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Why We Only Have Ten Toes (It's a Long Story)
Eons - S6 - E6
Today, all mammals from humans to bats have five fingers or fewer. Yes, even whales, whose finger bones are hidden in their fins. Birds have four or fewer and amphibians get the best of both worlds, often having four digits on their “hands” and five on their “feet.” But no species of vertebrates have more than five digits, let alone eight!
Eons: Season 6 - 56 Episode s
6x1 - How our deadliest parasite turned to the dark side
January 11, 2022
Around 10,000 years ago, somewhere in Africa, a microscopic parasite made a huge leap. With a little help from a mosquito, it left its animal host - probably a gorilla - and found its way to a new host: us.
6x2 - Primates vs Snakes (An Evolutionary Arms Race)
January 19, 2022
The Snake Detection Hypothesis proposes that the ability to quickly spot and avoid snakes is deeply embedded in primates, including us - an evolutionary consequence of the danger snakes have posed to us over millions of years.
6x3 - How the Rise of Social Insects Shrunk These Dinosaurs
January 27, 2022
We often think of dinosaurs as either preying on other dinos or mammals, or as plant-eaters -- but in ecosystems today, those aren’t the only two options. So why would we expect dinosaurs to have only been carnivores or herbivores, with the occasional omnivore thrown in the mix?
6x4 - How Vertebrates Got Teeth... And Lost Them Again
February 8, 2022
As revolutionary as teeth were, they would go on to disappear in some groups of vertebrates. But why?
6x5 - How Horses Went From Food To Friends
February 16, 2022
Do our modern horses descend from just one domesticated population, or did it happen many times, in many places? Answering these questions has been tricky, as we’ve needed to bring together evidence from art, archaeology, and ancient DNA…Because, as it turns out, the history of humans and horses has been a pretty wild ride.
6x6 - Why We Only Have Ten Toes (It's a Long Story)
February 23, 2022
Today, all mammals from humans to bats have five fingers or fewer. Yes, even whales, whose finger bones are hidden in their fins. Birds have four or fewer and amphibians get the best of both worlds, often having four digits on their “hands” and five on their “feet.” But no species of vertebrates have more than five digits, let alone eight!
6x7 - Sharks nearly went extinct 19 million years ago #shorts
March 2, 2022
There used to be SO MANY sharks...where did they go?
6x8 - Dire wolves aren’t wolves at all #shorts
March 3, 2022
Dire wolves aren’t actually wolves but what they are might be even cooler.
6x9 - Could humans survive if they traveled back in time 3 billion years? #shorts
March 4, 2022
Could humans survive during the Precambrian?
6x10 - Some trees are more closely related to broccoli than to other trees #shorts
March 7, 2022
Don’t be fooled by convergent evolution.
6x11 - Human knees are the worst and we have evolution to thank for that #shorts
March 8, 2022
Why do human knees suck?
6x12 - A crater in Turkmenistan has been on fire for about 50 years #shorts
March 10, 2022
And it’s been reported that one of the geologists started it on purpose?
6x13 - When a Giant Pterosaur Ruled the European Islands
March 15, 2022
The ecological niche of apex predators was empty on Hateg Island, waiting to be occupied by something large, mobile, and powerful enough to fill it.
6x14 - Only one human has been excavated from the La Brea Tar Pits #shorts
March 17, 2022
6x15 - Could humans survive a giant space rock colliding with Earth 66 million years ago? #shorts
March 18, 2022
Would you have survived the K-Pg Impact?
6x16 - The Sudden Rise of the First Colossal Animal
March 22, 2022
A truly enormous ichthyosaur around the size of a modern sperm whale, reached its size within just a few million years of taking to the water - a blink of an eye in evolutionary time.
6x17 - The Tasmanian tiger is definitely extinct. So why do people keep report sightings of them? #shorts
March 25, 2022
Thylacines are definitely extinct!
6x18 - The Extreme Hyenas That Didn't Last
March 29, 2022
Hyenas weren’t always able to eat bones. In fact, only a few million years ago, they lived very different lives.
6x19 - Who forged one of the most famous fake fossils of all time? #shorts
March 31, 2022
6x20 - After this bird went extinct the first time, evolution just hit replay #shorts
April 4, 2022
The bird that evolved twice!
6x21 - Someone lost the only fossil from what might’ve been the biggest dinosaur ever #shorts
April 5, 2022
6x22 - Would you have survived the biggest mass extinction of all time? #shorts
April 6, 2022
6x23 - An ancient insect trapped in amber has a parasitic mushroom erupting out of it? #shorts
April 8, 2022
I will pass on the parasitic mind-controlling mushroom, thanks
6x24 - How the Smallest Animal Got So Simple
April 13, 2022
We tend to think that evolution only goes in one direction— toward getting bigger and more advanced. But that’s not always the case. This tiny, simple animal, the Myxozoans, (yes, animal!) evolved from something bigger and more complex.
6x25 - We know a lot about dinosaurs but...what was the first dinosaur? #shorts
April 14, 2022
6x26 - Why Sour May Be The Oldest Taste
April 20, 2022
While sour taste's original purpose was to warn vertebrates of danger, in a few animal groups, including us, its role has reversed. The taste of danger became something it was dangerous for us to avoid.
6x27 - The Ancient Human Species With A Missing Body
April 27, 2022
Only a handful of Denisovan fossils have been identified. In the absence of actual body fossils, it’s impossible for us to reconstruct their morphology, right?
6x28 - Are there dinosaur fossils in space? #shorts
May 2, 2022
6x29 - Why don’t rabbits get really, really big? #shorts
May 3, 2022
6x30 - An extinct human species was discovered deep within a cave system #shorts
May 4, 2022
6x31 - When Ants Domesticated Fungi
May 10, 2022
While we’ve been farming for around 10,000 to 12,000 years, the ancestors of ants have been doing it for around 60 million years. So when, and how, and why did ants start … farming?
6x32 - The Curious Case of the Cave Lion
May 17, 2022
A mysterious, large feline roamed Eurasia during the last ice age. Its fossils have been found across the continent, and it’s been the subject of ancient artwork. So what exactly were these big cats?
6x33 - Is This The Oldest Dad In The Fossil Record?
May 26, 2022
Fossil evidence suggests Diictodon used burrows to breed, and that a parent stayed behind to feed and protect their young. And the parent that stayed behind? It might’ve been the male.
6x34 - Why did so many predators die at the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry? #shorts
May 27, 2022
There’s something weird going on at the Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry in what’s now Utah.
6x35 - What is the most successful human species? #shorts
May 31, 2022
Does Homo erectus beat out Homo sapiens?
6x36 - Sharks have antibacterial skin. Can we use that to save lives? #shorts
June 1, 2022
Sometimes modern problems require ancient, evolutionary solutions.
6x37 - This Ice Age pup's last meal was a woolly rhino #shorts
June 2, 2022
What was this ancient pup’s last meal?
6x38 - What came first, the sabertooth or the cat? #shorts
June 3, 2022
The newest oldest saber-toothed mammal
6x39 - How To Build A Woolly Mammoth (But Should We?)
June 8, 2022
In the quest to understand how evolution basically built the woolly mammoth, we may have found the blueprints for building them ourselves.
6x40 - Something Has Been Making This Mark For 500 Million Years
June 15, 2022
Paleodictyon, a hexagonal-patterned fossil, is a bit of a mystery. We don’t even know if it’s a trace fossil, or the organism itself. So… what could it be?
6x41 - Giant Viruses Blur The Line Between Alive and Not
June 29, 2022
In 2003, microbiologists made a huge discovery. One that would force us to reconsider a lot of what we thought we knew about the evolution of microbial life: giant viruses.
6x42 - This new giant bacterium is visible to the naked eye #shorts
July 6, 2022
Microbiology goes macro with a new giant bacterium!
6x43 - Another Spinosaurus study, another opportunity to debate if Spinosaurus was aquatic #shorts
July 7, 2022
Spinosaurus had dense bones!
6x44 - There were dinosaurs with basically no arms at all, just hands! #shorts
July 8, 2022
Guemesia: a new no-arm dino
6x45 - When Giant Millipedes Reigned
July 13, 2022
This giant millipede was the largest known invertebrate to ever live on land. So how did it get so big??
6x46 - How Plate Tectonics Transformed Los Angeles
July 21, 2022
Despite the profound changes we’ve made here in recent history, the epic saga of Los Angeles' natural history is still visible - and even striking - if you know where and how to look for it.
6x47 - Why Does Caffeine Exist?
July 28, 2022
Today, billions of people around the world start their day with caffeine. But how and why did the ability to produce this molecule independently evolve in multiple, distantly-related lineages of flowering plants, again and again?
6x48 - This was the biggest earthquake humans ever experienced #shorts
August 3, 2022
One of the biggest earthquakes humans ever experienced happened around 3800 years ago in what's now northern Chile.
6x49 - Someone stole two of the most important documents in the history of science #shorts
August 3, 2022
We have no idea where they were all this time, or who stole and returned them and why.
6x50 - You can thank evolution for flesh-eating bees #shorts
August 5, 2022
Flesh-eating bees exist!
6x51 - This is one of the oldest art workshops ever discovered! #shorts
August 5, 2022
Archaeologists have discovered an ancient art workshop
6x52 - Did An Ancient Pathogen Reshape Our Cells?
August 11, 2022
There is one - and only one - group of mammals that doesn’t have alpha-gal: the catarrhine primates, which are the monkeys of Africa and Asia, the apes, and us.
6x53 - How Whale Evolution Kind Of Sucked
August 18, 2022
Mystacodon is the earliest known mysticete, the group that, today, we call the baleen whales. But if this was a baleen whale, where was its baleen? Where did baleen come from? And how did it live without it?
6x54 - The Fungi That Turned Ants Into Zombies
August 23, 2022
This fungus was actually manipulating ants’ movements, forcing them to do something they’d never ordinarily do, something strange, yet specific…
6x55 - Did you know that fossils can get sick? #shorts
August 31, 2022
Did you know that fossils can get sick? – Specifically with Pyrite Disease
6x56 - A supervolcano in Idaho once caused a disaster 900 miles away. #shorts
September 8, 2022
Disaster in the great plains!