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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey, guys, welcome to the podcast. Is

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Speaker 1: Alison Madama, the science how staff works dot com. And

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Speaker 1: this is Robert Lamb, science writer at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Tell me something else, and do your kids

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Speaker 1: play with sea monsters in the bathtub? You're just swimming cool?

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Speaker 1: Not so much yet. Yeah, they got a couple of

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Speaker 1: fish that squired out water, which are pretty exciting. A frog,

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Speaker 1: it's getting a little moldy, to be honest. Nothing nothing

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Speaker 1: is exciting. Its prehistoric monsters of the deep though, Yes,

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Speaker 1: what about you when you hit the bathtub? And then

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Speaker 1: the rare happenstance that I take a bath instead of

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Speaker 1: a shower, I tend to only have like like a

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Speaker 1: like an orange soda or an orange Lacroix with me.

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Speaker 1: So I'm kind of out of the plastic sea monster phase.

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Speaker 1: But when I was a kid, I mean I still

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Speaker 1: loved giant sea monsters. But as when as a kid,

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Speaker 1: I was really into them. And I had this book

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Speaker 1: which actually brought in today and we have in the

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Speaker 1: podcasting chamber with us um and it was titled The

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Speaker 1: Macmillan Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals, and it's

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Speaker 1: fabulous because it's like every other page is as like

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Speaker 1: a double truck spread of of these awesome prehistoric monster

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Speaker 1: um illustrations. I had a lot of fun going through it,

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Speaker 1: definitely when we were picking out the animals that we

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Speaker 1: wanted to feature because it's dinosaurs, and then later on

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Speaker 1: it gets into prehistarting mammals that are awesome, you know,

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Speaker 1: because it's like giant horses and and you know, killer

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Speaker 1: sloths and things like that. And then there's a whole

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Speaker 1: section with with the with the sea creatures, the sea monsters,

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Speaker 1: if you will, and and they're amazing, I mean that

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Speaker 1: the illustrations. Uh, it's several different illustrators, but a guy

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Speaker 1: by the name of Colin Newman did the fish and amphibians. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and all the animals seem to have a slightly different personality,

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Speaker 1: as you pointed out, Yeah, it's like they don't get

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Speaker 1: me wrong there, they look very scientific. There's nothing cartoony

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Speaker 1: about them, but there's something about the way they're drawn, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: where they have kind of they seem to have their

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Speaker 1: own little personalities, right. The Shonnasarus, which we're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about in a little bit. Kind of seems like

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Speaker 1: it's almost smiling. It seems Mary. It seems like a

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Speaker 1: Mary marine, a Mary fat dolphin, like I kind of expected.

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Speaker 1: It kind of looks like you should be like dressed

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Speaker 1: up like a like a nineteen twenties billionaire, you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of a monopoly man, like going like floating down

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Speaker 1: the street in a like an underwater New York. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So before we get to some of the ancient rulers

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Speaker 1: of the ocean that we want to talk about today,

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Speaker 1: who who's ruling the oceans today? Who? Who are the

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Speaker 1: big marine? Who the who are the rulers today? Well, um,

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Speaker 1: as as anybody's ever watched Shark Week can tell you,

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Speaker 1: the great white is pretty awesome. It's great white is

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Speaker 1: pretty awesome. And and how bigs great white get Great

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Speaker 1: whites can get about between twenty Yeah, it's pretty sizeable,

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Speaker 1: they look pretty years and they can definitely chomp down

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Speaker 1: on pretty much anything that gets in their path. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: I was wondering when we're talking about great whites, Um,

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Speaker 1: I mean, great whites have been around for a long time,

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Speaker 1: so I really wanted to check on that and they've

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Speaker 1: been around as long as eighteen million years ago to

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Speaker 1: twelve million years ago, and then if you look at

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Speaker 1: the Great Whites ancestors, they might go back as far

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Speaker 1: as fifty million years ago. So it's not quite but

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Speaker 1: it's still that's not quite as old as some of

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Speaker 1: the characters we're going back like double that for for

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Speaker 1: the guys we're looking at, of course the other as

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Speaker 1: far as we're talking about sea monsters and just giant

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Speaker 1: underwater creatures because obviously creatures in the sea can be

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Speaker 1: larger than the creatures on on the surface because of

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Speaker 1: you know, they're suspended in water, et cetera. And so

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Speaker 1: today we actually have the largest species as far as

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Speaker 1: we know that has ever existed, and that is the

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Speaker 1: blue whale. Yes, and what are the measurements on the

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Speaker 1: blue whale. It's pretty astounding, um, seventy eight feet in length,

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Speaker 1: although they have one recorded at it in six ft,

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Speaker 1: so that's pretty crazy. If you assume, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: ten ft to a building story, so that would be

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Speaker 1: equivalent to a ten foot building, I'm sorry, a ten

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Speaker 1: story building. Well, yeah, I know, I knew what you

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Speaker 1: were getting it. Yeah, and there and they obviously weigh

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Speaker 1: a ton too, as much as a hundred fifty tons,

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Speaker 1: and the females, of course, are larger than the males,

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Speaker 1: which is nice to hear sometimes. Now, one of the

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Speaker 1: distant relatives, um of of modern charks was the the megalodon,

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Speaker 1: a big tooth. Yeah, and and this one is is

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Speaker 1: a favorite I know of a lot of people out there,

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Speaker 1: because there's actually a whole series of books, um, the

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Speaker 1: meg books. I've not heard of those. Yeah, it's uh,

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Speaker 1: forgive me, I can't remember the author's name offhand, but

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Speaker 1: there's a there's a series of them and there it's

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Speaker 1: actually I've never read read one, so the fans will

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Speaker 1: have to correct me if I'm wrong in this. But

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Speaker 1: there's it has to do with like there being like

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Speaker 1: a deep area of the ocean that's still warm, but

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Speaker 1: it's cut off from the rest of the ocean by

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Speaker 1: like a really like chilly layer. Okay, species evolving, they

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Speaker 1: have like isolation and they're all like running wild in there,

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Speaker 1: and then scientists, you know, end up accidentally freeing them

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Speaker 1: and they run rampage jaws like all over the ocean. Wait,

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Speaker 1: was it the Michael Crichton I'm larn now, No, No,

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Speaker 1: it's like it's it's some of the it's another dude,

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Speaker 1: um and they almost made a movie out of her something.

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Speaker 1: But but it's one it's it's one of these where

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Speaker 1: I think it involves like each book ends up involving shark,

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Speaker 1: giant sharks battling other prehistoric creatures, and it's part of

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Speaker 1: this I don't know. There seems to be this whole

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Speaker 1: like subset of fandom on on the Internet where people

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Speaker 1: were really into um, prehistoric sea monsters and imagining what

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Speaker 1: their battles, like their Godzilla esque battles would would consist of.

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Speaker 1: You know which is pretty cool. Was that MTV show

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Speaker 1: where they used to have the different celebrities battling it

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Speaker 1: out in the in the ring, right, right, so Deathmatch

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Speaker 1: except with yeah, except with with prehistoric monsters. Right. So

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Speaker 1: let's talk about some of the characters we're gonna get

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Speaker 1: around today. Yeah, we're we're dealing with with some legitimate

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Speaker 1: prehistoric monsters here, we're shying away from the prestart sharks

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Speaker 1: and getting into what a lot of people would would

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Speaker 1: probably say like dinosaurs of the deep. Yeah, let's kick

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Speaker 1: it off at the Shoonosaurus. So as we were just

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Speaker 1: talking about let's imagine diving into the waters about two

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Speaker 1: hundred and forty eight million years ago and way back.

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Speaker 1: This is the Triassic Period, I believe. Yeah, So let's

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Speaker 1: imagine that we're going to dive into what is now

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Speaker 1: present day Nevada, except to then it was uh covered

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Speaker 1: in water, and you might have encountered this gigantic greene

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Speaker 1: reptile that to my eyes, like I said before, it

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Speaker 1: looks like this sort of massive, pop bellied dolphin with

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Speaker 1: a slightly sharper beak as opposed to the more rounded

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Speaker 1: ones you might see on a bottle nose dolphin today.

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Speaker 1: But the chopper beak only had teeth at the front,

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Speaker 1: which I didn't find particularly scary. So I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: I'm going to qualify this as legitimate monster per se. Well, still,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. Teeth only at the front, that's kind

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Speaker 1: of creepy. You were a smile at you, that would

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Speaker 1: be It just reminds you of somebody having buck teeth,

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Speaker 1: you know, It's like sore back in. A gentleman by

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Speaker 1: the name of Dr. Semen Mueller discovered the fossilized remains

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Speaker 1: of what we now know as a Shonasaurus popularis and

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Speaker 1: Muller justice like proud looking. He's just he's a popular dude, right,

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Speaker 1: So what that means in Latin? I've popular a popular snosaurus.

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Speaker 1: I think it's what they're getting at. But sure, so

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Speaker 1: Muller discovered them in this area of Berlin or what

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Speaker 1: is now Berlin actheas Or State Park. But the serious

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Speaker 1: digging didn't start until the nineteen fifties with two guys,

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Speaker 1: Dr Charles Camp and Dr Samuel Wells from Berkeley, which

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Speaker 1: does a lot with dinosaurs, and these two gentlemen unearthed

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Speaker 1: about forty asaurs uh discovered in different locations throughout the park.

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Speaker 1: And of course, in nine the shown is source Popularis

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Speaker 1: achieved its place and fame. It became the Nevada State fossil.

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Speaker 1: So good for them. I have to admit I didn't

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Speaker 1: know that we had state fossils. I didn't either. I

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Speaker 1: also have learned something that we have state insects. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think I knew that, but state fossils is new.

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Speaker 1: I wonder what Georges is. I don't know. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: So if they shown a source belonged to the order Ectheosauria,

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Speaker 1: which means a fish lizard. Okay, so if you're to

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Speaker 1: look at it, um, it had four paddles, kind of

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Speaker 1: like the flippers that you see on dolphins today, and

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Speaker 1: it had a fish like tail that barreled it through

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Speaker 1: the water. How big is bigay roughly fifteen meters according

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Speaker 1: to some measurements, and that's about double the length of

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Speaker 1: the larger or great whites. Yeah, but that in perspective.

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Speaker 1: And so that was for one particular species, the popularis.

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Speaker 1: And then they unearthed another species um called the I

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Speaker 1: believe the sicky in it sickeni insis, and that might

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Speaker 1: have been even bigger. So a Shinasaurus breathed air, just

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Speaker 1: like dolphins do, but the Shona saurs didn't lug its

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Speaker 1: massive body to short lay eggs. Instead, it gave birth

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Speaker 1: to live young at sea like its fellow athosaurs. So

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Speaker 1: this is pretty cool. I was reading um that scientists

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Speaker 1: unearthed the fossil of an adult female a thesaur giving birth,

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Speaker 1: that the fossil record was able to capture that. That's

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Speaker 1: I think that's just amazing. Yeah. I mean, it's one

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Speaker 1: thing if you can get one just sort of standing there,

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Speaker 1: but when you when you when you get like fossil

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Speaker 1: uh finds that involve you have birth or or or

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Speaker 1: you know, eggs or or like. The occasionally will be

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Speaker 1: like two dinosaurs duking it out, you know. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: taken together, you kind of wonder why the Athosaurus, of

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Speaker 1: which the Shona saurs was one, died out because there

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Speaker 1: are some pretty highly successful animals and the occupied, according

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Speaker 1: to scientists, um, the ecological niche of today's dolphins, and

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Speaker 1: say they're around for about a hundred million years, So

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Speaker 1: I would definitely say that's a that's a good run. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so that's the Sinosaurus for you. Okay, I hope you

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Speaker 1: guys have a good picture and if you don't have

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Speaker 1: a good picture of the Shinnosaurus, look it up because

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Speaker 1: he's he's worth a gander. Yeah, we'll have to put

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Speaker 1: some pictures up on our Facebook page. Yeah, there there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of pictures out there, so surely we

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Speaker 1: can find a few we can link to. So let's

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Speaker 1: come over to a different order, the paura order. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this is where I mean, the other guys were great,

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Speaker 1: but the police sours or where it really gets awesome. Um,

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Speaker 1: and the one I'm gonna mention here is the Leo

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Speaker 1: plurid on, all right, and this guy looks This is

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Speaker 1: when they really start looking fearsome. This doesn't look like

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Speaker 1: a fat dolphin. Let's turn the page there so I

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Speaker 1: can actually gaze upon him again. Yeah, he I mean

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Speaker 1: this looks like something that would battle like Godzilla. Um. Like,

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Speaker 1: he's very very streamlined looking. Um looks kind of if

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Speaker 1: you've seen like a whale skeleton. You know, the actual

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Speaker 1: skull isn't big in bulbous, you know. Uh, that's kind

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Speaker 1: of like the the overall shape going on with the

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Speaker 1: with Elia Plurdon. So it's very streamlined looking, has a

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Speaker 1: and has this like very sort of cruel looking head,

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Speaker 1: big thick football player neck um streamlined body into these

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Speaker 1: massive flippers, and so POS believe he was probably extremely

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Speaker 1: maneuverable in the water and could move at different depths

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Speaker 1: pretty easily, and was probably an excellent long distant swimmer.

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Speaker 1: And where I've actually seen some like some some computer

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Speaker 1: animated kind of videos where they show this guy and uh,

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Speaker 1: one of his relatives like just sort of like popping

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Speaker 1: out of nowhere and like biting the head off of

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Speaker 1: another underwater creature, which is cool, and I imagine that's

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Speaker 1: what the end game of this was like, but but

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Speaker 1: I really dig the idea of of him being like

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Speaker 1: one of these long pursuit killers, you know, where he's

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Speaker 1: like he's chasing after him and he's just gonna wear

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Speaker 1: you down over time, which which is actually kind of

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Speaker 1: like early human hunters. I mean in the sense that

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Speaker 1: early human hunters did like the long pursuit of a

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Speaker 1: of an animal and then eventually wore it out. Right. Well,

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Speaker 1: another possibility is that he could be engaged in those

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Speaker 1: long swims to find a mate, right, Yeah, that's true. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they were. These were probably guys that covered a lot

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Speaker 1: of territory. Um. Another part of that big cruel looking

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Speaker 1: head he's got is he had some powerful muscles to

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Speaker 1: drive the teeth into the prey um. What was its

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Speaker 1: prey pretty much anything it wanted because this was a

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Speaker 1: this is a top predator um and those are pretty rare.

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Speaker 1: Right when you think about the structure of the food chain,

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Speaker 1: you've got a couple of folks sitting on top, or

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Speaker 1: animal species sitting on top, and then a whole mass

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Speaker 1: accumulating on the bottom. Yeah, Like I I like the

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Speaker 1: explanation of it as a as a pyramid. You know,

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Speaker 1: and at the bottom of the pyramid you have is

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Speaker 1: the thickest and that's where you have all the plant life.

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Speaker 1: And as you move up the pyramid you have the herbivores,

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Speaker 1: the omnivores, and then the carnivores. So the guy setting

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Speaker 1: at the top is just like like one animal the

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Speaker 1: other animals. Well yeah, yeah, guy right, Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm using guy in a very gentle sense. The the

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Speaker 1: animal setting at the very top of the pyramid on

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Speaker 1: this which I'd like to imagine being like on a

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Speaker 1: throne of bones, you know, like he pretty much runs

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Speaker 1: the show, but that whole pyramid supports him. So there's

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Speaker 1: so that's That's actually one of the interesting things when

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Speaker 1: we get into looking at the fossil records and these

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Speaker 1: like super predators and these these top predators, is that

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Speaker 1: there weren't that many of these guys out there compared

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Speaker 1: to the rest of the biomass that was ruling the

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Speaker 1: earth in those days. So so we have we often

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Speaker 1: have a lot less to go on. Um. I should

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Speaker 1: also mention that the Leo Proudan this was a late

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Speaker 1: Jurassic creature, so about two dred and thirteen million years ago.

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Speaker 1: Where have you found some of these guys. Um they

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Speaker 1: have shown up in uh the in eastern England and

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Speaker 1: northern France. Uh you know, dating back up again about

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Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty million years or so. And uh

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Speaker 1: oh and and this was pretty interesting too. Apparently there

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Speaker 1: has been some um, some misinformation about their size. UM.

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Speaker 1: Generally we're looking at about thirty nine feet in length,

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Speaker 1: but there have been a there's been like a documentary

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Speaker 1: or two that have have exaggerated it to eighty two feet. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: which is quite quite an exaggeration. And and I was

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Speaker 1: reading up on this and some of the reasons get

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Speaker 1: pretty interesting. There's a probably the internet's biggest UM fan

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Speaker 1: is this guy named Richard Forrest, and he runs POLICEO

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Speaker 1: sour site, which is like just to a search for

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Speaker 1: POLICEO source site, you'll find it and uh and he

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Speaker 1: has a whole section where he talks about like some

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Speaker 1: of these size controversies. And he said, it comes down

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Speaker 1: to like two different things. On on one hand, again,

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Speaker 1: you don't have a lot of fossil record for these

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Speaker 1: big killers, uh, so you can kind of have to

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Speaker 1: throw in some estimation. You know, like a lot of

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Speaker 1: times you're estimating their size any way based on like

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Speaker 1: their jaw side. And then then also you might you're

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Speaker 1: you're thinking, like, all right, I have X number of

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Speaker 1: skeletons of this guy, but this is this is not

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Speaker 1: you know, the one that I have here is probably

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Speaker 1: not the biggest, so we can probably estimate that they

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Speaker 1: get maybe twenty bigger. So then you so you end

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Speaker 1: up saying, hey, the species can get to this length.

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Speaker 1: And then then also he said that if you're if

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Speaker 1: you have you're trying to get funding for your study,

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Speaker 1: then apparently size matters, so you want to stress the

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Speaker 1: size of your creature, you know. Um and uh and

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Speaker 1: then finally he referred to something and I love this,

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Speaker 1: uh a process called godzilla god He said, godzilla ization,

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Speaker 1: which sounds like you would want to say god zillification.

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Speaker 1: But uh. At any rate, this has to do with

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Speaker 1: the media picks up on one of these stories and

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Speaker 1: the the Yeah, like the Predator X, which we'll get

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Speaker 1: into you he just gets more ferocious with each media.

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Speaker 1: You know. It's like like Science Daily gets it, he's

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Speaker 1: pretty tough. Then New Scientists gets he's even tougher, you know,

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Speaker 1: and like trickles down to finally people on the blogs

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Speaker 1: are just like going nuts about how crazy this dinosaur

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Speaker 1: is or pliosaur is um. So anyway, I found that

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Speaker 1: really interesting. Well to his point, to forest point, I

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Speaker 1: will say that when I when we were picking out

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Speaker 1: the animals for this prehistoric podcast, I was checking out

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Speaker 1: animals based on definitely appearance, but also size. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the big ones you're you're curious, you know, they kind

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Speaker 1: of blow you away, um, just off the bat. And

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Speaker 1: then when you start getting into the different species. You know,

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Speaker 1: of course they all have their own really unique adaptations

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Speaker 1: that are fascinating in their own right, but off the bat,

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Speaker 1: if something is forty two ft, definitely, yeah, that definitely

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Speaker 1: I thought, yeah, this this should go on the podcast,

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Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean I I tended

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Speaker 1: to go first on just how ferocious and mean looking there,

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Speaker 1: and then and then look and see how big they were.

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Speaker 1: But it's it's kind of I guess they went through

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Speaker 1: a similar thing with like with the actual like land dinosaurs.

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Speaker 1: You know, for the longest, everybody loved the t rex

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Speaker 1: and that was whatever was biggest, whatever was baddest, and

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Speaker 1: then kind of people got more into like oh, velociraptors,

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Speaker 1: which we've of course we did a whole podcast on that, right,

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Speaker 1: and now velociraptors have their very own awareness day. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: take that t rex. So I wonder if with like

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Speaker 1: with the with the the prehistoric sea creatures, it's kind

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Speaker 1: of like we're having the same process, but it's like

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Speaker 1: a few years behind. So everybody's still up in arms

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Speaker 1: about the big ones. It's kind of like nineteen eighties,

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Speaker 1: like pro wrestling, when everything has to be giant steroid guys,

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Speaker 1: you know. So it's like we're still in like, oh

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Speaker 1: my god, it's so big. It's like, let's look at

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Speaker 1: how big this dinosaur is. It's like fifty ft. No,

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Speaker 1: it's eighty feet. But maybe in like five years or so,

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Speaker 1: we'll be really into the smaller predators of the in

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Speaker 1: the fossil record. Well, before we get into the smaller ones,

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Speaker 1: I want to tell you guys about the cronosaurs. And

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Speaker 1: you guys might have heard about this one. This is

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Speaker 1: another ple cosaur and he was occurring in the Early Cretaceous.

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Speaker 1: So if you don't know when the Early Cretaceous period was,

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Speaker 1: that's about four million years ago for this particular guy,

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Speaker 1: this particular cronosaurus. So we're creeping up closer and closer

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Speaker 1: to the more modern seat law. Right, And this was

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Speaker 1: another marine reptile who's capable of reaching astounding lengths. This

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Speaker 1: one clocked in at lengths of forty two ft. So

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Speaker 1: take a moment and think about that. We can just

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Speaker 1: throw these numbers around all day. Buttot again, that's that's impressive.

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Speaker 1: Imagine swimming at your local beach and encountering a forty

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Speaker 1: two organism. That's that's pretty astounding. So the Cretosaurus has

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Speaker 1: been found um are fossils of the cronosaurs have been

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Speaker 1: found in Australia mainly it's the biggest known place asaur.

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Speaker 1: It had a flat topped head, and if you think

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Speaker 1: of a crocodile head, that's what that's what to me.

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Speaker 1: It kind of looks like it's reminiscent of a crocodile head.

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Speaker 1: But it had those four flippers, and it had this

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Speaker 1: body that tapered off into a point. It wasn't a

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Speaker 1: tail exactly, didn't have a lobed fin or anything like that,

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Speaker 1: but just kind of tapered off. It was an excellent swimmer,

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Speaker 1: like the leoh plurid on that Robert just mentioned, that

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Speaker 1: is a really tough word to say. Let's just say

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Speaker 1: like it's fellow places I haven't spelled out fanatically in front.

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Speaker 1: I mean I still keep tripping over it. So it

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Speaker 1: had to leave the water to lay eggs. And this

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Speaker 1: was really really it's only vulnerable times. It had this

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Speaker 1: big head, strong teeth and jaws made it very formidable.

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Speaker 1: Then it's a really big head, like it looks in

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Speaker 1: the illustration, it looks oversized, like it looks a little ridiculous. Right,

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Speaker 1: So we're sitting in this room that's maybe I don't know,

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Speaker 1: ten ft by seven feet, and the preseosaur head, the

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Speaker 1: Cronosaurus head I think, which just dominate this space. The

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Speaker 1: head alone, it's pretty insane. But if you're really interested

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Speaker 1: in them, I highly recommend you go to the Coronosaurs Corner.

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Speaker 1: And that's a site that you've forwarded to me. And

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Speaker 1: what that is is the site for a museum, and

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Speaker 1: it's a museum in Australia, specifically the town of Richmond

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Speaker 1: in Queensland. And Cronosaur's Corner is part of Australia's Dinosaur Trail.

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Speaker 1: Did you know that Australia had a dinosaur trail? I

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Speaker 1: knew they were They had some really cool fossils, but

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Speaker 1: I didn't know that they had a dinosaur trail, right,

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Speaker 1: so only they have established a route which you can

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Speaker 1: go on and check out all the cool fines. And um,

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Speaker 1: I was looking at the Chronosaur's site and they have

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Speaker 1: all these pictures of the different fossils that people have found,

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Speaker 1: so apparently they might still be letting you dig and

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Speaker 1: and find stuff. I mean, you could come up with

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Speaker 1: a Chronosaurus vertebratee or something, which I thought it was

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Speaker 1: really cool. And they have a based on the pictures,

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Speaker 1: they have like a giant like fake chronosaurus out front

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Speaker 1: of the museum that you can I don't know if

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Speaker 1: you're allowed to climb on it. Look like some of

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Speaker 1: the photos people had climbed on it. But don't go

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Speaker 1: climbing on it and blame us, but it looked really cool.

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Speaker 1: Get your picture made with it for sure. Yeah. If

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Speaker 1: we have any Australian listeners who's who've been to this

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Speaker 1: particular corner of the world, please send us pictures. We

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Speaker 1: would love to see them. Will post them on Facebook. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And Chronosaurus Corner, by the way, that's the corner with

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Speaker 1: a K because it's you know, for branding purposes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Chronosaurus is with the K corner KK. I don't know

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Speaker 1: those Australians are always thinking, yeah, so what about the elasmosaurus.

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Speaker 1: The way this guy looks, Yeah, this one's really cool.

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Speaker 1: This is I guess the best way to describe it is,

401
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Speaker 1: and I don't I really don't want to take this

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Speaker 1: in a longness monster direction, but you know how the

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Speaker 1: longness monsters basically supposed to look kind of like that,

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Speaker 1: except with a much longer neck. And if I were

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Speaker 1: to take a quote from nineteenth century English paaleontologist Dean Conniberry,

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Speaker 1: he said that these that the Elasmosaurus has resembled quote

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Speaker 1: snakes threaded through the bodies of turtles. So yeah, these

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Speaker 1: dudes have really long necks. How long? Um? They contained

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Speaker 1: twenty eight vertebrae uh and more than half of the

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Speaker 1: animal's total length was neck, Like twenty six ft was

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Speaker 1: neck and the things only forty six ft long. Right,

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Speaker 1: So if I'm whatever, I am five ft something, let's

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Speaker 1: round it off to five ft four. That would mean

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Speaker 1: that I had a you know, more than a two

415
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Speaker 1: and a half foot neck, which is kind of really

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Speaker 1: is that would be tough with the podcast microphones. But

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Speaker 1: it could it could come in interesting and we'll see

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Speaker 1: how ye, how could that benefit benefit me? Well, they

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Speaker 1: think that well, obviously it would come into play hunting.

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Speaker 1: That's the big deal. Obviously if you're any kind of

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Speaker 1: dinosaur or um or a plea saur and they think

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Speaker 1: it went one of two ways. One way would be

423
00:22:25,720 --> 00:22:29,399
Speaker 1: that basically his head can get get there before his

424
00:22:29,440 --> 00:22:31,960
Speaker 1: body can, right, so his body's kind of hanging back here,

425
00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:34,240
Speaker 1: and so he can sort of creep his his head

426
00:22:34,320 --> 00:22:37,399
Speaker 1: up to you before you're the waters are disturbed by

427
00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:40,360
Speaker 1: his body. Which sounds kind of cartoony, you know, it's

428
00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:42,639
Speaker 1: you can kind of you know, sneak his head around

429
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:44,880
Speaker 1: the corner and then if you see something good, the

430
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:47,119
Speaker 1: body comes running fast. It reminds me of the Scooby

431
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:50,320
Speaker 1: Do cartoons, you know, where the legs are going so

432
00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:55,359
Speaker 1: fast and they make that noise, you know, the Scooby noise. Yeah. Yeah.

433
00:22:55,600 --> 00:22:59,400
Speaker 1: It also reminds me of like um, like Inspector Gadget

434
00:22:59,560 --> 00:23:02,800
Speaker 1: and um the elastic Man from Fantastic You know how

435
00:23:02,840 --> 00:23:04,679
Speaker 1: that their head would come around a corner on like

436
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:07,680
Speaker 1: a super long neck and you know that's that's basically

437
00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 1: the advantage of this guy would have another possibility of

438
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 1: feeding wise. Um. And this is one that we can

439
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:17,199
Speaker 1: back up with modern examples in the animal kingdom. UM

440
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:21,720
Speaker 1: involves up the the elasmosaur is just sort of you know,

441
00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:24,240
Speaker 1: floating along the top of the water with his head

442
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:28,399
Speaker 1: all the way up right, looking down above water, like

443
00:23:28,440 --> 00:23:31,719
Speaker 1: the periscope of a of a subway kind of thing. No, No,

444
00:23:31,760 --> 00:23:34,199
Speaker 1: I think it would be more like like the crow's

445
00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:36,919
Speaker 1: nest on a like a ship, except if if you

446
00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:38,639
Speaker 1: were like up in the crow's nest looking down and

447
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:40,160
Speaker 1: seeing what kind of fish are down in the water.

448
00:23:40,680 --> 00:23:42,199
Speaker 1: So he's he's got his head all the way up

449
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:45,440
Speaker 1: and he's looking down and seeing what's going on the water,

450
00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:47,120
Speaker 1: and then he sees a fish he wants to eat,

451
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: you know, he just strikes down to the water with

452
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:52,960
Speaker 1: his head long neck, grabs hold of it and has

453
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 1: his lunch. And there is there's actually a bird that

454
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:59,680
Speaker 1: has a similar practice today and it is called snake bird.

455
00:23:59,760 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: Right yeah, and then a anhinga. Uh. And I look

456
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:06,800
Speaker 1: up a picture of this guy and you definitely get

457
00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:10,240
Speaker 1: a real prehistoric vibe off of him. Um. That's um.

458
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:12,640
Speaker 1: If you want to do a Google image search. It's

459
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:16,640
Speaker 1: a n H I n G A, and uh, it's

460
00:24:16,640 --> 00:24:19,399
Speaker 1: got this creepy long neck and he just kind of sits,

461
00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: you know, up in the water. Uh, you know, kind

462
00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 1: of swan like ready to strike. And uh it's really cool.

463
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:27,480
Speaker 1: So that that's that's one way they think he this

464
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:33,800
Speaker 1: guy would have eaten. Um. So, so that's the Elasmosaurus

465
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: in a nutshell. But I found like one other, like

466
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:41,880
Speaker 1: really cool um fact about about this particular prehistoric sea

467
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:44,800
Speaker 1: monster and it actually takes place in the Old West,

468
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:49,000
Speaker 1: all right, so um and I was not familiar with this.

469
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:51,320
Speaker 1: This may actually merit the whole podcast at some point,

470
00:24:51,720 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 1: but there was a period during the Old West known

471
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:57,640
Speaker 1: as the Bone Wars or the Great Dinosaur Rush, and

472
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:00,320
Speaker 1: this just comes we should do a whole rush series

473
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:02,159
Speaker 1: podcast because I also want to do one on the

474
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:05,440
Speaker 1: uranium rush of the cool Yeah, yeah, if you guys

475
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:09,160
Speaker 1: have fresh ideas for podcasts besides gold rushes, or maybe

476
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:11,639
Speaker 1: we could do some interesting twists on gold rush besides

477
00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:15,360
Speaker 1: Also Sarah and Katie will we'll have that for second, miss,

478
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 1: But tell me about the So this one is you know, guys,

479
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:20,080
Speaker 1: you know the gold Rush of course was you know,

480
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:22,640
Speaker 1: people rushing out into the wilderness because there's gold out

481
00:25:22,640 --> 00:25:25,159
Speaker 1: there and we've gotta have it. This is more instead

482
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: of like grizzled old prospectors, this is like Yale educated

483
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:33,399
Speaker 1: paleontologists rushing out into the American West to try and

484
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 1: find fossils. Yeah, and to get the prestige in honor of,

485
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 1: you know, of discovering these things. So uh, and you

486
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: have two guys in particular though, um, one name, one

487
00:25:46,280 --> 00:25:50,920
Speaker 1: name Marsh and one name Cope, Edward Drinker Cope. And

488
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:53,200
Speaker 1: these guys like we're friends at one point, but then

489
00:25:53,320 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: just just totally had a falling out over competition for

490
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 1: these fossils and and and so they started feuding with

491
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:04,720
Speaker 1: each other. And when I say feuding, I mean they

492
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:10,560
Speaker 1: were resorting to bribery, theft, destruction of bones. Um, they

493
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 1: were attacking each other in the scientific publications, trying to

494
00:26:13,960 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: ruin each other's credibility and sabotage their funding. I mean,

495
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 1: these guys were getting really nasty about about about bones

496
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 1: and so so also they're you know, rushing to to

497
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:26,679
Speaker 1: get things done, right. So what happened when they went

498
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 1: to Kansas. They went to Kansas, and uh and Cope

499
00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 1: found an Elasmosaurus um fossil, and so he starts like

500
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 1: putting the you know, putting together the pieces and trying

501
00:26:34,920 --> 00:26:37,679
Speaker 1: to figure out what the overall you know, um body

502
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:40,400
Speaker 1: of the animal looked like. And in in his haste,

503
00:26:40,520 --> 00:26:42,400
Speaker 1: he managed to put the head on the wrong end

504
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 1: on the tape, so he ended up with the head

505
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 1: on the tail. And then he sent this off, you know,

506
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:50,720
Speaker 1: it's it goes to publish, and and when he finds

507
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 1: out what he did, he starts buying back the copies

508
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 1: at his own expense, uh, so that nobody will see

509
00:26:57,119 --> 00:27:01,760
Speaker 1: this horrible illustration, and he presented Mark his enemy. Meanwhile,

510
00:27:01,760 --> 00:27:04,359
Speaker 1: it takes just rich de light in this and just

511
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:07,440
Speaker 1: starts like like hammering him even more, even though Marsha

512
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:10,400
Speaker 1: later on made a similar mistake with Brona Saras skeleton.

513
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 1: So it sounds amazing. And there's actually a graphic novel

514
00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:20,520
Speaker 1: account of this titled, uh, Bone Sharps, Cowboys and thunder Lizards,

515
00:27:20,520 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 1: A Tale of Edward Drinker Cope Athaniel Charles marsh in

516
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:27,640
Speaker 1: the Gilded Age of Paleontology. Uh, it looks really cool.

517
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: Check that out. And that's by kind of Jim Otto Vianni. Yeah, yeah,

518
00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:36,760
Speaker 1: there's a whole there's a whole comic book publisher publishing

519
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:39,400
Speaker 1: house out there, and they just do awesome comic books

520
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:42,439
Speaker 1: about scientists. So yeah, well that I'll have to put

521
00:27:42,440 --> 00:27:45,760
Speaker 1: a link to that pitch. So what about some I mean,

522
00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:47,679
Speaker 1: we don't have to go all the way back to

523
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 1: uh the Bone Wars to figure out some modern day

524
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:54,640
Speaker 1: controversy around fossil finds. What about Predator X. Yeah, Predator

525
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 1: X is the big one just just came out last

526
00:27:56,760 --> 00:28:00,919
Speaker 1: year in two thousand nine out of believe um, a

527
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 1: Norwegian expedition yeah, up around uh Spalls Bard actually and

528
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: uh this was you know, studied by Oslo's Natural History

529
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:16,520
Speaker 1: Museum and uh and they found these these fossils and

530
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:20,680
Speaker 1: it looks to be a forty nine foot uh plosaur

531
00:28:21,359 --> 00:28:25,280
Speaker 1: very similar. Yeah, dub predator. Predator X is not the

532
00:28:25,280 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 1: official title. In fact, it has no like an official

533
00:28:28,760 --> 00:28:32,879
Speaker 1: species uh you know name as of yet, no official classification.

534
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:34,679
Speaker 1: I guess they're still working on that. But a lot

535
00:28:34,680 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: of people are thinking that it's a plosur like the Cronosaurus. Yeah. Yeah,

536
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:42,360
Speaker 1: it looks very similar to the Chronosaurus and the Lapooradon Um,

537
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 1: I rushed through it the a pronunciation there because it

538
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 1: didn't have the word in front of me. But but yeah,

539
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:49,160
Speaker 1: a lot of people think it's one of those two.

540
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: We're not one of those two, but very similar, you know,

541
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:56,640
Speaker 1: except bigger. Um how big. They're saying that this uh,

542
00:28:56,680 --> 00:29:00,640
Speaker 1: this guy would have weighed around fifty tons um with

543
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: a foot long teeth and uh and yeah it would

544
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: be long, um and that's its head makes the t

545
00:29:08,280 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 1: rex is look like, you know, a bubble head. Yeah,

546
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 1: and we keep picking on t I feel bad, Yeah,

547
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 1: because the t rex, he's a land based animal. It's

548
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 1: like if you put him in the water and he evolved,

549
00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:20,400
Speaker 1: I'm sure he would have been bigger. That's true. We'll

550
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 1: lay off the t rex. So so the jury is

551
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 1: still kind of still kind of out on on Predator

552
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:29,719
Speaker 1: X exactly what it was and and uh you know

553
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 1: what it was up to, but clearly it was some

554
00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: sort of massive you know, probably a policeosaur and was

555
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: you know, at the top of its food chain. So

556
00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 1: it's pretty pretty awesome looking. So there you have it. Um,

557
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:46,640
Speaker 1: we've run through four really cool prehistoric sea monsters and uh,

558
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 1: there's some of our favorites you guys may have some

559
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 1: favorites out there for you love to hear him. Yeah,

560
00:29:51,680 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: let us know, um and do let us know which

561
00:29:54,440 --> 00:29:58,640
Speaker 1: one you think would win in a slugfest between various

562
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 1: sea monsters of the d Yeah. You can always send

563
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:04,320
Speaker 1: us an email at science Stuff at has frix dot com,

564
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:06,959
Speaker 1: or check in with us on Facebook at Stuff from

565
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:10,680
Speaker 1: the Science Lab or on Twitter and lab stuff. Okay,

566
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 1: see what you got over there? You got some listener

567
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 1: you want to share some listener mail. We recently did

568
00:30:19,880 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 1: a really cool podcast on the Cardassian scale. Yeah, this

569
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: to remind everybody, this is the scale, you know, type

570
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 1: one civilization, type two, and it has to do with

571
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:33,959
Speaker 1: energy useage of a planet and how you would like

572
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 1: the different levels of technological sophistication for a civilization. Yeah. Yeah,

573
00:30:38,840 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: so it shows up in science fictional lot um, so

574
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 1: we can put the collegible listeners. Hey, what's a good

575
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: example of a you know, type four civilization Cardassian on

576
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 1: which covers type one, two and three that's planetary, solar

577
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 1: and and galactic energy. So four would be something beyond

578
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: those three. So uh, some of you guys right in

579
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 1: with ideas. Yeah, yeah, so let's see we had we

580
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 1: heard from Marcus, and Marcus uh pointed out an example

581
00:31:07,440 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 1: in the Star Ocean RPG video game franchise. He says, quote,

582
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 1: it involves people who are in a type to civilization,

583
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 1: but in the game they have only just recently achieved

584
00:31:16,320 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 1: type two, and once they do, they write a way

585
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 1: discover intelligent life. The other civilization had always known about them,

586
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 1: but rules have been made, uh that type two should

587
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 1: not interfere with the natural development of under vulp civilization.

588
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 1: So it deals, uh, you know, to a large extent

589
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 1: with with kardashev Um classifications. Uh. Then we heard from

590
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:39,479
Speaker 1: mo and Most says, quote, it seems to me that

591
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:41,480
Speaker 1: that you could make another universe. That if you could

592
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 1: make another universe, you would somehow tether it, tether to it,

593
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: and find some way of using that tether to generate power.

594
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 1: If you needed more power, you would just have to

595
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:53,239
Speaker 1: either wait a bit or build more universes. What you

596
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 1: don't solve your if you don't solve your energy problems, Um,

597
00:31:56,680 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 1: you know, one way to do it is to build

598
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 1: another universe. So in the just getting into again, this

599
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:06,040
Speaker 1: is like crazy advanced you know, theoretical, uh, you know,

600
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 1: science and how we just threw it out there. Yeah,

601
00:32:08,960 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 1: let's just build another universe and parness the power from that.

602
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: Apparently they went into it in a there's a recent

603
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 1: like Radio Lab episode where it's like to uh, Robert

604
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:21,200
Speaker 1: Krulitch just talking to somebody about, uh, do it do

605
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 1: it yourself universe is and what that would entail. And

606
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 1: certainly if you could create another universe to generate power,

607
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: that would you would be at least type four, maybe

608
00:32:30,120 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe type five to to to get

609
00:32:33,320 --> 00:32:35,720
Speaker 1: you know, real silly about it. Um. Then we heard

610
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: from Gary, and Gary said in Frederick Poll's Heachy novels Um,

611
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:42,880
Speaker 1: I hope I'm saying that right, because it sounds kind

612
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: of silly. There is a race called the Foe who

613
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:49,959
Speaker 1: were type four. They were actively trying to collapse our

614
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 1: universe into a big crunch and a tip in an

615
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: attempt to re engineer the universe when it big banged

616
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: again into an all energy, no matter universe, because it

617
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 1: would be better for their form of life. I'd say

618
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: engineering an entire universe from the start is type four.

619
00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:07,960
Speaker 1: And then he also pointed out that there's some examples

620
00:33:07,960 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 1: in the Stargate universe, but the stuff in Frederick Pole's

621
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:15,200
Speaker 1: book that that's definitely yet type four and it sounds

622
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. I really need to read some of his stuff,

623
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:21,840
Speaker 1: all right, So that's cool. We covered cardashop skills, Monsters

624
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:23,760
Speaker 1: of the Deep, and if you want to read more

625
00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 1: about any of those things, check out our home page

626
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 1: at how star works dot com and thanks for listening.

627
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is

628
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 1: that how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,

629
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot

630
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:45,840
Speaker 1: com home page