WEBVTT - Life in the Hypogean World, Part 4 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.800 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:14.760 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:15.800 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:18.520 And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with the 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.759 fourth and final part of our series on cave biology 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:25.680 and cave environments. If you haven't listened to the other 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.800 parts already, this will probably be a richer experience if 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:31.160 you go back and check those out first. In the 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:34.320 previous parts, we talked about some of the common characteristics 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:37.840 of cave environments, especially as they pertain to the life 0:00:37.840 --> 0:00:40.960 forms that might inhabit caves. We talked about the different 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.000 types of organisms you find in caves, the ones that 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:46.919 are fully cave adapted versus the ones that are only visitors. 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:52.400 We talked about cave adapted organisms such as the blind 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:57.280 Mexican cavefish also known as the Mexican tetra, the om 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:01.600 which is a type of cave salamander found the dynark alps. 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:06.040 We talked about bat guano. We talked about snakes that 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:08.720 hiding in caves and attack bats as they come and go. 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.440 We got into a lot of great stuff, and today 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:13.160 we're here to round out the series. 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:15.480 Yeah, with a lot of Like a lot of our 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.120 multi part episodes, it's kind of like the first episode 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:20.760 is kind of like a lot of the initial information 0:01:20.840 --> 0:01:23.880 you need, and then the second episode this is where 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:25.800 you find some of the core stuff that attracted us 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:29.080 to the topic to begin with Part three we kind 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:31.600 of like fill in with a little more data some 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.560 other interesting entries in said series in the fourth episode 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.440 or whatever the final episode happens to be. Generally, that's 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.080 where it's like, what's left, what's the thing that came 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:43.600 up in our research that we didn't know we were 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.240 going to be excited about or or or in some cases, 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:52.280 maybe what's the weird tangential connection that also came up 0:01:52.400 --> 0:01:55.640 or we found ourselves drifting into the in our journey. Oh, 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:57.760 I think that's a good way to characterize it. So 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:01.240 what have you got, Rob Well? I I mentioned this earlier. 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:03.680 I forget which of the earlier episodes, but I mentioned 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.040 the extinct cave bear in Passing, and I would just 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.359 kind of I kept touching back in on the subject 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.440 as we were working on the other episodes, and finally 0:02:12.480 --> 0:02:14.160 I was like, Yeah, we need to go in a 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:16.960 little deeper and talk about what is ultimately like a 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:21.639 really fascinating organism. There have been disagreements and mysteries regarding it, 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:25.320 and it is an organism that, while no longer with us, 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:30.320 does overlap with our ancestors. You know, it was an 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.720 ice age creature. I included here for you, Joe, a 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:37.200 reconstruction and image of what one of these bears would 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.080 have looked like potentially, And in a bit I'll get 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.280 into like what are some of the main anatomical features. 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:45.239 But just looking at you can tell this is a 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.799 very huge bear. It doesn't look that different from say, 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:53.360 like a large, you know, grizzly bear, brown bear of 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:58.400 some sort. Coloration is brownish, but one might notice that 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:02.200 the head is enormous, has a much bigger head than 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.720 one might expect, certainly on an extant bear. 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:09.240 Yeah, it looks a lot like a grizzly. Though I'm 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.800 no bear expert, it does appear to me in this 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:15.840 reconstruction to have a somewhat shorter snout and the sort 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:17.320 of boxier. 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:20.640 Head boxier and I'm to understand would have been would 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:24.440 have would have appeared wider as well. So we're talking 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:29.359 about Ursus Spilaeus. It's a member of the Ursus genus 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:34.240 alongside the brown bear, which includes the grizzly subspecies, among others, 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:38.040 the polar bear, the American black bear, and the Asian 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:41.520 black bear. That means it's naturally a member of the 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:46.240 larger Ursudae family, which also includes the likes of giant pandas, 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:48.600 short face bears, and others. 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.200 Oh I didn't realize pandas were technically in that family. 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:55.800 Yeah, yeah, Like one of the interesting things about pandas 0:03:55.880 --> 0:04:01.160 is that pandas are herbivores for the moment part, but 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:05.440 they still have a carnivores digestive system, and they still 0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:09.000 have like carnivore jeanes, So they're pretty fascinating in their 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:12.360 own right. You know, it's easy to overlook how interesting 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:14.280 pandas are, especially if you go to a zoo and 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.400 you see one in captivity that is probably not doing 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:19.880 much other than sleeping or eating bamboo. 0:04:20.360 --> 0:04:22.200 The last time I went to a zoo, the thing 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:24.400 I saw that filled me with the most joy was 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.400 actually vicarious joy through a panda. When I saw the 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.520 feeders through some new bamboo into the enclosure, and the 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.480 panda went up to the pile of bamboo and literally 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:38.599 just flopped in it. Just flopped down in its food like, ah, 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:39.159 give it to me. 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:43.719 It is literally their favorite thing, Yeah, rolling around in it. 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.160 More on this connection to the panda in in a 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.960 minute here, but yeah, the cave bear when extinct. I 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.080 do want to highlight that the exact timing for this 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:56.440 depends on exactly what sources and what evidence you're looking at. 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.280 I've seen between twenty eight twenty seven thousand years ago 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.680 during the last glacial maximum. I've seen twenty four thousand 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.640 years ago, and in some sources. Some of the older sources, 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:09.479 you also see fifteen thousand years ago cited as an 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.760 extinction point, but I believe an earlier point in twenty eight, 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.600 twenty seven, maybe twenty four is generally favored by scientists today. 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:21.240 That's generally the range, the broader range in which I'm 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:23.120 tending to see the numbers and the sources I was 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:26.680 looking at. And the interesting thing about the cave bear, too, 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:29.400 is that this animal is a recent enough denizen of 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:31.680 the planet that we have been able to study its 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:35.320 soft tissue, in addition to its bones and its actual 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:37.400 you know, we were able to study like the chemical 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.400 composition of its bones. There was even a frozen specimen 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.680 discovered in twenty twenty, I believe, and we've been able 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.280 to sequence its genome, so we were able to learn 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:48.800 a fair amount about what they were and what they did, 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:53.240 though certain mysteries remain about, you know, their exact lifestyles, 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:56.880 their interactions with other organisms and so forth. Well, let's 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:00.039 come back to the cave theme, right, because that's the 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.320 umbrella on which we're just under which we're discussing the 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:06.640 cave bear. Here. We're of course, not talking about an 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:10.320 obligate cave dweller. This is not a blind, hairless bear 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:14.560 living in the depths, as I'm suddenly realizing. As interesting 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:19.200 as that might be, I'm assuming some fantasy weaver has 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.159 done something like that before. But now this would have 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.960 had at best been a troglophilic creature. 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:29.040 Okay, so the troglophilic creature enjoys visiting caves. It may 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:32.040 visit caves for a number of reasons, but it doesn't 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.960 live there permanently, and it's not biologically adapted to full 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:37.159 time life in the caves. 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.120 Yeah, Like it's not just hanging out in there all 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:41.919 the time, eating bats or anything. But you know, the 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:44.880 cave moniker can be confusing with a lot of these species, 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:47.400 because of course we speak of cave men either in 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:51.839 terms of prehistoric Homo sapiens or Neanderthals, though even with 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.640 the latter, who certainly did utilize cave environments as did humans, 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.920 they used open air sites for various activities as well, 0:06:59.000 --> 0:07:02.040 it seems, so it's not like they just lived in 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:06.080 caves or or and they're certainly not creatures that were 0:07:06.120 --> 0:07:10.120 obligate cave dwellers. Plus, the cave moniker sometimes has as 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:12.040 much to do, if not more, to do with the 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:16.400 places where we've discovered the remains, because, as we've touched 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:18.400 on before, I think in this series and probably in general, 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:23.000 like caves are a great place for remains to be preserved. 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.160 To some degree. I saw a paper that was quoting 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:29.200 an expert on cave bears. It was like the bears 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:33.440 slept in caves and they had the good fortune to 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:35.520 die in them, something to that effect. You know, they're like, 0:07:35.800 --> 0:07:38.800 fortunately for us, they died in caves a lot, and 0:07:38.880 --> 0:07:40.640 so we have a lot of remains to look at. 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:43.720 But anyway, just because we have come to refer to 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.520 a creature as a cave animal, it doesn't necessarily mean 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:49.520 that it lived in caves. The main example of this 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:54.600 era would be the cave lion or Panthera spileea, also 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:57.840 known as the step lion, which is now understood to 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:01.880 have largely lived in open areas, possibly woodlands. But we 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:04.400 know them a lot of We know a lot about 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:09.040 them from skeletal remains found in caves, thus cave lions. 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.160 But it's not thought that that's where they spent a 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:14.400 huge amount of their time. It's more just like we 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:16.920 happened to have gotten some remains from caves. 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:21.920 That's right, yeah, I mean their remains found in caves 0:08:22.280 --> 0:08:25.640 are apparently best understood as on one hand, perhaps the 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:31.280 accumulations or middens of extinct cave hyenas. These this was 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.280 all This is also known as the ice age spotted 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:36.920 hyena that would have scavenged carcasses and brought them back 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.640 to the caves where they lived, or at least the 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:41.720 cave openings where they live. These would have been. This 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.200 is an example of something that did live in caves 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:48.080 based on our current understanding, and so they would have hoarded, scavenged, 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.800 and killed prey in such places while also competing apparently 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.000 with Neanderthals for some of the same cave environments. 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:56.199 Oh interesting. 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.240 But back to the cave lion. It is also thought 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:01.960 that they might have ventured into caves during the winter, 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:05.640 especially in search of hibernating bears that might in some 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:08.959 cases be easier to pick off, especially if they were 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:11.800 desperate for the food. And they also may have periodically 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.160 entered caves in order to steal food away from cave hyenas, 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:18.680 though to be sure, it seems like they largely preyed 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:23.400 on larger wild herbivores like the wild horse and the bison. 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.120 Either way, cave lions wound up in caves, and cave 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:31.439 environments helped preserve their bones for future excavation by humans, who, 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:33.440 at least at first were like, oh, this is a 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:35.400 cave line. We found it in a cave. 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:38.280 But I assume you're saying that researchers do not believe 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.319 the same kind of naming error was made with cave bears. 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.880 The cave bears really do seem largely involved with caves. 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:49.840 Yes, yes, that's the consensus. So you know, what were 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:51.679 cave bears. We talked a little bit about what they 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:55.720 look like already. They were very large bears comparable to 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:59.199 or even larger than any of the bears we know today, 0:09:59.520 --> 0:10:03.679 even the polar bears and Kodiak bears, which depending on 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:05.440 who you're talking to, these are kind of like the 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.960 two extant species of bears that are often held up 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:13.720 as the biggest. So male cave bears could range and weight. 0:10:14.280 --> 0:10:16.800 One estimate I saw was three fifty to six hundred 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.199 kilograms or seven hundred and seventy to three hundred and 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:22.800 twenty pounds. I've also seen like the four hundred to 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:28.040 one thousand kilogram estimate, about eight hundred and eighty to 0:10:28.080 --> 0:10:32.040 twenty two hundred pounds. Again, it's going to vary. The 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:35.160 males were bigger than the females and so forth. But 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:39.520 anyway you cut it, big bears, big heavy bears. Their 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:41.559 weight were have fluctuated depending on you know, where they 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:45.199 were seasonally, where their diet was, what the overall climate 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.920 happened to be. But yes, these were very large bears. 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:51.200 And therefore, as you can imagine, not just any cave 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:53.160 is going to do. Cave has to be large enough 0:10:53.200 --> 0:11:04.920 to hold a bear. Now, speaking of these caves, I 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:06.920 was reading about them a little bit. I was looking 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:08.800 a few different sources. But I've had this book on 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:11.280 my shelf for years and I hadn't really cracked it open. 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:16.240 But it's by one wolf Dee Storal titled Bear Myth, 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:19.480 Animal and Icon. This author, by the way, I think 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.200 he's generally more considered an anthropologist and an ethnobotanist, and 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.360 I'm to understand his views have ventured into some areas 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:30.040 that may be considered more esoteric and even controversial, but 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:34.520 I don't think any of that applies to this work. Okay, Anyway, 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:39.400 the author here points to another connection who is kind 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:41.520 of similar to something we discussed I believe in the 0:11:41.559 --> 0:11:45.640 last episode with the Ohm, a connection between an actual 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:51.559 cave organism and traditions concerning the dragon. There's a cave 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:57.160 in Austria known as Drachenhole or Dragon's Hole, so named 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.520 because the copious amounts of cave bear bones in there 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:03.800 were apparently it interpreted during the Middle Ages as the 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.600 bones of dragons. The cave is located near a place 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:11.400 called mix Nits and is associated with the legend of 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.640 the dragon Slayer of mixed Nits. I was looking around, 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.760 I couldn't find what felt like a definitive analysis or 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.280 retelling of this legend. But I saw some ride ups 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:23.960 where it seems like it's, you know, you, on one level, 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.960 your typical tale of a dragon slayer. But it did 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:30.240 seem based on the one telling I found that the 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.080 dragon slayer here uses an ingenious trap rather than overt 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:36.880 combat to kill the dragon. Like it has to do 0:12:36.880 --> 0:12:41.520 with like a sharpened spikes and left out to gouge 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:43.960 into the dragon's flesh and then it goes off and dies. 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:47.040 That sort of thing, you know, kind of your predator 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:48.800 model of overcoming your foe. 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:51.160 Oh that's my kind of tale. I always love a 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:51.920 monster trap. 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:56.160 Yeah, so you're probably wondering, Okay, this cave is full 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:58.240 of cave bare bones. How many bones were talking about? 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:00.000 You know, we're talking about like two or three individuals, 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.079 maybe a dozen individuals, you know, maybe a dusty old 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:05.600 set of cave bones near one corner, a skull in 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.800 the other. No, no, no, we're talking about the bones 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:13.400 of an estimated thirty thousand cave bears. Thirty thousand. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:14.160 Wow. 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:18.280 Yeah. Other bones were apparently also found in this particular cave, 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:21.880 including those those of the cave line apparently, but we're 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.959 mostly talking about cave bears here and in quite an abundance. 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:28.760 You have to think how long they would have been 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:31.959 accumulating there for. That's unbelievable. 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.400 Yeah, yeah, like we would be dealing with a situation 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:38.560 here where the bears lived in these caves, hibernated in 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:42.080 these caves, and died in these caves for thousands and 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:46.040 thousands of years. So like, recent genetic data apparently indicates 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.680 that cave beer populations in Europe, specifically along the Danube 0:13:49.760 --> 0:13:52.320 River were stable for a good one hundred thousand years 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:56.320 or more. So, yeah, you're dealing with lots of bears 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:58.080 living and dying in these locations. 0:13:58.800 --> 0:13:59.800 That is incredible. 0:14:00.440 --> 0:14:07.160 Now, the caves, specifically this Austrian cave, the system was 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:11.640 apparently excavated during the nineteenth century because the soil found 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:14.560 inside of these caves is rich, was rich in bones 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.640 and bear manure that it accumulated over these vast periods 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:21.560 of time, and they proved usable as phosphate fertilizer, and 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:26.240 there was a shortage during this time period. Storal rites 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.320 that sixty trains with fifty cars each were filled with 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:33.080 the stuff and also points out that a cave near Velberg, Germany, 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:36.160 was also excavated for its cave bear riches during this 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:39.760 time period. Now, these aren't the only two European caves 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.560 that there's evidence of a lot of cave bear activity. 0:14:43.760 --> 0:14:46.760 I read in passing examples of caves and for instance 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.920 Spain and Romania that also provided a great deal of 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:55.880 cave bear remains. Now speaking to their death in these caves, 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:58.640 because you know, it's one thing to sleep in the cave, 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.480 and there is evidence we'll get to that in a second. 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.280 There is evidence already of like the bears having lived 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:06.640 in and slept in the caves, but they also died there. 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:10.640 And I've read that it's thought that cave bears may 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:17.160 have frequently died during hibernation, especially during particularly trying time periods, 0:15:17.160 --> 0:15:20.480 which we'll get to here, because if an individual couldn't 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:23.680 put on enough weight heading into winter and or environmental 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:27.560 conditions were particularly dire, they just might not emerge again 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:31.040 in the spring. Plus we already mentioned that in some 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.760 cases you might have predators venturing into those caves to 0:15:34.880 --> 0:15:38.480 try and find an easy bear to pick off. And 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:41.760 it's any easy mathematics to imagine, like, okay, if you 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:45.680 have a weakened bear in a hibernation state, one that 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:49.800 might not be surviving the winter anyway, Like that's ideal 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:54.720 biomass to pick off. Now. I think everyone's familiar enough 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:59.480 with the fat bear week craze these days to know, yeah, 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:04.160 that bears have to pack it on, and we find 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.880 some sport and amusement in figuring out, like which bears 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:11.040 are packing on the most and what do extant bears 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:13.920 eat in order to go into hibernation, While the answer 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:18.440 is what do you got? They're omnivores, anything is on 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:19.960 the table, right, Yeah. 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:22.160 I think a lot of the ones that we're familiar 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:25.520 with are these ones photographed in Alaska. From what I understand, 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:27.160 they're probably going to be eating a lot of like 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:28.560 river fish, like salmon. 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:32.800 Yeah. Yeah. The cave bears, though, this would have been 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:37.400 a different matter. So research has differed at different times 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:40.600 on whether the bears were strictly herbivores or if they 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:44.560 were mostly herbivores. At the very least, they seem to 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:47.280 have depended far more on the consumption of plant matter 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:51.160 than pretty much any extent bear, with the obvious exception 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:54.040 of the giant panda. These cave bears would have gone 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:57.080 out and eaten a lot of vegetation, and we see 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.560 that reflected in like they're just their anatomy. So I 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:05.639 was looking at the work of Alejandro Perez Ramos at 0:17:05.680 --> 0:17:08.080 the University of Malaga in Spain. This would have been 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.639 a twenty twenty study. The researcher here points out that 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:13.800 the cave bears were built in such a way. Their 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:16.280 skulls were built in such a way that they could 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:21.040 only chew with their back teeth. So extent bears, the 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.720 bears we have today can chew with the front as 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:29.640 well as the back, and therefore have the correct dental 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:33.600 build to eat vegetation or meat, switching back and forth 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:36.480 between the two depending on what's available. You know. So 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:39.160 if there are a lot of fish on hand, bam, 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.399 the bear bears like grizzlies and so forth, they're good 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.760 to go, get in there and eat that meat. Dead whale. Likewise, 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.080 get in there scaving some of that meat. Oh what's this? 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:53.320 You only have berries? Or oh somebody left the door 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:55.600 open to their house. You know, they can make do 0:17:55.920 --> 0:18:00.560 with what's available, but again not the case with bears. 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.240 A chemical analysis of cave bear bones has also revealed 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:06.239 a mostly plant based diet. So the cave bear had 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.920 evolved to a point at which there was no going 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:13.800 back in a swift manner anyway, such as the demands 0:18:13.800 --> 0:18:16.960 brought on by sudden changes in climate, and this would 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.720 seem to be a major factor in their extinction, if 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:23.320 not the major factor in their extinction. And this seems 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:26.359 to be the answer that most of the current research 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.600 is pointing to. But it also reveals some other interesting 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:31.520 things about them, you know, the build of their skull here, 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:36.080 because they also had much larger sinuses in exchange for 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:40.280 that lack of robust front teeth. And this is interesting 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:45.199 especially because extant bears are already famous super smellers. I 0:18:45.200 --> 0:18:48.000 think if you've ever ventured into bear territory, you have 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:52.200 been warned. You know, don't leave, say, chapstick in your car, 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:54.680 because a bear can smell that, and a bear will 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:58.760 want to come see what kind of sweet, delicious fruity 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:01.880 food you have hidden away inside of your automobile. Oh. 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:04.520 I just imagining the bears going wild over like the 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:08.360 synthetic kinds of fruity flavors that you get in all 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:13.720 these products, Like what is funberry? I must discover exactly? 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.920 Yeah, I mean it's This is again with something we've 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:19.080 touched on already in this series. You know, like how 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:22.560 how difficult or impossible it is for human beings to 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:27.640 really put themselves in the sense world of another organism 0:19:27.680 --> 0:19:31.400 that has, you know, a sense array different from our own. 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:36.400 And smell is another one of those areas. So take, 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:41.000 for instance, a bloodhound, a canine. Canines in general, but 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.959 specifically something like a bloodhound is already pretty famous for 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:47.320 being a super smeller. That is, they're just dogs in general. 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.919 They're like their sense of smell is just a different 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:53.560 part of their being, you know. You see that when 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:56.960 you see a dog like riding around with its human 0:19:57.080 --> 0:19:59.200 in a vehicle and it has its head out the window, right, 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:03.200 it's like it's like unlike all the psychedelics at that moment. 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:08.040 And yet I've seen it estimated that a bear, and 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:10.320 again not a cave bear, just bears in general, bears 0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:12.919 we have today, I've read that their sense of smell 0:20:13.080 --> 0:20:16.520 is seven times better than a bloodhound, and that would 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:19.640 mean that their sense of smell is thousands of times 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:23.240 more powerful than a human beings. And yet the cave 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.200 bear likely had an even keener sense of smell. If 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:29.399 we can even imagine such a thing, likely great hearing 0:20:29.440 --> 0:20:31.960 as well, but on the other hand, reduced eye sight 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:34.440 and a smaller brain that you might than you might 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:38.800 expect with such a large head. And I'm suspecting here 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:40.919 that you know that would also have to do with 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:45.280 its mode of life at this point in its evolution, 0:20:45.480 --> 0:20:49.119 Like it it's just going around eating as much vegetation 0:20:49.240 --> 0:20:53.000 as it can, sifting through these various sources of vegetation, 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.800 but maybe not having to be as clever and opportunistic 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.399 as a true omnivore would be. But anyway, all this 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:03.560 would seem to be wound up in their extinction as well, 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:09.720 because somewhere around twenty four thousand years ago, around the 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.120 time when their age ended, the age of the cave 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:15.600 bear comes to an end, temperatures plummeted. This would have 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:19.960 been the last glacial maximum period. Cooler tempts meant less 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.520 time and less plant matter to bulk up on before 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:26.640 going into hibernation, so the cave bears likely couldn't keep up. 0:21:26.920 --> 0:21:30.320 They couldn't bulk up, and again could not adjust their 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:34.040 diet like other bear species. So the bear species that 0:21:34.160 --> 0:21:37.920 survived these cold times were the ones that could diversify 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:40.919 that could go in more on the meat perhaps than 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:43.920 they had been and in many cases, yeah, this would 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.600 mean that you would have cave bears crawling into their 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:49.520 caves to hibernate with or without young and simply never 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:53.080 getting back up again. I alluded to this earlier, but yeah, 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.000 in the caves that they called home, we do have 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:58.160 more than just their bones to speak of them. So they, 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:00.399 like a lot of animals, they ended up leaving claw 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:04.000 marks on the walls in some cases, and they also 0:22:04.240 --> 0:22:08.439 dug shallow depressions in the floor, likely as places to sleep, 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:11.960 and you can find images of these from various European 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:16.280 cave systems. You know, they're not especially flashy, but it's 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:19.640 this sort of large bear shaped indention in the ground 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:23.159 and many of these remained to this day, and some 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:25.960 of those claw marks, by the way, would later be 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:28.919 incorporated into the cave art of Homo sapiens. 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:33.480 Oh interesting, Like you mean like that humans made their 0:22:33.600 --> 0:22:36.919 art around pre existing claw marks in the walls and 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:38.520 like made that part of the art. 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:40.639