This Thing Is Alive - What Did Divers Really Find?

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:01]A remote survey vehicle, Okeanos Explorer, found this mysterious golden orb in the Gulf of Alaska, about 2 miles deep underwater. No one can say what this thing is. It's a strange object just 4 inches wide, and it was firmly stuck to some rock. When you touch it, it's smooth, soft, feels like flesh. You can even see a hole in it as if something escaped from there.

[00:00:26]But what?

[00:00:30]Divers brought the mysterious orb to the lab from the Pacific Ocean. They felt like in the beginning of a horror movie.

[00:00:36]Almost as if if you poke this thing, something would jump at you.

[00:00:40]This could happen if they had found it sooner. The hole in that orb means something alive tried to get inside or break out from inside, which is why scientists assume that this is an egg.

[00:00:51]We might have discovered a new species or a new life stage of some species we already know.

[00:00:57]Some species do lay their eggs on the ocean floor, like squids. Although, if that's the case, then these animals might be gigantic [music] because that egg is huge.

[00:01:10]But maybe it's not an egg. Maybe it's a sponge. They found this thing surrounded by white coral, where sponges usually vibe. Just months before this discovery, scientists found more than 5,000 new marine species in a tiny space between Hawaii and Mexico.

[00:01:26]The Gulf of Alaska is home to 52 more species with tons yet to be identified.

[00:01:32]So, maybe it's just one of those sponges we haven't discovered yet. Or it might be a coral or something entirely different. The only thing scientists know for sure is that the thing is a living organism. They're planning to move the orb to a more advanced lab to conduct DNA testing and reveal more about it. And it's not our first horrifying discovery from the oceans.

[00:01:58]In 2013, [music] two rare locomotives were discovered under 90 ft of water off the coast of [music] New Jersey.

[00:02:05]Scientists think that both of them were lost in the 1850s. For something that's been underwater for 160 years, they're in very good shape, even with layers of rust and barnacles. You can even see their smoke stacks, and they sit upright as if ready to pull into a station any minute now.

[00:02:23]They're not sure where these locomotives came from. There's no historical record of them being built or lost, which makes their discovery even more mysterious.

[00:02:32]They have strangely rare steam engines, both about 15 tons, lying 5 mi off Long Branch. The engine models were already outdated even back when these trains were made. They were small and powerful, but were only produced for a short time.

[00:02:48]Perhaps they were on a journey from Boston to the Mid-Atlantic. Then a storm struck. It caused them to either fall off a barge or to be deliberately pushed off to save the ship.

[00:02:59]Scientists want to restore the locomotive to learn [music] more about them, and this isn't the only gift of the seas humans left behind.

[00:03:09]Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, has found the Apollo 11 F-1 rocket engines in the ocean.

[00:03:15]During the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, the Saturn V rocket used five powerful F-1 engines in its first stage. Each of them produced 1 and 1/2 million pounds of thrust. They burned 6,000 lb of fuel per second, [music] a million and a half times that of a regular car. These engines burned for a few minutes before falling back into the Atlantic Ocean.

[00:03:38]Jeff Bezos got inspired by this story and began the search for those engines about a year ago. The team used an advanced deep-sea sonar. They finally found the engines 14,000 ft below the ocean surface.

[00:03:51]Scientists aren't sure what the conditions of the engines will be.

[00:03:55]They did have a super fast impact with the ocean after all, and then laying over 40 [music] years in salt water.

[00:04:01]But, they were built from very tough materials, so hopefully we'll be able to study them.

[00:04:06]Ideally, Bezos wants to recover them.

[00:04:09]They're still a NASA property, [music] but he hopes to display them in museums like the Smithsonian or the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

[00:04:18]Can you imagine finding the famous yellow brick road from The Wizard of Oz at the bottom of the ocean? This thing looks like a man-made road, but believe it or not, it's a natural volcanic structure.

[00:04:31]Divers were exploring underwater volcanic mountains called seamounts in Hawaii. They wanted to investigate a split in the seamount trail. They livestream their journey, and suddenly stumbled upon something fascinating. A pattern of cracks in the seabed that looks like a brick road.

[00:04:48]They used a robotic arm to pick up the rocks. The rocks had distinct [music] rectangular blocks separated by straight lines and right angles. Someone joked that it might be a road to Atlantis, and another called it a yellow brick road, hence [music] the name.

[00:05:02]But, after some study, scientists discovered that this dry lake bed was made by super energetic ancient volcanic eruptions. This is actually fractured [music] hyaloclastite rock.

[00:05:14]Since the volcanoes were going crazy, they heated up and cooled down repeatedly until they created this unique cobbled pattern.

[00:05:23]On June 20th, 2011, the Ocean X diving team discovered something extremely weird. They were searching for treasure in the northern Baltic Sea in the Gulf of Bothnia. Instead, they found an anomaly.

[00:05:37]The thing, dubbed the Baltic Sea Anomaly, logically, looked very weird and unnatural. The anomaly is almost 200 ft wide. It looks like mushroom, rising about 10 to 13 ft from the seabed. It also has a huge disc shape, twice the size of a football field. The main part of the anomaly has straight edges and box-like structures. The top has cracks filled with some unknown black material, and it's not made of metal.

[00:06:06]The object lies about 300 ft deep in the Gulf's waters. The main mystery is why it's there.

[00:06:15]This discovery did create buzz in mass media. Some people started saying that it might be a sunken extraterrestrial ship, the remains of Atlantis, or a portal to another world. These claims got even more support when we found weird pavement-like platforms surrounding the object. It kind of looks like a staircase. And on top of that, explorers reported that their electrical equipment, like sonar instruments and satellite phones, malfunctioned near the thing. And it's not even some random reports. Researchers from different institutes said that as well.

[00:06:48]But scientists think that this is most likely a natural geological formation, even if it doesn't look like it.

[00:06:55]Although they can't really explain what that formation is supposed to be. They have many theories. It could be linked to human evolution, a glacial deposit from the ice age, a result of volcanic activity, and so on.

[00:07:08]Maybe it's even the remnants of an asteroid that landed on the seafloor thousands of years ago. But none of these theories explain why electronic equipment stops [music] working near it.

[00:07:18]Who knows? Maybe we'll learn the truth someday.

[00:07:22]But how about technologies that came to us from the distant past?

[00:07:29]This strange thing is often called the first known analog computer. It's called the Antikythera mechanism. We discovered the mechanisms in 1901 near the Greek island of Antikythera. It might be from around 87 BCE. They found it in a shipwreck in incredibly good shape for being so old.

[00:07:49]The thing was super complex. Machines of similar complexity didn't appear anywhere in the world until the 14th century. There was also a mysterious lump. When they separated into multiple fragments, they found inscriptions inside.

[00:08:04]They were hard to read because of all the corrosion, but when they deciphered it with x-ray, >> [music] >> they discovered that these were the instructions telling how exactly to use it. Wow, what a gift to archaeologists.

[00:08:17]So, it turns out the mechanism was made to predict astronomical [music] positions and eclipses decades ahead.

[00:08:23]Ancient scientists used this computer to track the four-year cycle of athletic games similar to the ancient Olympics.

[00:08:31]The mechanism had a very intricate structure of 37 bronze gears that tracked [music] the movements of celestial objects.

[00:08:38]But at least here, we know that these things were made by humans, right?

[00:08:45]You know how they say it's better to just hand over your wallet if you run into a mugger?

[00:08:50]Instead of surrendering their wallets, sea cucumbers choose to spit out some of their insides to fend off predators like crabs and fish.

[00:09:00]It's a natural defense mechanism for them and they quickly grow those organs back in just a few days thanks to special cells inside their bodies.

[00:09:07]It's not the only weird thing sea cucumbers do. They can actually breathe through their rear end.

[00:09:13]They have this thing called a respiratory tree that connects to their backside and sits right next to their intestines. So, when they suck in water from their behind, it goes into that respiratory tree letting them absorb oxygen directly into their fluids.

[00:09:28]Plus, sea cucumbers are the janitors of the ocean. They munch on whatever gets stuck in the sand on the ocean floor.

[00:09:35]Once they've eaten, they manage to clean out the sand, leaving it nice and tidy after they do their business.

[00:09:42]As for the clean sand, the stunning white sand beaches in Hawaii are actually a product of parrot fish number two.

[00:09:49]These fish munch on algae from rocks and dead corals, [music] and while they're chomping away, they also grind up the leftover bits of coral in their bellies.

[00:09:58]When they're done, they move their bowels, and voila, it all comes out as beautiful sand.

[00:10:04]Not only do they play a vital role in keeping the coral reef ecosystem healthy, but they can turn out hundreds of pounds of this white sand every year.

[00:10:13]Marine animals are seriously impressive when it comes to holding their breath.

[00:10:18]Just look at sperm whales and elephant seals. [music] They can stay underwater for a mind-blowing 2 hours.

[00:10:24]Then, there's a Cuvier's beaked whale, which holds the crazy record at almost 4 hours underwater.

[00:10:31]When you compare that to the human record of 24 minutes and 37 seconds, held by pro diver Budimir Šobat, it seems pretty insignificant.

[00:10:43]But what's the marine animal secret that helps them excel humans this much?

[00:10:47]Unlike us, these sea creatures have a ton of hemoglobin and myoglobin in their blood and muscles, allowing them to store way more oxygen.

[00:10:56]When their oxygen runs low, myoglobin steps up and releases even more.

[00:11:01]Plus, they can tolerate higher levels of CO2, so they don't feel the need to breathe as quickly.

[00:11:07]There's even a study that found their myoglobin molecules have a unique charge that keeps them from sticking together, which boosts oxygen storage. And on top of all that, they can slow down their heart rate and restrict blood flow to hang out underwater even longer.

[00:11:22]Rumor has it that about 540 million years ago, a meteor loaded with frozen octopus eggs smashed into Earth.

[00:11:31]Sounds like a delirium, but some scientists are entertaining a very questionable idea that octopuses and their cephalopod buddies, like squids and cuttlefish, might actually have some extraterrestrial origins.

[00:11:45]The thing is, cephalopods have extraordinary DNA that doesn't look like any other DNA on our planet.

[00:11:51]They've got around 33,000 protein-coding genes in their genome, which is way more than what we humans have.

[00:11:59]A recent study suggests that their evolutionary story shows some odd traits that might hint at a connection to space. Like they could be from some super far-off past or even the future.

[00:12:11]The researchers went as far as to claim that modern octopuses could be the descendants of these frozen creatures that hitched a ride on comets and splashed down in our oceans.

[00:12:21]And why octopuses?

[00:12:23]Well, they really stand out in the animal kingdom. They can use different tools to build their own houses.

[00:12:30]And they can even solve everyday problems independently of their brain, as 2/3 of an octopus's neurons are in its arms.

[00:12:38]These traits seem to have just appeared out of nowhere during evolution. They even tossed around another quirky theory.

[00:12:45]What if an extraterrestrial virus crashed into early squid populations and gave them a crazy boost in evolution, turning them into the octopuses we know today?

[00:12:55]Anyways, these are just fun speculations without any hard proof.

[00:13:01]Now, this funky object is an animal, not a rock. It's called sand dollar. Just look at the shape of its shell.

[00:13:09]Once sand dollars are exposed to the sun, their shells lose their soft [music] spiny covering and become bleached white.

[00:13:16]Back in the day, beachcombers thought [music] these shells looked a lot like big silver coins, kind of like the old Spanish dollar that was about the same size. But if you prefer, you can call them sand cakes [music] instead.

[00:13:29]These quirky creatures have tiny spines on their surface, and they glide along the ocean floor.

[00:13:35]They use small tube feet that line the grooves [music] on their underside to grab bits of food like plankton and algae, which they then [music] send to their mouths.

[00:13:45]Inside, they have five triangular teeth that help [music] them munch on their meals.

[00:13:50]In some Georgia folklore, sand dollars are said to represent coins lost by mermaids.

[00:13:56]Sand dollars have a unique talent for cloning themselves.

[00:13:59]They can do this for a bunch of reasons, like when a predator comes around.

[00:14:04]Some species of sand dollar larvae can actually split in half as a defense [music] mechanism. It takes about 24 hours for them to clone themselves, and the new larvae end up being about 2/3 smaller than the original, >> [music] >> which helps them hide from danger. Wait, is that a giant sea hot dog racing through the ocean?

[00:14:24]Sort of.

[00:14:25]Some scientists have [music] joked that sperm whales seriously resemble enormous hot dogs.

[00:14:30]These massive creatures can take quick naps standing [music] up for about 10 to 15 minutes.

[00:14:35]They only sleep about 7% of the time, mostly between 6:00 p.m. and midnight.

[00:14:42]Sperm whales also have a cool ability to retract and extend their eyes thanks to a thick retractor muscle around them, but they can't [music] actually roll their eyes in their sockets.

[00:14:52]Plus, they have the most asymmetrical skull of any mammal out there. Oh, and let's not forget, they have the largest brain of any living creature, weighing in at over 9 lb.

[00:15:04]Unlike us humans, if dolphins went into full-on snooze, they'd stop breathing and could drown.

[00:15:11]So, they figured out a genius solution.

[00:15:13]They let only one side of their brain sleep at a time.

[00:15:16]This means one half stays awake to keep them breathing and watching out for any potential threats. When they snooze, they only close one eye. If their right brain is resting, their left eye is shut and vice versa. [music] This unique sleep style is called unihemispheric sleep and it lets them [music] recharge without ever fully losing awareness.

[00:15:36]On top of that, dolphins might [music] be using corals and sponges like their own little pharmacies.

[00:15:42]Scientists have seen them rubbing their bodies [music] against specific types of coral and sponges, suggesting they might be treating skin issues.

[00:15:51]They've even spotted [music] dolphins lining up to take turns at these spots, using corals like gorgonian coral Rumphella aggregata, leather [music] coral, and some sponges.

[00:16:02]What's really fascinating is that researchers have analyzed these corals [music] and found they contain compounds that could help with dolphin skin conditions, which can sometimes lead to infections and lesions.

[00:16:13]Now, the big question is figuring out exactly [music] how each type of coral helps dolphins and if it really boosts their health overall.

[00:16:23]Sea urchins aren't exactly the Usain Bolt of the ocean. They move slowly by crawling with [music] their tube feet and occasionally give themselves a little push with their spines.

[00:16:33]These little guys have just [music] five teeth, which they use like a beak to scrape algae off rocks, which I'm pretty sure is the ocean's version of an all-you-can-eat buffet.

[00:16:43]>> [snorts] >> But since all that scraping wears their teeth down, they're in a [music] never-ending dental replacement program.

[00:16:50]Scallops are the underwater equivalent of the world's most confused [music] security cameras, sporting up to 200 tiny eyes on their shells.

[00:16:59]These eyes are high-tech.

[00:17:01]They can even adjust their pupils to light. [music] Instead of working like ours, scallop eyes have a unique setup. Light goes through a [music] pupil, lens, two retinas, and then hits a mirror made of guanine [music] crystals that reflects it back.

[00:17:16]Scientists were puzzled about how they see since their main retina often gets blurry [music] light.

[00:17:22]But it turns out scallops can change their pupil size by about 50%.

[00:17:27]>> [music] >> Just don't expect them to do it in a hurry as it takes a few minutes.

[00:17:31]Now, here's something really neat about orcas. They're expert hunters and they do it in groups called pods. A pod can consist of up to 40 orcas forming a very effective hunting team. Interestingly, there are distinct types of pods, resident and transient. Resident pods are more into fish, while transient pods have a taste for marine mammals.

[00:17:54]But no matter what type of pod they belong to, all orcas have one thing in common. They are master collaborators.

[00:18:02]They work together using smart hunting techniques that are often compared to the teamwork of wolf packs.

[00:18:09]Almost 95% of jellyfish's body is made of water. For comparison, [music] the human body is 60% water. It's probably not a surprise since jellyfish don't have a heart, blood, eyes, or brain. The other 5% [music] of their body weight is proteins, muscles, and nerve cells.

[00:18:27]>> [music] >> Jellyfish have been around for more than 500 million years. This makes them older than dinosaurs. [music] These creatures haven't changed much and today's jellyfish are pretty much like their ancestors. Electric [music] eels have small eyes that are not so effective in environments with no light.

[00:18:44]So, [music] they mostly rely on their electric organs. Those consist of 6,000 cells. Eels use them to store power [music] similar to batteries. These creatures use electricity like bats use their radars or dolphins [music] their sonar. An eel can also produce enough electricity to power a panel of light bulbs.

[00:19:05]There's a small tropical archerfish that can learn to recognize human faces.

[00:19:10]>> [music] >> This fish has an interesting ability to spit small jets of water from its mouth.

[00:19:15]Researchers showed the fish the image [music] of two different faces placed side by side. One was unknown and the other was familiar. The fish was supposed to spit water at the familiar one. The creature took the right guess more than 80% of the time. There's such a thing as a sea unicorn. That's an animal called the narwhal. Its horn is actually a tooth that can grow up to 10 ft long.

[00:19:40]Manatees, also known as sea cows, are distant relatives of elephants. Their weight can go up to 1,000 lb. These creatures are vegetarian and need to eat around 10% of their total weight on a daily basis. That's lots of sea salad.

[00:19:56]In some cases, manatees share space with alligators. But they get along pretty well. You can even find a photo from Florida >> [music] >> where an alligator rides a manatee's back.

[00:20:07]Frogfish have special fins that help these creatures walk along [music] the sand. They're very useful in shallow waters.

[00:20:15]A ghost pipefish is hard to see, but once you spot it, you're bound to get really surprised. Its head makes up over 40% of its body. Crabs don't feel like wasting time on such formalities as putting foods in their mouth. That's why they taste it with their feet, which is where their taste buds are.

[00:20:35]Marine iguanas [music] are the only lizards on our planet that like spending time in the ocean. Even though they mainly live on land. They're herbivores that feed in shallow waters and swim like snakes. [music] Iguanas use their long claws to hold onto the bottom when they need to graze.

[00:20:52]Green turtles can cross over 1,400 mi when migrating. They try to find the perfect [music] spot to lay their eggs.

[00:21:00]Penguins sort of fly when they're underwater, reaching a speed of 25 mph.

[00:21:06]More than 5 ago, I've heard, I wasn't around then, deep-sea worms and humans had a common ancestor. So, we still share 70% of our genes with these creatures and with [music] sea stars, squid, and octopuses.

[00:21:22]Now, octopuses are in fact incredibly old. The oldest known fossil belongs to an animal that lived almost 300 million years ago. FYI, this is before our dinosaur buddies roam the earth. Wait, there's more. Octopus arms have a mind of their own. That's because 2/3 of their neurons lie in their arms, not in their heads. This means that their arms can problem-solve how to open a shellfish while their owner is worried about other stuff entirely. Talk about ninja-level multitasking. Oh, and like other animals such as chimpanzees and dolphins, octopuses have proven to be good at maneuvering tools, like picking up old shells and using them as a temporary home.

[00:22:05]Now, of course, the most intelligent animals on our planet are humans, according to humans. But, we don't seem to give pigs enough [music] credit. Pigs are so smart, they can play video games.

[00:22:17]No, not Minecraft, but in a recent academic study, scientists had four pigs play a joystick game. They had to manipulate the stick so that the moving ball would hit the wall and then [music] they would get a treat. All four pigs did great in the test, which was surprising even to the [music] scientists.

[00:22:36]Well, pigeons also aced an impressive test. [music] They were trained to differentiate a Picasso painting from a Monet one, which they had no trouble learning. Then, they were able to apply this knowledge, identifying works of art they had not previously seen, meaning they really understood the difference between each [music] painter. Poor things are always seen as a nuisance.

[00:22:58]Now, if we placed kangaroos in an animals' most amazing ability contest, [music] they'd win.

[00:23:04]>> [applause] >> It's mainly because they break the four-legged rule.

[00:23:09]>> [music] >> A special species of kangaroo, the red kangaroo, uses its tail to help propel it forward. Now, visually, it has four limbs, but in practice, it uses five.

[00:23:20]They're biologically built to use their tail as a fifth limb, since it's [music] packed with articulated vertebrae and thick muscles. Of course, it had to be an Australian animal.

[00:23:31]Deep within the Sahara desert, you'll find a little creature known as the fennec [music] fox. This huge-eared animal adapted perfectly to survive in its hostile environment. The huge ears help them to dissipate the unbearable heat of the desert, as well as help them [music] to hunt for underground prey.

[00:23:49]Now, meet this guy. Unlike what its name might suggest, the red panda is closer to a raccoon than it is to a giant panda. You'll find a lot of these cat-sized creatures in the Himalayan region, hopping from tree to tree, and bundle together trying to keep warm in the harsh weather. They're gentle and friendly, like their big panda cousins, [music] and occasionally enjoy eating some bamboo sticks.

[00:24:13]And then, there are bees. Compared to humans, bees' brains are the size of pinheads. Yet, they are capable of astounding things.

[00:24:22]Let's say a bee is running low on energy after a long search flight. This bee desperately needs a drop of honey in order to continue flying. But, smartly enough, she doesn't need to go back to the hive to recharge. She can ask a fellow bee hivemate for a drop of honey directly from this [music] other bee's stomach and continue flying.

[00:24:42]This type of decentralized system allows them to build [music] highly effective societies, one that bees don't need to push through the queues in front of the honey cells, for example. Every year, in the winter, great white sharks that live along the California coastline [music] disappear. It feels as if they take a vacation for 30 to 40 days. The animals go to a point halfway between Hawaii and Mexico. They might do it to get some food, relax, or hang out with their buddies from other areas.

[00:25:10]>> [music] >> The spot is now called the whale shark cafe.

[00:25:14]Some types of sharks, like makos, whale sharks, or white sharks, >> [music] >> breathe in a very specific way. It requires them to swim all the time. They also need to move quickly and with their mouth open. This way, the oxygen can enter and reach their gills.

[00:25:30]Sea sponges are some of the most primitive animals. They're immobile, don't have a mouth, eyes, bones, brain, heart, lungs, or any other organ whatsoever. And still, they're alive.

[00:25:42]There's such a thing as [music] a sea unicorn. That's an animal called the narwhal. It's horn is actually a tooth that can grow up to 10 ft long.

[00:25:52]Manatees, also known as sea cows, are distant relatives of elephants. Their weight can go up to 1,000 lb. These [music] creatures are vegetarian and need to eat around 10% of their total weight on a daily basis. That's lots of sea salad.

[00:26:08]In some cases, manatees share space with alligators, but they get along pretty well. You can even find a photo from Florida where an alligator rides a manatee's back.

[00:26:19]Frogfish have special fins that help these creatures [music] walk along the sand. They're very useful in shallow waters.

[00:26:27]A ghost pipefish is hard to see, but once you spot it, you're bound to get really surprised. Its head makes up over 40% of its body. Crabs don't feel like wasting time on such formalities as putting foods in their mouth. That's why they taste it with their feet, which is where their taste buds are.

[00:26:47]Marine iguanas are the only lizards on our planet that like spending time in the ocean, even though they mainly live on land. They're herbivores that feed in shallow waters and swim like snakes.

[00:26:58]>> [music] >> There's something known as the orange cat behavior, and apparently, it's not just a meme.

[00:27:04]So far, scientists have been able to understand that coat color [music] is connected to a feline's gender. And since orange is an X chromosome, orange cats are usually [music] males, like Garfield. The so-called orange cat behavior describes ginger cats as agents of chaos. Again, pretty much like Garfield. However, [music] there haven't been any conclusive studies on whether coat color and cat behavior are truly linked.

[00:27:30]In terms of vision, mantis shrimps probably have the most psychedelic vision out of all animals. These funny-looking creatures have a whopping 16 varieties of photoreceptors, >> [music] >> with five of them reserved for the ultraviolet or UV spectrum.

[00:27:48]Ultraviolet rays are really short wavelengths, which are invisible to humans. The thing science still doesn't understand is how exactly these mantis shrimp view the world around them. Sure, they can perceive a bunch of colors, but they can't necessarily distinguish all of these colors among themselves.

[00:28:05]It can be that they just see a lot [music] of really vivid, really blurry colors, but we haven't figured out a way to check that out. [music] Now, to say sloths are cute is an understatement. They may be one of the friendliest [music] animals in the jungle, but there's more. If you look closely at their fur coat, you'll notice hints of green. [music] These greeneries are actually tiny little algae that grow alongside sloths.

[00:28:30]They help sloths to camouflage better in the jungle, but they also nurture them.

[00:28:35]The little cracks inside a sloth's fur create the perfect [music] environment for algae reproduction, and scientists have found species of algae that don't exist [music] anywhere else in the world. They do get by with a little help from their friends.

[00:28:51]Deep within the Sahara desert, you'll find a little creature known as the fennec [music] fox. This huge-eared animal adapted perfectly to survive in its hostile environment. The huge ears help them to dissipate the unbearable heat of the desert, as well as help [music] them to hunt for underground prey.

[00:29:09]Dinosaurs, big ancient bugs, creepy spiders, and scary [music] insects are all cute animals compared to the monsters that lived on Earth about a half a billion years ago.

[00:29:21]For example, here's a creature that swam in the water like a stingray and had three eyes. Its mouth was like a pencil sharpener. Two long claws with forked tips, like pincers, protruded from its head, and its gills were somewhere in the back. This is not a thing from a sci-fi movie. This is Mosura. Its remains are preserved in excellent condition. Let's look at [music] it more closely and study the other similar monsters.

[00:29:48]The Cambrian explosion. Remember this name. This period is also called the biological Big Bang, the time when a huge number of different living creatures began to appear in the ocean, large, small, and tiny.

[00:30:03]The ancestors of almost all modern animal groups were most likely born during the Cambrian explosion, which lasted from 541 to 485 million years ago.

[00:30:13]It was a time when the first truly effective and terrifying predators appeared on Earth. One of them was Mosura. It's only the size of an index finger, but you would never want to meet such a creature while swimming in the sea.

[00:30:27]It's scary to imagine what it could do with its pencil sharpener-shaped mouth.

[00:30:32]And you probably wouldn't be able to hide from it because, come on, it had two eyes on the sides and one big eye on its forehead.

[00:30:41]Mosura belonged to a group of arthropods. Scientists [music] called it a sea moth since it reminded them of a moth.

[00:30:48]This thing used a flap-like apparatus, similar to [music] wings, to float in the water like a stingray.

[00:30:54]This monster was quite creepy, but its appearance may seem familiar because it's a distant relative [music] of modern spiders, crabs, centipedes, and moths.

[00:31:05]Scientists found several 506 million-year-old Mollusora fossils. But unlike many other similar [music] finds, these ones have been preserved in excellent condition.

[00:31:16]The found fossils showed sharp claws, a toothy jaw, and large [music] gills in the tail section.

[00:31:22]Some parts of the fossil were so clear that they revealed the details [music] of the creature's internal anatomy, including parts of its nervous and circulatory [music] systems and digestive tract. It had jointed limbs like those of modern insects and crustaceans.

[00:31:37]When this monster swam in the sea, it probably grabbed its prey with long spiked claws sticking out of its head.

[00:31:44]Many Mollusora relatives have claws covered with multiple spikes, which help them grab food.

[00:31:50]But that ancient creature had smooth claws forked at the tips.

[00:31:54]That is, it grabbed [music] the prey with those tongs, using them like chopsticks, and then brought it to its mouth. Of course, this is an assumption, and nobody saw how this creature actually did it.

[00:32:06]Unlike many other similar animals, Mollusora's posterior segmented body was studded with gills. [music] Scientists don't know why this was necessary, but they assume that such an unusual breathing system helped to adapt to an environment with low [music] oxygen content.

[00:32:22]Perhaps Mollusora led a very active reproductive lifestyle that required high oxygen consumption. Creepy, dangerous, and reproducing fast. An excellent set of qualities for one of the most dangerous predators of antiquity. But what did Mosasaur eat?

[00:32:39]It probably caught different types of worms and small arthropods. [music] It's nice to think that this monster lived so long ago and was so small.

[00:32:48]But, what if this creature was the size of a shark and was swimming in the ocean these days?

[00:32:53]Perhaps it would become a dominant dweller [music] and people would swim much less along the coast.

[00:33:00]Mosasaur lived in the water but was discovered [music] in the Burgess Shale rock formation in the Canadian Rockies.

[00:33:06]Many mountains on Earth were once the seabed inhabited by strange creatures.

[00:33:11]>> [music] >> One of them was Opabinia. It had five eyes, a mouth facing backward, a long trunk, and claws instead of a nose.

[00:33:19][music] Wait, what? It's too strange even for science fiction, >> [music] >> even for outer space.

[00:33:26]In its eccentricity, Opabinia was perhaps the loneliest creature [music] on Earth.

[00:33:32]Scientists couldn't find another species that would be similar to this individual until [music] recently. Meet Utaurora.

[00:33:39]It seems to belong to the same species as Opabinia.

[00:33:43]Its inch-long body was divided into 14 to 15 furrows. Each of them ended in a pointed flap.

[00:33:50]Opabinia had the same body, but it's unlikely that both monsters were friends.

[00:33:55]The difference between their timelines was several million years.

[00:33:59]It's hard to imagine why these monsters needed such strange body structures.

[00:34:03]Why haven't modern filmmakers used the design of those animals to create cool space monsters yet?

[00:34:11]Okay, they were creepy creatures, but what about weird and kind of useless ones?

[00:34:17]Scientists have discovered Sue, a legless creature with no head turned inside out.

[00:34:23]Huh?

[00:34:24]This 444-million-year-old creature was found in South Africa, north of Cape [music] Town.

[00:34:30]They called it Sue after the discoverer's mother.

[00:34:33]In fact, it's some kind of new arthropod species that may have lived in low oxygen waters.

[00:34:39]This creature was turned inside out and the outer shell with the legs and head was lost.

[00:34:45]>> [music] >> Thanks to mineralization, muscles, tendons, and even Sue's intestines were preserved on the fossil.

[00:34:52]>> [music] >> It's a great success to find such detailed remains of an ancient creature.

[00:34:56]However, scientists still can't determine the evolutionary history of this species.

[00:35:02]They're sure that it was a primitive marine arthropod.

[00:35:06]Okay, we can see that half a billion years ago Earth was filled with creepy monsters, which fortunately are now extinct. But what about [music] trees?

[00:35:16]Were they the same as we see now? Or was there something else? Something creepy?

[00:35:23]Oh, yeah.

[00:35:24]Scientists have discovered a new kind of living organism similar to a tree or a mushroom.

[00:35:29]It was gigantic and had a very minimalistic design.

[00:35:34]Meet the Prototaxites.

[00:35:36]It's basically just a big stick with a round end poking out of the ground.

[00:35:41]It was smooth, didn't have the usual tree bark, and looked more like a mushroom without a cap. But scientists [music] have recently found out that it wasn't a mushroom at all.

[00:35:51]Prototaxites [music] probably belonged to a previously unknown branch of life.

[00:35:57]Prototaxites [music] is considered to be the first giant organism in the history of the planet that lived on land.

[00:36:03]It existed about 420 to 375 million years ago during the Devonian period.

[00:36:11]It was the time when plants began to spread across dry land forming large forests.

[00:36:16]Over time, they began to grow leaves and form roots in the ground. Then, the first seed plants appeared.

[00:36:24]The real colonization of land began.

[00:36:27]The first arthropods, such as centipedes, arachnids, and other unpleasant creatures began to walk among those forests.

[00:36:34]Meanwhile, the water was filled with a huge biodiversity.

[00:36:38]There was a giant supercontinent on the planet and smaller parts began to break off it.

[00:36:44]During this period, Prototaxites towered over the land. Some of these things [music] reached 26 ft high and 3 ft wide. It's like a three-story house and is thick as a palm tree.

[00:36:55]But what was it? A plant? A mushroom?

[00:36:59]Algae, perhaps.

[00:37:00]Scientists discovered them in the middle of the 19th century, [music] but only in 2007 did they conduct chemical analysis.

[00:37:08]Research showed that it was most likely a giant [music] mushroom. But in 2025, scientists refuted this conclusion.

[00:37:14]It turns out this may have been an unknown life form that existed [music] separately from the kingdom of fungi, animals, plants, and protists.

[00:37:24]Scientists noticed that the inner part of Prototaxites [music] consisted of a number of tubes.

[00:37:29]There are similar tubes inside mushrooms, but the tubes of that ancient living thing branched and joined differently. They even had a different chemical composition. The main building block of mushrooms is [music] chitin.

[00:37:41]But the Prototaxites contained chemicals similar to lignin, a substance found in the bark of trees [music] and other plants.

[00:37:49]And its anatomy differs from the structure of any other organism known to us.

[00:37:54]What were they doing on Earth? Just chilled and enjoyed the bloom of life?

[00:37:59]Did they produce some kind of fruit like a banana with eyes and claws?

[00:38:03]Scientists don't know.

[00:38:05]What if it was something that was brought to Earth from outer space?

[00:38:09]What if they were flowers planted [music] by another civilization?

[00:38:13]What do you think?