[Music] ladies and gentle sours meso maniacs and dinosaur dorks welcome to assessing survival the series where we take animals people and fictional creatures and place them in different periods throughout history as well as some places in fiction you guys voted and in today's video we will be placing the killer whale into the Mesozoic if you'd like to be a part of deciding what the next video will be about subscribe and don't forget to keep an eye on the community tab of the channel polls are normally posted a few days after the video is uploaded just like in our previous episodes before we put our subjects into the Mesozoic we have to determine what period and time frame of the Mesozoic will'll be putting our orcas into not only to see where they'll be best suited for the environment but also to see what ecosystem would be the most interesting to speculate on we're going to start with the Triassic period Triassic period really set the stage for aquatic ecosystems for the rest of time animals like osaurus nothosaurus and early Plesiosaurus carved the path for animals that had adapted on land to make their way back into the water 10 motosaurus a predatory iosaur was roughly the same size as an orca and fed on most anything it could but it wasn't really adapted for hunting larger prey like shonisaurus or shastasaurus these animals as adults as far as we know don't have any Predators other than maybe each other in my opinion in terms of the trophic systems orcas would absolutely clean house only real threat comes from tenontosaurus which likely wouldn't even attack orcas once they figure out their pot animals the supercontinent Pangia made it harder for the ocean to be as diverse as it is today also Waters and reefs really only existed around the perimeter of the continent creating more than 16,000 Mi of open desolate ocean like I normally bring up in previous episodes the Triassic was really hot ocean temperatures averaged about 40° C which is hotter than the hottest parts of our oceans like the Persian Gulf and inner Gulf of Mexico which orcas today tend to stay away from however orcas are pretty adaptable and maybe after a generation or two they could become much leaner to compensate for higher temperatures I believe orcas would do too well in the Triassic the ecosystem is pretty much entirely different from their current environment and likely isn't able to support a hyperactive Predator like the killer whale the Jurassic period the Jurassic continues the trend of the development and diversification of marine reptiles in the ocean in the Jurassic we see plesiosaurs and pliosaurs take over the role of apex predators in the oceans over iosaur there is a lot of debate on just how big pliosaurs actually became in the Jurassic most solid estimate we have for the largest pliosaur is pliosaurus funky which is estimated to reach just about 12.5 M or 42 ft at upper estimates when put against an average Orca 23 to 27 ft this really isn't all that impressive especially considering orca's hunt whale is much larger than themselves on a regular basis so despite their size and ferocious appearance many of the top predators of the Jurassic oceans would be easy males for orcas the Jurassic was much more biodiverse and had a more suitable temperature for orcas than the Triassic but honestly I think the Jurassic would be a boring place to put them I think it would just be too easy for them the Cretaceous Period the Cretaceous is the most well documented and as far as we know most diverse aquatic ecosystem of all the Mesozoic it will also be the most challenging for orcas because of the Advent of predators like mosasaurs ocean surface temperatures and the Cretaceous were pretty uniformly averaged around 30 to 35° C though still pretty hot this is much better than the Triassic the Cretaceous also has a lot more areas the Orca can thrive in as opposed to the Triassic if we look at a map of the globe in the Cretaceous it's more or less just like our map but with much higher water levels this means a lot more Coastal Waters and reefs where marine life tends to thrive for these reasons I believe the Cretaceous would be the most interesting and the most familiar era to place them in we'll be taking a breeding population of orcas which I'm estimating to be about eight PODS of 5 to 10 individuals and dispersing them throughout the oceans of the Cretaceous quo this is the first assessing survival and maybe the only one where will actually be handicapping the subject animal our subject orcas will be the smallest known variant of orca whales and that is the offshore orca whale whose maximum length tends to be 22 ft I'll be using five different categories to assess the orc's ability to survive these categories will then be added up for a final assessment score these categories are environment suitability advantages disadvantages food sources and competition as well as a section at the end of the video where we speculate how they might evolve and adapt to their environment going forward so without any further Ado let's get into the categories environment suitability now we mostly went over this but i' like to reiterate that orcas will be perfectly comfortable living in the Cretaceous ocean cure whales inhabit all parts of the ocean excluding very deep open ocean and particularly hot areas orcas that inhabit the polar regions are even known to quote unquote vacation to Tropical regions during the coldest times of the year so moving our orcas to the Cretaceous Period will essentially be like your grandparents in Colorado moving to Florida environment suitability five out of five advantages now orcas have a plethora of advantages for us to go over so this is going to take a minute the First Advantage is their size orcas even on the smaller end are quite large the offshore orcas in the North Pacific are on average 21 ft or 6 1/2 M long and can weigh anywhere between 65 to 12,000 lb or 3 to 5,000 kg this is a lot of weight to push around especially in a group that makes your average pot of orcas around 40 to 50,000 lb of whale even when considering the sizes of all marine life and history this is pretty big orcapod can consist of anywhere between 2 and 15 individual whales in rarer cases pods will consist of almost 200 individuals typically for temporary social interaction mating or seasonal availability of food this is in contrast to the predators of the lake Cretaceous who as far as we know didn't live in any type of social group at all and if they did it wasn't nearly this size another Advantage is their intelligence orcas dolphins and citations in general are without a doubt the most intelligent animals on the planet behind human beings orcas sport the second largest brain in the animal kingdom behind sperm whales oras are known for their complex and coordinated hunting strategies for instance they work together to create waves that knock seals off of ice flows herd fish into to tight balls for more efficient feeding flipping sharks over to knock them out before eating specifically their liver and when hunting larger citations they will often first attack the whale's fins and tail fluke to immobilize the whale they are capable of teaching these things to younger orcas as well as other pots we know this firsthand because there is an increasing number of orcas attacking and disabling boat Rudders meaning they're likely telling all their friends how to do it killer whales in South Africa specifically Target the liver of great white sharks we don't know why they do this but presumably shark liver tastes very good to them orcas also use a sophisticated system of vocalization and echolocation to converse with each other orcas are also very emotionally intelligent they are very tuned into the feelings of their fellow pod members as well as other animals okay that's as much as you're going to get out of me for their intelligence food sources to put it simply everything is on the menu for the killer whale there's no animal in the oceans of the Cretaceous that I don't see orcas being able to take down but let's go over some of these prey items and figure out what might be their prey of choice ammonites Plesiosaurus fish sharks seabirds smaller mosasaurs and sea turtles put it simply orcas will have a field day with sea life of the Cretaceous none of these animals I just mentioned have any chance of fighting back against a pot of orcas just like orcas today I imagine that orcas and the Cretaceous would also have their own preferred prey from pod to pod and individual to individual some pods may prefer to hunt ammonites and sharks While others may prefer going after marine reptiles food sources 4.5 out of five disadvantages now there's a reason I saved disadvantages for after the food sources category this is because orcas have an incredibly high metabolism and appetite your average Orca will eat almost 300 lb of food per day that's hundreds of thousands of calories on a daily basis now the reason I see this as a disadvantage is because we don't know if the Cretaceous ocean can support an appetite of this magnitude as even Predators like mosasaurus likely only needed to eat half as much as a single Orca as they are reptiles and have much slower metabolisms my concern for the orcas and the Cretaceous is that they may very well over hunt and end up inadvertently starving themselves and disrupting the ecosystem another disadvantage they have is maturation in gestation orca whales take on average 17 months to gestate in their mother's womb and reach reproductive maturity anywhere between 8 and 13 years continuing to grow for 25 years females can only give birth to a single calf and will often wait 3 to 5 years before maning again but can wait as much as 10 years mammals in general take much longer than birds and reptiles to grow mosasaurus and Plesiosaurus also gave live birth but likely gave birth to more than one individual they also likely matured much faster disadvantages four out of five now for the competition category there are three large predators that come to mind in the lake Cretaceous oceans the first one is elasmosaurus elasmosaurus is a sizable plesiosaur reaching almost 43 ft at higher estimates but most of this length is of course in its neet this Marine reptile is very well adapted for hunting and eating fish their small unassuming heads are hypothesized to trick their prey into thinking they are much smaller than they really are the neck of an elasmosaurus is a serious weak point and with a bite force on par with that of saltwater crocodiles an orca could easily snap the neck of these animals and instantly kill them though plesiosaurs likely cared for their young and lived in family groups they're just too vulnerable to something like an orca the second animal is cxy Rina coming in at 26 ft this shark is a very formidable predator bigger than our average Orca taking one of these sharks down could be a challenge for an individual Orca but not a pod however there are a number of sharks that tend to live together in groups for safety and ease of feeding though they lack the social cohesion of marine mammals even great whites have recently been observed traveling across the Atlantic in a group which pretty much goes against everything we knew about them previously if kxy rhina lives and travels in groups like modern sharks they could genuinely give orc as a reason for pause do I think if we were to put them in an arena and force them to fight that they would come close to winning against orcas no chances are if orcas wanted to eat a cxy Rina they would isolate it from the larger group and gang up on it to take it down however this is still a dangerous predator and the orcas will have to be careful about how they dispatch them I think our orc whales would sooner go after easier prey than approach a group of these sharks but if the other options are slim The cxy rhina Remains a possible meal and last but certainly not least is mosasaurus hman ey coming in at an average of 42 ft long Hoffman's Mosasaur was the apex predator of the Cretaceous ocean this Ambush Predator dominated its ecosystem by feeding on ammonites fish plesiosaurs and other mosasaurs however when orcus are ratted into the mix this massive reptile May no longer be the top dog orca whales are more than capable of taking down even blue whales with enough pod members and effort even at its higher estimates of 57 ft long mosasaurus simply doesn't have the size and power to deter a pot of orcas though let's not count the reptile out just yet let's go over exactly why Hoffman's Mosasaur was so sucessful in its environment the hunting behavior of this Mosasaur was likely similar to that of modern crocodiles this animal would sit in Darker Waters in The Depths and quickly accelerate up to 30 mph in a sudden burst of speed and catch their prey by surprise they likely couldn't sustain these speeds for very long even if they were warm-blooded reptiles their metabolism weren't as complex as that of orcas maintaining high speeds for more than a few minutes would burn an incredible amount of energy that the mosasaurus just doesn't have a pot of orcas could easily run down entire of these marine reptiles and take them out but like the kxy rhina this is still an incredibly dangerous predator and could very suddenly dispatch an orca in a sudden burst of speed and power mosasaurus had an estimated bite force of around 13,000 to 16,000 lb per square in this is definitely enough to kill an orca pretty quickly orcas have strong bonds with their pod members and once they realize the danger of hunting a Hoffman's Mosasaur I think they would sooner steer clearer of these marine reptiles than risk losing a member of their pod orcas will most assuredly go after younger and smaller mosasaurus but an adult mosasaurus Hoffman ey is not worth the risk compet comptition 4.5 out of 5 final assessment score is 9.2 out of 10 this should come as no surprise orca whales are the epitome of an aquatic Predator no animal is better adapted for dominating the Ocean than these satti but in the Cretaceous they could be too much for their new environment though it's more likely that the animals around them would evolve to compensate for their disruption of the environment let's speculate on how orcas May evolve and change to better balance this new trophic system just for fun speculative Evolution bigger isn't always better orinus Tachi optera the Swift winged Orca or doas for short in just a couple million years leading up to the KT Extinction our original population of orcas has become much smaller to compensate for their extreme appetites allowing them to maintain their lifestyle without decimating the ecosystem they resemble a mix of bottle-nosed dolphins and belugas while maintaining their unique pattern doas no longer hunt such prey like elasmosaurus and mosasaurus but rather they mostly eat ammonites fish and smaller marine reptiles their teeth have become much more blunt and sturdy to allow them to easily crack open the shells of ammonites and mollusk the average DOA comes in at a weight of 1300 lb in a length of 12 ft the intelligence of these animals has remained proportionate to their body size meaning they are just as intelligent if not more an interesting aspect of their behavior as a result of this is the use of tools vas use the shells of other creatures as weapons toys and shovels they use the fatter shells for shoveling through sand often times the fine MCS are just to have fun they use sharper pointier shells like those of the Lites almost like a sword punch for their snout daas will use this against larger Predators like mosasaurus have better chances in an encounter with them but will also use them in encounters with other descendants of orcas which brings us to our next speculative Evolution maybe bigger is better venetus Solus the lone hunting Orca or the Vitor whale for short another way our orcas could evolve to fit a niche more balanced with their ecosystem is forgoing their large pods the Vitor whale has evolved to live a lifestyle that's a mix of sperm whales and their reptilian contemporaries the Mosasaur while females and calves continue to live in pods though in much smaller numbers than orcos b males tend to live mostly solitary Lifestyles the venor whale has become quite a bit larger now that their kills are not shared among pod members these large toothed whales reach lengths of 45 to 50 ft or 14 to 15 m not nearly as big as today's sperm whales or the myosin levaton but still on par with mosasaurs and much larger than orcas these animals prefer hunting large marine reptiles like plesiosaurs and Hoffman's Mosasaur but also eat things like fish and ammonites when they can't find enough food sometimes that even prey on their cousins the dka though this isn't common their once massive Dorsal fins have now slimmed down as a whale of this size with such a massive dorsal fin would be very prone to being rolled over by strong currents we observe this in sperm and blue whales today this fin is likely to become much smaller as the years go on they have also evolved a much larger sonar melon so that they can communicate with other whales and locate prey from a much greater distance much like sperm whales these whales produce a clicking noise that is almost enough to rupture the eard drums of most creatures within a certain distance these whales are very very few and far between often not running into another of their species for hundreds of miles with the Advent of the KT Extinction marine reptiles were all wiped out we don't know exactly why the impact on the surface affected large marine life in the ocean in such a way but our best guess is that the change in the atmosphere also affected the ocean acidifying it to an incredible degree disrupting trophic systems from the bottom up making it much harder for larger animals to survive luckily the descendants of our more dolphin size or cachopa just barely scraped through to the cazic era but now there are so many niches that are wide open and ready to be filled by our orcas this of course will suspend the need for protoc citations to evolve in the first place because paradoxically their descendants have already done it big boots to fill binod dontis Orca the Bine tooth Orca in both the Cretaceous and paleogene there are no large filter or suction feeding animals that we know of there may have been something like a basking or whale shark but nothing like today's baline whales or the large iosaur of the Triassic the descendants of the daas go onto evolve to fill this empty Niche by the end of the EOS scene the first filter feeding descendants of orcas emerged balino dantus Orca or the baline Orca is a filter SL suction feeding whale that has evolved convergently to our modern baline whales though their Bine plates are a bit more primitive and still in the works compared to our bailing whales they have very short Dorsal fins like modern whales long powerful taals for efficient travel as well as longer flippers like that of a humpback whale which they use to defend themselves against predators they weigh an astounding 100,000 pounds and reach a maximum length of 72 ft and no I didn't make it bigger than a blue whale simply because every paleontologist and their dog wants to find the next biggest animal on earth and it's just not going to happen respect big blue baby the Bing Orca of course feeds on Plankton Krill and small fish they have a large vental pouch which they use to suck up as much water and prey as possible and expel the water while retaining the prey items unlike modern whales the Bayan Orca has retained its sonar melon allowing them to have unparalleled echolocation abilities they also have retained their incredible intelligence and still live in large pods they live in PODS of anywhere between three and eight individuals they have impressive emotional intelligence and are in tune with the feelings and needs of their pod members they use their great intelligence in their large bodies to coordinate and push large pockets of krill into each other making feeding much easier for the whole pot with cations arriving onto the scene in the scoic much earlier than in our normal timeline the ecosystem of the ocean is likely to change and evolve in a vastly different way perhaps cations will occupy even more niches than did before or maybe they'll actually end up being less abundant no matter how it goes though I know everyone is going to have a whale of a Time thank you guys for tuning in to this episode of assassin survival if you like the episode be sure to click the like button and leave a comment about what you'd like to see next also don't forget to subscribe and keep an eye on the community tab on the channel or join the Discord and come chat with me and some other folks links for the Discord as well as the patreon are in the description I'll send you guys out with some 3D renderings of the bears from the speculative Evolution section of the last video by josea a very talented member of our Discord see you next [Music] time