WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Paleoburrows 0:00:05.800 --> 0:00:07.440 Hey, are you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind? 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:10.240 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:10.320 --> 0:00:14.560 it's Saturday. It's vault time. Uh. This episode originally aired 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:20.120 on February two, and it's on the phenomenon of Paleo Burrows. 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:23.239 Shall we go into the Tunnel's rob Let's venture in 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:38.520 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:42.080 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.440 I think today we're doing tunnels, Is that right? Yeah, 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.879 we're going to venture into some strange tunnels in the earth. Um. 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:52.559 I don't know about you, Joe, but I love a 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.200 good creepy tunnel story. Um. You know, any caliber of 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:58.680 motion picture. If you have like a subway tunnel and 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:01.200 you have a monster sham going around down there, even 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.920 possibility of a monster shambling around down there, I'm generally 0:01:04.920 --> 0:01:08.039 on board. Oh yeah, I mean it's one of the classics. 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:11.200 And you know your your your your fairy tale types. 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:12.920 One of the big ones is you've got to go 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:16.360 into the underworld, right, and what's what's closer in physical 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.840 reality to an underworld than cave or a tunnel. Caves 0:01:19.840 --> 0:01:23.040 and tunnels, I mean, humans have have long been fascinated 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.560 by them. You know, we see a cave, we want 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:27.440 to get in there. We need to know what's going on, 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:30.680 We need to find out what kind of sacred uh 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.720 secrets are contained in there. And so, you know, I'm 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:38.720 also continually fascinated by tales of of you know, modern 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:43.679 tunnel systems, abandoned tunnel systems from from further back in history. UM. 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:45.920 I also love a good you know, tunnel of unknown 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:49.440 origin stories such as the Strange Tunnels and the Hyperion 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:53.320 novels or oh another a film in this case that 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:57.760 had some strange tunnels. There's the whole tunnel plotline in 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:02.360 Jordan Peel's two thousand nineteen film US. Yeah. Yeah, that one. 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:04.880 Let's not spoil anything about that. I'm not gonna spoil anything, 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:07.200 but it does open with a with a fun text 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:10.960 crawl uh quote. There are thousands of miles of tunnels 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:15.400 beneath the United States, abandoned subway systems, unused service roots, 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:19.639 and deserted mind shafts. Many have no known purpose at all. 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.640 So I instantly I was, you know, on board for that. 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:27.679 I love a good informational legend like that. And the 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:30.240 fun thing about that quote is that it's a It's 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:32.119 a fun one to ponder over because, on one hand, 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:34.799 it's sort of true. There are a lot of of 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:38.960 of abandoned tunnel systems in the United States, some with 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:41.560 some pretty engaging stories about them at times. You know, 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:47.480 old minds, abandoned subway projects, abandoned subway lines. I'm a 0:02:47.520 --> 0:02:52.120 real I'm a real sucker for that sort of thing. Um. Also, 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:55.400 you know, ultimately, I think this is the filming question 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:56.840 is one that maybe doesn't you know, I supposed to 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.400 take it completely seriously and think, well, there's this entire 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:01.840 system of of tunnels and who knows what's going on 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.280 down there. But it also reminds me of what we're 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:08.480 talking about here today, uh, the story of mysterious tunnels 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:13.920 uh and caves caverns in South America. Now, what makes 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:18.240 today's example really interesting is normally you're going to think 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:22.400 about your your mysterious tunnels in two categories. One is 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.360 one is obviously you know, a cave of geological origin, 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:28.960 you know, uh, oh, you know here, here's a millions 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:33.360 of years old cave with with stalactites and stalagmites, clearly 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.960 a water formed cavity of some type. But then the 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.400 other bucket, of course is who made this tunnel? What 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:44.720 human doug this and for what purpose? But actually, uh, 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:49.280 those two categories leave out leave out another option, don't they? Yeah, 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:52.400 and it's not aliens. The fun thing about this is 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:54.280 you don't need aliens to get to the you know, 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:58.040 the wow moment, to the to the amazing content of 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.200 this particular topic, because we're still we still seem to 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:05.960 be dealing with a non human entity, a non human 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.680 will behind these um, these these tunnels or caves or 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:13.360 or burrows, Uh, is probably more appropriate to call them 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:17.039 these paleo burrows of South America. They're not the work 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:21.760 of of a pre Columbian society. Uh, they're older and 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.800 they're quite impressive. Well, but as we dive in here, 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:27.400 I want to mention that that one of my main 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.720 sources here is an excellent book that came out, I believe, 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:35.960 in seventeen by Anthony J. Martin, a paleontologist at Emory 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:42.160 University here here in Atlanta, titled The Evolution Underground Burrows, Bunkers, 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:46.520 and the Marvelous subterranean world beneath our feet. Um, I've 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.120 been meaning to cover this book in some form or 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.200 another for a while and I saw it on the 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:54.320 shelf again. I was like, all right, today's the day 0:04:54.360 --> 0:04:56.240 I'm gonna I'm gonna bust this book out and see 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:58.920 what grabs my attention. So I haven't read this yet, 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:01.320 but my interest is p aeked because I like, you 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:05.520 love a tunnel burrow, a din under the earth. But 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.039 I was familiar with Anthony J. Martin's name, and I'm 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.480 not sure, but I think it was because he was 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:16.159 one of the authors of research from two thousand seven 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:21.440 that was famous for documenting the first fossil evidence of 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:25.200 a dinosaur, the Dug Tunnels. Did you read about this? Yeah, 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.039 this is covered in the in the in the book. 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:30.200 Uh yeah, there's something some wonderful illustrations, and even in 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:32.760 one case I believe a bit of folk art depicting 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:36.440 these creatures, which I loved. Uh So the brief rundown 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:39.280 on this The paper where they described this find came 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.440 out in two thousand seven and Proceedings of the Royal 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:45.960 Society b Biological Sciences. It was by David J. Verikio 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:50.240 Anthony J. Martin and Yoshihiro Katsura, and it was called 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:55.120 first trace and body fossil evidence of a burrowing Denning dinosaur. 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:59.560 So this fossil find came from a formation in southwest 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.600 mont Hannah's near the border with Idaho. I think it's 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:07.119 called the Black Leaf formation, and this formation dates back 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:11.680 to the mid Cretaceous period. The find consisted of both 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.960 the trace fossil of the borough itself as well as 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:19.960 skeletal fossils found inside. The skeletal fossils were of one 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:24.560 adult and two juveniles, which apparently all died and were 0:06:24.680 --> 0:06:28.800 fossilized inside the burrow. The dinosaur was a member of 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:33.560 a previously undiscovered species of Ornithia, which the author's name 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:39.960 or Ricto dromius cubicularis. And that genus name, or Ricto dromius, 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:42.600 that means digging runners. That gives you a hint of 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.680 like the two main talents of the stat build of 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:49.760 this dinosaur. These would have been herbivorous dinosaurs that lived 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:53.880 roughly ninety something million years ago. And so one question 0:06:53.960 --> 0:06:55.520 you might wonder is, well, how do we know that 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:58.840 the dinosaurs we found inside actually made the tunnel or 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:03.160 burrow instead of I don't know, finding a naturally occurring 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:07.240 hollow or tunnel made by some other mysterious creature. Well, 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:10.360 it seems likely that the dinosaurs themselves made it because 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.480 of the creatures anatomy and because of its relationship to 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.720 the burrow. So, in the words of the author's quote, 0:07:16.760 --> 0:07:20.520 the features of the snout, shoulder, girdle, and pelvis are 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:25.960 consistent with digging habits. So it has multiple anatomical adaptations 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.840 you would expect to find in a creature that specializes 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.880 in digging. Like it's got a snout that is sort 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:33.760 of fused together in a way that would make it 0:07:33.840 --> 0:07:36.920 kind of a good shovel for like kicking soil back 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:40.280 and forth, and its skeletal structure seems well put together 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.280 to kind of brace itself with the back limbs or 0:07:43.320 --> 0:07:46.440 the pelvis as it uses its four limbs to dig 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:49.360 and and throw soil out behind it. Yeah, this is 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.520 something that's h that's touched on with various organisms in 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:57.320 this book. That no organism needs the tools for burrowing 0:07:57.400 --> 0:07:59.720 or digging. But it's not just the you know, that's 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:02.360 something on matter of having claws or some sort of snout. 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:06.480 It also needs uh, like the body to back it up. 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:08.160 And so we can look at the bodies of many 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:11.480 of these organisms that are extinct now and we can 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:16.080 we can make very informed uh guess is about what 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:19.440 their body had evolved to do. Right. You need the 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:21.920 right kind of chassis to give you leverage with which 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.840 to dig, because you remember, your digging is not just 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:27.320 about what the hands are doing in the front. The 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.440 four limbs scraping away at things. You all, the bracing 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:34.280 is really important. You gotta hold your ground while you're scraping. Yes, yeah, 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:37.360 you can't just put a big scoop on the front 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.120 of your um, I don't know your prius and say 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.840 you're gonna go out and start moving earth around. But 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:47.680 another clue that that the dinosaurs inside this burrow dug 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.880 it were the fact that the burrow almost perfectly matches 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:55.240 the width and breadth of the torso of the adult. 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.240 So it seems like this is a burrow of the 0:08:57.320 --> 0:08:59.440 right size to have been dug by the adult dinosaur. 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.880 And adult is found along with two juveniles inside the borrow, 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.120 and they were found with no bite marks or anything 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.440 on the bones, no signs of of carnivore bone assemblies 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:12.800 like you might sometimes find where you know, carnivore is 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.000 dumping all the bones from its recent meals. So it 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.360 looks like this was not just a tunnel dug by 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:24.120 a dinosaur, but one that an adult dinosaur lived inside 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:27.560 with its juveniles, and this would provide evidence of a 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:31.040 case of extended parental care in dinosaurs, something that I 0:09:31.040 --> 0:09:34.840 think was uh less well evidenced and more controversial at 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.240 the time. And based on the size of the juveniles, 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.120 it appears that this parental care had gone on for 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:43.440 at least several months. Yeah, yeah, this is a This 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:48.920 is in stark contrast to some of the hypothesized ways 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:52.680 that say, giant sauropods would have dealt with their young. 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.280 I remember discussing that on the podcast, where like at 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.440 least one hypothesis was the like the eggs kind of 0:09:57.480 --> 0:09:59.760 just fall out and they just rolled out the side 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.640 and then they do their thing. So yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.640 totally different parenting strategy. Anyway. The authors of this paper 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.120 note that vertebrates today create burrows, of course for a 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:13.559 number of reasons. Some actually use tunneling as a as 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:17.240 a food foraging strategy, trying to get underground food. Some 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.360 use it for escaping predators. That's a common one as 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:23.360 a type of shelter that protects you, and some use 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:27.200 it for avoiding the elements in harsh environments. But the 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:30.960 other half of the equation is that this animal, or rictodromus, 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.040 was also a cursor, which means a runner. Remember the 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.920 name means digging runner. And the authors of this paper 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:41.360 say that if we look at analogies today, running animals 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:44.000 that create burrows tend to do so for a pretty 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.120 specific reason, which is they create them as dens for 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.560 rearing their young. So, once you give birth to young, 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:54.680 the young and the juveniles are pretty vulnerable for a 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.600 while until they get bigger, big enough to run around 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.679 and defend themselves like an adult can, and so a 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:04.080 den provides a place to protect the young while they're 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.520 growing and still vulnerable. Now, Joe, you included a fabulous 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:11.120 bit of paleo art here from this uh this study. 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:14.160 This is actually in the book as well. Um. I 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:15.920 love a good bit of paleo art. But here we 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.720 see the parent, we see a cutaway of the burrow, 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:23.040 and we see the two young dinos at the bottom. 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:25.440 I like that the paleo artist in this case has 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:31.000 chosen to depict the adult Erictodromius as Sam the Eagle 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:35.240 from the Muppets as a very severe eyebrow and uh 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.240 and and a very well I think this is anatomically 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:41.600 accurate the beak like mouth. Yes. Well, anyway, sorry if 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:43.840 that was a digression from the paleo burrows, but I 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:45.960 just wanted to say, Yeah, so you're looking at this 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.080 book by Anthony J. Martin, and Martin has a history 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:52.960 with with the Diggers. Yeah. And Martin knows his his 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:55.920 tunnels and his his burrows here, and so he he 0:11:56.200 --> 0:12:00.360 discusses the paleo burrows in the Evolution Underground, uh, pointing 0:12:00.400 --> 0:12:05.480 out that geologists in Argentina and Brazil noted these burrows 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:09.040 back in the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties. Uh. Some 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:13.080 had partially or wholly filled with sediment, but others remain 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:18.680 quite open. Uh. They were cutting a variety of soft um, igneous, 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:22.560 metamorphic and set and sedimentary bedrock. So we're talking about 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.800 we're talking about rock here. That's one of the the 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.960 important and I think really impressive things about about this. Uh. 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:35.360 Some of some were visible in outcrops, others as cylindrical chambers. 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:37.920 There are some actually some wonderful photographs you can find 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:42.760 online and attached to various um articles about these papers 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.640 about these Uh, they're quite impressive. They look just like 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:49.320 a tunnel cut through a rock. You can, uh, you 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:51.880 know that you they look like that. They look like 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:54.560 real tunnels. We're not just talking about just an indention 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:56.520 in the side of a hill. Yeah. Some of them 0:12:56.520 --> 0:13:00.400 look like somebody brought in the boring machine, like a large, 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:07.240 like several meter wide, basically circular, cylindrical tunnel. Others are smaller, 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:09.720 more compact, or more kind of a half moon shape. 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:12.439 But I just wanted to flag it. This was interesting 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:16.080 because so Martin notes that the people had previously observed 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:20.880 these things in the twenties and thirties in Argentina and Brazil. Now, 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.480 I had been reading about the paleo burrows in some 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:30.160 articles that came out in seventeen, and those articles were 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:33.320 were essentially saying that that nobody had ever reported these 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:36.280 things until just recently, that they just sort of come 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:38.480 on the radar. But it seems like Martin has turned 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.440 up some other previous reports of of these things. Yeah, yeah, 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:44.880 that that's what seems to be the case. But the 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:47.600 important thing is that they weren't exactly sure what they 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.240 were looking at here now, and that over the decades 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.440 to follow, hundreds of these caves were uncovered, with a 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.240 lot of concentration in the area of what is now 0:13:56.800 --> 0:14:01.800 Rio Grande do So in southern Brazil. Um others, other 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.920 of paleo burrows of this nature are simply undiscovered. Uh. 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:10.360 I've seen a total number express somewhere around like fifteen hundred, 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.760 and again they're likely others as well that haven't been 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:16.480 discovered or will never be discovered, you know. Yeah, the 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:19.520 reporting I was reading said that most of these are 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:23.880 clustered in kind of a kind of strange geographical bands, 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.880 like right in this area in southern Brazil, but not 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.840 further south than like Uruguay. But then if you go 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:35.440 even further south, there are some more down further into Argentina. Yeah. 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:38.320 So the archaeologists came back and they were studying them 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:41.600 with renewed interest in the seventies and eighties, and they 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.600 hypothesized that these were surely the work of human beings 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.840 Martin Wrights quote. Considering their proportions and geological setting. This 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:54.440 was a perfectly reasonable hypothesis, as they superficially resembled human 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:59.960 made tunnels and chambers in Cappadocia and elsewhere. Now Capa 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:04.440 Dosia Is is noted here as u is a place 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:06.640 that in what is modern day Turkey where you have 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:10.280 these hit wonderful historic cave houses that can still be 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.600 seen today. Um, Joe, you might be interested to also 0:15:13.680 --> 0:15:16.400 note that they filmed parts of your The Hunter from 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:19.520 the Future here. Yes, there there are quite clear signs 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:22.080 of the movie has scenes of of the of its 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:28.239 muscly superstar reb Brown scuttling around over these beautiful rock formations. 0:15:29.240 --> 0:15:32.080 I think he fights a dinosaur in what is clearly 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:41.920 Cappadocia than now. While some of these paleo burrows, again 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:45.120 in South America, who were too small to have served 0:15:45.120 --> 0:15:48.280 as anything other than hiding places for children, um, he 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.280 writes that others were large enough to have potentially been 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:54.760 human dwellings. The largest word as wide as thirteen feet 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.200 or four meters. Um, they were six point six feet 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:01.880 tall or you know, or two meters, and they were 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.520 more than three hundred and thirty feet long or about 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.280 a hundred meters in length. So again, well, you know, 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:10.280 in many of these cases, we're not just talking about uh, 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:14.480 some sort of a narrow burrow, but but something that 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:16.640 that that a that a family or a small group 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.160 could have lived in. Quote. Moreover, some tunnels connected with 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.320 one another or join larger sub spherical chambers to make 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:28.320 more complicated networks. Once put together, some of these spaces 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:31.320 feasibly could have served as underground homes for families or 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:35.600 small communities. A few even contain petroglyphs showing that pre 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:39.000 Columbian people entered at least some of them. And as 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:41.120 we've we've touched on already, and there's a there's a 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.280 long history of humans using naturally occurring caves, if not 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:47.560 for shelter, then for for other purposes, be it like, um, 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.800 you know, a burial or some sort of sacred purpose, 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.120 or in some cases, you know, we're not sure exactly 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:56.360 what that purpose might have been. Uh. And then we 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:00.960 have excellent examples of places like Cappadocia, which we just mentioned, 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:05.680 which demonstrate that if local geologic conditions are conducive to excavation, 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:09.520 then homes can be manufactured in the substance of the earth. 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:13.720 There are also various traditions of pit houses partially buried 0:17:13.840 --> 0:17:16.639 or excavated homes. Again, it just kind of depends on 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:21.199 the culture what's available there in the given environment. But 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:24.760 in looking at these paleo burrows, researchers begin to notice 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.720 things that made it less likely that humans built these 0:17:27.720 --> 0:17:31.719 particular tunnels at all. So, first of all, while artifacts 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.800 and petroglyphs did factor into some of these sites, we 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.080 did not find anywhere near the amount of human bones 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:40.840 and human artifacts that we'd expect to find at a 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:44.800 place where humans lived. Humans visited, but they did not 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:48.199 seem to live here. And this is something that you know, 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.280 you think of any of any of the episodes we've 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:53.000 record or anything you read about about ancient sites of 0:17:53.080 --> 0:17:56.400 human habitation, you have, you know, you have these layers 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:59.680 you can go through. You can you can essentially sort 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:03.479 through the garbage of human civilizations and learn what they 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:06.359 were up to and how long they were there. And 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:08.600 in these cases, it does not seem like there is 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:12.399 there are enough artifacts, enough remains or even enough you know, 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.919 um petroglyphs uh to indicate that they were here. And 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.520 that's another thing. Petroglyph rarity in these tunnels indicated. According 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.360 to Martin quote folks were not inspired enough to hang 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:25.639 out in these places and make art. Another fact, and 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:29.440 this gets into the artifact issue as well, is indigenous 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:33.800 people's in south eastern South America did not have access 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.520 to the right materials for rock carving tools, and no 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:40.920 evidence of of said tools were found. So, again getting 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.720 back into the that the lack of artifacts to support 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:48.040 the the idea that humans made these uh these burrows 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:52.200 uh and or lived here. So during the nighties, researchers 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.320 began to turn their attention away from human beings. Uh. 0:18:55.359 --> 0:18:58.359 They looked at the scale of these caves and tunnels. 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.920 The small child size tunnels that we mentioned, they decided 0:19:01.960 --> 0:19:06.040 were likely the result of of a smaller burrowing prehistoric 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:10.560 animals such as giant armadillo. But the grand caves and tunnels, 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.080 the ones in which human families or communities could have 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:17.920 potentially lived. A new hypothesis emerged for these architects, and 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:22.200 it's it's not human beings. It's not flowing water or 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:26.600 you know, natural geologic processes. It is the giant ground sloth. 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.439 The big boys, the big boys. Yeah, so um, I 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:34.240 know we've talked about sloths, uh, extant sloth species on 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.439 the show before, and I guess giant ground sloths have 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:39.679 come up but at least a time or two. But 0:19:39.760 --> 0:19:42.880 I don't think we've really discussed like what they were 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:46.520 and why they're so cool, because today we have in 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.560 the world, I believe, six extant species of our boreal sloths. 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:52.679 You know, they live in the trees, and these are 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.320 certainly weird and wonderful animals. Um. I'll be the first 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:57.679 to admit that they can be a bit of a 0:19:57.680 --> 0:19:59.399 bore if you encounter them in the zoo. You know, 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.600 they're typically just um, you know, bunched in the corner 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.639 of a of an exhibit, you know, just chilling or 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:08.880 staying warm. Uh. But I find that they often look 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:12.320 like a like a wig hanging on a hook. Yeah, 0:20:12.400 --> 0:20:15.360 and uh, I mean I'm not commenting on their their 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:18.840 happiness or lack of happiness there, but they're not as interests. 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.680 They're not magical to behold. But in the wild, uh, 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.480 they come off like these just strange elemental spirit beings. 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:30.040 I had the privilege to glimpse one in the wild 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:31.959 ones and it was just magical. It's got like this 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:35.240 kind of thing that like slowly emerges out of the 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:37.679 canopy and the distance and you glimpse it for a 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:40.359 short amount of time and then it's gone. They're also 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:42.960 magical in a different way if you get up close 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:45.480 enough to see their face, because they often appear to 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:51.000 be smiling. Yes, they have very the their faces are 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:53.879 in this wonderful place that where they you know that 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:58.120 we lean into anthropomorphizing them veryther easily. They look kind 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.240 of like they're smiling. They look a little a little dirty, 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.520 which is you know which, which is cute too? Cuteness 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.159 um and yeah, and don't even get it started on 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:12.440 baby sloths absolutely adorable. So we have today three toad 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:15.320 slots and two toad slots. This refers to the four 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:19.679 limbs only, and these represent two distantly related families that 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:24.720 experience convergent evolution to our boreal life. Okay, so the 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:28.000 sloth lineage is not one that that always existed in 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.680 the trees. The species we have today are the ones 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:34.520 that happened to move into the trees at some point 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:38.000 in in in deep history. That's right. Yeah, Because plenty 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:41.479 of these other slots or or slothes if you, if 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:45.800 you were rather believe it's the British pronounciation, um, many 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:48.520 of them were ground slots, and in some cases we're 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:52.920 talking giant ground slots, and these can be quite impressive. 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:57.760 I've enjoyed looking at at bones, you know, fossil exhibits 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:01.520 of these over time. There's also a wonderful, full scale, 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:05.920 muddy and shaggy recreation of of of a ground slot 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:08.800 at Atlanta's own firm Bank Museum of Natural History. I 0:22:08.800 --> 0:22:10.360 don't know if you've been over to see this, Joe, 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:13.560 but it's in the walk Through Time in Georgia exhibit. Yeah. 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:16.040 I have been through that before, though I don't remember 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:18.200 exactly what this one looks like. I wonder if there's 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:21.320 a picture of it online. Hold on, Oh yeah, okay, 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:25.399 here it is. I remember this now. Okay, this sloth 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.680 needs a bath. First of all, it is filthy. It 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:34.000 looks really gross. Yeah, it's it's it's it's impressive. I 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:35.600 imagine it's been I don't know how long it's been there, 0:22:35.600 --> 0:22:38.199 but it has to have been impressing school children for 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:39.960 for quite a while at this point. And I hope 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:44.880 that if at some point they they they change anything 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:47.920 in that exhibit, they keep the sloth. Uh. This would 0:22:47.920 --> 0:22:51.239 have been a keep it dirty, Keep it dirty, keep it, 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:54.480 keep it, keep it on display. Uh, this would have 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:58.520 I believe this would have been an airmatherium, which was 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:01.040 a giant ground slow that would have lived four point 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:05.080 nine million years ago to around eleven thousand years ago. 0:23:05.640 --> 0:23:07.920 And it was It was a pretty big big guy, 0:23:08.680 --> 0:23:14.520 rivaling but not surpassing the megatherium in size. Now, megatherium, 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:16.880 this is the this is the biggest of the known 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:22.000 ground sloths of prehistoric times. Uh. Megatherium is Latin for 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:25.560 the great beast. Oh, I've never put that together before. 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:28.560 The theory um theoryum being beast. But that would be like, 0:23:29.119 --> 0:23:31.480