Was This Prehistoric Whale Really Bigger Than A Blue Whale?

[@Thatguy-of5re]

Paleontologists: (desperately searching for the largest animal ever) Blue whales: You couldn’t live with your failure. And where did that bring you? Back to me.

[@MxlexywithaY]

Remembering that funding often requires a paper or some work to "stick out" from others, so when estimates come up there'll often be much larger estimates

[@ellie8272]

It's a shame that we have to do that

[@Dell-ol6hb]

Yes, it’s the same with the Icthyotitan specimens, pulling out absurdly high estimates to get headlines

[@arc7375]

Perucetus got the Dunkleosteus treatment. _Good._ For whatever reasons, I felt personally slighted at the notion that the Blue Whale was no longer the most massive creature to have ever existed.

[@evanharris76]

Just wait till you hear about icythyotitan

[@ISURAH-484]

​​​​@@evanharris76😂 wait is going to be downsized soon ..The 25m is Going to be downsized to 20- 21m...wait and see..

[@tofuteh2348]

I mean I don't particularly care either way. My appreciation for the blue whale or perucetus isn't based on who is the biggest

[@onyxgrnr666]

​@@tofuteh2348ok but its super cool that the largest animal of all time is alive right now alongside us

[@Dell-ol6hb]

@@evanharris76 It’s also very likely going to be downsized over time, the fossils they have are incredibly fragmentary so the estimates they’ve come up are probably wildly inaccurate, it was pretty ridiculous to see so many paleo KZbinrs talk about these estimates without any skepticism about the accuracy of these estimates.

[@rng8899]

The original paper itself gave a range of estimates, the highest of which was based on the highest possible bone mass to body weight ratio. The problem with that being, of course, that the bone mass to body weight ratio decreases the larger an animal gets. Not at all coincidentally, the highest known bone mass to body weight ratio amongst cetaceans belongs to the smallest cetaceans. Using bone mass to body weight ratios more in line with the animal's dimensions immediately brought the mass down to below hundred tons. Below hundred tons being, incidentally, also the mass one gets when scaling Pecucetus against grey whales - which are the modern cetacean that most closely matches Perucetus' suggested lifestyle. In short, the original paper wasn't strictly wrong - it gave a range of estimates, the middle of which were pretty realistic, while the outliers should've been excluded as a matter of course - we don't scale elephant mass based on the bone mass to body weight ratio of mice, either, and doing so would get one laughed out of the room. But the authors choose to include the blatantly nonsensical high-end estimates as a means to generate publicity. Which it did, primarily in the form of sensationalist media articles (but, well... science_journalism_smbc.png), as well as youtube hype videos that declined to read the paper or to apply a minimum amount of critical distance. Thinking for yourself is overrated or something. And it is this effect that I'll never forgive the authors of the original study for. You've found a large cetacean dating to a considerable amount of time before they were previously known to exist.* You don't NEED to apply nonsensical methodology to make things EVEN BIGGER. But they did. Do that enough, and you erode trust in science. * Caveat: They added nonsense weight estimates to their paper to generate publicity. Did they apply similar nonsense to the stratigraphic layers they found the fossils in...?

[@Magmafrost13]

Its kinda wild that we dont actually know empirically how heavy blue whales are

[@ellie8272]

Too big to weigh is a terrifying concept for sure

[@murunbuchstanzangur]

We need a whale-weigh station.

[@aaleven4728]

liopleurodon moment

[@gartengeflugel924]

Great video, love to see estimates become much less exaggerated. Huge props to you for now getting early access to a paper! I feel like you've definitely made it at that point

[@davidegaruti2582]

Perucetus got the simbakubua treatment : A newly discovered animal gets hyped up to be the largest of it's kind , Then somw studies come out and it turns out to be on the large side but no contender for no.1

[@The_Story_Of_Us]

This still makes it the most massive basilosaurid even if its cousin basilosaurus got longer, perhaps even something like twice as heavy and there are still lots of questions of how it could have eaten enough to attain such masses. So much could be learned if a skull was discovered to learn what it was adapted to feed on. Essily the most massive mammal ever at the time and would continue to hold that record for tens of millions of years possibly into the late Neogene

[@Kytshar]

It seems the only prehistoric creature that resists being downsized with each new research paper is T. rex

[@RainbowDice117]

Hey there, my name is Gabriella! And I’m a very recent Cretaceous member. I cant stress enough how happy I am that I can finally support yall on patreon! Been following since before even Emilia was officially pulled in as a host (the joy I had when she became official was immeasurable😭) I love all of the cool insider content yall have, and I’m just happy to see this channel do well! You guys have brought me so much joy and so much freakin’ knowledge. Yall are amazing, and have been a big part of my paleo journey. Keep up the amazing work!

[@michaelthomas5433]

Somewhere in Japan someone is working on time travel so they can go whaling some 30 million years in the past.

[@reallybig4868]

Just a little racist there bud

[@Carlos-bz5oo]

racist

[@Dell-ol6hb]

I don’t really think that was racist, Japan is one of only three nations in the world that still practices commercial whaling, you could make the same joke about Iceland or Norway.

[@Carlos-bz5oo]

@ Asian people are stereotyped as eating strange food. You're right that this joke could have been about Iceland or Norway, yet the OP chose Japan in a stereotypical way

[@michaelthomas5433]

@ I wasn't going to respond to this at all because you can't break cray cray. But then a well meaning person made a common sense statement and of course were told they were WRONG. I have seen ppl eat dog, snake, all manner of bugs. I have eaten those things except for the dog. I couldn't eat Snoopy. And in the Middle East they cook and wheel out entire camels, head and all, and then cut off slices of meat from it. Lets not forget the French and Italians eat horses and sails. There is no winner in the "weird food eaten" contest. We are all probably losers in it to be honest. Japan is know for whaling. They call some whales cockroachers of the sea. I specifically mentioned whaling. I don't care what they eat. This won't make an impact on you I know. You already had to do mental gymnastics to pull the race card on this, you won't stop now. But for that person that made a basic and rational post, that was correct by the way, I felt I would respond. Feel free to say how WRONG this still is. I mean honestly.

[@CollaateraL]

I love hearing news about this specific situation with the biggest animal of all time! Thank you

[@faolitaruna]

The lower body weight estimation brings me peace. What's that animal supposed to eat to grow to this size?

[@DoseDailyOf]

Loved that special report, amazing !

[@OlessanYT]

So much smaller than previous estimates - but still 8x to 10x the size of an African bush elephant!

[@GBEZ]

I get so freaking excited when you folks post something! Seeing you work with Lindsay Nikole and all of these outstanding new developments with the new channel and everything... I hope one day we can have tea and geek out over the amazing things in this world! Cheers, Ben! I don't think you could possibly know how much good you're doing in this world just by following your passion with your friends!

[@SmashBrosAssemble]

I’m willing to bet the only thing that grew bigger than a Blue Whale was some behemoth Ichthyosaur from the Triassic, hopefully we’ll find something like that one day.

[@lamecasuelas2]

Yeah, i agree.

[@JohnyG29]

Large land animals will always be more impressive than large marine animals, as they don't benefit from having their body weight supported by water. Bring back Dippy.

[@1stDragonlord]

Then it would need to have similar traits to Blue Whales as filter feeders, because of how they can get so much food with just one gulp.

[@urick15]

Well, we have Icthyotitan....

[@ISURAH-484]

​​​@@urick15well this may disappoint you but I am hearing its going to downsize from 25 m to 21m 42ton ...So don't have high hopes, even if ended up being 30m ..That doesn't necessarily mean it's thicker than bluewhale ....It is stated a 55feet ichthyosaur only weighed 20 tons based on a book that mentioned it written by an author, that 30m would have weighed some 110 tons,not anywhere near 200 tons

[@Bordnerg]

Bröther, may I have some krill?

[@ShepStevVidEOs]

Its back feet in the painting are adorable.

[@PrincipalSkinner3190]

We're all team Blue Whale, there's something so cool about the largest animal to have ever existed to be alive right now.

[@tigdogsbody]

Great episode . Fascinating .

[@dino_drawings]

I wonder how many people actually saw how the old estimates for perucetus was done. Because the 300+ ton weight was by using whales, not manatees and such.

[@KaieShuman-o6i]

Ah that explains it

[@Eloraurora]

Don't manatees have an unusually high percentage of their body volume taken up by intestines, because of the herbivory?

[@dino_drawings]

@@Eloraurora isn’t that just a thing for herbivores in general?

[@Eloraurora]

@dino_drawings To some extent, yes, but I think it's more prominent in herbivores that eat less nutritious plant parts, like grass and leaves.

[@dino_drawings]

@ I haven’t heard about that before, but would make sense

[@yamjamjam]

If we don't know what the skull looked like why did they artist give it such a silly head? They were just discovered and they're already being opped...

[@jackalope07]

theyve all got funny looking heads if you look up basilosaurus on google images you'll get a lot of the very reptilian heads with scary teeth showing, but if you look up more modern paleoart you'll see chonkers with small dolphin-y heads that look like |

[@Lucius1958]

That is an interesting question: if no skull fossils were found, how do reconstructors know that it was so small? Did they extrapolate from _Basilosaurus_ , or what?

[@Nightscape_]

I love maths. I wish more social scientists would either learn mathematics or team up with one on research.

[@adriannegrete9586]

Well, you did made a video about Ichthyotitan as "Bigger Than A Blue Whale" but not mention that whale. Now, you did the same, could you compare between Perucetus and Ichthyotitan?

[@redparr8490]

Got here just in time

[@tastyjerry]

chungus discovered!

[@napalmholocaust9093]

A costal, shallow diver could scavenge bays with log-jams that keep things away from the beach. The kind of coastline where the fresh water pools behind the beach into lakes that eventually erode open to the ocean, Northern California. The species range for similar critters is hardly trancontinental. Manatees only went from cuba to one side of cental Florida before we killed so many they stopped the migration and stayed coastal.

[@jurgen1395]

The big man

[@lamecasuelas2]

The big BOI!

[@MichelZongo-q3r]

I loved this video.

[@vickrykayser3129]

That's an amazing technique, but I have to say I'm disappointed. 😢 I guess I'm a sizeist.😅

[@jonathanmitchell3733]

Could they not in-vision a bit bigger head. Poor animals gonna have a hard time getting enough food in for it's huge body.

[@griffinhunter3206]

7dos

[@thomasrdiehl]

How are that few bones even fit for giving a size estimate? We don't even know the animal's skull, which makes up a lot of the size in modern whales, both baleen and toothed! Its size is complete speculation based on just about nothing.

[@Berg-ft5xb]

I wonder what it tastes like

[@tarwagon]

So, what exactly is "Bradymetabolic"? If most definitely does not refer to organisms with a high active metabolism and a considerably slower resting metabolism. Is it regarding the metabolism of animals of a species that already have three offspring of a certain sex and then try to mate with one of their own species that also has three offspring , but of the opposite sex of their three offspring? More specifically, is Bradymetabolic the metabolic nature of animals who's mating choices are based on a requirement that their potential mate already have a certain number of existing offspring. ( In almost every case , requiring the potential mate to already have three same sex existing offspring to match their own three existing same sex offspring, usually with a further requirement of the potential mate's three existing offspring to be the opposite sex of their own three existing offspring, with the sex of each set of offspring being the same sex that their parent is (ie.), the male brings three already existing male offspring into the relationship as the female's already existing offspring are all female. Bradymetabolic is a new science that delves into the metabolic nature of these complicated "step families" found within the animal kingdom.

[@v_zach]

The largest animal ever was obviously a giant anomalocaris that hasn't been discovered yet. 😂

[@downtostandup]

Yet life finds a way

[@eVill420]

no, it was a giant mollusc that can never be discovered

[@Testbug-dy6tj]

👍🎊

[@bkjeong4302]

I’ve always had tons of issues with the Perucetus paper, of course it wasn’t anywhere near that big.

[@glennbabic5954]

If they didn't have any skull fossils for Perucetus then why did they imagine such a ridiculous small head?

[@PrehistoricMenagerie]

Because it’s relatives had comparatively small head to body size ratio too.

[@reallybig4868]

I love how their accurate measurements were based off plasticine models. 😅 why not scaled 3d printed models?

[@MarvynG]

5:31 Wouldn't air sacs effect the weight and mass of the ostrich?

[@rubenkoker1911]

they would, because it lowers their dencity

[@MarvynG]

oh no it's not even an ostrich

[@rileyernst9086]

@@MarvynG LOL

[@samfish2550]

..... HOLY SHIT THAT PRIMITIVE WHALE IN THE THUMBNAIL 100% WAS A MAJOR INSPIRATION FOR THE BIG ASS WATER MONSTER WE'VE SEEN IN THE MONSTERHUNTER WILDS TRAILERS!!!!!

[@TheFoshaMan]

3:55 If they're Paleontologists I'm a Navy Seal, they're just Artists that think that the models they made is better than the real estimations made by real paleontologists, the 2024 paper that followed the paper of the discovery of Perucetus was enough to clarify it wasn't that heavy, so, sorry champs, not this time uwu

[@tessat338]

The head of the Perucetus seems so out of proportion with the body. It's as if they went big on the size estimate but decided to balance it out by giving it a tiny head. It's clearly just a guess.

[@DaCheEsYBoMb27]

If the skull wasn't discovered then how are they coming up with its skull size, you wouldn't even know if it was a herbivore or a carnivore let alone its head and fin size

[@WAMTAT]

Leave Blue whales alone, just let them be the biggest.

[@mietenkamtw]

why would scientists think that the head is so "small"? Anyone knows?

[@Leviathan1000]

I don't know, not enough proof since the largest blue whales reach 110 feet making it the largest a blue whale can reach.

[@madderhat5852]

What if they were carrying a coconut?

[@SomeHomunculusYippee]

no it was not

[@TacitusKilgore3000]

You know what else is massive?

[@arc7375]

Your colostomy bag?

[@TacitusKilgore3000]

@arc7375 llllllloooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwww taaaaaaaaaaaaaaapppeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrt faaaaaaaaaaaadeeeeeee

[@drunkpunkrat5764]

Your mum.