WEBVTT 00:00:00.859 --> 00:00:03.339 Imagine standing next to an animal whose shoulder 00:00:03.339 --> 00:00:06.940 is, well, taller than a single -story house. 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:09.099 Which is already pretty hard to picture. Right. 00:00:09.160 --> 00:00:11.080 Now picture that same creature carrying highly 00:00:11.080 --> 00:00:14.460 modified teeth tusks. Really that way as much 00:00:14.460 --> 00:00:17.359 as the grand piano. It sounds completely made 00:00:17.359 --> 00:00:19.300 up. It sounds exactly like something out of a 00:00:19.300 --> 00:00:21.440 science fiction movie. Or, you know, maybe a 00:00:21.440 --> 00:00:27.579 fantasy novel. But it was very, very real. Welcome 00:00:27.579 --> 00:00:29.940 to today's deep dive into the source material. 00:00:30.260 --> 00:00:32.920 Yes, welcome. Today we are putting a magnifying 00:00:32.920 --> 00:00:35.380 glass on one of the most astonishing creatures 00:00:35.380 --> 00:00:38.219 to ever walk the earth. And we have a fascinating 00:00:38.219 --> 00:00:40.840 single source for you today. A really comprehensive 00:00:40.840 --> 00:00:44.100 Wikipedia article. Exactly. On a behemoth known 00:00:44.100 --> 00:00:47.850 as Mamet Borsoni. Or Borson's mastodon. And our 00:00:47.850 --> 00:00:50.490 mission for you today is threefold. Yep. First, 00:00:50.590 --> 00:00:52.310 we're going to explore the sheer, unbelievable 00:00:52.310 --> 00:00:54.549 scale of this animal. Then we're going to figure 00:00:54.549 --> 00:00:56.630 out why scientists insist on putting its name 00:00:56.630 --> 00:00:58.469 in quotation marks. And finally, we'll reconstruct 00:00:58.469 --> 00:01:00.630 exactly what the world looked like when it was 00:01:00.630 --> 00:01:03.140 alive. Because it is completely understandable 00:01:03.140 --> 00:01:07.319 if your mind immediately went to woolly mammoths 00:01:07.319 --> 00:01:09.079 or modern African elephants when you heard those 00:01:09.079 --> 00:01:11.280 dimensions. We all have that baseline. We do. 00:01:11.400 --> 00:01:13.920 But what we're looking at today is an incredible, 00:01:14.099 --> 00:01:16.780 often entirely overlooked chapter in Earth's 00:01:16.780 --> 00:01:20.680 history. Borson's mastodon isn't just another 00:01:20.680 --> 00:01:23.640 extinct elephant relative. Far from it. It's 00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:25.819 a creature that fundamentally challenges our 00:01:25.819 --> 00:01:28.159 understanding of mammalian evolution, physical 00:01:28.159 --> 00:01:32.519 scale, and how entirely different species can 00:01:32.519 --> 00:01:35.140 end up looking remarkably similar. It really 00:01:35.140 --> 00:01:37.980 rewards the curiosity of anyone willing to look 00:01:37.980 --> 00:01:40.519 past the famous Ice Age megafauna we all know 00:01:40.519 --> 00:01:43.319 so well. Absolutely. Okay, so let's unpack this 00:01:43.319 --> 00:01:46.079 sheer scale, because the numbers here are genuinely 00:01:46.079 --> 00:01:47.900 hard to wrap your head around. They really are. 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:50.700 When we talk about mammoth borsoni, we are talking 00:01:50.700 --> 00:01:53.280 about a true titan. I know our source highlights 00:01:53.280 --> 00:01:56.120 some specific fossil sites, particularly in northern 00:01:56.120 --> 00:01:58.219 Greece, that give us a clear picture of just 00:01:58.219 --> 00:02:01.140 how big these animals got. Give us the raw measurements. 00:02:01.319 --> 00:02:04.019 What are we actually dealing with here? Right. 00:02:04.079 --> 00:02:06.659 So based on partial skeletons found in a Greek 00:02:06.659 --> 00:02:09.680 village called Melia, scientists estimate that 00:02:09.680 --> 00:02:12.599 fully grown males of this species reach shoulder 00:02:12.599 --> 00:02:17.680 heights of up to 4 .1 meters. Wow. That is about 00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:20.719 13 .5 feet straight up in the air. That is staggering. 00:02:20.919 --> 00:02:23.060 And as for the weight, conservative estimates 00:02:23.060 --> 00:02:27.280 put them around 16 tons, or roughly 35 ,000 pounds. 00:02:27.419 --> 00:02:29.680 To put that into perspective for everyone listening, 00:02:29.860 --> 00:02:33.319 you would need to stack roughly eight average 00:02:33.319 --> 00:02:37.180 -sized passenger cars on a giant scale to match 00:02:37.180 --> 00:02:40.259 the weight of just one of these males. Just one. 00:02:40.509 --> 00:02:43.050 How does that compare to the giants we are more 00:02:43.050 --> 00:02:45.689 familiar with? At 16 tons, it is significantly 00:02:45.689 --> 00:02:48.349 heavier and taller than any modern elephant species. 00:02:48.729 --> 00:02:51.789 Right. It also completely dwarfs the famous American 00:02:51.789 --> 00:02:53.969 mastodon, which is what most people picture when 00:02:53.969 --> 00:02:56.050 they hear the word mastodon. Sure. These estimates 00:02:56.050 --> 00:02:58.330 actually put Borson's mastodon in the running 00:02:58.330 --> 00:03:00.550 for the title of the largest land mammal to have 00:03:00.550 --> 00:03:02.530 ever lived anywhere on Earth. The largest ever. 00:03:02.669 --> 00:03:05.469 Yeah. For a very long time, that undisputed heavyweight 00:03:05.469 --> 00:03:08.330 title belonged to Paraceratherium. The giant 00:03:08.330 --> 00:03:12.250 rhino. Exactly, the towering hornless rhinoceros 00:03:12.250 --> 00:03:15.270 from ancient Asia. But the discoveries in Greece 00:03:15.270 --> 00:03:17.930 suggest Borson's mastodon was right there in 00:03:17.930 --> 00:03:20.330 the exact same weight class, battling for the 00:03:20.330 --> 00:03:22.370 top spot. We haven't even talked about the most 00:03:22.370 --> 00:03:24.430 shocking detail yet. I'm looking at the notes 00:03:24.430 --> 00:03:26.909 on its tusks, and frankly, the physics of this 00:03:26.909 --> 00:03:29.750 don't even seem possible. Just how extreme were 00:03:29.750 --> 00:03:31.870 these modifications? We are talking about the 00:03:31.870 --> 00:03:34.729 longest known tusks of any animal ever discovered. 00:03:34.949 --> 00:03:38.210 The longest ever? Ever. One preserved tusk from 00:03:38.210 --> 00:03:40.479 a... probable male specimen found at that same 00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:44.120 site in Greece measured 5 .02 meters in length. 00:03:44.240 --> 00:03:48.020 5 .02 meters. That is 16 .5 feet of solid ivory. 00:03:48.280 --> 00:03:51.020 That's insane. A single tusk of that size would 00:03:51.020 --> 00:03:53.919 have an estimated life mass of around 137 kilograms 00:03:53.919 --> 00:03:58.159 or 302 pounds. That means you have over 600 pounds 00:03:58.159 --> 00:04:00.400 of dead weight hanging off the front of this 00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:03.280 animal's skull, just in tusks alone. Just imagine 00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:05.580 trying to navigate a dense European forest with 00:04:05.580 --> 00:04:08.020 two 16 -foot surfboards strapped to your face. 00:04:08.080 --> 00:04:09.680 It wouldn't be easy. The turning radius must 00:04:09.680 --> 00:04:12.000 have been absolutely terrible. If you get spooked 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:13.979 by something, you can't exactly just whip your 00:04:13.979 --> 00:04:16.000 head around without taking out three trees. The 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:18.819 mechanics of simply moving through a landscape 00:04:18.819 --> 00:04:22.199 would have dictated its entire lifestyle. Think 00:04:22.199 --> 00:04:24.459 about the immense, hyper -developed neck and 00:04:24.459 --> 00:04:27.079 shoulder strength required just to lift its head 00:04:27.079 --> 00:04:29.240 off the ground to walk. Just to take a step. 00:04:29.519 --> 00:04:32.680 Exactly, let alone to use those tusks to interact 00:04:32.680 --> 00:04:35.699 with its environment or fight rivals. The muscular 00:04:35.699 --> 00:04:38.069 architecture of a its front half must have been 00:04:38.069 --> 00:04:41.410 incredibly bulky. Like a massive biological counterweight 00:04:41.410 --> 00:04:43.529 to keep the animal from just tipping forward. 00:04:43.829 --> 00:04:47.699 Precisely. So with tusks that massive. I have 00:04:47.699 --> 00:04:49.879 to wonder, was every single one of these animals 00:04:49.879 --> 00:04:52.259 walking around carrying 600 pounds of ivory on 00:04:52.259 --> 00:04:54.139 his face or did that vary? Oh, it definitely 00:04:54.139 --> 00:04:57.839 varied. We see a drastic level of sexual dimorphism 00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:00.360 here. Meaning the males and females looked incredibly 00:05:00.360 --> 00:05:03.500 different. Right. In 1958, a fully grown skeleton 00:05:03.500 --> 00:05:06.579 was excavated from a sinkhole near Kaltensteinheim 00:05:06.579 --> 00:05:09.240 in central Germany. Because of its proportions, 00:05:09.620 --> 00:05:12.079 scientists determined it was a female. She had 00:05:12.079 --> 00:05:15.720 a shoulder height of about 3 .2 meters, so roughly 00:05:15.720 --> 00:05:20.180 10 .5 feet, and weighed an estimated 7 .8 tons. 00:05:20.439 --> 00:05:24.699 Wow. So a fully grown female. was literally half 00:05:24.699 --> 00:05:26.620 the size of the males. Basically half, yeah. 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:29.180 That is an extreme difference. I mean, a nearly 00:05:29.180 --> 00:05:32.600 8 -ton female is still a massive animal by any 00:05:32.600 --> 00:05:34.519 modern standard. Predestinately. That's roughly 00:05:34.519 --> 00:05:37.079 the size of a very large modern African bull 00:05:37.079 --> 00:05:40.860 elephant. But next to a 16 -ton male of her own 00:05:40.860 --> 00:05:43.120 species, she would have looked remarkably smaller. 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:46.040 And females also likely had much smaller tusks, 00:05:46.040 --> 00:05:48.819 which mirrors the dynamic we see in modern elephants 00:05:48.819 --> 00:05:51.379 today. Makes sense. They didn't need the extreme, 00:05:51.459 --> 00:05:54.579 exaggerated weaponry that males use for dominance 00:05:54.579 --> 00:05:57.540 displays or combat, which probably made foraging 00:05:57.540 --> 00:05:59.839 in those dense forests a bit easier for them. 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:02.199 I bet. Nellie. Here's where it gets really interesting, 00:06:02.300 --> 00:06:04.560 though. If you look at the title of our source 00:06:04.560 --> 00:06:06.879 or any formal scientific paper mentioning this 00:06:06.879 --> 00:06:10.160 animal, the word mammoth is always, always written 00:06:10.160 --> 00:06:12.040 in quotation marks. Yes, the famous quotation 00:06:12.040 --> 00:06:15.060 marks. It's this glaring grammatical anomaly 00:06:15.060 --> 00:06:18.199 in the middle of formal scientific classification. 00:06:18.920 --> 00:06:22.959 Why are scientists essentially using air quotes 00:06:22.959 --> 00:06:25.600 when they talk about this titan? To understand 00:06:25.600 --> 00:06:27.500 the quotation marks, we have to look back at 00:06:27.500 --> 00:06:30.000 the history of how this animal was named and 00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:32.860 the intense debates it sparked. Okay, take us 00:06:32.860 --> 00:06:37.339 back. The story starts in 1834. An American naturalist 00:06:37.339 --> 00:06:40.779 named Isaac Hayes described a fossilized tooth 00:06:40.779 --> 00:06:44.720 discovered in Italy. He named it Mastodon borsoni, 00:06:44.839 --> 00:06:47.519 honoring Professor Stefano Borson, who had originally 00:06:47.519 --> 00:06:50.439 studied the tooth. But as paleontology advanced 00:06:50.439 --> 00:06:52.860 over the decades, scientists tried to organize 00:06:52.860 --> 00:06:55.399 these ancient creatures into proper branching 00:06:55.399 --> 00:06:58.160 evolutionary family trees. That's when things 00:06:58.160 --> 00:07:00.319 got incredibly complicated. Because over the 00:07:00.319 --> 00:07:02.920 years, experts argued fiercely about where this 00:07:02.920 --> 00:07:05.319 giant belonged. Some argued it was clearly a 00:07:05.319 --> 00:07:07.399 species of mammut. Yes. But there's a massive 00:07:07.399 --> 00:07:09.339 geographic problem with putting it in the mammut 00:07:09.339 --> 00:07:11.399 genus, isn't there? That's exactly the problem. 00:07:11.519 --> 00:07:13.759 The type species for the genus mammut is the 00:07:13.759 --> 00:07:16.040 American mastodon. Which lived exclusively in 00:07:16.040 --> 00:07:19.100 North America. Exactly. So putting Forsen's mastodon 00:07:19.100 --> 00:07:22.399 in the exact same genus implies a massive intercontinental 00:07:22.399 --> 00:07:25.480 migration. Either the ancestors of the American 00:07:25.480 --> 00:07:28.300 mastodon marched from Eurasia over to North America 00:07:28.300 --> 00:07:31.800 or vice versa. Did they? Some historical scientists 00:07:31.800 --> 00:07:34.740 really champion this idea, but there is absolutely 00:07:34.740 --> 00:07:37.819 zero fossil evidence to support a migration of 00:07:37.819 --> 00:07:40.399 mammoth across the Bering Strait land bridge. 00:07:40.579 --> 00:07:43.120 So if they didn't march across continents, how 00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:45.459 do we end up with two animals on opposite sides 00:07:45.459 --> 00:07:47.600 of the planet that looks so incredibly similar 00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:50.019 that scientists initially insisted on giving 00:07:50.019 --> 00:07:52.470 them the exact same name? This brings us to a 00:07:52.470 --> 00:07:54.829 beautiful concept in evolutionary biology called 00:07:54.829 --> 00:07:57.389 parallel evolution. Parallel evolution. Right. 00:07:57.449 --> 00:08:00.209 The similarities between the North American mastodons 00:08:00.209 --> 00:08:02.699 and the Eurasian mammoth borsoni. aren't because 00:08:02.699 --> 00:08:06.019 they are direct, immediate siblings. They independently 00:08:06.019 --> 00:08:09.319 evolved similar traits from a much older, shared 00:08:09.319 --> 00:08:12.399 ancestor. In this case, that shared ancestor 00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:15.259 is likely a preacher called Xigalophon Turicensis. 00:08:15.399 --> 00:08:18.980 Xigalophon Turicensis. Exactly. The two lineages 00:08:18.980 --> 00:08:21.500 split and were separated for millions of years. 00:08:21.839 --> 00:08:25.360 But because both Brimsk were facing similar environmental 00:08:25.360 --> 00:08:28.379 pressures on their respective continents browsing 00:08:28.379 --> 00:08:31.459 in dense forests, supporting massive body weights, 00:08:31.560 --> 00:08:34.659 They essentially found the exact same evolutionary 00:08:34.659 --> 00:08:38.179 solutions completely independent of one another. 00:08:38.379 --> 00:08:40.059 That's like two different chefs on completely 00:08:40.059 --> 00:08:43.259 opposite sides of the world independently inventing 00:08:43.259 --> 00:08:45.860 the exact same recipe for chocolate cake. That's 00:08:45.860 --> 00:08:48.049 a great way to put it. They taste the same, they 00:08:48.049 --> 00:08:50.450 look the same, but their kitchens have completely 00:08:50.450 --> 00:08:53.070 different origins. And the scientific community 00:08:53.070 --> 00:08:56.309 recognized this issue. If they officially grouped 00:08:56.309 --> 00:08:58.409 them together in the genus mammoth, it would 00:08:58.409 --> 00:09:01.090 ruin the evolutionary family tree. It would make 00:09:01.090 --> 00:09:02.789 it inaccurate. It would create what's called 00:09:02.789 --> 00:09:05.169 a polyphaletic group. Think of it like putting 00:09:05.169 --> 00:09:07.450 a shark and a dolphin in the same biological 00:09:07.450 --> 00:09:10.009 family folder, just because they both have fins 00:09:10.009 --> 00:09:12.389 and swim in the ocean. Oh, I see. They look similar 00:09:12.389 --> 00:09:15.049 on the outside. But their evolutionary blueprints 00:09:15.049 --> 00:09:17.269 are completely different. The quotation marks 00:09:17.269 --> 00:09:19.809 are the scientific community's way of saying, 00:09:19.909 --> 00:09:22.549 we know this creature looks exactly like a mammoth, 00:09:22.610 --> 00:09:24.950 but we also know it's technically an evolutionary 00:09:24.950 --> 00:09:28.190 imposter. An imposter. Yes. And until we create 00:09:28.190 --> 00:09:30.990 a perfect new category for it, we're using this 00:09:30.990 --> 00:09:33.690 as a placeholder. So if it's an evolutionary 00:09:33.690 --> 00:09:36.909 imposter, a creature just wearing a mammoth disguise, 00:09:37.289 --> 00:09:40.450 does its skeleton give away the secret? When 00:09:40.450 --> 00:09:43.399 you look past the sheer size of the animal, What 00:09:43.399 --> 00:09:45.320 do the bones actually tell us about who it really 00:09:45.320 --> 00:09:49.059 was? The skeleton is the dead giveaway. Mammut 00:09:49.059 --> 00:09:52.559 Borsoni is essentially a paleontological Frankenstein's 00:09:52.559 --> 00:09:55.159 monster. Frankenstein's monster. Yes. Its anatomy 00:09:55.159 --> 00:09:57.679 is a bizarre, fascinating mix of its ancient 00:09:57.679 --> 00:10:00.360 ancestors and its parallel cousins. If you look 00:10:00.360 --> 00:10:02.659 at bones like the ulna and radius in the forearm 00:10:02.659 --> 00:10:05.700 or the femur in the thigh, the shapes look incredibly 00:10:05.700 --> 00:10:08.279 similar to the American mastodon. But if you 00:10:08.279 --> 00:10:10.340 look at the humerus in the upper arm or the tibia 00:10:10.340 --> 00:10:13.059 in the lower leg, those bones hold on to the 00:10:13.059 --> 00:10:15.360 primitive shapes of its much older ancestor, 00:10:15.759 --> 00:10:18.049 Zygolophodon. Wow, so it really is a mix and 00:10:18.049 --> 00:10:20.649 match. The source also mentions the bones were 00:10:20.649 --> 00:10:23.769 surprisingly graceful, meaning relatively slender 00:10:23.769 --> 00:10:26.409 for an animal of this size. And there's some 00:10:26.409 --> 00:10:28.470 really weird specifics in the joints too, right? 00:10:28.590 --> 00:10:31.190 Yeah, instead of throwing complex anatomical 00:10:31.190 --> 00:10:34.009 jargon around, think about your own elbow. All 00:10:34.009 --> 00:10:35.889 right, I'm thinking about it. Now imagine the 00:10:35.889 --> 00:10:38.710 bony tip of your elbow projecting out sideways, 00:10:38.990 --> 00:10:42.710 incredibly thick and heavily muscled. That sounds 00:10:42.710 --> 00:10:45.409 painful. Well, for them, that's the kind of highly 00:10:45.409 --> 00:10:48.169 specialized joint modification they needed. It 00:10:48.169 --> 00:10:50.750 was likely to support the sheer weight and mechanical 00:10:50.750 --> 00:10:54.129 stress of its massive front half. We see this 00:10:54.129 --> 00:10:56.330 mix and match anatomy in the skull and jaw as 00:10:56.330 --> 00:10:59.139 well. Like with the cusks. Right. The upper tusks 00:10:59.139 --> 00:11:02.039 completely lack the enamel bands that were present 00:11:02.039 --> 00:11:04.059 in its ancestors. What about the jaws themselves? 00:11:04.320 --> 00:11:06.899 With an animal this big, eating must have been 00:11:06.899 --> 00:11:08.899 a full -time job. Did they have a specialized 00:11:08.899 --> 00:11:11.940 setup for chewing? They apparently lacked permanent 00:11:11.940 --> 00:11:15.919 premolar teeth, which older, more primitive mastodons 00:11:15.919 --> 00:11:19.000 had. And the lower jaw is particularly interesting. 00:11:19.710 --> 00:11:22.289 The frontmost part is relatively short, but the 00:11:22.289 --> 00:11:25.370 weirdest part is the variation. Some individuals 00:11:25.370 --> 00:11:28.210 of Borson's mastodon still retain small, lower 00:11:28.210 --> 00:11:30.830 tusks. Like a second set of tusks. Yeah, that 00:11:30.830 --> 00:11:33.149 German female specimen we talked about had lower 00:11:33.149 --> 00:11:36.190 tusks about six inches long, but other individuals 00:11:36.190 --> 00:11:38.690 seem to have had completely tuskless lower jaws. 00:11:39.070 --> 00:11:41.470 That's wild. It really paints a picture of a 00:11:41.470 --> 00:11:43.809 species in the messy midst of an evolutionary 00:11:43.809 --> 00:11:47.009 transition. Okay, so we've built this colossal 00:11:47.009 --> 00:11:51.879 16 -ton body. with 16 .5 -foot tusks, a mix -and 00:11:51.879 --> 00:11:54.480 -match skeleton, and placeholder quotation marks 00:11:54.480 --> 00:11:56.840 around its name. But what was going on inside 00:11:56.840 --> 00:11:58.720 its head? Do we actually know anything about 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:01.179 its brain? We do, and it is an extraordinary 00:12:01.179 --> 00:12:03.960 piece of the puzzle. A brain case was discovered 00:12:03.960 --> 00:12:06.279 in Moldova that preserved the internal hollow 00:12:06.279 --> 00:12:08.500 space occupied by the brain. What scientists 00:12:08.500 --> 00:12:11.059 call an endocat. Exactly. When we look at that 00:12:11.059 --> 00:12:13.000 Moldovan brain case, we have to talk about the 00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:16.259 encephalization quotient, or EQ. EQ. Right, EQ 00:12:16.259 --> 00:12:18.399 is a way of measuring brain size relative to... 00:12:18.250 --> 00:12:21.149 to total body mass. Despite this animal weighing 00:12:21.149 --> 00:12:23.870 up to 16 tons, scientists estimate the brain 00:12:23.870 --> 00:12:26.210 of the Moldovan specimen weighed only about 4 00:12:26.210 --> 00:12:30.070 .7 kilograms. Weight. That is roughly 10 pounds. 00:12:30.149 --> 00:12:34.429 10 pounds in a 35 ,000 pound body. Yes. When 00:12:34.429 --> 00:12:37.169 you compare that to modern elephants, Borson's 00:12:37.169 --> 00:12:40.389 mastodon had a significantly lower EQ. Its brain 00:12:40.389 --> 00:12:43.330 was proportionally much, much smaller. That is 00:12:43.330 --> 00:12:46.230 a tiny brain for such a massive animal. It is, 00:12:46.330 --> 00:12:49.129 but smaller doesn't mean useless. The shape of 00:12:49.129 --> 00:12:52.429 the endocast is highly revealing. The areas responsible 00:12:52.429 --> 00:12:54.850 for higher order thinking weren't massive, but 00:12:54.850 --> 00:12:57.370 it shows a prominently developed temporal lobe. 00:12:57.389 --> 00:13:00.090 Okay. Even more striking, the front tips of the 00:13:00.090 --> 00:13:02.070 olfactory bulbs, the part of the brain dedicated 00:13:02.070 --> 00:13:05.129 to processing smells, are clearly visible and 00:13:05.129 --> 00:13:08.450 massive. Huge olfactory bulbs. Yes. In the American 00:13:08.450 --> 00:13:11.029 mastodon, those olfactory bulbs are way less 00:13:11.029 --> 00:13:13.580 prominent. We think of elephants today as highly 00:13:13.580 --> 00:13:15.679 emotional, intelligent creatures that mourn their 00:13:15.679 --> 00:13:19.419 dead, use tools, and solve complex puzzles. But 00:13:19.419 --> 00:13:21.379 this titan was playing a completely different 00:13:21.379 --> 00:13:23.480 evolutionary game, wasn't it? It really was. 00:13:23.700 --> 00:13:26.139 It didn't need a supercomputer for a brain. It 00:13:26.139 --> 00:13:29.019 was an animal deeply, profoundly tied to its 00:13:29.019 --> 00:13:31.179 sense of smell. Fascinating. You have to imagine 00:13:31.179 --> 00:13:33.559 this multi -storied giant moving through ancient 00:13:33.559 --> 00:13:36.659 forests, largely guided by a highly sensitive 00:13:36.659 --> 00:13:39.700 nose, sniffing out specific types of foliage, 00:13:40.039 --> 00:13:43.419 finding water sources in droughts, and locating 00:13:43.419 --> 00:13:46.200 mates across vast distances. So it wasn't solving 00:13:46.200 --> 00:13:49.129 puzzles. No, it survived for millions. of years 00:13:49.129 --> 00:13:51.710 by being the biggest, heaviest, best smelling 00:13:51.710 --> 00:13:54.809 tank in the forest. It interpreted its massive 00:13:54.809 --> 00:13:56.970 world through a sophisticated chemical landscape 00:13:56.970 --> 00:13:59.850 of sense rather than relying purely on complex 00:13:59.850 --> 00:14:02.870 problem solving. And what a world it was. Let's 00:14:02.870 --> 00:14:04.950 map out the neighborhood this giant lived in. 00:14:04.990 --> 00:14:07.870 Where exactly did this biological tank roam and 00:14:07.870 --> 00:14:11.049 for how long? Its domain was vast. Fossils have 00:14:11.049 --> 00:14:13.110 been found everywhere from the Iberian Peninsula 00:14:13.110 --> 00:14:15.370 in Western Europe all the way across to Greece, 00:14:15.549 --> 00:14:18.429 Ukraine, Turkey, and even as far east as Shaanxi 00:14:18.429 --> 00:14:21.250 in northern China. So practically across the 00:14:21.250 --> 00:14:24.669 entire Eurasian landmass. Pretty much. It spanned 00:14:24.669 --> 00:14:26.929 an incredible stretch of time, roaming from the 00:14:26.929 --> 00:14:29.570 late Miocene around 9 to 7 million years ago, 00:14:29.690 --> 00:14:31.809 all the way to the early Pleistocene roughly 00:14:31.809 --> 00:14:35.769 2 to 2 .5 million years ago. A run of up to 7 00:14:35.769 --> 00:14:38.820 million years is hugely successful. for any species. 00:14:39.529 --> 00:14:42.210 To fuel a 16 -ton body for that many millions 00:14:42.210 --> 00:14:45.330 of years, what exactly were they eating? Scientists 00:14:45.330 --> 00:14:47.710 used techniques like dental microware, looking 00:14:47.710 --> 00:14:50.190 at the microscopic scratches left on fossilized 00:14:50.190 --> 00:14:53.570 teeth, as well as isotopic analysis of the bones. 00:14:53.809 --> 00:14:56.009 And what did they find? These techniques revealed 00:14:56.009 --> 00:14:58.350 that mammut bursonia was a dedicated browser. 00:14:58.690 --> 00:15:01.370 It wasn't grazing on tough ground grasses like 00:15:01.370 --> 00:15:04.090 a modern cow. It was using its immense height 00:15:04.090 --> 00:15:07.830 to access leaves, twigs, and woody plants in 00:15:07.830 --> 00:15:10.009 the canopies of... temperate Pliocene forests. 00:15:10.289 --> 00:15:12.690 Now, I want everyone to picture the daily life 00:15:12.690 --> 00:15:15.090 of this browsing titan. It wasn't alone in those 00:15:15.090 --> 00:15:17.789 temperate European forests. What else was walking 00:15:17.789 --> 00:15:19.750 around in this neighborhood? It sounds like an 00:15:19.750 --> 00:15:23.289 ancient, surreal safari. Picture this 16 -ton 00:15:23.289 --> 00:15:26.350 giant casually stripping an entire massive branch 00:15:26.350 --> 00:15:28.769 of its leaves. Walking through the underbrush 00:15:28.769 --> 00:15:31.190 nearby is an ancient tapir. The tapir. There's 00:15:31.190 --> 00:15:33.309 a bizarre extinct species of rhinoceros called 00:15:33.309 --> 00:15:35.809 Stephanorhinus sharing the clearings. Wow. If 00:15:35.809 --> 00:15:37.649 you look up into the trees our mastodon is eating 00:15:37.649 --> 00:15:39.950 from, you might see a species of monkey called 00:15:39.950 --> 00:15:43.529 Mesopithecus. Monkeys, rhinos, and tapirs in 00:15:43.529 --> 00:15:46.230 places like modern -day France, Germany, or Greece. 00:15:46.470 --> 00:15:49.490 It's completely wild. But it wasn't just a peaceful 00:15:49.490 --> 00:15:52.870 herbivore paradise, was it? What were the predators 00:15:52.870 --> 00:15:55.750 like? The predator dynamics in this ecosystem 00:15:55.750 --> 00:15:58.710 were intense. Sharing those same forests were 00:15:58.710 --> 00:16:02.450 giant cheetahs, Essononix pardinensis, and a 00:16:02.450 --> 00:16:05.029 fearsome saber -toothed cat called Homotherium. 00:16:05.149 --> 00:16:07.429 Giant cheetahs and saber -toothed cats. Now, 00:16:07.470 --> 00:16:09.210 a saber -toothed cat isn't going to take down 00:16:09.210 --> 00:16:13.549 a healthy 16 -ton adult male mastodon. The sheer 00:16:13.549 --> 00:16:16.450 size of Borson's mastodon made adults virtually 00:16:16.450 --> 00:16:18.610 immune to predation. Right, nothing is attacking 00:16:18.610 --> 00:16:20.799 that. But those predators would have absolutely 00:16:20.799 --> 00:16:23.000 targeted the calves or the sick, which means 00:16:23.000 --> 00:16:25.139 the mastodons would have had to be hypervigilant, 00:16:25.299 --> 00:16:27.840 using that incredible sense of smell to detect 00:16:27.840 --> 00:16:29.919 a saber -tooth hiding in the tall brush. And 00:16:29.919 --> 00:16:31.860 they even shared the forest with other giant 00:16:31.860 --> 00:16:34.899 elephant relatives, too. The source mentions 00:16:34.899 --> 00:16:37.620 Anancus, another massive creature with a browsing 00:16:37.620 --> 00:16:40.799 diet. Yes, Anancus was a major part of that world. 00:16:41.019 --> 00:16:44.240 It paints a picture of a vibrant, highly diverse, 00:16:44.460 --> 00:16:47.340 ancient European ecosystem that feels utterly 00:16:47.340 --> 00:16:50.799 alien to us today. Yet, for millions of years, 00:16:50.980 --> 00:16:53.860 this deeply intertwined community of giant mammals 00:16:53.860 --> 00:16:57.980 was a stable reality. It was a functioning, thriving 00:16:57.980 --> 00:17:01.039 world that existed long before humans ever arrived 00:17:01.039 --> 00:17:03.480 on the scene. It was a world of giants that operated 00:17:03.480 --> 00:17:06.019 in a completely different ecological rhythm than 00:17:06.019 --> 00:17:08.339 anything we can observe today. As we wrap up 00:17:08.339 --> 00:17:10.380 this deep dive into the source material, let's 00:17:10.380 --> 00:17:12.480 look back at the key aha moments we've uncovered. 00:17:13.140 --> 00:17:15.599 We started with the sheer mind -bending scale. 00:17:16.059 --> 00:17:19.700 A 16 -ton animal carrying 16 .5 -foot tusks that 00:17:19.700 --> 00:17:22.920 weighed 300 pounds each, requiring insane muscular 00:17:22.920 --> 00:17:25.440 engineering just to walk. Incredible engineering. 00:17:25.900 --> 00:17:28.079 We unraveled the mystery of its quotation mark 00:17:28.079 --> 00:17:30.559 name, discovering how parallel evolution allowed 00:17:30.559 --> 00:17:32.740 two different lineages to independently build 00:17:32.740 --> 00:17:35.279 almost the exact same biological machine on two 00:17:35.279 --> 00:17:37.599 different continents. The evolutionary imposter. 00:17:37.980 --> 00:17:40.720 Exactly. We peeked inside its skull to find a 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:43.720 relatively tiny 10 -pound brain that prioritized 00:17:43.720 --> 00:17:46.539 a hyper -powerful sense of smell over complex 00:17:46.539 --> 00:17:49.460 intelligence. And we placed it right in the middle 00:17:49.460 --> 00:17:52.859 of a wild ancient Europe filled with giant cheetahs, 00:17:52.920 --> 00:17:55.960 monkeys, and saber -toothed cats. Synthesizing 00:17:55.960 --> 00:17:57.819 all of this raises an important question, one 00:17:57.819 --> 00:18:00.240 that touches on the very nature of history and 00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:02.940 deep time. What's that? We only know that Mamet 00:18:02.940 --> 00:18:05.859 Borsoni existed. We only know that it was perhaps 00:18:05.859 --> 00:18:08.359 the largest land mammal ever to walk the earth 00:18:08.359 --> 00:18:11.059 because of a few scattered teeth, some partial 00:18:11.059 --> 00:18:14.240 skeletons buried in Greek dirt and a single preserved 00:18:14.240 --> 00:18:17.359 brain case in Moldova. Just fragments. That is 00:18:17.359 --> 00:18:19.579 all that remains of an evolutionary dynasty that 00:18:19.579 --> 00:18:21.660 lasted millions of years. It leaves you wondering 00:18:21.660 --> 00:18:24.480 if a creature this massive, this widespread and 00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:26.880 this successful can completely vanish into the 00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:29.119 depths of deep time, leaving behind little more 00:18:29.119 --> 00:18:31.299 than a taxonomic puzzle with quotation marks 00:18:31.299 --> 00:18:34.000 around its name. What massive realities. of our 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:37.019 current world, what defining giants of our modern 00:18:37.019 --> 00:18:40.220 era might be completely invisible to the scientists 00:18:40.220 --> 00:18:42.880 of the distant future. That is an absolutely 00:18:42.880 --> 00:18:45.059 brilliant thought to leave everyone with today. 00:18:45.480 --> 00:18:47.960 It really puts our own place in the grand timeline 00:18:47.960 --> 00:18:50.400 of Earth into perspective. Thank you so much 00:18:50.400 --> 00:18:52.579 for joining us on this deep dive into the source 00:18:52.579 --> 00:18:55.059 material. We hope you walk away today feeling 00:18:55.059 --> 00:18:57.059 a little more connected to the ancient, giant 00:18:57.059 --> 00:18:59.359 history of our planet. Keep asking questions, 00:18:59.619 --> 00:19:02.339 keep looking at the world with curiosity, and 00:19:02.339 --> 00:19:04.500 keep digging into the fascinating mysteries of 00:19:04.500 --> 00:19:06.900 the past. Catch you on the next deep dive.