When the Poles Were Tropical (Oh, and Crocodiles Lived There)

50 million years ago, Earth's polar regions looked nothing like today. During the Eocene Epoch, Arctic and Antarctic zones were tropical rainforests 🌴 filled with crocodiles 🐊 and early mammals 🐾. No ice caps, sea levels 🌊 70 meters higher, and CO₂ levels over 1000 ppm—this wasn't an anomaly, it was default settings.
Fossils from Ellesmere Island and Antarctica reveal lush biomes where snow now rules. This video explores how Earth’s “map” 🗺️ was once tropical across all latitudes, what triggered this greenhouse world 🔥, and what it tells us about modern climate change. Think of it as the ultimate prehistoric biome shift—before the Ice Age patch dropped