Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind from how stop
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. So, Robert,
Speaker 1: I know that recently you were on vacation somewhere. I was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I went down to Florida with the family, and on
Speaker 1: the way back up we stopped at this place called
Speaker 1: what Coola Springs. What Coola Frings Springs State Park in
Speaker 1: Florida near Tallahassee ended up just being really delightful. What's
Speaker 1: this place like? Basically, what you have here is just
Speaker 1: an enormous spring, okay, like a geological spring. Water coming
Speaker 1: out of the ground. Yeah, water coming out of the ground,
Speaker 1: water coming out of just enormous caverns that are under
Speaker 1: the water here. Uh, really clear water, and it maintains
Speaker 1: a constant temperature of around sixty nine or seventy degrees
Speaker 1: so when winter comes it's a haven for manatees, and
Speaker 1: especially manatees, but other creatures to that that that want
Speaker 1: that constant temperature. Um. Interestingly enough, they filmed a few
Speaker 1: scenes from the Creature from the Plat from the Black
Speaker 1: Lagoon there. Yeah, particularly the creatures layer uh. You get
Speaker 1: to pass by that if you take these boat tours. Uh,
Speaker 1: And that's really the main reason to go. You can
Speaker 1: swim there, but you can, but you get to go
Speaker 1: in these these really cool boat tours where you get
Speaker 1: to see all of these crazy estuary um uh species
Speaker 1: doing their thing, all the diving birds, gators, gators laying
Speaker 1: in the sun by the dozens, get to see manatees,
Speaker 1: and you also get to see these these mullets, the
Speaker 1: fish mullet, not the hairstyle. You probably saw some of those. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I did see the traditional um hairstyle mullet
Speaker 1: here there, but but yeah, these are the fish and
Speaker 1: they're just leaping out of the water. It's like if
Speaker 1: you look around, you expect to see like a Disney
Speaker 1: princess waiting around, Like that's how active the wildlife is here.
Speaker 1: And uh, but but it really makes you think, like,
Speaker 1: why are these creatures one of these fish jumping out
Speaker 1: of the water. If you're like me and you didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of preconceived notions or you hadn't researched
Speaker 1: it before, you might think, oh, well, there are all
Speaker 1: sorts of animals around here. They're gators in the water.
Speaker 1: They're probably jumping out of the water to escape predators. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes pretty easy sense. A lot of the maneuvering
Speaker 1: you'd see and the fish, especially a prey species, would
Speaker 1: be fleeing behavior. And yet it turns out there's more
Speaker 1: to it than that. And uh, not only with the
Speaker 1: with mullets, but with other species of fish as well. Uh.
Speaker 1: And that's the reason we're having this episode discuss some
Speaker 1: of the mysteries, some of the theories, uh, some of
Speaker 1: the at times myths surrounding leaping fish, fish that actually
Speaker 1: throw themselves out of the water, out of their their habitat,
Speaker 1: their aquatic habitat, into this strange, alien world of gases
Speaker 1: and vapors. Yeah, when you think about it, it is
Speaker 1: so weird. Um, it's hard for us to imagine what
Speaker 1: it's like crossing this boundary between worlds from the water
Speaker 1: up into the land of gas, into the atmosphere, because
Speaker 1: it's not exactly like a terrestrial animal diving into the water.
Speaker 1: Because when you jump out of the water, the water
Speaker 1: is your natural environment. Gravity is always going to be
Speaker 1: pulling you back down into this watery world. Plus there's
Speaker 1: just so much more going on underwater than there is
Speaker 1: going on in the air. I mean, on the land
Speaker 1: is one thing, but you know, think about what most
Speaker 1: of the air above the water is like. It's just
Speaker 1: it's a void under the water is another ecosystem. Leaping
Speaker 1: into the air is almost as if terrestrial animals could
Speaker 1: briefly leap into outer space. Right makes me. It makes
Speaker 1: me think of a part in Phantasm where they go
Speaker 1: through like the stargate into the barren world with the
Speaker 1: dwarves or hauling stuff around. It is like it's like
Speaker 1: zipping out of your world into another and then coming
Speaker 1: back into your your world, perhaps in a different location,
Speaker 1: making it kind of kind of like that teleport that
Speaker 1: the raiding character does in the first couple of Mortal
Speaker 1: Kombat games. You know, oh it's great. Yeah, what does
Speaker 1: he say when he teleports? Or does he have one? Uh?
Speaker 1: He have something he says when he does a Superman
Speaker 1: But I don't remember if he says anything when he teleports.
Speaker 1: But maybe he should he just grins and as lightning
Speaker 1: come out of his eyes. What he should do? I
Speaker 1: I hope someday somebody goes back to the first Mortal
Speaker 1: Kombat game and dubs in Christopher Lambert's lines from the
Speaker 1: movie Oh yeah, that's right one. But back to leaping fish. So, Robert,
Speaker 1: knowing your inquisitive nature, I bet you asked somebody at
Speaker 1: the park about the mullet jumping behavior, didn't you. I did,
Speaker 1: and the park ranger was very insightful and all this
Speaker 1: and mentioned that they're a handful of theories here, okay, um,
Speaker 1: and the idea that they're escaping predators is not one
Speaker 1: of them. So one is that they may jump to
Speaker 1: dislodge parasites, and certainly, aquatic life is full of many
Speaker 1: strange parasite removal strategies, including allowing cleaner organisms to crawl
Speaker 1: into your body. Right. Um, wait what allowing cleaner or
Speaker 1: you've seen I see you mean, um an organism that
Speaker 1: does cleaning, not a relatively cleaner organism. No, no, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm talking a lot like allowing a small shrimp to
Speaker 1: climb into your gills or your mouth in order to
Speaker 1: eat these things. Um, even at times, even allowing creatures
Speaker 1: from the air to come down and feast on your parasite.
Speaker 1: I believe it's the sunfish that does that allows the
Speaker 1: love of certain birds to help remove its parasites. That's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Now can you imagine if every time we got like
Speaker 1: a guinea worm or something like that, we could just
Speaker 1: leap into outer space to turn Well, that sounds kind
Speaker 1: of ridiculous, and and indeed that's one of the criticisms
Speaker 1: against this theory, uh broadly speaking concerning fish, because you
Speaker 1: see that thrown out a lot with with jumping fish. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's a parasite removal strategy. But critics of this theory
Speaker 1: will point out that, hey, parasites, once they get in you,
Speaker 1: they have ways of lodging themselves where they want to be,
Speaker 1: just merely that the frantic leaping through the air is
Speaker 1: not going to dislodge them. Well, then what are the
Speaker 1: other theories? Well, the crazier theory, and this is one
Speaker 1: that I find really interesting, is that mullets spend a
Speaker 1: lot of their time in waters that are low and
Speaker 1: dissolved oxygen, and so they may exit the water in
Speaker 1: order to clear their gills and expose themselves to higher
Speaker 1: levels of oxygen. So that that really blew my mind.
Speaker 1: The idea that essentially the fish is coming out of
Speaker 1: the water to breathe and then returned I know, but
Speaker 1: but it's this is one of the theories. Um they
Speaker 1: also may jump during spawning season to break open their
Speaker 1: eggs acts in preparation for the spawn, and marine biologist
Speaker 1: Dr Grant Gilmore thinks it may come down to their
Speaker 1: sometimes dark habitats. They may jump uh in these cases
Speaker 1: to let others in the school know where they are,
Speaker 1: So in this case it would be a form of
Speaker 1: communication or social signaling, which comes up later in this
Speaker 1: episode with some of the other jumping fish we talk
Speaker 1: about some of the more ferocious ones. Alright, so for
Speaker 1: the rest of this episode, we're gonna be looking at
Speaker 1: some of these some of the most interesting fish jumping
Speaker 1: behaviors around the world. And I want to say that
Speaker 1: I found this topic way more interesting than I expected to. Yeah. First,
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, what is there to say about
Speaker 1: fish jumping? They jump? But but fish jumping can be
Speaker 1: very strange, can be a danger, can be a nuisance,
Speaker 1: can be very funny. Uh, And the reasons why they
Speaker 1: do it are more mysterious in some cases than I
Speaker 1: would have guessed. But okay, so I guess we should
Speaker 1: start broadly. What what do we know about in general
Speaker 1: why fish jump? Well? Oh, and sorry, one more thing
Speaker 1: I should say we should specify you all out there.
Speaker 1: You know the difference between a fish and mammal. So
Speaker 1: you've seen dolphins jump playing in the ways or at
Speaker 1: a dolphin show, or uh maybe just playing echo of
Speaker 1: the dolphin. We're not talking about mammals today. This is
Speaker 1: gonna be a fish focused episode. Yeah, I mean, there's
Speaker 1: even a gliding squid that propels itself out of the
Speaker 1: ocean by shooting out a jet of water at high
Speaker 1: you know, high pressure water jet. We're not gonna get
Speaker 1: into that either. Well, wait, if there's enough demand, will
Speaker 1: save other leaping um sea life for other episodes. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think a good place to start is just to
Speaker 1: sort of go back to this idea that okay, fish
Speaker 1: jump out of the water to escape predators and acknowledge
Speaker 1: that yes, this actually is a strategy with some creatures,
Speaker 1: for instance, killie fish. Now they are roughly one thousand,
Speaker 1: two hundred and seventy different species of killy fish, and
Speaker 1: most are fully aquatic with no obvious morphological specializations for
Speaker 1: terrestrial locomotion. Locomotion individuals from several different species have been
Speaker 1: observed moving across land though a tail flip behavior that
Speaker 1: generates a terrestrial jump. But wait a minute, so this
Speaker 1: isn't just jumping into the air. This is jumping onto
Speaker 1: a dry land surface. Yeah, it's essentially it's gonna do
Speaker 1: the too dangerous in the water, I gotta jump out,
Speaker 1: huh and and then flop back in. And they do.
Speaker 1: They do this to escape predators or occasionally apparently pour
Speaker 1: water conditions. Okay, So in our outer space analogy, this
Speaker 1: is more like instead of just briefly leaping into outer space,
Speaker 1: if things got really hairy wherever you were, you could
Speaker 1: jump onto the moon for a minute and then jump
Speaker 1: back down somewhere on Earth. Yeah, or taking like you know,
Speaker 1: proposed space tourism flight that just sends you into low
Speaker 1: orbit and then brings you back down. Uh, be that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, I think. Uh. But indeed kind of
Speaker 1: like Raiden's teleport where he's blinking out of this world,
Speaker 1: I guess going to some god land and then coming
Speaker 1: back into the picture somewhere else. And this is interesting
Speaker 1: because too, because that the aquatic amphibious distinction is key
Speaker 1: because it's one thing for saying, air breathing walking catfish
Speaker 1: for mud skippers or lungfish to behave in this baby
Speaker 1: this way because they've taken to the next level, right,
Speaker 1: bordering on you know, creature from the Black Lagoon or
Speaker 1: bloodwaters of Doctor Z territory, but aquatic fish that just
Speaker 1: seems crazy, right, um? So yeah, the tail flip flings
Speaker 1: him out of the water through the air several body
Speaker 1: links sometimes out of the water and onto the bank,
Speaker 1: and then they have to flip to get back in.
Speaker 1: Sounds dangerous though, I mean, if you you're a fish,
Speaker 1: you flip out of the water and then you rapidly
Speaker 1: twist your body around to try to flip back into
Speaker 1: the water. I mean you've only got a very limited
Speaker 1: amount of time. They're right, right, yeah, because if you
Speaker 1: because the big risks here are that you're going to
Speaker 1: you're gonna you could dry out or you could as
Speaker 1: sixty eight uh so, and and you know, of course
Speaker 1: also banking on the idea that there are no um
Speaker 1: terrestrial predators on the water bank. So that's the killie fish. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What else do we have take us to the next
Speaker 1: the next level here with our leaping aquatic creatures. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to talk Robert about an Asian carponato Oh
Speaker 1: sounds good, okay, So stop me if you've seen this video,
Speaker 1: this YouTube video before. You've got two passengers sitting in
Speaker 1: a boat there in twin seats, facing off the stern
Speaker 1: of a fishing boat with an outboard motor. Is this
Speaker 1: guy father too? No? No, this is a grainy YouTube
Speaker 1: to set to some slick new metal riffs. Now, the
Speaker 1: boat appears to be sitting in like a river or
Speaker 1: a lake. It's opaque freshwater, and each of the two
Speaker 1: passengers sitting facing off the back of the boat are
Speaker 1: holding a compound hunting bow with a knocked arrow, and
Speaker 1: the driver then throttles up the engine. The boat starts
Speaker 1: to move, and these lines of white churning wake peel
Speaker 1: out the back of the boat and you can see
Speaker 1: the waves coming out. And as this happens, dozens of
Speaker 1: fish or maybe hundreds of fish begin to leap out
Speaker 1: of the water into the air, by the looks of it,
Speaker 1: sometimes flying above the heads of the passengers, and they
Speaker 1: arc over the boat. Sometimes they fly right into somebody's
Speaker 1: neck and slap them on the face. It fish hits
Speaker 1: you in the back, or it lands flopping in the
Speaker 1: driver's lap, And as you would expect based on the setup,
Speaker 1: the passengers try to shoot the fish with their arrows
Speaker 1: as they leap through the air. Uh. And other similar
Speaker 1: videos you might scratch the bow and arrow and feature
Speaker 1: just nets, people trying to catch the fish with nets
Speaker 1: or shooting at them with shotguns, trying to hit him
Speaker 1: with baseball bats or maybe a modified baseball bat with
Speaker 1: nails in it, uh, pitchforks, etcetera. I might add that
Speaker 1: in the very first video I watched that I mentioned,
Speaker 1: the one with the compound bow, it was sort of
Speaker 1: this fish human collision super cut with with the new
Speaker 1: metal background music. It looks pretty dangerous, especially because there
Speaker 1: are sometimes other boats in the water down range of
Speaker 1: the bow fishers. So we are not recommending this behavior. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds sounds a bit reckless. But what's going on here? Why?
Speaker 1: Why are these hundreds of fish flying through the air
Speaker 1: to be shot? I need a better metaphor than like
Speaker 1: fish in a barrel, like like fish in outer space? Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: the video identifies these very unfortunate vaulting fish as Asian carp,
Speaker 1: and I can't confirm the identification through all the graininess.
Speaker 1: But but this would make sense because some species of
Speaker 1: so called Asian carp are known for this bizarre frenzy
Speaker 1: jumping behavior in the presence of boats. So what are
Speaker 1: Asian carp. Asian carp is not one species, but it's
Speaker 1: a common group name applied to several species of carp
Speaker 1: native to East and Southeast Asia, including waterways of Siberia, China,
Speaker 1: and Vietnam. And these species would be bighead carp, black carp,
Speaker 1: grass carp, and silver carp. So carp belonged to the
Speaker 1: freshwater fish family known as Cyprinids, and before the Asian
Speaker 1: carp were introduced a couple of decades ago, there there
Speaker 1: were already carp in North America that were considered kind
Speaker 1: of a benign nuisance species. But several species now known
Speaker 1: as Asian carp were introduced the United States in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties and seventies, and originally they were contained They
Speaker 1: were contained in southern aquaculture and sewage treatment enclosures I
Speaker 1: think in Arkansas, originally saw and so the idea was
Speaker 1: that these imported carp would help control contaminants in these areas.
Speaker 1: For example, they'd swim around and eat algae out of
Speaker 1: ponds that were being used as fish farms, like for
Speaker 1: catfish farming. But Flooding events, of course, often connect waters
Speaker 1: that are not inherently connected, and so flooding allowed these
Speaker 1: non native species to escape their farms and enclosures and
Speaker 1: spread into natural waterways around the Mississippi watershed. And now
Speaker 1: they're all over the place. They're spread all over freshwater
Speaker 1: fisheries in the Midwest and beyond there in the Mississippi,
Speaker 1: they're in the Illinois River. And a lot of people
Speaker 1: are worried about these and consider them uh an invasive
Speaker 1: species since they can represent a threat to native wildlife.
Speaker 1: They reproduce quickly, they grow quickly, they supposedly degrade the
Speaker 1: quality of aquatic environments, and they tend to outcompete their
Speaker 1: fish UH and I've seen estimates that they can some
Speaker 1: of these species consume about of their own body weight
Speaker 1: every day, but they don't necessarily prey on other fish. Instead,
Speaker 1: they're mostly plankton and algae feeders, which still is a
Speaker 1: big problem because that's the bottom of the food chain, right,
Speaker 1: That's what everything has to eat in order to work
Speaker 1: its way up the food chain and get that energy
Speaker 1: to survive. So they're causing problems for every organism everywhere
Speaker 1: along the line. And so why do they jump, Well,
Speaker 1: the big head carp in the silver carp can both jump,
Speaker 1: but it's the silver carp in particular that's just notorious
Speaker 1: for frequently having these frenzies where they leap out of
Speaker 1: the water all over the place. And the commonly accepted
Speaker 1: explanation for why they do it is pretty simple. It's
Speaker 1: the main one that came to your mind when you
Speaker 1: were thinking about the mullet. First. It's that they're scared.
Speaker 1: They're leaping out of the water as an escape mechanism
Speaker 1: triggered by a threatening stimulus, like the roar of a
Speaker 1: boat motor. So somebody revs up their engine, they get
Speaker 1: their their arrows knocked, and the fish here that sound,
Speaker 1: and they start leaping all over the place. And once
Speaker 1: one starts leaping, all of them start leaping. So that
Speaker 1: sounds like a pretty funny situation. And I will admit
Speaker 1: seeing these images of fish just flapping all over the
Speaker 1: place through the air, slapping people in the back of
Speaker 1: the head, leaving a big slimy streak across somebody's like
Speaker 1: chin and throat because they slap up under there. Uh,
Speaker 1: it sounds funny, but when you think about what it's
Speaker 1: actually like to be in the middle of it. It
Speaker 1: can get kind of scary because the big head and
Speaker 1: silver carp were known to jump about three meters or
Speaker 1: about ten ft vertically out of the water about six
Speaker 1: meters or twenty ft horizontally across the surface. Uh. Silver
Speaker 1: carp tend to weigh up to about twenty pounds. Big
Speaker 1: head carp commonly wigh about twice that, but in rare cases,
Speaker 1: these fish can reportedly grow very large, up to around
Speaker 1: a hundred pounds. So think of like a hundred pound
Speaker 1: object flying at you out of the water, especially if
Speaker 1: you're moving at a rapid speed. Also, uh, just do
Speaker 1: the quick new Tony and physics in your head. That
Speaker 1: can be a heavy impact. Now. I found one survey
Speaker 1: of people who used the Illinois River in two thousand
Speaker 1: ten and two thousand eleven, and it was a small
Speaker 1: sample size, so don't read too much into this, but
Speaker 1: it found this was hilarious to me. Sixty five of
Speaker 1: residents from these Illinois River sites who used the river
Speaker 1: had seen Asian carp jump. Okay, but of those people
Speaker 1: who had seen a carp jump, almost three quarters of
Speaker 1: them had been hit by a car um And so
Speaker 1: if you've seen a carp jump, chances are a carp
Speaker 1: has slammed into you. Nine of them sustained injuries and
Speaker 1: reported uh sustained watercraft damage from the Asian carp And
Speaker 1: there's just one example I want to give of the
Speaker 1: kinds of injuries these things can cause. I found a
Speaker 1: kt v I local news story from St. Louis from
Speaker 1: last year August, and it tells the story of this
Speaker 1: guy named Jordan Fiedler who got his face messed up
Speaker 1: real bad by some Asian carp while inner tubing along
Speaker 1: a channel in the Mississippi. So, according to the story,
Speaker 1: his father was driving the boat and he was riding
Speaker 1: in an inner tube behind it, and then the fish
Speaker 1: start leaping. They jump up all over the place, and
Speaker 1: one hits him in the face and a quote he
Speaker 1: gave his quote, I knew something was wrong. I felt
Speaker 1: my nose and it was way over here. So Uh.
Speaker 1: The impact fractured his nose, It dented his forehead, shattered
Speaker 1: bones in his eye sockets and above his eyebrow. Uh,
Speaker 1: and he had to undergo a three and a half
Speaker 1: hour surgery to install a piece of mesh and screws
Speaker 1: to fix the shape of his skull. So this is
Speaker 1: no small injury. This is this devastating fish impact. If
Speaker 1: nobody has made a Jaws style movie about carp yet,
Speaker 1: about the leaping carp, I think they should. This is
Speaker 1: the real Sharknado, except it's not a shark. This is Carponado. Well, hopefully,
Speaker 1: I'm really hoping someone will take this whole episode is
Speaker 1: inspiration and maybe it'll be an overall jumping fish harm movie.
Speaker 1: All the various examples we throw out here, it's the
Speaker 1: fish version of the birds. Maybe yeah, the fishes, uh fish. Weirdly, though,
Speaker 1: as mundane as carp may seem, they actually also have
Speaker 1: a mythological significance. I bet you didn't think that we'd
Speaker 1: wrap some some mythology into this episode, But it's I
Speaker 1: really yeah, I didn't even think about it, and normally
Speaker 1: I'm I'm all about finding it. I didn't even think
Speaker 1: to look. Well, apparently the jumping ability of carp has
Speaker 1: a cultural and slight mythological significance in Chinese tradition. So
Speaker 1: there's a story in Chinese mythology of carp swimming upstream,
Speaker 1: and that if a carp swimming upstream is able to
Speaker 1: jump over a waterfall that's known as the dragon gate.
Speaker 1: That carp will transform into a dragon, and with that
Speaker 1: comes all of the symbolic uplift that applies. Right, you know,
Speaker 1: the dragon is a is a majestic regal creature associated
Speaker 1: with power and with with grandeur and and with the
Speaker 1: the imperial authority. Basically and flight, yes, and fly there
Speaker 1: you go. So apparently, the expression of quote a carp
Speaker 1: that jumps over the dragon gate commonly signifies a person
Speaker 1: who accomplishes some feet that leads to like a sudden
Speaker 1: improvement in life status, such as passing exams at university
Speaker 1: or acquiring some coveted government position. It's like, if you
Speaker 1: get a major life upgrade due to some some achievement
Speaker 1: of yours, you're a carp who has jumped the dragon
Speaker 1: gate and hopefully not smashed anybody's face. Onywhere Alright? What? Everyone?
Speaker 1: Keep that myth in mind, because I feel like we're
Speaker 1: going to get back to some of these ideas with
Speaker 1: some of our later examples. We're gonna take a quick
Speaker 1: break and when we come back, we're gonna look at salmon,
Speaker 1: We're gonna look at swordfish, we're gonna look at sturgeons
Speaker 1: and ultimately the flying fish itself. All right, we're back. Okay,
Speaker 1: So before the break, we were talking about the mythological
Speaker 1: symbology of carp swimming upstream trying to leap over that
Speaker 1: waterfall and turn into a mighty dragon. But of course
Speaker 1: carp are not the only fish that struggle mightily to
Speaker 1: progress upstream against the current, even leaping over rapids and waterfalls. Yeah. Indeed,
Speaker 1: what is one of the most iconic images of leaping fish,
Speaker 1: like a perfect like nature documentary image. It's the salmon.
Speaker 1: It's the salmon going upstream to spawn, leaping over the rapids,
Speaker 1: and a bear just grab you know what I mean. Yeah, indeed,
Speaker 1: that's the bare version of the people trying to hit
Speaker 1: a carp with a baseball bat with nails in it.
Speaker 1: It's just the bear's claw swiping at the salmon as
Speaker 1: it flies over the rapids. Yeah, this is uh so,
Speaker 1: so let's break down exactly what's happening here, um, because
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty amazing. It's easy to take it for
Speaker 1: granted when you've seen it so many times, but salmon
Speaker 1: has been their early lives in freshwater rivers and then
Speaker 1: they swim out to sea to the salt water to
Speaker 1: feed and grow. But when spawning time comes, they engage
Speaker 1: in what we cause salmon rhyme and what grizzly bears
Speaker 1: of course called like a seafood buffet, right. Uh. They
Speaker 1: so the fish travel upstream to their natal spawning grounds,
Speaker 1: they spawn, and then they die, and then the nutrients
Speaker 1: in their bodies washed downstream to the estuaries. So it's
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's kind of an elegant um practice here,
Speaker 1: but making it upstream is quite a journey, especially when
Speaker 1: you're having to deal with rapids and waterfalls. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: no dragon gates, but still some significant challenges there. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so they leap out of the water, they jump
Speaker 1: sometimes up to twelve ft or three point six five meters.
Speaker 1: Now not only they have to contend not only the bears,
Speaker 1: but also man. Humans have have shown a tremendous ability,
Speaker 1: of course, to alter natural waterways, to install dams, bridges,
Speaker 1: what have you. Oh. Yeah, this is actually figured into
Speaker 1: people trying to control the spread of carp like silvery arp,
Speaker 1: the jumping carp in American waterways. So you've got these
Speaker 1: carp moving slowly upstream and to prevent them from spreading
Speaker 1: even further. Some people have said, well, we need to
Speaker 1: construct barriers of some kind, but these have to be
Speaker 1: some pretty tall barriers, right, because these things can you know,
Speaker 1: jump tin tin feet high and twenty feet long, So
Speaker 1: that would have to be a serious barrier to prevent
Speaker 1: the carp from progressing. Yeah, and then what do you
Speaker 1: do about other creatures that have a natural right? Are
Speaker 1: you gonna install like a border guard, keep the carp out,
Speaker 1: but make sure the right creatures moved through. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's tough. I saw one solution that was literally an
Speaker 1: electrified fence in the water, where people installed a little
Speaker 1: devices that put electrical current in the river to prevent
Speaker 1: the carp from swimming by well, you know with the
Speaker 1: with the salmon. In the case of dams and other structures, Uh,
Speaker 1: they actually we actually sometimes create the fish ladders or
Speaker 1: fish ways to help them out. And these these can
Speaker 1: be quite interesting because sometimes they essentially look like nothing
Speaker 1: more than a series of buckets that they can splash
Speaker 1: and jump in and out of. Who actually make it
Speaker 1: over whatever the obstacle is, Yeah, a watery staircase sorts.
Speaker 1: But it's a cool idea because because as as we
Speaker 1: pointed out, like, not only is it important for the
Speaker 1: for the salmon to actually reach their destination, but it actually,
Speaker 1: you know, their ultimate death up there ends up having
Speaker 1: playing an important role in the overall ecology of the river.
Speaker 1: Isn't this also why the salmon cannon was invented? Yes,
Speaker 1: I believe it was to help help the salmon get upstream.
Speaker 1: I don't remember whatever became of that, Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know if that became a standard or if that was
Speaker 1: just kind of a flash in the pan. Alright, So
Speaker 1: one thing that comes to my mind is that, of
Speaker 1: course a carp can jump up out of the water
Speaker 1: hit you in the face, and that can cause some injury.
Speaker 1: But they're also fish much bigger than carp that do jump,
Speaker 1: that's right, and some of them jump with tremendous speed. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, of course about the mighty sword fish, which
Speaker 1: is it's it's a scientific name is zay FEUs gladius,
Speaker 1: which basically is just the word sword repeated in two
Speaker 1: different languages. So like, basically, were so excited about swordfish
Speaker 1: looking like a human murder weapon that we just call
Speaker 1: them sword sword. It's like a little kid. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: of course they're just uh, it's it's basically just a
Speaker 1: a bill that they are bill fish. There they are
Speaker 1: other billfish with with bills that resemble swords. Others resemble bills.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they look like saws. Uh, they're a number of
Speaker 1: different species um. And interestingly enough evidence seems to support
Speaker 1: the theory that the pointy end is more about speed
Speaker 1: than anything. So it's not a weapon. It's more of
Speaker 1: an aerodynamic design. Right. There's actually a weak point in
Speaker 1: the skull where the sword meets the skull, and it
Speaker 1: prevents them from being a proper javelin like if they
Speaker 1: if they were to hit something too great a speed,
Speaker 1: it would just snap. And the weak point is due
Speaker 1: to a lubricating gland that reduces drag and increases speed.
Speaker 1: Like it basically pumps out oil um it like spreads
Speaker 1: out through vessels, pumps out this this lubricant that lubricates
Speaker 1: the sword and the whole in the thing's whole head
Speaker 1: that allows it to just sort of slip through the
Speaker 1: water a little bit faster. So before the swordfish races,
Speaker 1: they're sitting there looving up their swords essentially and there
Speaker 1: you know, I think there are still some arguments that
Speaker 1: it may to certain degrees, have you know, have have
Speaker 1: some sort of defensive capability as well, especially if you're
Speaker 1: talking about a slashing as opposed to a full on
Speaker 1: like um uh you know, ramming speed type of a
Speaker 1: stabbing maneuver. There might be a secondary use or yeah,
Speaker 1: sort of you use it in a pinch, yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's certainly it certainly is that it certainly can be dangerous,
Speaker 1: as we'll discuss here. But the speeds the big thing,
Speaker 1: and then and indeed, swordfish are generally ranked like the
Speaker 1: third fastest fish. They're only surpassed by the black marlin
Speaker 1: and the sail fish, both of which are are other
Speaker 1: types of billfish swordfish. The estimates vary on all these
Speaker 1: people will get into fights over exact speeds, but generally
Speaker 1: you're looking at the black marlin. It clocked around possibly
Speaker 1: eighty miles per hour. Yeah, dye kilometers per hour. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's like twice as fast as your average boat can go.
Speaker 1: But but then again, these are these are creatures that
Speaker 1: are living in the open water. They they're dealing with
Speaker 1: a lot of the vast distances, so they have room
Speaker 1: to build up that speed. Um sailfish sixty nine miles
Speaker 1: per hour, and the swordfish comes in at a you know,
Speaker 1: a more conservative sixty miles per hour kilometers per hour.
Speaker 1: But again people will argue back and forth on these stats. No,
Speaker 1: that's still amazingly fast considering no water. I mean, when
Speaker 1: you think about moving through water, all the friction that's
Speaker 1: that's there, I mean, that's crazy. And they've evolved to
Speaker 1: deal with that friction about it just about as well
Speaker 1: as any sea animal is going to manage. Of course,
Speaker 1: they're also known to use that intense speed to roll
Speaker 1: themselves completely out of the water. Now why one of
Speaker 1: the one of the things about swordfish in particular is
Speaker 1: that they're rare creatures, they're elusive creatures, and that they
Speaker 1: don't do well in captivity, so it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: really study them in their ways. But they are susceptible,
Speaker 1: like everything else, to parasites. So there is a theory
Speaker 1: that they may be trying to dislodge parasites. Uh, in
Speaker 1: particular parasites um in particular that the paper I was
Speaker 1: looking at mentioned remoras, which are of course sucker fish
Speaker 1: that feed on other parents that feed on ectoparasites. So
Speaker 1: essentially these things might be bothering them at the very least,
Speaker 1: they're they're they're screwing with their streamlined body right there.
Speaker 1: They're messing up their speed potentially. So perhaps they're jumping
Speaker 1: out trying to dislodge those remoras, or if they have
Speaker 1: a fisherman's like a sports fisherman's hook in them, well
Speaker 1: that's something they're probably trying to dislodge as well. And
Speaker 1: that's certainly the iconic scene, right somebody gets a swordfish
Speaker 1: on the hook sleeping out of the water. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean you can see that at a much lower level.
Speaker 1: Just imagine you've probably seen footage of a bass fisher
Speaker 1: or something like that with a bass on the line
Speaker 1: and it jumps out of the water. Yeah. Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I know the question on everybody's mind here. Has anybody
Speaker 1: ever been impaled by a swordfish by the sword the
Speaker 1: sword sword? Yes, indeed they have. Um, now it's it's
Speaker 1: a rare occurrence, just as these human interactions with swordfish
Speaker 1: are already kind of a rare thing. Right, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: people fish for them, but still they're elusive. So this
Speaker 1: is didn't something to get really worked up about, right,
Speaker 1: You're you're probably gonna be putting yourself in the position
Speaker 1: to to have the outside chance of this occurring. But
Speaker 1: as of two thousand seven, there were no recorded attacks.
Speaker 1: And I put that in quotes because these are not
Speaker 1: creatures that eat humans or would have seemed seemingly attack humans.
Speaker 1: Any incidents seem to have been more or less accidental.
Speaker 1: But as of two thousand seven, there were no no
Speaker 1: recorded attacks that it actually resulted in death, though the
Speaker 1: paper in question, Swordfish Attack and Death by Penetrating head Injury,
Speaker 1: did outline one such incident. And then in two thousand fifteen,
Speaker 1: a deep sea fishing charter captain in Hawaii was fatally
Speaker 1: stabbed in the chest by one while trying to capture
Speaker 1: it with a spear gun. So basically it thrashed around
Speaker 1: after the spear hit the fish, and then it managed
Speaker 1: to skewer him in the chest. So it's a rare occurrence.
Speaker 1: But with a with a sword like that, with a
Speaker 1: large fish flopping around, um jumping out of the water,
Speaker 1: if you're close to it, yes, you run the risk
Speaker 1: of being run through. But even in this one incident
Speaker 1: mentioned here, it sounds like this guy was kind of
Speaker 1: I don't want to say he was asking for it
Speaker 1: he put him. Basically, he just put himself in in
Speaker 1: close proximity to a large sharp fish, and there's gonna
Speaker 1: you're rolling the diet when that happens, right, You don't
Speaker 1: wrestle with a unicorn exactly. But then again, of course
Speaker 1: there are other very large fish that jump as well.
Speaker 1: The In fact, as we saw with the carp example,
Speaker 1: you don't need a spike or a sword sword in
Speaker 1: order to do some damage when you run into somebody, right,
Speaker 1: all you need is a high powered recreation vessel and
Speaker 1: uh and and a hundred pound carp perhaps, But what
Speaker 1: if it was even bigger. What if you were talking
Speaker 1: instead of a hundred pound carp What if you were
Speaker 1: talking about, say, Florida's Gulf sturgeon, which if you've ever
Speaker 1: seen a sturgeon and aquarium, these they look like an
Speaker 1: armored tank or something. You know, they're they're rather intimidating,
Speaker 1: and then they get huge. They can come in it
Speaker 1: at the Florida Gulf sturgeon in particular, can come in
Speaker 1: at eight ft long two point five meters in, up
Speaker 1: to two hundred pounds or in weight. And yes, they
Speaker 1: sometimes jump out of the water up to six feet
Speaker 1: out of the water and occasionally that We're not only
Speaker 1: talking the risk of injury here. There there have been
Speaker 1: lethal occurrences of sturgeon in pack Oh man, well, I
Speaker 1: got to hear about that in a second. But this
Speaker 1: is weird to me because maybe I assume sturgeon must
Speaker 1: be able to move fast. Uh, if this is the case,
Speaker 1: but I've never seen a sturgeon move quickly. I've seen
Speaker 1: sturgeon and aquariums and they always seem incredibly chilled out
Speaker 1: and very languid fish just just hanging there, I mean,
Speaker 1: barely moving at all. Yeah, it is I have to
Speaker 1: admit that too. Like seeing them in aquariums are always
Speaker 1: really interesting, kind of intimidating, but very still. But yeah,
Speaker 1: they jumped in two thousand fifteen, In fact, one one
Speaker 1: of these jumping sturgeons actually killed a five year old
Speaker 1: girl when I left out of water into her family's
Speaker 1: fishing boat. It and it also injured her mother and
Speaker 1: her brother as well. In two thousand seven, nine people
Speaker 1: were injured in a collision with a sturgeon resultant, and
Speaker 1: this was in Florida, resulting in warning signs that were
Speaker 1: posted to encourage slower motor boat and jet ski speeds.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you have a two hundred pound fish flying
Speaker 1: out of the wall or up to six feet out
Speaker 1: of the water. And then you have a motor boat,
Speaker 1: you know, moving at high speeds as well. That's where
Speaker 1: these possibilities present themselves. Okay, but fish this big, why
Speaker 1: do they jump out of the water. Well, it's remained
Speaker 1: a bit of a mystery, but we have a few
Speaker 1: familiar theories as well as one that's kind of new
Speaker 1: here for our discussion here. So, first of all, all
Speaker 1: species of sturgeon will jump at times. The golf sturgeon
Speaker 1: is known to jump at two different times of the
Speaker 1: year in the rivers, during July and August and early
Speaker 1: in the offshore feeding period. So one theory is they
Speaker 1: do it to escape predators, but it's a big exactly,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a lame theory because the larger sturgeon
Speaker 1: do not have predators. Um. Another theory is that they
Speaker 1: do it for fun. And this is when I see
Speaker 1: mentioned with dolphins, and maybe we'll save that one for
Speaker 1: another another discussion. Well, I don't want to be unfairly
Speaker 1: prejudiced against the uh. I don't know the intellectual capabilities
Speaker 1: of fish, because as we learned with our birds episode.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you underestimate what other animal minds are capable of.
Speaker 1: But I tend to think of play as something that's
Speaker 1: more associated with more complex mammalian nervous systems, which is
Speaker 1: why it makes sense with with dolphins. You know, kind
Speaker 1: of intelligent mammals. Fish, I don't know, are they mentally
Speaker 1: complex enough to play? Yeah? I mean plus, it's also
Speaker 1: it comes down to economics. I was reading some thoughts
Speaker 1: on this from biologist Ken Sulak, and he pointed out
Speaker 1: that the jumping, especially for a massive sturgeon, it's an
Speaker 1: energy expenditure, so there has to be a trade off
Speaker 1: and behavioral importance, you know, beyond mere fun um. He
Speaker 1: actually theorizes that this is a form of communication with sturgeons,
Speaker 1: so theyre when they jump out and and and splash.
Speaker 1: It creates a distinct sound slapping noise, but they also
Speaker 1: um announced and they also create a small sound before
Speaker 1: and after um the jump. It's kind of like they
Speaker 1: produced kind of like clicks and drumming noise is so
Speaker 1: it's kind of a clicker a drumming noise to jump
Speaker 1: splash another sound, and he thinks that they might be
Speaker 1: announcing their presence in position to the larger groups. So
Speaker 1: it's like the mooing of a cow, which which I
Speaker 1: think is an interesting theory. Well, this, this does, this
Speaker 1: communication theory plays into something that I'm going to mention later,
Speaker 1: especially when we talk about sharks. Yes, and we'll get
Speaker 1: two sharks in a minute, but before we do, we
Speaker 1: have another potentially dangerous, perhaps even more worrisome for half
Speaker 1: our listeners fish to contend with. Okay, so you may
Speaker 1: have heard this story. A man is walking in the
Speaker 1: jungles of the Amazon and he realizes that, oh man,
Speaker 1: I had so much coffee this morning. I need to
Speaker 1: evacuate some urine. Okay. So he wades knee deep into
Speaker 1: the waters of the river, and he un zips and
Speaker 1: begins to relieve himself into the water. Question, why does
Speaker 1: he wade into the water before he You're in It's
Speaker 1: I had that same question. But this is how the
Speaker 1: story goes. Okay, So for if two seconds, this activity
Speaker 1: proceeds as normal, but then, to his horror, he sees
Speaker 1: a tiny, barely perceptible shape leap from the surface of
Speaker 1: the water into his urethra Oh Okay. In an alternate
Speaker 1: version of the story, it uh supposedly swims up the
Speaker 1: column of his urine stream and into his urethra, and
Speaker 1: then once inside there, it spreads this collection of barbed
Speaker 1: spines like an umbrella opening inside your urethra and just
Speaker 1: lodges itself there and begins to feast on the flesh.
Speaker 1: And eventually he has to he either dies or he
Speaker 1: has to undergo a really really undesirable surgery to get
Speaker 1: it removed. Well, that's horrible. I think we've all heard
Speaker 1: versions of this before, right you. You may remember a
Speaker 1: version of this from some dialogue between Eric Stolt's and
Speaker 1: John Voight in the movie Anaconda. Okay, I vaguely remember that.
Speaker 1: I tend to remember the growth out moments of that
Speaker 1: know more. But yes, oh, I mostly remember John Voight's accent.
Speaker 1: What is his accent supposed to be? It's like a
Speaker 1: cross between South American and and Count Dracula. That's great,
Speaker 1: But but is this story really true? Does anything like
Speaker 1: this happen? Can a tiny fish jump out of the
Speaker 1: water and into somebody's urethra or swim up your urine
Speaker 1: stream into your urethra? Uh? Well, the fish allegedly described
Speaker 1: in this story as agreed by most authorities to be
Speaker 1: in fact the Vandelia sarosa, which is a type of
Speaker 1: parasitic catfish also known as a vampire catfish, but it's
Speaker 1: commonly known in the sort of legendary literature as the candaru.
Speaker 1: These are the facts about Vandelia so vandelias, this tiny
Speaker 1: parasitic catfish usually about an inch or two inches, you know,
Speaker 1: two and a half or to five centimeters long, nearly
Speaker 1: invisible in the water, especially when it hasn't fed recently. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it occupies the tropical freshwater verse of South America
Speaker 1: Amazon River basin, and it drinks the blood of other fish.
Speaker 1: So it's regular emo is that you're you're a goldfish
Speaker 1: or something like that, swimming around in the river, and
Speaker 1: the kangaroo or the vandalia scientifically swims into into your
Speaker 1: gills and anchors itself there with spines that line it's
Speaker 1: gill covers, and then it drinks your blood, becomes engorged,
Speaker 1: and then it swims away to the bottom to burrow
Speaker 1: in and digest the bottom of the waterway, right uh.
Speaker 1: And so when it enters the gills of the host fish,
Speaker 1: it bites at an a order artery ventroller dorsal, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't need to suck because actually the host's blood
Speaker 1: pressure just pumps blood into the candaroo's mouth. So instead
Speaker 1: of blood sucking, this animal is more like when you
Speaker 1: hook the lip of a balloon over a water faucet
Speaker 1: and then turn the water on to make a water balloon,
Speaker 1: is just letting itself fill up. Okay, So the idea
Speaker 1: here is that if it preyed on humans, obviously, swimming
Speaker 1: into someone's p hole is not it's it's design. This
Speaker 1: would be it would be like a like a port
Speaker 1: tape worm getting lost and winding up in your brain.
Speaker 1: He doesn't need that to happen, but it occurs accidentally.
Speaker 1: Right that this is a mistake for this animal. If
Speaker 1: if this is true and uh, and it's a it's
Speaker 1: a fatal mistake for the animal and sometimes for the person,
Speaker 1: according to the story. So those are the facts that
Speaker 1: just reported. Now there are also a bunch of claims
Speaker 1: that are commonly reported as fact, and these include that
Speaker 1: the kangaroo can swim up the urethra of a person
Speaker 1: or mammal that might urinate in the water. So the
Speaker 1: less unbelievable version is that mammals weighed fully into the
Speaker 1: water and begin to urinate once under the water, and
Speaker 1: the candaroo swims up one of their orifices, the ure
Speaker 1: throw or the vagina or the anus. Uh. It's commonly
Speaker 1: reported that this fish is attracted to the flow of urine,
Speaker 1: maybe because it's chemically similar to some chemicals that would
Speaker 1: come out of the gills of its host fish. More
Speaker 1: on that in a bit. And then once instip once
Speaker 1: inside you, it gets stuck, can't escape, dies obstructs the
Speaker 1: path of the urethra, you can't pee, and it has
Speaker 1: to get removed by surgery. Classical stories of this include
Speaker 1: lots of accounts of penile amputation. So you can see
Speaker 1: why this causes extreme distress for people getting into these waters. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I can also see why a lot of this
Speaker 1: is sort of hinged on just creating a cringe e
Speaker 1: horror tail to share with with visitors. Say, oh, the
Speaker 1: officials swim up your pee hole and then we'll have
Speaker 1: to cut your penis off, and you know, so it's
Speaker 1: it's easy to see it is nothing more than that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there are two questions here. Number one is the
Speaker 1: general one to kinderoo actually swim up people's eurethras. Uh,
Speaker 1: and if so, do they perform this even more crazy
Speaker 1: sounding feat of either jumping from the water, this jumping
Speaker 1: fish tie in here, which isn't as crazy based on
Speaker 1: what we've been discussing. Lots of fish jumps, so it
Speaker 1: seems possible. Now, could it jump with such a degree
Speaker 1: of accuracy that it jumps straight into your urethra that's
Speaker 1: kind of tough to imagine, or the even crazier one
Speaker 1: that it swims up the stream of your urine. I
Speaker 1: got some doubts about that. But are there any medical
Speaker 1: cases of this? And in the cases of the medical literature, well,
Speaker 1: there's one major report in the modern day that people
Speaker 1: refer to so in n a euro genital surgeon named n. R.
Speaker 1: Some odd who was working in Amazonia in Brazil, reportedly
Speaker 1: extracted a dead kinderu from a patient's penis. And according
Speaker 1: to the report of the patient's story, the patient was
Speaker 1: standing thigh deep in the water, urinating into the water
Speaker 1: with his penis above the water, and he reported that
Speaker 1: the fish jumped out of the water, swam up the
Speaker 1: stream of his urine and into his urethra. Now, I I,
Speaker 1: as I alluded to earlier, I'm really suspicious about the
Speaker 1: physics of the swimming up the urine stream. Yeah. It
Speaker 1: also makes me wonder if he did have something lodged
Speaker 1: in his in his uh urethra, like he oh, maybe
Speaker 1: he only became aware of it when he urinated and
Speaker 1: this and he just happened to be standing in the
Speaker 1: water and he just made the assumption that, oh, that's
Speaker 1: when it entered. Yeah, so we only have this second
Speaker 1: or I guess third hand report in this case, so
Speaker 1: it's hard to know exactly what happened. But imagine the idea,
Speaker 1: like physically, just try to think of the fluid mechanics
Speaker 1: of swimming up a stream of urine. It would be
Speaker 1: kind of like if you had imagine a really good swimmer,
Speaker 1: like an Olympic swimmer in a pool, and then you
Speaker 1: stand on the roof of a house over the pool
Speaker 1: and aim a fire hose at them and say, okay,
Speaker 1: swim up the stream of the fire hose. To me, uh,
Speaker 1: that just it doesn't seem to make any sense. It
Speaker 1: would be like swimming up a waterfall, where the salmon
Speaker 1: do not swim up a waterfall, but they can they
Speaker 1: can jump over, right, So I can believe it's much
Speaker 1: more likely that fish simply jumped out of the water
Speaker 1: and in this one in a million chance kind of way,
Speaker 1: happened to jump straight into this guy's unfortunate urethra, which
Speaker 1: we should say does expand during urination, So it kind
Speaker 1: of opens the possibility there, both figuratively and I guess literally. So.
Speaker 1: According to a BBC story I read on the candaroo
Speaker 1: legend um, the American marine scientist Stephen Spot met with
Speaker 1: some od the surgeon who supposedly removed the candaru from
Speaker 1: the guy uh in, and he met with this guy
Speaker 1: in to investigate, and he was shown pictures and video
Speaker 1: of the extraction. So a real surgery definitely took place.
Speaker 1: Some something was actually removed from this guy's urethra uh
Speaker 1: and there was a preserved specimen of the fish itself.
Speaker 1: But Spot wasn't entirely convinced for a few reasons. One was,
Speaker 1: um the physical mechanical problem I just mentioned in the
Speaker 1: patient's story. The other was the preserve specimen was a
Speaker 1: lot bigger than you'd expect a candiu to grow, which
Speaker 1: in one other source I read it is more than
Speaker 1: five inches long and almost half an inch wide. Can
Speaker 1: you also it was bigger than the thing we'd expect
Speaker 1: to find in your urethra. That also makes the story
Speaker 1: all the more horrific to envision. Yeah. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: the specimen also, according to Spot, did not show signs
Speaker 1: of having been lodged or removed as described. For example,
Speaker 1: it didn't have snipped off spines or anything. Uh. Then
Speaker 1: again Spot reported he didn't entirely dismiss the account either.
Speaker 1: At this point, many elements appear unlikely, but it's hard
Speaker 1: hard to know what really happened. Um. But as a
Speaker 1: side note that this sort of raises the question of
Speaker 1: kndio entering the urethra and and other body orfice is
Speaker 1: more generally right. So this has been widely reported as
Speaker 1: fact all throughout the literature, both scientific and popular, for
Speaker 1: a couple hundred years now, but a few critical writers
Speaker 1: have pointed out these accounts are kind of weird, like
Speaker 1: that they're almost always vague and second hand, it happened
Speaker 1: to somebody that I heard of somewhere up the river.
Speaker 1: Some guy in the next village had a candio swim
Speaker 1: or jump into his penis and and get lodged there. Um.
Speaker 1: And also supposedly one of the explanations for this. Uh,
Speaker 1: the kangaroo are attracted to the chemicals commonly found in
Speaker 1: human urine, such as urea that has been tested and
Speaker 1: found to be completely without merit. So Stephen Spot along
Speaker 1: with the guy mentioned earlier, along with colleagues Paulo Petrie
Speaker 1: and Jansen Zonon and published results of an experiment in
Speaker 1: two thousand one that found that Vandelia, these these parasitic
Speaker 1: catfishes under lab conditions just didn't care about the chemical
Speaker 1: attractants in the water at all. They were not interested
Speaker 1: in ammonia, amino acids, fresh fish slime, or human urine.
Speaker 1: No response, so they just didn't care. Instead, they seemed
Speaker 1: to hunt for hosts such as Amazon goldfish, mostly by sight.
Speaker 1: They saw them, said, those look like some good gills.
Speaker 1: I'm going to them. And uh. And fortunately somebody has
Speaker 1: actually tried to figure out if there's anything to all
Speaker 1: these stories. Uh. There's a paper in the Journal of
Speaker 1: Travel Medicine in by Erme Guard Bauer called candaru a
Speaker 1: little fish with bad habits need travel health professionals worry
Speaker 1: a review and so in this paper the least scandal
Speaker 1: as possible headline. I know, but Bauer essentially concluded that
Speaker 1: there there's probably nothing to these stories. Uh, there's they
Speaker 1: So there was an extensive review of all the available literature,
Speaker 1: and there's just not strong evidence that these fish pose
Speaker 1: a threat to humans. Instead, the record sort of indicates
Speaker 1: that these attacks are they're just always hearsay. The same
Speaker 1: stories get repeated over and over as if they're fact.
Speaker 1: And Bauer concludes by saying, you know, considering the range
Speaker 1: of this fish, it's all over the place, and and
Speaker 1: how how horrifying their habit is supposed to be, it
Speaker 1: seems like wouldn't we be hearing about this more often
Speaker 1: in the modern day, wouldn't we be encountering stories of
Speaker 1: this happening? Uh? And and there is almost nothing. There's
Speaker 1: just like that that those old stories that have been
Speaker 1: repeated for decades, and then there's this one disputable Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, the only counter argument I can think of
Speaker 1: is that since it's like a penile injury, that it
Speaker 1: would be underreported out of shame or embarrassment. But not
Speaker 1: if you factor in like the severity of the supposed
Speaker 1: severity of the infection. You know, I feel like this
Speaker 1: is the kind of thing that if there were a
Speaker 1: confirmed case where somebody went to a hospital and this
Speaker 1: was you know, became part of the medical literature. This
Speaker 1: would be this would be all over I f L
Speaker 1: science and everything, you know what I mean, everybody would
Speaker 1: be like, oh my god, I gotta fish up his penis.
Speaker 1: We've got to report the heck out of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we just don't see that. Now that being said,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of other things that can harm your
Speaker 1: privates if you go waiting around in you know, Amazonian rivers.
Speaker 1: In fact, that is part of the explanation is that
Speaker 1: many of these story reason may be sort of garblings
Speaker 1: because a lot of them come from you know, colonial
Speaker 1: periods and in the Amazon and stuff like that, where
Speaker 1: there were language barriers between the people reporting the stories
Speaker 1: and then the and then the people writing them down
Speaker 1: and publishing them. So I don't know, I feel like
Speaker 1: there's a lot of room for legend and error. Yeah. Plus,
Speaker 1: I mean, if anyone out there, if you've ever had
Speaker 1: a U T I, your anary your ainary track infection,
Speaker 1: you you know that it can feel like a tiny
Speaker 1: barbed fish has swam inside you. So I could see
Speaker 1: where where such uncomfortable scenarios could lend themselves to creative interpretations. Okay,
Speaker 1: so what do we think on that Candaru leaping into
Speaker 1: your urethra? Not impossible, but seems unlikely. Let's get into sharks,
Speaker 1: because I think we've all seen these stunning images, some
Speaker 1: of the the photoshops of great white sharks leaping over the
Speaker 1: Golden gate Bridge, leaping out of Yeah, leaping over bridges,
Speaker 1: or at least managing to get their entire bodies out
Speaker 1: of the water in a way that just terrifies this
Speaker 1: because you look and you say, well, that's a monster
Speaker 1: of the water. But it is not allowed out of
Speaker 1: the water. It is not allowed up here in the air,
Speaker 1: because that just messes with with all of the guidelines
Speaker 1: that govern my safety. Yeah, I thought I was supposed
Speaker 1: to be safe in this boat. Well, in keeping with
Speaker 1: our theme of fish leaping at people in their watercraft,
Speaker 1: did you know that sometimes even great white sharks leap
Speaker 1: into boats entirely into Yeah. So in this case, as
Speaker 1: with others, this is not a situation of attempted predatory
Speaker 1: behavior towards the humans on the boat. It's not an attack. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's just very unfortunate coincidence. One example of this kind
Speaker 1: of story July two thousand eleven, I found a National
Speaker 1: Geographic news story covering one of these events. So in
Speaker 1: July two thousand eleven, there's a research vessel off Seal Island,
Speaker 1: off the coast of South Africa. And if you've seen
Speaker 1: videos of great white sharks jumping into the air out
Speaker 1: of the water, very likely that video came from around
Speaker 1: Seal Island in South Africa. This is one of the
Speaker 1: most famous places in the world to see this behavior
Speaker 1: among white sharks. So there's a research vessel in the
Speaker 1: waters out near this place, and a roughly five m
Speaker 1: or half ton great white shark jumps into the boat
Speaker 1: operated by these marine researchers, and it's in the boat.
Speaker 1: It's stuck on the deck beneath the walls in the boat,
Speaker 1: so it's thrashing around. Everybody had to get the heck
Speaker 1: away from it and try to figure out how to
Speaker 1: help it get back into the water so it wouldn't die. Robert,
Speaker 1: for your benefit, I have a picture here. It's just
Speaker 1: a shark in the boat. That is a big shark.
Speaker 1: This is not if you're if you're picturing like just
Speaker 1: a juvenile, small little aquarium shark. Huge shark uh. So,
Speaker 1: of course they couldn't get the shark out of the
Speaker 1: boat by hand, and so they attempted to drag it
Speaker 1: out with a rope and that failed, and then they
Speaker 1: so eventually they had to drive the boat back to
Speaker 1: the harbor, and they tried to lift it out of
Speaker 1: the boat with a crane, which was dangerous to do,
Speaker 1: but the shark was going to die, so they had
Speaker 1: to try it. Uh, and they so they lowered it
Speaker 1: back into the water. But the shark may be confused
Speaker 1: or injured from this, stranded itself on a harbor beach nearby.
Speaker 1: They attempted to push it back into the water by
Speaker 1: hand and that failed. So eventually they tied the animal
Speaker 1: to the side of a boat and drove it out
Speaker 1: to sea, and about half an hour after that, the
Speaker 1: sharks swam away. It swam away and seemed to recover.
Speaker 1: It slapped its tail. So nobody knows what happened after that,
Speaker 1: if it eventually went on to live and be okay,
Speaker 1: or if it was injured and if it died. They're
Speaker 1: just not sure. But I hope that sharks out there
Speaker 1: right now, uh, longing for seal flush, trying to eat right. So,
Speaker 1: so when a shark leaps out of the water, this
Speaker 1: is known as breaching. And to use specific terminology that
Speaker 1: I of from one study that I read, when a
Speaker 1: shark leaps vertically or near vertically out of the water,
Speaker 1: so it's coming up from below vertically into the air
Speaker 1: with a head up position, this is known as a
Speaker 1: polarist breach. Oh, I love that. That's so good. That's
Speaker 1: a good band name. Uh So, why do shark's breach?
Speaker 1: Why why do they come up out of the water like? Well,
Speaker 1: based on a lot of my research that concerns uh
Speaker 1: like nineteen eighties Italian shark films that came out in
Speaker 1: the wake of Jaws, they do it to make a
Speaker 1: boat explode, right, Yeah, to smash a boat. And no,
Speaker 1: that is not why they do it. They they're There
Speaker 1: are two main kinds of breaching. There may be other
Speaker 1: minor behavior, but the two main kinds that you'll read
Speaker 1: about most often are predatory breaching and what's known as
Speaker 1: natural breaching. So predatory breaching, it's all there in the name.
Speaker 1: The shark is in the pursuit of prey. There's a seal,
Speaker 1: you know, pinniped there, that's a nice fatty delicious energy
Speaker 1: rich meal swimming along near the surface of the water.
Speaker 1: And in these breaches, the shark moves rapidly up from below,
Speaker 1: bites as it shoots up into the air and then
Speaker 1: slams back down into the water. And a lot of
Speaker 1: cases there it'll shoot up from below, hit the seal,
Speaker 1: bite it, and then release it and then wait for
Speaker 1: the seal to bleed out and die and come back
Speaker 1: and finish it. This was Yeah. I was reading a
Speaker 1: paper about this the other day in preparation for this episode,
Speaker 1: and I found that interesting because I really had not
Speaker 1: researched actual shark um predatory behavior much and the idea
Speaker 1: that they wound and then allow the prey to bleed
Speaker 1: and then come back for it is interesting because because
Speaker 1: you know, nobody wants to get slapped by a seal,
Speaker 1: including a great white shark. You know, the shark is
Speaker 1: has to be cautious, like a prey can injure it
Speaker 1: if it's fighting around with it while the prey is
Speaker 1: still strong, so it wants to avoid that. In fact,
Speaker 1: one of the papers I read about this by an
Speaker 1: author named r Aiden Martin, who has written on on
Speaker 1: great white breaching. A good bit they actually put together
Speaker 1: a shark hunting decision entree. So it has it's like
Speaker 1: a flow chart where you know what, depending on what happens,
Speaker 1: do you move to this next thing or this next thing? Uh?
Speaker 1: And so it includes like the initial attack and then
Speaker 1: do you catch or do you wait and pursue? Do
Speaker 1: you quote process? I love that at some point the
Speaker 1: shark begins to process the seal um And we don't
Speaker 1: mean thinking about the seal here either. No, this is
Speaker 1: sort of working on it right right, butchering with its
Speaker 1: mouth basically. So so why does it do this? What?
Speaker 1: Why is the great white shark attacking the seal in
Speaker 1: this way? Why didn't just swim up from behind and
Speaker 1: bite it? Uh? Well, think think about how this plays
Speaker 1: out in practice, like what the conditions are for the
Speaker 1: predator and for the prey. Looking up from the deep
Speaker 1: water below. The shark has more ability to see a
Speaker 1: seal near the surface than the seal does the shark,
Speaker 1: so the seal is illuminated by the sky and these
Speaker 1: attacks take place more often in low like conditions, when
Speaker 1: there's less penetration of water of the water column by
Speaker 1: the light in the sky, like if the sun's at
Speaker 1: an angle. So you're a shark, you know several you know,
Speaker 1: meters down below the water, and you're looking up. You
Speaker 1: can see your prey, but it's less likely to see you,
Speaker 1: especially because of your your dorsal coloring, the dark coloring
Speaker 1: on the top of you. And so why is this
Speaker 1: element of surprise so crucial? Well, when you look at
Speaker 1: the body composition of a white shark versus a seal
Speaker 1: um According to one study I read, between ninety four
Speaker 1: and nine percent of a white sharks muscle is composed
Speaker 1: of what's known as white muscle. And this is this
Speaker 1: is sprinting muscle. It's capable of rapid contraction, but it
Speaker 1: has very low stamina, and a pinnip head like a seal,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, can go the distance. It's capable
Speaker 1: of sustaining long term evasive tactics. So the longer the
Speaker 1: attack goes on, the better that the less chance a
Speaker 1: shark has of catching the seal and getting it um.
Speaker 1: So the sharks are better at sprinting the marathon, seals
Speaker 1: can can keep evading, so a sudden surprise attack greatly
Speaker 1: increases the sharks chance of success. And this is why
Speaker 1: this rocketing up from below which leads to breaching UH
Speaker 1: is so common. Well, that makes perfect sense from the
Speaker 1: from a hunting standpoint, and according to a paper on
Speaker 1: the on the physics of this process, so the shark
Speaker 1: usually starts UH down deep in the water, a place
Speaker 1: where the bottom depth is between twenty six and thirty
Speaker 1: meters and UH in these cases, the entire attack, you know,
Speaker 1: leaping up from the bottom after they begin their strikes
Speaker 1: to UH to the seal is about two to two
Speaker 1: and a half seconds, so it just doesn't give the
Speaker 1: seal much time at all to react. And then, of course,
Speaker 1: at the speed it takes to hit the seal from
Speaker 1: below that fast, the sharks still propelled upwards and it's
Speaker 1: going out of the water. Um. And in these cases
Speaker 1: the shark attacks are successful about forty percent of the time,
Speaker 1: which is not a bad hunting success, right. But then
Speaker 1: there's this other kind of breaching image that's what that's
Speaker 1: the predatory breaching, jumping out of the water to kill.
Speaker 1: There's also what's known as natural breaching, when the shark
Speaker 1: breaches for no obvious reason, there's no predatory attack or anything, um,
Speaker 1: no bait on the surface that it's being coaxed to
Speaker 1: the surface with right, So why what what's going on here? Well,
Speaker 1: according to one theory, sharks have these well developed mechano
Speaker 1: receptors and chemo receptors and electro receptors. They have all
Speaker 1: you know, receptive sensing organs that we don't have at
Speaker 1: that kind of level. So it's been hypothesized that tail slap,
Speaker 1: so that's one type of slapping behavior, and then breaching,
Speaker 1: jumping out of the water, and splashing down are communicative.
Speaker 1: They they're allowing sharks to communicate between one another through
Speaker 1: agonistic behaviors. That's not you know, fighting displays. I'm tough,
Speaker 1: this is my food. You better get away because I
Speaker 1: could fight you for it. And it's true that lots
Speaker 1: of fishes do use sound as a communication channel, and
Speaker 1: so it's hypothesized that these behaviors like tail slapping and breaching,
Speaker 1: jumping out of the water and splashing down could exploit
Speaker 1: this kind of mechano reception, This this sound sensitive ability
Speaker 1: of fish to communicate between the sharks. And when you
Speaker 1: think about it, a shark jumping out of the water
Speaker 1: and splashing down is not necessarily a bad signifier of fitness.
Speaker 1: That's like the bigger you are, and the stronger you are,
Speaker 1: the harder of a splashdown you can make. It's certainly,
Speaker 1: I mean, it makes a statement to us and we're
Speaker 1: not even sharks. Yeah. And one reason to think this
Speaker 1: is a good explanation is that this natural breaching often
Speaker 1: seems to happen with sharks in the presence of other sharks,
Speaker 1: not just hanging out by themselves. Now, this is interesting.
Speaker 1: We're talking about this breaching behavior that's taking place, uh
Speaker 1: specifically to predatory breaching behavior. It's taking place in the
Speaker 1: presence of the seal. You brought up an interesting um
Speaker 1: tidbit yesterday about the recent shark move movie The Shallows,
Speaker 1: in which the shark tries to eat Blake Lively about
Speaker 1: about what what does it mean when we see a
Speaker 1: movie shark breaching like this in seemingly tropical waters. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this was interesting. I believe I read this. Now this
Speaker 1: isn't in my notes. I'm just trying to recall from memory,
Speaker 1: but I recalled that I read this, I think on
Speaker 1: Smithsonian where they were reviewing the trailer of the film.
Speaker 1: But they spoke to a marine biologist who had some
Speaker 1: knowledge of shark behaviors and said Okay, look at how
Speaker 1: the shark's acting in the trailer for this movie. Is
Speaker 1: this basically accurate? Uh? And I recall what the the
Speaker 1: expert said was, well, it looks like this movie is
Speaker 1: supposed to take place in tropical waters, and yet you
Speaker 1: see the shark when it attacks this guy leaps out
Speaker 1: of the water. That's breaching behavior, which is not necessarily
Speaker 1: something you'd be likely to see in tropical waters because
Speaker 1: the place as you really see it are are like
Speaker 1: in South Africa, where they have these uh, these prey
Speaker 1: like seals that they have to attack in this manner
Speaker 1: in order to maximize their success rate at catching them.
Speaker 1: In tropical waters, sharks probably have access to fish that
Speaker 1: are much more slow moving and easier to catch, and
Speaker 1: they just they don't have to resort to these breaching
Speaker 1: behaviors in order to catch meals so that they The
Speaker 1: expert they talked to rated that as not quite so plausible.
Speaker 1: But from a cinematic standpoint, nothing is more terrifying than
Speaker 1: the shark coming out of its habitat into our habitat
Speaker 1: in order to especially to eat us. It's the inherent
Speaker 1: perversity of the land shark. It is all right, well,
Speaker 1: at this point, we really have only one sort of
Speaker 1: leaping jumping fish to consider, right, and that is of
Speaker 1: course the so called flying fish, right, because the distinction
Speaker 1: between jumping and flying may seem very clear, you right,
Speaker 1: you know, Uh, kangaroos jump and birds fly, and and
Speaker 1: these are not all that similar behaviors, but the dividing
Speaker 1: line between them, I don't know, is it really just time? Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can certainly bog yourself down in in um definitions
Speaker 1: of flight. Uh. To be clear with with the flying fish,
Speaker 1: we are talking about a gliding sometimes kind of a hydroplaning,
Speaker 1: where they're just where the tail is still in contact
Speaker 1: with the water. Um. So it's not powered flight, it's
Speaker 1: not true flight. So we're not talking about piranha to
Speaker 1: the spawning here right right, and then there's certainly no
Speaker 1: feathers involved. But it's interesting to put this in, you know,
Speaker 1: to sort of top off this discussion of all these
Speaker 1: weeping and jumping behaviors, because gliding fish might seem like
Speaker 1: the the evolutionary pinnacle of jumping fish. Right. But but
Speaker 1: the interesting thing here is that there's nothing new at all.
Speaker 1: In two thousand twelve, paleontologists found a near comple eleat
Speaker 1: skeleton from the Driassic period that's two to two forty
Speaker 1: two million years ago, um and and near complete skeleton
Speaker 1: boasted all the key attributes of the modern flying fish,
Speaker 1: well developed pectorial fin and a forked, asymmetrical tail. And
Speaker 1: even this form seemed to have evolved independently from the
Speaker 1: sixty four known species of flying fish we find today
Speaker 1: in all the world's ocean independence. So it's not like
Speaker 1: an ancestor of the like a cousin of them that's
Speaker 1: now not here right, it developed this gliding technique on
Speaker 1: its own. Um. So it's interesting just to to realize
Speaker 1: that that gliding fish have evolved in the past separately.
Speaker 1: They've died, I had died out and uh, and we
Speaker 1: have a fairly successful model of it today in the
Speaker 1: in these sixty four known species of flying fish and
Speaker 1: um and again, they don't necessarily fly as much as
Speaker 1: they glide, but they can they can really glide. So
Speaker 1: then what what would the difference be between a fish
Speaker 1: that glides and a fish that actually quote flies. Well, again,
Speaker 1: this is an area where where individuals can get into
Speaker 1: discussions and disagreements over what defines flight, but essentially it's
Speaker 1: a difference between powered flight and gliding, all right, So
Speaker 1: is it is the creature flapping its wings in order
Speaker 1: to sustain itself in the air or is it merely
Speaker 1: sort of falling with grace? Right? Uh, hang glider versus
Speaker 1: an airplane exactly, because we see plenty of gliding creatures
Speaker 1: and it generally means in order to glide, you need
Speaker 1: to either fall from something high, such as a tree,
Speaker 1: which is why we see so many um, you know,
Speaker 1: tree based gliders of boreal gliders, or it needs to
Speaker 1: be able to jump up high enough to glide a
Speaker 1: little bit. And that's what we see with gliding or
Speaker 1: flying fish. Um and they can they can really glide.
Speaker 1: They can glide and or hydroplane distances of hundred feet
Speaker 1: or four hundred meters thirty seconds with maximum flight speeds
Speaker 1: of up to forty five miles per hour or seventy
Speaker 1: two kilometers per hour, which is pretty impressive. I feel
Speaker 1: like we've all seen like splendid videos of this taking place.
Speaker 1: It's it's pretty impressive. So since these fish are small,
Speaker 1: I imagine they're not breaching to uh, to inflict predatory
Speaker 1: damage on a seal or something like no no, no,
Speaker 1: these are These are generally plankton eaters, and pretty much
Speaker 1: everybody agrees that they jump and glide to escape. There
Speaker 1: are many many enemies in the sea. Yeah, yet another
Speaker 1: evasive maneuver right now. There have been some that are
Speaker 1: proposed that this has to do with energy conservation, like
Speaker 1: the running or porpoising that is observed in marine mammals
Speaker 1: such as penguins or dolphins, but it really doesn't pan
Speaker 1: out when you crunch all the factors, including the oxygen
Speaker 1: debt of takeoff, and biologist John Davenport did just this
Speaker 1: sort of crunching in his paper How and Why Do
Speaker 1: Flying Fish Fly? Which is a certain only a good
Speaker 1: in depth read if you really want to get into
Speaker 1: the the economics and physics of this. Another theory sees
Speaker 1: all of this is a means to move from a
Speaker 1: food or plankton poor area to a food rich area,
Speaker 1: thus making the energy expenditure worth it, essentially kind of
Speaker 1: like rate and teleporting during a fight to get behind
Speaker 1: an opponent. You're not in a good position for your food,
Speaker 1: teleport to the to the to the positive position via flight,
Speaker 1: but there's not a lot of evidence to back that up.
Speaker 1: So why why would the flying or gliding in that
Speaker 1: case be better than just swimming to the food rich area.
Speaker 1: I just have to go back to the rate and
Speaker 1: analogy there. It's just the the it's in the realm
Speaker 1: of water. It is more like an instant appearance as
Speaker 1: opposed to a journey too. But again, so you can
Speaker 1: pretty much don't worry too much about that theory because
Speaker 1: pretty much everybody is still in agreeance. This is about
Speaker 1: escaping predators. Now. In escaping those predators, flying fish that
Speaker 1: or gliding fish, they don't flap their wings to gain
Speaker 1: lift um. They propel through the air water interface. I
Speaker 1: like that terminology at a shallow angle, unfurl their large
Speaker 1: lateral fins, and then rapidly beat their tail in the
Speaker 1: water prior to actual lift off. And it's interesting too
Speaker 1: that they have to be a certain size before they
Speaker 1: can actually pull this off. The smaller flying fish, before
Speaker 1: they've attained appropriate size, they can't actually uh pull this off.
Speaker 1: They're limited to simple leaps with their fins held against
Speaker 1: the body by surface tension. Huh yeah, okay, well so
Speaker 1: flying fish, you might say, in this case is kind
Speaker 1: of a misnomer. Then yes, they're they're gliding fish. That
Speaker 1: we have jumping fish, we have longer jumping fish, we
Speaker 1: have gliding fish. But I wonder why no fish with
Speaker 1: the ability to maintain sustained flight? Because if you imagine
Speaker 1: the the evolution of flight and its many forms, uh,
Speaker 1: it's commonly hypothesized that flight organs began with gliding organs.
Speaker 1: You know, organisms had had maybe movements or gliding organs
Speaker 1: that would help them coast from one tree to another
Speaker 1: or help them escape a predator faster. And overtime these
Speaker 1: organs developed until they were able to create powered sustained
Speaker 1: flight like birds. So why haven't fish gone there? Why
Speaker 1: are there no fish birds? I know you can't help
Speaker 1: but think about this, especially when you look at you
Speaker 1: jumping and then gliding, Why not flying? Why why have
Speaker 1: they not taken that next step? And then indeed is
Speaker 1: that step even possible? Right? Because as as you pointed out,
Speaker 1: so many of these examples of flight that we have
Speaker 1: um and certainly there are not that many. You can
Speaker 1: ultimately kind of look at at flight as a is
Speaker 1: a rare adaptation, even though it has been tremendously successful
Speaker 1: for the organisms that have achieved it. Because as vertebrates
Speaker 1: go we've we've only seen three takes on flight. We've
Speaker 1: seen UH a osaurin flight, We've seen a d in flight,
Speaker 1: and we've seen you know, bat flight, and UH and fish.
Speaker 1: So far as we know, unless there's some sort of
Speaker 1: fossil out there that we've yet to uncover, they've never
Speaker 1: crossed the threshold UH and UH and and and all.
Speaker 1: When you take in all biology, you have a single
Speaker 1: extinct lineage and three extant clades birds, bats and the
Speaker 1: and and UH and also insects. But even in these
Speaker 1: three extant examples of of vertebrate flight, they are examples
Speaker 1: of convergent evolution. Not that, like the pterosaurs, the birds
Speaker 1: and the bats didn't evolve from each other. They all
Speaker 1: independently achieved the mechanisms of flight. That's right. They exploit
Speaker 1: the same physical properties, but they're all different solutions to
Speaker 1: the same problem. I was looking at this book by
Speaker 1: David E. Alexander and Stephen Vogel titled Nature's Flyers, Birds, Insects,
Speaker 1: and the Biomechanics of Flight, and they put it into
Speaker 1: context like this quote. Although such convergent features may make
Speaker 1: animals appear quite similar, the adaptations are only superficially similar
Speaker 1: and have fundamental differences. Fish or cold blooded, scaly animals
Speaker 1: with gills, but pro porpoises are warm blooded, smooth skinned
Speaker 1: breathers of air. The point being that these are both
Speaker 1: not flight based. But these are both sea creatures with
Speaker 1: similar forms at first glance, but there of course very
Speaker 1: different organisms that it continues. Hummingbirds and bumblebees have almost
Speaker 1: identical wing beat patterns, but hummingbird wings are made of bone, muscle,
Speaker 1: and feathers. Bee wings are made of of pleated membranes
Speaker 1: supported by stiff, hollow veins. And they point out to
Speaker 1: that technological evolution has produced several areas of convergence between
Speaker 1: flying animals and flying machines. Quote the convergences were not
Speaker 1: intentional copies of mechanisms used by animals, but technological solutions
Speaker 1: to common challenges faced by all flyers. So this would
Speaker 1: seem to indicate that there's no inherent reason you couldn't
Speaker 1: expect fish to evolve mechanisms like a bird's wings or
Speaker 1: like an insect swings. Uh, they would just be you know, fishier. Basically,
Speaker 1: they would be evolved from the equipment available to fish. Anatomy. Well,
Speaker 1: the one place that my mind immediately mean went was
Speaker 1: all right, So almost it seems like all these other
Speaker 1: examples are our land creatures that that take to gliding.
Speaker 1: So maybe dwelling on the land is an essential prerequisite
Speaker 1: too to the sort of gliding that evolves into flight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that could certainly like do you need or runway in
Speaker 1: order to evolve flight? A solid runway or or a
Speaker 1: high place to jump off of? Can you just not
Speaker 1: really ever evolutionarily justify the the evolution of propelled flight
Speaker 1: mechanisms if you always have to start from underwater, right,
Speaker 1: And and maybe that does hold true invertebrates. But then,
Speaker 1: according to biologists Jim Martin, the possible exception is with insects.
Speaker 1: Flapping gills could have evolved into flight capable wings as
Speaker 1: an aquatic in an aquatic ironment, according to Martin, so
Speaker 1: insects may have an out there. But maybe this prerequisite
Speaker 1: holds true with vertebrates. But the thing is, when you
Speaker 1: start asking this question, you also have to take it
Speaker 1: outside of fish too, because we could also say asked
Speaker 1: the same thing about other gliding organisms, gliding snakes, lizards,
Speaker 1: the gliding squid, various gliding arboreal mammals, including lemurs. Why
Speaker 1: do they know flying lemurs because certainly they're they're in
Speaker 1: the position where they're they're leaping out of trees, they're
Speaker 1: gliding a little whine. Is that not developed into flight?
Speaker 1: I guess the simplest explanation to me would would just
Speaker 1: be a guess, But it would be that there's just
Speaker 1: not enough incentive for it, Like maybe there's just no
Speaker 1: clear advantage survival or reproduction advantage to fish remaining in
Speaker 1: the air for longer than it takes to glidees a
Speaker 1: short distance. Because you know, when you think about it,
Speaker 1: what really happens in the air. I mean, birds use
Speaker 1: the air to traverse between in different locations of feeding
Speaker 1: and breeding and stuff like that. I suppose fish could
Speaker 1: do the same thing, But I don't know would they
Speaker 1: be more would they be more open to bird predation
Speaker 1: if they were to fly around in the air all
Speaker 1: the time? With I mean, it could just be that
Speaker 1: there's not enough reason for them to have this trade. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because yeah, because when you do one thing to say,
Speaker 1: all right, why why on the flying fish just become
Speaker 1: a true flying organism, But you also have to provide
Speaker 1: the reason for it, like how is that going to work?
Speaker 1: Is it is it? Is it really of benefit that's
Speaker 1: going to play out in evolution? And uh, so far
Speaker 1: the answer seems to be no. Now I do have
Speaker 1: to mention that this this larger question of why do
Speaker 1: some lineages evolve into the sky and there's not? It
Speaker 1: remains something of a mystery, and scientists that even look
Speaker 1: to underlying molecular mechanisms and this whole there's a whole
Speaker 1: study of biological uh periodicity that gets into this. It
Speaker 1: gets a really deep and complex bit and and uh
Speaker 1: and has a lot of a lot of parallels in
Speaker 1: in molecular concerns. So it's uh so, so it ends
Speaker 1: up being a deeper question than just why don't fish
Speaker 1: actually fly? But why does do do any numbers? Yeah,
Speaker 1: one more thing I probably should say. It's may have
Speaker 1: been too obvious for us to mention. But of course
Speaker 1: there is the impediment of breathing. Oh yes, but certainly
Speaker 1: we have land again right to the the mud skippers
Speaker 1: and the walking catfish, this and earlier forms of lungfish.
Speaker 1: So that alone doesn't seem like it would be um,
Speaker 1: you know, an eliminating factor, but it would certainly still
Speaker 1: be a concern because they are venturing outside of their realm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, so there you have it. Um. Now, we
Speaker 1: only covered some of the jumping fish out there in
Speaker 1: the world, so we may have missed some examples that
Speaker 1: you're particularly fond of, or some just examples you've seen
Speaker 1: in real life and have some stories related to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and one thing I do think we should make clear
Speaker 1: is that Robert, you and I were not trying to
Speaker 1: be alarmists about fish jumping. We we have covered several
Speaker 1: stories of fish jumping into boats, fish jumping into people,
Speaker 1: and injuries that have been sustained on those accounts. But
Speaker 1: I think these events are exceedingly rare overall, So you
Speaker 1: really don't need to be like super worried about getting
Speaker 1: killed by jumping fish, right, But certainly if there's a
Speaker 1: sign saying telling you not to drive too fast on
Speaker 1: the water because there are leaping sturgeon, I would acknowledge
Speaker 1: that sign and remember that, yes, individuals have been injured
Speaker 1: or killed, so be cautious on or the sturgeon are
Speaker 1: under the sturgeon. Indeed. All right, So hey, if you
Speaker 1: want to check out more episodes of stuff to blow
Speaker 1: your mind, head on over to stuff to blow your
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Speaker 1: find all of our podcast episodes, as well as links
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Speaker 1: there at the top, like a star or something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't have it in front of me, but it's doable.
Speaker 1: It's very doable, and you should do it because you
Speaker 1: never know how Facebook is going to tweak that algorithm
Speaker 1: and make it to wear. The things that you love,
Speaker 1: such as us no longer show up. Oh yeah, we
Speaker 1: would love it if the majority of commenters on our
Speaker 1: Facebook posts were actual podcast listeners. That would be awesome.
Speaker 1: We do have a few uh, few randoms that wandering
Speaker 1: uh and hey, if you want to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us the old fashioned way, how can they do it?
Speaker 1: How can they fling that mackerel into our boat? Well,
Speaker 1: you can always email us at blow the Mind at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Well more on this than
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics is that how stuff works dot Com.
Speaker 1: I think the big footstrap the start