These Fossils Were Supposed To Be Impossible

[@addman]

in 2004, she saw on television a program featuring Roger Mason in the quarry talking about the find, and contacted him. This put in motion events that culminated in Tina’s contribution being recognized at the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Charnia discovery, complete with her cutting a fossil cake with Roger.

[@WilliamStoneContentZone]

Wholesome

[@Effemo58]

Ok, this could be a cute story but to me the injustice still remains as this fossil is always named _masoni_ (yes, I'm reluctant to forgive so easily.... Ha !).

[@aag2139]

@@Effemo58 they could have named the attenborough one after her instead, for instance

[@stephanieyee9784]

That is great news. I hope her former teacher was humbled knowing that Tina Had found a pre-Cambrian fossil locally.

[@scottabc72]

Glad she got some recognition

[@alienenthusiast]

I hope Tina gets a fossil named after her. Sad that she got overshadowed.

[@ruyfernandez]

Well said! Too bad I am not going to study ediacaran paleontology, otherwise I would have done it myself with much pleasure.

[@scvcebc]

It took 200 years for Mary Anning to have a fossil named after her.

[@ericv738]

You don't even know if it's a true story.

[@RavinRay]

I know the feeling! As a junior geologist I was the one who first spotted fossil crabs in one abandoned quarry we surveyed, but when the paper came out I was not included as a co-author, just mentioned in the acknowledgments.

[@susanhuntley9262]

@@ericv738 like me, you could check this

[@panqueque445]

"Predation hadn't been invented yet" That's insane to think about

[@RichardMiller-tq6ut]

And insanely presumptuous

[@damienthonk1506]

@@RichardMiller-tq6ut not necessarily. Nearly every scientific discovery is lampshaded with "probably." I'd say they did their due diligence to mention that in this video. The moral is literally that we never really know for sure.

[@patreekotime4578]

@@RichardMiller-tq6ut 🙄

[@naturesfinest2408]

@@RichardMiller-tq6ut this. Predation from bacteria to other bacteria existed. There is no reason for me to believe the same sort of consumption didnt happen slowly between these creatures. Second, of "lampshad probably" they should just say we dont know. Not probably. Probably is what got them in this mess in the first place by ignoring clear fossil evidence and not looking.

[@RichardMiller-tq6ut]

@@naturesfinest2408 agreed

[@M-A-Khaki]

I'm doing a PhD related to the evolution of non-bilatarian animals and I am going to discuss this paper in our next lab meeting. Thanks Eons for leading me to it!

[@scrotusmaximus3043]

Best of luck man!

[@ruyfernandez]

You lucky! The one thing I hate the most about research is having to read all the bibliography. 😭 How happy I am each time I get an oral explanation!

[@mriaschug5432]

If you haven’t seen it yet pbs eons has another video from about 2 years ago, might have a couple more tie bits that could help you, it’s called “ other eon explosions you should know about “

[@atomicskull6405]

But are we sure they can be classified as animals? They might be some dead end of multicellular life.

[@ruyfernandez]

@@atomicskull6405 if I remember well, some organic chemical signature of animals (like cholesterol-derived molecules) was found in those fossils.

[@furby9284]

Roger was a 16 year old who was rock climbing with his friends when he stumbled upon a Charnia. Tina was a 15 year old who also just so happened to stumble upon a Charnia fossil, but a year earlier. Really sad that a 15 year old boy found one while playing with his friends and it revolutionized our understanding of the Ediacran period as a whole, having the species named after him. Yet when Tina finds one as a teenager she’s dismissed and told that her discovery is impossible.

[@SirSpinalColumn]

Sad that this video doesn’t mention the Australian guy that found some before either of these two kids in area the entire period is named after, the Ediacran hills of South Australia.

[@Metal_Maxine]

I think more of the difference was that the boy found a "proper" geologist, the girl had a dismissive high-school geography teacher with no knowledge beyond what was written in textbooks.

[@DanStaal]

@@Metal_Maxine More than that, he took a rubbing of it, so he had something to show, and not just a memory.

[@saareso9380]

​@@DanStaalShe also took a rubbing of it.

[@feiryfella]

@@SirSpinalColumn You are correct. I can't remember his name, but that was a real shame too.

[@prezhenz6969]

Somehow when she started to say they found something familiar, I knew it would be the Cnidarians. They’re literally so “simple” that people assume they are basal species but to have such a defined body plan that is repeatable AND successful, shows how derived it probably is. That and they survived basically every major extinction event we know about

[@daviddegeorge2667]

I'm pretty willing to bet on a precambrian sponge too.

[@person8064]

@@daviddegeorge2667 Sponges have long been known to be that old. They're the oldest known animals and some potential fossils indicate they may have been around during snowball Earth.

[@andrespico9613]

The Ediacaran Weirdo Support Group motto: "With fronds like these, who needs anemones?"

[@erictaylor5462]

"Silly girl. That just isn't possible." I wonder how many important discoveries were delayed or lost completely because of these words.

[@The_Runaway_wolf]

Fr

[@erictaylor5462]

@@The_Runaway_wolf ????

[@Jay-ho9io]

Right!

[@Jay-ho9io]

​@@erictaylor5462 it's shorthand for "for real."

[@erictaylor5462]

@@Jay-ho9io Okay. Thanks.

[@danbrooks3932]

Can we all take a moment to scream into the void for poor Tina?

[@Effemo58]

I did it in my main comment and some others here :-) And I just want Justice is made to her.

[@jonmartinson6830]

Wait, you need a specific reason to do that?

[@alokinzna]

She didn't get results . Stay salty.

[@THandP_org]

@Daniel E. stay salty = keep fighting (in this case, keep fighting for Tina to get proper recognition instead of a mere photo op)

[@CaspiRose99]

She should have stuck to her guns and at least took it with her if nothing else

[@reuireuiop0]

The Chronicles of Charnia. So exciting, I never miss an episode

[@holliegould3463]

"...because of its immense age! -the fossils, not attenborough." i love this channel so much

[@891Henry]

I'm glad she cleared that up. After all, he is getting on a bit.

[@MotoHikes]

I am from Charnwood Forest, and have actually released a video today that talks about it a bit! I have one of those rocky outcrops that the fossil was found in in the woods behind my house, and plan to do a video about Charnia masoni in future!

[@tonytaskforce3465]

Awesome. Please keep us posted.

[@MotoHikes]

@@tonytaskforce3465 I will, thank you! I wanted to do one on Charnia masoni, but as my channel is still in the early stages, i wanted to get better at production first, so I can give C masoni all the attention it deserves.

[@tonytaskforce3465]

@@MotoHikes Worth waiting for.

[@primarytrainer1]

it would be so cool if regular plants were just a polyp phase and then had free floating predatory stages that just ride on the wind eating things

[@queeniemarkham8022]

Cool and also terrifying, I’m very glad I’m a land creature because jellyfish are frightening

[@M167A1]

Sounds delightful

[@sion8]

🤔 How 'bout no.

[@icarusbinns3156]

Cool… until they start eating humans. Because humans gonna human and will wipe them out

[@shaider1982]

I don't know, plants like the tumbleweed already are a problem due to how they propagate in numbers and move around with just the wind. At least in Super Mario the plants trying to eat you just stay in one place.

[@tyler3201]

It would be so cool if in the future you guys edit together a super long video of all your videos in historically chronological order. That would be so much detail it would be like taking a ton of classes.

[@ivanchao8872]

Chronological playlist maybe? Anyone could do it... But its way too much effort for me lol

[@littlehibiscus8973]

Yes pls😭

[@lonestarr1490]

@@ivanchao8872 All Eons videos have reliable subtitles (I know for certain, because I always watch with subtitles on). It shouldn't be that hard to write a bot that extracts them from each individual video, basically creating a transcript of the whole channel in the process (and saving it together with the video title and the url, of course). Afterwards, all we'd need is a bot that runs through that transcript and sieves out all the epoch identifiers and time frames given. If we equip it with a look-up table of all the epochs, it could output the list of videos in chronological order according to these infos. There will definitely be clashes, so the bot should mark them somehow. But I suspect it will be a manageable number of clashes, so that one could go through and settle them by hand afterwards. Sooo. Could anyone please do that? I just started out with Python, so sadly I'm not yet fit.

[@incyray9709]

A playlist could probably do that! Would require far less editing and agonizingly long rendering too, haha

[@urieldaboamorte]

it's not really what you requested, but they do have a video on geological time, where they go from the hadean to present day

[@sarahdelury3003]

This is now my favorite episode of Eons! Thank you, so much, for centering Tina in the discovery of Charnia. Her discovery, & than my discovery of her, & Charnia, helped launch my love of all thing Ediacrian. And the new info shared in this video is awesome! THANK YOU!

[@dycorty9182]

This is my favorite period in earth's history!! Thank you so much for doing a video on it, I've always thought that the Ediacaran creatures were just...so weird and wonderful, and I always tell others about it when i have the chance!!

[@tonytaskforce3465]

It was the closest we ever had to a time of soft-bodied innocence, a time before predators: a Garden of Eden.

[@brianlovesart]

A little over a year ago I discovered this channel and I am so glad I did. In addition to reigniting my childhood love of paleontology, it has been a refuge from my anxiety and a place to go when feeling down. A very gracious thank you to everyone who makes Eons what it is! Especially Kallie, you’ll always be my favourite host. Have a nice day, everyone!

[@oliviapilson]

Always fascinating to me how biologists assume when they don’t have visible evidence that it couldn’t have been possible while astronomers and physicists usually rely on the opposite (ex the assumption that life on exo-planets is probable)

[@kpatelv607]

No they assumed it wasn't real because a woman was telling them about it.

[@monkeymanchronicles]

@@kpatelv607Mary Anning got the shaft on her discoveries for the same reason. ‘Naturalism’ has been a boys club until about 50-60 years ago. Glad it’s not like that anymore because the more people in the field the better. Science advances ever further with more involvement.

[@BananaCake26]

The people who rejected the idea were a geographer and a geologist, not biologists. Even then, those are three fields that work with actual physical evidence. Astronomy and physics are completely different fields with their own methods. You can't calculate the likelihood of a fossil in a rock layer with an equation, you need to actually find it. The assumption that life on exoplanets is possible works because the basic building blocks for life exist everywhere in the universe. No fossils existed in Precambrian layers at the time, they needed to be found.

[@smusic-vm1zd]

I think you're all making too much assumptions. If I remember the videos of the channel "History of the Earth" about the same subject (which I can highly recommend!) there have been multiple discoveries of these fossils and more importantly multiple separate people who recognized these were fossils from the ediacaran. The problem here wasn't an assumption but dogma, something which doesn't seem inherent to a single field such as biology to me but rather scientists who had gone too far in their skepticism about new discoveries or theories. I don't think the discovery was dismissed solely because of the discoverer being a woman either, rather scientists being stuck in their dogma again, although unfortunately back then I suppose it really didn't help. I hope it's better today or to make it so.

[@smusic-vm1zd]

@@BananaCake26 I see you were typing a similar comment to mine :)

[@WilliamStoneContentZone]

I like how she keeps calling them weirdos, one of my favorite words

[@euchiron]

This is fascinating stuff! I haven't heard too much about what predated the Cambrian Explosion. Seeing what might be an ancestor of jellyfish and anemones shows what meant success back then

[@Frostfly]

I wonder what conditions allowed the formation of these fossils. it must have been both gentle and sudden. very strange.

[@awesomelyshorticles]

River washout after a storm, or an underwater mudslide are both known to have happened. In this case I'd believe it's the floodwater silt

[@ruyfernandez]

Consider also that an ancient deep sea environment like this may have easily gone anoxic, helping to preserve non-mineralised orgnisms. Also, it is not necessary that the burial conditions be gentle. To test the hypothesis that some cambrian lagerstätten may have formed by a turbidite deposit covering an inhabited seafloor, some scientists (I don't know who, unfortunately) made an experiment. They took some starfish (so soft-bodied animals) and put them for a few hours in a FREAKING WASHING MACHINE to simulate the impact of the turbidite. In the end, the starfish were intact, because fresh tissues can actually hold a body together quite effectively.

[@RichardMiller-tq6ut]

Given 100 million years, it would be strange not to

[@TK199999]

Based on other Ediacaran sites a lot these fossil beds were the bottom of shallow-ish seas along volcanic islands and mountain ranges. With sudden pyroclastic flows covering everything in protective layer of ash that both removed oxygen and sorta flash heat froze soft bodied animals.

[@gobblinal]

No predators to eat the bodies and disperse the remains?

[@Nastyswimmer]

To be fair, Roger Mason acknowledged that Tina had found the fossil earlier

[@Zveebo]

I don’t think anyone has any issue with Roger Mason - he did the the work in persuading someone to take it seriously. Tina definitely does deserve a fossil named after her too though!

[@RichardMiller-tq6ut]

@Zveebo Tina didn't do anything but "stumble" as this woman admits. The Man did all the work. What exactly does she deserve?

[@erich1394]

@@RichardMiller-tq6ut Why did you capitalize "Man"? Why are you referring to our host as "this woman"? Why are you framing "stumbling" as an admission? Something smells.

[@The_Jovian]

@@RichardMiller-tq6ut she found it and tried to get it recognized but was falsely denied. How are you supposed to do the work when you're denied entry?

[@johannageisel5390]

@@erich1394 * sniff * Stinks of misogyny.

[@michaelmaloney6628]

Thank you Tina!

[@alioramus1637]

Poor tina :( wish she showed to a scientist instead of her teacher who made her believe her discovery was insignificant.

[@RichardMiller-tq6ut]

You can't blame others for what you choose to feel. She's the one who gave up. It is very honorable of the man to mention her name or we would never know she "stumbled"

[@damienthonk1506]

@@RichardMiller-tq6ut because it's definitely not possible that Tina was treated unfairly compared to David, right? Please.

[@thatotherguy7596]

@@RichardMiller-tq6ut Tina didn't "stumble", she was tripped.

[@RichardMiller-tq6ut]

@@thatotherguy7596 this woman literally used the word "stumble" to describe her contribution to the discovery. Don't argue with me. I'm just making observations

[@patreekotime4578]

@@RichardMiller-tq6ut Horse feathers. The boy that finally convinced them had to actually take rubbings to convince them. It is not her fault that they were predisposed to not believe anything young people say, especially girls, and then ignored her contribution.

[@thebogsofmordor7356]

Very interesting! I remember the episode you hosted a few years ago about the Ediacarid Dickinsonia and that blew my mind. But the Cnidarian find is extra special: Oldest predator by 20MY & clears Dickinsonia in that blurry link.

[@coconutsmarties]

I grew up 2 miles from Charnwood Forest and I still walk around it frequently, and I'm fascinated by prehistory. How tf am I only finding out about this now.

[@pansepot1490]

Subpar school?

[@coconutsmarties]

@@pansepot1490 Until recently 'History Education' in the entire British schooling system was pretty much an exercise in memorising the dates of each monarch's reign. Oh, and the order of Henry VII's wives - that's essential knowledge too, of course.

[@JubioHDX]

@@coconutsmarties if it makes you feel any better in the USA for some reason we still have to memorize henry the 8ths wives and the order and method of their passing as well. (divorce beheaded died, divorce beheaded survived...)

[@DaveTexas]

This was an especially fascinating episode. You’d think the discover of the oldest-known ancestor to modern animals would be a much bigger story, but this is the first I’ve heard about it. Good job!

[@Emperor_Oshron]

i guess you could say that these were _imfossilble?_ ;) i'll see myself out

[@lutchien]

*boos you very gently * 😁😁

[@Riley_The_Snailsquid]

Impossils

[@MemphiStig]

Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each.

[@Snittyguy]

This style of presentation format is my favourite.

[@vailstales3639]

These notifications make me so happy, I love this channel.

[@Twayver]

I would love an eons episode on the evolutionary history of either seals or fungus.

[@erich1394]

seal fungus

[@johannageisel5390]

I believe they have already done a fungus episode. But if you want more fungi, you could check out a video titled "What Was The First Fungus?" by the channeld "History of the Earth".

[@theflyingdutchguy9870]

2 very different things but still interesting😂😂

[@octo448]

It's funny that one of these is very old and the other very recent, in geological terms. Seals being mammals are so new, but the history of fungi are quite a bit older!

[@clydecessna737]

Glad you remembered Tina Negus.

[@tired1923]

things I love about science: - every other year comes breaking news that Everything Is Much Older Than Previously Thought - scientists get so excited about being wrong - everyone agrees that carcinization is really cool

[@NotSomeJustinWithoutAMoustache]

I'm just glad Tina got somewhat recognized for discovering the Charnia fossil, I can only imagine how much scientific discoveries had happened throughout the years where for one reason or another the initial discoverer were unable to publicize their find, and therefore they along with their discovery got lost to time until someone else comes along and discovers the same thing.

[@njlkerins]

Excellent episode! Thank you (and the team)!

[@evenglare]

This is awesome. but personally the thing that makes this even MORE awesome isn't the stuff we found. Its thinking about how many insane varieties that COULD have existed, but never left fossils. Thats whats mind blowing to me.

[@frankcarter6427]

very interesting, but Charnwood isn't west of London , it's further North about half way up England

[@SherriLyle80s]

It's more like NNW of London but definitely more north than west.

[@quinn3334]

whats that like an hour and a half drive?

[@lethallizard963]

@@quinn3334 more like 2.5 hours

[@chaosmike89th]

I always did enjoy the Chronicles of Charnia

[@Rebellum1]

Hnnn when I was a little kid I found a fossil, and after a few years decided "what are the chances it was really a fossil?" and threw it into the backyard. I grew up directly under one of the dots on the map of precambrian fossils shown partway through this video.

[@WHATSDADEAL]

LOVE THIS CHANNEL!

[@eetuthereindeer6671]

It would be insanely cool to see that exact same fern alive all those millions of years ago. Its crazy how it probably lived for such a short time like just miss 50 years and you probably wouldn't find it

[@cliveworth]

I am a 73 year old retied coal miner and I have a few of these that I found when I worked underground on the coal face.

[@elgringo1893]

Hi PBS Eons, this is where I live and I can also attest to it being amazing for fossils. Within a 20 mile radius of each other, there are tons of locations here where you can find Jurassic fossils (ammonites, Belemnites, bivalves, corals, crinoids, echinoids and even reptiles like plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs found here plus an incredible diplodocus on display at the Leicester museum), then you can find all the Cambrian stuff, ediacaran stuff too. It's a crazy area for its range of exposed strata. If you ever visit Leicester, visit the museum. We have a huge slab of ediacaran fossils, several meters long, showing some incredible specimens.

[@LaurieAnnCurry]

My bucket list just got longer

[@deanjericevic8912]

Fascinating & insightful showing speciation previously thought non-existent. Providing a better understanding of our distant relatives.

[@amelade]

fascinating episode! thank you Kallie and co.

[@wither5673]

the best part about science is finding things that prove previous theories wrong. it means more work and more discovery of the unknown!!!

[@danielrayner7681]

Great stuff and yes David Attenborough is a legend

[@rosiehawtrey]

I feel sorry for him, 60 years of being completely ignored and watching his own personal mass extinction develop... But he does seem to be indestructible and irreplaceable.

[@zekegonzalez3881]

This is the best channel on youtube hands down.

[@timsullivan4566]

Fascinating and VERY well explained - kudos to all involved.

[@LFToxxic]

Glad you shined a light on Tina. She deserves all the recognition! Also I miss hearing Steve’s name.

[@MustardLadySaveMe]

I am so grateful for the dedication of the women in science & technology fields who came before us so that discoveries and inquiries by women and girls today will not be dismissed like Tina's was.

[@noneofurbusiness5223]

@ 1.24 Tina just got credit! 😊

[@jakobraahauge7299]

That was beautiful Kallie!

[@needtau4138]

It's amazing to be able to see some of the first living things on this planet.

[@AryadiSubagio]

it's so amazing how simple creatures already have a modern body plan

[@suchendelokidottir5673]

OMG! A precambrian medusazoa? That is so cool.

[@tsm688]

thank goodness, a long video. wasn't sure they existed any more.

[@Henri_Hilarious]

4:33 her execution is perfect.

[@karensarkisian6576]

Given that I am from Armenia, I'd say sir David Attenborough is not a local, but just a legend :) other that that - brilliant episode, as always, thanks!

[@AndersWatches]

… local to the site where the fossils were discovered. Obviously.

[@lafcursiax]

Ooh, the artwork in this episode is so lush! I especially like the Haeckelesque arrangement at 3:20. Art Forms in the Ediacaran?

[@ChrisConnolly-Mr.C-Dives-In]

If John Hughes was still alive, he could make a movie on the teen angst that goes with a teen’s discovery being ignored. Also, you’d think the archeologists of the area would um dig a little deeper after the 1st discovery.

[@timothyhouse1622]

Well, archaeologists wouldn't' be "digging" that deep anyway unless you know of any humans that lived 600 million years ago. The word you are looking for is PALEONTOLOGIST.

[@ChrisConnolly-Mr.C-Dives-In]

@@timothyhouse1622 yeah, true but Indy Jones is way cooler than Ross Gellar.

[@patreekotime4578]

@@ChrisConnolly-Mr.C-Dives-In Is Jones even an archeologist or just a treasure hunter with a day job?

[@gobblinal]

@@patreekotime4578 Tomb robber?

[@ChrisConnolly-Mr.C-Dives-In]

@@patreekotime4578 This question you have posed is worth diving into. But hey, I’m just a guy with a diver helmet for a profile pic. I defer to Sean Connery, in character when he asked “Do you call this archeology?”

[@P-Nokota]

“The right girl on the wrong place can make all the historical difference “

[@gigibritannia]

It's always so cool to learn about things like this, but I always seem to forget whatever they say by the end of it. I still enjoy listening about it though. Is this just me? Or does anyone else experience this?

[@tgbluewolf]

"...a diverse range of other weirdos also appeared..." I feel so called out.

[@Evolved_Skeptic]

To be accurate, predation was well known at _the microbial scale_ long before these discoveries. It's only macroscopic life - with it's significantly greater basal metabolic energy requirements - which took just a little longer to go from sessile filter-feeders & simple grazers to an active Predators/Prey dynamic - pushing Evolution into overdrive in the process.

[@Eli_Skipjack]

The ediacaran is my fav geologic period, so happy to see more ediacaran content in my inbox!!!

[@davidt3563]

Imagine being the first thing eaten. Everything else is feasting on nutrients floating in the water, just minding your own business and along comes predation. Bruh.

[@CassidyConway1990]

I live in the Charnwood area and I had no idea, this is amazing.

[@EvilSnips]

The Ediacaran was such an interesting period, it was on the precipice of absolute lifelessness and the massive amounts of the beautiful diversity of life we see today. A lot of the Ediacaran creatures have similarities to today's creatures but it's hard to tell if it's analogous or just convergent. I personally believe some of them have to be related.

[@andykendall2507]

I admit that i may be a bit biased, but the reconstructions of auroralumina attenboroughii by Ceri Thomas really should be credited as "based on original reconstructions by Rhian Kendall" who I know spent hundreds of hours creating multiple versions for the rest of the research team to consider. I know that the final versions were put into the public domain and Ceri is correctly attributed for those versions, but the original artist should always be named

[@moonstonepearl21]

It's so sad how often legitimate discoveries are dismissed and their discovers disrespected because too many people can't accept the fact that we can discover that our knowledge was incorrect. Science needs to consider all possibilities. Also, the other mistake was going to a school teacher for this and not a professor like the second kid. Regular teachers generally do not have the level of expertise in any specific field to make that kind of call. They just said it was impossible based on what they were told, but they didn't actually really study it.

[@crazyasalways9272]

Then why didn't they contact someone who knew what they were talking about😊

[@johnelliott7850]

Charnwood Forest is just a comfortable walk away from my home. A friend's coming over this summer, and I'll be showing him the sites there.

[@NexuJin]

Even the Cambrian Explosion had a prequel.

[@inimitableminimalist]

"history doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme"

[@hollyodii5969]

I just love everything from Eons videos!

[@artsymarxist]

That fossil should be renamed after Tina as well. Thats a crime they ignored the woman that found it then named it after the man that came along later. So frustrating.

[@RichardMiller-tq6ut]

All she did was "stumble". The man did all the work. He's the reason why we even know any of this. He didn't even have to mention her but he did. Your kind makes people regret such honorable acts. Frustrating indeed

[@artsymarxist]

@@RichardMiller-tq6ut Misogyny alert

[@KatherineHugs]

@@RichardMiller-tq6ut you are really on a mission to invalidate Tina here, eh? I've just read 3 comments of yours with the word stumble in quotes. Did she break up with you or something?

[@RichardMiller-tq6ut]

@@KatherineHugs no. I invalidate the presumptuous, bigoted, and ridiculous claim that her choice to not follow through with her discovery is because she was a woman. Imagine the mindset that fosters onto others. It's gross and helps nothing. The host of this video invalidates her by calling her a helpless woman who "stumbled" upon this discovery

[@jlworrad]

I live near there, so this video delights me. Thanks!

[@elainebelzDetroit]

All I can think about is, "What happened to the girl who actually discovered it?" We hear that the boy went on to teach geology... I hope she's had a similarly rich intellectual life.

[@createproducti0ns]

I love you guys, your sense of humor is marvelous.

[@Fantasygod930]

It's very interesting that the Pre-cambrian life looked more like plants but not plants? And the first Predator that gets credit is usually the weird Lobster thing with no legs I don't remember what it's called but that usually gets credit where as we should really give credit to intimidate jellyfish things to be the first predator the president himself the one that faced the Xenomorph will be very proud to find predator on Earth

[@lsamaknight]

I think you're thinking of Anomalocaris

[@Hamdad]

What might've been, had things only gone a slightly different way...

[@wafikiri_]

Plants, animals, fungi . . . It took a lot of time for them to differentiate. Sponges are animals but don't even have nervous cells. They could easily be classified otherwise. Perhaps there was or could have been a realm of multicellular life of which we know nothing because fossils thereof were never found. If found, we'd try to force it into one of the known realms.

[@KaiserFredVIII]

The thing is that plants all kind of look "planty" because they all share extremely rigid fundamental physical constraints on possible body forms that they can take and still maintain evolutionary fitness, and that is also valid for those other very early animals. When you are a sessile organism that derive your energy from the environment in some way (be it from sunlight or passive absorption of organic carbon or by filter feeding) a plant-like shape is just... pretty close to the best possible way to do things.

[@Sl1f3rDrag0n]

Never thought I'd see Leicester mentioned on PBS Eons. I got my physics undergrad from University of Leicester a few years ago. Great video as always!

[@tedferkin]

Many congratulations for pronouncing Leicestershire correctly

[@jacquelinethorpe8510]

Love when Charnia crops up. This is where I live 💚

[@gaemlinsidoharthi]

Very probable that lots of people had “discovered” these fossils. Tina and Roger are just the two that we know about.

[@gobblinal]

The Cambrian explosion had to come from somewhere. You don't get that "explosion" of creatures without someplace to start. So pre-Cambrian should expect to have simpler animals? The convergent evolution of (very!) early animals (and today's sealife) and plants is fascinating to me.

[@sectorgovernor]

Exactly, it just not beliveable that suddenly bacteria and other single cells became Cambrian animals with legs, eye etc. Ediacaran must be a more primitive version of animals

[@josephbelisle5792]

This one of the things I love about science. We can discover so much. We can analyze so much. Yet we know we have to keep an open mind to discoveries that don't fit inside our current data and theories. That even with working theories we know we may find new evidence that doesn't fit inside it. Always willing to alter theories to find the truth of our universe. I love science.

[@singingunbound9705]

Literally 5 miles from me. I need to go on a fossil hunt!

[@RocLobo358]

No one will believe you lol

[@johnpritchard9753]

I really enjoyed that presentation. Thank you.

[@halg3625]

I live for these vids! But pleeeease do a video about sauropod noses! It's a subject that's WAY more interesting than it sounds. For ages, paleontologists were wrong about where the nostrils of these animals were located. Until relatively recently, it was thought that the nostrils were on the top of the animal's head. That mislead researchers into believing all kinds of crazy stuff about sauropods. For the longest time, it was thought that they were semi or even fully aquatic animals. In popular media, the heads of these animals are drawn or modeled incorrectly, to this day! There were once scientists who thought sauropods had proboscis like noses, a lot like modern tapirs or elephants! But now they know that sauropods had heads which were more like the heads of modern cetaceans. Meaning their heads weren't concave at the "bridge", but more bulbous and containing a lot of tissue. However, unlike cetaceans, their nostrils were located at the front of the snout, and all that bulbous tissue, was it's nasal structures. Please do this one! Brachiosaurus needs a makeover, but won't get one, in main stream media, until more attention is brought to this matter. I don't want to sound like a drama queen, but think of the children. One of their favorite dinos is missing a huge chunk of it's face and hardly anyone is talking about it.

[@martoneduard]

Awesome episode, i can say that this creature is extremely interesting for me a amazing pre cambrian animal.

[@omarb7164]

Tina’s geology prof seriously did her dirty

[@auricolour7862]

First few seconds of the video. Charnwood forest mentioned. Y'all are talking about my DUDES! MY favourite funny guys!!

[@StonedtotheBones13]

Was there an extinction event before the Cambrian? Everything seems to radiate a whole lot after extinction, but not so much after everything's found their niche. I hope we find out more about these critters' lifestyles, in time

[@Effemo58]

They published a video about the very first mass exticntion : the first marine plants that transformed the atmosphere by excreting too much oxygen.

[@StonedtotheBones13]

@@Effemo58 Ahh, yes the cyanobacteria. I'm just really bad at remembering the time periods of everything without like, a whole timeline to look at. Wasn't super sure either, as we mostly hear about the great dying.

[@Effemo58]

@@StonedtotheBones13 haha ! I am bad at that too, I am only able to consider a period rather than a specific date except for the very few main events of the History. Maybe not super sure as we lack real prooves (maybe are they burried deep under the soil of the oceans...) but if we consider that the whole Plant world needs Carbon and rejects Oxygen, we can imagine that the Primary Life wasn't adapted to stand this new gas...

[@michaelbeholder]

Always learning thanks to you! Big fan ❤

[@priapulida]

The History of the Earth Channel made a longer video on this recently. "Were these the first animals?"

[@duelme1234]

Thanks

[@BananaCake26]

That channel's videos are painfully verbose and too long for the info they contain. I prefer Eons' format

[@smusic-vm1zd]

Multiple even, fun to watch although not as compact as someone else said.

[@ecdetrick4560]

@@BananaCake26 true. They make long videos that seemed to be informative but I really don’t have any idea what are they talking about, nor anything related to their titles

[@smurfyday]

@@BananaCake26 And they are overly dramatic in presentation. However they can contain a lot more info.

[@juandavidgilwiedman]

I love her story telling ❤

[@aeonkrow9923]

Oh man, that reference to Attenborough's age got me! XD

[@zachcrawford5]

I wonder if fungi (which are pretty closely related to animals or even some other extinct macroscopic kingdom also gave moving around a try. It's weird that Animalia is pretty much the only kingdom that made large organisms that actively move around their environment (well, other than slime molds).

[@tsm688]

think they've got single-celled movement

[@robertforbes7666]

In 1946, geologist Reginald Sprigg discovered fossil imprints in rocks in the Flinders Ranges at the old Ediacara minefield. This was the type locality for fossils of the Ediacaran period...

[@earnestlanguage4242]

So TINA NEGUS, the original fossil discoverer had no fossil named for her, but two different guys had fossils named after them from this area? And one of those fossils was her find?

[@samsmith4242]

How many vikings live in Canada? None. So, while Leif Ericsson found the americas. Columbus gets all the blame for what happened later cause that was him. Tina was, unfairly, called stupid by someone with a little bit of power and education. Who went ‘according to what I read in my big brain book, that is impossible stupid little girl’ Later, a different child did the same thing. The professor humoured them. And, he was right. The book was wrong. So, the expert published the findings and by Tradition. Credited the fossil hunter that found it. Tina was screwed over by her teacher

[@goldengaruda8935]

@@samsmith4242the guy asked a different person. That’s why there was a different outcome.

[@Antaragni2012]

Marvellous vídeo and very well written text!