The Great Dying: The Permian Mass Extinction

our world has and continues to endure many trials the actual stone and rock of our planet has always remained but instead it is the life which has evolved on earth that can be dramatically affected by global catastrophe yet still life is always endured and its flame has never fully been put out but at one time hundreds of millions of years ago it nearly did more than any other point in the earth's history the greatest percentage of complex life died out during this time today we can find evidence of this apocalypse in the distant siberian traps

evidence of the permian mass extinction the moment 200 million years of evolution was nearly wiped off the planet [Music] the time before the permian mass extinction was surprisingly enough the permian period that spanned from 298 to 251 million years ago this period marks the last steps in the vertebrates conquering of the land the era that came before was an alien and bizarre place known as the carboniferous period it is a time where the earth was covered in vast humid swamps and rainforests the trees themselves weren't really even trees but giant ferns that created the first

forests on earth the ruling animals were giant arthropods who could grow much larger than any insect of today due to the heightened oxygen levels in the atmosphere along with that amphibians diversified into many different shapes and monsters like the ariox dwelled in these swampy waters the only terrestrial vertebrates came in the form of small scampering reptiliomorphs lizard-like animals who are more closely related to birds reptiles and mammals than they are any amphibian it is thought that they could prosper on land due to the structure of their eggs unlike amphibians soft eggs which require water to

be laden a reptilia morse hard-shelled eggs could be laid on dry land and thus it grew independent from the waters even with their new life on land they still lived in fear of the giant bugs and frogs of this world-spanning rainforest yet at the end of the carboniferous came an ecological disaster the lush global jungle of the carboniferous collapsed and these tropical lands slowly shrunk into small pockets around the earth this led to the unique animal life too as well either shrink or go extinct in a lot of ways the permian saw a complete reversal

in the ways of the carboniferous now most of the interior of pangaea had become dry rainless desert in this new land the reptilian morpha with their land-loving eggs who had once laid low now became the most adaptable to this arid place and diversified into many unique animals on land the reptiliomorphs diverged into two general groups synapsids and diopsides both groups are distinguished from the other by the number of holes in their skull behind the eyes diopsids have two while synapsids only have one although this is a rather simplistic difference the two families would differ greatly

or sauropsids became the ancestor of all modern reptiles and synapsids are the ancestor of all mammals during the permian they still remained somewhat reptilian and thus have garnered the name mammal-like reptile but really they are more closely related to mammals than any reptile although not really being mammals completely either i propose the name reptile-like mammal-like reptile mammals but for now let's just shorten it to synapses oddly enough although prehistoric times are usually associated with the rule of the reptile the true dioxide reptiles remained in the shadow of the synapses who evolved into many dominating forms

during the permian of these early synapsids maybe the most recognizable are the informal group pelicasaur known for their sailbacks it is believed these creatures fared so well during the early permian because their large sails could help them better maintain their heat in an ecosystem whose temperature fluctuated from freezing cold to blistering hot by the middle permian these were mostly replaced by dinocephalians a name which insultingly means terrible heads they were a diverse group of synapsids who evolved into large bulky herbivores and carnivores some weighing two metric tons they get their name from their many different

skull shapes some like the famous mosh traps had large strong heads that presumably used to headbutt one another while others like stamina such as had a skull adorned with many bizarre structures in the late permian these were once more overturned by other groups of synapsids of these the most well-known are the carnivorous gorgonopsids who in many ways mirror the much younger saber-toothed cats of cenozoic times even more peculiar was evidence of hair on these animals making these 300 million year old creatures much more mammalian than we once believed along with the gorgon opposites were the

herbivorous dissonadons which were small tusked creatures also by the end a group of diopsids known as the parareptiles roamed the lands with the synapsids the most notable being the armored scutosaurus life on land was diverse large and abundant in the ocean life was thriving as well there are few famous marine fossils from the permian but signs indicate abundant diversity various prehistoric invertebrates such as trilobites and euryptorids which at this point had existed for millions of years were still chugging along along with them many living marine invertebrates prospered such as clams corals and feather stars weird

types of shark swam through the waters such as the dentally questionable helicoption which could grow a massive five to eight meters also common were these little guys the canthodes they really didn't do anything i just think they're cool the animals present during the permian mark the end of the steady evolution of life during the paleozoic era the era started with the cambrian explosion and a surge of complex life and when the era ends at the permian it would also mark the greatest crisis for animal life unlike what you may expect the permian extinction which began

some 252 million years ago was not one massive apocalypse caused by a single quick event instead many smaller problems all caused the perfect disaster for an actual life for instance it appears that life was still recovering from an earlier extinction event the poorly understood capitainian extinction which occurred only 8 million years prior now the actual reason for the extinction we're talking about the permian triassic extinction event has never been completely pinned with certainty on one thing like the meteor that ended the dinosaurs instead it has undergone much debate one theory states a rise in methane-producing

microbes who may have filled the atmosphere with methane to the point of climate disruption other theories state the formation of the supercontinent pangaea may have played a role in this extinction the colliding of the tectonic plates may have destroyed ocean habitats and disrupted currents causing climate differences across the continent of course scientists can never be too creative and some do propose a meteor as well just like the one which killed the dinosaurs all of these for one reason or another are not accepted as the main reason the most plausible main cause was much more eruptive

by the end of the permian a massive number of volcanic eruptions occurred in what is today western siberia the region lie in a constant series of intense volcanic activity for more than a million years this activity would eventually create the siberian traps a region in siberia blanketed in igneous rock for scale traps cover some seven million square kilometers all of which were created in about a million years surprisingly a giant cluster of land mass creating volcanoes is not good for the environment they would have caused major climate disruption which as can be seen in our

modern world causes extensive environmental problems gases from deep in the earth billowed into the atmosphere like the world's biggest industrial plant and they poison the earth and its inhabitants this would have caused a mass death in plant populations who would have died due to the poisonous atmosphere and maybe even the lack of available sunlight for photosynthesis thus terrestrial fauna who relied on these plants would have died with them before we can go over the mind-boggling rate of animal extinctions we first must do a bit of review a species is the most specific level of taxonomy

for example homo sapiens is our species the genus homo represents the next more broader grouping and consists of us and our extinct relatives like the neanderthals with the plural of genus being genre family is an even broader group which for us would mean the hominidae which is all of the great apes and even more broad than that is the classification of order our order includes all of the primates which includes probably hundreds of species all over the world i tell you all of this to truly grasp the level of destruction that occurred at the end

of the permian in total 70 of land vertebrate species were wiped out these include all of the genre of large carnivorous gorgonopsids as well as their large prey the parareptiles other groups of vertebrates such as the giant amphibians were not completely erased but their numbers decreased drastically to the point of near extinction all in all it took vertebrate some 30 million years to recover insects were also severely affected with the permian representing the largest extinction event for them with many orders of insects going completely extinct among those bugs the most notable is the entire order

of paleodectorance a type of six-winged herbivorous insect which went completely extinct but the damage does not stop there because plants absorb carbon dioxide and therefore regulate the climate their extinction further exaggerated the worsening climate problem with the climate destabilizing it was the oceans which took the brunt of the damage during this period of extinction the changing climate had depleted the oxygen levels within the ocean causing what is known as anoxia in case you don't know although water is just water it can have different levels of oxidation and marine life depends on steady oxygen levels to

be able to breathe thus this drastic lack of oxygen in the oceans caused widespread problems worsening the seeds was the surplus of now unabsorbed carbon dioxide which instead went into the ocean unhealthy co2 levels in the ocean causes its ph level to rise which creates ocean acidification the same thing which in modern times bleaches and kills off coral reefs ocean life is much more susceptible to being harmed by oxygen and carbon changes especially those with hard calcium bones who easily fall victim to this acidification it is because of this that this global ocean disaster hit

marine life even harder than their land brethren with about 96 of all marine life going extinct and 81 of marine animal genre vanishing all marine life was heavily affected the brachiopods gastropods anthozoans crinoids and ammonites all experienced a percentage of extinct genre over 95 percent of the animal groups which went completely extinct the entire order of the european sea scorpions in order of ammonites known as goneats multiple orders of corals the order of clam-like orthods the order of the sand dollar-like blastoids and the ancanthodian class of fish maybe most notably of the marine life who

died out the vast group of arthropods known as the trilobites which had crawled the ocean floors since the cambrian period were finally wiped off the face of the earth all in all the permian mass extinction killed off roughly 60 percent of all biological families 80 percent of the genre and ninety percent of the species on earth the extinction's length seemed to have varied for instances might have lasted a million years on land and only a fifth of that time in the oceans that either way it was a slow burn for generations after generations life on

earth slowly was poisoned starved and suffocated the earth was a changed place both plant and animal life were altered and damaged nearly beyond repair and many took millions of years to fully recover for example in italian rocks it was discovered that a once lush permian conifer forest was fully replaced by fungi during the following period presumably these massive colonies of fungi were able to feed on millions of years worth of dead trees the change was so drastic scientists mark it as the literal end of an era not only did the permian period transition to the

triassic but the paleozoic era would lead to the mesozoic yet for all of its change a few creatures crawled from the ashes and prospered the synapses destiny as rulers of the land had crumbled underneath them however one group those grappy designers were able to survive through the great dying these adaptable herbivorous animals soon came to dominate the early triassic as by far the most common large animal the pig-like liskersaurus might have been the most abundant and some dig sites have over 96 of the animals fossilized being just this creature the cyanodance would continue being the

dominant type of large herbivores throughout the triassic some growing as large as elephants but these synapses would themselves die out by the end of the period the other group of surviving synapses were the cynodons these small dog rat creatures these animals would never dominate the world like the cynodons during the triassic but instead would scrape by and eventually evolve into all mammals it is from these creatures that 180 million years after the permian synapses would finally reclaim their seat as the dominant life form on land but starting in the triassic the creatures that would take

over the land would be those pesky dioxids aka the reptiles who would eventually replace the synapses in almost every manner possible you see after a giant extinction event like the great dying a whole slew of ecological niches are left empty anything from large carnivorous animals to small tree dwellers had completely vanished and thus presented a perfect opportunity for creatures that survived this is called adaptive radiation where organisms rapidly evolve and diversify from one ancestor when the opportunity strikes and with a good nine tenths of your neighbors killed off this meant a lot of weird adaptations

from reptiles in the trees the tree climbing trypanosaurus with monkey-like prehensile tails and narrow heads began to clamber onto branches aito swords grew armor and became common large herbivores mirroring the armored dinosaurs that would come later where the mighty gorgonopsis had once reigned as alpha predators the ragis emerged and although they might look like dinosaurs they actually aren't instead being terrestrial relatives of crocodiles and this might look like a crocodile but it isn't it's a phytosaur a group of aquatic reptiles with long narrow snaps to catch fish and fill out the niche crocodiles would eventually

take in the oceans reptiles took over as well both ichthyosaurs and nothosaurs took over the seas and for the rest of the mesozoic ruled as dominant marine animals other weird triassic reptiles include the fashionable longisquama a long-snouted terra terpedon and of course big man tan tennis grovius and his neck of the gods this abundance of unique animals would themselves die out during a minor extinction event at the end of the triassic which would pave the way for dinosaurs to take over but their very existence proves the durability of nature the paleozoic era may have ended

in ash with hundreds of millions of years of evolutionary progress sunk but the creatures which would emerge would evolve into modern life as we know it when the very earth seemed to want to choke the life out of itself animals would prevail remember that life always finds a way and thank you for watching see ya [Music] [Music] you