Didn't expect to watch a video on dino feet today, but it's always welcomed.

0:19 Ben's shadow looks like a velociraptor and I cant unsee it

Darn right a lot has been learned, it's gotten to the point where I can't even look at a dinosaur picture and ask myself "Is this accurate? Should it have feathers? WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT!?"

It’s so weird looking at the tiny pillar legs they’re represented with nowadays. I like it but it’s also crazy how they supported their weight with them.

What a lovely birthday gift. Thank you Dinosaur-Man.

So basically this how the saurobod evolved. Saurobod: yo this tree is tall, lemme tip toe a bit (eats) you know what this is actually useful. Years later every saurobod wearing high heels.

As an artist with special interest in creature designs, this type of episode really excites me. I have a million questions about prehistoric animal anatomy and how it most likely functioned. This is awesome

Sauropod forelimbs just got a lot weirder and uncomfortable to look at.

"What were extinct dinosaurs lineages like? They were like X, and Y, BUT in many ways they were simply unique and unlike anything alive today." I guess many of us laymen sometimes forget they weren't some giant chimera of extant critters.

"Finally, someone is asking the REAL questions" - A DeviantArt user

That will be very helpful! I just started volunteering at dinosaur ridge in colorado. It's apart of the morrison formation. We do have sauropod track casts which do show some of this as well! I've watched a lot of your videos and it has helped tremendously as a volunteer! Thank you!

The way that the toes (or rather fingers) on the front limbs of these sauropods is arranged, strongly reminds me of how I locomote when on all fours. I have a very bad back, and in my flat it is sometimes easier to go on all fours to get about a room, rather than try to find my walking stick. The most comfortable way to place my fingers, is to have the top two bones of each of my fingers facing inwards, with the back of the fingers flat on the floor, with most of the weight actually resting on the forefinger and middle finger. The thumb is for balance, and placed facing backwards and slightly to the side. This results in the fingers forming a column, with the palm forming a hollow at the back. This is the most comfortable way to place my hands when I am on all fours, and I suspect that this might have been the case when the ancestors of sauropods first went down on all fours. It could also explain why some sauropods lost the tops of their fingers over time, as you say, since they are not really needed when you place your hands and fingers in this way.

The fact that derived titanosaurs lost their finger bones and just walked on the ends of their metacarpals blows me away!

I never thought I needed to see a sauropod punting a small raptor but by god I'm glad

Many animal groups often take an adaptation and push it to it's extreme (giraffe necks, elephant trunks), titanosaurs loosing their fingers is the logical extreme of finger reduction in other sauropods

Have to love the way Ben says ‘tortoise’.

4:06 Those front feet deeply unnerve me, it's as if someone chopped off it's feet and it's walking on the stumps. 🦕😧

Often dinosaurs are reconstructed in the way we would want them to look rather than the way they probably actually looked. Which is a shame because the reality is much more interesting than the fiction.

Wow I had no idea about the forefeet. That's amazing and looks incredibly weird to me at first glance. I want a coffee table book of the evolution of paleo art.

Sauropods were utter terrifying badasses. Think of it this way: Imagine how dangerous an elephant or hippo is. Now imagine an animal 2-6 times as heavy as the largest bull elephant. Now imagine this animal’s entire life history is based around starting at the size of a football (With likely minimal parental care) and hopefully surviving and growing until it’s big to fend for itself. Most of its siblings will he picked off at an early age. Even when the sauropod outgrows the predators it feared as a baby, it will still have to ward off attacks from large theropods. Now imagine that this adult animal, which can easily weigh more than 50 tons, which spent its entire life fearing attacks from predators and has to be temperamental at the sight of anything that even mildly resembles danger to survive, has a whip-like tail that makes up half its length. Said whip-like tail is powered by the largest muscles of any land animal ever. An iguana hitting you with its tail can cause lacerations. A sauropod hitting you with its tail would make you explode.

Brachiosaurus with a foot fetish - *Heavy Breathing*

Fascinating,when I was a kid in the 1970's all Sauropods were portrayed with elephant feet front and rear.

I always find it strange when people talk about extinct animals and are like "What was that claw for? Defense? Digging?" I mean what do cats use their claws for? Only hunting? Only climbing? Only fighting? No of course not. They use it for everything. So in my opinion we can safely say that dinosaurs also did not use their claws for only one thing either.

So they have armored bird like feet designed to hold heavy weight. Probably had scale like coverings on the feet and lower legs like birds often do too.

In Summary: *Sauropod are quite unqiue among the many other dinosaur speices that they would have live alongside,and if Plaeoart grow by the plenty,we start to understand alot more on the unqiue shapes of these reptilian giants.* Also nice new background,Ben it very nice and thanks again for solving the world's most important question ( in Paleontology. )

Amazing video, each day we learn more about dinos and each day they get weirder and weirder, love it.

The one front claw has to be just for general utility I'd say. I sincerely doubt it was for combat. I imagine it'd also greatly help their hoof in going up slopes or on uneven ground of any type.

ironically enough i had been pondering the shape of a sauropods foot recently how convenient and eye-opening this is information that i never would have guessed thanks for the video

Gods, I love the scientific community for their passion to understand other animals, their evolutionary history, incredible cognitive functions, anatomy and so on, but something that makes me inexplicably happy is the fact that this community fully understands when I say "front limbs on vertebrates are anatomically arms and those 'feet' are actually hands" Bless you, peeps, I adore you and your content.

I never thought a video about dinosaur feet would catch my attention so much, but here we are. Fascinating!

New fetish: Accurate sauropod feet

Sauropods are some of the most difficult to accurately depict extinct group of animals. Their anatomy was beyond crazy.

My next project will probably be sauropods. I usually only draw theropods but honestly I need to expand my skills. Thank you for the inspiration! :>

Ah, Diplodocus: Could whip you into next week with it's tail. Had an Apatosaurus skull put on it's neck and was called brontosaurus for decades, and now being one of the first four legged animals to give anything a thumbs up.

I think that it is clear that sauropods and especially eusauropods were not the defenseless giants that they are often portrayed as being. They had offensive capability other than their giant size as adults although still must have been extremely vulnerable as pre-adults as is commonly understood and therefore needed to grow as fast as they could to avoid being killed before adulthood. I have long remarked the long toenails on what is now explained to me as being on the hind limbs of some sauropods. It is remarkable that the greatest animals to ever walk the Earth were not plantigrade but semi-digitigrade and yet graviportal!

I always wondered why they couldn't wear......crocs. Thank you , thank you, I'll be here all week.

it reminds me of your old video about "living dinosaurs" especially mokele mbembe and it's "footprints" in which they don't look like the actual footprints of an real souropod dinosaur.

As a dusty academic who always dreamed of becoming a palaeontologist I absolutely love your channel! Your knowledge and your presentation of that knowledge is very impressive and a reliable source of delight and wonder.

The weirder these critters get the more I'm picturing Slartibartfast burying them.

Your videos continue to amaze me with their depth and quality of information!

I love learning about all these changes. Idk If this is true for anyone else but the more we learn about these animal's appearance the more earthly and less alien they look for me, which weirdly makes me even more excited about them.

I was gonna say "that's crazy" But I mean... horses and cows technically walk on their finger nails... So a dino walking on it's finger tips doesn't seem so unusual

Wow, those fully fleshed out front feet r actually kinda creepy looking for some reason. Not sure why, but they definitely have a very weird and freaky look about them.

Ben, I always enjoy your videos. You always manage to combine serious information with real enthusiasm. You avoid the droning monotony one the one hand, and the stupid silliness on the other that characterize too many of the science videos out there.

I actually found an excellent pre-historic foot print imprinted on a slab of sedimentary rock strata on flat ground at a estuary location. It is in wonderfully good condition considering it's great age. It looks as if the foot-print has a smaller yet identical type of print 'within' the larger indent (perhaps a mother with young following her, 'in tow' ). No claw is evident, only the 'toe pads', centre and 'heel' marks. It was as if I was meant to find it, being as it was one slab of rock amongst tens of thousands of other jumbled rock deposits. It's a beauty of a thing. A treasure to behold, in it's own right. I found it near the coast in deepest West Wales.

Fellas, if your Sauropod has: ~ a bipedal gait. ~ a crocodile-esque face ~ a large dorsal spin. That isn't your Sauropod. That's _Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus._

I think it's just a matter of having a little bit more dexterity. I can only imagine that sometimes upon migration that these giant creatures had to traverse hills and mountains maybe.

Hey Ben, have you done a video on the history of paleoart? I’d like to see one!

I think everyone has been comfortable for a while now with the fact that dinosaurs were the ancestors of birds and it's become a lot easier to imagine the similarities thanks to modern day paleo art. It's now easier than ever to see some resemblance between therapod dinosaurs and modern birds. But it is SO weird and feels impossible to picture the herbivorous, four-legged dinosaurs, such as the sauropods, ceratopsians, stegosaurians, and ankylosaurians, having any relations to our birds. Am I right?

Very interesting. You are the first person to ever cover this. Thank You

Man, everyone's prepared for the tail whip, or the neck swipe, but nobody expects a sauropod to just shank you with its thumb spike

why does he look like the kid in grade 8 who did all his work in time

Having looked into this myself, there are a few issues you didn't really talk about: -their feet, much like their skull, easily separate from the body. -some of their manus and pes bones appear to be cartilage only, but the extent of this is unknown. This creates a bias for preserving elements.

Nice! feels like it's been a while since we got video that focuses on dinosaurs from you. Always a welcomed addition to a Sunday. Even though dinosaurs are the most awesome prehistoric animals they tend to overshadow other magnificent dynasties like the Therapsids.

Amazing video. Although I am familiar with the overall anatomy of sauropod feet this video covers many important details which for sure will be helpful. It also got me thinking that I probably should draw some sauropods in the near future, cause I feel like I draw too much theropods. I am currently in a mammal-mood and I'm doing a bunch of proboscideans, but I may as well jump onto sauropods after that

Another fantastic video, and it acts as a good example of the sort of in-depth but still approachable content this channel offers. One thing I would have liked though, would have been a sketch of what you think their feet might have looked like.

Superb content, as always. And love the look, great stylish haircut. Really suits you!

Been waiting for a new vid man! I hope your studies go well and thank you for the new video!

I should get back into paleoart. Sauropods would be a nice start.

this'll be interesting to apply it when i draw sauropods as i wasn't aware at all about this.

Thinking out loud. People who are really into dinosaurs should get together with software engineers and create a realistic 3d simulation of the distant past. Then populate with animals and plants modeled based on the most up to date understanding of behavior and physical attributes. Would be super interesting and informative to see how different things interact.

Wait wait wait..... where is your suit gone? How can I focus on the science of your videos if it doesn't come from the mouth of a man wearing a 2 piece suit.

I imagine sloths and gorillas would evolve forelimbs like that if they reached sauropod level mass.

Great timing! I am currently making my way through Dinosaurs Without Bones, all about trace fossils. Highly recommend. This video is a great compliment .

I like these vids more cause there's no fuzz in the background Ben. Thanks for this entry. Appreciated.

Why do I watch?: 1. Well made and fascinating science topics; 2. Ben is adorable.

Good work. Why no discussion about tongues of Sauropods? The teeth of the Apatosaurus, for example, are good for clipping, but NOT chewing. SO, I think the Apatosaurus had a long tongue, like a giraffe, and used it to grab foliage, pull it into the mouth, clip it off, and swallow it whole, letting gastroliths to process it. Have yet to see a drawing of a Sauropod with prehensile tongues to feed. I think they are pretty obvious, and must have existed.

This is the KZfaq content I need. I would have said elephant feet.

Sauropod feet are that kind of thing where once you know about them 90% of sauropod reconstructions are ruined for you

I knew it, the guy in the studio is a fake. This is the real host.

These videos are fantastic, thank you so much for making them.

The arc makes sense because the arc would be easier to extract from mud unlike a cylindrical shape would be stuck due to suction. That's how cows get stuck in mud. Supporting the weight is one thing but surface area is important to distribute the weight at the point of contact.

You're right these creatures get weirder and weirder and less familiar and more complicated all the time.

Wow! Great video! I wanted to be a paleontologist since the original Jurassic Park came out when I was 6 (but life happens), and didn't know about these strange digits. If I make any 3D models of sauropods, this information is invaluable, as accuracy is a pet peeve of mine.

Sauropods also have a longer evolutionary history than the large pachyderms, like elephants and mammoths. I would say that it would have to do with what the ground was like under the animal. With much higher heat and humidity, the soil would be muddier. This is a big problem for extremely large animals. Heck, I'm a big guy and I won't even walk through muddy grass anymore for fear of sinking in. Likewise, elephants are often seen being stuck in mud because of the shape of their feet. It's hard for enough air to get around the foot to raise it up. Their strength helps considerably, but they aren't getting stuck all of the time. Sauropods would be facing this issue constantly and with even more body mass. My explanation for the claws. "Because you never don't need a claw for at least something." It provided enough of an advantage to be passed down in the genes. I'd like to think it has to do with gripping and pushing, like a thumb. Rearing up onto tree trunks, mounting a mate, digging a spot for your eggs, when are claws not useful? I'd like to see what the difference is in claw sizes between the young and old sauropods.

5:09 That sounds like calluses, do we have any way of knowing if Dinosaurs could get them?

You make a good argument for every reconstruction in ay medium to have a date when it was created, Ben. Wonderful video with plenty of food for thought. More remains to learn!

When you clean the hoofs of a horse you use a very sharp and hard metal tool. You have to, something with the shape of the hoof makes stuff really stick. The front claw looks like that typ of tool.

The curve goes something like this 1: Dinosaurs were nothing like Birds! They were scaly and scary! 2: Dinosaurs were giant Birds! They were fluffy and just as cute as modern Birds! 3: Dinosaurs were nothing like Birds. They were weird fucking abominations with scales, feathers, thorns and all kinds a shit none of you could even imagine. Similarly zooligy goes: 1. Humans are decendants of apes. 2. The human liniage branched off long befor apes as we know them were a thing. 3. What the fuck is a shark even?

That Dromaesaurid Raptor in the Thumbnail having a *terrible* day! So sauropods feet are efficient for defense and *stumping* predators

I wonder if the soft tissue described helped in gripping some surfaces, last thing you want is your leg sliding out from when shifting weight to it

Thank you for explaining this on my favorite type of Dinosaur

Incredible depth of research here! Thank you for explaining it in an understandable and fun way

Well done, as always. You clearly love the topic.

cursed idea: what if sauropods were actually murderous psychopaths like today's hippopotamuses

This was an incredible interesting video, thanks! There are so many videos repeating the same well known information again and again, but here you dealt with an interesting detail which is almost obscure although the particular dinosaurs are so widely known. Thanks again for this great video idea - I hope that many similar vids will follow. 💋

Legend has it this guy can’t blink

I must say I generally dislike seeing the person behind the voice, but you are engaging and very attractive, so it was a pleasant surprise for a long time subscriber. Thank you always for the thorough yet concise information on new findings and humility to offer multiple ideas and to be able to acknowledge how much we don't know and yet are eager to learn. Many thanks

How do you not have more subscribers? Great stuff.

Dealing with dinosaurs for whole my life, only now I pay attention to the shape of sauropods forelimbs. And I'm absolutely shocked. What? It is wierdest thing ever. It is perfect!

Loved the video thank you. If you happen to take request, I would like to see some content on Paleomycology. Prototaxities is commonly covered but it's rare to see in depth discussions that go deeper than that particular organism on the topic.

Great video! Hope all the artists in the field take notes :)

wow this was really informative and enjoyable, I’m definitely subscribed 👍🏻

I really like your enthusiasm, sophisticated and intelligent way of speaking. I really enjoy your videos, and I see that you are working on your presentation skills. Keep it up!

Wow, some of those toes look like they've been wearing high heels for too long, but it's mostly weight gain! The advancements in all sciences has been astonishing in the past 40 years. What drawings of dinosaurs looked like when I was a kid versus what I see today is usually a dramatic improvement in realistic quality from how they stayed warm, hid from predators or prey, possible mating signals through color and sound (movement is nearly impossible to guess). So much learned in such a short amount of time compared to previous decades!

This was an awesome video. Sauropod feet are weird, and this is the first video I see that explains them in a way that is understandable to a layman. It reminds me of an equally awesome video I saw recently explaining just how weird horsehoof anatomy really is.

I'm really glad you've made a video about feet. I've always been curious, most art of dinosaurs gives them rhino or elephant feet

This is a great video! Very informative :) well done

Ben, I think this is one of my favourite videos.

Wow, that’s amazing! This channel is so cool, love it 💗