Why Did These Ancient Gophers Have Horns?

PBS Member Stations rely on viewers like you. To support your local station, go to http://to.pbs.org/DonateEons ↓ More info below ↓ These odd rodents belong to a genus known as Ceratogaulus, but they’re more commonly called horned gophers, because, you guessed it, they had horns. And it turns out the horns probably had a purpose - one that rodents would likely benefit from today. Samantha Hopkins’ 2005 paper on Ceratogaulus with figures featured in this episode (Thanks, Samantha!): https://royalsocietypublishing.org/do... Thanks to Ceri Thomas (https://nixillustration.com), Lucas Lima (https://252mya.com/gallery/lucas-lima), R. Bruce Horsfall, and Roman Uchytel for allowing us to use their wonderful paleoart in this episode. Produced in collaboration with PBS Digital Studios:    / pbsdigitalstudios   Super special thanks to the following Patreon patrons for helping make Eons possible: Matt D, Yu Mei, Colleen Troussel, Dan Ritter, Ian Greenblatt, Drew Hart, Amanda Straw, Stephanie TanMinyuan Li, Olesya Mikulskaya, Robert Noah, Matt Parker, Heathe Kyle Yeakley, Jerrit Erickson, Jack Arbuckle, David Sewall, Anton Bryl, Missy Elliott Smith, Zachary Spencer, Stefan Weber, Andrey, Ilya Murashov, Larry Wilson, Merri Snaidman, Gabriel Cortez, Marcus Lejon, Robert Arévalo, Todd Dittman, Esmeralda Rupp-Spangle, Betsy Radley, Anthony Callaghan, Laura Sanborn, PS, Philip Slingerland, John Vanek, Eric Vonk, Henrik Peteri, Jon Monteiro, James Bording, Miles Chaston, Michael McClellan, Jeff Graham, Maria Humphrey, Daisuke Goto, Hubert Rady, Gregory Kintz, Tyson, Chandler Bass, Joao Ascensao, Tsee Lee, Robert Hill. If you'd like to support the channel, head over to   / eons   and pledge for some cool rewards! Want to follow Eons elsewhere on the internet? Facebook -   / eonsshow   Twitter -   / eonsshow   Instagram -   / eonsshow   References: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-...