Spec evo short : The plausibility of predatory primates

From Rajang to Raboons, everyone loves a good murder monkey. But how plausible are they, who are the best candidates and how could they reach top predator status?

[@unnaturalhistorychannel]

Yes alright, humans are indeed predators. But most spec evo assumes the extinction of Homo sapiens, hence their lack of discussion.

[@BaalFridge]

there are only two futures for humanity according to the internet: complete extinction or total dystopia.

[@limitbreakeradam4076]

We ain't going extinct anytime soon. Either we abandon the planet due to resource depletion or we expand to other planets keeping and maintaining this one. Homo sapiens is too adaptable a species and too self-aware to die out. We can live anywhere and pretty much eat anything.

[@maddockemerson4603]

A video like this on the subject of humans in SpecEvo might be interesting. But considering most writers are human, it’s a broad topic. I myself have been for a few years worldbuilding a fantasy-esque setting that I haven’t posted much online about and don’t know what I’ll do with, which is mainly focused on the interaction of several human races that emerged mostly through natural evolution.

[@cravensean]

It's not your interesting and legitimate speculation that makes this situation into something worthy of discussion. It's that a primate who, regardless of their personal choices is descended from predatory primates, typed the phrase, "The plausibility of predatory primates." That (he said staring forward in a disturbingly fixed and unexpressive fashion) is objectively hilarious.

[@cravensean]

(Your comparison of a hypothetical large primate to a bear makes a lot of sense and I'm currently thinking about that in connection with Gigantopithecus.)

[@Titanruler]

The Banana Council approves this video

[@nathaniel_the_preteen]

I read your description... you play pretty goated games

[@raycavazos8927]

Captain Count Sir Apemond von Bananasworth approves.

[@Leo-ok3uj]

Reading Nathanial comment made me read your description Based taste indeed

[@Alphaprey_Shorts]

“The yiga clan approaches”

[@reesearmstrong912]

The allosaurus council also approves

[@BetaCentauri13]

Might be a bit of a stretch, but if a population of Tarsiers were to find themselves on a newly-formed and fairly barren volcanic island, the only readily available food source might be migratory birds. There would be a strong pressure in such a context toward larger size, both to increase the number and type of birds they could take and to allow them to buffer themselves in times of greater scarcity.

[@unnaturalhistorychannel]

In such a context, if there were tarsiers large enough seabirds could well provide a regular supply a food, one I also had in mind potentially. But more cosmopolitan species like gulls can be pretty large and fierce so it'd take a bigger tarsier to take them for sure.

[@miquelescribanoivars5049]

Until birds of prey make it to the island

[@Tyr666Thor]

Such a population of Tarsiers may also adapt piscivory. The Largest ones might evolve to hunt and kill smaller Tarseirs and any herbivores that raft to the island or develop from birds which settle into flightlessness there.

[@miquelescribanoivars5049]

@@Tyr666Thor Mer? O.O

[@xironevarus576]

@Marshal Marrs right ? I'd love to see the wild transitions with still more mammal like therapsids

[@purplehaze2358]

I think predatory "murder monkeys", as you put it, are innately fascinating to people. Maybe it's just the writer in me, but I like to think that, on a symbolic level, considering how closely they relate to us, they represent the animalistic side of man - a side of us perhaps far more frightening than even the creatures humans typically associate with nothing _but_ animalism and savagery.

[@elijahcafazzo-joyette8226]

To add to this, I think it’s also the resemblance they bear to humans that make them so fascinating. We have all manner of “animalistic humans” in all sorts of cultures around the world - werewolves likely being the most famous, but “murder monkeys” have an uncanniness to them that lycanthropes and more classical animalistic monsters lack. The retained resemblance to humans almost seems to imply a capability for reason, yet “murder monkeys” are seemingly unduly savage. They’re not just violent by nature, they choose to indulge that violence; or at least, thats how it may seem to outside moral view. This is something that comes in stark contrast to many contemporary depictions of many monstrous humans, who are usually unwilling subjects of their own savage nature and have some recognizably inhuman trait manifesting this savageness - usually belonging to an apparently “savage” predator.

[@gambitaku6179]

Like ur dp man. Purple haze is a cool stand

[@Castigar48]

..."apes together strong"

[@nicolaezenoaga9756]

I think it might be as simple as ,,murder monkey weird, so murder monkey cool''.

[@mattroxursoul]

Is this all some call back to The Wizard of Oz? Those monkeys creep me out

[@Krona-fb4dn]

Unrelated but I personally love the spec evo idea of Pandas reaching their full potential and evolving a digestive system that gets the most nutrients it can get from bamboo and plants and develops a sort of elephant-like niche.

[@beastmaster0934]

Imagine chalicothere-like pandas feeding on bamboo.

[@RanEdgar-ok3wk]

Or they just develop a diet for both TwT and like grow suppperrrrr big!!❤

[@deemingo8951]

By the way it's gonna be 81 in NYC tomorrow, I also have a great girth, I'll let u know when I come up wit more unrelated trash

[@Exquailibur]

I personally always found the idea of a suid becoming a top order carnivore very interesting. Pigs are already omnivorous and rather large animals with a massive range, both native and invasive, so with this natural propensity to shape the environment it is maybe possible for a large suid to head down a more carnivorous path without the other top order carnivores being wiped out. Even domestic pigs can be dangerous animals and they already have some of the equipment needed to become a carnivore assuming that would somehow be more effective than continuing just being pigs, the biggest barrier to pigs becoming predators may be that the niche they currently occupy puts them in a better spot than they may be otherwise.

[@logandelacruz2152]

Imagine if pigs convergently evolved into something like entelodon.

[@Exquailibur]

Entelodonts are one of those early mammal groups that are just fascinating.

[@justusb.plorer8773]

Obligatly carnivorous ungulates in general could be quite interesting, considering we haven't had any of those for a few million years.

[@Exquailibur]

@@justusb.plorer8773 The cetaceans technically count since they evolved from a hoofed ancestor, but they arent in the spirit of it I guess. Taxonomy is fascinating.

[@justusb.plorer8773]

@@Exquailibur Indeed. It's crazy to think that artiodactyls like deer are more closely related to whales than they are to horses.

[@extraordinarytv5451]

I have to say it's strange as a predatory primate to see other top predatory primates present the idea of predatory primates in the same sentences as 'speculative' and questionable plausibility.

[@oscaranderson5719]

primates as top predators? I couldn’t even imagine what that’d look like.

[@extraordinarytv5451]

@@oscaranderson5719 right lol

[@christosgiannopoulos828]

Your hypothetical tarsier predator, reminds me of what I've heard about the evolution of thylacoleo. That too used to be a small, arboreal, insectivorous mammal that, as Australia got drier, became a large ground dwelling predator of megafauna. Or at least, according to the sources I found

[@raynejx2]

the fact that so much of Monster Hunter's designs can tell you so much about their lives from being loosely based/inspired by irl biology is the reason i got so deep into this series. and your videos on things only help shine a brighter light onto that awesome design and the thought that (usually) goes into it. keep up the great work, dude! :D

[@miquelescribanoivars5049]

I mean, there is a highly predatory, somewhat Theropod convergent primate around. Heard they've been doing very well for the last tens of thousands of years, perhaps to well for their own good :D

[@ScanovatheCarnotaurus]

I would highly recommend Tales of Kaimere for a look into spec evo that I feel gives a combination of realism and justice to an extremely wide variety of animals. The context is that it’s a planet which has created its own biosphere through Earth life since the Devonian (long story). As a result, you got largely a combination of dinosaurs, placental mammals, a few Paleozoic holdovers, and everything in between, continuing to evolve in a land that has sort of thrust them into this intense competition. As a result, while there are plenty of non-avian dinosaurs, you also have familiar mammalian species that already did well in competitor-heavy environments like leopards absolutely thriving and being one of the most common large predators in the entire setting. It also gets my approval for using spec evo as background for fantasy. I remember eventually growing a bit tired of spec evo because of how common it is in the circles I dwell in, so it was hard to get invested in the hypothetical planet/future of the week, but in Taylor’s books they act as a realistic background for the typical drakes, wyverns, and other great beasts that’d be the subject of fantasy adventures. There’s a dash of magic and demons as well but it’s the native life of the planet responsible for that insanity.

[@The_PokeSaurus]

Ah you to know a good book.

[@krb1235]

A person of good taste huh?

[@stegosandrosos1291]

Yes

[@leoornstein3963]

My fellow Kaimere enjoyer.

[@Ligerbee]

@@leoornstein3963 yes

[@Dodoraptor4]

I appreciate you mentioning how often big game predators are killed off in spec evo with no reason. As much as it may surprise some, a lot of the “apex predators” of the modern world are actually extremely adaptable generalists. Though still, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that being high in the trophic chain does make an animal more vulnerable to extinction. A bigger problem in my opinion is how often Carnivorans (with the common exception of mustelids - including some specialized mustelids that are probably not long to last in the real world) are killed off entirely. Even things like red foxes and feral cats. Said trope is often combined with the complete eradication of ruminants - an extremely diverse and successful group that ended up thriving due to outliving almost all other large herbivores. It’s fine to do it if one acknowledges that they don’t go for “hard spec” (or if one goes for an extremely destructive mass extinction), but it’s an extremely overused trope at this point. (And with both Carnivorans and ruminants, now they got an entirely new continent to diversify in that has its native fauna greatly depleted - the perfect opportunity for diversification) Again, one should not be forced to avoid said tropes, but they just became extremely common in some cases.

[@dtxspeaks268]

For real. Personally ive always wanted to see herbivorous cats or cetacean-like dogs.

[@rayzhang7591]

I mean, human is one hell of a predator.

[@UnwantedGhost1-anz25]

But can they do everything better than all predators on Earth? In benefitting ecosystem?

[@user-kn9yy3ee2p]

​@@UnwantedGhost1-anz25yes, no tigers plant trees after forest fires, no lion helps fleeing prey from a volcano, no swordfish creates enviroments with our enginuity, no wolf creates irrigation systems for grasslands or other enviroments that before were deserts. We are not perfect, but we are better.

[@ziphy_6471]

@@user-kn9yy3ee2p Chimps made a rocket to go to the moon

[@smurfhelms68]

​@@user-kn9yy3ee2ptbf we have done far more harm than good. I would imagine any predator that makes it's way so high up that it virtually has nothing to fear would end up being destructive with a population like ours. A population of 8 billion bears would be truly terrifying

[@user-kn9yy3ee2p]

@@smurfhelms68 we are good, not perfect, also 8 billion bears wouldnt be terrifiying, their agriculture complex would, Imagine the ammount of food

[@TheKindofTiredSleepCantFix]

I think the extinction of the big cats is a fairly reasonable assumption, given how dramatically their ranges have shrunk during the Anthropocene. Canids are far more unlikely though, given that while animals like wolves may be hunted to extinction, feral dogs are waiting in the wings to fill the void. I love your proposed future were Mountain Lion Sized Caracals, Bear-sized Baboons, and cursorial stripped dogs fill in the niche of large predators. They'd likely be hunting the decendents of feral Boran cattal or White Fulani Cows, and wildebeasts.

[@Dell-ol6hb]

yea and primates by comparison are mostly doing very well in the Anthropocene due to their incredible adaptability, and when I say primates are doing better by comparison I mostly mean monkeys, other primates like Great Apes are NOT doing very well (besides humans)

[@ExtremeMadnessX]

On Madagascar there is no big cats, so fossa basically have their role in ecosystem as top predators.

[@Dodoraptor4]

Will also note that not all grey wolves are doing badly. It’s an extremely adaptable species at the end. Arabian wolves actually had a population increase in some deserts due to managing to live on human trash and feral cats (similar to the coyotes in the US), as well as avoiding eradication attempts by farmers in other parts of their range. Also, even if the species as a whole “dies off”, it’ll probably have a lot of admixture with surviving coyotes, golden jackals and, of course, feral dogs. (Note: I know that dogs are often considered the same species as grey wolves. I just separated them here for convenience in reading)

[@nicolaezenoaga9756]

,,feral dogs are waiting in the wings to fill that roll,, Dhols have entered in the Eurasian chat and Coywolfs the Americas chat

[@nicolaezenoaga9756]

Also the reputation of the gary wolf has improved a lot over the years, given how we know now hpw important they are to the environment and they are not doing that bad so I doubt the will go extinct

[@anonemoose7777]

“A predatory primate makes a video postulating on the plausibility of predatory primates for other predatory primates to watch” I just find the title at a glance humorous. 😂

[@jordanwhite352]

"Are there predatory primates?" Humans: ...

[@thenerdbeast7375]

Admittedly it is silly that _every_ carnivoran would disappear, as even with apex predator carnivorans endangered in the modern day there are plenty of mesopredator carnivorans ready to fill in their larger cousins' shoes. We already see it with some coyotes already started hunting large game like moose in the absence of wolves. However we must remember that ultimately spec evo is fiction so it needs to be taken with a grain of salt and we don't know what possible factors may play into some surprising adaptations in future species.

[@unicorntomboy9736]

Would a domestic house cat be a mesopredetor?

[@An_Actual_Rat]

@@unicorntomboy9736 Yes, in most ecosystems they are. There are a couple of islands where invasive cats pretty much qualify as apex predators even.

[@unicorntomboy9736]

@@An_Actual_Rat But house cats have no natural predators for obvious reasons, aside from maybe coyotes

[@ExtremeMadnessX]

What about fossa on Madagascar?

[@miquelescribanoivars5049]

Admittedly, back in the Cretaceous, it would had been silly to think that every terrestrial theropod could disappear. And well... We all know how that turned out.

[@connor3284]

Predatory primates? You mean humans?

[@HeatMiserr]

Old comment but all I could think of the whole time. 1. Most successful predator species on earth 2. Very unique in form and hunting strategy from every other predator species. We are the literal evolution of what a dominant carnivorous primate looks like

[@petrri323]

Humans are the most predatory primates to ever exist. We used to run down mammoths.

[@Bagelgeuse]

R.I.P. Old mic, gone but not forgotten.

[@beastmaster0934]

In my future spec evo project, no primate is fully carnivorous. The closest thing I have is a dog-sized baboon descendant in Africa that hunts in groups to take down small to medium-sized ungulates. But they still eat other things too, like fruits, leaves, grasses, and other vegetation.

[@somnolentus3267]

One group I've always felt are very underrepresented as hypothetical future apex predators are mustelids. They're already among the most diverse and widespread family of carnivores on the planet and natural history has shown a tendency for established guilds of small bodied predators to step into the apex predatory niche one it's vacated. Not to mention their tendency to eat just about anything and generally small body sizes makes them very likely to survive a mass extinction in appreciable numbers. In a hypothetical post-mass extinction North America without bears or wolves I could absolutely see wolverines tripling in size within a very short space of time to move into that vacant niche.

[@billyherrington5112]

Its very common idea

[@barbarossa1780]

@@billyherrington5112Wrong. You’re so wrong and the lack of evidence in the field doesn’t back your incorrect assertion. Go sit in the back of the class and put your head on your desk.

[@An_Actual_Rat]

In one of my worldbuilding projects I have a monkey that has convergently evolved to conform to the same ecological niche as a brown bear, with the size to boot. In their case they began as baboon-like, but later ended up on a large island where they became bigger through island gigantism, as they lacked natural predators and ended up with mostly intraspecies competition. The only other species on the island that comes close are a species of flightless predatory birds that inhabit the open spaces where the apes are less proficient at hunting. Seeing the bear route show up in the video was pretty nice, since the most common one I see is the Big Cat 2.0 one.

[@peabrain6872]

Like the dinopithecus from ark almost (i know ark didnt invent it but they made them huge)

[@An_Actual_Rat]

@@peabrain6872 Looked them up and I guess they could be used as a frame of reference. Mine are a bit more heavyset though, vaguely gorilla-like in bulk.

[@peabrain6872]

@@An_Actual_Rat i see

[@slack_cactus_jack7953]

If you have any skill in art or writing you can totally show this stuff on KZbin! Many people would be very interested

[@An_Actual_Rat]

@@slack_cactus_jack7953 I'm somewhat good at drawing, but when I get better, and buy a proper drawing tablet I just might.

[@vincentgirgenti6033]

FUTURE SUGGESTION: BIRDS REPLACING MARINE MAMMALS Many projects such as "After Man" and "Serina" have tackled the idea of birds with take the same route as cetaceans and become massive marine animals, often with the help of modified limbs instead of a tail fin or even dorsal fin. How realistic are these birds or the scenario in which they could arise?

[@kandyeggs]

I think it’s very under appreciated, or even not known that birds like loons and greebs nearly never leave the water, and can’t even stand properly on land. Nearly the same build is seen in the hesperornithes, with members being (despite what paleoart and paleomedia like to portray) of the same size ranges as modern birds with the same shape, with a few species being a little larger than modern examples. If birds did replace marine mammals, they would probably remain similar sizes and still have to lay eggs on land or on rafting material. Bird eggs can’t be in water, as they have pores that let air exchange between the outside and the developing baby. Viviparous lizards get away by thinning their tiny eggs to the point where it’s nothing more than a film at birth, letting them absorb as much oxygen as is physically possible, but birds have very large, very hard, and very fast growing, oxygen demanding babies. If birds somehow managed to jump through every hoop to get to give birth to live young, they’d still be built the same as they were before: either foot propelled like loons, or wing propelled like penguins, just without the same size limitations, and possibly losing feathers since they require tons of time and oil to keep them holding air and actually functioning to keep them warm. Far more likely, I feel that completely marine birds (again, if you discount the ones that already only step on land to breed) would just act like sea turtles, burying eggs in the sand and letting the sun warm them. Birds are a lot like turtles in that their bodies are very inflexible, so they just swim using their limbs, and don’t become “piscine” like cetaceans. TLDR: if birds managed to actually gain the ability to withhold eggs until the babies hatched, the grandest bird I’d say is plausible is just a giant, fat, rubbery smooth loon with no arms, and seal-shaped forked feet. But that is a great suggestion, and I hope you spread the word about how great loons and grebes are!

[@matthewblackwelder6487]

I could see two variants A super penguin that ends up with a body similar to a mosasaur. (Shorter neck bigger head. Or a super cormorant that ends up similar to a plesiosaur with a long neck.

[@guairescp6847]

​@@matthewblackwelder6487 the superpenguin idea has the problem that there was a period IRL with penguins as one of the main marine predators (just after the K-Pg mass extinction) but even then they failed to reach sizes larger than a gorilla

[@william3100]

​@Guaire SCP maybe it was because there was less prey around or more opportunities on land than in the water.

[@idle_speculation]

Iirc serina’s aquatic birds were descended from an already viviparous branch

[@isaacthemonke233]

I remember having an idea for a omnivorous but still predatory primate for a King Kong adaptation that probably won't go anywhere. Basically before the Skull Island Aborigines came and brought dogs (some that went feral but never venture outside beyond the wall), there were no native canines or hyenas. So one of the 4 species of primate native to the island filled in this niche. A macaque that hunts in small troops and is built to run at high speeds. They still retain their thumbs and can walk on their hind legs for a brief time, but their main weapon is their canines. At nearly 4 inches long.

[@killgriffinnow]

"Speckevo Murder Monkeys" will be the name of my next Indie band - if it hasn't been taken already..

[@theorangewarrior03]

As a predatory primate, I would say the plausibility is quite high

[@gallixypegasuss1546]

Considering humans have evolved using meat as a large portion of our diet, carnivorous primates aren't too far-fetched

[@scorpiopede]

Short sweet and to the point, really liked this video, though one aspect not touch on that got me curious is what sort of anatomical adaptations could hypothetical predatory primates develop that don't just make them carnivora-analogous as the trope often shows?

[@unnaturalhistorychannel]

I think baboons and tarsiers could probably stay fairly similar to how the are now really, if they're using similar predation strategies. It's tempting to suggest fully digitigrade feet for some but they may not really be necessary.

[@diptube6563]

It would likely come down to tool use, or eventually finding themselves in a climate where the outside temperature could preserve the meat for them to cache and defend. Vegetation is likely scarce and their ability to rely on grasses roots and barks severely diminished. I don't think primates are going to ever develop claws, baboons do have fierce fangs and muzzles which encouraged their use. Any tools they would develop would have to at least accomplish the goal of being able to kill what they can't by mobbing and biting. I don't think it's a stretch that baboons could learn to hunt similarly to polar bears approach to walrus; dropping rocks and snowballs from a high cliff. Possible underrated idea for anatomical changes would be defensive callous patches of skin, larger manes, and difficult to see skeletal changes that improve range of motion or articulation of their limbs.

[@davidegaruti2582]

@@diptube6563 i could see them developing hammers as a way to break bones and reach the marrow like how hominids did , But other than that they are already pretty good as far as hunting goes , Other things may also be small spears to catch animals in burrows , but who knows

[@user-wt8zh1bx8y]

Rajang feels more like an omnivore that woud adjust its diet depending on the seasons. There would be times of the year where it'll activey go around to pursue Kirins, and theren there would be times of the year where it'll be content with subsisting on berries, shrooms, and neopetrans.

[@Sormel5134]

One neat spec evo carnivorous primate (sort of) I saw came from a project called Hamster's Paradise. One species of primate-like rodent descendants becomes specialized for hunting other members of this group and evolve into a nocturnal predator that looks like a mix between a chimpanzee and a werewolf. It's also addresses the difference in male and female behavior with females being pack hunters while males are solitary due to their cannibalistic tendencies.

[@joshuagonzalez4183]

noice!

[@DarrenWessels-ck1wr]

You forget that we are the ultimate predatory primate. An animal that never tires and hunts you down till you surrender to your death due to seer exhaustion.

[@ArifRWinandar]

"But in a spec evo world where they've been Zucced to oblivion..."

[@davidegaruti2582]

cool vid ! the bear baboon is intresting spec ngl , and it being partially like lions is also rather intresting , and fights off the attempt at recreating other animals we see today ... another thing i remember speccing about was a troglophile slow loris , wich may develop it's venomous bite as a way to not let prey escape , it would hunt small preys surely bats and insects , and it may develop some form of ecolocation to find it's prey no matter the light conditions ... idk how plausible it would be , i am basing myself upon the idea that caves work similarly to the abissopelagic zone as far as food is concerned : there is no primary production there are only scraps that come from above ...

[@gambitaku6179]

This is a cool idea. The possibility of a giant primate shrew or a primate komodo dragon is awesome

[@rylanbrewer3320]

I love these videos maybe we could see one of these types of videos about creatures being replaced with animals that are designed to look like the creature in original niche except with a different ancestry

[@DavidGomez-ls6ee]

I've been working on this spec evo project for years and one of them was a predatory Baboon that lives in the high mountain tops. It's diet would be more comparable to a bear and even its morphology to an extent although physically its a little closer to a big cat. It'd be no bigger than a snow leopard but it'd have the saber teeth and upper body strength of a Smilodon. It's arms are incredibly mobile like a chimp or a bodybuilder however it's thumb is the smallest of any primate but not useless, it helps when climbing and wrestling down prey. Finally it's semi- digitigrade so has a much contact with the ground as possible but is still nimble enough in it's snowy high top domain. The only reason it's not fully carnivorous is to avoid competition with ursids, canids and etc.

[@joshuagonzalez4183]

👍🏻

[@bripa3890]

As a carnivorous primate, I strongly believe in the plausibility of carnivorous primates

[@raw-b6658]

Oh lord predator monkeys sounds terrifying considering what we’ve been able to accomplish

[@DeoxTew]

1:51 I wonder if one of the main factors in primates depressing populations of prey, rather than population regulation is because the primates aren't just hunting to survive, but also considers it fun. Could also be because chimpanzees are far more coordinated in hunting packs. Idk, I'm 200% less knowledgeable about this sort of stuff than those who create this content. 😂

[@unnaturalhistorychannel]

With that population of chimps in particular it could be their significant preference for colobus. Chimps in other areas that hunt, either other monkey or other prey, don't seem to get the same effect going and often have somewhat broader palates like carnivoran mammals who don't tend to zero in to the same extent.

[@DeoxTew]

@@unnaturalhistorychannel Oh okay! So it's a unique case scenario, likely due to various situational factors; i.e environment, resource.

[@godzillakingofthemonsters5812]

What I think could possibly lead to it is the human caused extinctions of some species. Cats like tigers have wild populations of only several thousand animals over their range, wolves, polar and brown bears and lions are also relatively scarce, add this with the revolution of pack hunting chimpanzees targeting small to medium sized game and this may be where the hunting monkey originates. Though in a future post Anthropocene extinction Earth, it really seems more likely that smaller felids and canines would evolve into the places of extinct panthers and wolves. If not, then I think mustelids would be possible options as well being fast, nimble and able to kill prey of far larger size and the Yellow Throated Marten even shows group hunting. A large generalist primate though in bear-free African mosaic habitats would be an interesting concept I think as well. Edit: I also forgot hyenas could just evolve into apex predators, say if the Spotted species poofs out of existence, and a Pachy/Dinocrocuta like carnivore.

[@austinames9340]

A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one! For February, one suggestion could perhaps be looking at spec-evo sexual dimorphism and courtship for Valentine's Day and some notable examples of it?

[@unicorntomboy9736]

Or the Seltas & Queen Seltas. It would be easy to compare the former to real world Asian Giant Hornets

[@Reyma777]

I could imagine a prosimian primate evolving into a “werewolf- like” predator..:

[@jakolay69xd32]

A bit of unintentional spec evo in media would actually be Fluffy the crate beast from the EXTREMELY underrated film Creepshow. A huge baboon like carnivore with a mouth full of razor sharp teeth, cat like eyes to see in the dark, large pointy ears which give it exceptional hearing and a coat of white shaggy fur for enduring extremely cold temperatures,that is capable of hibernating for an extremely long time when food is scarce. It’s social behavior is obviously unknown because we only see the one animal in the film. Although it’s hunting methods are seen briefly when it hides in the corner under the staircase to ambush that poor bastard that was dumb enough to go near it.

[@KingOfTheWild27]

I’ve been working on a spec evo where virtually all mammals die out due to a disease. Deer, rodents, and genetically manipulated humans are the only mammalian survivors. Most of the focus of my project is based around the evolutionary arms race between the birds, amphibians, and reptiles in North America. But the genetically modified humans are the main focus of this comment. Essentially the scientists during the extinction noticed that deer, birds, reptiles, and amphibians were the only unaffected vertebrate groups, and tried in a last ditch effort to save human life to genetically combine these groups with humans. But the deer and bird hybrids who were the most promising to carry on humanity died out within a few generations. At the point my ‘field guide’ takes place, only the amphibian and reptile human hybrids still exist, I call them Ghouls. They are nocturnal wolf-ish predators, mainly hunting by mobbing. The amphibian hybrids are restricted to the wide spread swamps, and the reptile hybrids are restricted to the forests, and an avian (I plan on it being a giant owl) fills a similar niche on the grasslands.

[@tyrellthiel2201]

The idea of a tarzier big enough to be a threat scares me

[@matteolucarelli4615]

I find the notion of ALL large carnivores being wiped out pretty silly tbh, especially after the big comeback of wolves in my country of Italy: in the 70s there were only a 100 left due to extreme persecution, but as soon as that stopped (and other pressure were removed, like humans abandoning mountain villages to move in large towns due to industrial progess generating most of the work there) the population grew back at a very fast rate, to the point we are now nearing 4k estimated individuals in the country and they are reaching neighborhooding ones. They are also very adaptable, not living just in untouched forests up in the high mountains but also in the lowlands, on the coast and very often next to urban environments (including the periphery of Rome) and readily adapt their diet to whatever is available there (most common prey overall seems to be wild boar, and that is an animal that's not going anywhere despite all our best efforts). I'm not so familiar with other predators but I'd imagine the likes of cougars, black bears and maybe leopards to be able to adapt to somewhat similar extents, although they may be more specialized in regards of habitats.

[@sosa2mars]

Would love to see your take on the ever so common spec evo trend of giant mustelids becoming apex predators. Those tends to be the most typical choices for those to replace felids, canids, and ursids in spec evo projects as resident apex predators

[@tijanamilenkovic3425]

We need to thank Cryptozoologicon for picturing beast of Gevaudan as a huge ground dwelling weasel

[@tijanamilenkovic3425]

Also the polar bear is still an apex predators

[@1998topornik]

I expected from this topic more about camouflaged beast, because I think it is only spec macropredatory primate that is relatively realistic. Even so great video! I agree the trend where in spec evo in which you turn anything into dinosaur is annoying and not very creative.

[@archellothewolf2083]

I personally like to imagin Tarsiers slowly developing pack-animal traits alongside an incresingly carniverous diet over time, and them basically becoming land pirahnas.

[@RobotPlush]

Bearboons that live like Lions, that’d be awesome But could we get something on Elephants? I don’t care, anything

[@The_PokeSaurus]

I've always loved your channel for how long the videos are, but I will happily eat up any spec zoo shorts.

[@BigBossMan538]

I like this form of content, tackling spec evo ideas and tropes and evaluating the plausibility. Have you thought of making a video on sapience in spec evo animals and which animals would be good candidates for future animal societies on a human level?

[@Hyper_Drud]

If it’s not another primate species then it’d probably be a corvid species.

[@BigBossMan538]

@@Hyper_Drud What do you think of rats becoming smarter?

[@Hyper_Drud]

@@BigBossMan538 hmm, I never considered rats. I suppose they could attain sapience as well.

[@Grant_Scarboro]

Another great analysis video! Can't wait to see you tackle the topic of predatory rodents in the apex predator role.

[@migueljose5161]

If i have to suggest a other spec evo trope to cover i would recommend the "whale replacement"

[@moussagibraldin4918]

Imagine a gorilla who can lift an entire continent to throw at you, and also breathe thunder beam.

[@unnaturalhistorychannel]

Couldn't be MH

[@Jacob-yg7lz]

WE are the predatory primates.

[@unicorntomboy9736]

Please do the wildlife of Pandora next (or at some point in the future)

[@lackinganame7857]

I've been doing some creature design for a story, and this channel has caused me to think a lot more about the functionality of the animal instead of "it just looks cool". lead to some really interesting results.

[@daniell1483]

I really liked this video. I've often wondered what primates as apex predators could look like, but never really found anything convincing. As far as that niche is concerned, I think chimps might be as close to that niche as primates can get. I'm very interested in what your thoughts on other speculative biology tropes, so I am looking forward to that.

[@chadgorosaurus4898]

Apex predator primates aren't too far off. Baboons may take the neche away from lions if they somehow disappear from the savannah.

[@diegoquezada3193]

They would have to compete heavily with spotted hyenas, and other predators to try to fill in the niche of lions, spotted hyenas would probably quickly fill in the niche lions left considering they are capable of taking down almost everything lions can.

[@suruxstrawde8322]

I had a giant snow monkey species I made up in this, frozen island area that had no felids or larger canids of any type. They had thick, silvery grey fur, black marks around their eyes to reduce glair, giant fangs for expression, and a flattened tail they use to cover their genitalia in fights and severe temperatures, and thickened, elongated nails akin to claws as much as possible. They’re highly intelligent pack hunters who work together to take down and often silent while out on a hunt. Essentially they’re primate grey wolves in a secluded environment lacking in that niche.

[@zeeno902]

Would it be alright if I took some inspiration from your speculation? That tarsier section in particular really got my imagination going. If not it’s all still really interesting to hear you take a crack at speculation after all the analysis!

[@unnaturalhistorychannel]

Go wild!

[@mrslasher1064]

I once heard of a spec evo project where mustelids became large predators,particularly giant horned wolverines that eventually evolved into sapient humanoids that became known as the satyrs and fauns from mythology while their cousins giant weasels evolved into centaur like creatures,it was pretty cool

[@12345done6]

Awesome video mate

[@kvable.]

Thanks for making this; Some people need to start asking some new questions when dealing with spec biology, very interesting watch

[@kriterer]

A massive tarsier chasing you down for food is a wildly terrifying image

[@antonioferrari241]

Would it be possible to do Warhammer (both Fantasy and 40K) biology?

[@lovepeople777]

Any creature can evolve to eat meat with enough time. But if they are able to adapt to fill the predator roll fast enough is the real question

[@Embassy_of_Jupiter]

My first and last spec evo project 13 years ago was doodling what would happen if humans evolved to fill all niches. I came up with a sick carnivorous human skull.

[@kasinokaiser1319]

So what would the Dinopithecus have been like?

[@unnaturalhistorychannel]

Dinopithecus seems quite similar to modern yellow or chacma baboons. Early estimates of it's weight being around 70kg have been disputed, and more conservative estimates put it around 40kg. Big, but not so much bigger than chacmas in some areas.

[@GG-jw8pt]

Bigfoot - ‘ hold my deer!’ 😂

[@vermis8344]

Carnivorous primates, what a mind blowing concept. Oop, there goes the timer. My pork chops are done.

[@CrissBluefox]

(snorts video like a line of crack) Oooh yes give me that sweet UHC goodness!!

[@the98themperoroftheholybri33]

Imagine if primates evolved in a similar way to bats, flying apes...

[@deathsyth8888]

I'm looking forward to speculative evolution with carnivorous rabbits.

[@MrKaiju-sr8wu]

As a suggestion for a potential future Spec Evo video, maybe you could do one about returning dinosaurs. Like, not the actual dinosaurs from millions of years ago, but birds or reptiles evolving to resemble their old ecology more once again

[@girlbuu9403]

Thanks for getting all that out of the way in the first minute. I saw the title and my knee jerk reaction was to come in and say "primates already are predators". In the case of baboons, chimps and humans damn scary ones, might I add.

[@gabrielsfilms2086]

the intro is why I like the idea of seed worlds, explains why nothing else is there and doesn't automatically mean modern animals are dead

[@williambuchanan77]

The problem with chimps is they don't really have much competition from other predators. There are plenty of predator species that would hunt them, tigers lions hyenas. Bears would by Africa is too hot and beats tend to prefer colder climates.

[@diegoquezada3193]

Bears would probably be fine in Africa, after all Africa isn't just one big grassland or savannah, there is a myriad of biomes with unique ecosystems, some areas are hotter while some areas are colder, and the Atlas Bear, a species of bear that once lived in Africa is proof of that, plus there was the Mexican Grizzly Bear which lived in areas that could get pretty hot at times.

[@CharliMorganMusic]

"I wonder what a top order predator would look like if it were a primate." Humans: Am I a joke to you?

[@nicolaezenoaga9756]

Hope we see more of these. Thank you!

[@happynihilist2573]

Agreed

[@godzillacc5]

You know, predatory primates decided to start using pointy sticks to hunt a long time ago and threw off the entire evolutionary arms race. I think that's pretty cool

[@colinbaldwin313]

The reason Dougal Dixon's "predator rats" are so perfect is because, well, if anything's going to survive whatever cataclysm kills the big mammals of the Holocene, murine rodents are the prime candidates. Give them 50 million years on a planet without significant specimens of Carnivora, and I have no doubt that they could evolve to replace the canids and felids. (The rabbit is a similarly adaptable small mammal, so I also buy that "rabbucks" are the deer and antelope of the future). Primates, on the other hand, seem unlikely to survive the mass extinction event caused by human destructiveness. As it is, some 60% of Primates are in danger of extinction. It occurs to me that some carnivorans are likely to be far more resilient. For instance, I'd bet on the survival of feral dogs and coyotes before any primate I can think of. (Ironically, the best measure of how likely today's animals are to survive a future extinction event is how well they've adjusted to the prosperity of Earth's most successful primate). For this reason, I think the notion of primates as future apex predators is more suited to the "Wouldn't this be awesome?" subgenre of spec evo than the "Let's really think about this and do our research" subgenre. And yes, the design of Dixon's lumbering simian T-rex is quite far-fetched. On that last note: The primate that really bothers me in After Man is the horrane (Phobocebus hamungulus). If I recall correctly, it is a descendant of African apes, yet it has a long tail. It looks far more like a baboon than the raboons do! Why would a tailless ape suddenly re-evolve its caudal organ? The Future Is Wild's babookari is also evolved from a tailless primate (a uakari), but at least it's explained that these monkeys use their long tails for communication when traveling through long grass. Here's a thought: Dixon's grassland biome might seem a little more grounded if the lumbering raboon were descended from a gorilla, while the sleek predatory horrane evolved from baboons.

[@yuzzem64]

uakari have tails short one's but they still have them

[@colinbaldwin313]

@@yuzzem64 You're very right! It's actually not even a small tail; it just lacks the length and prehensility of most other monkeys'. Mea culpa!

[@nicolaezenoaga9756]

Considering how big of a problem pollution is to us as well and that all countries have a limit to how big they're population can get and that said population will shrink once it peaked and that we humans also make active efforts to protect them since they're sudden disappearance will be bad news for us too I think the future of many species is secured

[@colinbaldwin313]

@@nicolaezenoaga9756 Well, as far as Dougal Dixon was concerned when he wrote After Man, we are going to go extinct as a result of our overconsumption of natural resources. I suppose conservation efforts are worth considering as a reason why certain species may outlive us.

[@justusb.plorer8773]

Another group of mammals that might be interesting as top-order carnivores are the Eulipotyphla. Mind you, they would require a mass extinction to get rid of their competitors, and they're so close to the ancestral mammal bodyplan that whatever they turn into is pretty similar to what is around today, but l'd still do it for the sole reason that no one else seems to have done so yet.

[@ashiqurrahman8830]

can not believe the content on this channel. INCREDIBLE'

[@ryukomatoi592]

I am getting Shakma vibes! 😂 That movie with the killer baboon

[@jaimedeleon1194]

I'm a simple man. I see a monster hunter reference in a thumbnail, i watch the video

[@Edujs23]

Ok but where are the predatory marsupials in fiction

[@johncronk8867]

Not fiction, but look up the Marsupial Lion. Had teeth like a Dunkleosteus

[@user-qi2gi7lk4f]

this reminds me of thought potato's video on a hypothetical manticore essentially being a more derived and specialized baboon.

[@TheSlashmaster101]

Hey UHC, on the subject of spec-evo. Have you checked out Keenan Taylor's stuff, I feel as if you would enjoy kaimere

[@mandiemoore3272]

I so love your take on this it's not just left borrow things from other creatures it's what actually scientifically could happen you are my favorite person today

[@jayplayseverything8897]

Don’t have to imagine they already exist in the forms of chimpanzees and humans

[@cro-magnoncarol4017]

What personally annoys me about spec-evo is when people made timelines were domestic animals like Dogs, Cattle, Pigs & Chickens die out. It's not like these animals breed fast, have flexible diets, are invasive species around the world or the fact humans would have a direct incentive to preserve them...

[@jacobhoover1654]

Domesticated animals bred in captivity usually lack genetic diversity making them more vulnerable to disease than wild populations.

[@jorgerangel2390]

cool ideas explored in this video, thanks!

[@DragonoidBerserker1]

Please do Gargoyles in the future. I think that would be a cool spec evo video

[@TheHortoman]

I want to start a petition to make the baboon the largest land carnivore of australia

[@ishclayton8667]

I’ve always thought that raccoons would be next in line after us.

[@VCubestudios]

First of all, good vid. Very informative. Secondly, I think a break down, or perhaps a guide on how to properly execute convergent evolution could prove useful, as would possibly be Niche Partitioning.

[@ahmedshaharyarejaz9886]

A Tarsier as big as a Leopard sounds horrifying!

[@miquelescribanoivars5049]

Also I think it completely reasonable to assume the current guild of felids and canids will become extinct at some point. Just look at how predatory guilds got overturn after a few million years through the entire Cenozoic. That said of course other families of carnivorans are much likier to take over -(until they get depleted, which may or may not happen)-

[@ExtremeMadnessX]

Just look at Madagascar, where mongoose, fossa is top predator instead cats or dogs.

[@EnanoGeologo]

Love your videos