WEBVTT - How Coelacanths Work 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:04.640 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works 0:00:04.680 --> 0:00:14.120 dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:18.920 Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry, Jerome Roland, just 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.040 the whole the whole House Stuff Works gang here to 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.640 present to you stuff you should know, all three of us. 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:32.000 Are you doing good? Yeah? Yeah, Oh I'm a little caffeinated. 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.840 I should warn you a little bit, like when teeth 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:36.720 are about to just come right out of my face. 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:40.280 That's not good. Uh. You know, we did a video 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:43.199 about Cela Cants one time. Yeah, like was it this 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.400 day in history about when they were discovered. I ran 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:49.239 across it because it smacked is familiar to me, and 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:52.120 you know, the constant fear we have of recording an 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:56.200 entire podcast over uh is sort of always there. Yeah, 0:00:56.200 --> 0:01:00.280 the fear that sometimes comes true. Yeah. So I definitely 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:01.960 went back and looked, and I was like, I new 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:05.039 we did something. Yeah, we were trapped in a shipping container, right. 0:01:05.720 --> 0:01:08.479 I didn't watch it. I didn't either enough to say, 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.959 oh yeah I remember that. Yeah, that really weird, weird 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:14.360 thing we did. But this is really cool. I think 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:18.760 I need to Seela Cants were um, well they're interesting, 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.360 despite what the House Stuff Works article would lead you 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:26.440 to believe. It was. Yeah, it was a little thin, 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.040 was a little bit. It was all right. But luckily 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.560 the rest of the Internet is there for us. Right, 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:38.319 thanks especially to Smithsonian and mental Floss for this one. Right, Yeah, 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:41.440 that mental plus article is kind of neat, actually it was. 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:46.800 So you want to go back to the beginning, actually 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.760 the second beginning. Maybe, Well, I don't know what you're 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.840 talking about now, so just okay, Well we'll go back 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:57.080 to the very beginning. We'll go back to something about 0:01:57.080 --> 0:02:02.240 four million years ago, doing the Devonian period, which is 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.520 a k a. The Rise of the Fish the Age 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:09.280 of the Fish, right, And in this Devonian period, there's 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:12.680 a lot a lot of stuff going on. Things have 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.000 been swimming around for a while on Earth. There's a 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.320 nice atmosphere that's developed. The things in the ocean are 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:21.760 starting to say, oh, what's out there? I want to 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.519 see what's on land. I want to just crawl out 0:02:24.680 --> 0:02:28.919 and see. Yeah, I want to taste clover. So they 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.600 start trying. And during this period there was the progression 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:37.240 from the sea to the land, and one of those 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:41.480 things that was starting to develop legs to get onto 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:46.520 land was called the Ceila cant yeah, which um A 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:51.119 it means hollow spine, which is we'll get to there's 0:02:51.120 --> 0:02:55.080 a reason for that. And B it's spelled c O 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.240 E l A c A n t h, which is uh, 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:02.040 you know, not how you would think it might be 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:06.679 spelled or pronounced rather either one. But it's sela camp. 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:09.280 It is sela can uh. And what it is is 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:13.440 a fish that is um, like you said, been around 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:16.200 for a long long time. It's um kind of funny looking. 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:19.359 And we'll get into all the physical characteristics that make 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:23.799 it unusual uh in a sec. But it is notable, uh, 0:03:24.040 --> 0:03:28.400 mainly for the fact that everyone thought it was gone 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:33.160 forever until it was suddenly discovered. This thing that that 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:37.320 swam with the dinosaurs was discovered a new in the 0:03:37.400 --> 0:03:40.520 nineteen thirties and then again a little bit later on. Yeah, 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:44.080 because it was it pops up for the first time 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.520 around um, four hundred and seven million years ago, I think, 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:51.720 I said, and and then it just drops off eighty 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.080 million years ago. So they said, well, a lot of 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.880 stuff when the way of the dinosaur around the time 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:01.400 the dinosaurs went away. Um, so that's probably what happened 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.440 to the Cela can't, so it was quite a big surprise. 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:09.200 In the nineteen thirties when a trawler um that was 0:04:09.200 --> 0:04:12.560 out fishing, a trawler called the Narine which is keptain 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:17.800 by Hendrik Goossen off the coast of South Africa, came 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:22.200 in and as was Captain Goosen's want, he contacted the 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:25.599 director of the local museum in East London, woman named 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:29.880 Miss Marjorie Courtney Latimer, and she used to come over 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.000 and look at the fish loads this guy would bring 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:35.040 in because they were buddies and he's He gave her 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:36.840 a call like normal and said, I got to load 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:38.720 you want to come look at it? And she was like, 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.040 it's two days before Christmas and his blazing hot out. 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.640 Don't forget where in South Africa at the time, and 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:49.279 she's like, I don't feel like it. But the world 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:54.600 was saved, the world of ich theology was saved this 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:59.600 day because this lady Marjorie Courtney Latimer was so nice 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:02.640 that she decided to go look at the fish anyway, 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.800 just to wish the captain and his crew a merry Christmas. 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:09.279 So she takes a look at this fish and here 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:13.359 is her quote. Uh as she recounted. It wasn't her 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:15.320 quote at the time or quote at the time, it's 0:05:15.360 --> 0:05:20.240 probably a South African expletive, but she said later I 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:23.159 picked away the layers of slime to reveal the most 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.640 beautiful fish I had ever seen. Uh. And of course 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.960 only a fish lover can find this thing truly beautiful, 0:05:30.320 --> 0:05:33.400 because it's kind of ugly. It was five ft long, 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.440 a pale mauve blue with faint flecks of whitish spots 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:41.040 that had an iridescent silver blue green sheen all over. 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:43.479 It was covered in hard scales, and it had four 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:47.320 limb like fins and a strange little puppy dog tail. 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:51.880 Uh not literally, of course. Uh, it was such which 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.039 would be great though actually that's the dog fish that 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:57.280 has that. It was such a beautiful fish, more like 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:59.800 a big China ornament. But I didn't know what it was. 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.080 And um, it was pretty faithful that she was called 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:07.719 in uh to look at this thing, because it ended 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.200 up being one of the most important zoological finds of 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:14.400 you know, history, probably of the twentieth century at least 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:21.440 for sure. Yeah, this woman's curiosity, Um, something in her said, 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:24.000 this is weird, this is unusual, this is this is 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:27.080 something worth looking into. So she took it with her. 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.880 This thing was like five ft long, just under two ms, 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:34.200 about a hundred and how many pounds seven pounds. This 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:39.120 is a significant fish and uh ms, Courtney Latimer talked 0:06:39.240 --> 0:06:41.680 her way into a cab with it. She took a 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:45.040 cab back to the East London Museum with this fish 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:48.960 stuffed in the back seat. And um, she took it 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:52.880 to the taxidermist and had it stuffed. Unfortunately, the taxidermist 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.440 wasn't completely aware of how to preserve a fish for 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.080 identification and throughout the skeleton and the gills, which to 0:07:00.480 --> 0:07:05.120 what you need for for um the idea fish. Apparently, well, 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:09.160 she probably should have said something. Well she she like, 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:13.320 this is no ordinary mount. Yeah, right, she probably should have, 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.440 or maybe she did, and he just ignored her. He's like, 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:20.600 I'm not getta get boss dround by one. So she 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.800 contacts a guy named j. LB. Smith who is an 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:27.640 ich theologist. He's the head of the ichthyology department at 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:32.960 the university in Graham's Town and PhD in chemistry. Um, 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.680 he's a smart guy and he's the local fish expert 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.320 as far as she knows. Yeah, and their their pals, 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:42.360 and so she said, hey, I've got this. Uh, we're 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.840 looking fish. And then Smith his quote was, I told 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:48.600 myself sternly not to be a fool, but there was 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:52.720 something about that sketch uh, and apparently it was it 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:54.600 was sketched. She sent him a sketch of the fish 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.440 to begin with. Uh that seized upon my imagination and 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:00.840 told me that this was something very far beyond the 0:08:00.960 --> 0:08:04.480 usual run of fishes in our seas. Uh. And luckily, 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:08.360 even though the fish was um um, I guess mounted 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:10.800 in a traditional form, which, like you said, takes away. 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.720 It's how you can identify it. She was able to 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:18.040 preserve some of the scales, and somehow from these scales 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.080 he was able to say, this is a Cola Cant 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:23.720 Seela canth. Well that's what he said at first, and 0:08:23.760 --> 0:08:27.560 she was pronounce Cela can't. He's like, oh, apparently he 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.240 said when he saw that scale and I and identified 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:33.079 it positively as a Steela Cant. His quote was, if 0:08:33.080 --> 0:08:35.400 I'd bet a dinosaur in the street, I wouldn't have 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:40.719 been more astonished. I like that guy. A little hyperbole there, 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.000 but I like it so he um, I mean, this 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.520 is seriously, this is like the zoological find of the 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:48.480 century and would be for the next sixties something years. 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:53.760 So he very magnanimously said, you know what, I'm going 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:57.720 to name this thing after you, and he named it 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:04.559 as a new species. Let him marry Chilumny because, um, well, 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:09.280 obviously her name is Courtney Latimer, Courtney hyphen Latimer. And 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.920 it was found in the Chilumna River at the mouth 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.960 of it where it hits the coast off the eastern 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.440 coast of South Africa. So that's a great name. It's 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:23.760 it's perfect. It really puts it in a place in time. Uh. 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:27.079 So they have now discovered this thing. They realized that 0:09:27.440 --> 0:09:29.280 they have a big find on their hands. Um. They 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:33.040 thought this thing had long been extinct by tens of 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:37.880 millions of years. Uh. And so they started to research 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:41.000 and you know, try and learn more about this fish. Yeah, 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.520 which is no ordinary fish. No, but I mean this 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.319 was so this is right, and it was the only 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:53.160 one that had been found for another sixty years. Yeah, 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:55.560 I mean, there's only so much you can find from 0:09:55.600 --> 0:10:00.040 a stuffed fish. But it did prove because it have 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:02.560 been caught alive. It wasn't like they pulled up a 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.040 fossil or a dead fish. It had been alive when 0:10:05.040 --> 0:10:07.320 it was caught. Yeah, I think it was attached to 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:11.599 another fish, like potentially trying to eat it, which is 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:15.360 one of the uh well, not unusual but interesting things 0:10:15.400 --> 0:10:18.720 about the Cela canth is that it's a it eats meat. Well, 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.760 there's a lot of unusual things about the Cela camp um. 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:28.200 So fast forward another sixty years exactly um in Indonesia, 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.520 which is on the other side of the Indian Ocean, 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:34.240 the eastern side of the Indian Ocean. It was actually 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.959 first seen in by a biologist named Mark Erdmann who 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.240 was in Indonesia doing his PhD dissertation, and he saw 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.640 a Cela cant in the market. That's crazy, that's a 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.920 sela can't what's that doing here? So apparently he put 0:10:47.960 --> 0:10:50.480 a bit of a bounty out on it with the locals, 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:55.440 and within a year by they had brought him freshly 0:10:55.559 --> 0:11:00.480 caught one, which is quite a task. Yeah, it's finding 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:05.920 a uh once thought extinct fish. Yeah, it's a big one. Well, 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:07.880 and we'll get to a little bit why. It's even 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:10.840 tougher than you would think to So the one that 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:14.840 Erdman found was brown, right, Yeah, it was a little 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:19.800 bit different color, right, the one like uh Courtney Lattimer described, 0:11:19.960 --> 0:11:22.320 those are known to be like steel blue. This is 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.640 a brown a little smaller than the one that Courtney 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:30.200 Lattimer found. Um. And so eventually when Erdman got his 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:34.000 hands on that one, um, he described it as a 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:38.640 new species. Yeah. I mean, uh, it turns out that 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:41.240 at one point, um, you know, hundreds of millions of 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.120 years ago, there were you know, potentially over a hundred 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:47.040 different varieties of this fish. Uh, and they came in 0:11:47.080 --> 0:11:50.760 all shapes and sizes. Um. These obviously were pretty big, 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:55.160 but there were some that were smaller and faster. Uh. 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.880 Basically just kind of a wide variety. And as far 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:01.040 as we know, I think are the the only two 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:07.160 known survivors, yes, so far. Yeah, the one that Corney 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:11.160 Latimer founder known as the West Indian Ocean Seila Cant. 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:14.679 Those are the blue ones, and they're typically found off 0:12:14.720 --> 0:12:18.200 of the west, you know, the east coast of Africa, 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:23.160 south of Kenya. I believe, um, down to about the 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:27.360 Cormoros Islands. I think that's they're actually also known as 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:31.320 the Cormoros Islands Celia Cant because there's that's that seems 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:34.200 to be where they inhabit the most or the highest 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:36.960 density of them is Yeah, and UM, some of the 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:41.440 weird some of the weirdos that have well, we assumed 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:44.280 that they've been extinct, but you never know. One of 0:12:44.320 --> 0:12:48.040 them was toothless, uh and over ten feet long. That 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:52.120 was the megalo se La canthus very appropriately, Uh, some 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:54.920 of them said forget you, ocean, I'm gonna go to 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:58.080 the freshwater. So they were actually freshwater Cela cants at 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.600 one time. And like I said, some of them were 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:06.440 slow and ambushed prey somewhere uh, smaller and faster. But 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:10.600 they've pretty much universally all been predators from what I've seen, 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.640 and the two species that are alive today that we 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:18.960 know of UM are aside from that Megalis Cela cant 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:21.400 um tend to be a little bigger than the the 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:27.600 extinct species, which UM I read is a good it's 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.480 a good example of why they shouldn't be called living fossils, 0:13:30.480 --> 0:13:34.000 which is what they're frequently called. Yeah, that's Darwin's term 0:13:34.080 --> 0:13:39.080 for something that UM basically never changed. Uh. And they've 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:42.760 actually studied the genome of the Cela cant and found 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:46.599 that they very much haven't changed and the kind of 0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:49.640 the main reason is they haven't had to. Um, they've 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.840 kind of stayed in the same places. And when you 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.240 stay in the same places and you eat the same stuff, 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.120 then maybe you don't change so much. I read the 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.000 I read the opposite of that, they have changed enough 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.040 that they that they have been evolving in a good 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:06.320 example of that is that they're bigger than they used 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:09.800 to be. Interesting. Yeah, but the two species that are 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:14.080 alive today, Um, they have traced their genomes back and 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:18.560 decided that they've been separated for several million years at least. Yeah, 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.680 this one. Uh, they finally got the full genome and 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.320 they said that, uh, it does indeed match the fish's 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.920 appearance of slower evolution and a journal published in Nature 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:33.840 because they have a slower rate of substitution. Um. Basically, 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:38.760 she the doctor, well, yeah, I guess she has a doctor. 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:42.080 Just sounded weird to say that. The doctor the researcher 0:14:42.120 --> 0:14:44.680 who was also a doctor, who was she said it 0:14:44.720 --> 0:14:46.360 may reflect the fact that they do not need to 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:50.560 evolve quickly because they've lived in relatively unchanging environment whe 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:54.480 there are a few predators. Uh, and they basically haven't 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.040 needed to change over time like other organisms. Well, that 0:14:57.040 --> 0:14:59.720 brings up another thing too, there's a there's a big 0:15:00.360 --> 0:15:02.760 why would they just drop off of the fossil record 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.480 if they've been around this whole time, if they didn't 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.360 just go extinct eighty or sixty five million years ago. 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.280 The um only explanation I've seen is that the places 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:16.280 where the fossils turned up where areas conducive to fossilization, 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:18.000 Like there was a lot of sentiment that could turn 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.480 bone into rock. And then the areas that the living 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.200 uh species live at now are not conducive to that 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:29.040 kind of thing, possibly because they're mostly living around volcanic 0:15:29.120 --> 0:15:33.520 rock that doesn't necessarily produce fossils. You want to take 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:35.280 a break, Yeah, let's take a break and we'll get 0:15:35.280 --> 0:15:59.880 back and talk a little bit about this funny fish. 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:02.360 All right, So we talked a little bit about what 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:07.040 makes the Celo camp such a interesting critter. Um. Can 0:16:07.080 --> 0:16:09.840 a critter be a fish? Yeah? Have you heard of 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:12.000 the cuttle fish? That's a critter? If there ever was 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:16.400 a cuddly critter. Uh So, here are some remarkable things 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:20.880 about the Cela camp um. They can live as deep 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:22.840 I mean, they're deep water dwellers. They can live as 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.960 deep as two thousand or more feet, but generally, uh, 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:32.280 they think the UM I think they generally live about 0:16:32.320 --> 0:16:35.560 five eight hundred feet and what they call the twilight zone, 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:39.720 which is still pretty deep. That Remember our cave episode, Yeah, 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.400 UM that had the same thing. Remember there was like 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:45.880 organisms that live in the dark, organisms that live in 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:48.800 the twilight zone, and organisms that live in the lighted zone. Yeah, 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:51.160 these guys live in that threshold between light and dark 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:56.560 in the ocean. And they um apparently are nocturnal hunters. Yeah, 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.600 they come out at night, Uh, kind of stay hidden. 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:05.320 Most of these habitats are are caves, right that they 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:07.879 tend to stay in. But there's one off of Tasmania 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:10.199 that do not live in caves, and so they have 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:13.440 officially been placed on an endangered list because they don't 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:18.320 have the protection from bycatch that these other cave dwellers have. 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:24.600 That makes sense, Yeah, so they the average day in 0:17:24.680 --> 0:17:26.960 the life of a cila can't at least the cave 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:31.520 dwelling UM species. They they'll you know, the during the daytime, 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:33.240 they're hanging out in a cave. They'll hang out in 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:37.000 a cave with I've seen between up the twelve to sixteen. 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:41.600 Other Ceila cants have coffee. Yeah, maybe just talk, you know, 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:45.560 talk about their night and then as nightfalls, they'll leave 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:48.359 their caves and they'll they'll go hunting. And like you said, 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:53.240 their um carnivorous predators. Um, they do that passive by 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.240 catch thing for the most part right where they let 0:17:56.240 --> 0:18:02.240 the the current bring the food to them. But they 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.760 just basically hang out and wait for a cuttle fish. 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:10.920 It's one thing. They eat squids, other cephalopods, some fishes, 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:14.520 but they seem to not um show aggression towards one 0:18:14.520 --> 0:18:18.320 another from what I understand. Yeah, and um, while they 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.679 are passive hunters, they do have an unusual feature which is, 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:24.400 like we said, one of many. But they have what's 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.240 called a rostral organ, which just means it's in the 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.879 nasal region and their snout uh, and it's filled with 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:35.720 a jellylike substance that they think uh. And they think 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:37.239 most of this stuff. I mean, they've done a lot 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.840 of good studying, but for something so rare, you can't 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:42.119 you know, be super sure. But they think that it 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:48.280 detects low level electrical signals and frequencies from prey. Yeah, 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.600 like a shark or array. Yeah, it's an electrosensory organ 0:18:51.680 --> 0:18:55.320 where when living tissue contacts water, it can make an 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.159 electrical impulse that can be picked up. Yeah, and this 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:03.359 cool mental floss articles at eleven um eleven things about 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.119 the sea. Look ant, I can't remember how it was put, 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:13.200 but just eleven interesting features, eleven fishy facts. Unfortunately that's 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:16.879 why I forgot it, uh title aside, it's an interesting article. 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:20.600 And um. One of the things that they don't know 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:21.919 why they do, and I have a feeling it has 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:24.760 to do with that electrical frequency, is they will swim 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.680 nose down, um for up to two full minutes, which 0:19:28.720 --> 0:19:31.280 is weird for a fish. It just kind of hovering 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:35.560 in place, headstanding, right, Yeah, and I guess I mean 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:39.959 if they have that nasal uh bag of a jelly 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:42.399 that helps them locate fish, I would imagine that's what 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.639 they're doing there, right. I imagine it like tonto, like 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:49.960 holding a railroad track, you know. Yeah, I think it's 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:55.560 the same thing basically. So um, when they catch their prey, 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.440 they eat them, and they can eat stuff that's way 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:02.280 bigger than them because I again, which is this is 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:06.280 um unique to see the cants among living things They 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.960 have a hinge in their cranium that allows basically their 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:13.000 head is convertible. The top of their skull can retract, 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:16.560 allowing their mouth to open really wide, so they can 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:20.280 eat a large, large cuttle fish. Yeah. And I think 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:24.000 the that feature also allows it to uh, their mouth 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:28.200 to close with like much greater force with extreme prejudice. Yeah, 0:20:28.240 --> 0:20:33.960 like when it's unhinged um emotionally and physically, it can 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:37.760 really close that mouth, uh, super hard. They hate themselves 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.680 for eating cuttle so I just can't stop. So those 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:44.960 are just a couple of the features. Another is um 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.600 and we mentioned earlier that the name literally translates into 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.040 hollow spine. Uh. This is because they have what's called 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:56.639 a noo chord, which is a hollow pressurized tube filled 0:20:56.640 --> 0:21:01.719 with oil where a lot of fish start this way 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:04.399 and then they'll eventually get a spine. But this doesn't 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.639 go away, right, And not just fish vertebrates apparently, um, 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:09.600 there's a lot of mammals that go through this, I 0:21:09.640 --> 0:21:13.560 think possibly even humans. In the embryo and the sela 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:15.680 cancer says, I'm good with the noto coorse, I'm gonna 0:21:15.720 --> 0:21:18.679 stick here, I'm gonna stop here, which is strange. It 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:20.879 is strange. You want to hear some more stranges. I 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:23.440 could do this all day. Well, it's a strange fish. 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:28.840 Cela canth um. We don't quite understand how they reproduce, 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:34.080 and the reason why is because males don't seem to 0:21:34.119 --> 0:21:38.400 have any sex parts. They don't have junk. They think 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:43.440 possibly males grow it when they need it, but it's otherwise, 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:47.560 it's it's not around to growers. They're not showers right exctly, 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:51.679 that's exactly right. So we have no idea how they reproduce, 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.240 but we know that the um the mode of reproduction 0:21:55.359 --> 0:22:01.159 is called uh ovo viviparity, which is how for the 0:22:01.200 --> 0:22:04.960 eggs that the female has get fertilized. Once they're fertilized, 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:09.520 they just state or the eggs developed in the female, 0:22:10.040 --> 0:22:15.119 and then they hatch in the female, and then the 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:18.879 live fishes continue to just date. Oh and like the 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:22.840 whole period last like three years before they're born. So 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:26.879 they go from egg to being hatched to being born 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:31.760 within a three year period. And so apparently this does 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.280 not make the mom Cela can't very happy, and sometimes 0:22:35.320 --> 0:22:39.280 she will try to eat her newborn pups. So supposedly 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:44.000 Cela can't pups, that's what they're called. Can dive really deep, 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:46.640 very quickly the moment they're born to get away from mom, 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:49.879 to get away from their mom, who's like three years 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:56.000 three years paging Dr Freud. Yeah, uh yeah, I think 0:22:56.040 --> 0:23:00.280 sharks maybe the only other uh fish that give the 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:06.119 live little ones? Is that right? I mean most fish 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:09.840 lay eggs, right, so that it's definitely unusual. Yeah, it's 0:23:10.000 --> 0:23:14.080 it may not be new unique. Um. But the other 0:23:14.119 --> 0:23:16.639 thing about their their sexy time is there's also a 0:23:16.720 --> 0:23:25.200 theory that, um, they are monogamousts. In a German team. Um, 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:29.000 they had a couple of corpses of too pregnant. Um. 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:33.320 I believe that the African version, yeah, the Ladimir chlumni 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:36.760 and uh because what was I remember the other one? 0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:41.400 It was Ladimir something else. For the Indonesian version, we'll 0:23:41.440 --> 0:23:44.760 just go with that for now. I was practicing pronouncing 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:50.720 it Latimer menadoensis. Okay, wow, thanks. Uh. So they analyze 0:23:50.720 --> 0:23:53.960 these two pregnant ladies, unfortunately that we're no longer with us, 0:23:54.480 --> 0:23:58.160 and they found out that they had like most definitely 0:23:58.240 --> 0:24:02.560 had a single father, which they said was unusual because 0:24:02.600 --> 0:24:07.240 one of them had twenty six little baby pups inside 0:24:07.280 --> 0:24:10.760 of her, right, and they um, they thought at first, well, 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:15.000 maybe it's because the Cela cant is so rare that 0:24:15.040 --> 0:24:17.920 the female wouldn't have opportunity to mate with more than 0:24:17.960 --> 0:24:20.760 one male. And they said, well wait a minute, well no, 0:24:20.920 --> 0:24:23.200 not necessarily, once they found out that they stayed to 0:24:23.280 --> 0:24:25.760 hang out together. Yeah, in caves all day long. What 0:24:25.800 --> 0:24:29.919 else are you gonna do? Once general hospitals over just 0:24:29.960 --> 0:24:32.160 looking around and everybody like, whoa, what do you want 0:24:32.160 --> 0:24:35.119 to do? Yeah, that's a good point. All right, Well 0:24:35.200 --> 0:24:39.080 let's uh ponder that and take another break, and uh 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:42.200 we'll finish up with even more interesting things about the 0:24:42.240 --> 0:25:07.879 ceila cant. Yeah, alright, so these guys have live babies. 0:25:08.880 --> 0:25:12.520 They might mate with a single mate. Good day. They 0:25:12.560 --> 0:25:16.720 have they can unhinge their jaw to eat more. They 0:25:16.760 --> 0:25:22.359 have a jelly filled thing in there, nostra that the 0:25:22.760 --> 0:25:27.080