least twenty two different

677
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 1: giant ground sloths, the Ramotherium laurel ardi. And they they

678
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:40,320
Speaker 1: found all of these animals together in a in a

679
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 1: deposition pattern that indicated that they basically all died right

680
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:48,880
Speaker 1: around the same time gathered around this marshy little pool

681
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 1: of water that looked like a place that had repeatedly

682
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:56,360
Speaker 1: been been filled with water and then and then dried

683
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:58,759
Speaker 1: up and allowed plants to grow, and then filled with

684
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 1: water again. So maybe one of these sort of intermittent

685
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 1: watering holes, places that that sometimes have water and sometimes don't.

686
00:40:07,120 --> 00:40:10,000
Speaker 1: And based on a number of cues around this area,

687
00:40:10,520 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 1: the authors decided that they thought the most likely interpretation

688
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 1: of what happened here is that a bunch of giant

689
00:40:18,080 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 1: ground slots were hanging out in and around this water,

690
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: using it to cool their bodies and as a as

691
00:40:24,000 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 1: a watering hole, to drink from and to eat the

692
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:30,920
Speaker 1: plants that were growing around, and that by fouling this

693
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:34,360
Speaker 1: water source that was ever shrinking with their fecal matter,

694
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:37,920
Speaker 1: they essentially poop poison to themselves and and many of

695
00:40:37,920 --> 00:40:41,360
Speaker 1: them ended up dying. You know, I don't have Is

696
00:40:41,360 --> 00:40:42,959
Speaker 1: there a paleo art to go with this one show?

697
00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 1: It's not very inspiring for the children's books, is it.

698
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:50,359
Speaker 1: But but they end up writing and and their their

699
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 1: modern analogies for this. The fountains like like shrinking watering

700
00:40:55,560 --> 00:40:59,400
Speaker 1: holes in in the present day savannah environments. They write, quote,

701
00:40:59,719 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 1: we suggest that this death event could have resulted from

702
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:05,920
Speaker 1: drought ind or disease stemming from the contamination of the wallow,

703
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:11,319
Speaker 1: paralleling situations observed among hippopotamus populations in watering holes on

704
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:14,400
Speaker 1: the present day African savannah. So sometimes this apparently happens,

705
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:17,400
Speaker 1: like a watering hole in a in a dry area

706
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 1: is filled with hippos and they just keep pooping into

707
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 1: it and drinking it, and obviously that's that's not good

708
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:25,279
Speaker 1: for them. Well, we can see how, you know, we

709
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:29,919
Speaker 1: can see like changing climates potentially impacting these situations as well. Yeah, yeah,

710
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:33,040
Speaker 1: so um Martin and his But again, the whole book

711
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:36,399
Speaker 1: is full of full is full of wonderful explorations of

712
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 1: of burrowing creatures, um, you know, and not all of

713
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 1: which are vertebrates. H for sure, I recommend picking that

714
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 1: up if you're at all interested in this topic. But

715
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:48,760
Speaker 1: he writes that scientists would have once thought that creatures

716
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 1: as large as these, uh these ground floss would have

717
00:41:52,640 --> 00:41:55,400
Speaker 1: would not have burrowed, that the borrowed burrowing creatures do

718
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 1: not grow this big. But he points out that in fact,

719
00:41:58,239 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 1: the largest burrowing animals today are bears, especially, says if

720
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:05,239
Speaker 1: you count snow as a substrate for burrowing, which he does,

721
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 1: you know, I think we've all seen uh. He points

722
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:10,400
Speaker 1: out that, you know, we've all seen documentaries at this

723
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:13,280
Speaker 1: point showing polar bears doing the burling in the snow,

724
00:42:13,320 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 1: creating a burrow. Uh. Mother Polo polar bear anyway for

725
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:19,279
Speaker 1: her young and uh and yeah, if you if you

726
00:42:19,320 --> 00:42:22,280
Speaker 1: count snow as a substrate for burrowing, then that's that's burrowing,

727
00:42:22,320 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 1: and that's a pretty impressive. Interesting. So this comes in

728
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,480
Speaker 1: a way back to the dinosaur paper we talked about earlier,

729
00:42:28,520 --> 00:42:31,799
Speaker 1: because this would primarily be a dinning behavior for the

730
00:42:31,800 --> 00:42:35,120
Speaker 1: protection of young while they're while they're still vulnerable. Yeah,

731
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:39,280
Speaker 1: now I do have to mention as well, quite amusingly

732
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:44,000
Speaker 1: and of course very much touching on my interest. He

733
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:47,239
Speaker 1: also compares the giant ground sloth to the grab lloids

734
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 1: from the movie Trimmers. This was pretty fun when I

735
00:42:50,719 --> 00:42:52,879
Speaker 1: was looking through the index and this. When I first

736
00:42:52,880 --> 00:42:54,439
Speaker 1: got the book, I was like, oh, he talks about

737
00:42:54,440 --> 00:42:57,359
Speaker 1: trimmers at some point. This seems like our our kind

738
00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:01,759
Speaker 1: of scientists, because was the giant ground sloths also had

739
00:43:01,840 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: multiple snake tongues that would go out and get well, no,

740
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 1: but but he points out, like he seems to be

741
00:43:08,200 --> 00:43:10,080
Speaker 1: a fan of tremmors. But he points out that, Okay,

742
00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:13,400
Speaker 1: you have these fabulous worm like creatures that are digging

743
00:43:13,440 --> 00:43:17,799
Speaker 1: these tunnels, burrowing through the ground in this corner of Nevada. Um.

744
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:20,680
Speaker 1: He says, well, well, there would probably be some remnant

745
00:43:20,719 --> 00:43:23,280
Speaker 1: of that. There would be some uh, there's some evidence

746
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:26,759
Speaker 1: so the ancient grab boids in this area, um where

747
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 1: the burrowing would have taken place. Right, So even if

748
00:43:30,680 --> 00:43:33,279
Speaker 1: the animal decomposed, it would leave the trace fossils of

749
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:36,560
Speaker 1: its burrows, right. And I don't know, thinking back on

750
00:43:36,640 --> 00:43:38,680
Speaker 1: the grab Boids, it looked like there were some hard

751
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:43,719
Speaker 1: parts that might fossilize. Oh yeah, maybe that's beaks or something. Yeah,

752
00:43:43,760 --> 00:43:48,320
Speaker 1: the beak. Yeah, I don't know. Awaiting his his full

753
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: paper break doing a breakdown of the grab Boids. Now,

754
00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: wait a minute. Didn't we learn in some of the

755
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:58,400
Speaker 1: Deep Trimmor sequels that they have multiple life cycle stages

756
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:01,919
Speaker 1: and that some of them are like flying and junk

757
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:05,480
Speaker 1: like running around. There's a version of legs. Yeah. Um,

758
00:44:05,760 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: I I don't know that I ever really watched any

759
00:44:08,120 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 1: of the sequels, but I have a lot of love

760
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 1: for that first Trimor's film. That was just that's a

761
00:44:13,120 --> 00:44:16,920
Speaker 1: pretty perfect monster movie, pretty great. So Kevin Bacon is

762
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: not in the sequels. The sequels end up focusing back

763
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 1: at some point, or he was because they did a

764
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 1: TV series. They did a lot of I think, you know,

765
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 1: I didn't know that Sci Fi Channel kind of sequels there,

766
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:30,840
Speaker 1: but then they did a TV show at some point,

767
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:34,440
Speaker 1: and um, I feel I feel like Kevin Bacon finally

768
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:38,280
Speaker 1: came back. The sequels I'm familiar with don't have Bacon.

769
00:44:38,920 --> 00:44:42,360
Speaker 1: They focus more on that guy who's Reba's husband, and

770
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:47,120
Speaker 1: the first one, the like the gun the gun prepper guy. Yeah,

771
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:50,440
Speaker 1: that played by Michael Gross. Yeah that's right. Yeah, he's

772
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:53,239
Speaker 1: the he's the like heavily armed Dale Gribble guy in

773
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: the first movie. Yeah. Yeah, he was in a bunch

774
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:57,480
Speaker 1: of him and he was fun in that. I don't

775
00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:00,360
Speaker 1: know why, but we we often go around quoting Reba

776
00:45:00,440 --> 00:45:03,279
Speaker 1: McIntire from the first Trimmer's movie. She she's just got

777
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of punchy delivery. You know,

778
00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:09,239
Speaker 1: he didn't get pantrition anyone with the elphant gun. Yeah,

779
00:45:09,440 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 1: Reba's great in that yeah. Oh, and I am correct.

780
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:16,759
Speaker 1: There was a two thousand eighteen TV movie called Trimmers

781
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:21,560
Speaker 1: and it had the return of Kevin Bacon and Fred Wards.

782
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:23,839
Speaker 1: So there you go. I have not seen it, can't

783
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:27,600
Speaker 1: vouch for it. I apologize I was wrong. All right,

784
00:45:27,640 --> 00:45:31,480
Speaker 1: Well we're gonna go. Yeah, I'm sorry. I just I

785
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 1: just googled it and I found that, uh sorry, on

786
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: Reba's website, she has a page dedicated to Trimmer's. Oh

787
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:41,919
Speaker 1: that's great, so you can go to reba dot com

788
00:45:42,040 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 1: slash trimmers. Let's let's also not forget that Victor Wong.

789
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:48,279
Speaker 1: Isn't that and it's also pretty fabulous? Oh yeah, yeah,

790
00:45:48,360 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 1: that's right. All right, we're gonna go ahead and close

791
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: it out here, but we'd love to hear from anyone

792
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:54,839
Speaker 1: out there who has thoughts on these if you had,

793
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 1: you know, if you have any thoughts on giant ground

794
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 1: sloths or modern arboreal sloths. Um, everything is is up

795
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:07,160
Speaker 1: for grabs. Here. Are there interesting tunnels that you're aware of,

796
00:46:07,200 --> 00:46:11,240
Speaker 1: be they you know, naturally occurring caves and so forth,

797
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:14,759
Speaker 1: or modern or ancient human constructions that we're trying to

798
00:46:14,760 --> 00:46:17,919
Speaker 1: figure out. We'd love to hear about all of that.

799
00:46:18,520 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you would like to listen to

800
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:22,520
Speaker 1: more episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you'll find

801
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:24,440
Speaker 1: us in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed

802
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:28,320
Speaker 1: Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, listener Mail on Monday,

803
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 1: Artifact on Wednesday, and on Friday, we do Weird How Cinema.

804
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 1: That's our time to satisfide most serious matters and just

805
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 1: talk about a strange film. Big thanks as always to

806
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:40,160
Speaker 1: our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would

807
00:46:40,200 --> 00:46:42,200
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with us with feedback on

808
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:45,760
Speaker 1: this episode or any other, to suggest topic for the future,

809
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,319
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at

810
00:46:48,400 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff

811
00:46:59,000 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind it's pre auction of I Heart Radio.

812
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:03,640
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813
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:06,480
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814
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