WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.080 You know, usually when we sit down to do a deep 00:00:02.080 --> 00:00:05.740 dive into a new scientific discovery, we're talking 00:00:05.740 --> 00:00:08.539 about something found last week or maybe a fossil 00:00:08.539 --> 00:00:10.640 dug up last summer that just got prepped in the 00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:13.140 lab. Right. Yeah. Fresh dirt, fresh headlines. 00:00:13.259 --> 00:00:15.199 That is the standard rhythm of the news cycle. 00:00:15.380 --> 00:00:19.120 But today is, oh, today's weird. Yeah. Different. 00:00:19.480 --> 00:00:21.699 We are looking at a creature that has been sitting 00:00:21.699 --> 00:00:24.300 in a museum drawer since the Truman administration. 00:00:24.440 --> 00:00:27.109 It has. I mean, it's been studied and argued 00:00:27.109 --> 00:00:29.350 over and even written about in PhD theses for 00:00:29.350 --> 00:00:32.929 decades. But this is the wild part to me. It 00:00:32.929 --> 00:00:34.810 didn't technically exist in the eyes of science 00:00:34.810 --> 00:00:38.670 until early 2026. It's essentially a ghost story. 00:00:39.109 --> 00:00:42.090 But instead of a haunted house, it's a haunted 00:00:42.090 --> 00:00:44.810 peer review process. Exactly. So today we're 00:00:44.810 --> 00:00:47.689 doing a deep dive into Ninjalila. This is a predator 00:00:47.689 --> 00:00:50.310 from the late Permian period, so way before the 00:00:50.310 --> 00:00:53.369 dinosaurs. We're talking about 255 million years 00:00:53.369 --> 00:00:55.609 ago. Right. The monsters before the dinosaurs, 00:00:55.770 --> 00:00:57.829 as they say. Yeah. And the sources today are 00:00:57.829 --> 00:00:59.450 just fascinating because they aren't just giving 00:00:59.450 --> 00:01:01.850 us a biology lesson. They're giving us a front 00:01:01.850 --> 00:01:04.620 row seat. to the actual bureaucracy of naming 00:01:04.620 --> 00:01:07.159 nature. Which I know sounds dry, but when you 00:01:07.159 --> 00:01:10.459 realize that a predator the size of a wolf can 00:01:10.459 --> 00:01:13.640 just vanish from history because of a paperwork 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:15.920 technicality. It changes things. It really changes 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:18.099 how you look at museums. It changes how you think 00:01:18.099 --> 00:01:21.159 about what we actually know versus what is just 00:01:21.159 --> 00:01:24.459 sitting on a shelf waiting to be known. It totally 00:01:24.459 --> 00:01:27.620 does. So here is our mission for this deep dive. 00:01:27.780 --> 00:01:30.329 We need to reconstruct this animal. what it looked 00:01:30.329 --> 00:01:32.950 like, how it hunted in this incredibly dangerous 00:01:32.950 --> 00:01:35.609 East African ecosystem. Yeah. But we also need 00:01:35.609 --> 00:01:38.469 to solve the mystery of why it took 76 years 00:01:38.469 --> 00:01:41.370 to get an ID card. It is a classic case of the 00:01:41.370 --> 00:01:43.750 naked name. The gnome and nudum. I love that 00:01:43.750 --> 00:01:45.629 term so much. And we are absolutely going to 00:01:45.629 --> 00:01:48.010 get into that. But first, let's just ground ourselves. 00:01:48.269 --> 00:01:51.329 Sure. We are in East Africa in modern -day Tanzania, 00:01:51.530 --> 00:01:54.450 late Permian. Yeah. What does the world actually 00:01:54.450 --> 00:01:56.489 look like? Because whenever I think of pre -dinosaur 00:01:56.489 --> 00:02:00.209 times, I just picture... A lot of brown mud. 00:02:00.349 --> 00:02:03.349 Yeah, a barren wasteland. But it's actually surprisingly 00:02:03.349 --> 00:02:05.689 lush. You have to picture the UCLA formation. 00:02:05.909 --> 00:02:08.889 This isn't a desert at all. It's a massive alluvial 00:02:08.889 --> 00:02:11.509 plain. You've got these meandering streams, a 00:02:11.509 --> 00:02:14.430 really high water table, and it is just absolutely 00:02:14.430 --> 00:02:17.270 teeming with life. It's green, it's wet, and 00:02:17.270 --> 00:02:20.169 it's humid. And when we say life, we aren't talking 00:02:20.169 --> 00:02:22.939 T -Rex. We aren't talking raptors. We are talking 00:02:22.939 --> 00:02:26.599 about gorgon options. The gorgon faces. These 00:02:26.599 --> 00:02:29.639 are the dominant predators of the era. They are 00:02:29.639 --> 00:02:32.479 synapsids, which makes them stem mammals. Our 00:02:32.479 --> 00:02:34.900 very distant cousins, basically. Exactly. If 00:02:34.900 --> 00:02:37.039 you go back far enough, you and I share a family 00:02:37.039 --> 00:02:39.580 reunion with these things. But they look like 00:02:39.580 --> 00:02:42.099 literal nightmares. They really, really do. Like 00:02:42.099 --> 00:02:45.310 a mix of a dog, a lizard, and a bear trap. That's 00:02:45.310 --> 00:02:47.530 a great way to put it. So looking at the anatomical 00:02:47.530 --> 00:02:50.409 description in the 2026 paper by Gebauer and 00:02:50.409 --> 00:02:53.370 Mason Jalila, isn't the biggest monster on the 00:02:53.370 --> 00:02:56.169 block, is it? No, it's mid -range, based on the 00:02:56.169 --> 00:02:58.969 skull, which is about 18 centimeters long. So 00:02:58.969 --> 00:03:01.250 roughly 7 inches. Right. You're looking at an 00:03:01.250 --> 00:03:03.490 animal maybe the size of a very large dog or 00:03:03.490 --> 00:03:06.250 a small wolf. Think of a border collie or a small 00:03:06.250 --> 00:03:08.550 German shepherd. But built differently, right? 00:03:08.629 --> 00:03:10.370 Oh yeah, much lower to the ground and heavily 00:03:10.370 --> 00:03:13.590 muscled. Very compact. Now the face is what really 00:03:13.590 --> 00:03:15.870 stood out to me in the notes. The authors keep 00:03:15.870 --> 00:03:18.569 using this word pinched to describe the snout. 00:03:19.020 --> 00:03:21.580 That is the key diagnostic feature of Nunjalila. 00:03:21.759 --> 00:03:24.560 In most Gorgon options, the snout is this big, 00:03:24.560 --> 00:03:27.860 boxy, battering ram of a face. Because they needed 00:03:27.860 --> 00:03:30.520 that heavy skull to support their massive bites. 00:03:30.840 --> 00:03:33.379 Right. They were bone crushers. But Nunjalila 00:03:33.379 --> 00:03:38.180 has this very elegant, strange constriction in 00:03:38.180 --> 00:03:40.120 the snout. I was trying to visualize this from 00:03:40.120 --> 00:03:42.180 the descriptions. The nasal bones start broad 00:03:42.180 --> 00:03:45.039 on top like a normal animal, but then they narrow 00:03:45.039 --> 00:03:47.229 down significantly right in the middle. Yeah, 00:03:47.289 --> 00:03:49.789 and there's this specific bone near the nostril 00:03:49.789 --> 00:03:52.449 called the septum axilla. In Ninjalila, that 00:03:52.449 --> 00:03:55.030 bone actually bulges out, but then immediately 00:03:55.030 --> 00:03:57.990 behind it, the face hollows out rapidly. So if 00:03:57.990 --> 00:04:00.069 you look at it from above... The snout literally 00:04:00.069 --> 00:04:02.270 looks like someone pinched it between their thumb 00:04:02.270 --> 00:04:04.949 and forefinger. Wow. It gives it a very distinct, 00:04:05.090 --> 00:04:08.009 almost delicate look compared to the brutes it 00:04:08.009 --> 00:04:10.270 lived with. And the tip of the snout isn't blunt, 00:04:10.409 --> 00:04:12.449 is it? No, and that's another big identifier. 00:04:12.770 --> 00:04:15.449 It ends in a sharp upturned point right above 00:04:15.449 --> 00:04:18.110 the nostrils. It's a very specific straight profile. 00:04:18.509 --> 00:04:21.490 It's not blunt. It's extremely precise. Which 00:04:21.490 --> 00:04:23.870 naturally brings us to the teeth. You really 00:04:23.870 --> 00:04:25.790 can't talk about these guys without talking about 00:04:25.790 --> 00:04:28.519 the dental equipment. The papers confirm it has 00:04:28.519 --> 00:04:30.079 the classic saber teeth, right? Oh, absolutely. 00:04:30.459 --> 00:04:33.819 Huge blade -like canines. That is the trademark 00:04:33.819 --> 00:04:36.120 of the Gorgonopsidae family. If you don't have 00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:38.500 the sabers, you aren't in the club. Pretty much. 00:04:39.129 --> 00:04:41.649 But the rest of the mouth is surprisingly sparse. 00:04:41.790 --> 00:04:44.050 That is exactly what I noticed. The incisors, 00:04:44.110 --> 00:04:47.370 the front teeth, they're really small. There 00:04:47.370 --> 00:04:49.290 are five of them per side. Yeah. But they're 00:04:49.290 --> 00:04:51.689 tiny compared to its cousins. Yeah. And behind 00:04:51.689 --> 00:04:54.189 the fangs. Almost nothing, right? Almost nothing. 00:04:54.269 --> 00:04:57.430 Only four or five very small post canine teeth. 00:04:57.589 --> 00:05:01.029 So you have these massive daggers, but then tiny 00:05:01.029 --> 00:05:03.680 little front teeth. And barely anything in the 00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:05.720 back to actually chew with. And there's a weird 00:05:05.720 --> 00:05:08.420 shape to the jaw, too. The sources describe a 00:05:08.420 --> 00:05:11.379 convex curve to the upper jawbone, the maxilla. 00:05:11.779 --> 00:05:14.120 Convex meaning it curves outward. Right. It's 00:05:14.120 --> 00:05:17.139 shaped like the rocker on a rocking chair. Okay, 00:05:17.180 --> 00:05:19.860 let's unpack this. Why would an animal evolve 00:05:19.860 --> 00:05:22.019 a mouth like that? Well, when you combine that 00:05:22.019 --> 00:05:24.860 rocking chair jawline with this distinct groove 00:05:24.860 --> 00:05:27.759 running above the back teeth, you get a picture 00:05:27.759 --> 00:05:30.519 of a highly specialized eater. So it wasn't just 00:05:30.519 --> 00:05:33.600 crunching bone indiscriminately like a hyena. 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:35.819 No, it was slicing. It was a precision instrument. 00:05:36.139 --> 00:05:39.199 It likely used those saber teeth to deliver a 00:05:39.199 --> 00:05:42.339 killing slash. And then that specific jaw shape 00:05:42.339 --> 00:05:44.680 helped it strip meat off the carcass efficiently. 00:05:44.939 --> 00:05:47.060 So less of a bone crusher and much more of a 00:05:47.060 --> 00:05:49.639 meat slicer. Exactly. A very clean eater. And 00:05:49.639 --> 00:05:52.339 a highly sensory one, too. I was really surprised 00:05:52.339 --> 00:05:55.139 by the size of the eyes. The sources emphasize 00:05:55.139 --> 00:05:57.699 that the orbits are huge. And they face out to 00:05:57.699 --> 00:05:59.819 the sides. Which gives it a really wide field 00:05:59.819 --> 00:06:02.360 of vision. Right. But the thing I always love 00:06:02.360 --> 00:06:04.019 about Permian creatures, and I feel like we just 00:06:04.019 --> 00:06:06.220 don't talk about this enough, is the third eye. 00:06:06.360 --> 00:06:09.199 The parietal foramen. It is my favorite party 00:06:09.199 --> 00:06:12.160 fact about prehistory. Ninja Leela has a big 00:06:12.160 --> 00:06:14.899 one. It's sitting on a raised boss of bone right 00:06:14.899 --> 00:06:17.240 on top of the skull at the back. Now, for the 00:06:17.240 --> 00:06:19.459 listener who maybe hasn't brushed up on basal 00:06:19.459 --> 00:06:21.819 synapsid anatomy lately, this isn't for seeing 00:06:21.819 --> 00:06:23.939 images right. It's not looking up at the sky 00:06:23.939 --> 00:06:26.060 watching for birds. Well, there were no birds 00:06:26.060 --> 00:06:28.360 yet to watch. Good point. But no, it's not an 00:06:28.360 --> 00:06:31.360 eyeball in the traditional sense. It is a photosensory 00:06:31.360 --> 00:06:35.259 organ. It tracks light levels. It connects directly 00:06:35.259 --> 00:06:38.699 to the pineal gland inside the brain to regulate 00:06:38.699 --> 00:06:41.279 things like circadian rhythms, body temperature, 00:06:41.560 --> 00:06:44.060 and maybe even breeding cycles. Like a built 00:06:44.060 --> 00:06:45.980 -in biological clock right on top of its head. 00:06:46.160 --> 00:06:48.680 Precisely. It is a primitive feature that mammals 00:06:48.680 --> 00:06:52.079 eventually lost as we evolved better internal 00:06:52.079 --> 00:06:55.600 thermoregulation in different senses. But yinjalila 00:06:55.600 --> 00:06:58.120 had a prominent one. Which suggests that managing 00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:01.139 body heat and knowing the exact time of day was 00:07:01.139 --> 00:07:03.600 absolutely crucial for its survival. Without 00:07:03.600 --> 00:07:06.339 a doubt. So we have this dog -sized predator 00:07:06.339 --> 00:07:09.540 with a pinched pointy nose, giant fangs, huge 00:07:09.540 --> 00:07:11.759 eyes, and a light sensor on top of its head. 00:07:11.980 --> 00:07:14.220 It sounds distinct enough that you'd think scientists 00:07:14.220 --> 00:07:15.939 would spot it immediately and just say, hey, 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:17.680 that's new. You would think so, and they sort 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:20.540 of did. But spotting it and naming it are two 00:07:20.540 --> 00:07:23.720 very, very different things in science. And this 00:07:23.720 --> 00:07:26.560 leads us to the detective story. This creature 00:07:26.560 --> 00:07:29.740 was dug up in the Ruhuhu Basin way back in the 00:07:29.740 --> 00:07:32.519 mid -20th century. The excavations were in the 00:07:32.519 --> 00:07:37.089 1930s and it was described in 1950. So why did 00:07:37.089 --> 00:07:40.350 it take until early 2026, the year we are in 00:07:40.350 --> 00:07:43.269 right now, to get a real official name? It is 00:07:43.269 --> 00:07:45.730 a comedy of errors. It really is. It starts in 00:07:45.730 --> 00:07:49.149 1950 with the famous German paleontologist Friedrich 00:07:49.149 --> 00:07:51.670 von Hume. And he's a huge deal, right? Oh, he's 00:07:51.670 --> 00:07:53.769 a legend in paleontology. He literally wrote 00:07:53.769 --> 00:07:56.310 the book on a lot of this stuff. But he got this 00:07:56.310 --> 00:07:58.189 one wrong. He looked at the fossil and said, 00:07:58.250 --> 00:08:02.040 this looks like Dixia. Which was another Gorgonopsian 00:08:02.040 --> 00:08:04.000 genus that had already been named. Right. He 00:08:04.000 --> 00:08:05.959 thought it was a second species of that genus. 00:08:05.959 --> 00:08:09.279 So he called it Dixia Nasuta. Nasuta referring 00:08:09.279 --> 00:08:11.459 to that big pinch nose we just talked about. 00:08:11.560 --> 00:08:15.160 Okay. So it has a name. 1950. Dixia Nasuta. Problem 00:08:15.160 --> 00:08:19.160 solved, right? Problem solved until 1970. That 00:08:19.160 --> 00:08:22.240 is when Denise Siganya Russell enters the chat. 00:08:22.480 --> 00:08:25.240 She is a French paleontologist who essentially 00:08:25.240 --> 00:08:27.800 did the ultimate spring cleaning of the entire 00:08:27.800 --> 00:08:30.660 Gorgonopsian family tree. She went through all 00:08:30.660 --> 00:08:33.100 the old collections. All of them. And she finds 00:08:33.100 --> 00:08:35.980 a major problem with Dixaea. Let me guess, the 00:08:35.980 --> 00:08:38.519 original wasn't what they thought it was. Exactly. 00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:42.600 She realizes the original Dixaea, the type specimen, 00:08:42.960 --> 00:08:45.659 is actually invalid. It's just a synonym for 00:08:45.659 --> 00:08:47.980 another animal called Alloranathus. Oh, wow. 00:08:48.159 --> 00:08:51.419 So she deletes the genus Dixaea. It's gone. Poof. 00:08:51.440 --> 00:08:55.409 So our friend Nasuda is suddenly homeless. The 00:08:55.409 --> 00:08:58.350 genus name it was attached to doesn't exist anymore. 00:08:58.570 --> 00:09:00.610 It's like having a ticket for a train that's 00:09:00.610 --> 00:09:02.970 been permanently canceled. That's a perfect analogy. 00:09:03.269 --> 00:09:06.309 It is an orphan. Scania Russell looks at this 00:09:06.309 --> 00:09:08.169 pinch -nosed skull and says, well, it's not an 00:09:08.169 --> 00:09:10.909 Elerognathus. Maybe it's related to Arctognathus. 00:09:10.950 --> 00:09:13.639 But she isn't sure? No, because the skull roof 00:09:13.639 --> 00:09:15.340 was damaged. She couldn't see all the features 00:09:15.340 --> 00:09:17.779 perfectly. So she just writes it down in her 00:09:17.779 --> 00:09:21.000 revision as Arctonathus question mark Nasuta. 00:09:21.220 --> 00:09:23.039 With an actual question mark. With a literal 00:09:23.039 --> 00:09:25.320 question mark in the scientific text. The question 00:09:25.320 --> 00:09:27.960 mark of doom. It really was. It sits in that 00:09:27.960 --> 00:09:30.320 limo for 30 years. Just a question mark in a 00:09:30.320 --> 00:09:32.879 museum drawer. Scientists knew it was there. 00:09:32.919 --> 00:09:34.539 They knew it was weird, but nobody officially 00:09:34.539 --> 00:09:37.240 touched it. Until Eva Gebauer comes along in 00:09:37.240 --> 00:09:40.679 2007. I was reading through the notes. on her 00:09:40.679 --> 00:09:43.159 PhD thesis, and she seems to be the one who finally 00:09:43.159 --> 00:09:45.159 cracked it. She did. She did all the hard work. 00:09:45.200 --> 00:09:47.320 She reexamined the skulls. She compared them 00:09:47.320 --> 00:09:49.240 to everything else in the African and Russian 00:09:49.240 --> 00:09:52.860 clays, and she said, no, this isn't Arctognathus. 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:55.200 It's its own thing. Completely unique. It deserves 00:09:55.200 --> 00:09:58.259 its own genus. So in her thesis, she proposed 00:09:58.259 --> 00:10:01.200 the name Jalila, named after the Ninjalila River, 00:10:01.399 --> 00:10:03.919 which is a tributary of the Ruhuhu near where 00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:06.620 the fossils were found. Perfect. 2007, we have 00:10:06.620 --> 00:10:10.220 a great name. Ninjalila. Case closed. Ah. But 00:10:10.220 --> 00:10:12.720 here is the catch. And this is the part that 00:10:12.720 --> 00:10:14.700 usually makes people outside of academia just 00:10:14.700 --> 00:10:16.659 bang their heads against the wall. I'm bracing 00:10:16.659 --> 00:10:19.159 myself. According to the International Code of 00:10:19.159 --> 00:10:21.960 Zoological Nomenclature, the absolute stripped 00:10:21.960 --> 00:10:25.080 rulebook for naming animals a PhD thesis does 00:10:25.080 --> 00:10:27.779 not count as a published work. That seems wild 00:10:27.779 --> 00:10:30.399 to me. I mean, it's a PhD thesis. It is peer 00:10:30.399 --> 00:10:33.120 reviewed by a committee of experts. It's sitting 00:10:33.120 --> 00:10:34.860 in the university library. People can read it. 00:10:34.919 --> 00:10:37.340 It doesn't matter. The logic of the ICZN is that 00:10:37.340 --> 00:10:40.379 a thesis is technically an exam paper. It is 00:10:40.379 --> 00:10:43.379 a document for a degree, not for the permanent 00:10:43.379 --> 00:10:45.519 public distribution of scientific knowledge. 00:10:45.840 --> 00:10:48.279 Wow. So unless you take that thesis and turn 00:10:48.279 --> 00:10:50.659 it into a book or an article in a formal scientific 00:10:50.659 --> 00:10:53.320 journal, it just doesn't count. So even though 00:10:53.320 --> 00:10:55.299 she described it perfectly and gave it a great 00:10:55.299 --> 00:10:58.000 name, that name became what the notes call a 00:10:58.000 --> 00:11:01.740 nomen nudum. Yes, a nomen nudum, Latin for naked 00:11:01.740 --> 00:11:04.679 name. That sounds almost scandalous. It is taxonomically 00:11:04.679 --> 00:11:07.820 scandalous. It means the name exists in the ether 00:11:07.820 --> 00:11:10.769 but has no legal standing. Experts all knew about 00:11:10.769 --> 00:11:12.870 Nujalila. They whispered about it at conferences. 00:11:13.230 --> 00:11:15.250 They'd say, oh, yeah, you mean the Njalila specimen? 00:11:15.570 --> 00:11:17.149 But if they wanted to write a paper about it. 00:11:17.190 --> 00:11:19.649 If you wrote a formal paper about the Permian 00:11:19.649 --> 00:11:21.909 ecosystem, you could not use the name as fact. 00:11:22.090 --> 00:11:24.230 You had to put it in quotation marks or call 00:11:24.230 --> 00:11:28.190 it the unnamed taxon from Gebauer 2007. It's 00:11:28.190 --> 00:11:30.870 literally a ghost haunting the literature. Haunting 00:11:30.870 --> 00:11:34.500 the literature for nearly 20 more years. In 2015, 00:11:34.860 --> 00:11:37.899 another expert, Christian Kammerer, looked at 00:11:37.899 --> 00:11:40.220 it and agreed, yeah, this is definitely its own 00:11:40.220 --> 00:11:42.559 thing. Yeah. But he couldn't fix the naming rules 00:11:42.559 --> 00:11:44.679 right then, so he just had to leave it as quote 00:11:44.679 --> 00:11:47.820 -unquote Dixay and Asuta. Until early this year, 00:11:47.960 --> 00:11:51.970 2026. Finally. Eva Gebauer teamed up with Michael 00:11:51.970 --> 00:11:54.950 Mache. They published a formal article in a recognized 00:11:54.950 --> 00:11:58.509 journal. They redescribed the fossils. They validated 00:11:58.509 --> 00:12:01.509 the genus. And they officially legally stamped 00:12:01.509 --> 00:12:04.389 the name Jalila Nasuta into their record books. 00:12:04.590 --> 00:12:07.720 76 years. That is a very long time to wait for 00:12:07.720 --> 00:12:10.000 a birth certificate. It really is. But it's crucial 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:12.299 work. Because without this bureaucratic housekeeping, 00:12:12.500 --> 00:12:15.639 we cannot accurately map biodiversity. Right. 00:12:15.700 --> 00:12:18.659 If we don't know what species were real and which 00:12:18.659 --> 00:12:21.159 ones were just misidentifications, we can't understand 00:12:21.159 --> 00:12:23.879 the ecosystem at all. We can't know how many 00:12:23.879 --> 00:12:25.840 predators the environment could actually support. 00:12:26.139 --> 00:12:27.740 Well, speaking of support, let's talk about that 00:12:27.740 --> 00:12:30.419 ecosystem. Because the Dila wasn't living in 00:12:30.419 --> 00:12:33.100 a vacuum. The Usuli formation sounds like an 00:12:33.100 --> 00:12:36.620 incredibly rough neighborhood. Ruff is an understatement. 00:12:36.700 --> 00:12:39.200 If you were a time traveler stepping out into 00:12:39.200 --> 00:12:42.419 that lush floodplain, you would be in immediate 00:12:42.419 --> 00:12:45.600 extreme danger. Even from Jalila? Sure, Jalila 00:12:45.600 --> 00:12:48.100 was a capable hunter, but it was living in the 00:12:48.100 --> 00:12:50.679 shadow of absolute giants. The sources mention 00:12:50.679 --> 00:12:53.720 Inostrancivia. Now, wait a minute. I know my 00:12:53.720 --> 00:12:56.940 prehistoric facts pretty well. Isn't Inostrancivia 00:12:56.940 --> 00:13:01.059 the famous Russian Gorgon option? The massive 00:13:01.059 --> 00:13:04.000 bear -sized one? It is. And this is a great connection 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:06.220 to some really recent discoveries, specifically 00:13:06.220 --> 00:13:09.759 papers from around 2023 and 2024. Okay. For the 00:13:09.759 --> 00:13:12.279 longest time, paleontology thought African and 00:13:12.279 --> 00:13:14.919 Russian gorgonoptions were totally separate populations, 00:13:15.120 --> 00:13:17.399 like they stayed in their own lanes geographically. 00:13:17.480 --> 00:13:20.049 But they didn't. No, they didn't. We now know 00:13:20.049 --> 00:13:22.730 that Inostrancevia actually migrated south into 00:13:22.730 --> 00:13:24.929 Africa during the late Permian. That changes 00:13:24.929 --> 00:13:26.929 the dynamic completely. So you are in Jalila, 00:13:27.169 --> 00:13:29.070 you are the size of a wolf, you're doing your 00:13:29.070 --> 00:13:31.730 thing in Tanzania, and suddenly this bear -sized 00:13:31.730 --> 00:13:34.470 apex monster from Russia shows up on your turf. 00:13:34.669 --> 00:13:37.549 Exactly. And it's a classic case of niche partitioning. 00:13:37.669 --> 00:13:40.509 New Jalila simply could not compete with Inostrancevia 00:13:40.509 --> 00:13:44.070 on brute strength. If they fought, New Jalila 00:13:44.070 --> 00:13:47.370 loses every single time. Every time. So it had 00:13:47.370 --> 00:13:51.580 to be faster. Or more specialized. Likely both. 00:13:52.019 --> 00:13:54.700 That pinched snout we spent time talking about? 00:13:54.860 --> 00:13:57.080 That precision bite? Right, the meat flies her 00:13:57.080 --> 00:13:59.379 jaw? That suggests it was targeting very different 00:13:59.379 --> 00:14:02.500 prey. While Instrancivia is taking down the massive, 00:14:02.559 --> 00:14:05.120 heavily built herbivores and just smashing through 00:14:05.120 --> 00:14:08.399 bone, Injolila is probably hunting the smaller 00:14:08.399 --> 00:14:11.500 game using speed and accuracy. And there's plenty 00:14:11.500 --> 00:14:13.159 of game to choose from. The notes list a whole 00:14:13.159 --> 00:14:16.100 buffet of Dicenodonts. Dicenodons were basically 00:14:16.100 --> 00:14:19.000 the wildebeest of the Permian. They were everywhere. 00:14:19.360 --> 00:14:21.779 These are the herbivorous tusked relatives of 00:14:21.779 --> 00:14:24.179 mammals, right? Yep. Some were small burrowers, 00:14:24.220 --> 00:14:26.580 some were big like hippos. The landscape was 00:14:26.580 --> 00:14:29.580 just covered in mixed herds of Dicinodon, Endothiodon, 00:14:29.659 --> 00:14:32.000 Compsodon. So Nijalila is weaving through the 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:34.500 ferns, avoiding the giant Russian immigrants, 00:14:34.799 --> 00:14:37.840 dodging the other big local predators like Rebidja 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:40.559 and snapping up these smaller Dicinodons. And 00:14:40.559 --> 00:14:43.019 dodging heavily armored reptiles like Piraeusaurus, 00:14:43.100 --> 00:14:45.340 too. Have you seen Amphidon? They're like spiky, 00:14:45.340 --> 00:14:47.980 knobbly cows. And they're even early ancestors 00:14:47.980 --> 00:14:50.659 of crocodiles hanging around in the streams like 00:14:50.659 --> 00:14:53.620 Anagmystrophias. It was a high risk, high reward 00:14:53.620 --> 00:14:55.940 environment. It really paints a vivid picture. 00:14:56.039 --> 00:14:58.360 I think sometimes people view the Permian as 00:14:58.360 --> 00:15:00.639 somehow empty compared to the dinosaur age, but 00:15:00.639 --> 00:15:03.000 it was completely packed. Well, it was a massive 00:15:03.000 --> 00:15:05.899 biodiversity hotspot. The late Permian was a 00:15:05.899 --> 00:15:09.100 real peak of evolution right before the great 00:15:09.100 --> 00:15:11.639 dying wiped almost all of it out. I want to touch 00:15:11.639 --> 00:15:13.840 on exactly where Angelila fits on the family 00:15:13.840 --> 00:15:16.980 tree before we wrap up. Because even though it 00:15:16.980 --> 00:15:20.080 wasn't the biggest, the 2026 paper suggests. 00:15:20.730 --> 00:15:23.289 It was actually quite advanced in some ways. 00:15:23.350 --> 00:15:25.450 It wasn't just a primitive leftover. No, not 00:15:25.450 --> 00:15:27.710 at all. It occupies a really interesting middle 00:15:27.710 --> 00:15:30.250 ground. You know, since about 2018, we've formally 00:15:30.250 --> 00:15:33.450 split Gorgonoptians into a Russian clade and 00:15:33.450 --> 00:15:36.169 an African clade. And Jalila is firmly African. 00:15:36.370 --> 00:15:39.090 Homegrown talent, yes. But he has some features 00:15:39.090 --> 00:15:41.529 that look a lot like the later giant Rubigens, 00:15:41.570 --> 00:15:45.370 the absolute top tier African predators. Specifically, 00:15:45.370 --> 00:15:47.230 there was this detailed section in the notes 00:15:47.230 --> 00:15:50.429 about. The vomer. The vomer, yes. It's a bone 00:15:50.429 --> 00:15:52.850 in the roof of the mouth, right? It is. In primitive 00:15:52.850 --> 00:15:55.309 Gorgon options, the vomer is flat and broad. 00:15:55.590 --> 00:15:58.610 But in Jalila, the vomer narrows down into this 00:15:58.610 --> 00:16:02.049 constricted splint or bar shape. Now, why does 00:16:02.049 --> 00:16:04.570 that matter? Why are the authors excited about 00:16:04.570 --> 00:16:07.429 a roof of mouth bone? Because it completely changes 00:16:07.429 --> 00:16:10.230 the structural engineering of the palate. It's 00:16:10.230 --> 00:16:12.230 usually associated with strengthening the skull 00:16:12.230 --> 00:16:15.549 to handle higher bite forces or changing the 00:16:15.549 --> 00:16:17.830 airflow for better breathing while you're holding 00:16:17.830 --> 00:16:20.509 struggling prey in your mouth. It's what we call 00:16:20.509 --> 00:16:23.269 a derived feature. It shows that Ninjalila was 00:16:23.269 --> 00:16:25.529 evolving some of the exact same high -performance 00:16:25.529 --> 00:16:28.110 engineering as the giant top -tier predators. 00:16:28.429 --> 00:16:30.309 Even though it kept a much smaller body size. 00:16:30.490 --> 00:16:33.190 Right. It's technically considered a sister taxon 00:16:33.190 --> 00:16:35.350 to Arctognathus, but in some ways it looks like 00:16:35.350 --> 00:16:38.149 it's trying to evolve into a rubegene. It proves 00:16:38.149 --> 00:16:40.289 that evolution was actively experimenting with 00:16:40.289 --> 00:16:42.509 this high -performance skull shape across different 00:16:42.509 --> 00:16:45.269 size classes. There was one other detail in the 00:16:45.269 --> 00:16:47.789 notes that I honestly found a bit sad. The other 00:16:47.789 --> 00:16:51.980 ghost species. The original 2007 thesis actually 00:16:51.980 --> 00:16:54.779 proposed a second species of Nujalila called 00:16:54.779 --> 00:16:57.779 Insigna. Ah, yes, Nujalila Insigna, the one that 00:16:57.779 --> 00:17:00.399 got away. What happened to it? Why didn't Insigna 00:17:00.399 --> 00:17:03.779 get invited to the 2026 party? The 2026 peer 00:17:03.779 --> 00:17:06.480 review process killed it. Garauer originally 00:17:06.480 --> 00:17:09.119 thought one of the skulls looked just different 00:17:09.119 --> 00:17:12.019 enough, it was maybe a bit more robust, had slightly 00:17:12.019 --> 00:17:14.000 different proportions, so she thought it could 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:16.880 be a separate species. And Insigna means remarkable, 00:17:17.119 --> 00:17:20.559 right? Yes. But when they did the final rigorous 00:17:20.559 --> 00:17:23.319 analysis for the official paper this year, they 00:17:23.319 --> 00:17:26.240 decided to be cautious. They looked at it and 00:17:26.240 --> 00:17:29.299 decided it was just too similar to Nasuta. So 00:17:29.299 --> 00:17:31.119 it wasn't a different species? Probably just 00:17:31.119 --> 00:17:33.559 individual variation. Like how some domestic 00:17:33.559 --> 00:17:35.920 dogs have slightly broader heads than others 00:17:35.920 --> 00:17:38.339 of the same breed. So they officially labeled 00:17:38.339 --> 00:17:42.200 it Injalila CF Nasuta. There you go, F. It stands 00:17:42.200 --> 00:17:44.559 for confer. It basically means compare with. 00:17:44.660 --> 00:17:47.259 It is scientist code for we think it's this, 00:17:47.319 --> 00:17:49.859 but we are 100 % sure. So we are lumping it together 00:17:49.859 --> 00:17:53.019 with the main species for now. So Jalila insignia 00:17:53.019 --> 00:17:55.539 never actually became real. It died in the draft. 00:17:55.859 --> 00:17:58.359 That is exactly how taxonomy works. A lot of 00:17:58.359 --> 00:18:00.779 lumping and splitting. But the good news is at 00:18:00.779 --> 00:18:03.519 least Nalila the genus itself is finally safe. 00:18:03.700 --> 00:18:06.259 It has its formal papers. So bringing this all 00:18:06.259 --> 00:18:09.029 together. Through this deep dive, we've reconstructed 00:18:09.029 --> 00:18:12.210 a fierce, medium -sized predator with a totally 00:18:12.210 --> 00:18:15.230 unique pinched face, navigating a lush world 00:18:15.230 --> 00:18:18.730 filled with Russian giants and herds of Dysonodons. 00:18:18.890 --> 00:18:21.430 A truly key player in the Permian ecosystem. 00:18:21.930 --> 00:18:25.069 A highly specialized hunter. But the bigger story 00:18:25.069 --> 00:18:26.710 here seems to be about the scientific process 00:18:26.710 --> 00:18:29.569 itself. We tend to think of discovery as just 00:18:29.569 --> 00:18:32.049 digging a bone out of the ground. You find the 00:18:32.049 --> 00:18:34.740 bone, you win. But in this case, the actual discovery 00:18:34.740 --> 00:18:37.160 was digging a name out of bureaucratic limbo. 00:18:37.160 --> 00:18:40.480 The bone itself was found 90 years ago. It really 00:18:40.480 --> 00:18:42.799 highlights that our entire understanding of the 00:18:42.799 --> 00:18:45.980 past is filtered through these very rigid human 00:18:45.980 --> 00:18:48.839 rules. The code of nomenclature, the definition 00:18:48.839 --> 00:18:50.980 of what counts as a publication, the difference 00:18:50.980 --> 00:18:54.160 between a thesis and a journal. Jalila was known, 00:18:54.259 --> 00:18:56.380 but it was invisible because it didn't fit the 00:18:56.380 --> 00:18:58.440 required format. And that is the slightly scary 00:18:58.440 --> 00:19:00.940 part, honestly. And Jalila is one success story. 00:19:01.099 --> 00:19:03.220 It got resolved because Gebauer stayed with it 00:19:03.220 --> 00:19:05.440 for decades and Meisch helped push it over the 00:19:05.440 --> 00:19:08.460 formal finish line. But every major natural history 00:19:08.460 --> 00:19:12.289 museum on Earth has rows and rows of cabinets 00:19:12.289 --> 00:19:14.930 filled with unidentified fossils or specimens 00:19:14.930 --> 00:19:18.329 with temporary names scrawled on tags from 50 00:19:18.329 --> 00:19:20.769 years ago. That is exactly the thought I want 00:19:20.769 --> 00:19:23.549 to leave you, the listener, with today. We think 00:19:23.549 --> 00:19:25.470 we know the cast of characters of the prehistoric 00:19:25.470 --> 00:19:28.069 world. We buy the encyclopedias, we watch the 00:19:28.069 --> 00:19:31.529 documentaries. But how many other monsters are 00:19:31.529 --> 00:19:34.319 sitting in a museum basement right now? fully 00:19:34.319 --> 00:19:36.940 excavated, maybe even described in a forgotten 00:19:36.940 --> 00:19:39.299 thesis somewhere, just waiting for their paperwork 00:19:39.299 --> 00:19:41.960 to clear. The naked names. They are out there. 00:19:42.039 --> 00:19:43.859 We just haven't officially met them yet. It makes 00:19:43.859 --> 00:19:45.839 a museum visit feel a little different, doesn't 00:19:45.839 --> 00:19:47.400 it? You really start to wonder what you're walking 00:19:47.400 --> 00:19:49.440 past. It does. It reminds you that science is 00:19:49.440 --> 00:19:51.660 never truly finished. It is always a working 00:19:51.660 --> 00:19:55.000 draft. On that slightly unsettling but endlessly 00:19:55.000 --> 00:19:57.599 fascinating note, we're going to wrap up this 00:19:57.599 --> 00:20:00.559 deep dive. Thanks for joining us to explore the 00:20:00.559 --> 00:20:03.799 story of Injalila. the predator that waited 76 00:20:03.799 --> 00:20:04.680 years for a name.