ExtinctZoo - When The Earth Went Full Subnautica

Episode Date: March 15, 2026

The moment when you realize subnautica is basically Earth's prehistoric past :O

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At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. I don't know if it's just me, but do you ever find yourself imagining that you're on an alien planet? And for whatever reason, I always imagine these Zeno planets to be very strange, pretty much anything but Earth-like. So, you know, barren jagged rocks, strange smells, strange sights, and just bizariness all around. And yet, the irony about my imagination is that some of the strangest and farthest stuff from the planet we know of today actually comes from the Earth itself. And what I mean by that is that you and I only experience the Earth as it is now.

So by default, we always picture it as it is during the present, or generally at least sometime whilst you were alive. However, as you may know, the planet has a history far, far older than any organism on the planet, let alone any of us who are still around, seeing that life first appeared in the speck of dust a few billion years ago at this point. And therefore, it's safe to say that Earth has gone through many different phases. Some have been pretty tame, others questionable, and then a few, just downright ridiculous. And this includes one instance of time wherein the Earth would have been nigh unrecognizable to most people,

where even the trees, or I guess the forests, being nothing like they are today, with towering fungi dominating the lands instead. So, sounds a bit like a fictional story, and yet this did really happen, just a very, very long time ago, an age now known as the Silurian. When you start going back far enough, it can be sometimes hard to keep up with all the different periods. So here's where things stand. The Silurian was a period that took place between 443 and 419 million years ago,

meaning that dinosaurs still need to wait a couple hundred million years to even appear. And this period transpired following the Ordovician, and would eventually be succeeded by the Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, and then finally the Trinacic period, all in that order. So to reiterate, we were talking about a seriously prehistoric era. And frankly, this was enough time ago that if I transported you back then, gave you a compass, a map, and some survival equipment, and told you to find your way back home, i.e., where you're

from, you would be on a completely doomed mission, saying that it basically would not help you at all, with not even the continent being in the right places from a modern standpoint, with the land masses instead being arranged in formation that I like to call island earth. And this is primarily due to the fact that much more of the earth was covered by water, with sea levels being about 100 meters or 300 feet greater than present, while the mega ocean, the panthalassic, stretched as far as the eye could see, and essentially enveloped every single landmass, dwarfing even the Pacific. And as a result of this, and, well, the dichotonic plates,

would have found the center of a map back then to be an assortment of scattered and fragmented island continents, such as Laurentia, which would one day become North America. And then nearby, in connecting, there is also Baltica, Greenland, Orencia, Kazakhstania, so Borat's Wetrum, Avalonia, and Siberia. And then meanwhile to the south, you would have found the supercontinent of not Pangaea, but instead Gondwana, a giant sprawling landmass that was composed of various parts of China, Australia, Antarctica, India, Africa, and Arabia, accounting for one-fifth of all of Earth's total surface, and making more than twice the size of present-day Asia.

So that's a whole lot of dirt. But here's the thing, dirt was actually somewhat of a foreign concept for the Tylurian, which just goes to show how odd the land was back then. And instead, any trekking around would reveal a giant landscape, mostly full of dust, clay, dunes, mountains, rivers, and ice, with really the only saving grace here being the temperature. As despite the common rule that prehistoric climate must be pure chaos, the Silurian was actually quite nice, all things considered, with most models suggesting a relatively warm and stable climate, where averages were hotter than the present, being up to 36 degrees

Celsius or 96 degrees Fahrenheit in equatorial regions, yet not warmer than the Devonian, Triassic or Permian, which if you see my other videos, would know it could be a bit crazy. And it certainly also helped for any time traveler that a lot of the land and the equator was cut up into fragmented pieces, resulting in abundance of tropical islands for your prehistoric getaway. So, in other words, this might start to sound like a pleasant time for a little bit of a stroll. But if you have mycophobia, be warned. Because if you walked in the right places, you'd come face to face with what made the Silurian exceedingly strange. And that was giant spikes. But don't get it twisted. These weren't some sort of traps left behind

by visiting aliens, or some strange geographical feature, but rather what I guess you could say were the trees of the time. A giant spike-like fungi, known as prototaxites. Yep, this is essentially the last of us on steroids, as it was here that shrooms reigned supreme, achieving a dominion on land unrivaled by pretty much anything else, and making things very weird for the rest of the world. And these fungi weren't exactly the mushrooms or fungus you might encounter today walking around, as they were freaking huge, dwarfing anything else that existed. And, And based off of fossils, paleontologists estimate that these structures could bend one meter or 3 foot 3 inches in diameter and as tall as 8.8 meters or 30 feet.

So, comparable to the height of a fair-sized weeping willow. Now obviously, compared to things like the redwood sequoias, which can literally be taller than the Statue of Liberty, this may not seem like much, but for the time, they were insanely big. As for perspective, they were about 10 times bigger than any other organism around, giving it full rain of scenery, so to speak. However, you'd have to time your visit just right to have witnessed these forests of shrooms, as during the early and Middle Silurian, they hadn't actually yet devolved,

only appearing in the later days of this period. And you'd also have needed to pick the right spots, too, as despite being dominant in size, prototac sites were not found everywhere, instead of being located in Canada, Scotland, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Australia, and the U.S. But despite their widespreadness, they definitely made a quick impression, and would have looked exceedingly strange. This was namely because, unlike plants and trees, that, you know, we usually imagine with trunks, branches, and leaves, these guys didn't really

follow the same trend, since they weren't plants. And many of the common interpretations have been that they lacked leaves or branches, rather taking on the shape some sort of oversized stub. They looked closer to an ingrown hair from hell than any kind of flora you've ever seen before. Now, this being said, given its ancient age, we don't know exactly for sure what prototax sites really would have looked like, with the only certainty being that they were weird. And in recent times, their mysteriousness has actually only grown, as one of the more recent suggestions describes them as having been a giant fungal rhizomorph that didn't strictly have to grow vertically, but could also jot out horizontally, or perhaps even grow in a subterranean manner, with the right factors. And just to make things more complicated and even more recent study, as in this year, has flipped all these previous ideas in their head. Because in a major plot twist, there is now a growing idea that these strange structures were not fungi, and in fact, not part of any kingdom that we know. of, not animal and not plant. Instead, the study suggests that prototaxites are really a whole brand new thing that belong to their own extinct eukaryotic lineage, which even for paleontology is

kind of crazy. And this notion from left field, so to speak, came from the realization that prototaxites were chemically distinct from known fungi and structurally different too. As while prototaxites did have tubes similar to what's seen in other fungi, the nature and shape of these tubes were unlike anything seen in co-existing fungus at the time or in any modern-day mushrooms. Additionally, the level of Keitin found in them was quite different too, being almost absent prototaxites, which is an important note, seeing that in fungi, Kytin plays a crucial role, being a part of the structure that makes up the cell walls, providing rigidness and strength. So, all in all, we may be talking about in already a very strange time, where the biggest life in the planet can only be described

as simply life. As again, it might not even be a part of the kingdoms that remain, which is obviously very odd. But no one was judging it back then, and actually his presence was quite welcomed by their life, with these spiked forests having played a huge role in the primitive ecosystems, as at the time the land was not fertile like it is today. Remember the whole lack of soil thing, and was exceedingly nutrient-deficient. And thus, the proto-tax sites might have helped alleviate this problem where they stood, redistributing nutrients across the ecosystem, along with water and oxygen, helping to sustain life that otherwise would not have had a chance. And yes, there was other life on land. So it's possible that fungi, or,

whatever these things were, wasn't the only thing you'd have encountered. Yet, to see what else lived on this alien Earth, you'd have to focus up a little more, as nothing else came even close to the size of these giant structures, with land plants having been much smaller and rare at the time. But that being said, they still kept the general trend of being weird. I mean, just take a look at the Cuxonia, one of the more dominant planets at the time, which more resembles something you'd expect to be growing out of an alien's ear than the ground. And all in all, the flora, or whatever you want to call it, of the late Slurion,

made the landscape look pretty nutty. Yet, that being said, there were actually some recognizable faces, as it was here that the first... Wireless can feel like a world of traps, but not with Visible. It's one-line wireless with unlimited data and hotspot. Powered by Verizon for $25 a month, taxes and fees included. Plus, for a limited time, new members pay just $20 a month for one year on the Visible plan, using the code Fresh Start. Refresh Your Wireless with Visible.

Tap the banner to switch today. Terms apply, limited time offer subject to change. See visible.com for plan features and network management details. First of some creepy crawlies appeared as well, with one of those groups being a classic fan favorite, the Arakids. And this included the now extinct order known as the Trinotarbita, the spiders of old. Now, they superficially exempled exan spiders,

but they did have some key differences, including a dorsal exoskeleton that was arranged as somewhat of a plate-like armor formation, and in some cases would even contain, continue to evolve into more defenses later on, such as spines and tubercles. And then they also lack the silk-producing spinnerets, something which we are obviously all familiar with. And thus far, it's known that they lived in Scyllularia in North America and Europe, as well as at least one locality in Argentina, where they lived in a myriad of different environments,

preying upon the unwary that came across them. But worry not, my arachnophobes, for this ancient order was no threat to large animals. As for one, they lacked venom, and two, they had inward-facing things that only allowed them to eat animals smaller than themselves, and they weren't too big, with the largest being only the size of a wolf spider. So, in other words, basically a ball of kawaii. However, there were certainly bigger animals, and even arachnids, that I'm sure you noticed that they landed or crawled on you, and that was scorpions. Yep, it was here that scorpions also made their debut, and these guys were so early into their development that some of them weren't even fully terrestrial yet, like the ram of

scorpios. This member of the order of scorpionis could be found along Ontario's coast, which is probably not exactly where you'd expect scorpions to come from. And unlike most other Silurian scorpions, its tarcy was a long that had modern ones, indicating that it could walk okayish on land and it likely spent its time split along the beaches and shallow water, with a former allowing it to escape the true nightmares of this time. But we'll get to that later. Compared to spiders, this guy was also a giant, growing to be about 17 centimeters or 6.7 inches long, so larger than a tarantula, whereas most other silerian scorpions were quite a bit smaller.

And given the somewhat unusual size of this guy, it was presumably the top dog on land, preying on smaller kin, other arachnids, and then another kind of animal at the time, flightless insects. Yeah, they were a thing too, so make sure to bring some bug spray. And then finally, there was one more creepy crawley that also liked fresh air, but it might be more accurate to call it the many crawlies, because I am talking about millopedes, you know those strange nightmare-inducing worm-like myriopods with way too many legs. And although they might give you a fright nowadays, or at least me, during the Silurian, they were actually rather chill, being extremely small, as in smaller than your fingernail,

and not to mention they were primarily detrinivores. And this makes things quite ironic, since despite being one very small animal, it's some of these early millipedes were possibly what the giant pro taxites feared the most, as millopedes are known to eat became matter, as well as fungi, moss, etc. So if they were giant mushrooms, well, not good news for them. However, to be honest, even with all this strangeness, the lands of the Silurian were still relatively tame, at least in the sense that if you were transported here, you wouldn't really have to worry about harm coming to you from the existing life, and thus allowing you to take in the weirdness

in all of its glory, undisturbed, that is. But in the waters, things were a tad bit different, as life had more time to evolve and grow here, resulting in much more scary creatures, and this included again, scorpions. Although, I'm not talking about true scorpions now, but rather sea scorpions, who were really the members of the extinct order known as the Eryptorids, who only superficially resembled present-day scorpions. And there was a pretty easy way to tell the two apart, with that being their size, as the sea scorpions were the Silurian's true giants when it came to animals, and, uh, they weren't exactly friendly ones either. Across the board, this group held varying diets, defenses,

and weapons. But for the most part, they were predators and they liked meat. And already, certain Jenner at the time were pushing the human comfort level when it came to stature. For example, you had guys like the Cuterramus, who was probably not cute, and Carson Isoma, that were longer than the average NBA player is tall. And in some cases, or even above 2.2 meters or 7.2 feet, while weighing the same as a very large jaguar. And you don't even tell you that jaguars are definitely large enough to ruin your day. And it wasn't just their size, as along with this size, VEC scorpions also possessed some features that displayed the very diverse wades in which they killed. For instance, in the Coutaramus, individuals had two giant pincers that allowed them to grapple, catch, and manipulate prey, as well as snip them, if need be. While their tail had then evolved into a paddle shape, suggesting that this predator swam after prey in a high-speed chase and pursuit, or ambushed fashion.

Meanwhile, the carcinisoma went a fairly different route, having not two, but multiple appendages of the front all covered in spines, that allowed it to essentially lay traps for prey, while then at the back of the body, it didn't have a paddle-like fluked, but rather appointed Telson, i.e. a stinger. A bit like that in modern-day scorpions, in fact. And while we don't know for sure if it was able to deliver venom to this pointy stick, I can confidently tell you that getting shanked by a stinger half the size of your arm would not have felt too good. The saving grace here is that, as long as you don't swim too close to the bottom, you might be okay. As since it traded a tail fluke for a stinger, paleontologists don't think this creature was the best swimmer out there

and likely spent more of its time along the sea floor. And ultimately as a whole, sea scorpions had a range of different ways to kill animals, or eat. And not to mention that they also came in many different shapes and sizes, which is why that during the Silurian, this group was one of the most successful, diverse, and widespread, being essentially a staple in most ecosystems where life was abundant. Though thankfully the rest of the denizens of those ecosystems, these two examples were unusually large for the order, and not the normal trend. Yet, while this group was successful, they were by no means the only things occupying the seas and oceans. A shocker here, but fish were on the move too, and amongst

them, clear to what was likely the largest vertebrate on the entire planet at the time, the Megamastix. This was a type of sarcopter rigi, aka a lobefinned fish, that perused the waters around the parts of land that would one day form modern China. Now, it didn't look like the craziest thing in the water, but it definitely was one of the biggest, with it olds being capable of measuring over one meter or 3.3 feet. And again, this might not sound too crazy, but I mean, it's still big enough to gobble your hand or foot if it got confused, or for some reason you decided to wiggle them in front of it, which I would likely advise against, as getting bit would not feel too comfy, as the Megamastics sported durable teeth that were designed to crush hard-shelled

animals. So, your knuckles would definitely be hurting for a while. And past this guy, fish get quite a bit smaller, yet the weirdness level actually goes skyrocketing up, as the Megamastics is what I would consider normal looking for the time. And while it would take me days to go through every strange fish that lived during the Silurian, few that surely would have stuck out to you were certain members that now in a class of fish known as the placoderms. Now, these guys are essentially the poster child for fish during the Silurian, and were easily recognizable thanks to their armored plates, which covered various parts of their bodies.

And in the days of the late Sailorian, this lot were doing pretty darn well, in multiple genera called this water's home, with one of the more weirder ones being the Chilinu. A small fish, no longer than your hand, they lived off the coast of China, and was exceptionally armored and long, giving it a very alien-like appearance. You could also find weird but somewhat cute fish,

fish like the extinct anaspida, meaning the shieldless ones, that were jawless little guys that were probably playing tonic filter feeders, and usually had pretty darn cute faces. I mean, just like a look at the Scottish covelypses, absolutely adorable. Meanwhile, if you were snorkeling around, some of the other groups who would have spotted were the odd osteosrachy that looked like they wanted to probe you or flay your mind, the predatorial but still relatively small, canthadai, which were one of the most successful groups during this time, and who are often referred to as spiny sharks, due to one, their superficial shark-like appearance, and then two, the presence of spikes along their bodies,

which supported every single fin except for their tail. Furthermore, you also had the cartilogynous fish and bony fish as well. So the fish, pretty weird, but perhaps not as weird as the sea scorpions, as well as another marine arthropod that likely even had the sea scorpions beat when it came to pure weirdness, and that would be a rather obscure thylacusufala. Simply put, these guys are basically the tripods from the War of Worlds. But more scientifically speaking, they're typically described as having had large laterally flattened carapaces that cover the whole body, as well as large compounded eyes that were oh so bulbous, just adding that much more strangeness to their overall bizarre appearances. Now, they were a very small bunch, but were mighty numbers and range, being found

throughout the world. And whilst not certain, we generally regard them as having been a type of primitive crustacean. We also don't know exactly what they were like, as far as how they lived goes, with many hypotheses in their lifestyles having been proposed. Some studies suggest that in general they poor swimmers and lived in dimly lit environments, thus explaining their quote-unquote voluptuous eyes, where they would have utilized lurking and hiding in the seabed floor, just waiting for prey to come close enough into striking range, where they would then use their appendages to swiftly capture them. Now, others think there are more necrophages, meaning if you were somehow transported the cilarian sea, these guys might be responsible for your final resting place.