They Found Something Older Than the Pyramids in America
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Journey with us to a peaceful Wisconsin lake where an incredible piece of ancient American history lay hidden for thousands of years.
A total of 79 dugout canoes were found on a once thriving metropolis. They were dated anywhere from 1,200 to 6,500 years ago
Dejope has multiple historical connections, including the name of the Madison, Wisconsin area in the Ho-Chunk language and the name of a residence hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison:
The name of the Madison area
The Ho-Chunk people, the original inhabitants of the Madison area, named the area Dejope, which means "Four Lakes" in their language. The name refers to the four lakes that surround the area: Mendota, Monona, Waubesa, and Kegonsa. Indigenous tribes lived around these lakes for almost 12,000 years before white settlers arrived.
How Did Pleistocene Megafauna Go Extinct? GEO GIRL
Ever wonder how the megafauna, like woolly mammoths, saber toothed cats, giant ground sloths, giant armadillos, and others, went extinct at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, ~11,000 years ago? In this video, we go over all the all the most notable megafauna of the Pleistocene, how they evolved, and how they went extinct, or at least the various hypotheses about how they went extinct, from asteroid to human hunting!
https://www.bonfire.com/store/pleisto... Rewilding Europe website (were you can learn more and even donate to the efforts if you’d like): https://rewildingeurope.com/ P.S. BTW, these parks and conservations efforts are not sponsoring this video, I just wanted to shout out their websites in case some of you may be interested in learning more or donating! AKA: this is not an ad, just to let you all know that these resources are out there 😉
Posted 7 Dec 20217 Dec 2021,updated 7 Dec 20227 Dec 2022
Crocodiles can survive without food for a long time — even up to more than a year — because of how well they can save their energy.(Michael Lee, author provided)
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The Conversation is asking kids to send in questions they'd like an expert to answer. Éamonn, age 5, from Western Australia, wants to know how the crocodiles survived the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. An expert in evolutionary biology explains.
There are two main reasons. First, crocodiles can live for a very long time without food. Second, they lived in places that were the least affected when the asteroid hit Earth.
When the asteroid hit earth
About66 million years ago, dinosaurs ruled Earth. But then a massive asteroid, more than 9 kilometres wide, slammed into the shallow sea near what is now Mexico.
The explosion from this was so huge, it led to global earthquakes, tidal waves, bushfires and even poisonous rain.
Also, the asteroid hit at one of the worst possible places, where the rocks could easily be "exploded" (or vaporised). This threw up massive amounts of dust into the sky, blocking out the Sun for many months and sending Earth into a long, dark and freezing winter.
Without sunlight, the green plants died, followed by the plant-eating animals that ate them to survive, and the meat-eaters that ate the plant-eaters.
Scientists think three-quarters of all the different kinds (species) of animals on Earthwere wiped out— including most dinosaurs.
But some managed to survive for a range of reasons.
A battle-scarred saltwater crocodile resting near the Daintree River in North Queensland.(Michael Lee, author provided)
One important group of dinosaurs sailed through, helped by their ability to fly and find food in faraway places. Their feathers protected them from the cold, and their beaks let them eat buried seeds found near dead plants.
Amazingly, these dinosaur survivors are still with us today. We call them birds!
Crocodiles had some keys to survival
Crocodiles were another group that famously survived the asteroid. Obviously they can't fly, don't have feathers and don't eat seeds! But they had other secrets to success.
Firstly, crocodile bodies usevery little energy. They lie around a lot, breathe slowly and even have a very slow heartbeat. This is how they can hold their breath underwater for more than an hour.
It also means they can go without food for months, and sometimes more than a year. This would have been very helpful when food (such as other animals) became hard to find once the asteroid hit.
Dinosaurs, on the other hand, weregenerally more active, which meant they needed more energy — especially meat-eaters like Velociraptor. Without food, they would have died quickly.
Dinosaurs such as Velociraptor would have struggled to survive without much food after the asteroid hit. That is, if they survived in the first place.(Adobe Stock)
Crocodiles also lived in places where losinggreen plantsdidn't make a big difference. Think of a forest or a grassland (where many dinosaurs lived): if the plants there die, then all the animals that need them die too, including the meat-eaters which are left with no food.
But the crocodile survivors mostly lived in places like rivers, lakes and coasts. The animals living in these places don't need green plants as much. Dead plants and animal material washes in from surrounding land, which is eaten by tiny creatures, which are then eaten by larger creatures, including crocodiles.
So unlike dinosaurs living on the land, crocodiles in a river would not have starved as soon as the green plants died.
Our mammalian ancestors also survived
A similar reason helps explain why human beings' ancestors also survived the asteroid impact. These were the small mammals that lived near the end of the age of dinosaurs, which eventually gave rise to all the different kinds of mammals around today (including humans).
They were mainly small, rat-like things that scurried about in the dead leaf litteron the ground, eating insects and worms. These tiny creatures relied not on living green plants, but on dead leaves and bark falling from the trees, or being blown and washed in from elsewhere.
So just like the crocodiles, our tiny ancestors survived the asteroid partly because they didn't depend heavily on living plants. A good thing too: these lucky survival skills are the reason you and I are here today!
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