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The Mystery of the Eocene’s Lethal Lake

submitted by Aard Vark

(oritteropo)
6 years 5 months 1 week ago

YouTube description

In 1800s, miners began working in exposed deposits of mud near the town of Messel, Germany. They were extracting oil from the rock and along with the oil, they found beautifully preserved fossils of animals from the Eocene. What happened to these Eocene animals? And why were their remains so exquisitely preserved?

Two additional notes!
-At 00:56, we incorrectly labelled a Darwinius fossil as Thaumaturus. Thaumaturus was a fish and the fossil we show is definitely not a fish.
-Also, an additional image credit is required: Dmitry Bogdanov illustrated the fish we used to show scavengers.

Produced in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios: http://youtube.com/pbsdigitalstudios