When Rodents Rafted Across the Ocean

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to http://to.pbs.org/DonateEons ↓ More info below ↓ Support us on Patreon! http://patreon.com/eons The best evidence we have suggests that, while Caviomorpha originated in South America, they came from ancestors in Africa, over 40 million years ago. So how did they get there? This episode was written by Genevieve Perdue. Thanks to Ceri Thomas for the Josephoartigasia monesi reconstruction. Check out more of Ceri s paleoart at http://alphynix.tumblr.com and http://nixillustration.com Produced for PBS Digital Studios. Super special thanks to the following Patreon patrons for helping make Eons possible: Katie Fichtner, Aldo Espinosa Zúñiga, Anthony Callaghan, Esmeralda Rupp-Spangle, Gregory Donovan, Ehit Dinesh Agarwal, الخليفي سلطان, Gabriel Cortez, Marcus Lejon, Anel Salas, Robert Arévalo, Robert Hill, Kelby Reid, Todd Dittman, Betsy Radley, PS, Colin Sylvester, Philip Slingerland, John Vanek, Jose Garcia, Noah offitzer, Eric Vonk, Tony Wamsley, Henrik Peteri, Jonathan Wright, Jon Monteiro, James Bording, Brad Nicholls, Miles Chaston, Michael McClellan, Jeff Graham, Maria Humphrey, Nathan Paskett, Connor Jensen, Sapjes, Daisuke Goto, Hubert Rady, Yuntao Zhou, Gregory Kintz, Tyson Cleary, Chandler Bass, Maly Lor, Joao Ascensao, Tsee Lee, Sarah Fritts, Ruben Winter, Ron Harvey Jr, Jacob Gerke, Alex Yan If you d like to support the channel, head over to http://patreon.com/eons and pledge for some cool rewards! Want to follow Eons elsewhere? Twitter - https://twitter.com/eonsshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/eonsshow/ References: https://academic.oup.com/biolinnean/article/121/4/907/3095993 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11692-015-9326-7 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21993503 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/003101829190073Z http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/275/1646/1957 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316684055_Late_middle_Eocene_caviomorph_rodents_from_Contamana_Peruvian_Amazonia https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/evan.1360040605 https://www.nature.com/articles/26886 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0036299 https://books.google.com/books/about/Mammals_of_the_Neotropics_Volume_3.html?id=p2MDAzCeQQoC https://scinapse.io/papers/2167227626 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21238387 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jmor.20495 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/323/5915/732 https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-molecular-clock-and-estimating-species-divergence-41971 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4684-9063-3_11 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2999827 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10423268 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9781444318777 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11476632 Lavocat, R. “La syste´matique des rongeurs hystricomorphes et la de´rive des continents.” Comptes Rendus de l Académie des Sciences Series D 269 (1969). https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4684-3764-5_17 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jeb.12937 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256415173_Patterns_of_diversity_and_adaptation_in_South_American_hystricognath_rodents https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263582456_A_new_and_primitive_species_of_Protophiomys_Rodentia_Hystricognathi_from_the_late_middle_Eocene_of_Djebel_El_Kebar_Central_Tunisia https://www.jstor.org/stable/2401146 Merali, Z., and B.J. Skinner. Visualizing Earth Science (2009). Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/275/1646/1953 https://academic.oup.com/jmammal/article/91/1/11/831625 Mones, A., and J. Ojasti. “Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris.” Mammalian Species 264(1986). https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S161650470800092X Morrison, M.L., Marcot, B.G., and R.W. Mannan. Wildlife-Habitat Relationships: Concepts and Applications, 3rd ed. (2006). Washington, D.C.: Island Press. Nowak, R. M. Walker’s mammals of the world, 5th ed. (1991). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/8/e1600883 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299560709_LARGE-SCALE_RICHNESS_PATTERNS_BIOGEOGRAPHY_AND_ECOLOGICAL_DIVER-_SIFICATION_IN_CAVIOMORPH_RODENTS https://scinapse.io/papers/184792926 Patton, J. L., Pardiñas, U. F. J., and G. D’Elía. Mammals of South America, Vol. 2, Rodents (2015). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16551580 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2599941/ https://www.jstor.org/stable/25654250 Scotese, C.R. “A Continental Drift Flipbook.” The Journal of Geology 112.6 (2004). Simpson, G.G. 1940. “Mammals and land bridges.” Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 30 (1940). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282577627_Evolution_of_the_caviomorph_rodents_a_complete_phylogeny_and_timetree_of_living_genera