Eons is a show produced in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios wherein Hank Green, Kallie Moore, and Blake de Pastino take you on a journey through the history of life on Earth.
From PBS Eons. Check out Overview’s landfills episode: https://youtu.be/aHzltu6Tvl8 Celebrate Earth Day with PBS! https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnNZYWyBGJ1F8ofFm4H9UTrHxqU8zngK4 Nunalleq, a village in what’s today southwest Alaska, seemed to have thrived during the Little Ice Age. How did this village manage to survive and prosper during the Little Ice Age, and what caused this period of climate change in…
From PBS Eons. Today, chilis are the most widely cultivated spice crop in the world – grown everywhere from their native home in the Americas to Europe, Africa, and Asia. But how and why did chilis evolve this weird, fiery trick in the first place? And why did we learn to love that spicy burn?…
From PBS Eons. Check out The Great Courses Plus: https://TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/Eons No other placental mammal that we know of prefers one side of the body so consistently, not even our closest primate relatives. But being right-handed may have deep evolutionary roots in our lineage. And yet, being a leftie does seem to come with some unexpected…
From PBS Eons. Elongated tubes, flat ribbons, and other “worm-like” body plans were so varied and abundant that a part of the Ediacaran is sometimes known as Wormworld. But in the end, the ancient Wormworld was ended by the actions of its very own worms. Thanks to Franz Anthony (http://franzanth.com) for the incredible illustrations of…
From PBS Eons. Check out Bizarre Beasts’ episode on venomous mammals! https://youtu.be/22qAEKXe8Lo It’s possible Euchambersia possessed venom about 20 million years before the first lizards and over 150 million years before the first snakes evolved. We’ve teamed up Sarah Suta from Bizarre Beasts to explore the story of venomous mammals, both living and extinct. Special…
From PBS Eons. Our DNA holds thousands of dead genes and we’ve only just begun to unravel their stories. But one thing is already clear: we’re not just defined by the genes that we’ve gained over the course of our evolution, but also by the genes that we’ve lost along the way. Thanks to these…
From PBS Eons. The biggest turtle ever described wasn’t an ancestor of today’s leatherback turtles or any other living sea turtles. But it looks like there are some things about being a giant, skin-shelled sea turtle that just work, no matter where, or when, you lived. Thanks to Ceri Thomas (https://nixillustration.com/), Nobu Tamura (http://spinops.blogspot.com/), and…
From PBS Eons. The evolution of our ability to speak is its own epic saga and it’s worth pausing to appreciate that. It’s taken several million years to get to this moment where we can tell you about how it took several million years for us to get here. Thanks to these illustrators for their…
From PBS Eons. Our DNA holds evidence of a huge, ancient pandemic, one that touched many different species, spanned the globe, and lasted for more than 15 million years. Produced in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios: http://youtube.com/pbsdigitalstudios Super special thanks to the following Patreon patrons for helping make Eons possible: Julie Cohen, salsablog.band, Michael Hof,…
From PBS Eons. This ancient species had the same six legs and segmented body that we’d recognize from an ant today. But it also had a huge, scythe-like jaw and a horn coming out of its head. This bizarre predator belonged to a group known as “hell ants.” But they’re gone now, and we’re still…
From PBS Eons. Check out Animal Wonders and Huckleberry! https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2Ol2gat902eYrXakcgw0FSS86fF0Ix6W It’s important to us that you understand how big this beaver was. Just like modern beavers, it was semiaquatic — it lived both on the land and in the water. The difference is that today’s beavers do a pretty special thing – one that the…
From PBS Eons. Figuring out what this creature’s face actually looked like would take paleontologists years. But understanding this weird animal can help us shine a light on at least one way for ecosystems to bounce back from even the worst mass extinction. Thanks to Ceri Thomas (https://nixillustration.com) for the many excellent Triassic reptile illustrations…
From PBS Eons. For decades, scientists have been studying the cause of the Younger Dryas, and trying to figure out if something like it could happen again. And it turns out that what caused this event is the subject of a heated debate. Thanks to these wonderful paleoartists for their excellent illustrations! Jack Byrley: https://twitter.com/bedupolker…
From PBS Eons. Check out Overview! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnOajuolHWI Lizards are incredibly widespread and diverse but it took them a long time to get to where they are now. Because they used to face some pretty stiff competition from a group of lizard look-alikes. Thanks to these wonderful paleoartists for their excellent lizard/fake lizard illustrations! Ceri Thomas:…
From PBS Eons. We’re the only primate without a coat of thick fur. It turns out that this small change in our appearance has had huge consequences for our ability to regulate our body temperature, and ultimately, it helped shape the evolution of our entire lineage. Thank you to Julio Lacerda (https://twitter.com/JulioTheArtist) for the excellent…
From PBS Eons. It arose from rhino ancestors that were a lot smaller, but Paraceratherium would take a different evolutionary path. Believe it or not, it actually became so big that it probably got close to what scientists think might be the actual upper limit for a land mammal. The illustration of Paraceratherium used in…
From PBS Eons. Check out Bizarre Beasts! https://youtu.be/DtufV5JZLW4 At more than 2 meters long, Aegirocassis was not only the biggest radiodont ever, but it also may have been the biggest animal in the Early Ordovician. This bizarre marine giant may have only been possible, thanks to a major revolution among some of the tiniest organisms…
From PBS Eons. Help out Eons and take the PBS Digital Studios annual survey: http://to.pbs.org/2020survey For some reason, animals keep evolving into things that look like crabs, independently, over and over again. What is it about the crab’s form that makes it so evolutionarily successful that non-crabs are apparently jealous of it? Thanks to Franz Anthony…
From PBS Eons. Our "Night at the Virtual Museum" livestream will now be streaming on both YouTube and Facebook. To celebrate National Fossil Day, PBS Eons hosts Kallie Moore, Blake de Pastino, and Michelle Barboza-Ramirez will be competing in a virtual scavenger hunt at the Smithsonian NMNH’s Deep Time exhibit, where their fossil knowledge will…
From PBS Eons. Take the PBS Digital Studios annual survey: http://to.pbs.org/2020survey Our National Fossil Day Livestream will be on Facebook and YouTube at 8 PM ET on October 14th. Here’s the link to the YouTube livestream: https://youtu.be/hW6XW1YgAlU While clubs are practically synonymous with ankylosaurs, we’ve only started to get to the bottom of how they…
From PBS Eons. Go check out Overview on PBS Terra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHMZwaopAaI Deep Look’s episode on Sundews! https://youtu.be/D4kBrsyWhS4 How and why does botanical carnivory keep evolving? It turns out that when any of the basic things that most plants need aren’t there, some plants can adapt in unexpected ways to make sure they thrive. Thanks to…
From PBS Eons. How To Vote in Every State: https://youtube.com/HowToVoteInEveryState Early primates not only lived in North America — our primate family tree actually originated here! So what happened to those early relatives of ours? Thank you to these paleoartists for allowing us to use their wonderful illustrations: Nobu Tamura: https://spinops.blogspot.com/ Julio Lacerda: https://twitter.com/JulioTheArtist Fabrizio…
From PBS Eons. These odd rodents belong to a genus known as Ceratogaulus, but they’re more commonly called horned gophers, because, you guessed it, they had horns. And it turns out the horns probably had a purpose – one that rodents would likely benefit from today. Samantha Hopkins’ 2005 paper on Ceratogaulus with figures featured in…
From PBS Eons. In 1977, a farmer was plowing his field on a plateau high in the Andes mountains when he stumbled upon a giant fossilized skeleton. How did this giant marine reptile end up high in the Andes Mountains? Spanish subtitles/CC by Carlos J. Pardo De la Hoz. Thanks as always to Ceri Thomas for…
From PBS Eons. Check out Self-Evident on PBS Voices: https://youtu.be/B6QeZ07Fagg Beneath layers of rock art are drawings of animals SO strange that, for a long time, some anthropologists thought they could only have been imagined. But what if these animals really had existed, after all? Thanks to the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, Professor Bruno David, Monash…
From PBS Eons. Check out our new poster! https://store.dftba.com/collections/eons/products/supercontinent-poster To figure out how Thrinaxodon and Broomistega became entombed together, scientists looked at the burrow itself, along with their fossilized bones. And it looks like their luck ran out, when a behavior that usually would’ve helped them survive just didn’t work. Special thanks to Julio Lacerda…
From PBS Eons. Thanks to a recent adaptation, instead of getting sick from the boozy, fermented fruits, one of our primate ancestors could digest them safely, and get more calories at the same time. This new superpower would open up a whole new nutritional landscape for us: fermented foods. Special thanks to Julio Lacerda (https://twitter.com/JulioTheArtist)…
From PBS Eons. Paleontologists have been studying nodosaurs since the 1830s, but nobody had ever found a specimen like Borealopelta before. The key to its exceptional preservation was where it ended up after it died and how it got there. Thanks to the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology for providing us with images for this…
From PBS Eons. Untangling the origins of Beelzebufo — the giant frog that lived alongside the dinosaurs — turns out to be one of the most bedeviling problems in the history of amphibians. Thank you to these paleoartists for allowing us to use their wonderful illustrations: Ceri Thomas: http://alphynix.tumblr.com/ Nobu Tamura: https://spinops.blogspot.com/ Julio Lacerda: https://252mya.com/gallery/julio-lacerda…