ExtinctZoo - The Moment Thalassophobia Was Born

Episode Date: December 15, 2024

Water, especially deep water, a big no no for many. And this is for good reason, but once upon a time, the oceans and seas of Earth were actually pretty chill, so how did it go so wrong? When was Thalassophobia born?

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intense fear of deep bodies of water, is one of the most common phobias out there, and it's really not hard to see why, as there are plenty of animals lurking in the depths that look or act rather unfriendly. And this notion of oceans and seas being scary is nothing new, as prehistoric waters were just as scary, with them more often than not being way more terrifying than they are today, with the Mesozoic period in particular being a great time for aquatic nightmares. Although, if you keep going back and back, like hundreds of millions of years back, you will eventually arrive at a point where the waters of Earth were actually fairly mundane and somewhat safe, with a Cambrian period, which took place half a billion years ago,

being about the last time where you would have been completely safe swimming anywhere in the ocean. which is interesting as it was actually a period of immense diversity, as well as the time when fish first evolved, who as we know, eventually gave way to things like this, this, and this. So when did it all go wrong? When did the waters of Earth go from being safe to a big no-no? One could argue that it was the Ordovician, since it saw the rise of the first aquatic creatures, you'd be quite wary to swim next to, large cephalopods. But to be honest, even then, the waters weren't all that scary. No, it wouldn't be a lot of the water. until 419 million years ago, that the Earth's waters would finally receive an abundance of horrors

that essentially guaranteed that something like a human was no longer safe, treading in the water, and thus signifying the moment in which the lasophobia originated, so to speak. This was the Devonian, also known as the Age of Fish. This moment in Earth's history transpired when the world was dominated by water, and any map would have resembled a true water world, with 85% of the surface being covered by oceans and seas. as opposed to just to 70% today. And if the sea levels back then were brought to the present,

then our maps would look something like this. At the time, the globe was dominated by four large bodies of water that no longer exist. The Pantilassic, the Rayic, the Prototethys, and the Paleotethus. Each one was quite sizable by modern standards, yet the Pantilassic was the only one considered to be a true super ocean, being significantly larger than the Pacific, with its widest point having been two times greater. This means that in some areas you wouldn't be able to find land in any direction for thousands of miles or kilometers,

making it a true nightmare for anyone with elastophobia. Yet ironically, it wasn't the deep ocean that you had to worry about, as all the hebi-gibi animals seemed to have been concentrated in the waters around the landmasses, which were just as weird and unrecognizable as the oceans were. In the center of the equator, you wouldn't have found Africa, but Euro-America, a continent composed of present-day Europe and North America, which was surrounded on all sides by water and smaller islands. Meanwhile, to the north, you'd run into Siberia and Kazakhstania, both islands as well.

And this trend of being marooned continued to the east, where South and North China both lay separated from one another. While in the south, the largest continent of the time was found, Gondwana, which was composed of Antarctica, India, Arabia, Australia, Africa, and South America. The seas and oceans bordering these land masses were filled with a huge selection of panic-inducing creatures, with the highlighted sections in particular showing areas best to avoid, as this is where evolution produced the first giant-jawed fish. Now, these guys have been around since the Silurian, but it was only during the Devonian

that they leveled up, perhaps thanks to the equable and stable-tempered conditions of the time. Whatever the case, something did the trick, as Devonian Earth unlocked a superfamily of fish so lethal that they remained iconic to this day, the Dunkly osteoidia. This was a group of placoderms or armored fish that emerged during the early Devonian and quickly took over the majority of aquatic ecosystems, becoming the largest predators around and possessing the most formidable tools. Of the bunch, I'm sure you recognize the biggest and baddest one, the Dunkliosteus, who was in many ways the Earth's original sea monster,

as it was the first multi-toned predator that could hunt anything, pretty much anywhere. This large fish loved to stock shallow coastal waters, but could still be found in open oceans, and is known to have lived throughout North America, Europe, and Africa, making it one difficult creature to avoid, which is very unfortunate, as this thing was kind of like a great white on steroids, having been far more robust and chunky,

while also possessing highly durable armor composed of dermal bone that formed large plates along its entire skull in the front section of its trunk. So if you got caught, there would be no point in trying to fight it. And even without the armor, this monstrosity was also far too, large to be bothered by a punch or kick. However, its true size is something of a mystery, as its armored head was usually the only thing that became fossilized once it died, leading to some

very diverse size estimates. And these predicted sizes range from 4.1 to 10 meters, or 13 to 33 feet. But for now, the largest reliable estimates are considered to be 5 meters or 16 feet, equivalent to the length of a decently sized great white. Yet, because of its build, even smaller dunkleosteus could still be over two tons, which is greater than the weight of the heaviest recorded great whites. And one should keep in mind that because of the scarcity in the fossil record, it's very possible that larger specimens are out there. But regardless, many people think that its size reduction is a good thing in terms of helping it seem less ominous. But if anything, it would have made the ducleosteus that much greater of a threat to human-sized prey. As something of

our size suddenly becomes a very nice snack. And let me tell you, it would have gotten this snack, with incredible ease, as it had one of the deadliest jaws ever, having been equipped with a titanic mouth, which was aligned not with teeth, but with literal giant plates of bone that were extremely sharp, it could close with such extreme power that when the tips of the fane connected, they generated up to 80,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, which is not only greater than anything seen in any living or extinct fish, but even more powerful than the force generated by a 50-caliber gun. And then when you combine this force with its pseudo teeth, it would have been able to cleave through bone and tough armor like it was made of hot butter. And it somehow gets even

worse, because even if you did see this prehistoric jaws coming for you and were able to somehow get ahead of it, you would still get chopped up. Because the dungliostias opened its jaws in a very peculiar way, using a four bar linkage mechanism, which is seen in pump jacks, which allowed it to open its mouth with crazy speed, achieving maximum opening within 20 to 60 milliseconds. So basically, twice as fast as you can blink. And the problem with this is that this absurd quickness created a suction effect every time its jaws were opened, meaning that any prey in front of it

would soon find itself not in front of it, and allowing for a clean, devastating, and likely fatal bite. And we were actually able to see what kind of damage it did. A scientist located a specimen of Titanic this and another ducleosthus, which bore severe damage attributed to a ducleosteus, showing just how effective its bite was against large animals, and highlighting that nothing was saved from its grasps, not even itself.

The dunk alone made the Devonian waters the last place you'd want to swim. But it was just the tip of the iceberg, as it was joined by more than 10 others of its own kind, many that were within limb-removing size, and a few that would definitely have liked to snack on something human-sized, as seen with the East Manosteus and Westrolikthis, both large dungliosteids, which were around Bull shark's size and located in Australia. And as the super family, the dunks achieved a near universal range and were around for basically the entire Devonian. So no matter at what point or where you were at, you could expect to find at least one

overpowered aquatic Pac-Man. And unbeknownst the most, there was even a dungliosteoid around that was actually bigger than the dungliostias, at least from a length standpoint, the heterosteus. This creature was known to roam the waters of Europe and Greenland, and while it did not exactly look like a close relative of the dungliosteus, it sure was, despite sharing a closer appearance with present-day whale sharks. And its eerily similar looks to whale sharks is likely the result of convergent evolution. As paleontologists think that the heterosteus might have actually been a planktivorous animal, meaning it fed on plankton. It's allowed it to grow to massive sizes,

with one species, the Asmousi, having reached an estimated length of six meters or 20 feet, akin to a decently sized orca. And though it is expected to be planktivorous, there is still the possibility that heterostias was actually more of a voracious hunter, who perhaps used its wide flat body to stick to the floor and stage ambushes kind of like how a Pacific Stargazer does. Plus, even if it was a gentle giant, its appearance still wasn't exactly the most conducive to mental or physical health

if you swam into it unaware. And coincidentally, there was another example of a similar situation, but with an animal that was even more likely to be a filter feeder, and that is the Titanic this. Funnily enough, despite looking more like a dunk than the heterostias did, this giant was actually part of a different placoderm superfamily, the dynychthaloidia. And while it was a harmless filter feeder, he used a small unsharpened mouth to suck in small fish, it still might have given you a heart attack swimming straight for you, as it was an absolute unit, measuring up to 7.6 meters or 25 feet,

which, if accurate, likely made it the biggest fish on earth at the time. And to make it even more unappealing, it sported very prominent and large fins that gave it almost a shark-like vibe, especially if you didn't get a good glimpse at what it was. Meanwhile, the rest of its family were thankfully much smaller, but not necessarily friendlier, as some of them, like the Bungartius and Dynethys were pretty much dunk mimics, having had sharp fangs, powerful jaws, and grew to respectable sizes, with these two measuring over three meters were 10 feet. And in the case of the Bungaritus,

it also had a built-in spear at the end of its mouth that made it that much more intimidating and deadly to its prey. Now, these guys, paired with the dungliosteids, were likely more than enough to fill anyone's desire for thalasophobia. Though you don't get to be called the age of fish for just producing a few memorable groups. And sure enough, the Devonian gave birth to multiple other unsettling animals that often get very little attention.

One such example being the onocodontiforms. This order, a primitive lobed fish, was globally distributed throughout the Devonian, and was actually one of the first to diverge from the celicant lineage. However, if you saw one up close, you'd likely not be able to appreciate its evolutionary importance, as these fish were among those that were very much lethal to big-bodied prey, reaching quite impressive sizes.

What really made them deadly, though, was their highly unique skulls and jaws, that kind of resembled those seen in snakes, and were highly flexible and kinetic, thanks to their heads being stitched together by loose bones that at some points weren't even connected. This allowed them to strike prey at great speeds, without the risk of skull fractures, and let them consume prey many times bigger than other similar-sized predators could. And this all reached a climax in the Onikidus, the largest member of this order to have ever lived,

and the biggest boning fish during the entire Middle Devonian. This menace was known to have a cosmopolitan rank, meaning it popped up anywhere it could and was found in both shallow and deep waters. There, adults grew up to 4 meters or 12 feet in length and sometimes weighed over 350 pounds or 160 kilograms, equivalent to the weight of a female lion. This makes it quite hefty even by modern terms, and yet it was remarkably stealthy, with paleontologists thinking that it used its sturdy front fins to quote-unquote walk along a reef or slowly drift beneath the unsuspecting victim, before using its giant backtail to wrap

rapidly strike it, causing devastating damage. And many times, it might have simply swallowed the animal hole. And thanks to an actual specimen found with a placioderm inside it, we know that occasionally these fish would gulp down prey half their length in a single motion. So imagine something, basically, a human-sized, being suddenly gulped hole. Suddenly, you may not feel so safe around this guy. Though truthfully, you might have hoped for a swallowed ending, as the alternative was much worse, because each oninacidus, as well as all of its relatives,

had giant needle-like teeth throughout its entire mouth, that punctured deep within flesh with ease. And at the very front, they had even bigger tusk-like teeth that were arranged in whorls and were literally retractable, granting these predatory fish the ability to freely move these enlarged teeth around and essentially thrust them, and thus giving onocodontiforms just one more way in which they could kill you. Another interesting group of fish, you'd be almost guaranteed to see,

were what I like to call the copycat sharks, scientifically known as Clado-Salakaday. Like sharks, these fish were cartilaginous and looked a lot like them, but they were not true sharks, and were likely more closer related to chimeras, who ironically themselves are nicknamed ghost sharks. Breaking from the usual trend seen in the other Devonian groups, this family had a fairly limited range, with remains being known from just Morocco and North America, where they were represented by two different genera, the Clado-Salaki and the Magribo-Silaki. But surprisingly, despite having a small range, these shark-like fish are actually well understood,

thanks to some remarkable specimens who retain traces of skin, muscle fibers, and internal organs. These finds have shown researchers that across the two kinds, Cladosolecides, were typically about the same size as reef sharks, and had heads quite similar to what's seen in frilled sharks, while their bodies were more reminiscent of mackerel sharks, indicating a high degree of agility and speed, a hypothesis further proven by the discovery of stomach content, which showed that they would routinely eat prey tail first. The remains found in their stomachs also displayed their ability to hunt down a wide ridge of animals, as ray-finned bony fish, conodonts, hag-like fish, and arthropods were all located within it.

It's thought that to kill these various animals, Klados Alecids would use their three-pronged teeth to tightly grip prey, which could then be swallowed or shaken at its hill killed. They were also one of the first vertebrates, to evolve teeth replacement, helping them both to maintain their sharpness and giving them the ability to go all out on victims without having to worry about tooth damage. So now this group, in addition with the onocodontiforms, dungliosteids, and their mimics, really made the Devonian a world ran or swam by fish. But like any good horrific moment in Earth's history, there was, of course,

non-fish creatures in the water as well, that were also highly questionable, the most notable of which were the Eurypteids, or as most know them, the sea scorpions. Now they definitely looked a lot like scorpions, superficially that is. But these arthropods were not true scorpions, and their closest living relatives are actually horseshoe crabs. Nevertheless, sea scorpions did share a lot of similarities with modern scorpions, including a similar skeletal construction, segmented bodies, jointed appendages, and in some genera remarkably similar telens,

indicating the possibility that certain sea scorpions were venomous. with the best example being, they use Sarkana, a 2.5 foot or 0.8 meter long genus that has what appears to be a giant stinger at the end of its tail. Now the good thing is, is that while a stab from this guy wouldn't have felt too pleasant, it at least wasn't human-sized. A reassurance not found in others, though, as in the Devonian, they got much bigger, while also becoming more diverse, going from one genus accounting for 90% of all remains, to having a fairly equal distribution of over 100 kinds.

Many of them became highly specialized, with some inhabiting shallow estuaries and eating tiny prey, while others preferred reefs and hunted some pretty large game. Of the many to emerge, the most notable from a science perspective was the jacolopterus, a beastly arthropod found and closed off coastal bodies of water, where it held the title of Apex Predator, with individuals growing in excess of 2.5 meters or 8.2 feet, making them among the largest arthropods to have ever lived, and they might have weighed more than a fully grown reindeer.

So obviously, seeing something swim towards you that looks like a supersized scorpion is terrifying. But fortunately, it was one of the few Euripterids that opted for a powerful swimming tail instead of a stinger, which then unfortunately allowed it to stage powerful ambushes and achieve impressive speeds while swimming. And so without the stinger, instead of stinging or stabbing prey to death, this predator instead relied on its one meter or three-foot-long pincers to get the job done, as each one could clamp with some serious power, and were adorned with sharp uneven protrusions that would help to grip prey and then usher them into its waiting mouth.

Or, alternatively, they could have used their pincers to tear apart and pop holes into tissue, a killing method that was confirmed by the discovery of a fish that was found with deep puncture wounds that precisely matched the shape of the jacolopterus's pincers. And this killing method was really only one of the many ways in which a Eurpturid could hunt. As like I mentioned, some might have used.

venom, others evolved Telsoons that were serrated and shaped like knives or swords that were used to stab and slash prey, and then there were those that raked in prey using white arms or using highly specialized appendages to sift through substrate, eating whatever grub they could find. And ironically, while this last method might sound boring, it did give way to the biggest sea scorpion of all time, the Hiberotoptera day, that could be nearly identical in length to the jacolopterus, but because of their broad bodies weighed much more, perhaps even rivaling the weight of very large cows. In other words, they were definitely an unwelcome sight. But there is a chance that they weren't something you had to watch out for while swimming in

the oceans or seas. The scientists aren't sure if the Hipprotopterids were pelagic or freshwater-based. And speaking of freshwater, the Devonian also happened to be the time in which rivers and lakes became areas to avoid. So even if you did find a refuge on land, going for a little drink could have very well been the end of you, as it was then that the Earth's first river. river monsters emerged, with the king of these new arrivals being the Trisdicopterids, a diverse and highly successful group of fish like tetrapodomorpha, who could be found in just about every sizable lake and river. The members in this group were distinguished by strong fined skeletons,

deep front fins, streamlined bodies, and proportionally large teeth. In addition to this, they also came in all kinds of shapes and sizes, leading to some being not that menacing, being comparable to a ruler, while a few got to be shark-sized, like the hyneria, arguably the scariest of the bunch, as adults were known to grow to be the same size as the largest recorded bull sharks, who, as you may know, are very much capable of carrying out fatal attacks on large animals. Yet, in spite of having a similar stature, the hyneria did not have shark-like jaws, and instead possessed giant, straight, and conical teeth that measured five centimeters or two inches long.

In other words, twice the length of a bull shark's tooth. With these oversized needles, it would have been able to tightly grip prey in the thickest and slimyest of waters, which was a favorite environment for hyneria and others of its family, as their remains are typically found in areas associated with immense amount of debris and fallen trees, implying low visibility and murkiness. To get around this, these real-life river monsters developed large sensory canals to help detect prey. So even if you fell into water that was pitch black to you, something very likely still had you in their sights.

And there's the even worse possibility, but it didn't matter if you were standing in or by the water either. As some paleontologists suggest that thanks to their strong fins, Tris decopterids were able to leap out of the water onto banks, snatching anyone who thought they were safe. And strangely enough, there was another group of freshwater animals that could likely perform a similar feat, the Elpistos de Gaulia.

To say this clade was weird would be an understatement, as the earliest members, i.e. the Devonian ones, kind of looked if someone smashed together a fish and a tetrapod, leading to certain members being dubbed fishapods, a nickname that is typically attributed to the Tictalic. While technically a fish, this oddity looked a lot like an amphibian, and had a blend of fish and tetrapod traits, as it not only had gills, scales, and fins,

but also functional wrists, a neck, lungs, and ribbones. And it's this build that led to the idea that it inhabited shallow, waters, where it could use its fins and wrist to move across the floor and traverse on land through mudflats, kind of like modern mudskippers do. This means that even though it lived in water for most of its life, animals venturing nearby on land could still be valid targets, and this creature could target a lot, because contrary to the Nelson Mandela effect, with many thinking that Tictalic was small, it was actually huge, growing to be three meters or nine feet long. At this size, it might have even lacked predators, and was no doubt a successful predator itself, having had two rows

of sharp teeth indicative of a carnivorous lifestyle. Furthermore, its skull was very crock-like, suggesting that this was an animal meant to be enjoyed from a distance. And it wasn't alone in size either, as it had close relatives that got alarmingly big too, like the pandaricthus, which could be longer than a typical NFL player is tall. And not to mention that it may have been a bit harder than Ticktallic too, since its skull was extremely wide, robust, and compact, giving anyone just one more reason to avoid water of any kind. You said this place was steps from the water. We just haven't found the steps yet.

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that pretty much made everything pop off and turn into highly specialized killers. But it wasn't just the blue stuff going through immense changes, as the green areas were getting interesting too. And I say green purposefully, as this was the period when the earliest known trees and plants in general underwent massive radiation and diversification, which led to the greening of continents, and likely being the first time in Earth's history that from space, land looked green, at least in certain areas. This explosion of flora also led to an increase in terrestrial animals too, which included mites, scorpions, myriopods, the spider-like trigonotarids, and stem tetrapods, like the Acanthusega. Yet, the largest life on land by miles was not an animal, but rather an enigmatic.

terrestrial fungi, named prototaxites, which formed large trunk-like structures and could stand 8 meters or 26 feet tall, far taller than anything else on land at the time, and due to its abundance would have given the earth the appearance that it had grown spikes all over. So, that's all to say, the Devonian was surely one of those times that everything was just bizarre, and in the waters, nightmarish. So maybe that's why, and I say this figuratively, Mother Nature decided to nerve life at the very end of this period, with the arrival of the late Devonian extinction. This great die-off was actually made up of several individual events grouped into one, and likely started about 372 million years ago. And thankfully, it appears to have mainly targeted

the Thlasophobia-inducing waters, as marine life took the brunt of the damage, and by the end of it, 50% of all genera had died, including every kind of dunk, onicodontiform, and trisdicopterids. while every other group mentioned were pretty much given a factory reset. It's not well understood what exactly caused this extinction, and it's very likely that it was more than one thing. With some current suggestions being volcanic activity,

the expansion of plants themselves, an impact event, weathering, or even a supernova. Whatever the case, it clearly made the waters much more safe for at least a bit, because as we know, that didn't last very long. Thanks for watching, and until next time. Enjoy more ways to say,

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