Is This Weird Animal Our Closest Relative?

Colugos are sometimes called flying lemurs - even though they don’t fly and are not lemurs. But what they really are, is a 200 year old mystery DNA might have just solved.
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Sources:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3444412/
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...
www.iucnredlist.org/search?ta...
animaldiversity.org/accounts/...
animaldiversity.org/accounts/...
www.lexico.com/en/definition/...
www.iucnredlist.org/search?qu...
www.nature.com/articles/488561c
ucmp.berkeley.edu/vertebrates...
phys.org/news/2016-08-dna-ana...
www.britannica.com/animal/fly...
science.umd.edu/classroom/bsc...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas...
animaldiversity.org/accounts/...
www.sciencedirect.com/topics/...
www.researchgate.net/profile/...
www.nature.com/articles/35054550
www.mdpi.com/2073-4425/13/5/7...
academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...
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Images:
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[@BizarreBeasts]

Find a wonderful, signed, limited edition art print by Emily Graslie right here: store.dftba.com/collections/bizarrebeasts/products/emily-graslie-print

[@laurachapple6795]

The comb teeth made me go, "WHAT?!" out loud. Weirdest thing I've ever seen!

[@anna_alexandra]

Same, very visually upsetting and yet really cool

[@vitoremanuel5349]

Yeah... bizarre

[@AspienPadda]

I said eew out loud

[@kimpanther5110]

Same!!

[@ConvincingPeople]

@@welcometothekingdra Exactly what I thought.

[@derrickthewhite1]

One thing worth mentioning about genetic studies and why the 2001 study used such sparse data: our ability to sequence genomes is possibly the fastest area of engineering advance over the last two decades, putting even moore's law to shame. The first human genome project took 13 years and cost over 2 billion. Today we can get usefully large amounts of DNA analyzed for under a thousand, and its being sold and the commercial market as a genealogy and medical tool. That's why the 2001 study looks so lazy in comparison to the 2016: our ability to look at DNA has just come that far.

[@user-vt8kz1ll7b]

Basically what Jurassic Park was about.

[@AlbertaGeek]

@@user-vt8kz1ll7b It really wasn't.

[@user-vt8kz1ll7b]

@@AlbertaGeek Yes it was. The commercialization of genetic power.

[@AlbertaGeek]

@@user-vt8kz1ll7b No, it was about dinosaurs chasing people. Everything else, including "the commercialization of genetic power" was just one of many plot devices towards this.

[@user-vt8kz1ll7b]

More like the reverse, as the dinosaurs were the product of that commercialization mindset. We see that in practically all entries. Greed, ignorance, lack of total control, and folly of man and so on.

[@Im-Not-a-Dog]

Colugos convergently evolved to look like confusion.

[@paulkinzer7661]

The short video clips showed odd, sometimes really large, things hanging from the bellies of the gliding colugos. I had an idea of what they were, but couldn't really tell for sure, so I did some searching and found that, yes, those are babies! 'Semi-marsupials' is what Wikipedia calls colugos; another thing that puts them in the Bizarre Beast running. I like it when I find out about an entire order of mammals that I've never heard of before, so thanks. And, I LOVE them!

[@Beryllahawk]

I am very glad to replace "those are babies" with what MY brain assumed, haha!

[@BizarreBeasts]

Yes!!! There were really a lot more wild facts about colugos than we could fit into one video. For example, we found out after recording the episode that there is evidence that they may use ultrasound for communication! www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09524622.2018.1463294?journalCode=tbio20

[@hope1575]

How did they not even mention that part? It's certainly bizarre!

[@hope1575]

@@BizarreBeasts that's because your videos are too short! 😂

[@paulkinzer7661]

@@Beryllahawk Ha! Um, I ad some other thoughts, too...

[@tyrant-den884]

Forget Batman, Colugoman is the new hotness.

[@Beryllahawk]

Lemurs have tooth combs, colugos have comb teeth! What a nifty weird critter!!

[@metalpunk1234]

If you think about it, our front teeth usually have ridges on the edges if you run your fingers sideways, you feel it right away, even apes have that details in their teeths.

[@robertmcauslan6191]

You know that guy from ancient aliens? colugos are most closely related to whatever species his hair is.

[@goldman77700]

Been saying for over a decade if "crazy hair" and "crazy voice"(You know the one) fused together they would become the Ultimate ancient alien maniac.

[@curiousfirely]

Oh man! Calendars! If ever possible, I would love a poster of the bizzarre beasts! As a Biology teacher, I would love to put all these awesome critters up on my classroom wall!

[@RhodieRhodes]

as a former student who particularly loved biology I would've loved to see these awesome critters on the walls of my classrooms!

[@thepants1450]

Yes

[@isacami25]

i would have thought that an animal like that was more closely related to flying squirrels :) talk about convergent evolution :D

[@theprehistorichubert9448]

Ye, one could think the same about sugar gliders ( even though they are marsupials and flying squirrels are rodents)

[@technoraptor7778]

Not even close...the only thing in common is the skin for gliding and them being mammals

[@andrewhammel5714]

The jungles of southeast Asia have more space between trees than those of Africa or the Amazon. So the region has many creatures that independently evolve 'flying squirrel' type gliding ability. There are gliding lizards, gliding snakes, and these colugos. Probably local flying squirrels too.

[@isaacbruner65]

Gliding is actually one of the most common things to convergently evolve in different groups of animals. I mean there are gliding spiders, gliding squids, gliding fish, gliding lizards, and gliding mammals (placentals as well as marsupials). In 2006, in Mongolia, they discovered an early gliding mammal called Volaticotherium, part of a long extinct order of early mammals called eutriconodonts. This animal lived 160 million years ago in the Jurassic! So gliding had already evolved in mammals within a few 10s of millions of years of when modern mammals split from our relatives, the other mammaliaform cynodonts. But some of those mammaliaforms also evolved gliding, such as Maiopatagium. So yeah, it's extremely common. By the way, this means that mammals learned to glide before birds learned to fly, and before flowers existed. Mammals are older than people think.

[@juanausensi499]

@@isaacbruner65 That's true, mammals appeared roughly at the same time (Late Triassic) as dinosaurs, but because they were pretty unimportant until last extinction, people often forgets that.

[@ireallyhatemakingupnamesfo1758]

At 0:52 my brain automatically interpreted the lighter area as ocean and the darker area as land, even though that’s obviously not the case, did anyone else have that issue?

[@baronDioxid]

Yep, it just seems intuive to me, no matter how familiar the shapes are!

[@chocolemonade]

I did the exact same thing. It took me a minute of going “wait, what part of the world is this..?” to finally realizing I had it flipped

[@mk_rexx]

I'm familiar with the general shape of Southeast Asia that it didn't work me.

[@BrandonshanesProductions]

To me the lighter part was land and the darker was ocean.

[@rossjennings4755]

In that interpretation, the Phillipines and Indonesia turn into a pretty complicated and seemingly unlikely collection of giant lakes. The inverted Gulf of Thailand makes a pretty believable peninsula though.

[@smolakari9649]

so instead of big headed bipeds that can experience existential dread we could have become furry kites? welp we picked the wrong path. reject monke, become stretchy skin cape shrew thing

[@ksoundkaiju9256]

Who says other animals don’t experience existential dread?

[@LauraEilers]

Those tooth combs are pure nightmare fuel. The lemur version is fine. But the "each tooth is a comb" teeth are horrifying

[@b.a.erlebacher1139]

I once read an article by a guy who worked in a rainforest in a remote area of Indonesia. At one point he described "a flying squirrel the size of a tshirt" landing on him at night. I wonder if that was a colugo.

[@allisonhomiak2336]

The red giant flying squirrel also lives in Indonesia, so it might have been a colugo, but it also could've literally been a flying squirrel the size of a t-shirt.

[@b.a.erlebacher1139]

@@allisonhomiak2336 Thanks. I didn't know that.

[@allisonhomiak2336]

@@b.a.erlebacher1139 You're welcome!

[@KaytaRaven]

Right on time, I’ve just finished presenting my thesis :)

[@curiousfirely]

Congrats on completing your thesis!!

[@Granite165]

These things are adorable. Anybody else notice the vague resemblance between these and that first life drawing of pterosaurs back in the late 1700s/early 1800s where the guy thought they were related to bats? Except these guys have a little Homer Simpson gut that makes them that much more adorable?

[@CthulhuianBunny]

I first found out about them about four weeks ago, thanks to Casual Geographic. He didn't mention the tooth comb thing though, that's really strange and fascinating.

[@theprehistorichubert9448]

Imagine if calugos ever evolved into another primate-like group, except they'd retain the gliding membranes, we could have downsized gliding people

[@bectionaryadams8046]

I was lucky enough to see these amazing creatures last week when wr took my boys to West Midlands Safari Park! The environment was suuuuper dark, really close and got up your nose lol! But it was all worth it to see them fly around, and to hear the noises they make! Amazing!

[@NewMessage]

Literally my favorite mammal.

[@hope1575]

I don't know why the individual tooth combs are so much worse than a bunch of narrow teeth making up a comb structure, but I'm sick to my stomach after seeing that 😅.

[@anniestumpy9918]

Had a serious Alien moment (the double tongue...)

[@indyreno2933]

There are thirty extant orders of mammals: 1) Tachyglossa (Echidnas) 2) Platypoda (Platypus) 3) Didelphimorphia (Opossums) 4) Paucituberculata (Shrew Opossums) 5) Microbiotheria (Colocolo) 6) Notoryctemorphia (Marsupial Moles) 7) Dasyuromorphia (Carnivorous Marsupials) 8) Peramelemorphia (Bilby and Bandicoots) 9) Diprotodontia (Diprotodonts) 10) Cingulata (Armadillos) 11) Pilosa (Sloths and Anteaters) 12) Tubulidentata (Aardvark) 13) Macroscelidea (Elephant Shrews) 14) Afrosoricida (Tenrecs, Otter Shrews, and Golden Moles) 15) Hyracoidea (Hyraxes) 16) Proboscidea (Elephants) 17) Sirenia (Sirenians) 18) Soricomorpha (Shrews, Moles, Desmans, and Solenodons) 19) Chiroptera (Bats) 20) Erinaceomorpha (Hedgehogs, Gymnures, and Moonrat) 21) Pholidota (Pangolins) 22) Carnivora (Carnivorans) 23) Perissodactyla (Odd-Toed Hoofed Mammals) 24) Artiodactyla (Even-Toed Hoofed Mammals) 25) Cetacea (Whales) 26) Lagomorpha (Lagopmorphs) 27) Rodentia (Rodents) 28) Scandentia (Treeshrews) 29) Dermoptera (Colugos) 30) Primata (Primates)

[@lonestarr1490]

Off the top of your head?

[@SoulDelSol]

Where do the pinnipeds go. Carnivora?

[@SoulDelSol]

Omg I didn't know Bilby existed. It's so nice and pleasing

[@indyreno2933]

@Dan, yes, pinnipeds are carnivorans, they are a parvorder within the suborder Caniformia, specifically the infraorder Cynopsia (meaning "dog-shaped faced ones" in latin), which even includes dogs (family Canidae), bears (family Ursidae), and greater pandas (family Ailuropodidae).

[@DJFracus]

I thought Cetacea was phased out and placed under the Artiodactyls

[@TiasTravels]

Tooth combs are something I neither needed or wanted to know about 😂

[@BizarreBeasts]

What's at www.complexlycalendars.com/products/bizarrebeasts ? The Bizarre Beasts calendar! The only way to decorate while also being ready for the next Hagfish Day! We are only printing a limited number, so get yours now!

[@jordanapgar8907]

Can You Do The Episode Of Bizarre Beasts About Elephants Please?!🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘🐘

[@pauljs75]

As weird as they are, who wouldn't want to try petting something that bug-eyed and fuzzy?

[@brianburkart]

Such an entertaining channel! Thanks!

[@knightshade6232]

Sadly they are endangered here in our 🏝️ island due to locals hunting it t,thinking they were "aswang" (shape shifting vampires 🦇) preying on pregnant woman & children. Im hoping that more locals here in our island in the Philippines will know that this nocturnal animals are not monster🥺

[@fv6125]

Embarrassing

[@jackwimmer2249]

Just realized, the colugo gliding makes me think of a prehistoric bat I think I read about in a Zoobook long time ago!

[@jaguarsky55]

I learned something today. I was not at all familiar with this wonderful little creature and now I am gonna take the deep dive right down that Calugo rabbit hole. Thank you.

[@bor3549]

This episode got me to thinking- with all the highly arboreal species of primates, I cant think of a single one that can glide. Fish, squirrels, snakes, geckos, possums etc all have a glider in the family tree, why don't we primates? p.s. I know fish are not normally arboreal LOL

[@jimparsons6803]

Wow. I had heard, because of a fossil of a ground squirrel (they had nails not claws), that primates were basically ground squirrels? Who knew?

[@sainjawoof3506]

Pachyderms and hyraxes are two of my most adored species ever!! Finding out they're so closely related was both so satisfying and confusing simultaneously.🐘🐹

[@AEFarnam]

This guy everywhere, love it!!

[@capybaraswacreatures1428]

This pin is the most realistic pin you ever made

[@daddyleon]

3:23 hahaha that slow head turn makes it look like it's a muppet that's first hearing this idea and finds it ridiculous

[@benjaminforman8901]

This is... a disturbing mixture of super-cute and super-creepy. I wish I could post a gif of the lady tasting kombucha for the first time.😅

[@jonvelz4170]

3 minutes in and you've just described a monster... what a fascinating creature.

[@JohnDrummondPhoto]

I already knew about the possible relationship between Colugos and primates. It's still weird. Now let's discuss how elephants, manatees, hyraxes, aardvarks, and elephant shrews are somehow in the same clade. Because what the actual F.

[@zooker7938]

I told my non-biologist friend about the relation between elephants and elephant shrews and she thought it was so cute.

[@b.a.erlebacher1139]

And cows are closer to whales than to horses!

[@KellyClowers]

Afrotheria FTW

[@quitlife9279]

It's because Africa was once an isolated island and so the few animal lineages there were able to freely diversify into different forms to fill niches without external competition from the other well known animals groups on earth. It's the exact same scenario as Australia with its marsupials.

[@JohnDrummondPhoto]

@@quitlife9279 I actually knew that. It would be a great topic for a video.

[@aloysiuseng8086]

There are colugos in Singapore, but I have yet to see one..

[@penslaandco9111]

No yeah that makes sense, a colugo is pretty close to how I perceive myself in my mind's eye lmao

[@Killer_snail]

I’d love to know how closely related they are to sugar gliders. Their range is very near the gliders range (less than 3,500KM/2,174miles separates them) and although sugar gliders are much smaller, way cuter & less….’terror teethy’, they are extremely similar. Same membrane and gliding through the forest style, same baby rearing methods, similar diet & habitat needs etc etc. If I had to guess the colugos closest relative based on looks alone then I’d bet my bottom dollar it was sugar gliders. But they aren’t even mentioned one way or the other in this video or any of the others I’ve watched.

[@dededoi]

Sugar gliders are a gliding possum, they're marsupials like kangaroos and koalas.

[@TragoudistrosMPH]

We could have had wings?!?!? Imagine if our ancestors stuck together a little longer? Leave a relationship too soon, and your dreams might fall short instead of soar 😢

[@SummerSunkissTarsierOfficial]

To be honest, Colugos look really cute

[@billpetersen298]

Wow, we just saw these, on Koh Adang, Thailand.

[@laurenmary9296]

Hi. How about the Maned Wolf and the South American Bush Dog??? That's some crazy evolution!

[@alicewilloughby4318]

Colugos! Another animal I had never heard of until I watched Bizarre Beasts!

[@scarletlightning565]

4:20 "DNA says..." Tom Scott needs to invent a genetics based Family Feud gameshow hosted by Hank now

[@Nerdnumberone]

I don't know why any scientist would seriously consider grouping them with bats. Gliding membranes have been independently evolved in multiple unrelated mammals and even reptiles. Alone, it doesn't tell you much. Turns out flaps gliding is useful for an arboreal animal and isn't that complex to evolve if you're already adapted to jump between tree branches. Also, it doesn't seem that weird that whales are related to hippos. If you have a big air-breathing mammal that went back to a fully aquatic niche, it makes sense that it might be related to a large seni-aquatic mammal.

[@Dr.IanPlect]

Just as you cautioned about relatedness in gliding taxa, so you should apply it to the hippo point (even if in that instance there is a connection)! Observing similar morphologies isn't necessarily reliable; convergence is the culprit.

[@Nerdnumberone]

@@Dr.IanPlect I'm not saying that I'd just assume that hippos and whales are related because of their similarities. I'm just saying that it shouldn't be as surprising as the video suggested. There are far stranger relatives out there. I hear that hippos and whales are related and think, "Yeah, that makes sense."

[@Dr.IanPlect]

@@Nerdnumberone It was the 'it doesn't tell you much' bit I'm commenting on. That may well have been the case with the hippo.

[@sciencenerd7639]

I love colugos

[@WhiteThumbs]

Where is my skin flaps to glide, we got robbed

[@petrfedor1851]

To be fair "flying lemur" sounds batter than "flying not quite primate but close"

[@cccaaa9034]

Even weirder, in my opinion, is that birds' closest living relatives are crocodiles. 🤯 And that birds are the only living relatives of dinosaurs.

[@dontmindmyname1234]

crocodiles are also living relatives of dinosaura, both of which are archosaurs, the group with pterosaurs and dinosaurs, alongside birds and crocodiles

[@Mike28625]

A flying monkey? That's crazy! Not as crazy as airplanes and parachutes but pretty wild. Humans will always be the strangest animal.

[@paytonpryor]

I thought it was a marsupial lemur or something. 😂 I guess I thought it was related to Sugar gliders.

[@Numinor31]

do they fly? -no... are they lemurs? -no... good we'll call em flying lemurs. -?...

[@tengkuferdiansyah8617]

Guinea Pig is not pig and not from Guinea 😅

[@megadiabrous]

those things are loud af, we were in The Philippines on vacation and one of these landed on our villa shrieking it lungs off

[@ramblinentertainment1922]

I audibly went OH MY GOD when I saw their teeth so these little guys definitely deserve to be here lol

[@hope1575]

*sees tooth combs* *video game achievement sound* NEW PHOBIA UNLOCKED

[@willempasterkamp862]

Imagine to cheat on the girl in the building across the street you just flap out your skin and set in a glide-flight

[@jaringify]

Subtly liking Hank's shirt

[@GuanoLad]

I feel like there is an "A to Z of Obscure Animals" kid's book in this series somewhere.

[@slappy8941]

Bat! 🦇 Tree Shrew! 🐀 Primate! 🐵 With our powers combined, we are... COLUGO!

[@imthescrubjay]

Good morning

[@markmuller7962]

It's evening here 😆

[@avenuestx2211]

Bet 🤓, another channel with my boy Hank Green

[@darklion13]

They are basically gliding koalas.

[@NathyIsabella]

they look like lemurs without the front facing eyes haha

[@jaynedavis3388]

God I love Hank, I’m glad that if he has to have cancer, it’s the most treatable kind of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma

[@tricky778]

I went through a colugo's mouth with a fine toothcomb

[@ferretyluv]

So the flying lemur really is a lemur.

[@undacovamuva9034]

y’all think the comb teeth are weird. wait ‘til you see how they poop

[@pi1810]

This makes me want to cry.

[@driverjayne]

Hey. You made me look at those freaky comb teeth. WITH MY EYES. why would you do that? I'll never be able to unsee that now.

[@elimorgan-steiner6805]

Amazing!

[@makirby100]

I wish we could see all the Versions of each pin to see all the color variances and rarities. Just so we can see them.

[@Dhruv_Dogra]

They are indeed a fascinating group 😀

[@akirsyakir]

Happy to say I've seen them in real life in a botanical garden in Penang, Malaysia. It was sleeping and I honestly thought it was a bigass bat!

[@travisinthetrunk]

No. Our closest relative is the bonobo.

[@instaperil]

This adorable glidey one has the coolest teeth!!!!

[@arta.xshaca]

Our ancestors had that too but we changed the arrangement.

[@Fruitarian.]

im from philippines and clueless we have this kind of animal

[@Patrick.Weightman]

That is one of the cutest animals I've ever seen 😭😭

[@lsmmoore1]

The idea that this animal is a relatively close relative to the human isn't surprising to me, as it looks like the sort of thing that might have evolved out of ancestors who all had some form of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome which provided a transitional springboard for this particular form. Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a condition humans get, and is not known to show up in dogs or cats or rodents. People who describe life with severe Ehlers-Danlos sometimes talk about moving and positioning themselves in ways that put one somewhat in mind of this animal after all (due to the hypermobility, some of the ways in which humans with the condition tuck themselves up).

[@deathsnitemaresinfullust2269]

What?! Those teeth are So Neat. They look like little hair picks for Barbie dolls or something. 😄👍

[@melonmelon2848]

I'm from Malaysia and I've never seen colugos! I should go out more

[@angelalewis3645]

I LOVE them!

[@drewrandall8161]

"And by us, I mean primates," is a pretty broad definition, don't you think?

[@nealhoffman7518]

Being family does not make anything less bizarre

[@shayneft]

Obviously a lemur banged a bat and made a lemur bat.

[@racistkillerultimate7903]

Filipino: Colugo yes Kulogo......if frog pee on you,you will got Kolugo (wart)😂

[@blobbertmcblob4888]

These things are just weird looking. They definitely look like something you'd have seen millions of years ago.

[@nodetransit4277]

yeah! the colugo looks like my neighbour... definitely human!

[@ThatJaymsWisdom]

These things are so confusing to my poor brain. In some images they look adorable and in others they are hideous and my emotions can't handle it. XD

[@williamoverton7775]

DNA testing still can't sort out bats.

[@TragoudistrosMPH]

I realize I know very little about tree shrews... I didn't know they were different from...(regular?) shrews...

[@zooker7938]

Also watch out for elephant shrews, which are related to hyraxes and elephants. Also, 'moles' evolved in mammals three separate times.

[@YoungGandalf2325]

I knew it! I'm related to a flying monkey/shrew/bat! Time to go jump out of a tree and see if I inherited the genes for flight.

[@Zappygunshot]

It's animals like this one that remind us that paleontology is far from exact. Most of the taxonomy there is based on phenotypical similarity; after all, all we have is a crystallised shadow of an imprint of a skeleton of a creature, miraculously entombed beneath the earth millions of years ago. Any actual organic matter, and with it any DNA, is long, _long_ gone. It's not just likely, but practically guaranteed, that there's a whole load of fossils that we have categorised completely wrongly, and if all we had of the colugo today were fossils, they would absolutely be among them.

[@invaderfrombeyond]

I don't know if it's information bias...But, I see it.

[@caroleanderson4020]

This is the first ive ever heard of them...

[@actsnfacts]

Those eyes! OMG!

[@dracodracarys2339]

this should be a pokemon

[@JacquesTreehorn]

I like there Marty Feldman eyes.