@matthewtheobald1231
So basically if I never have kids, I'll be the first failure of my entire ancestral lineage spanning back nearly 4 billion years....No pressure xD
@garrethbayethe2149
mistake at 0:07 ; should be "You are the living Descendant" not "Living Ancestor"!
@prototropo
At 2:27, we are NOT related to the first reptiles! The ancestors of mammals were synapsids, and the ancestors of reptiles were sauropsids. Those two lineages branched after some amphibian became an amniote, who laid hard, dry-shelled eggs. So we, as synapsid descendants, share a common amniotic ancestor with reptiles, the sauropsid descendants, but after that synaps/saurops divergence, we were utterly independent from reptile evolution!
@dariusduesentrieb
so spongebob was the great-great-...-great-great-great-...-great-great-grandfather of us all?!
@domainofscience
A counter thought to this video is the Anthropic Principle, where the only reason you can appreciate that you are the end of a chain of life is because you are one of the alive ones. All the creatures that don't exist cannot contemplate their non-existence. I like the Anthropic Principle but thought that it might undermine the 'mind blowing' part of this video but I don't think it does because even though it is true, it is not scientifically useful. Because we know a lot about our evolutionary history we can look at it and see all of the places where the path to humanity was nearly wiped out, or where seemingly improbable events happened like the formation of the first complex cells or evolving multicellularity. So I think our evolutionary journey is still incredible despite it having to exist for me to appreciate it.
@warren286
The real crazy part is that life somehow formed from inert elements basically because carbon acts like glue.
@earthlingi72
Great Sketch ! whats even more amazing is that in the Womb before birth, you go THROUGH some of those earlier life forms shapes and forms before finally reaching to be a human baby. Yes, you grow a tail, loose it, grow hair like a wild animal and loose it etc. etc. blows my mind :face-fuchsia-wide-eyes:
@TheHalawaniTube
So.. one of my ancestors was a sponge...
@evanzhao2865
I was expecting at least a few millions of views. This channel is just too great of an opportunity to be missed by anyone.
@eryntodd
Wanted to watch this video for educational purposes… but this honestly made me feel so much more grateful for my life and to stop taking all the other lucky humans I meet/live here for granted.. as we are all very lucky to be alive.
@ScienceClic
Great video ! I can only imagine the amount of work put in to draw all the animals, impressive ! It may have been interesting to stretch the picture to scale, maybe for a future video ?
@jonathanclark5240
I'm so glad you mentioned the biodiversity of Earth, that this is every living being's story, and that we should do what we can to preserve the species that we haven't already driven to extinction. If anything on Earth is sacred, it's these unbroken chains of life.
@slothinessless
ancient Cyanobacteria are definitely NOT our ancestors. they are on a separate photosynthetic strand of prokaryotes. neither are ancient Cnidarians. regarding ancient sponges we don't know yet
@sweatyeti
Algo brought me here. I hope this video gets more views -- it's such a beautiful concept and well-narrated =)
@ryankirby5295
Just want to say that I watched a Ted talk you did awhile back and you mentioned you made YouTube videos so I looked you up and I have watched so many of these. They are absolutely fantastic. I love the animations and the way you neatly explain topics that are fundamental to science. I am an astrophysics major in college and often find myself wondering about recent discoveries (like the gravitational waves) and I find you explain these things in such an immaculate way. So thank you.
@MrFossil367ab45gfyth
Basically, all life from the tiniest microbes to the biggest whales to the tallest trees are related. All life on Earth has the 4-base pairs in their DNA, linking all life to one common ancestor that existed in the Earth's early oceans. So basically, we're all one big happy family if you think about it! MIND BLOWN
@desiderata8811
What a great explanation. I’ve been reading about this subject for many years, and this vid summarizes it in a few minutes. Of course, it’s incomplete and simple. But how can one ask more in such a short time. Subscribed.
@israhassan8123
Wow, this channel is so informative and answers plenty of my complex questions. Great work!
@ScopeofScience
Loved this! Pretty amazing to think that we are just links in an unbroken living chain that stretches back billions of years.
@coolfer2