WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.120 Imagine a tank. I don't mean a modern Abrams 00:00:03.120 --> 00:00:05.480 tank or, you know, anything with treads. I want 00:00:05.480 --> 00:00:09.080 you to picture a living, breathing, biological 00:00:09.080 --> 00:00:13.179 fortress. Okay. Now take that tank and drop it 00:00:13.179 --> 00:00:15.160 into the roughest, most dangerous neighborhood 00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:17.100 in the history of the planet. Right. So we're 00:00:17.100 --> 00:00:19.379 talking about Western North America. At the very 00:00:19.379 --> 00:00:21.859 end, right? Right at the bitter end of the Cretaceous 00:00:21.859 --> 00:00:24.760 period. Exactly. Yeah. The Hell Creek Formation. 00:00:25.039 --> 00:00:29.190 And Hell Creek is, well... It's a pretty accurate 00:00:29.190 --> 00:00:32.250 description. It's 66 to 68 million years ago. 00:00:32.289 --> 00:00:34.929 It's humid. It's swampy. And the neighbors are 00:00:34.929 --> 00:00:37.689 absolute nightmares. You've got Triceratops behaving 00:00:37.689 --> 00:00:40.229 like a bad -tempered rhino. And the landlord 00:00:40.229 --> 00:00:42.810 is a fully grown Tyrannosaurus rex. It's the 00:00:42.810 --> 00:00:45.909 ultimate survival test. And the creature we're 00:00:45.909 --> 00:00:48.429 diving into today, the Ankylosaurus, was basically 00:00:48.429 --> 00:00:50.890 the evolutionary answer to that specific problem. 00:00:51.210 --> 00:00:53.310 I feel like everyone knows this dinosaur, or 00:00:53.310 --> 00:00:55.549 at least we think we do. It's a staple of the 00:00:55.549 --> 00:00:57.549 plastic toy collection. Oh, for sure. You know 00:00:57.549 --> 00:00:59.850 the one? Squat, bumpy back, club on the tail. 00:00:59.969 --> 00:01:02.929 Usually painted some weird shade of green or 00:01:02.929 --> 00:01:05.469 brown. Right, it's iconic. But our mission today 00:01:05.469 --> 00:01:08.480 is to take that plastic toy and just... Throw 00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:10.400 it out the window. Because when you actually 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:12.480 look at the source material, the biomechanics, 00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:15.079 the fossils, the latest research, this thing 00:01:15.079 --> 00:01:17.680 wasn't just a rock with legs. Not at all. It 00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:21.000 was a physiological marvel. It really was. And 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:23.019 what's fascinating here is that despite being 00:01:23.019 --> 00:01:25.840 so famous, Ankylosaurus is actually a ghost. 00:01:25.939 --> 00:01:28.400 It's one of the most mysterious dinosaurs out 00:01:28.400 --> 00:01:30.560 there. Really? We have to do a serious amount 00:01:30.560 --> 00:01:33.079 of detective work just to figure out how it lived. 00:01:33.560 --> 00:01:35.420 Well, let's start with the name. It sounds heavy. 00:01:36.159 --> 00:01:39.049 Ankylosaurus magniventris. It does. It sounds 00:01:39.049 --> 00:01:40.549 like a spell you'd cast to make someone gain 00:01:40.549 --> 00:01:42.950 weight. It's close. Yeah. So if you break it 00:01:42.950 --> 00:01:46.849 down, ankylosaurus translates to fused lizard 00:01:46.849 --> 00:01:50.069 or sometimes crooked lizard. It comes from the 00:01:50.069 --> 00:01:52.230 Greek word ankylosis. Which is a medical term, 00:01:52.310 --> 00:01:54.650 right? Like when your joints lock up. Precisely. 00:01:54.650 --> 00:01:57.209 It refers to stiffness produced by the fusion 00:01:57.209 --> 00:01:59.989 of bones. This animal was not built for yoga. 00:02:00.189 --> 00:02:03.010 Okay. It was built for absolute rigidity. And 00:02:03.010 --> 00:02:05.510 the species name, Magna Ventris, that translates 00:02:05.510 --> 00:02:09.159 simply to... Great belly. Fused lizard, great 00:02:09.159 --> 00:02:12.740 belly. That is honest. It's descriptively accurate. 00:02:12.939 --> 00:02:16.439 It refers to the massive width of the body. This 00:02:16.439 --> 00:02:19.599 animal was wide, low to the ground, and built 00:02:19.599 --> 00:02:21.960 like a brick bunker. So we have this great belly 00:02:21.960 --> 00:02:25.180 tank living alongside T -Rex. But before we get 00:02:25.180 --> 00:02:27.360 into how it defended itself, I want to talk about 00:02:27.360 --> 00:02:29.819 how we found it. Okay. Because looking at the 00:02:29.819 --> 00:02:32.409 history here... It seems like we got this animal 00:02:32.409 --> 00:02:35.150 wrong for a long, long time. We got it spectacularly 00:02:35.150 --> 00:02:37.550 wrong, and it starts with the legendary Barnum 00:02:37.550 --> 00:02:40.810 Brown. The guy who found T -Rex. The very same. 00:02:41.050 --> 00:02:43.830 In 1906, he was on an expedition for the American 00:02:43.830 --> 00:02:46.710 Museum of Natural History in Montana. He found 00:02:46.710 --> 00:02:50.020 the type specimen of Ankylosaurus, but... And 00:02:50.020 --> 00:02:51.580 this is the key, he didn't find the whole thing. 00:02:51.680 --> 00:02:53.719 He found bits and pieces. Enough to know it was 00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:55.960 something new, but not enough to know exactly 00:02:55.960 --> 00:02:58.639 what it looked like. So in 1908, they published 00:02:58.639 --> 00:03:01.000 a reconstruction of the animal. If you look at 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:03.099 it today, it looks like a glitch in a video game. 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:05.599 How bad are we talking? Well, Barnum Brown needed 00:03:05.599 --> 00:03:07.979 to fill in the missing gaps, so he used Stegosaurus 00:03:07.979 --> 00:03:11.060 as a model. He gave this poor Ankylosaurus a 00:03:11.060 --> 00:03:13.199 strongly arched back, like a frightened cat, 00:03:13.439 --> 00:03:17.469 and really thick, robust front legs. But... The 00:03:17.469 --> 00:03:20.949 biggest miss, he missed the tail club completely. 00:03:21.389 --> 00:03:23.490 Wait, the one thing everyone knows about Ankylosaurus 00:03:23.490 --> 00:03:27.069 is the club. He didn't include it. He didn't 00:03:27.069 --> 00:03:30.629 find it with that specific skeleton. So for decades, 00:03:30.830 --> 00:03:33.270 the scientific image of this animal was this 00:03:33.270 --> 00:03:37.669 weird spiked armadillo stegosaur hybrid with 00:03:37.669 --> 00:03:40.770 a short droopy little tail. It looked defenseless. 00:03:40.930 --> 00:03:43.050 Totally defenseless. That is wild. It's like 00:03:43.050 --> 00:03:44.750 discovering a knight and forgetting to mention 00:03:44.750 --> 00:03:46.780 the sword. It wasn't until a later expedition 00:03:46.780 --> 00:03:50.219 in 1910 found another specimen in Alberta that 00:03:50.219 --> 00:03:52.840 they realized, oh, wait, there's a massive sledgehammer 00:03:52.840 --> 00:03:54.520 attached to the end of this thing. That completely 00:03:54.520 --> 00:03:56.900 changes the narrative. Completely. It goes from 00:03:56.900 --> 00:04:01.219 a passive, lumpy weirdo to a warrior. But this 00:04:01.219 --> 00:04:03.159 brings up something I was wondering about. Why 00:04:03.159 --> 00:04:05.969 was it so hard to find a whole one? I assume 00:04:05.969 --> 00:04:08.229 museums were full of these guys. Yeah, that is 00:04:08.229 --> 00:04:10.750 a huge misconception. Ankylosaurus fossils are 00:04:10.750 --> 00:04:14.689 incredibly rare. We don't have a single 100 % 00:04:14.689 --> 00:04:17.569 complete skeleton. Not one. You're kidding. No. 00:04:17.910 --> 00:04:20.970 We are piecing this animal together from a handful 00:04:20.970 --> 00:04:24.689 of partial specimens, mostly the ones Brown found 00:04:24.689 --> 00:04:27.170 over a century ago. Wow. Compared to something 00:04:27.170 --> 00:04:29.370 like Triceratops, which we find all the time, 00:04:29.829 --> 00:04:32.569 Ankylosaurus is like finding a needle in a haystack. 00:04:32.829 --> 00:04:35.350 That makes what we do know even more impressive. 00:04:35.949 --> 00:04:39.310 So let's try to build this beast properly using 00:04:39.310 --> 00:04:42.449 the modern science. How big is this thing? It 00:04:42.449 --> 00:04:44.850 was the heavyweight champion of the ankylosaurids. 00:04:45.189 --> 00:04:48.230 We are looking at an animal estimated to be between 00:04:48.230 --> 00:04:52.089 6 and 8 meters long. So that's roughly 20... 00:04:52.459 --> 00:04:55.740 To 26 feet. Exactly. And weight. Yeah. Estimates 00:04:55.740 --> 00:04:57.620 vary, but we're looking at potentially eight 00:04:57.620 --> 00:04:59.980 tons. Okay, so that's heavier than a large African 00:04:59.980 --> 00:05:02.220 elephant. Okay. But an elephant is tall. This 00:05:02.220 --> 00:05:04.959 thing is, what, flat? Think of a coffee table 00:05:04.959 --> 00:05:07.759 the size of a minivan. It was a quadruped, very 00:05:07.759 --> 00:05:10.740 low slung. And interestingly, the hind limbs 00:05:10.740 --> 00:05:12.839 were longer than the forelimbs. So it was tilting 00:05:12.839 --> 00:05:15.120 forward. A slight downward slope toward the head, 00:05:15.220 --> 00:05:17.660 yes. Which puts that great belly right near the 00:05:17.660 --> 00:05:19.779 ground. But the reason it weighed eight tons 00:05:19.779 --> 00:05:22.870 wasn't just fat. It was the armor. The osteoderms. 00:05:22.870 --> 00:05:25.449 The osteoderms. I love that word. Bone skin. 00:05:25.829 --> 00:05:28.509 Exactly. These aren't just scales sitting on 00:05:28.509 --> 00:05:30.470 top of the skin like a lizard. These are bones 00:05:30.470 --> 00:05:33.050 growing inside the skin. But here is where the 00:05:33.050 --> 00:05:35.250 engineering gets really interesting. How so? 00:05:35.529 --> 00:05:38.889 If you were to just grow a thick plate of solid 00:05:38.889 --> 00:05:41.449 bone, you'd have a problem. It would be too heavy. 00:05:41.649 --> 00:05:44.949 Heavy, yes. But also brittle. Think about ceramic. 00:05:45.069 --> 00:05:47.670 It's hard, but if you hit it with a sledgehammer... 00:05:47.800 --> 00:05:51.060 or a T -Rex jaw... It shatters. It shatters. 00:05:51.220 --> 00:05:53.579 So how did Ankylotaurus solve that? Biological 00:05:53.579 --> 00:05:55.899 composite materials. If you cut one of these 00:05:55.899 --> 00:05:58.639 armor plates open, they were thin -walled. But, 00:05:58.860 --> 00:06:01.480 and this is the amazing part, they were strengthened 00:06:01.480 --> 00:06:05.079 by pads of collagen fibers woven directly into 00:06:05.079 --> 00:06:08.129 the bone tissue. Woven into the bone. Like rebar 00:06:08.129 --> 00:06:10.750 in concrete. Even better. Think of Kevlar or 00:06:10.750 --> 00:06:13.750 modern ballistic armor. In biology, we call them 00:06:13.750 --> 00:06:16.949 Sharpies fibers. This collagen is elastic, so 00:06:16.949 --> 00:06:19.089 when a T -Rex bites down, the bone doesn't just 00:06:19.089 --> 00:06:21.790 crack. The collagen absorbs the energy. It absorbs 00:06:21.790 --> 00:06:24.069 and distributes it. It made the armor lightweight. 00:06:24.209 --> 00:06:26.350 Well, relatively lightweight, but incredibly 00:06:26.350 --> 00:06:28.649 durable. That is amazing. It's literally wearing 00:06:28.649 --> 00:06:31.149 a bulletproof vest. A bite -proof vest, certainly. 00:06:32.040 --> 00:06:34.139 And the arrangement of this armor is actually 00:06:34.139 --> 00:06:37.139 a hot topic. We know they had cervical half rings. 00:06:37.439 --> 00:06:40.240 Wait for what? Imagine a heavy bony oak around 00:06:40.240 --> 00:06:43.600 the neck, like a collar. Okay. But paleontologists 00:06:43.600 --> 00:06:46.019 are still arguing about exactly how the rest 00:06:46.019 --> 00:06:48.759 of the armor sat on the back. You have researchers 00:06:48.759 --> 00:06:51.300 like Kenneth Carpenter proposing one layout and 00:06:51.300 --> 00:06:54.000 others like Victoria Arbor and Philip Curry proposing 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:56.319 another. So even the map of the armor is still 00:06:56.319 --> 00:06:58.459 being drawn. We're still moving the puzzle pieces 00:06:58.459 --> 00:07:02.040 around, but we do know one thing for sure. The 00:07:02.040 --> 00:07:04.680 face was not a weak spot. The skull was armored, 00:07:04.800 --> 00:07:07.860 too. Completely. It's called caputiguli cranial 00:07:07.860 --> 00:07:10.959 ornamentation. Basically, as the Ankylosaurus 00:07:10.959 --> 00:07:14.100 grew up, the outer surface of its skull bones 00:07:14.100 --> 00:07:17.100 remodeled into these tile -like structures. It 00:07:17.100 --> 00:07:19.060 actually obliterated the sutures between the 00:07:19.060 --> 00:07:21.540 bones. So the skull became one solid helmet. 00:07:21.720 --> 00:07:25.139 A seamless helmet. No weak points. Even the eyelids 00:07:25.139 --> 00:07:27.819 had bone plates. It had bone eyelids. Armored 00:07:27.819 --> 00:07:30.100 shutters for its eyes. Okay, so we have the shield, 00:07:30.279 --> 00:07:33.019 the fused lizard part. Now we need to talk about 00:07:33.019 --> 00:07:35.699 the weapon, the club. Because in the cartoons, 00:07:35.860 --> 00:07:38.399 it's just a bowling ball on a string. But looking 00:07:38.399 --> 00:07:41.120 at the notes, the physics of this thing are terrifying. 00:07:41.420 --> 00:07:44.180 It's a sophisticated weapon system. It's not 00:07:44.180 --> 00:07:46.740 just a rock. First, you have the club itself, 00:07:46.819 --> 00:07:49.360 which wasn't... a perfect ball, it was composed 00:07:49.360 --> 00:07:52.480 of two massive osteoderms on the sides, like 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:55.500 huge lobes, with a row of smaller ones down the 00:07:55.500 --> 00:07:58.199 middle. But here's my question. If I swing a 00:07:58.199 --> 00:08:00.180 hundred pound weight at the end of a long tail, 00:08:00.420 --> 00:08:03.740 wouldn't I just snap my own spine or at least 00:08:03.740 --> 00:08:05.970 break the tail? That is the engineering challenge. 00:08:06.230 --> 00:08:08.329 And Ankylosaurus solved it with the handle. The 00:08:08.329 --> 00:08:10.870 handle. The last seven vertebrae of the tail 00:08:10.870 --> 00:08:13.709 were highly modified. They were interlocked and 00:08:13.709 --> 00:08:16.089 often fused co -ossified. There's that fusion 00:08:16.089 --> 00:08:18.509 again. Right. And on top of that, they had ossified 00:08:18.509 --> 00:08:21.029 tendons running along the tail. Wait. Ossified 00:08:21.029 --> 00:08:22.949 tendons. You mean the soft tissue turned to bone? 00:08:23.230 --> 00:08:25.550 Yes. Imagine the cables in a suspension bridge, 00:08:25.750 --> 00:08:28.829 but they have turned into solid steel rods. This 00:08:28.829 --> 00:08:31.269 created a completely rigid handle, so when the 00:08:31.269 --> 00:08:34.009 animal swung its hips, that force was trans - 00:08:34.029 --> 00:08:36.470 transmitted instantly to the club without the 00:08:36.470 --> 00:08:38.750 tail buckling or bending. So it's not a whip. 00:08:38.889 --> 00:08:42.570 It's a mace, a rigid mace. Exactly. And for a 00:08:42.570 --> 00:08:44.950 while, scientists debated, was this actually 00:08:44.950 --> 00:08:48.649 a weapon or was it? A decoy. A decoy. Like, hey, 00:08:48.710 --> 00:08:51.269 Mr. T -Rex, bite this hard thing instead of my 00:08:51.269 --> 00:08:54.129 head. That was a theory back in 1993 by Tony 00:08:54.129 --> 00:08:56.450 Salborn. He thought it looked like a dummy head 00:08:56.450 --> 00:09:00.009 to lure predators. I mean, evolution is weird, 00:09:00.129 --> 00:09:03.049 but building a rigid bone handle and a massive 00:09:03.049 --> 00:09:06.129 club just to look like a fake head seems like 00:09:06.129 --> 00:09:07.950 a lot of effort for a bluff. And that's where 00:09:07.950 --> 00:09:10.629 most paleontologists land today. The weapon theory 00:09:10.629 --> 00:09:12.990 is the preferred one. Studies on the mechanics 00:09:12.990 --> 00:09:15.769 suggest the tail could swing 100 degrees laterally. 00:09:16.139 --> 00:09:18.240 That is a huge range of motion. It is. And the 00:09:18.240 --> 00:09:20.639 impact force. Yeah. We've run the models. It 00:09:20.639 --> 00:09:22.500 was sufficient to break the metatarsal bones 00:09:22.500 --> 00:09:25.019 of a large theropod. The metatarsals. Yeah, that's 00:09:25.019 --> 00:09:26.820 the ankle, right? The foot. The foot and ankle 00:09:26.820 --> 00:09:29.960 bones, yes. So imagine a T -Rex stalking an ankylosaurus. 00:09:30.460 --> 00:09:33.500 The tank pivots, swings that rigid handle, and 00:09:33.500 --> 00:09:36.340 crack. It shatters the T -Rex's leg. And a T 00:09:36.340 --> 00:09:38.639 -Rex with a broken leg, yeah. Is a dead T -Rex. 00:09:38.679 --> 00:09:40.679 It can't hunt. It starves. This was a lethal 00:09:40.679 --> 00:09:42.799 defense. But here's a nuance that I love. This 00:09:42.799 --> 00:09:45.970 seems to be an adult adaptation. When we find 00:09:45.970 --> 00:09:48.230 juvenile ankylosaurs, their clubs aren't fully 00:09:48.230 --> 00:09:50.950 ossified. They're soft. They wouldn't have been 00:09:50.950 --> 00:09:53.309 able to deliver that bone -crushing blow. So 00:09:53.309 --> 00:09:55.629 the kids had to hide, but the adults could stand 00:09:55.629 --> 00:09:58.190 and fight. It suggests the weapon developed as 00:09:58.190 --> 00:10:01.169 they reached maturity. Which also leads to another 00:10:01.169 --> 00:10:04.809 theory. Maybe they didn't just use them on T 00:10:04.809 --> 00:10:07.549 -Rex. But on each other. Maybe they used them 00:10:07.549 --> 00:10:10.960 on each other. Intraspecific combat. Fighting 00:10:10.960 --> 00:10:14.179 for mates or territory. Exactly. That is a scary 00:10:14.179 --> 00:10:18.620 thought. Two eight -ton tanks swinging bone maces 00:10:18.620 --> 00:10:22.019 at each other's flanks. The sound of that impact 00:10:22.019 --> 00:10:23.879 must have been thunderous. It would have been 00:10:23.879 --> 00:10:26.860 visceral. Speaking of sound and senses, we have 00:10:26.860 --> 00:10:28.960 to talk about the skull again. Because when I 00:10:28.960 --> 00:10:30.340 was reading through the anatomy section, the 00:10:30.340 --> 00:10:32.440 thing that stood out to me wasn't just the armor. 00:10:32.879 --> 00:10:36.000 It was the nose. The nose is the key to understanding 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:38.799 how truly weird this animal was. Paint the picture 00:10:38.799 --> 00:10:40.940 for us. What did this dinosaur's face look like? 00:10:41.240 --> 00:10:43.980 Okay, so picture a triangular skull, wider than 00:10:43.980 --> 00:10:46.860 it is long. It has these horns pointing backward 00:10:46.860 --> 00:10:49.779 and down from the cheatsjugal horns. But the 00:10:49.779 --> 00:10:53.049 snout... The snout underwent what paleontologists 00:10:53.049 --> 00:10:56.210 call an extreme transformation. Extreme compared 00:10:56.210 --> 00:10:58.629 to what? Compared to its relatives and really 00:10:58.629 --> 00:11:01.750 to most animals. In almost every dinosaur, the 00:11:01.750 --> 00:11:04.769 nostrils face forward. You breathe in, air goes 00:11:04.769 --> 00:11:08.370 back. Simple. Right. In Ankylosaurus, the nostrils 00:11:08.370 --> 00:11:11.389 face sideways and downward. That seems inefficient. 00:11:11.850 --> 00:11:14.269 It gets stranger. Inside the snout, the nasal 00:11:14.269 --> 00:11:16.149 passages didn't just go straight to the lungs. 00:11:16.330 --> 00:11:18.850 They looped. They looped. Think of a trombone 00:11:18.850 --> 00:11:21.370 slide crammed inside the skull. The nasal chambers 00:11:21.370 --> 00:11:24.070 were elongated, twisted, and looped around. Okay, 00:11:24.110 --> 00:11:26.970 why? Nature doesn't usually build complex plumbing 00:11:26.970 --> 00:11:29.129 for no reason. What is the benefit of having 00:11:29.129 --> 00:11:31.830 a trombone in your nose? There are two main hypotheses, 00:11:32.269 --> 00:11:34.809 and they might both be true. The first is heat 00:11:34.809 --> 00:11:37.870 and water balance. Like a radiator. Exactly. 00:11:38.269 --> 00:11:40.549 Remember, this is a massive animal in a warm 00:11:40.549 --> 00:11:43.639 environment. By lengthening the passage, you 00:11:43.639 --> 00:11:46.200 increase the surface area of the mucus membranes. 00:11:46.379 --> 00:11:48.700 This allows the animal to modify the temperature 00:11:48.700 --> 00:11:51.580 of the air before it hits the lungs. So it cools 00:11:51.580 --> 00:11:54.179 the air down. Or warms it up. But more importantly, 00:11:54.399 --> 00:11:57.440 it helps reclaim moisture. When you breathe out, 00:11:57.519 --> 00:12:00.919 you lose water. If you have a long, looping nasal 00:12:00.919 --> 00:12:03.700 passage, you can trap that moisture before it 00:12:03.700 --> 00:12:06.879 leaves the body. For a big animal, staying hydrated 00:12:06.879 --> 00:12:09.240 is a constant battle. That makes sense. It's 00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:11.940 an AC unit and a humidifier. This is the second 00:12:11.940 --> 00:12:14.500 theory. Sound. The trombone effect. Right. Those 00:12:14.500 --> 00:12:16.940 loops could act as a resonance chamber. This 00:12:16.940 --> 00:12:19.159 would allow ankylosaurus to produce low frequency 00:12:19.159 --> 00:12:21.440 sounds. So instead of a high pitched screech, 00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:25.580 we're talking a bass drop. A deep rumbling hum, 00:12:25.700 --> 00:12:27.740 something you might feel in your chest more than 00:12:27.740 --> 00:12:30.460 you hear. That is incredibly cool. And did all 00:12:30.460 --> 00:12:32.519 this remodeling mess up their sense of smell? 00:12:32.879 --> 00:12:35.120 Quite the opposite. The olfactory region was 00:12:35.120 --> 00:12:36.940 pushed to the side to make room for the loops, 00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:40.019 but it was huge. Some researchers suggest they 00:12:40.019 --> 00:12:42.480 might have had stereo olfaction. Smelling in 00:12:42.480 --> 00:12:45.460 stereo, meaning they can tell which nostril a 00:12:45.460 --> 00:12:47.600 smell was coming from. Potentially. It would 00:12:47.600 --> 00:12:49.740 allow them to pinpoint the direction of a predator 00:12:49.740 --> 00:12:53.960 or a delicious fern with incredible accuracy. 00:12:54.440 --> 00:12:56.759 So let's look at the full package. We have a 00:12:56.759 --> 00:13:00.500 tank with a bone -crushing tail, a radiator in 00:13:00.500 --> 00:13:04.159 its nose, and a super sniffer. What was fueling 00:13:04.159 --> 00:13:07.419 this biological machine? Ferns. Lots and lots 00:13:07.419 --> 00:13:09.919 of ferns. Seems so underwhelming for such a beast. 00:13:10.159 --> 00:13:12.200 It was an herbivore, obviously, but the shape 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:14.679 of the muzzle tells us how it ate. It had a very 00:13:14.679 --> 00:13:17.519 broad beak. Which usually means it wasn't picky, 00:13:17.679 --> 00:13:20.019 right? Correct. If you have a narrow snout, you 00:13:20.019 --> 00:13:22.120 can reach in and pick specific tasty leaves. 00:13:22.500 --> 00:13:24.679 If you have a broad snout like ankylosaurus, 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:27.500 you are a lawnmower. You're a non -selective 00:13:27.500 --> 00:13:29.360 browser. You're a vacuum cleaner, basically. 00:13:29.460 --> 00:13:31.200 It would just sweep that head back and forth 00:13:31.200 --> 00:13:32.860 and grab everything near the ground. And the 00:13:32.860 --> 00:13:36.440 teeth. Tiny, leaf -shaped, smooth -sided, and 00:13:36.440 --> 00:13:38.720 honestly pathetic relative to the body size. 00:13:39.000 --> 00:13:42.539 So eight tons of animal, tiny teeth. They weren't 00:13:42.539 --> 00:13:44.679 chewing their food much. No chewing. They were 00:13:44.679 --> 00:13:46.799 just stripping and swallowing. And that leads 00:13:46.799 --> 00:13:50.320 us back to the great belly. To process all that 00:13:50.320 --> 00:13:53.500 unshewed, fibrous vegetation, they likely relied 00:13:53.500 --> 00:13:56.179 on hindgut fermentation. The fermentation tank. 00:13:56.240 --> 00:14:00.190 Literally. The massive rib cage suggests a huge 00:14:00.190 --> 00:14:03.509 digestive system where bacteria would break down 00:14:03.509 --> 00:14:05.570 the cellulose. It would have been a gas factory. 00:14:05.769 --> 00:14:08.950 So majestic as it was, it was walking around 00:14:08.950 --> 00:14:11.149 burping and farting methane constantly. It probably 00:14:11.149 --> 00:14:13.429 smelled terrible, yes. Now, I read a really weird 00:14:13.429 --> 00:14:15.490 theory in the notes about digging. Can we touch 00:14:15.490 --> 00:14:18.809 on that? Because... Looking at this tank, I don't 00:14:18.809 --> 00:14:21.149 see a burrower. This is one of those, wait, what, 00:14:21.289 --> 00:14:23.669 theories? Some paleontologists have looked at 00:14:23.669 --> 00:14:26.029 the snout structure, specifically the way the 00:14:26.029 --> 00:14:28.690 rostrum is shaped, and noticed it shares similarities 00:14:28.690 --> 00:14:31.610 with digging animals, like blind snakes. Blind 00:14:31.610 --> 00:14:33.909 snakes. Yeah. The theory is that Ankylosaurus 00:14:33.909 --> 00:14:36.649 might have used that shovel -shaped face to dig 00:14:36.649 --> 00:14:39.990 for roots or tubers. Some have even gone out 00:14:39.990 --> 00:14:41.690 on a limb and suggested they could have been 00:14:41.690 --> 00:14:44.269 omnivorous, maybe digging for grubs or insects. 00:14:44.690 --> 00:14:47.580 An omnivorous tank. That's terrifying. It's speculative, 00:14:47.799 --> 00:14:50.320 but it shows that we shouldn't pigeonhole these 00:14:50.320 --> 00:14:52.899 animals just because they look like cows. So 00:14:52.899 --> 00:14:55.360 where did this animal live? We said Hell Creek, 00:14:55.500 --> 00:14:57.399 but that's a big place. This connects back to 00:14:57.399 --> 00:14:59.500 why the fossils are so rare. The rarity suggests 00:14:59.500 --> 00:15:02.100 they might have lived in upland areas. Upland 00:15:02.100 --> 00:15:04.320 meaning? The hills. Away from the rivers. Exactly. 00:15:04.899 --> 00:15:07.539 Fossilization usually happens in lowlands where 00:15:07.539 --> 00:15:10.860 rivers flood and bury things in mud. Upland environments 00:15:10.860 --> 00:15:13.159 are erosional. Things break down and disappear. 00:15:14.080 --> 00:15:16.440 If Ankylosaurus preferred the hills, fewer of 00:15:16.440 --> 00:15:18.179 them would get buried. So they were mountain 00:15:18.179 --> 00:15:20.899 men. In a sense. And interestingly, it didn't 00:15:20.899 --> 00:15:24.080 overlap much with Edmontonia. Edmontonia was 00:15:24.080 --> 00:15:26.519 a nodosaur, another type of armored dinosaur 00:15:26.519 --> 00:15:29.059 living at the same time. But Edmontonia seems 00:15:29.059 --> 00:15:31.039 to have preferred the lowlands. So they split 00:15:31.039 --> 00:15:33.279 the map. Niche partitioning. They stayed out 00:15:33.279 --> 00:15:35.200 of each other's way. Edmontonia in the swamp, 00:15:35.460 --> 00:15:37.700 Ankylosaurus in the high ground. Let's pivot 00:15:37.700 --> 00:15:40.440 to how the world sees Ankylosaurus. Because as 00:15:40.440 --> 00:15:42.919 we said, it's an icon. I remember seeing pictures 00:15:42.919 --> 00:15:46.080 of the 1964 World's Fair sculpture. That really 00:15:46.080 --> 00:15:48.659 cemented the image for a generation. It did. 00:15:49.340 --> 00:15:52.840 But here is the contradiction. Angelosaurus is 00:15:52.840 --> 00:15:56.070 the most famous member of its family. But scientifically, 00:15:56.470 --> 00:16:00.470 it is actually the weird cousin. How so? It has 00:16:00.470 --> 00:16:03.169 features like those side -facing nostrils and 00:16:03.169 --> 00:16:06.210 the specific arrangement of the armor that aren't 00:16:06.210 --> 00:16:08.649 seen in its relatives like Euoplocephalus. Ah. 00:16:08.889 --> 00:16:12.409 So we use Ankylosaurus as the example for the 00:16:12.409 --> 00:16:14.990 whole group, but it's actually bizarre and not 00:16:14.990 --> 00:16:17.129 very representative. That is funny. It's like 00:16:17.129 --> 00:16:19.809 using a platypus to explain mammals. Oh, yes. 00:16:19.929 --> 00:16:22.620 Mammals lay eggs and have bills. A little bit, 00:16:22.659 --> 00:16:25.080 yes. And then, of course, there's Jurassic Park. 00:16:25.259 --> 00:16:27.820 We have to touch on the movies. The movies love 00:16:27.820 --> 00:16:30.659 ankylosaurus. Yeah. But they almost always get 00:16:30.659 --> 00:16:32.679 the physics wrong. They show them running fast 00:16:32.679 --> 00:16:34.919 and swinging their tails wildly like flexible 00:16:34.919 --> 00:16:37.139 whips. And we know that's wrong because of the 00:16:37.139 --> 00:16:39.350 handle. Right. As we discussed, the tail was 00:16:39.350 --> 00:16:42.409 rigid, the swing was calculated, and the animal 00:16:42.409 --> 00:16:44.870 was heavy. It wasn't galloping. Also, the movie 00:16:44.870 --> 00:16:46.990 ones always have those huge spikes sticking out 00:16:46.990 --> 00:16:49.309 of the sides. Which looks very cool, I admit. 00:16:49.450 --> 00:16:51.850 But those spikes actually belong to nodosaurs. 00:16:52.409 --> 00:16:54.970 Ankylosaurs didn't have long lateral spikes. 00:16:55.230 --> 00:16:58.090 It relied on the flat, heavy armor and the club. 00:16:58.370 --> 00:17:00.789 So the movie version is a Frankenstein monster 00:17:00.789 --> 00:17:03.629 of different dinosaurs. It's a best -of compilation 00:17:03.629 --> 00:17:06.910 of armored dinosaur features, not a real ankylosaurus. 00:17:07.579 --> 00:17:09.599 You know, reality is a bit more grounded, but 00:17:09.599 --> 00:17:11.920 honestly, I think the real version is more impressive. 00:17:12.140 --> 00:17:15.259 I agree completely. So let's wrap this up. We've 00:17:15.259 --> 00:17:18.119 gone from a plastic toy to a physiological marvel. 00:17:18.220 --> 00:17:21.140 We have. When you look at Ankylosaurus now, I 00:17:21.140 --> 00:17:24.859 don't want you to see a slow, dumb rock. I want 00:17:24.859 --> 00:17:28.440 you to see a six -ton fermentation tank with 00:17:28.440 --> 00:17:31.119 a bulletproof vest made of bone -woven collagen. 00:17:31.480 --> 00:17:33.779 And a nose that looped like a trombone. It's 00:17:33.779 --> 00:17:35.799 a testament to how evolution solves problems. 00:17:35.960 --> 00:17:39.200 The problem was how to survive the most dangerous 00:17:39.200 --> 00:17:41.799 predators in history, and the solution was this 00:17:41.799 --> 00:17:44.000 incredible architecture. It really is incredible. 00:17:44.119 --> 00:17:46.200 And here's a final provocative thought to leave 00:17:46.200 --> 00:17:48.599 you with. We talked about how rare these fossils 00:17:48.599 --> 00:17:51.119 are. They're so rare. For every Triceratops or 00:17:51.119 --> 00:17:54.559 T -Rex we find, Ankylosaurus is a ghost. So imagine 00:17:54.559 --> 00:17:57.319 the late Cretaceous landscape. We picture it 00:17:57.319 --> 00:18:00.920 crowded with dinosaurs. But maybe Ankylosaurus 00:18:00.920 --> 00:18:03.839 was a solitary wanderer. Maybe it kept to the 00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:06.480 misty hills, away from the herds and the valleys. 00:18:06.740 --> 00:18:10.160 I can picture that. And maybe, just maybe, it 00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:12.839 was making those low -frequency sounds that reverberated 00:18:12.839 --> 00:18:15.920 through those nasal loops. A deep, thrumming 00:18:15.920 --> 00:18:19.130 call that would have terrified a rival. but a 00:18:19.130 --> 00:18:20.930 sound that we will never actually hear. That 00:18:20.930 --> 00:18:24.009 is a haunting and beautiful image, a silent giant 00:18:24.009 --> 00:18:26.309 in the mist. If you want to see just how far 00:18:26.309 --> 00:18:28.529 science has come, I encourage you to go online 00:18:28.529 --> 00:18:31.130 and look up the original 1908 reconstruction 00:18:31.130 --> 00:18:33.609 by Barnum Brown, the one with the arched back 00:18:33.609 --> 00:18:35.910 and no club, and compare it to what we know today. 00:18:36.210 --> 00:18:38.109 It's night and day. It really is. It's worth 00:18:38.109 --> 00:18:39.950 a search. Definitely. That's it for this deep 00:18:39.950 --> 00:18:41.009 dive. Thanks for listening.