What If You Lived During The Permian Period?

welcome to the peran period an ancient Time full of life but also death the peran was home to the largest mass extinction event in Earth's history even bigger than what wiped out the dinosaurs nearly all life was brought to an end but how did this Extinction event come about in the first place and what kind of Life did end up surviving this is what if and here's what would happen if you lived in the peran period the peran period lasted almost 50 million years from 299 to 252 million years ago you can divide it into

three parts early middle and late and we're going to walk you through all three of them let's start obviously in the early peran this period saw the birth of some of the earliest four legged creatures they're all extinct now but they were the forefathers to dinosaurs and later mammals they were massive predators that you'd definitely want to stay away from on land the apex predators were the synapsin this species Ruled the Land Before Dinosaurs took their place they're often referred to as mammal likee reptiles and they look like a mix between a dog and a

lizard they also had incredibly thick skin which retained a lot of moisture this allowed them to thrive in the increasingly dry environment the most famous synapsid and one you would definitely not want to encounter is the dimetrodon over 3 and2 m long this carnivorous Predator had a large Sail on its back since it was coldblooded it needed something to regulate its temperature maybe this sail like appendage did the job it helped the dimetrodon heat up and cool down depending on the temperature these beasts were also equipped with an incredibly scary mouthful of teeth that were

all different sizes another animal you'll have to worry about gorgonopsians these were carnivores with Sabertooth fangs they remind me a lot of Siberian tigers some scientists have described them as the T-Rex of their time they were frightening predators that could destroy anything in their path and their favorite food diodon that name literally means two dog teeth thankfully if you encountered one you wouldn't need to be afraid because they might become your lunch yeah these synapsids were herbivores and they came in all different sizes they could be small like a pet dog or as big as

a cow diodon look like the love child of mammals reptiles and birds they had the skull of a turtle the beak of a bird and even tusks to D food out of the ground diodon in the perian era were coldblooded but during the Triassic period that followed varieties evolved to become more like mammals with features that helped keep them warm now amazingly these creatures survived the catastrophe that we'll get to later on which is a good thing because otherwise humans wouldn't have evolved we'll get back to what creatures you'd come across in the peran in

a bit but for now let's talk about where they lived okay during this period if you looked down on Earth from high up in space you'd see that the land was made up of just one supercontinent it was called Pangia it was formed by the Collision of two large continents gondwana and EUR America the formation of this single large land mass had a massive impact on the climate but before we get to that let's look at how today's continents mapped into this supercontinent Pangia looked a bit like a giant Crescent the top curve of the

Crescent would later break apart to form Europe and Asia the main body of the Crescent contained North America South America and Africa and the bottom well it would later separate to form India Antarctica and Australia the Crescent curv to contain what was called the tethis ocean in the rest of Earth well it was all all one giant body of water called the panthalassic ocean okay so far so good yeah you don't have the choice of seven continents to live on but you could set up camp anywhere on Pangia maybe you'd enjoy a spot on the

beach but here's the important question are you going to freeze to death or would you just bake well this would depend on when you get there and where you land at the beginning of the peran Earth was actually in an ice age hope you packed a parka if you set foot on the southern region of Pangia you'd find tons of glaciers or literally gigatons of glaciers these could be found in what is now Southern India Australia and Antarctica now due to this giant land mass the weather will be vastly different from what you're used to

today in our current world the oceans do an amazing job at absorbing heat they also warm up and cool down slowly affecting the temperatures on land but on this super continent the interior land was far from water so temperatures in this area are much more extreme in the middle peran you'd enjoy a climate that's warmer milder and moist the glaciers have now receded Inland Pangia is Aid and according to the pangan mega Monsoon Theory there were extreme seasonal fluctuations you'd be hit with wet and dry periods throughout the year with further increases in temperature the

late perian would be very dry with some alternating warm and cool periods now what about the atmosphere was there enough oxygen for you to survive well at the beginning of the peran oxygen concentration was actually pretty high 30% this is because of what had happened on Earth during the previous Carboniferous period forests had covered the Earth creating an oxygen rich atmosphere now you might enjoy this extra boost of oxygen you feel more energized and Lively living in the mountains would be much more comfortable because the thinner air would now be offset by the higher oxygen

concentration but as good as oxygen is you can't breathe it for too long at this concentration over time get overdose and get oxygen toxicity you could have difficulty breathing brething and in severe cases you might have a seizure and die but High oxygen levels didn't last the whole time there was a big drop toward the end but before we get to that you're probably wondering what is there around here to eat well as temperatures Rose during the peran plant life began to take off but unfortunately there wouldn't be many options for you on the menu

in the early peran there were polar tundra regions as well as tropical swamp forests now as the climate became more dry the swamp forests dried out and water-loving plants shrank to become shrubs so unless you had the jaws and stomach of a cow or four stomachs of a cow eating these dry shrubs wouldn't have been too much fun to Chomp on and unfortunately these shrubs were all shrub no Berry there were no fruits at this time they didn't really evolve till the giraffe sick so you'd probably be at risk of getting scurvy but there was

plenty of one thing ferns ferns were the dominant plant life maybe it could eat some tender Fern leaves and make some tea out of tree bark it's a Whopper valum meal but it'll do I guess some of these plants would have been dangerous too you wouldn't be accustomed to them and they might cause some sort of deadly allergic reaction but nasty plants weren't your only option for food why don't you try a nasty insect Instead The increased growth of plant life during this time provided a Haven for insects bugs with sucking mouth Parts made their

debut during the peran you'd also see massive dragon flies roaming about maybe try to catch one of those I wonder if they taste like chicken you'd also notice that these insects are massive in the early peran the large insects from the previous Carboniferous era were still around by the middle peran these giant insects had disappeared what was left were smaller insects that are still around today in some form but forget these gross plants and insects where are the animals we could eat well you wouldn't want to Target the scary dimetrodon or the gorgonopsian that we

met earlier some grilled herbivorous diodon would be nice it's no Popeye's spicy chicken Deluxe but it just might hit the spot now on the smaller side of creatures there were the varanopid these were small lizard-like creatures that mainly dined on insects another super important group during the perian was the ssids these were basically reptiles During the perian period when synapsids dominated the ssids remained small and lizard likee but they'd make a fiery comeback later on I don't know about you but these animals are either looking scary or unappetizing and I'm not really in the mood

to eat a cross between a lizard and a dog can you catch some fish maybe a Fila fish peran Seas were full of bony fish which had two features fan-shaped fins and thick scales there were also creatures with coiled spiral shells called ammonoids that lived in the water again it's no ultimate endless shrimp but a seafood diet might be your best bet now if you go for a dip watch out you'll want to steer clear of the scary Gia genier a salamander-like creature with deadly fangs and a twoot long skull this creature was way bigger

than you it was 2 and 1/2 M long scientists describe its head as being like a toilet seat which opened up to suck in its prey the good news it was sluggish so if you're a fast swimmer maybe you can escape it but not everything thrived during this time as you reach the late perian you'll notice things changing creatures all around the planet are going extinct in what's known as the great dying this was Earth's biggest mass extinction event 90% of marine life and 70% of all animal and plant life died out now scientists still

aren't completely sure what caused this mass extinction but there are several theories one of the leading theories is that a series of natural disasters is what got the whole thing going volcanoes toward the end of the perian period there were massive volcanic eruptions in what's now Siberia and not just for a few years or decades for about 600,000 years huge flows of lava flooded the region but it wasn't the lava that caused the extinction it was the volcanic gases that were being spewed into the air this caused an increased concentration of sulfur dioxide in Earth's

atmosphere what happened next acid rain volcanic ash was also thrown up in the sky blocking the sun making it dark out also causing the temperature to fall as a result plants found it harder to photosynthesize and the food chain was disrupted the extinction of plant life then herbivores and then carnivores followed it was like a set of domino falling but it wasn't just the food chain it was literally becoming harder to breathe because the impact to plants also had major effects on the atmosphere with the disruption to photosynthesis carbon dioxide increased while oxygen levels plummeted

to 16% animals that had evolved in a more oxygen rich atmosphere weren't ready for this drop in oxygen and then died off if you were there it would be like trying to breathe at the top of a Giant Mountain today now as this was happening animals living at higher altitudes suddenly found the oxygen too thin for their requirements so they probably moved to lower altitudes and had to compete with other species some scientists believe that this is what drove landbased extin inions oxygen levels were so low that animals had to remain where the air was

most dense at sea level even the slightest climb to a higher altitude would have them gasping for breath and the rising carbon dioxide also created a greenhouse effect causing temperatures to rise this made the oceans warmer as well which killed a ton of marine life the rising temperature plus the reduced oxygen equal a horrible world for all life on Earth making it nearly impossible to survive but there's a third Theory initially scientists estimated that the great dying took place over millions of years but more recent archaeological evidence indicates that it happened much faster maybe between

8,000 and 100,000 years could something else have happened that caused an Abrupt end to these creatures yeah some scientists think there's another culprit an asteroid in addition to all these erupting volcanoes scientists have also found evidence of an asteroid Collision this asteroid may have been 6 to 12 km wide that's bigger than Mount Everest so maybe it's a mix of all of them the volcanic eruptions the atmospheric effects and then Wham a massive asteroid as the final nail in the coffin you combine all three of these events and you've got yourself the Earth's largest mass

extinction but not all creatures died off some of the lucky ones managed to survive the diodon later evolved into rodent likee creatures they lived side by side with the Dinosaurs sure they weren't the top of the food chain but it beats going extinct they even outlasted the dinosaurs evolving into present day mammals small sharks migrated to the depths of the ocean avoiding the acidic Coastal Wat and they're still around today the SSID reptiles also survived small lizards had a better chance of surviving compared to the big synapsids being cold-blooded and sluggish were excellent survival traits

in the coming Triassic and Jurassic periods they evolved into mighty dinosaurs it was once assumed that most trees went extinct during the Great dying too but scientists continue to find plant species that survive that time life whether it's microorganisms plants or animals is resilient and it always finds away now let's see if the dinosaurs can survive their mass extinction event that sounds like a story for another what if