Why Didn't We Go Extinct 10 Million Years Ago?

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Title editing by Manuel Rubio

Fact checking by Amanda Rossillo

Music from Silver Maple, Epidemic Sound and Artlist.
Stock footage from Storyblocks, Artgrid and Shutterstock.

00:00 Introduction
06:00 Nothing Lasts Forever
14:09 Rise of The Planet of the Apes
26:23 Fall of The Planet of the Apes
40:18 Last Ape Standing

Bibliography

Pugh, K.D., 2022. Phylogenetic analysis of Middle-Late Miocene apes. Journal of Human Evolution, 165, p.103140.

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DeMiguel, D., Domingo, L., Sánchez, I.M., Casanovas-Vilar, I., Robles, J.M. and Alba, D.M., 2021. Palaeoecological differences underlie rare co-occurrence of Miocene European primates. BMC biology, 19(1), pp.1-15.

DeMiguel, D., Alba, D.M. and Moyà-Solà, S., 2014. Dietary specialization during the evolution of Western Eurasian hominoids and the extinction of European great apes. PloS one, 9(5), p.e97442.

Sevim-Erol, A., Begun, D.R., Yavuz, A., Tarhan, E., Sözer, Ç.S., Mayda, S., van den Hoek Ostende, L.W., Martin, R.M. and Alçiçek, M.C., 2023. A new ape from Türkiye and the radiation of late Miocene hominines. Communications Biology, 6(1), p.842.

von Koenigswald, G.H.R., 1952. Gigantopithecus blacki von Koenigswald, a giant fossil hominoid from the Pleistocene of Southern China. American Museum of Natural History.

Gilbert, C et al. 2020. New Middle Miocene Ape (Primates: Hylobatidae) from Ramnagar, India fills major gaps in the hominoid fossil record. Proc. R. Soc. B.2872020165520201655

Richard E. Green et al. 2020. A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome. Science 328,710-722.DOI:10.1126/science.1188021

Noonan, J.P., 2010. Neanderthal genomics and the evolution of modern humans. Genome Research, 20(5), pp.547-553.

Warren, M., 2018. Mum's a Neanderthal, Dad's a Denisovan: First discovery of an ancient-human hybrid. Nature, 560(7719), pp.417-419.

Zhang, Y., Westaway, K.E., Haberle, S., Lubeek, J.K., Bailey, M., Ciochon, R., Morley, M.W., Roberts, P., Zhao, J.-X., Duval, M., Dosseto, A., Pan, Y., Rule, S., Liao, W., Gully, G.A., Lucas, M., Mo, J., Yang, L., Cai, Y., Wang, W., Joannes-Boyau, R., 2024. The demise of the giant ape Gigantopithecus blacki. Nature 625, 535–539.

[simesaid]

Something that never ceases to amaze me is that at one point in our history the entire population of _homo sapiens sapiens_ amounted to no more than around 8, 000 individuals clinging precariously to life on the African savannah!

And so the difference between a species of hairless ape going on to develop the theory of evolution, split the atom, and visit the moon, versus, well... _nothing, _ came down to it raining _just_ when it did. Because if it had been as little as maybe one week later, then, well... _nothing._

[JoshuaMcTackett]

Man that ad for Manta sleep calling me out for falling asleep to these videos.

Damn they know their audience. I try to listen to the whole video at night in bed but the audio and voice of the narrator is so settling, I can’t remember the end of any videos haha

[michaeldaignault]

"We have 3 sizes... wee, not so wee, and friggin huge!"

[paulwilson]

Having spent a great deal of time going through this very topic long ago, I can say this is one of the few youtube videos which explains the topic properly. If anything, what is not explored enough, is the impact of the ice ages on vegetation patterns. We went from a completely forested planet of the apes 10Mya, to a dry desert/savanna planet 2Mya. A key part of this change was actually CO2 levels. Let's go back 2Mya, the 15th ice age of the time reduced CO2 so much, so that the forests dissappeared along with the trees, the berries, the fruits, the vegetables. So, early Homo, had to choose between eating "grass" or eating the newly developed herbivores that ate grass. Because grass was all there was. One group of homo went after the grass and became the Astralopithicene Robustus (grass eaters) and one group became the Gracile Astralopithicene (meat eaters). Both bipedal and both smart and both tool makers but evolved to eat two different food sources. CO2 and the ice ages impact on CO2 and the impact of that CO2 on vegetation is the answer.

[AsyaProsvetova]

Thank you! I was worried this channel would be forsaken and nervously checked updates several times this past week

[AdrianneJH]

This video has been pushed at me for weeks out of nowhere. I would scroll on by and wonder if it was worth the hour. So eventually i caved and clicked on it just to get it off my feed and i was shocked at how awesome it was. It's interesting, well written, and not a distracting ai voice. I'm glad YouTube was so pushy about telling me i would like this because they were absolutely correct.
I was only supposed to be killing about ten minutes or so until i had to do something else but here i am thirty minutes later, totally rapt.
Liked. Subscribing. Keep up the awesomeness please.

[amberheart]

Well I'll be a Monkey's Uncle.

Joking aside, this is a truly fascinating series, along with the History of the Universe and Earth series too.

[viniciusnoyoutube]

Azming quality documentary, TV grade and above.
Great work.

[blaisetelfer]

Reading further into Gigantopithecus was fascinating. Imagine an orangutan the size of a polar bear

[cgy]

I hit "Like" only a few mins into it because I knew it was going to be a quality vid. Good job!

[donnyfanizzi]

The quality of these videos is amazing! Thank you for taking the time to make them.

[gheathen]

I dont extinct because I shower regularly.

[nickzaytz]

So good, pure pleasure!)
I love the visuals (and of course the narrative)

[marchosiasdiesel]

keep up the good work on this series and your other series history of the earth and history of the universe

[francomuscellini]

So happy to have a new video from this channel!

[Superwelder]

A great documentary all around. The 3d printed casts of skulls really shines for comparisons on a large time scale here. Though I fear a couple opportunities were missed that would have fit perfectly within this video(perhaps they wish to save them for future long form analysis?). The first is the description of our ability to outcompete other members of our genus out of Africa did seem a bit vague. Faster reproduction cycles were mentioned as well as possible greater tool creation but no mention of other global population impactors like disease spread or geographic isolators like large mountain ranges. Another point I had hoped would be delved into more was how niche partitioning sort of starts to break down with highly intelligent species like our ancestors being able to adapt far beyond what their physiology alone allows. Think how much adaption a woodpecker has to get grubs from inside a tree. How many generations of evolution required to reach that point. Then comes along a crow that realizes it can use a stick to get the grubs in a tree without all that physical adaption. So too did our ancestors break the rules so to speak in this regard but across just about every niche we could see and reach. Regardless, a wonderful 50-odd minutes that made me think deeply so thanks fellow apes!

[ricardo-larosa]

Thank you! Keep up on the good work! You are probably one of the most underrated creators in YouTube.

[belliih]

All of your videos across all of your channels are as always absolutely spectacular! Fascinating video and I'm looking forward for the next one 😍😍🌿

[m.streicher]

Someone on your writing staff is a GutsickGibbon fan

[profharveyherrera]

If only we could get the idea of our gratness not being the techological advances we've developed in recent centuries, but the adaptability that allowed our ancestors to survive and thrived in an ever changing enviroment, maybe we could be humble enough and intelligent enough to take care of our shared world.