WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.799 Imagine finding a single 135 million year old 00:00:04.799 --> 00:00:07.919 puzzle piece buried in the dirt. Just one piece. 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.179 Right. Just one tiny piece. You wipe it off and 00:00:11.179 --> 00:00:13.439 immediately you declare to the world that you 00:00:13.439 --> 00:00:16.379 have solved the entire picture. Welcome to the 00:00:16.379 --> 00:00:18.539 Deep Dive. Glad to be here. You are the learner. 00:00:18.699 --> 00:00:21.600 And today we are unpacking a really fascinating 00:00:21.600 --> 00:00:25.219 case study from the taxonomic archives. We are 00:00:25.219 --> 00:00:28.300 looking at how one. isolated fragment of bone 00:00:28.300 --> 00:00:30.839 managed to ignite a nearly 200 -year scientific 00:00:30.839 --> 00:00:33.600 identity crisis. It really is wild. Yeah, if 00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:35.780 you've ever felt, you know, overwhelmed by trying 00:00:35.780 --> 00:00:37.560 to get the right answer on your first try, this 00:00:37.560 --> 00:00:40.640 story is absolutely for you. It's an incredible 00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:43.179 journey through the history of science. We are 00:00:43.179 --> 00:00:45.420 exploring the legacy of an extinct creature officially 00:00:45.420 --> 00:00:48.500 known in the scientific literature as Palaeornis 00:00:48.500 --> 00:00:51.289 cliftei. And our mission today is to trace how 00:00:51.289 --> 00:00:53.689 the interpretation of this single fossil has 00:00:53.689 --> 00:00:56.750 dramatically evolved. And fractured. And reformed 00:00:56.750 --> 00:00:59.409 over centuries. It is a brilliant look at how 00:00:59.409 --> 00:01:02.549 human knowledge is built, debated, and painstakingly 00:01:02.549 --> 00:01:05.349 revised. Okay, let's unpack this. Because we 00:01:05.349 --> 00:01:07.310 really need to set the scene before we get into 00:01:07.310 --> 00:01:10.269 the Victorian drama of it all. Oh, there's plenty 00:01:10.269 --> 00:01:13.390 of drama. So much drama. Our core subject for 00:01:13.390 --> 00:01:16.370 this deep dive is a single humerus, which is 00:01:16.370 --> 00:01:19.510 an upper arm bone. Right. And this bone was pulled 00:01:19.510 --> 00:01:22.629 out of the earth in England, specifically from 00:01:22.629 --> 00:01:25.150 a geological layer known as the Upper Tunbridge 00:01:25.150 --> 00:01:28.010 Wells Sand Formation. Which dates it perfectly. 00:01:28.209 --> 00:01:30.689 Exactly. We are talking about the early Cretaceous 00:01:30.689 --> 00:01:33.170 period, right in the Valenginian Age. Which puts 00:01:33.170 --> 00:01:36.230 this specific physical object at roughly 135 00:01:36.230 --> 00:01:39.629 million years old. 135 million years. It was 00:01:39.629 --> 00:01:42.420 just sitting in the ground for eons. just waiting 00:01:42.420 --> 00:01:45.359 to completely baffle generations of the world's 00:01:45.359 --> 00:01:48.420 top scientists. And that bafflement is precisely 00:01:48.420 --> 00:01:51.180 why this deep dive is so valuable for you to 00:01:51.180 --> 00:01:53.879 consider. This isn't just a list of dry historical 00:01:53.879 --> 00:01:56.980 dates or some niche paleontological footnote. 00:01:57.099 --> 00:01:59.159 Definitely not. This single arm bone represents 00:01:59.159 --> 00:02:01.599 one of the very earliest discoveries of a pterosaur 00:02:01.599 --> 00:02:04.299 ever made in England. That makes it a foundational 00:02:04.299 --> 00:02:06.819 piece of a highly complicated puzzle. A puzzle 00:02:06.819 --> 00:02:09.180 everyone wanted to be the one to solve. Yes, 00:02:09.180 --> 00:02:11.400 and when you understand the chaotic history of 00:02:11.400 --> 00:02:14.039 this bone, you understand the scientific method 00:02:14.039 --> 00:02:17.639 itself. You see the flaws, the ego clashes of 00:02:17.639 --> 00:02:20.139 early naturalists, and the eventual rigorous 00:02:20.139 --> 00:02:22.280 corrections that bring us closer to reality. 00:02:22.520 --> 00:02:25.500 So let's travel back to the 1830s and 1840s to 00:02:25.500 --> 00:02:27.219 meet the person who pulled this puzzle piece 00:02:27.219 --> 00:02:30.080 out of the ground. Gideon Mantell. Mantell's 00:02:30.080 --> 00:02:32.280 quite the figure. He makes this initial discovery, 00:02:32.500 --> 00:02:35.000 looks at this ancient upper arm bone, and comes 00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:37.680 to a highly confident conclusion in his publications 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:41.819 from 1837 and 1844. He announces to the scientific 00:02:41.819 --> 00:02:44.539 establishment that he has found a prehistoric 00:02:44.539 --> 00:02:49.039 bird. A bird. A bird. He names it Palaeornis 00:02:49.039 --> 00:02:51.750 cliftei. Now, going back to that puzzle analogy 00:02:51.750 --> 00:02:53.650 we mentioned earlier, it is essentially like 00:02:53.650 --> 00:02:57.189 finding a single corner piece of a massive jigsaw 00:02:57.189 --> 00:02:59.650 puzzle, seeing a tiny patch of blue on it, and 00:02:59.650 --> 00:03:01.650 telling the world, I have solved it, this is 00:03:01.650 --> 00:03:03.610 a picture of the ocean. When in reality, it's 00:03:03.610 --> 00:03:06.150 a picture of the sky. Exactly. He guessed the 00:03:06.150 --> 00:03:08.729 whole picture wrong based on one fragment. What's 00:03:08.729 --> 00:03:10.430 fascinating here is how the early scientific 00:03:10.430 --> 00:03:13.349 community began to course correct, even back 00:03:13.349 --> 00:03:15.229 in the mid -19th century. They didn't just let 00:03:15.229 --> 00:03:18.710 it slide. No, they didn't. Mantell was undeniably 00:03:18.710 --> 00:03:22.560 confident. But science, even in the 1840s, relied 00:03:22.560 --> 00:03:26.419 on collaborative scrutiny. By the late 1840s 00:03:26.419 --> 00:03:29.120 and 1850s, other scientists started looking at 00:03:29.120 --> 00:03:32.159 that exact same physical bone. They wanted to 00:03:32.159 --> 00:03:34.319 see it for themselves. Right. A scientist named 00:03:34.319 --> 00:03:38.479 Giebel examined it in 1847. Then another incredibly 00:03:38.479 --> 00:03:40.620 prominent and somewhat notoriously competitive 00:03:40.620 --> 00:03:43.770 figure, Richard Owen, detailed it in publications 00:03:43.770 --> 00:03:47.449 in 1846 and 1859. Richard Owen is always in the 00:03:47.449 --> 00:03:50.030 middle of these historical debates. Always. And 00:03:50.030 --> 00:03:52.909 they both looked at Mantell's supposed prehistoric 00:03:52.909 --> 00:03:55.550 bird bone and realized it wasn't a bird at all. 00:03:55.590 --> 00:03:58.340 It was a pterosaur. A flying reptile. Which is 00:03:58.340 --> 00:04:00.639 a pretty massive taxonomic pivot. You have to 00:04:00.639 --> 00:04:02.680 wonder how Mantell felt about his peers publicly 00:04:02.680 --> 00:04:04.960 declaring, great job finding that ancient bird, 00:04:05.020 --> 00:04:07.020 except it's actually a giant flying reptile. 00:04:07.080 --> 00:04:08.879 Probably not great. But of course, this was the 00:04:08.879 --> 00:04:10.759 Wild West of early paleontology. They couldn't 00:04:10.759 --> 00:04:12.460 just gently correct his work and leave it at 00:04:12.460 --> 00:04:14.759 that. They had to plant their own flags. Which 00:04:14.759 --> 00:04:17.860 leads to the synonym soup. Massive synonym soup. 00:04:18.680 --> 00:04:21.779 Gable decides to name the exact same bone Pterodactylus 00:04:21.779 --> 00:04:25.300 orphilnus in 1847. Then Owen comes along and 00:04:25.300 --> 00:04:27.220 says, no, I'm going to call it Pterodactylus 00:04:27.220 --> 00:04:30.819 sylvestris. And this reflects the truly chaotic 00:04:30.819 --> 00:04:33.199 early days of the field. You have to remember 00:04:33.199 --> 00:04:36.079 the context of the era. No internet. No internet, 00:04:36.180 --> 00:04:39.939 no centralized global database of fossils. Every 00:04:39.939 --> 00:04:41.980 new set of eyes that looked at this upper arm 00:04:41.980 --> 00:04:44.620 bone brought their own biases, their own interpretations, 00:04:44.980 --> 00:04:47.660 and their own brand new classification. Everyone 00:04:47.660 --> 00:04:50.579 wanted to be the discoverer. Exactly. And pterosaurs 00:04:50.579 --> 00:04:53.040 in particular are notoriously difficult to classify 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:55.720 because in order to fly, their bones had to be 00:04:55.720 --> 00:04:58.240 incredibly light, hollow, and fragile. So they 00:04:58.240 --> 00:05:01.079 don't fossilize well. Over 135 million years, 00:05:01.160 --> 00:05:02.920 those hollow bones tend to get crushed flat in 00:05:02.920 --> 00:05:04.839 the earth. Yeah. So these early scientists were 00:05:04.839 --> 00:05:06.819 looking at flattened, fragmented evidence and 00:05:06.819 --> 00:05:09.100 tried to fit this very early English discovery 00:05:09.100 --> 00:05:11.860 into their own individual frameworks. It was 00:05:11.860 --> 00:05:15.079 a race to name and claim the ancient world. Here's 00:05:15.079 --> 00:05:16.819 where it gets really interesting, though. If 00:05:16.819 --> 00:05:19.040 you look at the official taxonomic registries 00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:22.180 today, Right now, the recognized name of this 00:05:22.180 --> 00:05:25.879 creature is Palaeornis glyphtii. But the word 00:05:25.879 --> 00:05:28.540 Palaeornis is always written in quotation marks. 00:05:28.759 --> 00:05:31.439 Always. Always. When I first encountered that 00:05:31.439 --> 00:05:33.639 in the historical data, I thought it was a formatting 00:05:33.639 --> 00:05:37.120 error. Why is a scientific name wearing permanent 00:05:37.120 --> 00:05:39.139 air quotes? Because we have a parakeet problem. 00:05:39.360 --> 00:05:42.040 A parakeet problem. That is the perfect way to 00:05:42.040 --> 00:05:45.199 summarize it. It really is. So back in 1825, 00:05:45.459 --> 00:05:48.779 a scientist named Viggers had already used the 00:05:48.779 --> 00:05:51.639 genus name Palaeornis to describe a group of 00:05:51.639 --> 00:05:54.500 parakeets. Which are modern birds. Right. Now, 00:05:54.579 --> 00:05:56.899 those parakeets are currently considered a synonym 00:05:56.899 --> 00:05:59.980 of the genus Cetacula, but the core issue remains. 00:06:00.339 --> 00:06:02.980 The name Palaeornis was already taken. It was 00:06:02.980 --> 00:06:05.129 off the board. Man. Mantell had accidentally 00:06:05.129 --> 00:06:07.230 stolen a name that belonged to a cute modern 00:06:07.230 --> 00:06:10.009 bird to name his fossil that he mistakenly thought 00:06:10.009 --> 00:06:12.990 was an ancient bird, but was actually a prehistoric 00:06:12.990 --> 00:06:15.610 flying reptile. It is a comedy of errors. It 00:06:15.610 --> 00:06:18.110 really is. And Mantell was actually aware of 00:06:18.110 --> 00:06:20.750 this naming collision. The historical records 00:06:20.750 --> 00:06:22.569 show that in some of his later publications, 00:06:22.910 --> 00:06:26.750 specifically around 1848, He tried to fix his 00:06:26.750 --> 00:06:28.990 mistake. He tried to fix it. He attempted to 00:06:28.990 --> 00:06:32.050 subtly tweak the name to Peleornathus as a replacement. 00:06:32.290 --> 00:06:34.430 Wait, if he knew he messed up the name entirely, 00:06:34.629 --> 00:06:37.519 why didn't he just start over from scratch? Why 00:06:37.519 --> 00:06:40.240 try to sneak an ITH in there? It's very subtle. 00:06:40.399 --> 00:06:42.819 It seems like such a lazy fix. Just, oops, let 00:06:42.819 --> 00:06:44.740 me slide a couple of letters in the middle. Nobody 00:06:44.740 --> 00:06:47.120 will notice. It does seem like a quick fix. But 00:06:47.120 --> 00:06:50.319 unfortunately for Mantell, the rules of scientific 00:06:50.319 --> 00:06:53.680 nomenclature are incredibly strict, deeply complex, 00:06:53.939 --> 00:06:56.500 and sometimes very frustrating. I can imagine. 00:06:56.779 --> 00:06:59.740 There's a rigid concept in taxonomy called a 00:06:59.740 --> 00:07:02.379 preoccupied name. If a name has been validly 00:07:02.379 --> 00:07:04.459 published for one organism, like Viggers did 00:07:04.459 --> 00:07:07.779 with the parakeet in 1825, it cannot be used 00:07:07.779 --> 00:07:10.439 for any other organism ever again. Even if the 00:07:10.439 --> 00:07:12.680 first one gets renamed? Even if that first organism 00:07:12.680 --> 00:07:15.060 gets reclassified later down the line. It is 00:07:15.060 --> 00:07:17.639 a locked door. So Mantell's original name was 00:07:17.639 --> 00:07:20.220 completely invalid from the very moment he sent 00:07:20.220 --> 00:07:22.160 it to the printer. But the scientific community 00:07:22.160 --> 00:07:24.930 still uses it today. Just with those quotation 00:07:24.930 --> 00:07:27.149 marks. Yes. And that connects to a much broader 00:07:27.149 --> 00:07:29.250 point for you, the listener, about how rigid 00:07:29.250 --> 00:07:32.990 systems have to handle legacy data. Modern science 00:07:32.990 --> 00:07:36.230 has to track the unbroken history of an idea, 00:07:36.410 --> 00:07:38.769 even a flawed one. You have to know where the 00:07:38.769 --> 00:07:41.889 idea came from. Exactly. So to acknowledge that 00:07:41.889 --> 00:07:44.430 this bone has historically been discussed under 00:07:44.430 --> 00:07:48.149 Mantel's name for over a century, but to simultaneously 00:07:48.149 --> 00:07:50.670 flag that the name is scientifically illegal 00:07:50.670 --> 00:07:54.300 because of the 1825 parakeet. They use the quotation 00:07:54.300 --> 00:07:56.959 marks. It's like a warning label. It's shorthand 00:07:56.959 --> 00:07:59.220 for the fossil, formerly and incorrectly known 00:07:59.220 --> 00:08:04.160 as Peleornis. The name Peleornis clifty is essentially 00:08:04.160 --> 00:08:06.399 locked in a permanent state of taxonomic limbo. 00:08:06.500 --> 00:08:09.019 A ghost name. A ghost name that haunts the literature, 00:08:09.160 --> 00:08:11.120 wearing those quotation marks and a permanent 00:08:11.120 --> 00:08:13.680 badge of its own complicated history. It is like 00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:15.839 the fossil has a permanent criminal record in 00:08:15.839 --> 00:08:18.420 the scientific database. So we leave the mid 00:08:18.420 --> 00:08:21.120 -1800s. The fossil is definitely a pterosaur, 00:08:21.339 --> 00:08:24.000 not a bird. It has a stolen name. It has a bunch 00:08:24.000 --> 00:08:26.639 of rival names from competing scientists. It's 00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:28.779 a mess. You would think the scientific community 00:08:28.779 --> 00:08:31.519 would sit down, look closely at the bone, and 00:08:31.519 --> 00:08:34.519 sort it out definitively. Instead, we enter what 00:08:34.519 --> 00:08:37.340 we can call the century of confusion, spanning 00:08:37.340 --> 00:08:40.100 roughly from the late 1800s all the way to the 00:08:40.100 --> 00:08:43.659 1970s. And this era is characterized by an intense 00:08:43.659 --> 00:08:47.139 desire to categorize everything neatly, sometimes 00:08:47.139 --> 00:08:50.159 at the vast expense of solid physical evidence. 00:08:50.440 --> 00:08:52.720 We see this perfectly in the next phase of the 00:08:52.720 --> 00:08:55.840 timeline. A scientist named Leidecker in 1888 00:08:55.840 --> 00:08:59.000 and later Hooley in 1914 took a look at our lonely 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:01.580 little arm bone and tentatively referred the 00:09:01.580 --> 00:09:04.309 specimen to... the genus Ornithochirus. They 00:09:04.309 --> 00:09:07.309 started calling it Ornithochirus clifty, which 00:09:07.309 --> 00:09:09.789 on the surface sounds like progress. It sounds 00:09:09.789 --> 00:09:11.809 official. It sounds like they finally found its 00:09:11.809 --> 00:09:14.070 correct family tree and put the mystery to rest. 00:09:14.250 --> 00:09:16.230 It does sound official until you look at the 00:09:16.230 --> 00:09:18.610 actual physical methodology they were using. 00:09:18.710 --> 00:09:21.429 The actual science. The historical data highlights 00:09:21.429 --> 00:09:24.570 a critical, almost unbelievable flaw in this 00:09:24.570 --> 00:09:27.659 logic. Our bone, the specific physical object 00:09:27.659 --> 00:09:29.779 we've been tracking, which holds the official 00:09:29.779 --> 00:09:32.980 museum designation of holotype specimen NHMUK 00:09:32.980 --> 00:09:37.399 2353 -2353a, didn't actually share any overlapping 00:09:37.399 --> 00:09:40.519 parts with the holotype of the Ornithocaris -type 00:09:40.519 --> 00:09:42.700 species. To put that in perspective for you, 00:09:42.779 --> 00:09:45.419 a holotype is the absolute gold standard specimen 00:09:45.419 --> 00:09:48.600 used to define a newly discovered species. If 00:09:48.600 --> 00:09:50.500 you want to claim your random bone belongs to 00:09:50.500 --> 00:09:52.960 a specific species, you have to compare it directly 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:55.419 to the holotype of that species. You need a one 00:09:55.419 --> 00:09:57.620 -to -one comparison. It is like trying to prove 00:09:57.620 --> 00:10:00.659 two cars are the exact same make and model, but 00:10:00.659 --> 00:10:02.279 you only have a steering wheel for the first 00:10:02.279 --> 00:10:04.659 car. And a back -left tire for the second car. 00:10:04.820 --> 00:10:07.259 Exactly. You literally cannot make a direct physical 00:10:07.259 --> 00:10:10.559 comparison. There is zero overlap. Yet, they 00:10:10.559 --> 00:10:12.919 lump them together anyway. If we connect this 00:10:12.919 --> 00:10:15.600 to the bigger picture, isn't it wild how human 00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:18.840 psychology operates even within the strict, supposedly 00:10:18.840 --> 00:10:21.600 objective bounds of science? We just want things 00:10:21.600 --> 00:10:24.429 to make sense. Scientists, just like the rest 00:10:24.429 --> 00:10:28.149 of us, crave order. They have a deep, fundamental 00:10:28.149 --> 00:10:31.190 need to make data make sense and fit into neat 00:10:31.190 --> 00:10:34.529 little boxes. During this Victorian and early 00:10:34.529 --> 00:10:37.389 20th century period, there was a major tendency 00:10:37.389 --> 00:10:40.769 to use certain well -known genera, like Ornithocaris, 00:10:41.029 --> 00:10:44.889 as a wastebasket taxon. A wastebasket taxon. 00:10:45.580 --> 00:10:48.299 It is the scientific equivalent of that one miscellaneous 00:10:48.299 --> 00:10:50.419 junk drawer we all have in our kitchens. Yes, 00:10:50.480 --> 00:10:52.399 the junk drawer. You don't really know where 00:10:52.399 --> 00:10:54.440 the spare batteries, the random rubber bands, 00:10:54.519 --> 00:10:56.240 and the paper clips are supposed to go, so you 00:10:56.240 --> 00:10:58.320 just shove them all in that drawer and hope for 00:10:58.320 --> 00:11:00.299 the best. That's exactly what they did. If you 00:11:00.299 --> 00:11:02.720 had a fragmentary pterosaur fossil from roughly 00:11:02.720 --> 00:11:05.000 the right geological time and place, and you 00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:06.779 didn't know what to do with it, you just tossed 00:11:06.779 --> 00:11:08.559 it into the Ornithocheirus bucket. They were 00:11:08.559 --> 00:11:11.159 forcing data into existing categories just to 00:11:11.159 --> 00:11:13.559 keep the filing system tidy, even if the physical 00:11:13.559 --> 00:11:16.779 evidence didn't truly support it. And this precarious 00:11:16.779 --> 00:11:20.419 filing system held together for decades. Generations 00:11:20.419 --> 00:11:22.419 of researchers just accepted the junk drawer. 00:11:22.700 --> 00:11:26.379 Until finally, in 1978, a scientist named Welmhofer 00:11:26.379 --> 00:11:28.399 comes along. He actually looks at the drawer. 00:11:28.679 --> 00:11:31.580 He critically examines the bone. He looks at 00:11:31.580 --> 00:11:34.179 the glaring lack of overlapping physical evidence 00:11:34.179 --> 00:11:36.720 with the holotype. And he basically just throws 00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:39.720 his hands up. He officially referred the fossil 00:11:39.720 --> 00:11:43.509 to Ornithocaridae inserticitis. In certicides. 00:11:43.769 --> 00:11:46.409 It sounds incredibly dignified. It does. But 00:11:46.409 --> 00:11:49.389 it is literally just fancy scientific Latin for 00:11:49.389 --> 00:11:52.070 uncertain placement. It's the official peer -reviewed 00:11:52.070 --> 00:11:54.649 way of saying we have absolutely no idea where 00:11:54.649 --> 00:11:56.690 this thing actually belongs. After more than 00:11:56.690 --> 00:12:00.149 a century of incredibly confident guessing, from 00:12:00.149 --> 00:12:03.789 Mantell's prehistoric bird to Owen's flying reptile 00:12:03.789 --> 00:12:06.649 to Hooley's ornithocaris, Wellhoffer finally 00:12:06.649 --> 00:12:08.549 hit the brakes and admitted that they simply 00:12:08.549 --> 00:12:11.210 didn't know. which is actually a very brave and 00:12:11.210 --> 00:12:13.190 structurally necessary step in the scientific 00:12:13.190 --> 00:12:15.490 method. It takes courage to say I don't know. 00:12:15.870 --> 00:12:18.250 Acknowledging ignorance is the absolute prerequisite 00:12:18.250 --> 00:12:20.570 for gaining new knowledge. By pulling it out 00:12:20.570 --> 00:12:22.610 of the Ornithocaris wastebasket and labeling 00:12:22.610 --> 00:12:25.549 it in Sertesades, Wilhenhofer essentially wiped 00:12:25.549 --> 00:12:28.320 the slate clean. He reset the board. He signaled 00:12:28.320 --> 00:12:30.879 to the next generation of paleontologists that 00:12:30.879 --> 00:12:34.659 this 135 million year old arm bone was an unsolved 00:12:34.659 --> 00:12:37.960 mystery, completely ripe for reevaluation with 00:12:37.960 --> 00:12:40.279 fresh eyes and better technology. And the next 00:12:40.279 --> 00:12:42.240 generation definitely delivered. This brings 00:12:42.240 --> 00:12:44.460 us out of the century of confusion and right 00:12:44.460 --> 00:12:47.279 into the modern era, stretching from the 2000s 00:12:47.279 --> 00:12:50.259 all the way up to 2025. The modern era changes 00:12:50.259 --> 00:12:53.039 everything. Modern science steps in, but now 00:12:53.039 --> 00:12:55.200 they are equipped with vastly better comparative 00:12:55.200 --> 00:12:57.580 frameworks, massive digital... digitized databases, 00:12:57.840 --> 00:13:01.139 and a much deeper, nuanced understanding of pterosaur 00:13:01.139 --> 00:13:04.279 anatomy. They take one look at those old Victorian 00:13:04.279 --> 00:13:07.139 theories and realize how far off base they were. 00:13:07.279 --> 00:13:09.980 The pace of discovery really accelerates here, 00:13:10.080 --> 00:13:12.629 reflecting the modernization of the field. In 00:13:12.629 --> 00:13:15.309 2009, a team of researchers, Witten, Martill, 00:13:15.350 --> 00:13:17.450 and Green, decided it was time to rigorously 00:13:17.450 --> 00:13:19.889 re -examine the original type specimen. Not just 00:13:19.889 --> 00:13:21.629 reading the old papers. Right. They didn't just 00:13:21.629 --> 00:13:24.210 accept the old notes or the legacy categorizations. 00:13:24.230 --> 00:13:26.649 They looked at the physical fossil itself with 00:13:26.649 --> 00:13:28.690 modern methodologies, and they realized very 00:13:28.690 --> 00:13:31.889 quickly that Palaeornis clifty is not an ornithochirid 00:13:31.889 --> 00:13:34.750 at all. So they moved it to a completely different 00:13:34.750 --> 00:13:38.110 taxonomic family called Lungodectidae. And what's 00:13:38.110 --> 00:13:40.350 really compelling is how they did it. The methodology 00:13:40.350 --> 00:13:43.610 is key. They based this new placement on physical 00:13:43.610 --> 00:13:46.929 similarities to other humeri, other upper arm 00:13:46.929 --> 00:13:49.649 bones, that had actually been assigned to the 00:13:49.649 --> 00:13:52.850 genus Lungodects by Hooley way back in 1914. 00:13:53.330 --> 00:13:56.269 So the vital clues were there all along. Hiding 00:13:56.269 --> 00:13:58.070 in plain sight in different parts of the museum 00:13:58.070 --> 00:14:00.529 archives, just waiting for someone to connect 00:14:00.529 --> 00:14:02.730 the dots. They finally found the matching steering 00:14:02.730 --> 00:14:04.990 wheel, to use your earlier analogy. But of course, 00:14:04.990 --> 00:14:07.379 the story didn't stop there. Taxonomy is never 00:14:07.379 --> 00:14:09.720 truly settled as long as active research is being 00:14:09.720 --> 00:14:12.860 conducted. It's a continuous process. In 2012, 00:14:13.200 --> 00:14:16.399 and again in 2014, a researcher named Averinov 00:14:16.399 --> 00:14:19.100 was conducting a massive reassessment of another 00:14:19.100 --> 00:14:22.039 pterosaur genus called Ornithostoma. And while 00:14:22.039 --> 00:14:24.220 he was deep in that research, he reviewed our 00:14:24.220 --> 00:14:26.940 controversial little arm bone. And the taxonomic 00:14:26.940 --> 00:14:29.679 ping -pong continues. Averinov decides it belongs 00:14:29.679 --> 00:14:32.720 to a major clade called Asdarkoidia, though he 00:14:32.720 --> 00:14:34.820 leaves its specific placement as indeterminate 00:14:34.820 --> 00:14:37.149 within that broader. group. So just to recap 00:14:37.149 --> 00:14:40.190 this wild ride. Please do. We have gone from 00:14:40.190 --> 00:14:44.509 a bird to a generic flying reptile to an ornithocaris 00:14:44.509 --> 00:14:48.169 junk drawer to, we don't know, to a lonka deck 00:14:48.169 --> 00:14:51.029 today and now to an asdarkoidia. This raises 00:14:51.029 --> 00:14:53.210 an important question. At what point do we finally 00:14:53.210 --> 00:14:56.429 pin this fossil down with modern certainty? Because 00:14:56.429 --> 00:14:58.929 moving our upper arm bone into the Asdarkordia 00:14:58.929 --> 00:15:02.110 clade is highly significant. It really is. That 00:15:02.110 --> 00:15:05.590 specific group is famous for including some of 00:15:05.590 --> 00:15:07.909 the absolute largest flying animals of all time. 00:15:08.370 --> 00:15:11.190 Placing it there completely shifts how we understand 00:15:11.190 --> 00:15:13.649 its evolutionary relationships and its ecological 00:15:13.649 --> 00:15:15.950 role in the early Cretaceous environment of England. 00:15:16.149 --> 00:15:17.970 Well, to answer your question about when we finally 00:15:17.970 --> 00:15:21.379 pin it down, how about the year 20 - 2025, because 00:15:21.379 --> 00:15:24.440 the research provides one final triumphant update 00:15:24.440 --> 00:15:26.759 to this saga right into the present day. Just 00:15:26.759 --> 00:15:29.559 this year, researchers Comis and McDavid published 00:15:29.559 --> 00:15:32.799 a massive phylogenetic analysis. And for anyone 00:15:32.799 --> 00:15:35.039 who isn't spending their weekends reading taxonomic 00:15:35.039 --> 00:15:37.960 journals, they essentially built a massive evolutionary 00:15:37.960 --> 00:15:41.320 family tree using incredible modern tools. They 00:15:41.320 --> 00:15:43.679 used a computer algorithm to compare hundreds 00:15:43.679 --> 00:15:46.720 of tiny specific bone features across dozens 00:15:46.720 --> 00:15:49.139 of different species to mathematically determine 00:15:49.139 --> 00:15:52.279 who is related to who. They crunched all the 00:15:52.279 --> 00:15:54.899 modern data, looked at all the evolutionary traits, 00:15:55.019 --> 00:15:57.080 and they find We've finally recovered our much 00:15:57.080 --> 00:16:00.039 debated bone as a sister taxon to a family called 00:16:00.039 --> 00:16:03.120 Tapajardi, sitting right there within the Asdarkoidia 00:16:03.120 --> 00:16:06.159 clade. A sister taxon to Tapajardi. That is an 00:16:06.159 --> 00:16:08.500 incredibly specific and meaningful classification. 00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:11.340 It's very precise. Tapajards are known for their 00:16:11.340 --> 00:16:14.399 bizarre, elaborate head crests and very distinctive 00:16:14.399 --> 00:16:17.840 beak shapes. By placing our 135 million year 00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:20.600 old arm bone as a close relative to that specific 00:16:20.600 --> 00:16:23.480 group, Thomas and McDavid have given it an incredibly 00:16:23.480 --> 00:16:25.919 precise evolutionary address. It is no longer 00:16:25.919 --> 00:16:27.960 lost in the junk drawer. Exactly. So what does 00:16:27.960 --> 00:16:30.299 this all mean? We have tracked this single isolated 00:16:30.299 --> 00:16:33.139 piece of bone from its discovery in 1837 all 00:16:33.139 --> 00:16:35.639 the way to a high tech computer analysis in 2025. 00:16:36.139 --> 00:16:38.379 What is the ultimate takeaway from almost two 00:16:38.379 --> 00:16:40.860 centuries of taxonomic ping pong? If I were to 00:16:40.860 --> 00:16:43.379 synthesize this entire timeline for you, the 00:16:43.379 --> 00:16:45.759 core message is that science Science is never 00:16:45.759 --> 00:16:48.860 done. We so often think of scientific facts as 00:16:48.860 --> 00:16:51.419 these static, unchangeable monuments printed 00:16:51.419 --> 00:16:53.860 in textbooks. Like they are carved in stone. 00:16:54.179 --> 00:16:57.080 But the saga of Palaeornus cliffti perfectly 00:16:57.080 --> 00:16:59.919 illustrates that knowledge is a living, breathing 00:16:59.919 --> 00:17:03.539 process of continuous, sometimes agonizing refinement. 00:17:03.759 --> 00:17:05.779 Mantel wasn't foolish for thinking it was a bird. 00:17:05.960 --> 00:17:08.500 Not at all. He was working with the incredibly 00:17:08.500 --> 00:17:12.710 limited context and tools of 1837. Lidecker wasn't 00:17:12.710 --> 00:17:14.869 malicious for forcing it into the Ornithocharis 00:17:14.869 --> 00:17:17.609 wastebasket. He was using the standard categorization 00:17:17.609 --> 00:17:20.250 methods of 1888. They were just doing their best 00:17:20.250 --> 00:17:22.569 with what they had. It took the collective generational 00:17:22.569 --> 00:17:25.630 effort of Giebel, Owen, Hooley, Willenhofer, 00:17:25.769 --> 00:17:28.849 Witten, Averinoff, Thomas McDavid, and countless 00:17:28.849 --> 00:17:32.309 other unnamed researchers to slowly, painstakingly 00:17:32.309 --> 00:17:34.569 chisel away the errors an inch closer to the 00:17:34.569 --> 00:17:36.980 truth. Science isn't about being perfectly right 00:17:36.980 --> 00:17:39.200 on the first try. It is about the fundamental 00:17:39.200 --> 00:17:41.559 willingness to be corrected by the next generation. 00:17:41.819 --> 00:17:44.400 That is a deeply reassuring perspective. And 00:17:44.400 --> 00:17:46.259 I want to connect this directly back to you, 00:17:46.299 --> 00:17:50.839 the listener. We live in an age of absolute intense 00:17:50.839 --> 00:17:54.720 information overload. We really do. You are constantly 00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:57.200 bombarded with sweeping claims, breaking studies, 00:17:57.440 --> 00:17:59.799 conflicting headlines and massive data sets. 00:17:59.960 --> 00:18:03.059 It can feel paralyzing. It can feel like if you 00:18:03.059 --> 00:18:05.740 don't understand a complex topic perfectly and 00:18:05.740 --> 00:18:08.299 immediately, you are falling behind. But you 00:18:08.299 --> 00:18:11.519 aren't. Just remember this 135 million year old. 00:18:11.819 --> 00:18:15.099 upper arm bone, it is a brilliant, tangible reminder 00:18:15.099 --> 00:18:18.500 that it is entirely okay not to have the perfect 00:18:18.500 --> 00:18:21.220 answer on the first try. It took the greatest 00:18:21.220 --> 00:18:23.279 minds in the global scientific community nearly 00:18:23.279 --> 00:18:26.799 two centuries, multiple re -evaluations, a stolen 00:18:26.799 --> 00:18:29.099 parakeet name, and a whole lot of professional 00:18:29.099 --> 00:18:31.900 arguing just to figure out where one single piece 00:18:31.900 --> 00:18:34.759 of a puzzle belonged. Progress is messy. It involves 00:18:34.759 --> 00:18:36.980 a lot of wrong turns, and that is exactly how 00:18:36.980 --> 00:18:38.900 the process is supposed to work. It really is. 00:18:39.019 --> 00:18:41.079 And as we wrap up this deep dive, I want to leave 00:18:41.130 --> 00:18:42.990 you with a lingering thought to mull over on 00:18:42.990 --> 00:18:45.170 your own time let's hear it we have just seen 00:18:45.170 --> 00:18:48.670 how a single fragmented arm bone initially pulled 00:18:48.670 --> 00:18:51.329 from the english dirt in the 1830s can still 00:18:51.329 --> 00:18:54.670 be yielding brand new highly specific scientific 00:18:54.670 --> 00:18:58.529 classifications as recently as 2025 simply because 00:18:58.529 --> 00:19:00.829 we develop better tools and better ways of looking 00:19:00.829 --> 00:19:03.099 at it Just by looking closer. So think about 00:19:03.099 --> 00:19:05.420 this. What else is sitting quietly in the countless 00:19:05.420 --> 00:19:08.099 dusty drawers of our global museum archives right 00:19:08.099 --> 00:19:10.619 now, just waiting for someone to walk in, look 00:19:10.619 --> 00:19:12.779 at it with fresh eyes, and completely rewrite 00:19:12.779 --> 00:19:15.079 its story? The puzzle is never truly finished. 00:19:15.220 --> 00:19:17.359 Keep looking for those pieces, stay curious, 00:19:17.539 --> 00:19:19.039 and we will catch you on the next deep dive.