WEBVTT - From the Vault: Prehistoric Transylvania 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.720 Hey, welcome to Stuff to blow your mind. My name 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:10.760 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:13.520 Time to go into the vault. This episode originally aired 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:18.560 on August nineteen, and it was a prehistoric Transylvania. That's right, 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:23.480 a tale of giant Terra SAARs feasting on pony sized 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.079 dwarf Sara pods. So it's just it's just fun for 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:30.880 the entire family. You were standing in the halls of 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:35.760 Schell Castle. You approach a golden chalice, resplendent in an 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:40.080 embossed spiral of geologic time that winds around from rim 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:45.480 to base. At the merest touch, the chalice chimes and shivers, 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:50.199 dragging you back through two hundred years of history to 0:00:50.280 --> 0:00:55.560 the castle's raising in the Transylvanian wilds. Off you grasped 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.600 the golden chalice, and time sheds from your perspective like 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:03.120 this again, of a great serpent, spiraling out in every 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:07.520 direction as you descend through the depths of centuries millennia, 0:01:07.640 --> 0:01:13.200 through eons of evolutionary change in geologic upheaval, until the 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:17.080 chalice slips from your trembling grip and leaves you in 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.080 an Age of Wonders pottig as you knew it is 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:23.720 gone now a paleo island rising up out of the 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:27.440 Late Cretaceous Sea. You glimpse movement and note the approach 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.920 of several sauropods. Only these are not the hulking giants 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:35.479 you're familiar with. They seem dwarf creatures the size of ponies. 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:38.480 You could ride one, if only you dared to approach 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.920 its alien flesh. But before you can muster the courage, 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:46.160 the creatures scatter from the clearing predatory therapods to flee 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:49.320 back into the forests. As a great shadow descends from 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:53.440 the sky, a terrasaur to rival the dragon bowow of myth. 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:57.400 It lands before you. It towers like a siege engine, 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:00.680 but you've already thrown yourself to the ground. You're fumbling 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.120 for the golden chalice so that it might take you home, 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.720 or take you further back anywhere to escape the jaws 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:18.560 of hats. A got to extend them A welcome to 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:20.440 stuff to Blow your mind? A production of I Heart 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:28.960 Radios has to works. Hey, are you welcome to stuff 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.160 to blow your mind? My name is Robert Lamb, and 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.639 I'm Joe McCormick. And if you can probably guess from 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.680 that fun little cold open that we have prepared for 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.440 you there, we are going to be traveling back in 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:46.600 time in this episode via paleontology, back to prehistoric Transylvania. 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:49.359 That is so exciting, Robert, I can tell you are 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.520 just itching to like write a novel about this, this 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:57.080 ancient paleo island. Yeah. I was really inspired by this, 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.880 and this is one of those situations where I was 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:05.120 inspired by reading a dinosaur book to my son. Uh. 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.960 There's a book titled Atlas of Dinosaur Adventures by Emily 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:13.280 Hawkins and illustrated by Lucy Leatherland, and it has these wonderful, 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.760 you know, big two page spreads to show a different 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:20.080 part of the world and an idea of what the 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:23.760 prehistoric life might have looked like. And they had a 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.639 spread they cover every continent, and they had a spread 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:31.040 for heydeck showing like what what prehistoric Transylvania, of what 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:35.160 prehistoric Romania would have might have consisted of. And uh, 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.800 I have to admit, despite having you know, covered sauropods 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:43.200 on the show, and certainly we've talked about gigantic terra 0:03:43.280 --> 0:03:47.480 saurs quite recently I wasn't really familiar with this corner 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:51.200 of the prehistoric world. It clearly it set off a 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.360 little explosion in your mind. I can sense the energy 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:57.200 coming off of you on the subjective hottig and I 0:03:57.480 --> 0:03:59.680 wanted to say that you're opening reminded me of two 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:03.000 different things. The poem Directive by Robert Frost, which is 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.880 about going back in time and it also involves a chalice. 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.640 Yeah yeah, it talks about like I forgot about it, 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:13.960 or if or if I just uh, you know, came 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.800 up with that idea, you know, via some connection to 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.599 things that were inspired by what he wrote. You should 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:21.880 look it up again as a great poem directive, I mean, 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:24.120 but it also was like a cross between directive and 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:27.880 a sound of thunder. Yes, yeah, yeah, and I was, 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:32.240 I guess I also was definitely thinking about the time machine. Um, 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:36.600 you know, who can escape Wells's time machine when considering 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.160 the past at all? I mean, anytime you're thinking about dinosaurs, 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:43.799 you can, and another prehistar creatures such as the pterosaurs, 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.240 you can't help but imagine like traveling back and encountering them. 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:49.839 That's the ultimate frame of reference, right, What if I 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:52.520 was standing next to one but this is the ultimate 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:57.720 real monster versus fictional monster crossover because because well not 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.320 to call dinosaurs monsters, but you know, they're the They're 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:03.560 one of the closest things to monster myths, to dragon 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:05.800 myths that you've got in the real world. So you've 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:10.159 got like a really interesting sort of dinosaur fossil site 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:14.240 with with interesting biogeographical qualities that we will explore as 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:16.279 we go on in the and the rest of the episode. 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:20.320 But it's right there in Transylvania, right It's it's vampire country, indeed, 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:23.200 and you know, we will encounter a fossil that has 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:27.480 been dubbed Dracula paleontolog is covering it. How about those 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:30.440 pony size sauropods. You didn't make that up, did you know? No, 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.119 that's all. That's one of one of like the really 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:37.480 amazing things about about this particular scenario and and ultimately 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:39.520 about everything we're gonna talk about in this episode, is 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:43.360 that is that we're looking at an example, a prehistoric 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.839 example of island dwarf is um and island gigantism, also 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:51.640 known as the the island factor or the island rule. 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:53.240 And this is a concept we've talked about on the 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:55.560 show before. Oh yeah, yeah, it's come up several times. 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.599 It has to do with body size in populations of 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.279 animals that become isolated. It but will really just that 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:04.200 become isolated because it doesn't have to be on islands. 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.320 Islands is just the easiest way for it to happen. 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.000 Like another way it can happen or in these interesting 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:13.120 ecosystems known as sky islands, where um, I don't know 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.560 if you've ever see like like essentially a plateau, it 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.280 could be the like that. One great example that I've 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:21.680 been to is like in a big been National Park 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.800 in Texas. So you you have desert and then in 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:28.120 the middle of this there are some mountains rising up. 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:30.240 And as you go up the slopes of the mountains 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.360 and in between them at the higher altitudes, actually the 0:06:33.600 --> 0:06:36.960 climate changes, right because it higher altitudes, it almost kind 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:41.280 of mimics higher latitudes, and so the types of plants 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.280 you find change, the types of animals you find change. 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.600 It goes from sort of desert to a weird kind 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:49.240 of forest up in the higher parts of the mountains. 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.400 And so this can function kind of like an island, 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:54.599 right because there are creatures that can survive up in 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.640 those mountain forests but can't traverse the vast expanses of 0:06:57.720 --> 0:07:00.320 desert down below, or if they do it, it can 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:02.320 be very dangerous and that you know, might not make 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:04.560 it to anywhere they could survive. So anyway, well, you know, 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:08.480 wherever you have a case where species can survive in 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.600 a very limited geographical range and they're cut off from 0:07:12.640 --> 0:07:15.680 the rest of the continental populations, you can have these 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:19.440 cases of island gigantism or island dwarf is um. Basically, 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:23.360 smaller species tend to become larger, and larger species tend 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.240 to become smaller, and there are multiple reasons for this, 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:29.400 but mainly it's that the smaller species tend to become 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:33.680 larger because on islands there is a lack of predators 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.160 that they would encounter on the mainland that would be 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:39.400 a check on their their growth. Meanwhile, larger species tend 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.240 to become smaller, presumably because of a lack of energy 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:45.880 resources that you would find on the mainland. There's less 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:48.080 to eat on the island, so it actually pays to 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.440 have a smaller body that requires less food. A commonly 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:55.000 cited example of this is like the mammoths that were 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:59.440 found on certain islands, like the gigantic Colombian mammoth evolved 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.679 a dwarf variety on the Channel Islands off the coast 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:07.080 of California. There was also the Wrangel Island mammoths that 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:09.640 were I think the last wooly mammoth's on Earth that 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:12.640 went extinct around four thousand years ago. Were smaller than 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:16.360 their continental varieties. And the basic idea with these examples 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:19.640 is that they were able to reach these islands when 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:22.160 the water level was lower, and then they end up 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:26.280 trapped there essentially, and life goes on and evolution continues. Right, 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:28.320 Life goes on, but there's less to eat, so if 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:30.239 you're trying to make a bigger body, you're more likely 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:32.920 to starve to death. So the ones with genes for 0:08:33.000 --> 0:08:35.600 smaller bodies tend to be the ones that survive. And 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.320 so obviously we think about that, you know, examples of 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:40.840 this in the recent past or in the modern world, 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:44.640 But the same principles of evolution and energy and food 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:47.959 dynamics would have been in place in the time of dinosaurs, 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:52.440 right exactly, so you could run into exactly the same issue. 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.240 And it seems like that's exactly what's going on in 0:08:55.320 --> 0:09:00.000 this ancient Transylvanian island called hot Egg. Yes, sixty six 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.199 million years ago, this region was an island in the 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.360 large body of water that we we refer to now 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:09.400 as the Taffy Sea. And this would have covered large 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:12.400 parts of Europe up through the Late Cretaceous period, and 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.760 it would have uh and it would have caused this 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:20.600 resulting group of islands to essentially be a European archipelago. 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:25.520 And German born paleontologist Hans Dieter SEUs describes it as 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:30.880 a quote shallow epicontinental sea dotted with variously sized islands. 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:35.199 Uh SEUs his senior scientist and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.040 at the National Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution. 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.040 And he even has a dinosaur named after him. Um, 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:44.600 so you know he's the real deal. It's a Paki 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:51.920 cephalosaur and Pacula Pakia cephalosaur. Hans Sus Sussia and Ceci. 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:54.439 Always a good sign and a paleontologist. The amount of 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:56.800 honor is directly proportional to how hard it is to 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.800 say a little known fact. We we should also note 0:09:59.840 --> 0:10:02.640 that you know we're we're talking a long time ago here, 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.679 so it's not million issue. Oh, Europe was flooded back then, 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.360 um no. As SEUs points out in a two thousand 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.679 Tin paper titled an Unusual Dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.000 of Romania and the Island Rule, there was there was 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:21.360 complex tectonic activity along the northern margin of the western Tethys, 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:25.040 and then there was volcanic activity that resulted in these 0:10:25.280 --> 0:10:28.920 cretaceous islands rising up. So and then the largest of 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:32.000 these covered much of what we now know as the 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.400 Iberian Peninsula and France extending into central Europe. Now, this 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.920 particular island in the Tats, which is you know, which 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:45.080 corresponds to the modern region of Hatig Transylvania, This would 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.760 have been roughly I'm reading eighty thousand square kilometers or 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:52.079 thirty thousand, eight hundred eighty eight square miles. And to 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:55.720 put that in perspective, modern day Ireland is uh roughly 0:10:56.080 --> 0:10:59.280 thirty two five hundred ninety five square miles in size, 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:01.640 so so to Ireland. So sort of a you know, 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:08.120 a Romanian Ireland. Um that's crawling with odd sized prehistoric creatures. 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:10.839 So that's how we came to have these islands. Roughly, 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:14.480 these European islands in the late Cretaceous. Uh and uh. 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:17.160 And you know, we ended up with various creatures stranded 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:20.560 upon these islands. Uh. And they were subject to evolutionary 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:23.960 changes that we refer to roughly as the island rule. 0:11:24.400 --> 0:11:27.240 So the Titanic sauropod is humbled to the size of 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.640 a pony, and other creatures that will get to rise 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.480 too much larger sizes. And who would read such a 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:36.800 such a thing from the fossil record? You know, you 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:39.599 might you might think, especially given um uh you know 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:41.640 that that paper I just sided from two thousand ten, 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:43.760 you might think, well, this is a fairly recent discovery. 0:11:44.080 --> 0:11:46.360 You especially might think that if you uh, you know, 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.760 like me, we're not familiar with this, this marvelous world 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:56.040 of of of oversized and undersized prehistoric beasts. But to 0:11:56.200 --> 0:11:58.599 look to the origin of these discoveries, we have to 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.480 look to a rogue Austro Hungarian baron of the late 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:05.719 nineteenth and early twentieth century. All right, let's take a break, 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:07.439 and when we come back we will meet the baron. 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.440 All Right, we're back, So it's time to meet the baron, 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:15.200 a character who plays a major role in the history 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:19.520 of the science and discovery of the the Paleo Island Hottig. 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:24.760 And this baron is Baron friends Noche von Felso Silva's 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.280 who lived eighteen seventy seven to nineteen thirty three. Yes, 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.040 Baron Nope, And and I have to have to admit 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:33.520 when we started this episode, I really didn't expect there 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:36.400 to be a fascinating human story in the midst of 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:38.680 all of this, even though, of course paleontology is always 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.480 a human story because paleontologists are the humans who who 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.880 uncover these secrets of the past. But I thought this 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.920 was just gonna be all, you know, rampaging prehistoric beasts, right, 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:54.079 But this is a fascinating individual. And Smithsonian dot com 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:58.280 has a great article on Noche titled History Forgot This 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:02.800 rogue aristocrat who discover dinosaurs and died Penniless by Vanessa 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.400 vese Elka, which goes into far more detail in his 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:09.280 life than we're going to explore here, especially concerning some 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:12.640 some tragic in the later portions of his life. He 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:14.640 was a really interesting figure though, and this is a 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:16.480 great article, by the way, This is one that I 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:20.400 think listeners just should go go off and read. Definitely yeah, 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:22.319 he is. You know, it's tempting to want to just 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:24.440 sum him up in a few words like say, oh, 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:27.320 he was, you know, a gentleman scientists towards the end 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:29.439 of the time period in which the general that gentleman 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.320 scientists was a thing, and that's I think mostly true. 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:34.240 But then there are all these other weird dimensions to 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:39.319 his character. Um so, he was born into privilege and aristocracy, 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:41.840 but he also seemed to live with what we would 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.400 now likely classify as like as a manic depressive disorder. 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:47.840 You know, he was he was apparently prone to periods 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:51.280 of intense focus and energy, which is good when you're 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:55.319 engaging in you know, early fossil study and some of 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:57.280 the other activities he was involved in. But then, of 0:13:57.360 --> 0:13:58.959 course the flip side is that that there were these 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:03.800 morose period as well. He's also described as like being 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:07.559 absolutely brilliant in a scientific sense and mostly self taught, 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:10.520 you know, just learning from like writing to people and 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.320 getting them to send him books, and then teaching himself 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:17.760 subjects like biology and geology that you know, he didn't 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.080 have formal training in, and then making all of these 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:25.160 discoveries about dinosaurs and paleontology, and about deep time, but 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:29.600 also not always not always having the right kind of 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:34.960 social skills within the professional context to get his work accepted. 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:37.800 Like apparently he was very rude, and he was or 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:40.360 it could be very rude but could also be very charming. 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.280 Yeah yeah, and and uh yeah. So much of it 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.120 again was he was self taught. He's he's writing other 0:14:47.280 --> 0:14:49.880 experts and getting them to send him books. Or there's 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:52.240 also the story of him going off to university and 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.880 bringing this fossil with him from you know, from from 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:59.520 the area of Romania and you know he was from 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.640 and uh and the professor there was like he was like, 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:04.880 what is this? Help me figure this out? And he's like, 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:07.000 I don't know, you can figure it out, essentially like 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.360 send him back with it, which you know, which is 0:15:10.400 --> 0:15:13.240 the author points out of the Smithsonian piece. Um, you know, 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.520 the Suka says, that's either like some great tutelage where 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:19.920 the professor is like, oh, I'm gonna grow this young 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:23.480 mind by inspiring them to go, uh find the answer themselves, 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:25.800 or it's like a really lazy or overwork professor was 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:27.920 like I don't have time to help you, uh, you know, 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:32.480 decipher this rock. Go do it yourself, but do it himself. 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.359 He did, and and so he's one of these remarkable, 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.080 you know, accounts of his kind of like a self 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:43.560 made gentleman scientists, though obviously had had a certain advantage 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.360 on the situation by being born into the aristocracy. Well, yeah, 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:48.160 that's a common thing you see in the history of 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:50.680 science that that a lot of the great scientists of 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:55.040 the nineteenth centuries say, we're we're sort of aristocrat types. Uh. 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:58.360 And obviously I don't think that's because aristocrats are better 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.680 at sciences because they had the resources and the leisure 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:04.680 to pursuit to like to get into these pursuits. If 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:08.080 you're a farmer working night and day, like, you don't 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.800 have the time and the money to go into the sciences. Yeah. Yeah, 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.120 so he was, And I said, he's like I said, 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.560 he's he's kind of emerging towards the end of the 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:20.080 gentleman science being a thing at all, and certainly towards 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:21.920 the end of his career. In the end of his life, 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:24.720 he was kind of shut out from scientific circles. Uh. 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:27.120 And some of the ideas that he he was was 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:30.240 promoting during his life were ultimately ideas that were not 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:35.240 widely accepted, though interesting, interestingly enough, would become widely accepted 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.600 many decades later. In the nineteen seventies, for example, is 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:41.440 a time when people started looking back at him and saying, oh, 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:45.240 here's this interesting character, uh from the history books. He 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:47.920 you know, he published a hundred and fifties scientific papers 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.920 in his life, and he identified twenty five genera of 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:54.520 reptiles and five different dinosaurs. But we've largely forgotten him, 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:56.840 and we don't celebrate him at all. Uh. And and 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:59.840 people started, you know, looking back and realizing who he 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:04.040 was and what he what he had discovered here, and yeah, 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:06.119 there are other aspects to his life that are all 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.760 interesting as well. Um, he was an adventurous individual. He 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.119 served as a spy for the Austro Hungarian Empire, but 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:16.280 he seems to have largely used his service to the 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.800 state as a vehicle for pursuing his interest in geography 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:22.840 and geology and the study of the Albanian people. Right. 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.400 There seems to be this like mix of interests here, 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.920 because like he apparently just loved the Albanian culture and 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.320 like wanted to study it and you know, document all 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:35.159 their customs and everything like that. But the government that 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.760 was funding his work basically wanted a sort of you know, 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:42.720 the early twentieth century equivalent of like a CIA fact 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:46.119 book on a country, right, and they wanted intelligence that 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:48.639 could be used and it could maybe be used in 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:51.480 warfare or something like that later on. So that's the 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:53.720 money going into what he's doing. But he but he 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.720 apparently was just in love with Albania and its people 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.040 and and its culture and at one point even through 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:00.760 his name in the hat to the actually be a king. 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:06.160 There's there's that whole storyline. Um. Again, I encourage everyone 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.800 to read that article about him. But again, his in 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.000 his scientific pursuits, he was very much ahead of his time. 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:16.600 Uh for starters. The theory of continental drift is now widely, 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.240 if not universally, accepted, but this was not the case 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:22.359 during Noch's life. Yet he presented some of the most 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:26.080 credible geologic evidence at the time for continental drift. And then, 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:27.800 of course, when it came to fossils, this is where 0:18:27.800 --> 0:18:31.240 he made his arguably his greatest impact. He discovered some 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.960 some very curious fossils in the Hattic region, many of 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:38.639 which were noticeable for being quite smaller than examples that 0:18:38.720 --> 0:18:41.840 were popping up elsewhere, and he argued that these were 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:45.879 examples of of of the island rule in action, that 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:49.920 the Hattig region was once an island in a prehistoric sea. 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:53.400 Now we'll get to the specific dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:57.000 in a little bit, but just just consider he found 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:02.040 titanosaur sauropods the size of mere ponies, despite the fact 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:06.080 that Titana sars are the largest land animals that we 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:09.240 know to have ever existed, reaching sizes oh you know, 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:11.320 we're talking a hundred and twenty one ft or thirty 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:14.639 seven ms long and uh and the weights of somewhere 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.280 in the neighborhood of of of seventy six tons. And 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:22.080 yet he finds fossil evidence of these multiple noticeably smaller 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:25.440 uh Sara pods, and it just raised the question what 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:28.600 were they so well, I mean, the obvious things that 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.240 they're juveniles, dummy, right, aren't they Aren't they just baby 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.720 sara pods? Yeah? That well that was what critics argue, 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:39.360 that these were just juveniles and uh. And certainly one 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:41.639 of the more alarming things about saraw pods is that 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:46.679 they do grow to such alarming size from relatively small eggs. 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:51.960 I mean, Sara pods are her weird and strange creatures. Uh. 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:54.399 You know that we're still you know, figuring out you know, 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:56.720 all the you know, the answers to the mysteries of 0:19:56.760 --> 0:20:00.639 their biology. And so, you know, just the fact that 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:02.600 you find some small ones, you know, it does seem 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:05.240 like it could be it could be. One possible explanation 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:07.760 could be that, well, these were just the juveniles. Um. 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:10.560 And and this read doesn't seem to have completely fallen 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:13.320 out of fashion. As recently as two thousand seven, a 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:18.199 paper in historical biology by Jean Leloof argued that, uh, 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:22.679 that's some hot tag. Saarapod fossils might suggest quote age 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:26.760 class communities among sauropod populations. Oh so this is like 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.280 a gang of sauropod youths, Yes, exactly, like, yes, a 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:34.480 street gang of youths. Uh. You know. And I believe 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.159 we've discussed uh, this sort of thing in terms of 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:40.160 crocodilians and maybe commodo dragons on the show in the past, 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.000 the idea that some animals experienced tremendous body size changes 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.600 and therefore corresponding changes in diet and behavior and maybe 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:50.800 thought of as living in their own uh, niche daring 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:54.000 different phases of their life, either alone or in groups. Yeah, 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.960 different life phases. They're almost kind of like different animals. Yeah, 0:20:57.080 --> 0:21:00.200 so you know, like a small commodo dragon is going 0:21:00.280 --> 0:21:03.359 to eat different food than a full grown adult komodo dragon, 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:06.520 and the same might be the case with with like 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.639 a juvenile Sara pod versus of course a fully grown, 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:15.720 towering Sara pod. But according to SEUs, subsequent bone studies 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:18.680 have backed up the theory that we're seeing the effects 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.320 of the island rule in the bones of these fun 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:26.160 size Sara pods. Basically, in twenty eight ten, a team 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:29.040 of paleontologists looked at the micro structure of the bones 0:21:29.320 --> 0:21:32.639 to determine age and growth patterns, and they showed that 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:37.280 this particular sauropod, these pony Saara pods, were fully grown 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:40.720 adults with small body sizes. And this is from a 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:46.600 paper from Benton at All published in Paleoclimatology paleo Ecology, Right, 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:49.240 I think so it mentioned in uh one of the 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:51.840 articles we were reading, I think it was the Smithsonian 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:56.280 article that his methodology was that he actually did molecular 0:21:56.359 --> 0:21:58.960 analysis of the bones like the Nopesio was able to 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:02.639 determine the innosaurs were small adults and not young because 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:05.480 he was able to like look at the layers of bone, 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:10.840 like osteogenesis rings within the within cross sections of these bones. 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:13.240 Yeah so, or the fossils, I mean, yeah so. I 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:15.600 mean he was not just you know, making a wild 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.480 guess here, who was forming the best scientific hypothesis that 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:21.920 he could based on the material. And I have to say, though, 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:24.720 I guess it's just the idea of pony size sauropods. 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:29.440 It's just so attractive. I I'm so flint stones it is. 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:32.159 And there was like there was some movie growing up 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:33.680 too is I think it may have just been called 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:37.840 The Last Dinosaur, or like maybe the dinosaur had a name. 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:40.320 But I remember there being like a pony size sauropod, 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:43.560 some sort of puppet that that the the actors interact with. 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:46.400 I remember seeing that as as a child, So it's 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:49.400