WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.060 So we often talk about scientific discovery as 00:00:03.060 --> 00:00:06.179 this this moment of absolute clarity. You know 00:00:06.179 --> 00:00:08.380 you dig a hole you find a bone you slap a Latin 00:00:08.380 --> 00:00:11.019 name on it and boom history is written. Yeah. 00:00:11.140 --> 00:00:15.199 But the reality is usually messy highly bureaucratic 00:00:15.199 --> 00:00:18.370 and sometimes honestly. A little embarrassing. 00:00:18.609 --> 00:00:21.010 It really is. I mean, it is rarely as clean as 00:00:21.010 --> 00:00:23.329 the textbooks make it seem. Oh, absolutely. Right. 00:00:23.469 --> 00:00:25.789 Pileontology is effectively a centuries -long 00:00:25.789 --> 00:00:29.269 argument conducted through academic papers. Right. 00:00:29.350 --> 00:00:32.509 And today we are doing a deep dive into a specific 00:00:32.509 --> 00:00:35.429 argument, or maybe clerical error is the better 00:00:35.429 --> 00:00:37.350 phrase. We are looking at a creature from the 00:00:37.350 --> 00:00:40.329 Upper Triassic period. A very specific synodont 00:00:40.329 --> 00:00:43.049 found in Europe. Exactly. We are basing this 00:00:43.049 --> 00:00:45.409 on the scientific records and specific Wikipedia 00:00:45.409 --> 00:00:48.119 entry, but... the first thing you notice when 00:00:48.119 --> 00:00:49.700 you pull up the source material is the title. 00:00:49.880 --> 00:00:52.140 The name of the animal is in quotation marks. 00:00:52.320 --> 00:00:55.100 Which, you know, in the strict world of zoological 00:00:55.100 --> 00:00:57.399 nomenclature is effectively a giant warning sign. 00:00:57.679 --> 00:01:00.299 It's the academic equivalent of an under -construction 00:01:00.299 --> 00:01:03.439 banner. Yeah, the creature is, or at least was 00:01:03.439 --> 00:01:06.099 intended to be Honey Oblika, but because of a 00:01:06.099 --> 00:01:08.359 very rigorous rule about who gets to name what, 00:01:08.579 --> 00:01:11.599 this animal is currently stuck in a sort of... 00:01:11.849 --> 00:01:14.549 identity crisis it's a ghost in the system it 00:01:14.549 --> 00:01:17.409 really is so our mission for this deep dive is 00:01:17.409 --> 00:01:20.950 twofold we want to understand how paleontologists 00:01:20.950 --> 00:01:23.510 can reconstruct the life of a meat -eating stem 00:01:23.510 --> 00:01:26.510 mammal based on almost no evidence right from 00:01:26.510 --> 00:01:29.109 just fragments yeah and we also need to figure 00:01:29.109 --> 00:01:31.849 out why this specific creature is currently stuck 00:01:31.849 --> 00:01:35.120 in scientific limbo with an invalid name Because 00:01:35.120 --> 00:01:37.579 beyond the naming drama, which is fascinating 00:01:37.579 --> 00:01:40.140 and a little unfortunate, this is a perfect example 00:01:40.140 --> 00:01:42.959 of how taxonomy works and how it sometimes fails. 00:01:43.180 --> 00:01:45.140 So let's start with the bureaucracy, the air 00:01:45.140 --> 00:01:47.579 quotes mystery. The paper describing this animal 00:01:47.579 --> 00:01:50.840 was published in 1997 by Pascal Goodfra and Bernard 00:01:50.840 --> 00:01:53.219 Battelle. Right. They find these fossils, they 00:01:53.219 --> 00:01:55.519 analyze them, and they decide to name the genus 00:01:55.519 --> 00:01:58.010 Hania. Where does that name come from? Well, 00:01:58.030 --> 00:01:59.790 usually the etymology is pretty straightforward. 00:02:00.189 --> 00:02:03.269 They were likely honoring a colleague or a significant 00:02:03.269 --> 00:02:05.969 figure in the field named Han. You add the I 00:02:05.969 --> 00:02:08.509 -A suffix to Latinize it, and you have your genus 00:02:08.509 --> 00:02:10.830 name. Which is standard practice. Very standard. 00:02:10.969 --> 00:02:13.710 But then they hit a wall. Or rather, a web. A 00:02:13.710 --> 00:02:16.469 web. Yeah. They ran headfirst into the principle 00:02:16.469 --> 00:02:19.669 of homonymy. The International Code of Zoological 00:02:19.669 --> 00:02:23.250 Nomenclature is incredibly strict. No two animal 00:02:23.250 --> 00:02:26.289 genera can have the same name. Ever. Ever. It 00:02:26.289 --> 00:02:28.229 doesn't matter if one is a microscopic worm and 00:02:28.229 --> 00:02:30.370 the other is a blue whale. If the name is taken, 00:02:30.569 --> 00:02:33.810 it's taken. And Hania was taken. Long taken. 00:02:34.030 --> 00:02:36.569 Yeah. It turns out Hania had already been assigned 00:02:36.569 --> 00:02:40.819 to a genus of spider. Wow. Not recently either. 00:02:40.960 --> 00:02:42.780 This spider name had been on the books for a 00:02:42.780 --> 00:02:44.800 very long time. See, this is what surprises me. 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:47.580 Godfrey and Battelle are serious researchers. 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:51.180 I get that in 1997 we didn't have instant bugle 00:02:51.180 --> 00:02:53.319 searches for this stuff, but surely there was 00:02:53.319 --> 00:02:55.379 a central registry. How do you just miss that? 00:02:55.539 --> 00:02:58.240 It's actually surprisingly easy, especially in 00:02:58.240 --> 00:03:01.860 the pre -digital era. Entomology, the study of 00:03:01.860 --> 00:03:04.919 insects and spiders, and vertebrate paleontology 00:03:04.919 --> 00:03:07.680 are completely different worlds. Right, different 00:03:07.680 --> 00:03:10.699 lanes. Exactly. They publish in different journals. 00:03:10.800 --> 00:03:13.379 They attend different conferences. If you don't 00:03:13.379 --> 00:03:16.719 physically check the H section of the massive 00:03:16.719 --> 00:03:19.120 nomenclature volumes for every single living 00:03:19.120 --> 00:03:22.099 kingdom, you might easily miss a spider described 00:03:22.099 --> 00:03:25.199 back in the 1800s. So because a spider got there 00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:27.900 first, the Triassic dinosaur cousin gets the 00:03:27.900 --> 00:03:31.659 boot. Effectively, yes. Because two animals cannot 00:03:31.659 --> 00:03:34.759 share the same genus name, the name Hania for 00:03:34.759 --> 00:03:37.169 this synodont is occupied. and therefore it's 00:03:37.169 --> 00:03:39.569 not valid. Which explains the quotation marks. 00:03:39.629 --> 00:03:41.310 Right. It's the scientific community acknowledging, 00:03:41.669 --> 00:03:43.569 hey, we know what animal you're talking about, 00:03:43.689 --> 00:03:46.430 but we legally cannot call it this. The source 00:03:46.430 --> 00:03:48.289 material notes that the authors are aware of 00:03:48.289 --> 00:03:50.590 this error and will, quote, doubtless come up 00:03:50.590 --> 00:03:52.629 with a new name sometime in the future. Which 00:03:52.629 --> 00:03:54.889 is the very polite academic way of saying they'll 00:03:54.889 --> 00:03:56.650 get around to it. But it's been almost 30 years. 00:03:56.810 --> 00:03:58.969 Is this creature just languishing in a drawer 00:03:58.969 --> 00:04:01.569 somewhere with a sticky note on it? In a sense, 00:04:01.610 --> 00:04:04.129 yeah. But this happens a lot more often than 00:04:04.129 --> 00:04:07.520 you'd think. Revisiting a paper just to issue 00:04:07.520 --> 00:04:10.840 a replacement name, a noma novum, just isn't 00:04:10.840 --> 00:04:13.500 high priority compared to describing entirely 00:04:13.500 --> 00:04:16.259 new discoveries. So Hania remains temporarily 00:04:16.259 --> 00:04:19.459 nameless in the official record. Exactly. A creature 00:04:19.459 --> 00:04:21.560 without a valid name. Well, let's look at the 00:04:21.560 --> 00:04:23.660 creature itself. If we strip away the invalid 00:04:23.660 --> 00:04:26.540 label, what are we actually looking at? The findings 00:04:26.540 --> 00:04:29.680 are from the strata of Scenic Le Deport in France. 00:04:29.759 --> 00:04:32.180 Right. But we aren't talking about a full skeleton 00:04:32.180 --> 00:04:34.759 here. Not at all. We are talking about tiny, 00:04:34.759 --> 00:04:39.360 isolated teeth, no jaws, no femurs, just the 00:04:39.360 --> 00:04:42.420 absolute hardest part of the body surviving the 00:04:42.420 --> 00:04:44.620 ages. And this leads us to the description that 00:04:44.620 --> 00:04:46.259 really stood out to me in the source material. 00:04:46.420 --> 00:04:48.819 It explicitly says, apart from not yet having 00:04:48.819 --> 00:04:51.379 a proper name, these teeth look rather boring. 00:04:51.500 --> 00:04:53.759 Boring, yes. It's a great line. But boring in 00:04:53.759 --> 00:04:55.839 science doesn't mean it's not interesting to 00:04:55.839 --> 00:04:59.060 study, right? It usually implies something specific 00:04:59.060 --> 00:05:02.680 about the anatomy. Precisely. If a tooth is exciting, 00:05:02.860 --> 00:05:05.699 it usually has some wild specialization. Huge 00:05:05.699 --> 00:05:09.420 serrations, strange curving roots, really complex 00:05:09.420 --> 00:05:12.839 grinding basins. Boring just means it's relatively 00:05:12.839 --> 00:05:15.579 simple or generalized. So let's break down what 00:05:15.579 --> 00:05:18.079 boring actually looks like anatomically so we 00:05:18.079 --> 00:05:21.180 can get a mental image. Okay, picture the crown 00:05:21.180 --> 00:05:24.439 that's the part exposed above the gum line. Right. 00:05:24.540 --> 00:05:27.100 In this creature, the crown slopes backwards. 00:05:27.860 --> 00:05:30.660 It is not a straight vertical spike. So it's 00:05:30.660 --> 00:05:32.980 hooking back toward the throat. Exactly. Now 00:05:32.980 --> 00:05:35.560 look at the top edge. It has three cusps, or 00:05:35.560 --> 00:05:38.000 bumps, which the researchers noted are actually 00:05:38.000 --> 00:05:40.540 best seen from above rather than from the side. 00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:42.939 Okay, so a three -bumped ridge. Right. You have 00:05:42.939 --> 00:05:44.660 the main cusp in the middle, which is the largest. 00:05:44.759 --> 00:05:46.959 But the source described the apex of this middle 00:05:46.959 --> 00:05:49.459 cusp as somewhat blunt. So it's not a sharp needle 00:05:49.459 --> 00:05:51.720 point, more of a rounded mountain peak? Yes. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:54.319 And flanking that main central peak, you have 00:05:54.319 --> 00:05:57.399 two smaller side cusps. The text actually calls 00:05:57.399 --> 00:05:59.879 them the main cusp's colleagues. I love that 00:05:59.879 --> 00:06:02.379 phrasing, the colleagues. It's very descriptive. 00:06:02.579 --> 00:06:05.220 And these colleagues are also very blunt. But 00:06:05.220 --> 00:06:07.439 here is the key detail that makes it look boring 00:06:07.439 --> 00:06:11.220 or primitive. The cusps... are not well separated 00:06:11.220 --> 00:06:13.360 from that main cusp they sort of blend together 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:16.740 exactly in more advanced mammals cusps become 00:06:16.740 --> 00:06:20.420 very distinct sharp independent points used for 00:06:20.420 --> 00:06:23.240 precise puncturing or grinding here they are 00:06:23.240 --> 00:06:25.600 just mashed together into one lumpy mass and 00:06:25.600 --> 00:06:28.420 what about the root structure there is no constriction 00:06:28.420 --> 00:06:30.639 no narrowing between the crown and the root like 00:06:30.639 --> 00:06:33.120 a neck right in your teeth there is a neck in 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:35.339 this fossil the crown just flows directly down 00:06:35.339 --> 00:06:37.800 into the root without narrowing at all it's just 00:06:37.800 --> 00:06:40.360 a solid continuous pillar so we have a backward 00:06:40.360 --> 00:06:43.939 sloping three bumped blunt pillar -like tooth 00:06:43.939 --> 00:06:46.519 and this is the aha moment for me because while 00:06:46.519 --> 00:06:49.500 they look boring these teeth tell us a very specific 00:06:49.500 --> 00:06:51.459 story about function they do they were highly 00:06:51.459 --> 00:06:53.839 effective tools what were they doing if they 00:06:53.839 --> 00:06:56.439 are so blunt what is their purpose they were 00:06:56.439 --> 00:06:59.959 for shearing even if the tips are blunt the edges 00:06:59.959 --> 00:07:03.649 and the angle allow the teeth to slice. The analysis 00:07:03.649 --> 00:07:05.709 confirms these teeth were effective for cutting 00:07:05.709 --> 00:07:08.910 up small portions of prey. So that confirms the 00:07:08.910 --> 00:07:11.449 creature was a carnivore. Definitely a carnivore. 00:07:11.550 --> 00:07:13.990 Let's place this creature in its broader biological 00:07:13.990 --> 00:07:17.629 context then. It's a cynodont. Yes. Which the 00:07:17.629 --> 00:07:20.790 source defines as a stem mammal. Let's clarify 00:07:20.790 --> 00:07:23.230 that term. Stem mammal doesn't mean it is a mammal, 00:07:23.370 --> 00:07:25.589 right? Correct. Think of the mammal family tree. 00:07:26.029 --> 00:07:29.050 The crown group includes all living mammals and 00:07:29.050 --> 00:07:31.930 their direct ancestors back to their most recent 00:07:31.930 --> 00:07:35.389 common ancestor. Stem mammals are the evolutionary 00:07:35.389 --> 00:07:37.949 branches leading up to that crown. So they have 00:07:37.949 --> 00:07:39.790 some of the traits but not the full package. 00:07:39.930 --> 00:07:43.339 Exactly. They might have complex teeth or changes 00:07:43.339 --> 00:07:46.319 to the jaw hinge, but they might still lay eggs 00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:49.199 or they lack the complex ear bone structure of 00:07:49.199 --> 00:07:51.720 modern mammals. And this creature lived during 00:07:51.720 --> 00:07:54.819 the Norian to Ratian stages of the upper Triassic. 00:07:55.040 --> 00:07:58.160 Which places us roughly 205 to 200 million years 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:00.300 ago. So to summarize where we are at, we are 00:08:00.300 --> 00:08:03.379 looking at a tiny, meat -eating ancestor cousin 00:08:03.379 --> 00:08:05.920 of mammals running around France millions of 00:08:05.920 --> 00:08:08.939 years ago, munching on small prey. Processing 00:08:08.939 --> 00:08:11.589 that prey specifically. Which is important. Why 00:08:11.589 --> 00:08:13.730 is the processing part important? Because of 00:08:13.730 --> 00:08:17.129 metabolism. If you are a cold -blooded reptile, 00:08:17.189 --> 00:08:20.029 you can tear off a chunk of meat, swallow it 00:08:20.029 --> 00:08:22.750 whole, and just sit on a warm rock for three 00:08:22.750 --> 00:08:25.470 days digesting it. But if you're a stem mammal... 00:08:25.470 --> 00:08:28.230 You need fuel fast. You might be generating your 00:08:28.230 --> 00:08:30.829 own body heat. You can't wait days to digest. 00:08:31.269 --> 00:08:34.029 You need to process the food in your mouth, cutting 00:08:34.029 --> 00:08:36.830 it up to increase the surface area so your gut 00:08:36.830 --> 00:08:39.639 can absorb the energy immediately. So even these 00:08:39.639 --> 00:08:42.720 boring teeth represent a huge evolutionary step. 00:08:42.840 --> 00:08:46.220 A massive step. It implies an active, high metabolism 00:08:46.220 --> 00:08:48.620 predator. Which brings us to the classification 00:08:48.620 --> 00:08:51.700 puzzle. And this sounds like it was a major headache 00:08:51.700 --> 00:08:54.659 for Godfrey and Bataille. Oh, it was a nightmare 00:08:54.659 --> 00:08:56.820 to figure out who this creature was related to. 00:08:56.899 --> 00:08:59.019 Because you can't just find a tooth and declare 00:08:59.019 --> 00:09:01.220 it a completely new thing without comparing it 00:09:01.220 --> 00:09:03.059 to everything else that lived at the same time. 00:09:03.100 --> 00:09:04.820 You have to connect the dots. Right. And this 00:09:04.820 --> 00:09:06.720 is where the boring nature of the teeth works 00:09:06.720 --> 00:09:09.120 against the researchers. If the teeth were highly 00:09:09.120 --> 00:09:11.720 specialized, you could easily say, oh, it belongs 00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:13.919 to this specific family. Because it would have 00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:16.659 a clear signature. Exactly. But because they're 00:09:16.659 --> 00:09:19.019 so generalized, they look a little bit like... 00:09:19.019 --> 00:09:21.460 a lot of things, but exactly like nothing. The 00:09:21.460 --> 00:09:23.980 source lists the lineup of suspects that compared 00:09:23.980 --> 00:09:25.860 these teeth to, and I want to go through these 00:09:25.860 --> 00:09:27.820 because it really highlights the diversity of 00:09:27.820 --> 00:09:30.720 the upper Triassic era. Let's do it. Suspect 00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:34.899 number one on the list, the Galosaurids. So Galosaurids 00:09:34.899 --> 00:09:37.840 are generally considered forerunners of the Eucenodons. 00:09:37.860 --> 00:09:39.940 They are an older model. Did our mystery teeth 00:09:39.940 --> 00:09:43.169 match? Not quite. Galosaurids tend to have a 00:09:43.169 --> 00:09:45.409 different cusp arrangement. Their teeth often 00:09:45.409 --> 00:09:48.149 have a much more distinct main cone, and the 00:09:48.149 --> 00:09:50.769 side cusps are more separated. Our fossil was 00:09:50.769 --> 00:09:53.389 too blunt to mash together. Okay, suspect number 00:09:53.389 --> 00:09:57.450 two, Cynognathus. Now that is a heavy hitter. 00:09:58.309 --> 00:10:00.409 Cynognathus was a large, wolf -sized predator. 00:10:01.009 --> 00:10:03.799 Massive head, incredibly powerful jaws. But we 00:10:03.799 --> 00:10:06.059 are looking at tiny teeth. Yeah. Could our fossil 00:10:06.059 --> 00:10:08.720 just be a baby Syngnognathus? That is always 00:10:08.720 --> 00:10:11.480 a valid question in paleontology. But Syngnognathus 00:10:11.480 --> 00:10:14.120 teeth have a very specific serrated edge, like 00:10:14.120 --> 00:10:16.200 a steak knife. They are designed for tearing 00:10:16.200 --> 00:10:18.879 large chunks of flesh. Our fossil doesn't have 00:10:18.879 --> 00:10:21.379 serrations. It's built for shearing small items, 00:10:21.480 --> 00:10:24.299 not ripping large prey. So it's not a baby wolf 00:10:24.299 --> 00:10:28.679 beast. Next up, the Cheniquidontids. Now we're 00:10:28.679 --> 00:10:31.820 getting closer to the mammalian line. Yeah. Cheniquidontids 00:10:31.820 --> 00:10:34.559 were active carnivores. They had very advanced 00:10:34.559 --> 00:10:37.500 cheek teeth that were starting to develop complex 00:10:37.500 --> 00:10:40.460 occlusion. Occlusion meaning the way the top 00:10:40.460 --> 00:10:42.740 and bottom teeth fit together. Exactly. They 00:10:42.740 --> 00:10:45.340 interlock perfectly for efficient chewing. Did 00:10:45.340 --> 00:10:48.519 our fossil have that? No, it lacked that complexity. 00:10:48.559 --> 00:10:50.659 It was too simple. It just didn't have the advanced 00:10:50.659 --> 00:10:53.399 wear patterns you would expect to see in a chinequodontid. 00:10:53.539 --> 00:10:55.940 All right. What about the trithelodontids? Now, 00:10:55.960 --> 00:10:58.879 this group is... Extremely close to mammals. 00:10:59.360 --> 00:11:01.340 Some of them are so mammal -like it's actually 00:11:01.340 --> 00:11:04.039 hard to draw the line. Did the teeth match? No. 00:11:05.100 --> 00:11:07.120 Trithelodontid teeth are often specialized differently. 00:11:07.460 --> 00:11:09.820 They sometimes look like modern insectivore teeth 00:11:09.820 --> 00:11:12.940 with very sharp, piercing cusps. And our source 00:11:12.940 --> 00:11:16.100 explicitly called our fossil's cusps blunt. Right. 00:11:16.419 --> 00:11:19.360 Our fossil is blunt. Trithelodontids are usually 00:11:19.360 --> 00:11:21.759 sharp and prickly. Which leaves us with the final 00:11:21.759 --> 00:11:25.450 suspect. The Dromotherids. These were small shrew 00:11:25.450 --> 00:11:27.889 -like creatures, superficially similar to our 00:11:27.889 --> 00:11:31.070 fossil because they are also small Triassic carnivores. 00:11:31.169 --> 00:11:33.629 But Dromotherids usually have teeth where the 00:11:33.629 --> 00:11:36.450 cusps are very well separated, distinct spikes 00:11:36.450 --> 00:11:39.309 on a root. And remember, our fossil has that 00:11:39.309 --> 00:11:41.690 mashed together look and no constriction at the 00:11:41.690 --> 00:11:44.570 root. There were clear differences. So Godfrey 00:11:44.570 --> 00:11:46.870 and Battelle go through this entire exhaustive 00:11:46.870 --> 00:11:49.750 lineup. It's not a Gellosaurid, not a Cynognathus, 00:11:49.769 --> 00:11:52.830 not a Chiniquidontid, not a Trithelidontid, and 00:11:52.830 --> 00:11:55.330 not a Dramatherid. It is distinct, but again, 00:11:55.470 --> 00:11:58.450 distinct in a generic way. It doesn't possess 00:11:58.450 --> 00:12:02.230 a unique smoking gun feature that cleanly links 00:12:02.230 --> 00:12:04.690 it to any of those established families. So they 00:12:04.690 --> 00:12:07.350 have to make a call. What scientific bucket do 00:12:07.350 --> 00:12:10.120 they drop this into? The authors decided to plump 00:12:10.120 --> 00:12:13.700 for synodontia in certes aedes. In certes aedes, 00:12:13.759 --> 00:12:15.860 which translates to what exactly? Literally, 00:12:15.860 --> 00:12:18.539 of uncertain seat or of uncertain placement. 00:12:18.879 --> 00:12:21.340 Basically meaning of some kind or other, or we 00:12:21.340 --> 00:12:23.559 just aren't sure where this sits. It's the miscellaneous 00:12:23.559 --> 00:12:25.399 bin. It is, but I think it's really important 00:12:25.399 --> 00:12:28.279 to frame that correctly. People hear in certes 00:12:28.279 --> 00:12:30.080 aedes, and they think it means the scientist 00:12:30.080 --> 00:12:33.580 failed. But in taxonomy, it's actually a very 00:12:33.580 --> 00:12:36.529 honest, crucial label. Why is it crucial? Because 00:12:36.529 --> 00:12:38.970 if the researchers had forced it into the cheniquidontid 00:12:38.970 --> 00:12:41.950 box just to keep things tidy, they would be muddying 00:12:41.950 --> 00:12:43.929 the evolutionary waters. They would be claiming 00:12:43.929 --> 00:12:46.230 an animal as part of a lineage when the evidence 00:12:46.230 --> 00:12:48.830 just doesn't support it. So it's better to admit 00:12:48.830 --> 00:12:52.029 ignorance than to guess wrong. Absolutely. By 00:12:52.029 --> 00:12:54.269 marking it in Serticetes, they are flagging it 00:12:54.269 --> 00:12:56.610 for future researchers. They are saying, here 00:12:56.610 --> 00:12:59.649 is a valid data point that does not fit our current 00:12:59.649 --> 00:13:02.600 map of the Triassic. Keep looking. So let's pull 00:13:02.600 --> 00:13:04.899 all of this together. We have recapped the journey 00:13:04.899 --> 00:13:08.700 of Hania Oblika, a creature known only by a few 00:13:08.700 --> 00:13:11.879 blunt, tiny, backwards -looping teeth found in 00:13:11.879 --> 00:13:14.399 France. Identified confidently as a small carnivore. 00:13:14.399 --> 00:13:16.120 Right, but it is currently stranded without a 00:13:16.120 --> 00:13:19.360 valid scientific name because of a 19th century 00:13:19.360 --> 00:13:22.259 spider. A truly bizarre twist of bureaucratic 00:13:22.259 --> 00:13:25.000 fate. It is. What is your biggest takeaway from 00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:27.360 this whole strange case? I think it emphasizes 00:13:27.360 --> 00:13:29.980 that... Even boring fossils are crucial pieces 00:13:29.980 --> 00:13:33.100 of the puzzle. We tend to focus on the spectacular 00:13:33.100 --> 00:13:36.600 finds, the complete skeletons, the massive apex 00:13:36.600 --> 00:13:39.580 predators. The museum centerpieces. Exactly. 00:13:39.759 --> 00:13:42.320 Yeah. But ecosystems are built on the backs of 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:45.700 millions of these small generalized creatures. 00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:49.039 They help map out the true diversity of life 00:13:49.039 --> 00:13:51.950 in the upper Triassic. Even if we don't fully 00:13:51.950 --> 00:13:54.570 understand their family tree yet, they proved 00:13:54.570 --> 00:13:57.330 that the shadows were full of active processing 00:13:57.330 --> 00:14:00.470 stem mammals. It's incredible how much narrative 00:14:00.470 --> 00:14:02.669 we can pull from something so small. It really 00:14:02.669 --> 00:14:05.049 is the magic of the discipline. I want to leave 00:14:05.049 --> 00:14:06.929 you with a provocative thought as we wrap up 00:14:06.929 --> 00:14:09.669 this deep dive. We spend a lot of time thinking 00:14:09.669 --> 00:14:12.269 about what is missing in the fossil record. You 00:14:12.269 --> 00:14:14.590 know, the gaps in the rock strata, the bones 00:14:14.590 --> 00:14:17.370 that washed away. Physical absences. Right. But 00:14:17.370 --> 00:14:19.509 consider how much of our history is defined by 00:14:19.509 --> 00:14:21.690 what is missing versus what is actually found. 00:14:22.009 --> 00:14:24.610 If a species name can get lost because of a clerical 00:14:24.610 --> 00:14:27.250 collision with a spider. And if an entire lineage 00:14:27.250 --> 00:14:30.110 is defined by a single generic tooth. Exactly. 00:14:30.309 --> 00:14:32.490 How many other nameless creatures are waiting 00:14:32.490 --> 00:14:34.730 right now in museum drawers, just sitting in 00:14:34.730 --> 00:14:36.830 a miscellaneous box waiting for someone to notice 00:14:36.830 --> 00:14:39.350 they need a rebrand? There is an entire unseen 00:14:39.350 --> 00:14:42.419 world in those archives. Something to think about 00:14:42.419 --> 00:14:45.480 the next time you look at a polished museum display. 00:14:46.159 --> 00:14:49.340 There is always a messier story behind the glass. 00:14:50.000 --> 00:14:52.379 Thanks for joining us on this deep dive. It was 00:14:52.379 --> 00:14:54.059 a pleasure. We will catch you on the next one.