The Island of Dwarf Dinosaurs | Island Biogeography 3

[@knightofsvea604]

"Franz Nopsca; The aristocrat, the dual spy, the freedom fighter, the King of Albania, The hijacker, ... Father of Paleobiology." Man, what a legend!

[@MrSylvandragon]

oh, how far modern people have fallen

[@NineSeptims]

@@MrSylvandragon he was a rich noble compared to today where people like elon musk pioneering mars travel not much has changed in terms of rich people doing weird stuff.

[@OSUBeaver03]

That man deserves a Dos Equis!

[@andreslaverde6433]

an absolute Chad

[@drimachuck]

Damn, to be a man with wealth in those days. You could do anything lmao

[@mike_y0st]

You should continue the series by focusing on “water islands” aka seas, lakes, and rivers in comparison to the ocean. Do species of fish or sea mammals shrink/grow larger if secluded to a river, sea, or a lake? Love the series!

[@caidthackeray8896]

Wonderful idea.

[@alanivar2752]

Spoiler: they do

[@robinchesterfield42]

I'm especially curious about what ends up living on those weird multi-level islands. Like, when there's an island in a lake in an island in a lake in an island in a lake. Although I suppose that if the water seperating any of the islands wasn't too far or too deep, animals born in the middle might still be able to make it back to the mainland, or at least the first, biggest island.

[@alanivar2752]

@@robinchesterfield42 too small, too short distance

[@calironnia6470]

@@robinchesterfield42 are you talking about taal lake?😂😂

[@ghost_curse]

14:35 I like how the graphic has the Hatzegopteryx facing the other dinos like its laughing at them

[@Shetty404]

That huge eye is actually horrifying-

[@rimostle]

That thing is scary...

[@quasar7683]

Most cursed extinct reptile.

[@calironnia6470]

Imagine it flying above you or making a nest on top of your house hahahaha

[@Frogboyaidan]

Hatze is a flying reptile no dino.

[@CsZalan-qp3yw]

I'm from Transylvania so I could be in Hátszeg in 3 hours and I knew nothing about this amazing story. Thank you for sharing with me the history of my own land.

[@JJvn0]

I am from Reşița

[@CsZalan-qp3yw]

@Spicyleaves Hungarian

[@logansmith2703]

If you like podcasts the Common Descent podcast has an entire episode on Franz Nopcsa. You can find it here on KZbin.

[@goose7453]

You should visit dino park râșnov. It's a really cool place and they hace a giant statue of a hatzegopteryx

[@CsZalan-qp3yw]

@@goose7453 yes, I visited it a few years ago and it is really cool

[@slick8038]

I love clearly passionate he is about the geography he talks about

[@NostalgicMem0ries]

well most people here are that passionate, thats why we are here :) ust this guy studied it more than we did and knows more :)

[@stanleyhercules]

I love it. Whatever one's path of expertise in life is, his energy is a huge inspiration to approach it with joyful passion.

[@eeeeeek]

it's not proven yet

[@IntensePeppers]

I think you a word

[@jameskim1505]

And dinosaurs too!

[@henriquesantarem5565]

A video that I would like to see is about South American isolation that lasted until 3 million years ago, we had terror birds, giant sloths I would love to see a video about these creatures and their evolutian. Anyway loved this triology keep making amazing vids like this!

[@alanivar2752]

i want a more in depth, exhaustive, video on all the pleistocene megafauna we extincted

[@doublejazz]

Hey you could check out this video it talks about some of the lesser known south american animals of the time. Super interesting stuff kzbin.info/www/bejne/jnzXqqGgg7mZl5Y

[@Brunozamp]

Up

[@javonfair]

Yes. This and a discussion of the dynamics of marsupial populations that existed there and their development after the great American Interchange.

[@henriquesantarem5565]

@4one14 yeah, I love their channel! in total i have watched over 20 hours of their content, really great stuff, also a must watch channel.

[@SophiaAstatine]

What a legend to have as founder for a field of study. His resumé is one of a kind.

[@ingydegmar2060]

Frans Nopsca needs his own movie. He sounds legendary.

[@ussnorthcarolinabb-5517]

Yep true! He is an absolute legend, sadly he is relatively unknown. He had amazing adventures with his husband and their friends. Sadly he had a sad ending due to his depression.

[@IQUnder30]

The Hatzegopteryx, especially compared to the other dinos, is straight up nightmare fuel! Perfect thing to think about right before bed

[@alanivar2752]

what if they exhibited island tameness? i wanna ride the mini-titanosaurs!

[@IQUnder30]

@@alanivar2752 I'd hope so, the Magyarosaurs look so adorable! I just wouldn't want those flying buildings eyeballing me above the trees!!!!

[@nutyyyy]

It’s a pterosaur not a dinosaur though they are close relatives.

[@alanivar2752]

@@nutyyyy colloquially, pterosaurs are dinosaurs

[@MrAquarius969]

Just imagine that the most dangerous enemy comes from the sky, unnanounced at random. Eternal terror.

[@RedXlV]

The amazing thing is that Hatzegopteryx, despite its enormous size and having a much more robust body and bigger mouth than the other similarly giant pterosaur Quetzalcoatlus, was still capable of flying.

[@portugueseeagle8851]

3:20 I know it's a nitpick but Supersaurus is not a titanosaur, but a Diplodocid. The others shown indeed are titanosaurs however.

[@Frogboyaidan]

He probably put it there to show giant dinos that rival it's sizem

[@portugueseeagle8851]

@@Frogboyaidan I know but he was specifically comparing Magyarosaurus against other titanosaurs, not sauropods in general

[@Frogboyaidan]

@@portugueseeagle8851 yes true

[@SiamHossain7]

I always get the feeling that though he wants to teach us some super cool stuff he also feels EXCITED to teach us super cool stuff he also just learned. Wish all my teachers and professors were this engaged and knowledgeable with the material they're supposed to represent

[@jasonreed7522]

Well you teachers/professors probably have been repeating the same lectures for years to glossy eyed students and have since lost their enthusiasm. Not that is justifies being a bad teacher, they should always try to present the information as interesting and/or useful to drum up student excitement which would then fuel themselves. My chem 1 professor in college starts day 1 by taping a match to a meter stick and placing it under a ballon, this wakes everyone up because bits filled with pure hydrogen, and about 10 seconds later he detonates the other balloon which is a hydrogen/oxygen mix which is much louder/morr powerful. Other experiments/demos include making thermite in the classroom, a powder based flamethrower, dropping a gummy bear in a molten salt making a mini rocket thruster, and shinning lazer pointers at test tubes detonating the content with only the correct frequency. And my highschool physics teacher encuraged us to put out hands in liquid nitrogen (for less than a second), and to place our hands on a vandegraph generator and hold hands in a chain so that everyone gets zapped when someone new joins or your friend pushes your arm into a metal shelf. Nothing was dangerous to the students but things that sound dangerous are enticing to students, and fun to play with. (We did do serious labs to justify the playing) Even math can be framed much better, the world litterally runs on it and something simple like i = √(-1) has major implications and powers the Laplace transform which massively simplifies calculus and makes it possible to analyze AC electricity without litterally killing yourself from the pain of multiplying sin functions. Or the Fourier transform which can take a raw audio file and turn it back to sheet music "effortlessly", its applications are numerous but this is the best lay man explanation of it. But back to the point, teachers should be excited to teach their subject because it is fascinating or amazing and the students deserve to be shown that, and not have it be framed like "math only makes people cry, because who wants to do that".

[@robinchesterfield42]

The whole concept of "island ecosystems left fossilized in the middle of what's now land" is fascinating in general. I live in what was once part of Laramidia, which was the first I'd heard about the idea. I wonder how many other "islands that aren't anymore" out there, that we can figure out by their fossils...

[@bkjeong4302]

Laradima was much larger, so its ecosystems were continental in nature.

[@thomster97]

Won't lie, took me five tries to pause the video just right for the Hatzeg footnote. Edit: Dino sizes from now on should always be compared to Sam Neill

[@varana]

If you missed it only by a little bit, you can use the , and . keys to go through single frames (if you're using a keyboard, that is).

[@BonaparteBardithion]

@@varana RIP mobile viewers

[@davidvirdol7409]

What i do on mobile is to set my speed to 0.25 and then pause and unpause quickly

[@CptEngage]

What about Jeff Goldblum in his lying down pose tho? :D

[@SovereignStorm]

That's Dr Alan Grant. The actor Sam Neill is the identity that witness protection made up for him in the JP cover up 😛

[@vaclavkodousek804]

11:12 Thats not exactly correct. Neovenator and the theropods you mentioned arent closely related. They come from a different group called Maniraptora and they are generally small-bodied. In actuality there have been found mid-sized tetanuran theropod remains, but due to their fragmentary nature, they havent been given a name.

[@EladLerner]

Seeing all these tiny dinosaurs next to the drawing of a person, I just imagine him hugging each of them and giving them a belly rub.

[@sampagano205]

Birds had fully evolved at the time of hatzeg island and actually one of the earliest true flightless birds is part of the hatzeg fauna. It's just pterosaurs were probably better adapted to becoming a giant predator than their peers. Also, extremely metal detail, Darren Naisch and Mark Wittan, two of the pre eminent experts on pterosaurs demonstrated hatzegopteryx would have been able to break up their meals to eat even larger prey.

[@eybaza6018]

So not even Paludititan was save.

[@hoffmanthemilkman1]

Your videos are fantastic! Especially these last there where you've combined two of my passions - geography and biology. Hope you're planning to do more, such as what happened to the moa and Haast's eagle in New Zealand.

[@bkjeong4302]

Also the former Gargano islands of Italy.

[@MortyMortyMorty]

I said this many times already but your channel is straight GOLD on KZbin! I'm Hungarian so this video was especially great for me and I learned a lot of things I did not know. And wow, imagine seeing Hatzegopteryx in real life. That "bird" gave me chills!

[@alanivar2752]

do you think these animals wouldve exhibited island tameness? could we have domesticated them?

[@MortyMortyMorty]

@@alanivar2752 If Humans were alive the most likely yes! Well maybe not Hatzegopteryx but the others for sure! There is a great game called ARK: Survival Evolved. It's literally about taming dinosaurs and living with them.

[@robertjarman3703]

I love how dinosaurs are still around today and we just never notice, given that even the humble robin as a dinosaur.

[@MrFuckingKololo]

@Something Mildly Homophobic sure, but how often does someone see a pidgeon and think to themselves "Huh, a dinosaur, neat"?

[@filipbitala2624]

@@MrFuckingKololo humans are so awesome, they eat multiple dinosaurs and their egss almost every day

[@MrFuckingKololo]

@@filipbitala2624 some people even keep pet dinosaurs in their houses.

[@thedukeofchutney468]

Eh, it kinda depresses me that most of the cool dinosaurs went extinct and birds are all thats left. While birds are technically dinosaurs, they shouldn’t be considered as such culturally or linguistically.

[@TheClintonio]

@@thedukeofchutney468 "shouldn't" - why? People are free to see them as they want culturally and linguistically. I certainly see them as the last dinosaurs.

[@nicolasmeyer282]

i'm in love with your videos! they are informative and interesting to watch. thank you and keep going :)

[@KgaVga]

This serie slaps, awesome videos @Atlas Pro

[@TurtleNerite]

In the current Hungary, there was an another island fauna uncovered near Ajka and Iharkút. It included the 4.5 m long Ankylosaur the Hungarosaurus, an 1.5 m long Ceratopsid the Ajkaceratops, a Pterosaur called Bakonydraco (which was thought to be an Azdarchid like Hatzegopteryx but recent studies revealed it to be a Tapejarid - and it was quite an average-sized Pterosaur), Iharkutosuchus a 1 m long herbivorous crocodile and Pannoniasaurus which was a roughly 6 m long Mosasaur living in freshwater environments.

[@eybaza6018]

I've also heard of a locality in France including Arcovenator-a 5-6 meter Abelisaurid, Gargantavis, Pyroraptor and a dwarf Hadrosaur species the name of wich i forgot.

[@kinderarcgaming9219]

You are making me like history and science again and I’m happy about it so thank you and your videos are amazing btw

[@nataliekennedy4646]

what could make you not like it at all this is awesome

[@thekingminn]

The last time I was this early the Dodos and great Auks still existed.

[@angrydorito3252]

So yesterday?

[@christophhanke6627]

What would also be a cool topic, would be "cave evolution" of former non-cave species or "Biogeography of terestrial islands" (those areas surrounded be mountains with an environmemt completely different from the Rest of the local ecosystems)

[@greydinsdale452]

These videos literally make my days when posted. Thanks for being a light😁

[@jscotthatcher380]

perfect timing. something new to watch right before i go to bed. : ]

[@micahfrye8885]

Same its great just got off work and im ready for bed its really nice

[@demidevil666]

I just found your channel through the previous episode on penguins. literally 10 minutes ago. And just now you upload the next episode 5 minutes ago. :D sweet coincidence!

[@Fat_Paws]

Cancel your plans for the weekend. Coz you will be stuck catching up the Atlas Pro archives. :P

[@craigharkins4669]

I envy you. I would love to watch all his videos for the first time again in one long sitting.

[@Bexrrai]

His videos are such good quality I hope you like the rest of his catalog of his videos.

[@Creddz69]

All of his videos are absolutely amazing but my favorites have to be on the geography of Mars and all of it terrestrial quirks.

[@alanivar2752]

im not exaggerating, this is literally the best channel on youtube, go watch through every single video of his that interests you (and some that dont) he 'only' has about 100, so it wont take you THAT long

[@waterbox1385]

This was an amazingly researched video but there is just one thing I feel should be cleared up. Hatzegopterix did not owe it's size exclusively to island gigantism the same the dodo or the elephant bird do. Pterosaurs had different skeletal and vascular structures to modern birds that made them more efficient flyers, this meant that they could grow to immense sizes and still be able to fly and compete with terrestrial predators. The small pterosaur show in the video was an ancestral form whose lineage had either evolved into bigger forms or gone extinct, by the time hatzegopterix was around most pterosaurs were massive, with wingspans of up to five meters being common. Hatzegopterix itself was a member of an entire family of giants called azdarchids, the smallest species were almost as tall as an average man while other enormous genus like, quetzacoatlus, cryodrakon and arambourguiania where almost as large the giant of hateg itself, losing only by factor of weight.

[@chadgorosaurus4898]

How did he mistake Dimorphodon for an Azdarchid ancestor?

[@aiyhavnouneim]

Road to 1 million :D

[@fwogboi]

Yass :D

[@AtlasPro1]

Nearly there!

[@tornyosgergo]

Woooo. Nopcsa Ferenc! Thank you for this amazing video. Really cool to see this part of history.

[@goose7453]

Thanks for making this video. I live in Transylvania and visited dino park râșnov last year which is in the hațeg region. They have a giant statue of a hatzegopteryx there which is to scale I think. I always thought it's size was impressive but never knew the amazing backstory of the creature. Thanks for always making well documented and entertaining vids. Love from Romania

[@JoeMWoodward]

I loved your last video that focused on paleobiography and I will continue to love everything about the subject.

[@LinksSpaceProgram]

I'd be interrested in a series covering mountain geography and biology. How and why species live in such hostile environments and how they adapt.

[@alanivar2752]

desert mountains

[@maldito_sudaka]

14:30 I love your insights so much. I've know this pterosaur for years, but not its context. Thank you for an amazing video, as always.

[@tomasbartok8667]

Fantastic video as always, keep up the good work! Just a quick note, the guy mentioned multiple times in the video was called "Nopcsa" and not "Nopsca". It may seem only two letters swapped but in hungarian it makes a hell of a lot difference one being a family name and the other one just a meaningless word, a collection of random letters.

[@hailgiratinathetruegod7564]

Birds allready fully evolved 70 million years ago. Filling many niches today, and even likely outcompeating the smaler pterosaurs. Modern groups like the retites, and fowls were allready starting to evolve. Hatzegopteryx also is no example of island gigantisim. It belongs to the Azhdarchids, a giant group of pterosaurs Hatzegopterxy was a large member, but still smaler then some mainland species, like Quetzalcoatlus. The only example of island gigantisim is ironicly the flightless bird Balaur.

[@intrepidnerd3599]

This bugged me the whole time. If you hadn't said it, I would have.

[@Lilleh__]

I've always heard conflicting claims about which one is the biggest tbh. From the sources I've been able to find, their wingspans and heights are estimated to be roughly in the same region, while quetzlcoatlus is estimated to be like 10kg heavier.

[@LovelyAngel.]

Thank you for this comment! If I remember correctly pterosaurses were getting big because their niche was being taken over by dinosaurs that started to fly that were much smaller. Also the video points out that "birds didn't exist yet" and that kinda rubs me the wrong way since we classified birds and dinosaurs separately because we simply didn't know they evolved from one another and I think more correct classification to use in scientific context is avian dinosaurs and non-avian dinosaurs.

[@ExtremeMadnessX]

All of this, so much disinformation in this video. And yes Hatzegopteryx size doesn't have anything with island gigantism, they are just that big and because of that advantage they become top predators on those islands.

[@highlordxeleth]

Well, to be honest, (especially since I agree with all you said) it's... how to say it, murky the best of if the early ratites or fowls coul really be considered birds. The base was here, it was becoming a bird, but was it yet? Would all those early birds really be considered birds? Or still reptiles? Or an inbetween? For our friend the giant Hatzego', while an azhdarchid, the island envirronment may very well have helped it along the way get even bigger, or just the right size. The Quetzalcoatlus, that you cited, as an example by its sheer size wouldn't be very well suited for an island, of course unless it just happens to fill it's extensive needs. I'd clearly picture it get slightly smaller over the eons on an island, plausible possibility. Of course maybe it's just an azhdarchid that found the perfect place to rule supreme. Funny thing how we know basically nothing because it's so ancient, so we can just come up with such discussions which are quite entertaining to say the least. (Call it all misinformation like our pal right above is a bit... dumb. Anything that is Paleo-something is, after all, murky because it's so ancient.)

[@Vienna3080]

I hope we get a video on how Island geography molded insular humans into dwarfism from our ancestors to today

[@sizanogreen9900]

hobbitses?

[@wannacashmeoutside]

@@sizanogreen9900 Pygmys of austronésien islands like some philippine and Taiwan islands

[@sizanogreen9900]

@@wannacashmeoutside when mentioning modern day "small people" there are also the pygmies in like the kongo. And those are not living on an island, so what lead to their adaptations?

[@lonestarr1490]

​@@sizanogreen9900 There are several hypotheses for this. From the Wikipedia aricle about African pygmies: "Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain the short stature of African pygmies. Blecker, et al., suggest African pygmyism may have evolved as an adaptation to the significantly lower average levels of ultraviolet light available beneath the canopy of rainforest environments. In similar hypothetical scenarios, because of reduced access to sunlight, a comparatively smaller amount of anatomically formulated vitamin D is produced, resulting in restricted dietary calcium uptake, and subsequently restricted bone growth and maintenance, resulting in an overall population average skeletal mass near the lowest periphery of the spectrum among anatomically modern humans. Other proposed explanations include the potentially lesser availability of protein-rich food sources in rainforest environments, the often reduced soil-calcium levels in rainforest environments, the caloric expenditure required to traverse rainforest terrain, insular dwarfism as an adaptation to equatorial and tropical heat and humidity, and pygmyism as an adaptation associated with rapid reproductive maturation under conditions of early mortality. Additional evidence suggests that, when compared to other Sub-Saharan African populations, African pygmy populations display unusually low levels of expression of the genes encoding for human growth hormone and its receptor associated with low serum levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 and short stature."

[@sizanogreen9900]

@@lonestarr1490 interesting stuff in any case

[@alinalexandru2466]

Nice video. Though there are some errors in it: 1:59 That is Nopcsa's estate but by 1926 it was not in the Kingdom of Hungary (which itself was part of Austria-Hungary before that but that's another thing). 2:36 The aerial view is not Hateg, it's Bran. 3:47 The Magyarosaurus was originally named "Titanosaurus dacus", it was renamed in the 1930s to it's current name "Magyarosaurus dacus". 5:11 Zalmoxis was originally called "Rhabdodon robustum" by Nopcsa. It was reclassified and renamed to Zalmoxis in 2003 after it was found to be different from Rhabdodon. 5:38 Nopcsa was not the one to discover Palaudititan. 11:22 He also did not 'find' Heptasteornis. He did find the fossils but it was only described in 1975. Heptasteornis is also an Alvarezsaurid. 13:30 Hatzegopteryx was not an island giant, it was an Azhdarchid pterosaur and like other large Azhdarchids (like Quetzalcoatlus and Arambourgiania) it was regular size. The image you used is also a reconstruction of the "Hateg Island Azhdarchid" which was discovered in 2015 but not named because of the lack of sufficient fossils. Also the size is off. 13:49 And that is a Quetzalcoatlus with it's long and thin neck. Hatzegopteryx probably had a somewhat shorter and thicker neck. 14:31 Once again, Hatzegopteryx was not an initially a tiny creature. And was also not discovered by Nopcsa. And I think that about covers it :)

[@paleoph6168]

Yes! Franz Nopcsa needs more attention.

[@peperando8733]

Your channel is really amazing dude, and I love the new video format, it feels more dynamic

[@RarlyL8]

I'm no expert but it seems logical that these animals became stranded on the islands with the rising sea level rather than repeatedly migrating from the mainland in large and diverse enough numbers to start a population. The Azhdarchids could simply fly there from the mainland and use the island for whatever they wanted whenever they wanted.

[@colemabee4656]

I've been watching all of your videos. The content is very engaging and highly informative! I just want to say keep it up dude! You can really see your progression from your old videos.

[@nobrac1647]

At 13:30 he says the hatzegopteryx loomed up to 6 meters tall. Yet is shown as more than 4times the height of a human. Small and annoying scaling error there. Makes it hard to properly imagine the scale of the creatures. But otherwise a very enjoyable video.

[@RajaHarimau98]

@Homer Simpson The shorter neck reconstruction is based on a smaller species of Hateg Island azhdarchid, which had a wingspan of 4m, whereas the long neck reconstruction is an older reconstruction of Hatzegopteryx based off its relatives Quetzalcoatlus and Arambourgiana. Hatzegopteryx would've resembled its smaller contemporary, but would've stood 4-5m, and hence it doesn't scale properly as you've mentioned. It is also followed up with Mark Witton's reconstruction of Arambourgiana, which is a bit funny considering that Witton has multiple reconstructions of Hatzegopteryx.

[@TheGrimify]

That Video is one of your best presentations ever!! I really enjoyed it! Thank you very much for your efforts and the great work!

[@zadewagstaff8089]

I love these videos! Such a great series

[@seanvucich]

Love the new format mixing your original format with a bit of you in the mix - Your videos are fun, informational and super interesting - Long time subscriber looking for ward to seeing your content for many years to come.

[@keithharper32]

I'm sorry, but I have to correct you on one aspect of your analysis here. Hatzegopeteryx wasn't actually the result of Island gigantism, which usually only happens to flying animals when they lose their ability to fly. Hatzegopterys was very much still able to, and so didn't evolve on the island but was probably an interloper, flying in, grabbing bites to eat before flying on. In fact it was just the local variety of a clade of pterosaurs known as Azdharchids, which are found globally and many of whom grew to large sizes. Pterosaurs by 70mya were mostly larger varieties, the smaller types having gone extinct due to competition with birds (yes, birds were fully evolved and diverse by then, having first appeared 50 million years earlier). otherwise , a good overview of Hatzeg Island and the animals that evolved there.

[@metaouroboros690]

Hatzegopteryx's evolution was affected by the island in that it had a shorter and significantly more robust beak and neck than most Azdharchids, in order to better hunt as an apex predator. So it wasn't affected by island gigantism, but the island environment did result in evolutionary changes that were uncommon elsewhere.

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

He doesn’t outright say it but it seems like he mistakenly assumed Hatzegopteryx evolved from average sized pterosaurs in the Hatzeg island environment rather than being a local representative of a global and already gigantic clade.

[@cmw12]

@@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes He does directly say it.

[@hailgiratinathetruegod7564]

Another man seeing the many problems in the video.

[@hailgiratinathetruegod7564]

@@metaouroboros690 your comment is correct, but Atlas Pro says in the video that Hatzegopteryx evolced from a smal ancestor to this size because of its island home. Which is simply not wrong, it is a azhdarchid that specialized in hunting the native pray aviable, and not a giant form of its family

[@christophermabie4382]

I started watching your videos over a year ago loved them, since you changed style to show your face I have been watching ever video love the change keep making amazing quality videos!

[@georgethompson1460]

I've heard caves have a similar effect in some circumstances, an episode on subterranian geo-ecology would be cool!

[@TaoChen100]

Me seeing the smol dinosaurs: awww Me seeing Hatzegopteryx: nightmare fuel

[@Threddum]

i'm frustrated that the pterosaurs at 12:57 are so darn stinkin cute. like the artist who drew up this rendition was out here designing pokemon i swear to god. look at their heads, man. they're beanie babies.

[@Aritro77]

This channel is amazing. Along with the amazing research, the graphics are well crafted and obviously took a helluva lot of time. Keep it up mate.

[@YAAH-E]

Everyone gangster till the Hungarian Indiana Jones shows up.

[@last7116]

Biogeography is the coolest topic and I never even thought of it or heard of it before seeing your channel, these videos are amazing dude thanks

[@straize01]

Keep up your good work G!

[@TheFlexecutioner]

My favorite youtube channel to unwind to when im ending my day. Thanks for all the knowledge bro.

[@RaineHoltz]

After the shock of seeing your face, I decided I like it. Show it more. (The quality of the videos and presentation remains the same. Love your channel.)

[@plasmak3297]

Your pfp looks like constipation

[@mrnnhnz]

Excellent work, enjoyed that. Also appreciate your enthusiasm for the subject. Keep up the good work.

[@gaylordzapikowski9053]

The unnamed pterosaur appears to be a Dimorphodon of some kind, and it should be noted that Hatzegopteryx shares very little relation with Dimorphodon as the Dimorphodontia lineage branched away from the rest of Macronychoptera (which I will now lovingly remember as the Macaroni Helicopters) back in the early Jurassic, the rest forming Novialoidea, which is all other members of Pterosauria except Eopterosauria, which split off back in the Triassic. A better example pterosaur would be Ornithocheirus, as it is I believe the type specimen for the Ornithocheiroidea clade, which includes the Hatzegopteryx. Though something funny to note is the fact that Ornithocheirus is known from fragmentary remains and so it is commonly restored based on the remains of its larger relative, Tropeognathus. As such you have a Brachiosaurus situation where the face you see is at best speculative and may not be accurate at all. All I wanted to do was to identify the unnamed pterosaur you used and its relation to Hatzegopteryx and it led me down this wonderful phylogenetic rabbit hole, so thank you for spurring on further learning, I hope I didn't come off as an asswipe with this comment.

[@inai7282]

This islad trilogy was my first and most favorite video from you

[@DarthBobCat]

There's a couple of statements you make about birds and pterosaurs that aren't accurate. Birds had evolved by the Late Jurassic, many tens of millions of years before Hatzegopteryx and Hatzeg Island emerged. Also, your choice of pictures seems to imply that Hatzegopteryx was an example of Island Gigantism, emerging from a Dimorphodon-like smaller ancestor. It was an Azhdarchid, which were already giant flyers. Hatzegopteryx was more solidly built than its relatives, so it was heavier, but not enormously bigger. I'm also pretty sure that Figure 8 was a picture of a Quetzalcoatlus, I've seen that picture online before; it's noticabely lankier than Hatzegopteryx. Otherwise this was a fine and informative video.

[@annikathewitch3950]

The crazy thing is that hatzegopteryx could probably still fly; pterosaur bones are super light, and unlike birds, they took off with their front limbs, so they didn't have to waste mass lugging around a seperate set of muscles for taking off on top of those used for flight. One of the major theories for how they were able to get so big is that they could fly between islands, meaning they effectively had much larger hunting grounds than their terrestrial counterparts.

[@Boom-hw8ku]

13:30 BIIIIGG issue, that's not a reconstruction of Hatzegopteryx, that's a reconstruction of the Hatzeg Island Azhdarchid, both are completely seperate taxon, and the "pterosaur" is a reconstruction of Dimorphodon which has not only been oversized, but also died out millions of years before the Upper Cretaceous. on another note, the Alvarezsaurid isn't actually small, their size was already on decline ontop of all of this artwork not being credited, I know the artists who some of these reconstructions and i dont think they'd take too kindly to their work being used without permission

[@chrislemery8178]

I always found dinosaurs boring. You have a way of putting it into terms that makes me jaw dropingly fascinated. I think it's because you offer a lot of context of the history I never really had condensed like you do in your vids. Thanks dude.

[@zanzen1573]

Very small thing I noticed: when displaying the size of hazegopteryx You show its ancestor as a dimorphodont pterosaur, which went extinct in the Triassic, rather than an azhdarchid pterosaur (the genus it belongs to).

[@AtlasPro1]

Wrong, I was merely giving a size comparison between a typical pterosaur and the hatzegopteryx, at no point did I ever say they were related

[@hailgiratinathetruegod7564]

@@AtlasPro1 the compearson still didn't work since it was a member of the giant pterosaurs, the azhdarchids. Its like using the sumatran tiger as a form island gigantisim, because it is like a giant house cat.

[@ledernierutopiste]

@@hailgiratinathetruegod7564 Difference being that a tiger is still far far closer to a cat than a azhdarchid pterosaur is to a dimorphodont... You guys are right, but you're really being picky here, he didn't say they were related so it's a bit too much to criticize this. His video are very accurate and well researched compared to many other channel.

[@alanivar2752]

i like to imagine every single one of these exhibited island tameness and we could just go back in time and snuggle these 7 ton mini-behemoths like giant dogs

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

@@ledernierutopiste He definitely did heavily imply that Hatzegopteryx was the size it is because of island gigantism (ergo its close relatives are tiny) and not because it was already part of a clade that existed all over the world made up of giants, even if he didn't directly say it. There are small Azdarchids that exist, but from what I've seen Hatzegopteryx is usually classified with the Quetzalcoatlinae clade, which includes other giants of similar size that evolved in a continental environment.

[@williambock1821]

That’s ADORABLE!! The island of baby dino’s!!

[@michelesiciliano2016]

But birds bigger than a house 😂

[@theblazingredcomet1954]

You were doing so good until you started talking about the Theropods, you over simplify what animals are actually closely related or not. Neovenator wasn't very closely related to the Theropods on hatzeg at all and by the time of hatzeg formed, the Carcharodontasaurids were already extinct in Europe and most of the world. Your bio geography is correct and very interesting though, I just would do a little bit more research on the taxonomy of these creatures.

[@theblazingredcomet1954]

Also a lot of azdarchid pterosaurs were massive, though in morphology hatzegopteryx was definitely more robust and more adapted to being an apex predator.

[@alinalexandru2466]

This comment indeed needs more likes

[@RajaHarimau98]

This bothered me as well. Elopteryx and Heptasteornis were members of clades that were already typically fairly small on the mainland. The follow-up with Balaur is weird as well, since Balaur could be an avialan and would henceforth be a potential island giant. The only known dwarf theropod on Hateg is maybe "Megalosaurus hungaricus", and we don't even know what it is, so it's a maybe.

[@ferengiprofiteer9145]

So, ya'll give links to your channels so we can pick them apart.

[@aaronbussey3856]

@@ferengiprofiteer9145 This comment needs any more likes.

[@MystikmonC]

Awesome to see you while you explain us your work !!!!

[@darylchan9396]

Do "Why there are no polar bear (equivalents) in the Antarctic"?

[@swargpatel7634]

I knew Hatzegopteryx was huge but this is just nightmare fuel. The head alone seems like it's more than 3 humans long! Even larger then a cerotopsian head! Great video as always.

[@alinalexandru2466]

The size comparison is wrong...

[@Osterbaum]

I wonder whether this island might have had "giant" mammals, relative to their typical size at the time. Might some mammals on this island have grown larger than normal? Something like the size of a boar or something similar maybe? Thoughts?

[@infinitium8460]

Brilliant! Browsing KZbin and some fantastic new content is uploaded! This one looks to be really interesting!

[@stvasile]

Major fail: you misspelled, and, in consequence, also mispronounced the name of the most important person in the video. The man was named Franz Nopcsa, not Nopsca. Also, Hațeg is a town, not a village. Also, birds have been described from the Upper Cretaceous deposits of the Hațeg Basin. Enantiornithine bird remains are very rare, it's true, but they did exist. Very nice to cover this topic, it is a very good example of island biology.

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

There are a lot of weird categorization mistakes like the village/town thing in videos like this. I saw one recently where someone called Den Haag a “town” as if it’s just some minor place when it’s the administrative capital of The Netherlands. Saw one from this same channel a few months back that used a hyena as an example of a canid when hyenas are felid as well. I saw another video where someone called the Etruscans a “tribe”. It’s easy to overlook because it’s always an interesting topic but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t distracting.

[@stvasile]

@@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes I totally agree - the video is very well put together, nice information, well presented and all, but it scratched my ear everytime I heard it mispronounced. Going back to the village/town problem, it might depend on what you read: it was a village in Nopcsa's time, but it is a town in our days.

[@CraftsmanOfAwsomenes]

Would also add that he makes it seem like Hatzegopteryx’s ancestors were average small pterosaurs before island gigantism kicked in. Really they were Quetzalcoatlinae whose ancestors the Azdarchids and close relatives were already spread worldwide and taller than giraffes when standing.

[@whitepinkblue1744]

i discovered your channel while bored in finnish class and now i watch every video that comes out lmao. theyre honestly interesting how an animal devenlops based on its surroundings

[@axeldaval3410]

I know that fossil records support the idea of giant creatures roaming the earth...but I have a hard time visualising a 12m long wingspan birdy looking reptile....

[@Whydoyoureadme]

Why? There is tons of recreations, so you don't have to imagine too much. Do you not believe that they existed? Don't tell me your God put the bones there to test us...

[@fezii9043]

@@Whydoyoureadme you just had to attack him over nothing lol

[@azrielmoha6877]

@@Whydoyoureadme chill out man, he nowhere claim that he doesn't believe in fossils. Just that he can't imagine the animals irl looked like, which even to a person that accustomed to paleontology still can't comprehend Azdarchids because they're so weird

[@Babigoldfish]

Birds are bird looking reptiles?

[@shivonac1581]

OMFG DINOSAURS ARE MY FAVOURITE THING I CAN'T BELIVE YOU'VE DONE A VIDEO LIKE THIS I'm gonna make my pot noodles and prepare for this like a cinema movie jesus I'm so excited

[@Fede_99]

The video started good but going to the end I heard too many inaccurate things, first don't tell me you assumed that dinosaurs like Heptasteornis or Elopteryx were related to Neovenator cause it's not, there's still no trace of a small theropod which had giant counterparts on the mainland, then in the pterosaurs part the drawings and examples you used were mostly all wrong, also gigantism has nothing to do with Hatzegopteryx. Other similar sized Azdharchids lived at the same time in other parts of the world, and doing the comparison with the 1 m wingspan pterosaur is just wrong, since in the Early Cretaceous, much earlier than this pterosaur appeared, there were already examples which reached 8 m in wingspan, not directly related to Azdharchids but I hope you get the point

[@Tazinatorism]

This series has been absolutely fascinating! I've loved every bit of it. Your work has rekindled my love and fascination for everything biology, and given me a new interest in biogeography past and present. You do a great job presenting it all. Well written and well paced scripts throughout. I'm exited for the next information adventure you take me on, whatever that may be!

[@koharumi1]

Pocket dinosaurs!

[@xseloryzshadowwalker6480]

Yamete

[@koharumi1]

@@xseloryzshadowwalker6480 ayaya?

[@DrexFactor]

Long-time fan of the channel and a dinosaur fan as well. I've enjoyed your series on island isolation effects on biology and was excited to see this one. Overall it's great to see you tackle the topic of this specific island and the impact it had on its fauna, but I'm gonna be real with you...this could have taken another round of edits in terms of the taxonomy of dinosaurs and pterosaurs. There are several inaccuracies scattered throughout the video that range from innocent mistakes all the way up to stuff that renders a few of the conclusions you reach a little dubious. 3:18 While Alamosaurus and Argentinosaurus are indeed both Titanosaurs, Supersaurus is not. Supersaurus is a Diplodocid sauropod. My understanding of the current taxonomy marks an early Jurassic split between Diplodocids and Macronarians with Camarasaurid and Titanosaurid Sauropods making up sister clades within Macronaria. Given the blur filter I cannot tell the names of the other Sauropods you list here. 11:30 So a few things here...the first is that there's quite a bit of controversy over whether Heptasteornis is a valid taxon. Its recovered remains are so fragmentary that there is doubt both that they represent a single animal as well as whether they can functionally represent a type specimen. If the animal does indeed represent a valid genus, then it's most likely an Alvarezsaurid Theropod. Likewise, Elopteryx is a Maniraptoran Theropod and similarly based upon such fragmentary material that there is some question as to whether the genus is valid. Both are of typical size for these families and are not unusually small for them. Neovenator is an Allosauroid Theropod, as distantly related to both Heptasteornis and Elopteryx as Supersaurus is from the Titanosaurs. It should not be considered a basal animal from which either other animal derived. 12:43 "During the time of Hatzeg Island, birds had yet to fully evolve." This is incorrect. Our first fossil evidence of birds appears just a little to the west in Germany from more than 80 million years before the island. Even if one were to argue that "fully evolved" meant the derived traits that we see that we more associate with modern birds from toothless beaks, reduction of the tail, and fusing of the finger bones, etc, all these traits had already appeared in the fossil record by this point. Flying birds had yet to experience a great deal of diversity and radiation at this point due to competition from Pterosaurs, but they absolutely had fully evolved by this point. And that leads us to... 13:29 So first up, the example Pterosaur you give here at a smaller size looks to be Dimorphodon...and animal only distantly related to and tens of millions of years older than Hatzegopteryx. Second, Hatzegopteryx is an Azhdarchid Pterosaur--its gigantic size is typical of the family. We find related Pterosaurs of the exact same size across Europe and North America. What made Hatzegopteryx unique wasn't its size but its robustness, and island insularism almost certainly did contribute to its build. But a Pterosaur the size of a giraffe? Yeah, that's actually pretty normal for this family. I am hoping this isn't coming across as being pedantic--I just think these things do matter. I really do enjoy your videos. I really appreciate the depth of your research and the way you tell stories. This one just had so many things that I knew were incorrect that it took me out of enjoying the video. Still looking forward to the next one.

[@ExtremeMadnessX]

Pterosaurus sizes don't have anything with sizes of islands, many species of pterosaurus just were that big everywhere in that time period.

[@pine1780]

Thank you for your channel. I have covid and asthma and the asthma attack left me bed ridden. I can't walk right now but these videos are giving me entertainment. Thank you

[@MarloSoBalJr]

Seems the Hatzegopteryx was merely a migrate stopping on the island to feed & breed then going on it's way. Too big of a species to just settle on Hatzeg. The thing would have depleted all the resources available

[@dol2128]

biogeography was something i never thought I'd be interested in if it weren't for your videos

[@vladbadoiu3777]

Says Hatzeg ... shows videos of Bran :))) c'mon man, you can do better ;)

[@mortified776]

Oh he knows how to troll an audience. I noticed he said he spelled Hațeg 'Hatzeg' because his font didn't have the character 'ț'. Which he explains using that font ;)

[@AtlasPro1]

No one will ever know 😈

[@aaronmarks9366]

This is such an awesome channel

[@chomihai]

Great content once again, loving the channel!

[@kremstoin]

You've given me so much knowledge in such a short time, I think I owe you my life now

[@proimsat]

Good stuff! Thanks for the videos, I'm hyped for what else you got coming

[@Locutus]

Another more common way to spell this would be "Hateg though considering this font doesn't have the special Romanian character "ț" I've decided to spell Hatzeg in a more easily readable way, despite knowing there will likely be people in the comments saying I spelled the city's name wrong.

[@KomradZX1989]

Your narration is just so lively to listen to and is very clearly spoken and VERY professional sounding, but in a good way 😂👍 I’ve been a subscriber since your early days, keep up your amazing work!!!

[@AardBewoner]

Really enjoyed this series, thank you! Grasslands, and sociobiology! they're like forests, but with barely a tree around, there's so many different types of grassland ecosystems

[@Howayiz]

I love your shirt omg :o This island series was great, thank you so much! I love your content and now I'm working a job requiring no brain power I can watch your videos a lot more, which definitely helps the day go better!

[@warifx9857]

that is such an awesome series i loved it so much pls keep talking about evolution u the best at it and u make it so godamn interesting

[@amk4956]

A new atlas pro video to start my day! A surprise to be sure but a welcome one

[@Kurooganeko]

I loved the trilogy, bae. Thank you for everything ♥

[@salamisushi8577]

I love this topic I heard about it before but never did research thanks for the info!!!

[@psycologo121]

I am really enjoying this series. Keep up the great work.