Prática de Shadowing: What If the Titanoboa Never Stopped Evolving for 55 Million Years? - Aprenda a falar inglês com vídeo

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This is the Titanoboa, one of the largest and deadliest snakes to ever exist.
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It went extinct 55 million years ago.
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But what if that never happened?
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What if the Titanoboa just kept evolving and was alive today?
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What special traits would this deadly creature have?
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And how big could it get?
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This is What If?
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And here's what would happen if the Titanoboa never stopped evolving.
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Okay, before we look at the modern-day Titanoboa, we need to go back.
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60 million years ago, the Titanoboa lived in the tropical waters of South America, arriving on the scene after the dinosaurs went extinct.
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It was a major predator of its time.
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This snake was unimaginably large.
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It had a girth of about one meter.
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That means if it were slithering on the ground toward you, it would come up to your waist.
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It was 14 to 15 meters long and it weighed over 1,000 kilograms.
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Luckily the Titanoboa wasn't venomous, but don't let that trick you into believing it was safe.
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It had a different way of killing its victims, by squeezing the life out of them.
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Literally.
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By wrapping itself around your body, or squeezing your windpipe, and then swallowing you whole.
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And if you tried to slip out, you'd be met with rows of sharp little teeth that would dig into you.
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But you could see this creature coming, right?
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No, not a chance.
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The Titanoboa was the perfect color.
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A color that allowed it to camouflage itself in its swampy environment.
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it would sit and wait for the perfect moment to strike.
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It feasted mainly on fish, turtles and crocodiles.
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So if the Titanoboa was so dominant, what finally made it go extinct?
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Well, it had to do with a massive change in climate.
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But to understand this, let's first dive into what made the Titanoboa such a dominant creature, and then how it suddenly went extinct.
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Paleocene, 66 million years ago to 56 million years ago.
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Titanoboas emerged after the apex predator niche was left empty by the extinction of the dinosaurs.
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They thrived in hot and humid environments.
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Lucky for them, that's what Earth happened to be like 60 million years ago.
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The average temperature was around 24-25 degrees Celsius.
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We love that temperature in the summer, but imagine if it were that way the whole year.
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Instead of ice caps, the poles were covered with forests.
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And instead of polar bears, there were alligators roaming around.
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Just like today, a planet even a few degrees hotter is very unpleasant for human beings.
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So it's a good thing we weren't around at that time.
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But there's a set of animals that thrive in the heat.
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Cold-blooded ones.
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Our Titanoboa was cold-blooded, so it loved warm weather.
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Unlike warm-blooded creatures, cold-blooded animals aren't able to regulate their own body temperature.
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They use heat from the environment to warm up their bodies and kick their metabolism into a higher gear.
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So a warmer Earth was perfect for the Titanoboa.
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It had a supply of external energy to keep its body warm, hunt without mercy, and become one of the largest predators ever.
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But then the Titanoboa went extinct.
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Why?
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Well, a lot of changes were happening at this time.
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The Earth experienced two very different climate shifts.
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First it became very hot, and then it cooled down.
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With our current evidence, it's not clear if the Titanoboa became extinct during the heat spike or during the cooling phase.
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So let's look at each change and try and figure out what might have happened.
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The heat spike event, 56 million years ago.
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It was 56 million years ago that Earth suddenly got super hot.
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The official name for this heat spike is the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM for short.
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Massive amounts of carbon dioxide entered the atmosphere, raising the temperature by up to 8 degrees Celsius.
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The seas became really hot.
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In the tropics, it was like a warm bathtub with temperatures around 38 degrees Celsius.
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was a mass extinction of creatures in the deep sea.
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In particular, many single-celled creatures called thorums died out.
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For the Titanoboa, this may have resulted in two different outcomes.
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It's possible that this giant snake thrived in hot water and became larger.
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Even if some fish were dying, other reptiles like turtles and crocodiles could have also grown big with the heat
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and became a great food source for the Titanoboa.
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So in this scenario, or Titanoboa just gets bigger and badder during the heat spike.
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But there's another possibility.
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Maybe the Titanoboa went extinct due to the warmer temperatures.
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Because the heat spike was so sudden, oceans absorbing carbon dioxide would have become more acidic.
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Many fish may have died in that acidic warm water, which would have meant fewer fish for the Titanoboa to eat.
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Now, if this were the case, the Titanoboa would have needed to adapt to survive.
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What evolutionary change could have helped it survive this heat spike?
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Well, if the tropical waters were too hot and acidic to live in, moving onto land would have been Titanoboa's best bet.
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Yeah, switching from a mostly pescatarian diet to being a meat eater.
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Now as Earth became warmer, something interesting was happening.
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the waterline, the land was exploding with different types of mammals.
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Camels, horses, pigs, goats, and giraffes all evolved when Earth was a giant sauna.
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So if Titanoboa moved from water to land, it would have found some new foods to keep it going.
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But because of its large size, living on land would have been difficult.
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So our Titanoboa would need a different kind of adaptation to get through this temperature spike.
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The giant snake is going to get some stronger swimming muscles and swim up to the poles.
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Because now, the poles have warmed up so much that they're tropical.
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The ice melted into water, and the polar seas were full of crocodiles.
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The perfect lunch for a hungry titanoboa.
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Eocene and Oleocene, 56 million years ago to 23 million years ago.
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Okay, after 200,000 years, the heat spike was finally over, and temperatures went back to what they were before.
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But another major shift in climate is on the way.
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A cooling.
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Around 50 million years ago, temperatures began dropping in a long-term cooling trend that lasted until the dawn of civilization.
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The once lush forests at the poles are now becoming ice caps.
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This was bad news for the Titanoboa.
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The cooler climate didn't suit this cold-blooded snake.
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It could no longer get the heat it needed from the environment to be able to power itself.
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It's possible that this led to the Titanoboa's extinction about 55 million years ago.
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In order to survive, it would have had to evolve in a different and totally unexpected way.
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In our hypothetical scenario, the Titanoboa becomes warm-blooded.
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Maybe you're thinking, well, can a cold-blooded animal really become warm-blooded?
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How is that even possible?
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Well, it's true that if we look at snakes, we don't see any examples of them being warm-blooded,
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there is another category of cold-blooded creatures that have some warm-blooded exceptions.
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Fish.
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While the majority of fish are cold-blooded, about 0.1% are partially or fully warm-blooded.
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For instance, the moonfish is warm-blooded.
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Bluefin tuna, white sharks, and salmon sharks are kind of both.
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They use a special mechanism to raise their body temperature called vascular countercurrent heat exchange.
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Let me show you how it works.
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Let's use a shark as an example.
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The muscles they use to swim generate heat, which heats blood in the veins.
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The arteries bring cold oxygenated blood from the gills to the shark's muscles and organs.
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This cold blood picks up the heat from blood in the veins, which then raises the shark's internal temperature.
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But in the Titanoboas case, there are no gills involved.
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It breathes in through its nostrils and has lungs to supply it with oxygen.
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But we can make it warm-blooded like the shark by having cold blood pumped in through the arteries
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which then pick up the heat from the warm blood in the veins.
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This single evolutionary transformation would allow the Titanoboa to survive the mass cooling.
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Let's see what happens next.
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Miocene.
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23 million years ago to 5 million years ago.
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During the Miocene epoch that followed, Earth began to warm a little, followed again by a period of cooling.
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The climate became drier, and vegetation was more coarse.
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Rhinos were dominant in North America.
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Many species of horses evolved, as did a variety of camels.
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Also a saber-toothed cat-like creature called the Nimravid roamed around.
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Could the Titanoboa have adapted in new and different ways to spawn a line of desert titanoboas?
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Yeah, I know I said that living on land would be tough for such a massive creature, but maybe there's an evolutionary path to make this possible.
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To camouflage in the desert, it would need to adapt a new color scheme, a light sandy color.
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And its next most important adaptation?
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Strong muscles to burrow into desert soil and live underground during the day, both to to conserve energy and to hunt under the cover of darkness.
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To protect against water loss through the skin, the Titanoboa would take a lesson from the Spadefoot Toad.
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This toad secretes a semi-permeable membrane that makes its skin thick, locking in moisture.
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Our desert Titanoboa would branch out and have a new diet of birds and mammals.
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Many desert animals are too small to make a meal, so Titanoboa would lie in wait for a herd of camels, slither out of its burrow and make a killing.
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Or it might go months without food.
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So the evolutionary path of Titanoboas could lead to two subspecies.
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The first one is shark-like, swimming far and wide across the ocean, able to preserve its body heat through adaptations that make it warm-blooded.
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The second is also warm-blooded, but lives in burrows deep in the desert, like the sandworms from Dune.
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They emerge from the burrows with lightning speed, only to strike, eat, and then retreat back underground.
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These 21st century titanoboas would be as long as 23 meters and about 1.2 meters wide.
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Imagine going for a swim in the ocean and running into one of those.
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You'd have just enough time for one last breath.
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6,000 years ago to today.
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This brings us to the question of how modern-day humans might interact with these magnificent and terrifying creatures.
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Before the start of modern hunting, Titanoboas would have been legendary, frightening sea creatures that terrified humans.
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Our ancestors would probably be scared of going in the ocean. Who knows?
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Any swim could be your last if you encountered a Titanoboa.
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The only good news would have been that these enormous creatures would probably have little interest in eating you.
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Because humans would provide little sustenance, they'd rather catch a large fish or crocodile.
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That would be much more satisfying.
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Now, as humans developed better weapons, the relationship would have changed.
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There's evidence of humans hunting whales as far back as 6000 BCE.
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If the Titanoboa was still around, it may have been a target of fishermen thousands of years ago.
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Maybe these snakes would become part of our diet.
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If their meat was tasty, who knows?
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Maybe humans would have hunted them to near extinction by now.
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In today's world, it'd be a lot like the occasional shark attack.
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We'd probably hear about rare titanoboa attacks on humans who swam too far out into the ocean.
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In the desert, nomadic tribes would probably fear the random, unpredictable attacks of the desert titanoboa.
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Camels would have evolved to be super sensitive to those giant snakes underground movements.
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Maybe they'd warn humans when they sensed activity underground.
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With infrared technology, we'd be able to detect the heat signature of titanoboas in their underground burrows.
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Future.
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But in today's fast-changing world, something new and interesting would be happening.
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Human activity has reversed the cooling trend.
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With global warming, temperatures are becoming attractive for reptiles again.
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Our newly evolved titanoboas have a warm-blooded inner architecture that has helped them survive the cooling of prior epochs, but as the Earth heats again,
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the titanoboa would once again lean on the environment for heat rather than using its muscular interactivity.
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Conditions would be ripe for the titanoboa to hunt even more effectively and grow bigger.
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As sea levels rise in future years, our coastal cities will be flooded and destroyed.
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The warm weather will help new generations of Titanoboa thrive.
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But the traditional habitats of the Titanoboa are currently being destroyed.
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The lush tropical swamplands and forests near tropical waters are being wiped out by logging and commercial activity.
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The growing acidification of the waters will kill the marine life that the Titanoboa feeds on.
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This would prove to be the biggest challenge for the creature, the destruction of its food supply.
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But there is one prey left for the Titanoboa.
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They would have to eat several to make a meal of them, but there's lots around.
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You guessed it, I'm talking about us.
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Maybe we'd become the target of the new ferocious Titanoboa.
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Watch out the next time a coastal city floods.
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Or maybe you should watch out for another giant creature, the Megalodon.
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Those aren't still around, are they?
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Oh, that sounds like a story for another What If.

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Vocabulário e dicas de fala para esta lição

Esta aula de conversação de nível B2 usa o vídeo “What If the Titanoboa Never Stopped Evolving for 55 Million Years?”. As palavras que mais se repetem: titanoboa, heat, warm, blooded, creature. Este vídeo tem 181 frases e 2237 palavras para praticar shadowing. A fala dura 15:15. O falante mantém um ritmo estável de cerca de 147 palavras por minuto, confortável para o shadowing. Apenas 77% das palavras estão entre as 3.000 mais comuns do inglês, por isso o vocabulário é exigente.

Vocabulário principal deste vídeo

As 15 palavras mais avançadas do vídeo, com pronúncia e significado:

PalavraPronúnciaSignificado
spike substantivo/spaɪk/espinho, cravo
extinct adjetivo/ɪkˈstɪŋkt/apagado, extinguido
evolve verbo/ɪˈvɑlv/desenvolver, elaborar
burrow substantivo/ˈbʌɹoʊ/túnel, toca
tropical adjetivo/ˈtɹɑ.pɪ.kəl/tropical
crocodile substantivo/ˈkɹɑkədaɪl/crocodilo
camel substantivo/ˈkæm(ə)l/camelo, camela
thrive verbo/θɹajv/prosperar, desenvolver-se
extinction substantivo/ɪkˈstɪŋkʃən/extinção
evolutionary adjetivo/ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/evolutivo
acidic adjetivo/əˈsɪd.ɪk/ácido
predator substantivo/ˈpɹɛd.ə.tɚ/predador
vein substantivo/veɪn/veia
adapt verbo/əˈdæpt/adaptar
meter substantivo/ˈmitəɹ/contador

Phrasal verbs que você vai ouvir

PalavraPronúnciaSignificado
pick up verbopegar
warm up verbo/ˌwɔː(ɹ)m ˈʌp/aquecer, esquentar
cool down verbo/kuːl ˈdaʊn/esfriar, arrefecer
die out verbodesaparecer
figure out verbodescobrir, deduzir
go back verbovoltar
watch outcuidado!
wipe out verboaniquilar, exterminar

Frases que vale a pena repetir

Frases curtas e completas do vídeo que você pode usar na conversa do dia a dia:

  • Let's use a shark as an example.
  • Let's see what happens next.
  • You'd have just enough time for one last breath.
  • You guessed it, I'm talking about us.
  • Those aren't still around, are they?

Gramática neste vídeo

As estruturas que o falante mais usa, com as palavras exatas do vídeo:

EstruturaNo vídeo
Voz passiva be + particípio passado — o foco está no que acontece, não em quem fazbe met · was left · were covered
Present perfect have/has + particípio passado — uma ação passada que ainda importa agorahave warmed · have adapted · has reversed

Pronúncia para ficar de olho

O falante usa 18 contrações e formas reduzidas, como we'd, aren't, don't. Diga-as na forma curta, do jeito que você ouve.

  • Os sons de “th”: thrive /θɹajv/, bathtub /ˈbæθtʌb/, hypothetical /ˌhaɪpəˈθɛtɪkəl/
  • Os sons de “sh” e “zh”: extinction /ɪkˈstɪŋkʃən/, evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/, camouflage /ˈkæ.məˌflɑːʒ/, acidification /əˌsɪdɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/
  • Palavras longas — acerte a sílaba tônica: evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/, acidification /əˌsɪdɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/, alligator /ˈæl.ɪ.ɡeɪ.tɚ/, hypothetical /ˌhaɪpəˈθɛtɪkəl/

Sons difíceis para falantes de português:

  • Consoante final — sem acrescentar um “i” depois: spike /spaɪk/, extinct /ɪkˈstɪŋkt/, acidic /əˈsɪd.ɪk/, adapt /əˈdæpt/, dioxide /daɪˈɑksaɪd/
  • /l/ final — a língua toca o céu da boca, não vira “u”: tropical /ˈtɹɑ.pɪ.kəl/, crocodile /ˈkɹɑkədaɪl/, camel /ˈkæm(ə)l/, mammal /ˈmæməl/, reptile /ˈɹɛp.taɪl/
  • /h/ — um sopro suave, diferente do “r”: humid /ˈhjuːmɪd/, hypothetical /ˌhaɪpəˈθɛtɪkəl/, habitat /ˈhæb.ɪ.tæt/

Como praticar com este vídeo

  1. Ouça o vídeo inteiro uma vez sem falar e anote as palavras que você não conhece.
  2. Faça shadowing frase por frase na velocidade normal, repetindo cada uma até o seu ritmo ficar igual ao do falante.
  3. Grave a sua voz e compare com o original, prestando atenção a palavras como spike, extinct, evolve.

O que é a Técnica de Shadowing?

Shadowing é uma técnica de aprendizado de idiomas com base científica, originalmente desenvolvida para o treinamento de intérpretes profissionais. O método é simples, mas poderoso: você ouve áudio em inglês nativo e repete imediatamente em voz alta — como uma sombra seguindo o falante com 1-2 segundos de atraso. Pesquisas mostram melhora significativa na precisão da pronúncia, entonação, ritmo, sons conectados, compreensão auditiva e fluência na fala.

Técnica de shadowing: leia o guia completo passo a passo →