The Most Reality-Bending Finds Buried in the Sahara

0:00This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace. And there it was. The bike you've been searching for. You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew. Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer find more on Facebook. Propel Fitness Water. With Gatorade Electrolites, Zero Sugar, and Vitamins. Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolites. Well, there you are. The sun is scorching, you're thirsty. All you can think about is water and ancient bones under your feet. You're wandering through the Sahara, the largest hot desert on earth. Right now, you're crossing a stretch of sand called Wale Valley.

1:03And all over the 75 square miles of land, fossils cover the ground so thickly that you can't help but step on them. Paleontologist Esham Salam says it's an unusual picture in this place. The bones are poking right out of the cliffs as if they're calling to you to come check them out. You can spot ribs scattered all over the place. Look at these vertebrae. They're giant. Ooh, the creature they once belonged to must have been up to 65 feet long. The fossils show that the animal had a streamlined body like today's whale, but still had features like hind legs and feet. For scientists, it means a very exciting thing. They might have discovered a fully intact skeleton of a prehistoric whale. It was an animal that lived in this area when Egypt was underwater. You see, today, the Valley of the Wales is the world's largest ancient whale graveyard. You're likely wondering what marine animals are doing in a desert more than 100 miles away from the nearest coast.

2:04Well, millions of years ago, this desert was at the bottom of a massive ocean called the Tethids, which stretched from Europe to India. When sea levels dropped, the ocean left behind a sea bed covered with fossils. And today, the fossils of some of the earliest known whales rest here, which gives researchers a peak into how today's massive ocean whales may have evolved. The fossils here are super detailed, even with some stomach contents still intact, uh oh. Scientists have also found fossils of ancient sharks, crocodiles, and turtles, helping to recreate what this marine world looked like millions of years ago. Now, the first whale bones were discovered in 1902, but it wasn't until the 1980s that people really started to explore the area, only when access to this area became better. Sadly, some fossils had been taken away by collectors before the site turned into a protected area. Most of the fossils are just under the surface, slowly revealed by erosion.

3:06whale valley gives us an amazing glimpse into millions of years of ancient coastal marine life. But let's move further, ancient. This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on marketplace, and there it was. The bike you've been searching for, you sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew, well a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer find more on Facebook. whale fossils aren't the only discovery you're going to make today. For over 150 years, scientists have been puzzled by a strange creature that lived millions of years ago. But now, thanks to some amazing fossils found in Morocco, they've finally figured it out. Look at that, these creatures are called Buh-Buh-Buh, nah I'm kidding, styloforens.

4:06They look like flattened armor with a long arm sticking out. Researchers discovered these creatures in 2014 and were shy. The fossils dated back around 478 million years. They found around 450 specimens, and to their surprise, some even had soft tissues preserved, which is super rare. Before this, they only knew styloforens from their hard parts. Originally, scientists thought these creatures were good old echinoderms. Animals like sea urchins and starfish. But new discoveries proved that they had a core body and feeding arm, similar to modern starfish, complete with a water-bascular system to help them move and eat. This finding ends a long debate about where styloforens fit in the animal family tree. Now we know, they're related to echinoderms, but are more advanced because they don't have the typical 5-ray cemetery. Ooh, come here and look at this giant fossil. It was found in the Sahara and gave scientists new insights into the spinosaurus, the largest carnivorous dinosaur we know about.

5:13These 95 million-year-old remains also confirm that it was the first known swimming dinosaur. The spinosaurus had flat, paddle-like feet and nostrils on the top of its crocodile-like head, perfect for staying underwater. It was a pretty weird dinosaur with a long neck, trunk, tail, and a 7-foot sail on its back, so it must have spent a lot of time in the water. At over 50 feet long, spinosaurus might have been even larger than T-Rex. The first spinosaurus remains were discovered about a hundred years ago in Egypt, but only this new fossil, found in Morocco, helped scientists reconstruct this dinosaur for the first time. Researchers paid attention to the creature's shorter-hine limbs and wide claws. These features point to adaptations for life in the water. Its snout and dense bones also suggest it was a swimmer, while its spiked tail likely attracted mates.

6:13A good looking, come here often. And here's another astonishing fine-managed Tunisia, the remains of Maki-Mosaurus Rex. Now so far, it's believed to be the biggest crocodile ever. This ancient crock was about 32 feet long and weighed around 66,000 pounds. It was a top predator around 130 million years ago, and its skull was over 5 feet long. Now this discovery is a big deal, because it shows that these crocks stuck around longer than we thought. This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was. The bike you've been searching for, you sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew, well a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer find more on Facebook.

7:15Before this, scientists believe that they disappeared during a minor extinction event between the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Now let's go back to the fact that the Sahara was once underwater, and some of the largest sea creatures ever lived there. A study published in the bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History speaks about an ancient body of water called the Transaharan Seaway. It existed between 150 million years ago, covering parts of Western Africa. Scientists spent two decades trying to recreate this prehistoric underwater world. They found it was warm and shallow, home to some pretty terrifying creatures, including five foot long catfish and 40 foot long sea snakes. Yikes! The seaway was cut off from larger oceans for long stretches, which may have helped these predators grow larger because resources were always available. It's a classic case of evolution at work, leading to what scientists call gigantism in isolated environments.

8:18But all that water didn't just disappear with no trace. Under the sands of the Sahara, scientists have discovered a massive ancient lake, which they're calling a mega lake, makes sense. This lake formed around 250,000 years ago when the Nile River flooded the eastern Sahara. At its biggest, this lake covered over 42,000 square miles. It's about half as big as Kansas. They also found evidence of a smaller lake, 93 miles west of the Nile, at a slightly lower level and covering 18,600 square miles. All of this adds to growing evidence that once, North Africa had many lakes that might have created migration routes, helping early humans move across the continent. Now in the Sahara, you can find not only fossils of bizarre animals. In May 2020, some weird rocks with greenish crystals were discovered in a sandy region in southern Algeria's Sahara Desert.

9:18When scientists checked them out, they found out these rocks weren't from Earth. They were actually pieces of a meteorite, called Urg-Chak-002. This meteorite is super old, like the oldest volcanic rock ever found. It melted ages ago in the fiery heart of an ancient protoplanet that no longer exists. Researchers had recently published a study in Nature Communications, revealing that they have analyzed lead in uranium isotopes in Urg-Chak-002 and found out it's more than 4.5 billion years old. Another cool discovery made in the Sahara is quite unexpected. A few years ago, scientists found what they think are the world's oldest colors and their bright pink. These pigments were uncovered from rocks that are around 1.1 billion years old in the Sahara Desert. The colors came from microscopic organisms, as animals didn't exist back then. The discovery was made by a Ph.D. student who crushed the ancient rocks and analyzed the pigments.

10:23These pink pigments are actually ancient chlorophyll from photosynthetic organisms that lived in an ocean that's long gone. Researchers are now sure that this finding could help explain why larger, complex creatures showed up much later in Earth's history. Before these colors were discovered, scientists didn't know what was missing in the food chain that delayed the evolution of larger animals. Now they understand that tiny cyanobacteria were at the bottom of that chain. Apparently this discovery is not just about finding some old pink stuff. Scientists believe it's a breakthrough in understanding the history of life on Earth. That's it for today. So hey, if you've pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like and share it with your friends. Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side. On any journey using Uber, it helps to know you're getting into the right car. Pin verification adds an extra step to make sure your ride is your ride.

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