Our tribe

"Rise of the Mammals" is a 2019 NOVA documentary about some recent fossil discoveries in Colorado. It´s somewhat boring (despite all the special effects of meteorites impacting and killing screaming dinosaurs), so you probably have to be a hardcore science nerd to really appreciate it. 

66 million years ago, Earth was hit by a meteorite which killed off 90% of all living organisms, most famously all non-avian dinosaurs. Immidiately afterwards, fungi were the dominant life form on land, almost literally feasting on the rotting remains of animals and plants. Later, ferns staged a comeback, and then palm trees and insects (no surprise there). The disapperance of the non-avian dinosaurs permitted mammals to radiate and fill various ecological niches previously occupied by the oversized reptilians (or whatever dinos may have been, cladistically speaking). Until recently, however, there was an extremely annoying break in the mammalian fossil record of about one million years after the meteorite impact. 

The documentary follows Tyler Lyson, a fossil-hunting Wunderkind from North Dakota (OK, he´s a grown up paleontologist now) as he tries to find a way out of the impasse. Eventually, a filed away fossil in Colorado, discovered by a very nice old lady, gives him a clue. The elusive mammal remains may be inside a type of stones known as concretions. Sure enough, Team Tyler soon find loads of earlyt post-apocalyptic mammal fossil at a place called Corral Bluffs. I admit that I didn´t find the discoveries to be *that* spectacular. So mammals went from small generalists to larger specialists, well, of course they did! Colorado looked more like southern Florida when nature had rebounced one million years after the mass extinction. We´re talking hot and humid jungles where only desert exists today. 

I reflected on three things when watching this NOVA production. One was the ridiculous anthropocentric or mammalo-centric perspective (admittedly found everywhere else, too). Mammals are said to "dominate the world". This after the dinosaurs - the former rulers - went down in flames 66 million years ago. By implication, *we* rule the world. LOL! The recent COVID pandemic shows that we don´t rule horse crap, and neither does any other Mammalia. This rock is still in thrall to bacteria, viruses, fungi and assorted protozoans. The claim that "our tribe" is "smarter" than other animals is also extremely funny, since dinosaurs "ruled" the world for 150 million years and still exist (as birds). 

This brings me to the second reflection: it´s difficult for a human to fathom deep time. At least it was for me, until recently. That the meteorite impact that "overthrew" the non-avian dinosaurs was 66 million years ago sounds like something that happened the day before yesterday, since everybody constantly talks about it, and it really feels like the beginning of "the last chapter", when humans evolve out of some prosimian-like ancestor and (presto) inaugurates...American suburbia and the moon-landing. In reality, 66 million years is an *insanely long time* and so is one million years. Note that the paleontologists had difficulty finding any mammal fossils at all from a one-million year time period! But sure, we´re smart and important since we can...I don´t know...eventually find those damn bones? Unless our tribal chiefs tell us to lock down due to some retrovirus... 

My third reflection is that nature couldn´t care less about "biodiversity" or climate. Life survives almost anything. And if it isn´t "diverse", so what? The need for biodiversity is a human construct, and while climate change can of course impact all life on the planet (so can a meteorite), it´s difficult to see a situation in which all life is extinguished. As I wrote in another post: "Imagine a world with no winter and no ice, with water levels 135 meters higher than today, with water temperatures around 35 degrees centigrade, with the atmosphere having a carbon dioxide level four times that of today. Welcome to the mid-Cretaceous 90 million years ago." 

Life will find a way. And Shiva´s dance will continue.