Speaker 1: Hey a you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and today we are bringing you
Speaker 2: an episode from the vault. Rob and I are out
Speaker 2: this week, so we've got some classic episodes for you,
Speaker 2: or at least classic from last year. This is Animals
Speaker 2: Throwing Stuff, Part one, the first part of a series
Speaker 2: we did about throwing behavior and non human animals. We
Speaker 2: did eventually end up talking about the emergence of throwing
Speaker 2: as a human behavior as well. This one originally aired
Speaker 2: on January third, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: We hope you.
Speaker 3: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're going to be
Speaker 2: kicking off a series of episodes about examples of throwing
Speaker 2: in non human animals. We may also talk about the
Speaker 2: evolution of throwing in humans as well, but this is
Speaker 2: a subject I recently became interested in, specifically because of
Speaker 2: a paper that was published in November twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: Some of you might have seen science headlines going around
Speaker 2: about this. There was a publication in the Journal plus
Speaker 2: one about octopuses throwing objects, or at least potentially throwing objects.
Speaker 2: Whether or not it should count as debatable, and we'll
Speaker 2: talk about some of the arguments for and against. But
Speaker 2: octopuses at least allegedly throwing objects, potentially deliberately, and potentially
Speaker 2: deliberately aiming those objects at other octopuses, though of course,
Speaker 2: the exact nature of their motivations is somewhat mysterious. It's
Speaker 2: hard to suss out exactly. And I thought it would
Speaker 2: be good to to start off our series by looking
Speaker 2: at this example that first got me interested in this,
Speaker 2: and then maybe we can branch out to other examples
Speaker 2: of throwing in the animal world in subsequent episodes.
Speaker 1: Interesting, I just assumed that your interest in this topic
Speaker 1: was because you had become a father and you were
Speaker 1: already feeling the pull. You already were longing to throw
Speaker 1: ball with your child, which is something that I felt
Speaker 1: when I became a father. I was like, well, I've
Speaker 1: got to get a ball, right, I've got to get
Speaker 1: a mit. I have no other connection to baseball at all,
Speaker 1: or softball or any of these sports, no attachment to them.
Speaker 1: I don't play them or watch them. But there's something
Speaker 1: about throwing that must be done with the child.
Speaker 2: I do like throwing a ball. I think I'm more
Speaker 2: into like a tennis ball in the hand than a baseball.
Speaker 1: But that's a dog thing, that's for dogs. I guess
Speaker 1: that's true.
Speaker 2: Also, No, I'm not talking about with like the scoop,
Speaker 2: I mean the rollerball scoop. I mean tennis ball straight
Speaker 2: in the hand. Okay, all right, but no, that's not
Speaker 2: the reason. And if I were to go with the
Speaker 2: motor activities I've been thinking of more since becoming a father,
Speaker 2: would be the act of knocking things over after they've
Speaker 2: been set up. I think that's an interesting impulse that
Speaker 2: we could study.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, definitely.
Speaker 2: But onto the octopus study. So this paper was by
Speaker 2: Peter Godfrey Smith, David Shiel, Stephanie Chancellor, Stefan Linquist, and
Speaker 2: Matthew Lawrence, and it was called in the Line of
Speaker 2: Fire Debris Throwing by Wild Octopuses, published published in Plus one,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. And so first I'm going to talk
Speaker 2: about what the authors report and argue in this paper here,
Speaker 2: and then we'll talk about some context as well as
Speaker 2: some criticism or differences in interpretation. Now, for background on
Speaker 2: this subject, I think we can safely say that not
Speaker 2: a lot of animals throw things at all. Throwing is
Speaker 2: a relatively unique behavior, and the authors of this study say,
Speaker 2: quote a throw can be distinguished from other phenomena by
Speaker 2: the ballistic motion of a manipulable object or material, where
Speaker 2: ballistic describes free motion and momentum. So when I think
Speaker 2: of throwing, I think of taking a free external object
Speaker 2: or material, so not part of your own body, and
Speaker 2: projecting it through the environment toward a target. Throwing is
Speaker 2: so unique that it has sometimes been characterized as exclusively
Speaker 2: the domain of humans. But there are a number of
Speaker 2: animal behaviors that I think should count as throwing. We'll
Speaker 2: talk about them throughout the series. Some very clear examples
Speaker 2: that I don't think anybody would really dispute, like the
Speaker 2: throwing behaviors of primates like chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys.
Speaker 1: Right right, Yeah, there are plenty of examples of this
Speaker 1: occurring both in the wild and in captive. Not to
Speaker 1: say they're not interested. We may come back to some
Speaker 1: of them, but yeah, they're very well documented.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and also some very interesting ones in like elephants
Speaker 2: and mongooses and birds and so forth. Yeah, Now, if
Speaker 2: you were to expand the definition of throwing to include
Speaker 2: the projection of parts of the animal's own body or
Speaker 2: substances produced by the animal's own body, then the number
Speaker 2: of examples really expands. Then you get all kinds of things,
Speaker 2: Like you get spitting, which would include snakes. There's snakes
Speaker 2: that project venom out of their mouths, out of their glands.
Speaker 2: You have, of course, camels famously spit. All kinds of
Speaker 2: animals spit. And then you also have examples like spiders
Speaker 2: such as New World tarantulas. These spiders famously kind of
Speaker 2: kick or shoot a little fibers known as irticating hairs
Speaker 2: off of their bodies, and these are a defense mechanism
Speaker 2: because the hairs can cause severe irritation to the skin
Speaker 2: and mucous membranes of vertebrate animals that might threaten the spiders.
Speaker 2: And you know, I've always thought of this in the
Speaker 2: context of like tarantula itching powder, Like it's just an irritant,
Speaker 2: it's unpleasant, it gets on your skin, it causes itching,
Speaker 2: makes you want to retreat. But apparently in some cases
Speaker 2: of like the tarantulas, with more severe hairs. This can
Speaker 2: even cause death in the cases of some small animals
Speaker 2: when the hairs get in their mucous membranes.
Speaker 1: Tarantulas are fascinating. I'd be up for a return to
Speaker 1: the world of tarantulas again.
Speaker 2: But there are other spider examples too. Some other spiders
Speaker 2: are known to project or throw threads of silk produced
Speaker 2: again by their own bodies at prey to capture them.
Speaker 2: But I think we probably don't want to count substances
Speaker 2: produced by an animal's own body for throwing, because that
Speaker 2: seems like a kind of that's a different class of
Speaker 2: behavior than what we usually think about with throwing, because
Speaker 2: when it comes out of the animal's own body, I
Speaker 2: would think that usually tends to be an instinctual, defensive
Speaker 2: or predation mechanism. That's something that's probably just a rote
Speaker 2: behavioral program that exists. You know, it's evolutionarily coded into
Speaker 2: the animal's nervous system, so they just kind of do
Speaker 2: it automatically. Whereas the throwing of free external objects found
Speaker 2: in the nearby environment, I would argue that indicates a
Speaker 2: very different kind of underlying mentality, a much more interesting
Speaker 2: and versatile type of tool use.
Speaker 1: Well. Of course, it's easy for us to say since
Speaker 1: our bodies don't really produce weapons. It might be a
Speaker 1: different scenario if human beings, say, produced and shed some
Speaker 1: form of horn or antler, or I don't know, had
Speaker 1: had some other you know, let your imagination go wild.
Speaker 1: But one might well imagine some sort of a humanoid
Speaker 1: being that had some sort of evolved feature like this.
Speaker 1: That might blur the line. But I do agree, Yeah, certainly,
Speaker 1: with the human factor involved, humans are not really going
Speaker 1: to do much with anything that their own body produces.
Speaker 1: They're going to have to turn to the things in
Speaker 1: the environment around them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be interesting if a human could like
Speaker 2: cough up darts from their stomach on command. Now what now,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think how to make that plausible. Okay, Now,
Speaker 2: imagine you've got an animal that has a sort of
Speaker 2: gizzard and they keep gizzard stones down there, and when
Speaker 2: they need a weapon, they just vomit up a gizzard
Speaker 2: stone and then they can throw that there.
Speaker 1: You go, surely somebody's had done something like that. Would
Speaker 1: that would be terrific. You have some sort of like
Speaker 1: a kaiju bird and one of its attacks is vomiting
Speaker 1: stones at you and these stones could perhaps you know,
Speaker 1: be used as some sort of a siege weapon.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's the distinction between like an instinctual throwing
Speaker 2: or projecting of part of your body or something that
Speaker 2: comes out of your body versus throwing of things found
Speaker 2: in the environment. Another distinction I would like to make
Speaker 2: about throwing is the important difference between throwing away and
Speaker 2: throwing at. For one example of this contained within one animal,
Speaker 2: I think you could possibly make the argument that the
Speaker 2: ant lion might exhibit both types of throwing, because it
Speaker 2: certainly at least does one. So the ant lion, at
Speaker 2: one stage in its life cycle, it lives down at
Speaker 2: the bottom of a pit that has steep sloped sides
Speaker 2: with the sides are lined with sediment of a certain
Speaker 2: grain size, and a prey insect falls in it can't
Speaker 2: climb back out, and then the ant lion kicks sediment
Speaker 2: or sand up at the insect, and the insect falls
Speaker 2: down into its jaws and it eats them. And then
Speaker 2: after it's done, it is typically known to fling the
Speaker 2: body out of the pit by a similar motion to
Speaker 2: what it used to fling the sand up at the
Speaker 2: insect falling in now, I think you could definitely make
Speaker 2: the case that it shows throwing away behavior because it's
Speaker 2: just rejecting the desiccated exoskeleton of the ant that it
Speaker 2: has drained of delicious juices once it's done right. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 2: But it may also display throwing at behavior, arguably because
Speaker 2: as the ant is falling down, it will kick sand
Speaker 2: up at the ant, and you could argue about whether
Speaker 2: that's actually at the ant or whether it's just kind
Speaker 2: of generic sand throwing behavior that because the real purpose,
Speaker 2: I think is not for it to land on the ant,
Speaker 2: but to destabilize the walls of the pit and cause
Speaker 2: them to avalanche downward, bringing the ant further toward the
Speaker 2: bottom with the sand.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I believe we talked about the ant line a
Speaker 1: bit in our episode on the Sarlac, comparing the sarlacs
Speaker 1: imagined biology to the ant lion's very real biology, and yeah,
Speaker 1: they're fascinating little creatures.
Speaker 2: But the authors of this paper all so mentioned in
Speaker 2: the background how in some cases throwing is a kind
Speaker 2: of tool use that also sort of contains information. Like
Speaker 2: a projectile can be not only aggressive and violent, but
Speaker 2: it can be a communicative social tool between animals within
Speaker 2: a social species, and that brings us to the example
Speaker 2: of the octopuses, because one thing it's really important to
Speaker 2: realize about octopuses is that they are, for the most part,
Speaker 2: not social. They are incredibly antisocial as far as animals go.
Speaker 2: With perhaps a few notable exceptions, octopuses generally do not
Speaker 2: socialize with other octopuses. They don't flock together, they don't
Speaker 2: form groups usually or have very complex social relationships. For
Speaker 2: the most part, octopuses are solitary hunters, and when they
Speaker 2: do encounter one another, they practice avoidance or sometimes outright violence.
Speaker 2: They will fight one another and sometimes even cannibal one another.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems to be the extent of octopus politics.
Speaker 2: However, despite their usual antisocial nature, there is some previous
Speaker 2: evidence that octopuses might be able to communicate with or
Speaker 2: signal information to one another, and an example that the
Speaker 2: author's pick here is one that has some of the
Speaker 2: same authors as this study in question. It's by David Shield,
Speaker 2: Peter Godfrey Smith, and Matthew Lawrence, called Signal Use by
Speaker 2: Octopuses in Agonistic Interactions, published in Current Biology in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: and this study looked at the same species as our
Speaker 2: main study is going to be looking at here one
Speaker 2: called Octopus tetricus, and this species can change color pigment.
Speaker 2: It can change the color patterns on its skin in
Speaker 2: a number of ways. And this report found a correlation
Speaker 2: between color displays on this octopus's skin and intraspecific behaviors,
Speaker 2: behaviors showing interactions between members of this species. The authors write, quote,
Speaker 2: here we show by field observation that in a shallow
Speaker 2: water octopus Octopus tetricus, a range of visible displays are
Speaker 2: produced during agonistic interactions, and these displays correlate with the
Speaker 2: outcome of those interactions. Interactions in which dark body color
Speaker 2: by an approaching octopus was matched by similar color in
Speaker 2: the reacting octopus were more likely to escalate to grappling darkness,
Speaker 2: and an approaching octopus met by paler color in the
Speaker 2: reacting octopus accompanied retreat of the paler octopus. So this
Speaker 2: is interesting. It raises the possibility that even though these
Speaker 2: octopuses are not very friendly with one another and they
Speaker 2: don't really want to hang out and interact, they might
Speaker 2: still be communicating. They might be using color displays to
Speaker 2: at least communicate information about their intentions with one another,
Speaker 2: and that could be beneficial to both parties because it
Speaker 2: could help them avoid unnecessary violent cons Like if you
Speaker 2: can change your color patterns to signal like I mean business,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to back down, or okay, okay, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to fight like that can help you avoid
Speaker 2: a fight that would have happened otherwise.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, this is of course a topic that's come
Speaker 1: up recently on the show. In a couple other episodes,
Speaker 1: we talked about the Galapagos tortoise, about the showdowns between
Speaker 1: these big males and how it is almost, if not exclusively,
Speaker 1: non violent in that they just have these showdowns with
Speaker 1: their neck who's the tallest, and whoever is the judge
Speaker 1: would be the tallest wins, and there's no need for
Speaker 1: actual violence to take place. It also reminds me of
Speaker 1: the episode I did with Joe Berger while you were
Speaker 1: out talking about goats and rams getting into conflict over
Speaker 1: mineral resources, and part of the issue there it does
Speaker 1: come down to how goats deal with this sort of
Speaker 1: conflict between each other, how rams deal with this sort
Speaker 1: of conflict with the each other. But then when you
Speaker 1: have goats and rams, there can be kind of a
Speaker 1: communication breakdown. It's really interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean it makes you think about how
Speaker 2: much apparent conflict and violence within the natural world actually
Speaker 2: doesn't come to violence because animals are often looking for
Speaker 2: a way to avoid a fight. They just want to
Speaker 2: know who would win and like find a way to
Speaker 2: sort it out without having to do the violence.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Even in a lot of human combat, whether you're
Speaker 1: dealing with individual level or more complex scenarios involving civilizations
Speaker 1: and so forth. You know, there's so many different ways.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of posturing. But then there are also
Speaker 1: the fights or battles one might get into with the
Speaker 1: intention of being stopped by others before the battle can
Speaker 1: take place. Like, there's so many different things to consider though.
Speaker 2: I also want to come back to this example I
Speaker 2: mentioned about the changing color patterns on these octopuses. I
Speaker 2: think you could also have non communicative interpretations of this
Speaker 2: as well. That's possible, but it's one good interpretation of
Speaker 2: that might be that these animals are communicating with each other,
Speaker 2: they're sharing information, even though they're not really a social species. Now,
Speaker 2: we also know that octopuses are able to manipulate objects
Speaker 2: in their environments using the surprisingly deft touch of the
Speaker 2: eight octopus arms, raising the specter always of possible tool
Speaker 2: using intelligence and even maybe one day technological evolution in
Speaker 2: the octopus. And we've seen many great examples of this.
Speaker 2: One that I always think of is in octopus nest
Speaker 2: building behavior. Sometimes you'll find examples where an octopus will
Speaker 2: be able to pull an object over the opening of
Speaker 2: its den in order to essentially close the door, which
Speaker 2: I love. But also this study mentions veined octopuses or
Speaker 2: anti octopus marginatus, which they say, quote Carrie can carry
Speaker 2: shelter in the form of nested coconut shell halves that
Speaker 2: are then reassembled. You may have seen video of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is this is remarkable footage, and I know
Speaker 1: just the just look watching an octopus in the wild
Speaker 1: or in captivity. It seems to have inspired many to
Speaker 1: imagine what it would be like if they actually use
Speaker 1: tools and weapons. I was trying to remember where I
Speaker 1: had specifically seen an image of an octopus with like
Speaker 1: a hatchet in one of its tentacles. I imagine this
Speaker 1: was maybe an old Dungeons and Dragons illustration or something.
Speaker 1: But I did an image search and I found that
Speaker 1: numerous people have have painted some sort of a scenario
Speaker 1: in which an octopus is carrying a spear. I saw
Speaker 1: one where there's like a spear wielding octopus battling a
Speaker 1: samurai octopus. So there is something about the octopus arms
Speaker 1: that we can't help but imagine them doing tully or
Speaker 1: weapony things with them.
Speaker 2: Not sure exactly why, but that reminds me of the
Speaker 2: doomba meme where people would just like tape a knife
Speaker 2: to the top of their roomba.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I saw that one, but sounds dangerous.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, anyway, these two different threads we've been talking
Speaker 2: about the use of materials or arguably tools from the
Speaker 2: environment by octopuses and behavior that might constitute social signaling
Speaker 2: between conspecifics. These two things come together in this twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two study. So the animal in question in this
Speaker 2: paper is the species Octopus tetricus, also known as the
Speaker 2: gloomy octopus. Now why are they called the gloomy octopus? Well,
Speaker 2: just look at their eyes. Some people think that these
Speaker 2: animals have eyes that look perennially unhappy. I don't know
Speaker 2: what I think about that. It's hard to it's hard
Speaker 2: to read too much human emotion into octopus eyes. But
Speaker 2: then again, I get to staring at this and I
Speaker 2: don't know, maybe I do feel kind of the mood
Speaker 2: coming down a little bit.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe I mean I get kind of
Speaker 1: a calm vibe off of this particular octopus. It looks cozy.
Speaker 2: Well, they do like to be cozy. They like to
Speaker 2: hide in their dens. So, the gloomy octopus is a
Speaker 2: medium sized benthic octopus. Benthic meaning they live on the
Speaker 2: seafloor and they occupy the waters around Australia and New Zealand.
Speaker 2: But the particular population of animals observed in this study
Speaker 2: live in a special zone along the bottom of Jervis Bay, Australia,
Speaker 2: which is the coast of New South Wales at south
Speaker 2: of Sydney. And in this area along the bottom of
Speaker 2: Jervis Bay, many individuals of the gloomy octopus live in
Speaker 2: very close proximity to one another, high density, especially four octopuses,
Speaker 2: making dens sometimes just right smack next to one another. Now,
Speaker 2: is this a change? And they're normally solitary anti so nature,
Speaker 2: it does not seem like that. There's no indication that
Speaker 2: these animals like being near one another. Instead, it's a
Speaker 2: case of a lot of octopuses trying to cram into
Speaker 2: a spot that has both food abundance and excellent benthic
Speaker 2: strata for making dens. So it's good real estate to
Speaker 2: make homes in, and it's lots of great food, and
Speaker 2: it's surrounded on all sides by terrible real estate, just
Speaker 2: sort of featureless mudflats, which sort of prevents these octopuses
Speaker 2: from spreading out. So for a human analogy, imagine a
Speaker 2: kind of tiny island in the middle of the ocean
Speaker 2: with tons of food on it, lots of great stuff there,
Speaker 2: but it's just swarming with antisocial introverts who don't want
Speaker 2: to talk to each other.
Speaker 1: I think I've had this experience on most road trips
Speaker 1: I've taken. You know, you find that one exit that
Speaker 1: has that one chain coffee store that you need and
Speaker 1: can depend on. And yeah, an alien observing you might say,
Speaker 1: look at all these people. They all love each Yes,
Speaker 1: they love being around each other. Oh that's good.
Speaker 2: So these spots in Jervis Bay have been nicknamed things
Speaker 2: like Octolantis or Octopolis. Just a lot of these anti
Speaker 2: social non buddies squeezing into a relatively small area. Naturally
Speaker 2: there's going to be some conflict here. The octopuses regularly
Speaker 2: get in one another's space, and this leads to the
Speaker 2: creatures poking and grappling, grabbing, generally harassing each other. Now,
Speaker 2: it was in studying this Jervis Bay population of Tetricus
Speaker 2: that the authors first observed what they called a throwing behavior.
Speaker 2: And the team collected many hours of video footage from
Speaker 2: emplaced cameras from a couple of different sessions. I think
Speaker 2: there was some footage from twenty fifteen and from twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: and they write, quote, here we provide the first report
Speaker 2: for any octopus species of a behavior freaque at these aggregations.
Speaker 2: The throwing or projection of debris, both in social interactions
Speaker 2: and in other contexts. Ballistic motion of manipulable objects is
Speaker 2: possible through water, albeit against greater resistance than through air.
Speaker 2: These throws by Octopus tetricus sometimes hit other octopuses. So
Speaker 2: they are throwing debris, sometimes hitting other octopuses. And the
Speaker 2: big question is are they doing it on purpose? Are
Speaker 2: they targeting one another on purpose? And if they are,
Speaker 2: is that a social signal of some kind?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: I think it's important to first just describe exactly what's
Speaker 2: going on here. When an octopus is said to quote,
Speaker 2: throw something, Octopuses do not throw the way humans do
Speaker 2: by building momentum with an arm motion and then releasing,
Speaker 2: or at least not most of the time. The team
Speaker 2: apparently documented one case of an octopus throwing what looked
Speaker 2: to be a bivalve shell by holding it in its arm,
Speaker 2: quickly straightening the arm, and then releasing the shell. Instead,
Speaker 2: what happens is most of the time the octopus would
Speaker 2: throw by way of its siphon, and the siphon, also
Speaker 2: called a funnel, is kind of a tube shaped organ
Speaker 2: that octopuses used to swim. You can think of it
Speaker 2: as an organic water jet. It's sort of a pump
Speaker 2: that pumps water out the back and allows the octopus
Speaker 2: to to by reaction, push its body forward.
Speaker 1: Interesting, so in these in these cases of an octopus throwing,
Speaker 1: depending on what is being thrown, you could think of
Speaker 1: it as being like they've loaded their their biocannon, their
Speaker 1: their fluid based biocanon with like say, a piece of
Speaker 1: shell and are firing it. Or it's just kind of
Speaker 1: like loaded with debris.
Speaker 2: Yet well sort of I mean that is good, I think,
Speaker 2: except actually what the cannon is loaded with is just
Speaker 2: water as usual. It's more like they've loaded a cannon
Speaker 2: and they have put the thing they want to throw
Speaker 2: right in front of the cannon, so that when the
Speaker 2: cannonball comes out, it hits the thing they want to throw,
Speaker 2: the cannonball just being water and propels it toward the target. Again,
Speaker 2: assuming that these are targeted throws. We don't know that
Speaker 2: for sure, but going with that for a minute. So
Speaker 2: it's a several step procedure. It goes like this. So
Speaker 2: this octopus, Octopus tetricus, it will gather external material. And
Speaker 2: there were three main types of material that the authors
Speaker 2: observed being thrown in the study. One is shells, generally
Speaker 2: mollusk shells, though like scallop shells, which also would be
Speaker 2: the shells of things that the octopuses are eating. And
Speaker 2: then the other one is algae and then finally silt
Speaker 2: or sediment from the sea floor, so just you know,
Speaker 2: mup sand, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: This sounds like dirty Fighters. It sounds like the scene
Speaker 1: in so many movies, especially like Sword and Sandal movies,
Speaker 1: where there's some sort of a gladiatorial combat going on,
Speaker 1: and what does the villain do. Oh, he's going to
Speaker 1: get a little sand off the battleground floor throw it
Speaker 1: in the eyes.
Speaker 2: Of Except the gloomy octopuses are all dirty fighters. They
Speaker 2: love to shoot this silt, so you scoop that up
Speaker 2: in your arm, So they're actually using their arms for
Speaker 2: this part, scooping up the thing whatever it is, shells, algae,
Speaker 2: or silt, and then they hold it underneath the body.
Speaker 2: They hold it underneath the body with your arms, and
Speaker 2: then they position their siphon underneath the body, which is
Speaker 2: not normally where it is. They kind of hook it
Speaker 2: under so that it lines up behind this stuff, and
Speaker 2: then they release the stuff with their arms at the
Speaker 2: same time that they blast it with a jet of
Speaker 2: water from the siphon, and then that jet of water
Speaker 2: carries the sediment toward its target. So again, this is
Speaker 2: very different than human throwing. I think for a rough analogy,
Speaker 2: you'd have to imagine that you could throw a baseball
Speaker 2: not by extending your arm rapidly and releasing it, but
Speaker 2: by like holding the baseball in front of your face
Speaker 2: and then suddenly releasing it from your hand and at
Speaker 2: the same time blowing on it really hard to shoot
Speaker 2: it off where you want it to go, and of
Speaker 2: course in order to do this we need to have
Speaker 2: far more lung capacity and diaphragm power than humans actually
Speaker 2: do have. But just imagine you could briefly create like
Speaker 2: a little jet engine exhaust port with your mouth. And
Speaker 2: this is interesting because it reminds me of stories I've
Speaker 2: read elsewhere of octopuses using directed siphon jets, but without
Speaker 2: any material being propelled other than the water itself, Like
Speaker 2: the main thing is something of their stories of octopuses
Speaker 2: in captivity squirting their handlers with water from their siphon,
Speaker 2: often in the context of the handler believing at least
Speaker 2: that the octopus is annoyed with them or being defensive.
Speaker 1: And of course this is also reminiscent of squid using
Speaker 1: their ink in various ways, though of course that would
Speaker 1: would obviously be an example again of an animal using
Speaker 1: something created by its own rather than in this case,
Speaker 1: using something from their environment.
Speaker 2: Right exactly so, when the researchers watch the gloomy octopus
Speaker 2: do this throwing of shells, weeds, and silt, some of
Speaker 2: the instances were obviously cases of simple rejection behavior. The
Speaker 2: throwing away. We talked about it earlier, and a great
Speaker 2: example of this would be what they classified as eating
Speaker 2: based throwing behavior. So sometimes the octopus is going to eat,
Speaker 2: you know, a bivalve or something. Maybe it eats a scallop,
Speaker 2: and then it throws the shells away. When it's done,
Speaker 2: it actually projects them away from the body. Other examples
Speaker 2: of throwing away behavior would be the classification they call
Speaker 2: den cleaning. The octopuses actually do tidy up their dens.
Speaker 2: So they're going to try to make a little heidi
Speaker 2: hole to settle into on the seafloor, and sometimes I
Speaker 2: guess it gets dirty in there, so they want to
Speaker 2: basically blast a bunch of stuff out of there. And
Speaker 2: so they will do this with their dens to get
Speaker 2: things out of the hole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't want your midden to get out of
Speaker 1: control there with the bones of your many kills or
Speaker 1: the shells of your many kills.
Speaker 2: Other times they showed apparent throwing behavior that the researcher
Speaker 2: said was anomalist. There was no apparent reason. Maybe an
Speaker 2: octopus is just kind of like rippling along. Nothing's really
Speaker 2: going on. It's not eating, it's not in its den,
Speaker 2: nothing else is around, but it just kind of throws
Speaker 2: something that didn't happen a lot, but occasionally it did.
Speaker 2: And then finally, the last category they said was what
Speaker 2: they called interactive throwing. This is when the octopus was
Speaker 2: interacting with another octopus or in a few cases, another
Speaker 2: animal or object such as a fish or a camera.
Speaker 2: And these are the ones that are really interesting because
Speaker 2: in this case, the researcher said, it really looks like
Speaker 2: not just throwing away behavior, but throwing at behavior. It
Speaker 2: looks like the octopuses are intentionally throwing things to try
Speaker 2: to hit or discourage other octopuses in their vicinity. So
Speaker 2: what proportion of throws are represented by these different categories. Well,
Speaker 2: to read from their results, quote, over half of all throws,
Speaker 2: or fifty three percent, occurred in interactive contexts, thirty six
Speaker 2: percent in interactive, only seventeen percent in interactive mixed. And
Speaker 2: that's where they're interacting with another octopus, but also something
Speaker 2: else is going on, like maybe they also just finished sheeting,
Speaker 2: or they're also cleaning out their den. Thirty two percent
Speaker 2: occurred during den cleaning, only eight percent after eating, and
Speaker 2: eight percent without a parent context. Oh, and this total
Speaker 2: is more than one hundred percent due to rounding, but
Speaker 2: they say that the material throw so. And then there's
Speaker 2: another distinction they make throw interactive throwing, where they're basically
Speaker 2: interacting with another octopus and they throw in that octopus's direction,
Speaker 2: and then they make the distinction of, well, did the
Speaker 2: stuff they threw actually hit the other octa to pus
Speaker 2: on the footage they captured, and they said that the
Speaker 2: material throne hit another octopus in seventeen cases that they documented.
Speaker 2: In two other throws the material hit a fish and so.
Speaker 2: Co author David Shiel said speaking to the media, it
Speaker 2: seems like there's a target and they're not throwing away,
Speaker 2: they're throwing at But it is a difficult question, like
Speaker 2: how can you prove that they are actually intending to
Speaker 2: hit another octopus with this stuff when they do it.
Speaker 2: Of course, it's possible they're just accidentally or maybe inconsiderately
Speaker 2: hitting one another with these waterjet payloads while they're doing
Speaker 2: something else. Maybe we don't know why they're doing it,
Speaker 2: and the researchers aren't sure that these throws are intentionally targeted,
Speaker 2: but they argue that on balance, that is the more
Speaker 2: likely interpretation, and that it possibly is some kind of
Speaker 2: social signal, and they give a few arguments why they
Speaker 2: think it is the more likely interpretation. So, for one thing,
Speaker 2: you might imagine that interactive throws are targeted and social
Speaker 2: if you notice some patterns, like patterns of differences between
Speaker 2: interactive throws versus other types of throws. And the researchers did,
Speaker 2: in fact document some differences specifically between throws that hit
Speaker 2: another octopus and throws that did not. One difference was
Speaker 2: which arms are the octopus using. I thought this was
Speaker 2: really interesting because it wasn't exactly what I would have expected.
Speaker 2: But here's what they say. Okay, they say a total
Speaker 2: of fourteen throws out of ninety eight that could be
Speaker 2: assessed as anomalous arm throws, and these would be throws
Speaker 2: using one of the side arms instead of just the
Speaker 2: two front arms. They say, quote, anomalous arm throws were
Speaker 2: more likely to hit other octopuses than L one R
Speaker 2: one throws, and L one and R one are the
Speaker 2: two frontal arms. So it seems like if you're just
Speaker 2: cleaning out your den, there just kind of throwing stuff
Speaker 2: wherever you use the front two arms, but way more
Speaker 2: often if an octopus throws something and it hits a
Speaker 2: different octopus, they're using their side arms. Isn't that kind
Speaker 2: of strange?
Speaker 1: Hm?
Speaker 2: And they found that the side arm throws were less
Speaker 2: common overall, but more common if the material hit another octopus.
Speaker 2: So something about this pattern of arm choice could indicate
Speaker 2: maybe a type of aiming behavior with hostile intentions. It's
Speaker 2: hard to know for sure, but that is an interesting difference.
Speaker 2: They also write quote in three cases of hits, a
Speaker 2: thrower also altered their body orientation towards another octopus, but
Speaker 2: these movements were very slight, and the effects of arm
Speaker 2: choice other than L one R one were more marked. Okay,
Speaker 2: so that's one difference between throws that hit other octopuses
Speaker 2: and throws that down't. Second difference body patterns and throw vicar.
Speaker 2: These octopuses, as we mentioned earlier, can change their external appearance,
Speaker 2: and in fact, they might even change their external appearance
Speaker 2: in order to signal to other octopuses, maybe to help
Speaker 2: avoid aggressive encounters. And remember before, when an octopus displayed
Speaker 2: a uniform dark coloration, that was usually a sign that
Speaker 2: they were displaying kind of like dominant aggressive behavior, whereas
Speaker 2: maybe like turning paler might indicate that they were willing
Speaker 2: to back away from a fight. The authors here found
Speaker 2: that throws that hit another octopus more often took place
Speaker 2: when the thrower was displaying a uniform and especially uniform
Speaker 2: dark body color.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: We noted that throws by octopuses displaying uniform body patterns,
Speaker 2: especially uniform dark patterns, were more often thrown with high vigor. Further,
Speaker 2: throws by octopuses displaying uniform body patterns also hit other
Speaker 2: octopuses significantly more more often than those in other body patterns.
Speaker 2: And then also they say, in addition, high vigor throws
Speaker 2: more frequently hit another octopus. However, with that last point,
Speaker 2: they want to clarify, and I think this is good
Speaker 2: to point out. High vigor throws, of course, are because
Speaker 2: they're higher vigor, meaning thrown harder, They go longer, and
Speaker 2: they have a wider range, which could explain more frequent
Speaker 2: hits even if they're not deliberately targeting somebody. Like a
Speaker 2: random throw that goes farther and spreads farther is more
Speaker 2: likely to hit something randomly than one that doesn't. Another
Speaker 2: thing they noticed material chosen. When octopuses through something that
Speaker 2: hit another octopus, it was way more likely to be
Speaker 2: silt as opposed to the other materials, which appeared more
Speaker 2: often in other context. So maybe an octopus is eating
Speaker 2: or cleaning its din, it's going to be more likely
Speaker 2: to throw shells around. When an octopus gets gets into
Speaker 2: an aggressive interaction with another octopus, it seems more likely
Speaker 2: they will throw silt at them. Back to the dirty
Speaker 2: fighter point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And there's something about, you know, the throwing
Speaker 1: of the silt too that that I don't know a
Speaker 1: lot of this is just the human perspective and all,
Speaker 1: but I know it makes me think of of things
Speaker 1: like another trope from films, throwing a single pebble at
Speaker 1: a at a window pane to get somebody's attention. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, like you know where it's You know clearly
Speaker 1: you're not you're actually trying to harm anyone, but you
Speaker 1: want to. You're creating a message. You're you're you're sending
Speaker 1: a signal, and in a different way. Uh, there is
Speaker 1: a difference between pelting somebody with sand and throwing a
Speaker 1: rock at them. Like even in the human scenario, these
Speaker 1: are two These are two acts with rather different messages.
Speaker 1: If they were to happen, say at a beach between
Speaker 1: two people.
Speaker 2: Yes, that that's correct, So I think the material may
Speaker 2: make a difference there, though they did say that the
Speaker 2: difference that they found in material choice was not statistically
Speaker 2: significant because they're dealing with the small number of samples here.
Speaker 2: There was a difference in the numbers, but it didn't
Speaker 2: make statistical cut. Now. One thing, they did also observe
Speaker 2: repeat offenders and aggressive patterns. They say some particular octopuses
Speaker 2: would repeatedly throw and strike another one again and again
Speaker 2: and again, and this kind of repeated hit behavior would
Speaker 2: seem to indicate a deliberate, targeted pattern more than an
Speaker 2: accidental one. The authors also say quote hits in many
Speaker 2: cases occurred within sequences of interactions that featured ongoing mild aggression,
Speaker 2: including arm probes and momentary grappling. So they're saying we
Speaker 2: saw throws that hit another octopus often win octopuses had
Speaker 2: already been tussling.
Speaker 1: A lot, okay, and another way of stating it, some
Speaker 1: octopuses might just be jerks.
Speaker 2: One last thing, they say there were defensive behaviors. The
Speaker 2: apparent victim of the throw often reacted by either holding
Speaker 2: arms up to block the of material flying their way,
Speaker 2: or by ducking and dodging out of the way, And
Speaker 2: they said sometimes octopuses who had been hit altered their
Speaker 2: behavior in some other way by say, like pausing or
Speaker 2: halting or redirecting their movements. And this last point I
Speaker 2: think is really important because the authors say, you know,
Speaker 2: even if these throws are not actually socially intended, they
Speaker 2: do appear to have social effects, Like if they cause
Speaker 2: redirected movement in the victim, that would seem to be
Speaker 2: a socially relevant behavior. Even if you would I don't
Speaker 2: know exactly what it would mean in this case though,
Speaker 2: to say that they were not intended to be social
Speaker 2: signals by the by the individual throwing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so, I mean, it's it's an impossible task
Speaker 1: to try and do, to try and like put yourself
Speaker 1: in the mind of an octopus, but you can't help.
Speaker 1: But wonder, coming back to some of what you said earlier, like,
Speaker 1: is it potentially indeed like a directed action where the octopus,
Speaker 1: in it's own own octopus way, is quote unquote thinking
Speaker 1: I don't like you, I want you to go away,
Speaker 1: or something I will throw sand at you. Or is
Speaker 1: it like the octopus is throwing sand while having a
Speaker 1: certain hostility towards other octopuses or a particular octopus, and
Speaker 1: in doing so, these things kind of aligne and maybe
Speaker 1: there's less intention there. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I think that's a really good point, and
Speaker 2: that comes up in one of I think the better
Speaker 2: criticisms of the study that I want to get to
Speaker 2: in just a minute. But just before I do that,
Speaker 2: I want to mention a few other things that the
Speaker 2: authors highlight several things they did not see, and I
Speaker 2: think it's worth paying attention to what these are. They say,
Speaker 2: you know what, we never saw an octopus quote return fire,
Speaker 2: So they never saw a throw hit initiate any kind
Speaker 2: of violent retaliation by the target. That they did see
Speaker 2: the targets like it might make them sort of go
Speaker 2: away or redirect their movements. They also say, and I
Speaker 2: thought this was quite interesting, quote some throws in what
Speaker 2: appear to be fairly intense interactions were not directed at
Speaker 2: another octopus but into empty space. So octopuses might be
Speaker 2: tussling pretty strongly, like they're fighting each other, but then
Speaker 2: in the middle of that, you know, prolonged aggressive interaction,
Speaker 2: the octopus just kind of like throws some material, but
Speaker 2: not at another octopus just throws something. It almost invites
Speaker 2: comparisons of just like throwing things in a huff. But
Speaker 2: I don't know if you could say that's what's going
Speaker 2: on with an octopus.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, you can't help but think that again
Speaker 1: putting the human lens over everything.
Speaker 2: But anyway to come back with some criticisms of this
Speaker 2: type of interpretation, I was reading an article in the
Speaker 2: Atlantic by Marina called everyone has an Octopus Opinion, And
Speaker 2: this article collects some arguments that there might be less
Speaker 2: than meets the eye when it comes to the octopus
Speaker 2: throwing footage and saying that the interpretation of socially targeted
Speaker 2: throwing might just simple simply be anthropomorphization. So a few
Speaker 2: things that are collected in this article. One is that
Speaker 2: corn documents a dissenting opinion from an evolutionary biologist at
Speaker 2: San Francisco State University named Robin Crook, who questioned whether
Speaker 2: this behavior really counts as quote throwing because of the
Speaker 2: physical processes involved, noting, again, like we talked about earlier,
Speaker 2: that while octopuses will grasp things and pass them around
Speaker 2: with their arms, they don't use their arms to throw
Speaker 2: the way we do. Instead, they use this siphon blasting maneuver,
Speaker 2: which to Crook does not constitute throwing. I don't know
Speaker 2: if I would really like make this distinction. It seems
Speaker 2: to me like the important part of throwing is like
Speaker 2: the intentional ballistic projection behavior of objects from the environment,
Speaker 2: not so much like the muscle movements you use to
Speaker 2: do that. But I don't know what you think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean a lot of it's just going to
Speaker 1: come down to body type, right, and what kind of
Speaker 1: tools you have to send stuff fly in at another creature. Really,
Speaker 1: I keep coming back to children and all of this.
Speaker 1: I can't can't wait for you to take everything in
Speaker 1: this episode with you when you start taking your child
Speaker 1: to the beach, because yeah, a human child is certainly
Speaker 1: an education in all the ways that you can You
Speaker 1: can send sand flying in the wrong directions as well
Speaker 1: as various other objects. They can kick it, they can
Speaker 1: throw it, they can shake it from the towels. It's wonderful.
Speaker 2: I have so much magic of that kind of look
Speaker 2: forward to. But no so so, Crook says. Another thing
Speaker 2: is that you know, like we were talking about, there,
Speaker 2: there are other contexts in which octopuses clearly show this
Speaker 2: kind of like siphon blasting behavior such as cleaning up
Speaker 2: their dens after a big meal, you know, blasting a
Speaker 2: bunch of mollusk shells out, and Kirk argues that maybe
Speaker 2: that's all that's happening in the footage that's examined in
Speaker 2: this paper. Sometimes they're just blasting their dens out or
Speaker 2: doing a behavior that they do when they blast their
Speaker 2: dens out and hitting other octopuses by accident. In the
Speaker 2: total footage, this article claims that only seventeen percent of
Speaker 2: the throws actually hit another octopus, So a majority of
Speaker 2: what we see either way is just throwing away behavior,
Speaker 2: not throwing at. The question is whether this minority of
Speaker 2: cases where it was interactive throwing, and especially the ones
Speaker 2: where it looks like interactive throwing and it actually hit
Speaker 2: the other animal, those are the minority we're looking at.
Speaker 2: That's just seventeen percent of all the throws.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I again come back to something you
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier about again, the octopus is generally a solitary creature,
Speaker 1: and this is a scenario in which they are living
Speaker 1: in close proximity to one another due to the restraints
Speaker 1: of the environment itself. So you could just simply look
Speaker 1: at it, like, look, these octopuses are violent slobs, and
Speaker 1: normally they're on their own being violent slabs, but now
Speaker 1: they're forced to live together, and this is what happens
Speaker 1: when octopuses, I don't know, stop being polite and start
Speaker 1: getting real.
Speaker 2: Now, there are several things raised in this article, but
Speaker 2: one I thought was actually a pretty good point to
Speaker 2: make was that even if the octopuses are trying to
Speaker 2: hit one another with the throwing, so maybe you can say,
Speaker 2: like half of the equation is true. Maybe it is
Speaker 2: targeted throwing. They are throwing at the other octopus. But
Speaker 2: at the same time you could say it might still
Speaker 2: not be social octopus signaling exactly because in the words
Speaker 2: of Piero Amodio, a biologist who has specialized in octopuses
Speaker 2: Aton Dorn Zoological Station in Italy, it may be quote
Speaker 2: used more broadly towards annoying or threatening stimuli. So maybe
Speaker 2: it's not a thing about octopuses communicating with octopuses, but
Speaker 2: it's just like something is bothering them, so they throw
Speaker 2: they just squirt object, they squirt material at it. And
Speaker 2: evidence for this would include octopuses were also observed in
Speaker 2: a couple of instances in the study throwing debris at
Speaker 2: fish and at a camera emplacement in a couple of cases,
Speaker 2: so it could be less intraspecific social signaling and more like,
Speaker 2: I don't know what that is, I don't like that
Speaker 2: object in my space. Just squirt some dirt at it
Speaker 2: for this objection, I think fair enough. Like in that case,
Speaker 2: I think it would definitely count as directed throwing. It
Speaker 2: would be throwing at rather than throwing away. But this
Speaker 2: might limit what kinds of interpretations we could make about
Speaker 2: the relationships between gloomy octopuses specifically. The article makes cites
Speaker 2: one line argument that I thought was pretty interesting, and
Speaker 2: this comes from Christian Nauroth, who is a researcher on
Speaker 2: the behavior of goats at the Research Institute for Farm
Speaker 2: Animal Biology in Germany. And the point that Naarrath makes
Speaker 2: here talking about goats is that, yeah, even goats have
Speaker 2: lots of mysteries about them. Quote, they sneeze when they're
Speaker 2: spooked or frustrated, and there is actually nothing on how
Speaker 2: often goats show this behavior, how often they use it
Speaker 2: in which contexts they use it. And I thought that
Speaker 2: was really interesting because it, of course is especially hard
Speaker 2: to figure out the motivation for animal behavior when you're
Speaker 2: studying them in the wild as opposed to in the lab.
Speaker 2: Like in the lab, you can strictly limit variables to
Speaker 2: some degree, but in the natural environment there might be
Speaker 2: thousands of variables to disentangle, and you might not even
Speaker 2: recognize what some of them are. And the specific example
Speaker 2: about Okay, so goats sometimes sneeze when they're spooked, but like,
Speaker 2: why do they do that? What exactly are they trying
Speaker 2: to do with the sneezing. Is it a directed behavior
Speaker 2: or just a kind of tick or what? It reminds
Speaker 2: me of our recent discussion on the Galapagos marine iguana.
Speaker 2: Do they sort snort salt out of their salt glands
Speaker 2: at an attacker defensively, like when something is approaching them,
Speaker 2: when a Charles Darwin is approaching them, as Charles Darwin
Speaker 2: thought he observed. Or is the salt snorting not actually
Speaker 2: correlated with defensive behavior? Is it not actually motivated by
Speaker 2: defensive considerations at all? It's hard to tell.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Again, it is so hard to step outside of
Speaker 1: the of the human lens here when trying to imagine
Speaker 1: what any of these creatures are doing. Because some of
Speaker 1: these things like we want to interpret them and think
Speaker 1: about them as being deliberate actions as opposed to, say,
Speaker 1: in the human scenario, sort of incidental signalings of hostility
Speaker 1: that we might have, Like someone can look hostile on
Speaker 1: say a bus, without actively thinking like, oh, I'm going
Speaker 1: to show everybody on this bus how I feel about them.
Speaker 1: Check out my hostility. Don't come near me or violence
Speaker 1: happens next, like you could. That person could just genuinely
Speaker 1: be and say a bad mood or be thinking about
Speaker 1: something that's bothering them, and their their posture, the way
Speaker 1: they their look, their expression on their face could take
Speaker 1: on a hostile energy that would then be picked up
Speaker 1: on by other people.
Speaker 2: And that and that kind of ambiguity exists even within
Speaker 2: our very finely tuned ability to suss out the motivations
Speaker 2: of other humans. These are cron specifics. We're right in
Speaker 2: that human meal you you know, we're used to that
Speaker 2: when looking at another species. I mean, it's like several
Speaker 2: orders of magnitude more difficult to figure things out.
Speaker 1: Right, right, Because again, that same dude on the bus
Speaker 1: that you're thinking looks hostile, he could just be thinking
Speaker 1: about a really cool episode of some TV show that
Speaker 1: he watched, you know, and that's just all you because
Speaker 1: you think, oh, somebody who looks weird on a bus
Speaker 1: must have hostile intentions. They must have something negative going on,
Speaker 1: and they don't just have an intense look because they're
Speaker 1: trying to figure out the plot of I don't know,
Speaker 1: some Netflix show.
Speaker 2: Now, I think when it comes to the ambiguity behind
Speaker 2: animal behaviors, there might be other kinds of considerations that
Speaker 2: would come in, Like, Okay, is the marine iguana even
Speaker 2: if you could show, wow, it does you know, snort
Speaker 2: salt out of its salt glands more often when a
Speaker 2: human is approaching it, That would show a correlation with
Speaker 2: the proximity of a larger land animal. But it wouldn't.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't still wouldn't show it was defensive in some way.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe it's snorting like that because it's trying
Speaker 2: to I don't know, like clear some kind of gland
Speaker 2: blockage in case it needs to move quickly or something
Speaker 2: like that. Maybe that's part of the kind of fight
Speaker 2: or flight physiological internal regulation of the iguana's body. Who knows,
Speaker 2: I'm just speculating there, But you could imagine other things
Speaker 2: for this octopus throwing behavior. Maybe the throwing is part
Speaker 2: of something that's going on internally with the octopus that
Speaker 2: is related to aggressive interactions with other octopuses, but is
Speaker 2: not about hitting them with the objects, though it's hard
Speaker 2: to figure out what that other purpose would be. Then again,
Speaker 2: maybe it is just about hitting them with the salt.
Speaker 2: I mean, that seems like a perfectly plausible explanation to me.
Speaker 1: Either way. A fascinating look here, another fascinating consideration of
Speaker 1: the world of the octopus. And this episode is also
Speaker 1: kind of a stealth goat episode too, since we got
Speaker 1: to get in a little bit of goat pondering here
Speaker 1: at the end.
Speaker 2: I like that. But we're going to be back with
Speaker 2: more interesting examples of throwing behavior and animals, so these
Speaker 2: questions will continue.
Speaker 1: That's right, so be sure to join us for the
Speaker 1: next one. Let's just remind everybody that's Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind. It publishes in the Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed with our core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Speaker 1: On Wednesdays we do a short form artifact or monster
Speaker 1: fact episode. On Mondays we do listener mail, and on
Speaker 1: Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk
Speaker 1: about a weird film.
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