SciShow Tangents

Ancient Mega with Blake de Pastino

Episode Summary

This week, we’re joined by Blake de Pastino from the YouTube channel PBS Eons to talk about how plants, animals, and geologic events used to be so… huge.

Episode Notes

This week, we’re joined by Blake de Pastino from the YouTube channel PBS Eons to talk about how plants, animals, and geologic events used to be so… huge. There are still blue whales and massive natural disasters, but the days of the Megalodon have passed. So were those big tunnels in South America really dug out by giant ground sloths? Where is the largest impact crater in the Solar System? And did humans really huddle under the skeletal remains of the giant armadillo-like Glyptodon?

 

To learn more about this week's topic, check out these links:

[Truth or Fail]

https://natural-history.uoregon.edu/collections/web-galleries/saber-toothed-salmon

https://cals.arizona.edu/classes/ento596c/topic/session9.html

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10420940.2016.1223654?scroll=top&needAccess=true&

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2017/03/28/paleoburrows-south-america/#.XFC3uc9Khxz

http://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/044_Paleotocas_ING.pdf

[Ask the Science Couch]

Glyptodon carapaces:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/ancient-armadillos-grew-big-vw-beetles

https://books.google.com/books?id=kUAKgNfiAvoC&pg=PA184#v=onepage&q&f=false

https://www.jstor.org/stable/971990?read-now=1&seq=6#page_scan_tab_contents

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/2055556315Z.00000000031?journalCode=ypal20

https://books.google.com/books?id=2tk_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA223&lpg=PA223

[Butt One More Thing]

Stegosaurus butt brain misconception:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-double-dinosaur-brain-myth-12155823/