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Animals Are Evolving to Survive in the Human World But Often in a Weird Way

2025-09-23 Science & Technology
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33.6k
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Anton Petrov
Anton Petrov
1.6m subscribers

Unintentional Evolution: Humanity's Role in Reshaping Animal Life

Discover how routine human activities are unintentionally forcing rapid genetic adaptations across species, fundamentally altering life on Earth. Learn about the Bio Evolutionary Anthropocene Hypothesis and its startling real-world examples.

Short Summary

  • Wild animal body sizes generally decrease under human pressure (hunting, habitat fragmentation), contrasting sharply with increasing farm animal size.
  • Human impact drives rapid evolution, often causing genetic shifts within decades rather than millennia.
  • Unintentional pressures, like infrastructure development or fishing practices, rewire animal bodies and behaviors at a foundational level. This video explores the Bio Evolutionary Anthropocene Hypothesis, detailing how humans have become a hyper keystone species actively guiding evolution outside of intended agricultural or domestic contexts. We examine numerous case studies demonstrating genetic adaptation in fish, mammals, reptiles, and insects due to urbanization, poaching, and resource management.

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Description

Support this channel on Patreon to help me make this a full time job: https://www.patreon.com/whatdamath (Unreleased videos, extra footage, DMs, no ads) Alternatively, PayPal donations can be sent here: http://paypal.me/whatdamath Get a Wonderful Person Tee: https://teespring.com/stores/whatdamath More cool designs are on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3QFIrFX Hello and welcome! My name is Anton and in this video, we will talk about the bizarre way animals are evolving because of various types of human activity and habitat Links: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13752-019-00324-8 https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.05662 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2024.2443 https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/evolution/corn/ https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2503428122 https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.2216526119 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK219730/ https://www.nwf.org/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2025/Winter/Conservation/Rapid-Evolution https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0271-4 0:00 Weird Japanese crabs and accidental evolution 1:20 Bio Evolutionary Anthropocene Hypothesis 2:50 Artificial selection 3:20 Story of dogs 3:50 Corn 4:30 Farm animals 5:00 Unintentional evolution - forest animals 7:00 Salmon and other fish - genetic changes 8:30 Elephants and ivory 9:20 Lizards in cities 10:05 Foxes and domestication syndrome 11:20 Cultural evolution in animals 12:20 Conclusions and what this means #evolution #human #animals Enjoy and please subscribe Bitcoin/Ethereum to spare? Donate them here to help this channel grow! bc1qnkl3nk0zt7w0xzrgur9pnkcduj7a3xxllcn7d4 or ETH: 0x60f088B10b03115405d313f964BeA93eF0Bd3DbF Thank you to all Patreon supporters of this channel Special thanks also goes to all the wonderful supporters of the channel through YouTube Memberships Credit: Jwanamaker CC BY-SA 3.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bighorn_sheep#/media/File:New_Mexico_Bighorn_Sheep.JPG John Doebley CC BY 2.5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maize#/media/File:Cornselection.jpg RD 77 CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heikegani#/media/File:Heikegani.jpg Thibaud Aronson CC BY-SA 4.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anolis_cristatellus#/media/File:Crested_Anole,_Viejo_San_Juan,_Puerto_Rico_imported_from_iNaturalist_photo_507616086_(cropped).jpg Licenses used: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and relevant Creative Commons licenses

Top Comments (10)

@kristinaplays2924 2025-09-23

Bears in Sweden has doubled the time cubs stay with their mothers in the past ten years due to a rule that hunters can't kill a mama bear that has cubs with her (I read this two years ago I think)

9.8k 225 replies
@paulollerhead 2025-09-23

Ah chickens. We keep making them bigger. At some point we'll end up with T-Rex’s again.

7.6k 152 replies
@mikewilmoth1 2025-09-23

In Arizona, many of the rattle snakes no longer make the rattle sound when people are nearby. The noisy ones are the ones people know about and kill, leaving the quiet ones to survive and procreate.

4.4k 97 replies
@pumpkinpotioncatsnake 2025-09-23

In bigger cities birds evolved not to sing during the day, but during the night. It is due to loud noise from all the cars during the day. They were not able to talk to each other.

4.0k 49 replies
@and-cs 2025-09-24

reminds me of when i saw a coyote walk in front of me, then carefully look both ways before crossing a huge street in chicago

3.7k 53 replies
@chrisgraham2904 2025-09-24

Canada has identified a large population of wolves in northern British Columbia that are becoming known as; Sea Wolves. Wolves were known to take salmon from rivers during the spawning season on some occasions, possibly following the lead of bears in that environment. This group of wolves is now adapting to a mainly fish diet and actually avoiding small mammals such as rabbits, squirrels, foxes..etc. Beyond the rivers during spawning seasons, the wolves are now entering the ocean to fish. They have been observed diving to considerable depths below the surface to hunt fish of all species and have been recorded swimming up to 9 miles in the ocean. There are indications that they are becoming larger with higher muscle mass. Small mammal populations in the region are now increasing.

3.4k 82 replies
@tsbrownie 2025-09-24

There was a moth in England that was originally white, but during the industrial revolution and the release of lots of soot, the moths evolved quickly to dark / black. The white ones stood out against the soot covered buildings, trees, etc. and were easy prey.

2.4k 45 replies
@aurora_selva 2025-09-25

I’m from Rio de Janeiro Brasil. Monkeys. They break into your home and help themselves with whatever they need. They find ways to open your windows. That’s something they’ve learned over the years due to people taking more and more of their habitat. People put bars on their windows, so monkeys started sending baby monkeys to pick up stuff instead. They literally wait for people to leave for work before they break in. You can see them hanging on trees patiently waiting.

1.2k 33 replies
@JefferySaunders-o4j 2025-09-24

Kangaroos and wallabies have and are becoming a lot less panicky. They graze at dusk and dawn and road verges are a perfect place to find grass. But these animals would get slaughtered by panicking and running straight under cars. These days they can be seen grazing on the side of the road mostly calm. The panicky ones don't last long.

1.2k 19 replies
@Slyeyewalker 2025-09-25

One of my favorites is that birds are evolving shorter wings so they’re able to maneuver better around vehicles and in urban environments

545 3 replies

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