Des Chercheurs ont Découvert un Mystérieux Œuf Géant en Antarctique

Sympa

Les scientifiques en Antarctique ont fait une découverte stupéfiante : un œuf mystérieux géant enfoui dans les profondeurs glacées. Au début, ils n'étaient même pas sûrs que c'était un œuf — il ressemblait à un ballon de football dégonflé, mais beaucoup plus grand. Après quelques tests, ils ont réalisé qu'il appartenait à une créature marine préhistorique, peut-être quelque chose comme un mosasaure, qui régnait sur les océans il y a des millions d'années. Ce qui est incroyable, c'est que cet œuf, qui est mou et coriace, est le plus grand de son genre jamais découvert. C'est comme un instantané de la vie ancienne, parfaitement préservé dans les conditions glaciales de l'Antarctique. Qui sait quelles autres surprises préhistoriques sont encore cachées sous toute cette glace ?  Animation créée par Sympa. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Musique par Epidemic Sound https://www.epidemicsound.com   Pour ne rien perdre de Sympa, abonnez-vous!: https://goo.gl/6E4Xna​ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nos réseaux sociaux : Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sympasympacom/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sympa.officiel/  Stock de fichiers (photos, vidéos et autres): https://www.depositphotos.com https://www.shutterstock.com https://www.eastnews.ru ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Si tu en veux encore plus, fais un tour ici:  http://sympa-sympa.com

Transcript

00:00In 2011, Chilean researchers discovered a singular fossil in Antarctica,

00:05evoking a crushed football ball.

00:08For nearly 10 years, this specimen remained without a specific label,

00:12placed on a shelf of the Chilean National Museum of Natural History.

00:16In the museum, it was called La Chose,

00:18a nickname inspired by its appearance worthy of a science fiction film.

00:22When they were finally able to analyze this enigmatic fossil,

00:25scientists discovered that it was actually a giant egg

00:29in Coquilhemol, about 66 million years old.

00:32This egg is more than 28 cm long and 18 cm wide.

00:37For comparison, a standard hen egg is barely 6 cm long,

00:41while an ostrich egg is nearly 15 cm long.

00:44Thus, La Chose was named the largest egg in Coquilhemol,

00:49never discovered, and the second largest known animal egg to date.

00:53The only more imposing egg was that of the elephant bird of Madagascar,

00:57a missing species measuring once and a half the size of Michael Jordan,

01:02or 3 meters.

01:03The bird, of course, not the egg.

01:06This egg, discovered in Antarctica, is also remarkable

01:10because it represents the first fossil egg

01:12born in this region of the globe.

01:14The creature that laid it must have been a gigantic marine reptile,

01:18such as the mosasaur.

01:20This hypothesis is surprising, because most scientists thought

01:23that these animals did not lay eggs.

01:25This discovery could therefore profoundly change our understanding of these creatures.

01:32Finally, this egg is unique because of its thin shell and devoid of pores,

01:36a trait that distinguishes it from typical dinosaur eggs.

01:39Its appearance is more reminiscent of lizard or snake eggs,

01:43although they come from a colossal animal related to these species.

01:47No known flying dinosaur or reptile of this time and this region

01:51seems capable of laying such a huge egg.

01:54Everything leads to believe that it is indeed a mosasaur,

01:57although it is impossible to be totally certain.

02:00Scientists have carried out in-depth research,

02:03studying 259 current species of reptiles,

02:06such as lizards and snakes, as well as their eggs.

02:09Thanks to these analyses, they estimated that the creature,

02:12having laid this egg, should measure at least 7 meters long,

02:15without including the tail,

02:17so it is a monster a little bigger than an adult giraffe.

02:20During the end of the Cretaceous, about 125 to 66 million years ago,

02:25this region of Antarctica could have served as a pupa.

02:28Bones of young mosasaurs and plesiosaurs were discovered there,

02:32alongside those of adult individuals.

02:36In Norway, archaeologists made a remarkable discovery

02:39by finding dozens of arrows hidden in the ice for nearly 6,000 years.

02:43These arrows, revealed by the melting of a vast glacier plate in the high mountains,

02:48covered an area equivalent to 45 football fields.

02:52In 2014 and 2016, when the summers were particularly hot,

02:56scientists explored this area known as Langfön.

03:00They also discovered many bones and reindeer.

03:04Some arrows were intact, while others were fragmented.

03:08Five arrowheads have also been found around the frozen area.

03:12This site has revealed more arrows than any other glacial site in the world.

03:17Among the 68 identified arrows, some date back to the Neolithic era,

03:22while the most recent ones date from the 14th century AD.

03:26Ice acts as a real time machine,

03:29keeping almost perfectly what is there.

03:32Langfön has gained its reputation as one of the first never studied glacial sites.

03:37After a hiker discovered a 3,300-year-old leather shoe there, not far from the shore.

03:44Scientists continue to analyze these sites to understand their use by humans

03:49and the changes undergone by the ice plates from Norway to North America over the centuries.

03:56About 32,000 years ago, a squirrel buried seeds near a river in Siberia.

04:01Does this evoke other memories of the Ice Age?

04:04These seeds belonged to a plant with delicate white flowers, the Silene stenophylla.

04:10Billions of years later, a team of researchers found these seeds

04:14deeply buried in the frozen ground,

04:16at a depth equivalent to that of a 12-story building.

04:20The seeds were buried in the ice,

04:22surrounded by bones of animals such as mammoths, bison and reindeer.

04:27The most mature seeds had been damaged, perhaps by the squirrel itself,

04:31but some younger seeds still retained viable tissues.

04:35Scientists carefully extracted them and placed them in small containers to promote their growth.

04:41And now, the most incredible part.

04:44They managed to grow these plants.

04:46Their flowers had slightly different shapes from those of the same species that grow today.

04:51At the end of a year, this ice age plant even produced new seeds.

04:56These results led researchers to suggest that permafrost

04:59could serve as a reservoir for an ancient genetic heritage,

05:03or that missing species could be found and brought back to life.

05:08Researchers on board an icebreaker in Antarctica

05:11were looking for whales when they made a much more surprising discovery.

05:15A camera placed behind the ship, as heavy as a car,

05:19captured the image of 60 million ice fish nests spread over the bottom of the Weddell Sea.

05:24The nests, spaced about 25 cm in all directions,

05:28spread over an area of 240 square kilometers,

05:31slightly larger than the size of Washington, D.C.

05:34The colony even had a well-defined boundary,

05:37visible as a line traced in the sand.

05:40Scientists explored this region to study a particular oceanic site

05:44where the water was slightly warmer than the surrounding water.

05:48In this heated water, they observed tiny organisms,

05:52called zooplankton, near the surface.

05:56When they hatched, the young ice fish swam towards this area

06:00to feed on zooplankton before going back down to the seabed to grow

06:04and, in turn, reproduce.

06:06With such an abundance of food,

06:08their presence in this warmer water seemed logical.

06:11However, no one expected to discover

06:14such an impressive number of ice fish nests,

06:17much more than had been observed so far.

06:21The Antarctic Heritage Trust of New Zealand

06:24discovered ancient negatives in a cabin in Antarctica.

06:27These clichés turned out to be rare images

06:30of the expedition of the group of the Ross Sea,

06:32a famous but unsuccessful attempt

06:34led by Ernest Shackleton between 1914 and 1917.

06:38His ambition was to be the first to cross the Antarctic by land,

06:42linking the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea,

06:44passing through the South Pole.

06:46However, the expedition took a disastrous turn

06:49when their ship, the Aurora, was lost at sea.

06:52The team had to hide in the cabin of another explorer,

06:55Captain Robert Falcon Scott,

06:57who had also sought to reach the South Pole in 1912,

07:01without success.

07:02The negatives, made of cellulose nitrate,

07:05were found stuck to each other in a small box.

07:10The Trust brought the negatives back to New Zealand,

07:12where they were carefully separated,

07:14revealing 22 images so far invisible.

07:17Although many photos have been damaged,

07:20some show recognisable places around the McMurdo Detroit,

07:23an emblematic region of Antarctica.

07:26However, the photographer's identity remains a mystery.

07:29In December 2021,

07:31researchers observed an unusual mark

07:33on Larsen's ice platform,

07:35a huge stretch of ice off the east coast of Antarctica.

07:39They assumed it was an underground river

07:42and dug nearly 500 meters to verify.

07:45Although they expected to find water,

07:47they were surprised to discover

07:49that it housed tiny rapid creatures,

07:51called amphipods.

07:53The researchers also found that this underground river

07:56carried layers of currents,

07:58moving in unexpected directions

08:00and still misunderstood.

08:02Another amazing discovery marked their study.

08:05On December 20 of the same year,

08:07a volcano, the Oonga Tonga,

08:09erupted,

08:11and the pressure waves generated by this event

08:14were detected in Antarctica's frozen river.

08:17This observation illustrates the amazing interconnections

08:20that link all the phenomena of our planet,

08:22even in the most remote regions.

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