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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert.

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Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with

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Speaker 3: part three in our series on predators in the deep

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Speaker 3: and dark parts of the Ocean. Now for a brief

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Speaker 3: recap on the previous episodes in the series. The ocean

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Speaker 3: can be thought of as having several different zones if

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Speaker 3: you imagine them stacked vertically, each with different environmental conditions

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Speaker 3: regarding the availability of light, the availability of food, temperature, pressure,

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Speaker 3: and so forth. And to be sure, the majority of

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Speaker 3: marine fauna do live relatively close to the surface of

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Speaker 3: the water, where sunlight can reach the phytoplankton and the

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Speaker 3: other photo autotrophs that form the base of the food chain.

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Speaker 3: Up there, they photosynthesize things, eat them, things eat those things,

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Speaker 3: and so on. Now, in centuries past, there were thinkers

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Speaker 3: such as the naturalist Edward Forbes, who observed that you know,

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Speaker 3: the deeper you trawl or plunge into the water looking

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Speaker 3: for life, the less you find. And from that he

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Speaker 3: extrapolated that you know, below a certain depth there will

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Speaker 3: be no fauna at all. Within the sea. This was

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Speaker 3: the so called azoic hypothesis. We of course now know

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Speaker 3: that that is not true. And while conditions are harsher

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Speaker 3: and life forms may be less dense and less diverse

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Speaker 3: in the depths than they are near the surface, there

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Speaker 3: is nevertheless a fascinating world of animal interactions taking place

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Speaker 3: in the deeper, darker zones of the ocean, even going

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Speaker 3: all the way down to the very bottom, down to

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Speaker 3: the abyssle ocean floor, and even into the sort of

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Speaker 3: inverted island communities of the deep ocean trenches. Now, when

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Speaker 3: you look at the animals within the environments, some of

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Speaker 3: them are grazers, you know, grazing on microbial mats. Some

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Speaker 3: of them are scavengers. But some are also predators and

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Speaker 3: even top predators. And that's what we've been looking at

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Speaker 3: in this series, Hunters in the Dark Parts of the Ocean. Now,

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Speaker 3: in part one, we started by talking about a couple

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Speaker 3: of specific organisms. One was a type of predatory amphipod

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Speaker 3: crustacean called Dulcabella common chaka the sweet, Sweet, Sweet, Beautiful Darkness,

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Speaker 3: newly discovered and documented in a paper by Weston at

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Speaker 3: All from November twenty twenty four This was a crustacean

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Speaker 3: predator found in the Hadel zone at a depth of

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Speaker 3: almost eight thousand meters in the Atacama Trench, and this

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Speaker 3: led us down a tangent of looking at bizarre amphipod

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Speaker 3: body forms that was very fun. But we also in

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Speaker 3: that episode talked about predatory sciphonophores, which can have unbelievably

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Speaker 3: weird body forms as well. There's the one we talked

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Speaker 3: about that's long as a waial thin rail, and we

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Speaker 3: discussed a specific sighting documented in twenty twenty one of

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Speaker 3: a large unidentified predatory cephonophore in Hadl waters. Now in

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Speaker 3: Part two, I started off by talking about an abyssle

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Speaker 3: predatory fish found more than four thousand meters deep in

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Speaker 3: the Pacific, known as the gridi fish, which was notable,

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Speaker 3: at least to me, for having these absolutely bizarre bean

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Speaker 3: shaped neon yellow plate like depressions in the top of

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Speaker 3: its head that apparently function as light sensitive spots for

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Speaker 3: hunting bioluminescent prey. And then after that, Rob talked about

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Speaker 3: a couple of deep swimming cephalopods, the strawberry squid, which

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Speaker 3: inhabits a sort of boundary zone in the midwater with

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Speaker 3: a little bit of twilight above and dark water below,

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Speaker 3: which requires an interesting adaptation of two different kinds of

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Speaker 3: eyes on opposite sides of its body, one for seeing

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Speaker 3: shadows moving against the faint sunlight above and one for

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Speaker 3: seeing glowing self illuminated organisms from below. After that, we

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Speaker 3: also talked about the dumbo octopus, a very very cute,

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Speaker 3: interesting little critter that seems to have forsaken many of

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Speaker 3: the defense mechanisms of its cephalopod kin because it lives

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Speaker 3: deep where predators are less of a concern. And we're

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Speaker 3: back today to talk about more. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we have at least a couple of different classifications

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Speaker 2: of critics that I think everyone is going to be

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Speaker 2: fascinated by, and at least well, I think both of

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Speaker 2: them are probably anticipated as well now right, Actually, just

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Speaker 2: a couple hours ago, I was in my regular Wednesday

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Speaker 2: midday yoga class and my teacher, Allison, asked what I

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Speaker 2: was working on, and I mentioned deep sea fish, and

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Speaker 2: she mentioned that the late great David Lynch's two thousand

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Speaker 2: and six book Catching the Big Fish evokes deep sea

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Speaker 2: fish as a those kind of treasures of introspection and meditation.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if anyone out there familiar with this

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Speaker 2: book and to understand it's kind of an autobiography but

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Speaker 2: also a self help guide and gets into some of

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Speaker 2: the meditative concepts that David Lynch gravitated towards. I'm going

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Speaker 2: to read a quick quote here from it. Quote ideas

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Speaker 2: are like fish. If you want to catch little fish,

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Speaker 2: you can stay in the shallow water. But if you

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Speaker 2: want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper,

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Speaker 2: down deep. The fish are more powerful and more pure.

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Speaker 2: They're huge and abstract, and they're beautiful. Everything, anything that

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Speaker 2: is a thing, comes up from the deepest level. Modern

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Speaker 2: physics calls that level the unified field. The more your consciousness,

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Speaker 2: your awareness is expanded, the deeper you go toward this source,

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Speaker 2: and the bigger fish you can catch. So I think

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Speaker 2: that's pretty cool. We can quibble about deep sea gigantism

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Speaker 2: and the relative small size of some of the deep

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Speaker 2: sea organisms been discussing here, but in general I will say, yes,

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Speaker 2: these are the waters where you find organisms as deeply

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Speaker 2: weird as a David Lynch film.

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Speaker 3: If my hum sounded quibbli, it was more about the

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Speaker 3: consciousness physics kind of connection there but no, I followed

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Speaker 3: the metaphor absolutely with the deep sea biology. Yeah, the

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Speaker 3: fish are certainly they've got to be more pure in

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Speaker 3: whatever that means. It just feels right, and as we'll

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Speaker 3: discuss today, probably more reeking. So are you ready for

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Speaker 3: the snailfish.

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Speaker 2: Let's talk about the snailfish.

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Speaker 3: Okay. In part one of this series, one of the

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Speaker 3: things we got into briefly was an experiment that was

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Speaker 3: designed to monitor what would happen when a dolphin carcass

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Speaker 3: was dropped into the Hadele zone. And as a reminder,

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Speaker 3: the Hadl zone is the deepest forty five percent of

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Speaker 3: the ocean in terms of vertical depth, often defined as

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Speaker 3: the space deeper than six thousand meters from the surface. Now,

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Speaker 3: while the Hadele zone is almost half of the ocean's

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Speaker 3: maximum depth, it takes up less than one percent of

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Speaker 3: the ocean's horizontal seafloor area because it's limited to these

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Speaker 3: deep sea trenches and trench systems. So just in terms

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Speaker 3: of depth, these regions are going way beyond even the

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Speaker 3: abysstal depth of most of the world's ocean floor, but

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Speaker 3: in terms of space taken up on the surface of

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Speaker 3: the Earth, very limited they're little, tiny islands. So what

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Speaker 3: this study wanted to examine was what happens when a

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Speaker 3: large dead animal, in effect a huge cache of food,

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Speaker 3: hits the floor of an ocean trench. This obviously happens

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Speaker 3: naturally all the time, but we're not around to observe

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Speaker 3: it from the beginning when it does happen, And so

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Speaker 3: they staged these They staged these events where a dolphin

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Speaker 3: carcass would fall down into hadel waters and then they

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Speaker 3: would monitor what happens. One of the findings was of

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Speaker 3: a kind of dynamic interaction pattern where first scavenger like

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Speaker 3: impipod crustaceans would show up to eat the soft tissue

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Speaker 3: of the dolphin's body. But how fast the crustaceans were

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Speaker 3: able to consume that soft tissue was in part controlled

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Speaker 3: by the presence of secondary predators who showed up to

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Speaker 3: eat the amphipod scavengers who were eating the carcass. And

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Speaker 3: one group of secondary predators mentioned in that research was

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Speaker 3: the snailfish. So I wanted to explore more about these creatures,

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Speaker 3: figure out what they are and what's special about them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, who's showing up this deep to interfere with the

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Speaker 2: work of the initial scavengers.

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Speaker 3: So snail fishes are any of more than one hundred

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Speaker 3: known species of ray finned fishes grouped into the family Liparidy.

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Speaker 3: They take different forms, but they tend to be small,

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Speaker 3: with the largest growing only about a foot in length,

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Speaker 3: and not all snailfish are deep trench dwellers. Various species

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Speaker 3: can be found in habitats throughout the ocean. You'll find

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Speaker 3: some of them in shallow, even shallow coastal waters, and

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Speaker 3: some are in much deeper waters. In general, snailfish tend

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Speaker 3: to be good at adapting to extreme environments, so a

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Speaker 3: lot of snailfish species gravitate toward cold waters, such as

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Speaker 3: in the Arctic and the Antarctic. A snailfish is often

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Speaker 3: shaped sort of like a tadpole, so you can think

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Speaker 3: of a big, bulbous head and a narrowing tail, and

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Speaker 3: the deep dwelling varieties are often pale or translucent pink

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Speaker 3: in color. So to picture a deep sea snailfish, imagine

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Speaker 3: a fish in the form of a fat, pale, pink

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Speaker 3: tadpole without scales on its body and instead a kind

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Speaker 3: of loose, milky sea through skin, which is usually covered

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Speaker 3: in a gelatinous slime, and occasionally that skin will be

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Speaker 3: prickly or spiny.

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Speaker 2: They're kind of like how you included a picture here

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Speaker 2: of one, and I get a vibe of like a

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Speaker 2: sort of a like a pink person faced monster super

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Speaker 2: baby that lives in the deep. You know, like they're

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Speaker 2: they're weirdly kind of cute. You want to attribute various

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Speaker 2: emotional states to them, And I was looking, right, I

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Speaker 2: found other Like I found various headlines that refer to

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Speaker 2: them as cuties. So it's not just like me and

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Speaker 2: my own like weird sensibilities. Like a lot of people

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Speaker 2: seem to think that snailfish are kind of cute.

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Speaker 3: Let's put a pin in that. We'll come back to

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Speaker 3: how cute they are. But I think you're right. I

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Speaker 3: think they are at once cute and gross, which is

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Speaker 3: the best kind of cute.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, babies have been nailing that for ages.

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Speaker 3: So there's a lot that is interesting about snail fishes.

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Speaker 3: But snailfishes have one very impressive credential that is relevant

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Speaker 3: to our topic today, and that is, at least as

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Speaker 3: of April twenty twenty three, a snailfish whole. It's the

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Speaker 3: record for the deepest diving fish that has ever been

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Speaker 3: directly observed by humans. And I do have to put

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Speaker 3: an asterisk on there, because I was reading in one

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Speaker 3: article there are claimed observations of fish that have been

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Speaker 3: cited lower but like, not directly imaged or documented, And

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Speaker 3: for various theoretical reasons we'll get into those other claims

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Speaker 3: seem unlikely to be true. But so yeah, I guess

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Speaker 3: we'll put a question mark on this the best confirmed

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Speaker 3: sighting of the deepest diving fish ever.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, because there are a lot of things that are

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Speaker 2: possible down there, just based on how little relatively we

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Speaker 2: know about it. And you can go all the way

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Speaker 2: back to you know, we talked in past episodes about

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Speaker 2: the observations on the bath sphere, you know, and the

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Speaker 2: varying degrees to which those reported observations have matched up

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Speaker 2: or haven't matched up with subsequent human discoveries.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. But as far as well documented cases go,

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Speaker 3: this is the deepest anybody's ever seen a fish. And

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Speaker 3: note that this is not the deepest organism or the

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Speaker 3: deepest animal ever observed in a reliable way, just the

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Speaker 3: deepest fish now here. I'm relying on a University of

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Speaker 3: Western Australia press release about this discovery, which was made

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Speaker 3: by a team of scientists from Australia and from Japan.

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Speaker 3: And I'm also relying on an April twenty twenty three

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Speaker 3: right up in Scientific American by Tom metcalf. So the

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Speaker 3: location of this record breaking discovery was within the izu

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Speaker 3: Ogasawara Trench, which is south of Japan, at a depth

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Speaker 3: of eighty three hundred and thirty six meters. The previous

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Speaker 3: record before this for the deepest confirmed sighting of a

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Speaker 3: fish was held by a Mariana snail fish more on

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Speaker 3: that species and a bit at eighty one hundred and

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Speaker 3: seventy eight meters depth, and that was within the Mariana

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Speaker 3: Trench back in twenty seventeen. This new find, which was deeper,

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Speaker 3: was in this other trench south of Japan, izu Ugasawara.

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Speaker 3: This new record holding fish in twenty twenty three beat

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Speaker 3: the previous record by one hundred and fifty eight meters

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Speaker 3: and as far as I can tell, the observation still

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Speaker 3: has not been surpassed. This sighting took place during an

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Speaker 3: exploration of several trench environments in the Pacific around Japan

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Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two. The expedition was conducted by a

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Speaker 3: research ship called the DSSV Pressure Drop, so the research

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Speaker 3: team used baited cameras plunked down into the deepest parts

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Speaker 3: of several trenches, and at one of these baited cameras,

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Speaker 3: at this kind of unlikely depth of again eighty three

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Speaker 3: hundred and thirty six meters, a fish appeared. Interestingly, this

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Speaker 3: solitary deep diver was a relatively small juvenile snail fish,

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Speaker 3: which seems to be able to venture a bit deeper

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Speaker 3: than the normal adult range for its species. More on

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Speaker 3: that in a moment. The fish in question was idd

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Speaker 3: as the genus Pseudoliparus, but the exact species couldn't be verified. Also,

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Speaker 3: just two days after the deep fish was caught on camera,

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Speaker 3: two more snail fish were actually caught like trapped in

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Speaker 3: baited traps at a depth of eighty twenty two meters

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Speaker 3: and brought up and rapidly preserved. In this case, the

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Speaker 3: fish were identified down to the species level, and these

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Speaker 3: were pseudo lyperis at Belle Yavy and rob I attached

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Speaker 3: a picture from the s expedition for you to look at,

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Speaker 3: with several of these snail fishes crowding around a baited trap.

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Speaker 3: I'm not sure quite what that is on the trap.

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Speaker 3: It might be might be a mackerel or something, but yeah,

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Speaker 3: some kind of bait they've got there. And I think

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Speaker 3: the idea is that the dead fish attracts the crustaceans

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Speaker 3: probably amphipods that come to eat the dead fish, and

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Speaker 3: then the snail fish show up to eat the scavengers. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I have to say a little kind of

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Speaker 2: cute here looks looks absolutely boopable. And for an example

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Speaker 2: of a headline that invokes the cuteness, Atlas Obscura has

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Speaker 2: an article about this with the title the world's deepest

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Speaker 2: living fish is surprisingly cute.

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Speaker 3: It is. It is kind of cute. Again, it's kind

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Speaker 3: of on the boundary of cute and ugly or cute

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Speaker 3: engross kind of in the way that we talked about

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Speaker 3: this with some of the creatures that come to the

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Speaker 3: bathhouse in Spirited Away. You know, they're right on that

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Speaker 3: line there, where like are they ugly and gross or

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Speaker 3: are they adorable? It's a tough call.

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Speaker 2: And I think this is compounded by the fact that

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Speaker 2: some of the more famous deep sea fish, though to

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Speaker 2: be clear fish that don't dive down as deep as

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Speaker 2: the snail fish, but the more famous deep sea fish,

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Speaker 2: one of which we'll get to in a bit here,

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Speaker 2: are generally regarded as like severely grotesque and like aggressively

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Speaker 2: weird looking and not cute. So it can come as

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Speaker 2: a bit of a shock where people are like, you

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Speaker 2: want to see the deepest fish ever. You're like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I'm in for a horror show, and then you look

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Speaker 2: at it and you're like, well, you know, oh, quite

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Speaker 2: quite cute when I take into account expectations.

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Speaker 3: Give them a snuggle now. On the other hand, I

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Speaker 3: did also come across an AP article by a writer

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Speaker 3: named Nick Perry which was covering some hatel snailfish discoveries,

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Speaker 3: and in that article it said that deep sea trench

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Speaker 3: snailfish look like quote guts stuffed in cellophane.

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Speaker 2: Well, I mean, aren't we all really, but okay, fair

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Speaker 2: enough they do. Also, yeah, there is that they do

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Speaker 2: look like little pink bags of guts. I guess I

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Speaker 2: can see it.

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Speaker 3: So I was thinking about the depth of this one

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Speaker 3: record holder again, that's eight three hundred and thirty six meters.

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Speaker 3: That is so deep. That's like five point seventeen miles down.

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Speaker 3: So this is a five mile fish, and according to

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Speaker 3: the researchers who led this team, there are strong reasons

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Speaker 3: for thinking that if we ever find a fish living

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Speaker 3: deeper than this, it won't be by much. And again,

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Speaker 3: this limit applies not necessarily to animals. You'll probably find

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Speaker 3: crustaceans and other types of an animals even deeper. But fish,

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Speaker 3: they're saying, you're probably not going to find one much

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Speaker 3: deeper than this, and that's because there appear to be

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Speaker 3: biochemical circumstances that place a pretty rigid theoretical maximum depth

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Speaker 3: on how far you can go if you are a fish. Now,

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Speaker 3: why would that be? How would that work? Well? Fish

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Speaker 3: that live under extremely high pressure are only able to

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Speaker 3: do so because of compounds in their cells called osmolites,

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Speaker 3: such as the molecule you might have read about this before,

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Speaker 3: trimethylamine in oxide or TMAO. Osmolites like TMAO act as

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Speaker 3: protein stabilizers. So within an animal's cells, you can think

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Speaker 3: of proteins as sort of the machine parts that make

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Speaker 3: most cellular functions possible. Proteins need to maintain their particular

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Speaker 3: folded structure in order to do what they do, much

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Speaker 3: the same way that the parts in a machine need

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Speaker 3: to maintain their shape and the way they move, or

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Speaker 3: the machine will stop working. But physical stresses like heat

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Speaker 3: and pressure can denature and deform proteins or prevent them

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Speaker 3: from folding correctly. And this is one of the difficulties

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Speaker 3: of life in the high pressure conditions of the deep sea.

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Speaker 3: Hydrostatic pressure does violence to the proteins in your cells,

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Speaker 3: and so high osmolite concentrations are an adaptation deep sea

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Speaker 3: animals use to get around this problem to stabilize their

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Speaker 3: proteins against the high pressure environment and basically keep the

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Speaker 3: machine parts stable and working the way they're supposed to.

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Speaker 3: And one interesting side note that I was reading about

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Speaker 3: dig you know that osmolites, these compounds that stabilize proteins,

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Speaker 3: are the main cause of the fishy smell of decomposing seafood.

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Speaker 3: So as a dead marine organism, you know, like a

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Speaker 3: fish that's not frozen, it starts to rot in the sun,

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Speaker 3: begins to decay. Bacteria break down the trimethylamine inoxide or

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Speaker 3: TMAO into volatile trimethylamine, which smells fishy. That is the

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Speaker 3: main part of what the fishy smell is interesting. Come

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Speaker 3: back to that in the second. So marine biologists have

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Speaker 3: found that as you go deeper and deeper in the

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Speaker 3: ocean and the pressure gets greater, the fish species that

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Speaker 3: live at each depth zone have higher concentrations of osmolites.

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Speaker 3: Makes sense, right, That trend continues until you reach the

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Speaker 3: maximum possible concentration of osmolites in the body tissues, which

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Speaker 3: according to theoretical models, would be the concentration that would

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Speaker 3: allow fish to survive at about eighty four hundred meters. So,

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Speaker 3: according to this model, the fish that was observed in

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Speaker 3: this expedition like eighty three hundred and something meters. It

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Speaker 3: was within about seventy meters of the theoretical limit of

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Speaker 3: fish biology. You basically can't get enough osmolytes into the

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Speaker 3: cells to stabilize proteins any deeper than this, which is

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Speaker 3: why researchers don't expect to find a fish much deeper

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Speaker 3: than this one.

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Speaker 2: You know, this makes me think back to that paper

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Speaker 2: were discussed in the first episode by Daskuupta. At all

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Speaker 2: depth in predation regulate consumption of dolphin carcasses in the

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Speaker 2: hatal zone. Again, they dropped two dolphin carcasses at one

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Speaker 2: of the sites snailfish were interfering with the initial scavengers,

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Speaker 2: and on the other site they were not. I'm going

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Speaker 2: to have to go back and look at the depths

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Speaker 2: that they were discussing there and see, because it makes

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Speaker 2: me wonder, well, did maybe the snailfish didn't arrive at

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Speaker 2: one of the drop sites because it was too deep

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Speaker 2: for them? And to be clear, this would this would

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Speaker 2: not be out of keeping with the general inclusions that

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Speaker 2: were made in that paper, which were that the exact

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Speaker 2: like shape of the whale fall site is going to

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Speaker 2: depend on the depth and on the you know, the

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Speaker 2: the organisms that are in its vicinity. So again I'm

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Speaker 2: gonna have to go back and look.

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Speaker 3: At that, right, So it could be that if a

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Speaker 3: if a whale carcass falls in a deeper zone that's

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Speaker 3: outside of the range you know, it's too deep for fishes,

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Speaker 3: basically for predatory fishes, then the scavenging amphipods have you know,

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Speaker 3: easier time of it. Yeah, exactly. Now there's something I

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Speaker 3: wanted to come back to about the fact that the

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Speaker 3: breakdown of osmolites, specifically TMAO, causes the fishy smell that

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Speaker 3: we associate with decaying seafood. Pairing that fact with the

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Speaker 3: increasing osmolite concentrations that go up with depth, the depth

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Speaker 3: of a fish's natural habitat. If you put those two

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Speaker 3: facts together, that made me wonder, do abystle or hatel

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Speaker 3: fish smell the worst? Like, would the deeper fish be

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Speaker 3: the most foul smelling of all the fishiest of all

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Speaker 3: fishy smells. I was looking to see if there was

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Speaker 3: any any research into this. I don't know if there's

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Speaker 3: direct research into this exact question, but I did find

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Speaker 3: a marine biologist commenting on it. So I found a

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty four ap article by Nick Perry about research

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Speaker 3: on hal snailfish, and this article cites a marine biologist

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Speaker 3: named Paul Yancey of Whitman College in Washington State, who

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Speaker 3: directly says, yes, indeed, the deeper the fish lives, the

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Speaker 3: worse it will stink. So hatel snailfish quite likely have

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Speaker 3: like the ultimate fish smell. They've got to be a contender.

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Speaker 3: I don't know if anybody's tested this directly, but it

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Speaker 3: seems a priori that would be the assumption that they

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Speaker 3: are the kings of stink. I also have to mention

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Speaker 3: this article was the source of that comparison of trench

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Speaker 3: snailfish to guts wrapped in cellophane. And there was another

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Speaker 3: good one in here, not directly from the author, but

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Speaker 3: it quotes a New Zealand marine ecologist and named Ashley Rodin,

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Speaker 3: who caught a number of hadel snailfish from more than

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Speaker 3: seven thousand meters depth in twenty twenty three. And Rodin

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Speaker 3: describes holding on to one of these fish after bringing

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Speaker 3: it up from I think a mackerel bated trap, and

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Speaker 3: Rodin says, quote, it was like a water filled condom,

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Speaker 3: a sloppy, gelatinous mass that moves between your hands. It

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Speaker 3: was very cool and very strange to see its organs

386
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Speaker 3: and everything. But anyway, back to the discovery of the

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Speaker 3: deepest fish ever from the trench south of Japan. According

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00:23:51,680 --> 00:23:56,440
Speaker 3: to Professor Alan Jamison, the chief scientist of the expedition, quote,

389
00:23:56,760 --> 00:23:59,480
Speaker 3: the real take home message for me is not necessarily

390
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Speaker 3: that they are living at eighty three hundred and thirty

391
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Speaker 3: six meters, but rather we have enough information on this

392
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Speaker 3: environment to have predicted that these trenches would be where

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Speaker 3: the deepest fish would be. In fact, until this expedition,

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Speaker 3: no one had ever seen nor collected a single fish

395
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Speaker 3: from this entire trench. Now, next, I want to look

396
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Speaker 3: at a particular species of hadel snailfish. This is the

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Speaker 3: Marianna snailfish or pseudo Lyparis sweary i SwRI. It's one

398
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Speaker 3: of these deep adapted species. It's believed to grow about

399
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Speaker 3: a foot long. And I'm going to say this one

400
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:39,840
Speaker 3: looks even more tadpoley than most of them do. I've

401
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:41,760
Speaker 3: got a picture for you to look at here, rob

402
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:45,639
Speaker 3: of one specimen, just like a like a pale wad

403
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:48,320
Speaker 3: of chewing gum with eye spots and a tail.

404
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this one really does look like something that would

405
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Speaker 2: be in David Lynch's eraser head.

406
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Speaker 3: Yeah. Can't you just imagine it talking? What does his

407
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:59,159
Speaker 3: voice sound like? It's it's got a cowboy accent for

408
00:24:59,200 --> 00:25:03,119
Speaker 3: some reason. It's got so Yeah. These things live in

409
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Speaker 3: the Mariana Trench more than seven thousand meters and up

410
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 3: to eight thousand meters below the surface. They're now believed

411
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 3: to be the top predator within the trench ecosystem there,

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Speaker 3: so they feed primarily on crustaceans, but they are probably

413
00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:21,040
Speaker 3: the apex of the food chain. The species was actually

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00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 3: discovered fairly recently announced in a publication in the journal

415
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Speaker 3: Zoa Taxa in twenty seventeen by Garringer at All and

416
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:32,480
Speaker 3: the article was called Pseudo la Peris suirie, a newly

417
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:36,720
Speaker 3: discovered hatl snail fish from the Mariana Trench. The authors

418
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 3: of the study described the new species on the basis

419
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:43,119
Speaker 3: of thirty seven individuals collected from the Mariana Trench between

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00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:46,359
Speaker 3: depths of six eight hundred ninety eight meters and seven

421
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Speaker 3: nine hundred and sixty six meters, so going almost up

422
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Speaker 3: to the eight kilometer mark. And one thing that was

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Speaker 3: interesting is despite the resource challenges we've talked about, reports

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00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:00,440
Speaker 3: are that these fish tend to be well fed and

425
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 3: their natural range. The ones that have been caught tended

426
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 3: to have full stomachs. And they conclude that this fish

427
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:11,399
Speaker 3: is likely endemic to the Mariana Trench. And this is

428
00:26:11,440 --> 00:26:15,120
Speaker 3: in keeping with the observation that since trench ecosystems tend

429
00:26:15,119 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 3: to be somewhat isolated again kind of like inverted islands,

430
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 3: when a snailfish species becomes locally trench adapted, it's kind

431
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 3: of stuck there. It's kind of stuck in the specific

432
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:29,320
Speaker 3: trench environment or system it's evolved for and the author's

433
00:26:29,400 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 3: rite quote. The discovery of another hatele liperid species, apparently

434
00:26:33,840 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 3: abundant at depths where other fish species are few and

435
00:26:36,880 --> 00:26:40,159
Speaker 3: only found in low numbers, provides further evidence for the

436
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:44,639
Speaker 3: dominance of this family among the hatelfish fauna. So again,

437
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:49,960
Speaker 3: snailfishes are the kings and queens of Hades. So in

438
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:53,400
Speaker 3: the years following this initial discovery, researchers continued to look

439
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 3: into what made the Mariana snailfish special. And I wanted

440
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:00,679
Speaker 3: to refer to a paper from twenty nine teen in

441
00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:04,640
Speaker 3: the journal Nature, Ecology and Evolution by Kunwang at All

442
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:08,400
Speaker 3: called Morphology and Genome of a snailfish from the Mariana

443
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 3: Trench provide insights into deep sea adaptation. So the authors

444
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:15,639
Speaker 3: of this study begin by explaining, you know, it is

445
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 3: largely unknown how animals, especially vertebrates, survive in the Hatel

446
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:23,960
Speaker 3: zone given the extremity of the physical environment. So to

447
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 3: better understand the vertebrates of the Hatel zone, the authors

448
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 3: look at the specific morphology and genome of pseudo leiperisuirii.

449
00:27:33,800 --> 00:27:36,760
Speaker 3: I'm not going to cover everything they explore in the paper,

450
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:39,240
Speaker 3: just wanted to mention a few interesting things that stood

451
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 3: out to me. Of course, as we already discussed, fish

452
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:47,680
Speaker 3: use osmolites such as TMAO to stabilize proteins, and these

453
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:50,199
Speaker 3: fish are no exception. In fact, they are they are

454
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 3: prodigious osmolite factories on the Mariana Trench snailfish. The eyes

455
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 3: are if you see pictures of them, it looks kind

456
00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:02,080
Speaker 3: of like they have eyes, like they have little dark spots.

457
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:06,200
Speaker 3: The eyes are non functioning. The fish did not react

458
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:10,440
Speaker 3: to lights from the lander vehicle, and genomic analysis also

459
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:13,600
Speaker 3: found that these fish were missing gene variants that are

460
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 3: associated with photoreceptor tissues. They have an inflated stomach, so

461
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,239
Speaker 3: the stomach of the snailfish is larger and takes up

462
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:26,720
Speaker 3: more space in the body cavity than in other snail fishes.

463
00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 3: Why would that be I believe the thinking is in

464
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:34,399
Speaker 3: extreme environments where prey density is lower, you need to

465
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:37,879
Speaker 3: have space to eat more when you get the opportunity.

466
00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:40,080
Speaker 3: So I think maybe you just don't ever want to

467
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 3: be like, oh, sorry, there's food right here, but I

468
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:44,720
Speaker 3: am too full to eat it right right.

469
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 2: Oversized stomachs. It is something we see in some of

470
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:51,480
Speaker 2: the other deep sea fish that we'll be talking about later.

471
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 3: They also had a larger liver and larger eggs than

472
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 3: expected for their body size. One thing is we already

473
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 3: mentioned that deep see snail fishes tend to be non

474
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 3: scaled on their skin, So these snail fishes also they

475
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 3: don't have scales, and they have this large layer of

476
00:29:11,640 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 3: gelatinous mucus covering the body. Is thought to serve several functions.

477
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 3: Probably it helps them grow, it helps them move easily.

478
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 3: They also have a non closed skull, like there's a

479
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:28,479
Speaker 3: gap in their skull structure, and this may be an

480
00:29:28,520 --> 00:29:32,479
Speaker 3: adaptation to the pressure environment to help balance pressure inside

481
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:33,600
Speaker 3: and outside the skull.

482
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:37,960
Speaker 2: All right, keep your head from exploding, gotcha or imploding?

483
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 3: Yeah? And flexible bones this is another thing. Instead of

484
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 3: rigid ossified bones, the Mariana snailfish have thin bones made

485
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 3: primarily of cartilage, and these flexible sort of non bones

486
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 3: may also help the fish withstand pressure. And this cartilage

487
00:29:55,760 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 3: bone system is caused by a mutation in one of

488
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 3: their bone protein genes, which seems to result in early

489
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 3: termination of the calcification of cartilage. So overall fascinating organism,

490
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 3: but it brought me back to a question. I know

491
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 3: we've talked about on the show before. So you know,

492
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 3: apologies old time listeners for coming back to familiar territory.

493
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 3: But I couldn't help but think how so many of

494
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 3: the body forms that we see as scary are a

495
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 3: result of the kind of environment in which we live

496
00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:34,719
Speaker 3: and the predators you find there, you know. So like

497
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 3: when we try to think of what a scary monster

498
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 3: would look like, often we think of the kinds of

499
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:46,160
Speaker 3: animals you could easily imagine eating a human being, So

500
00:30:46,360 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 3: you know, it's going to be something with sharp teeth

501
00:30:48,920 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 3: and big claws, that sort of thing. And so I'm

502
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 3: wondering which types of adaptations and body forms you would

503
00:30:56,880 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 3: come to see as those defining you know, a frightening

504
00:31:01,200 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 3: anatomy or monsterhood. If you were a prey organism in

505
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 3: one of these deep sea trenches, would it be you know,

506
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 3: it's like the hole in the skull, or the thin

507
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 3: bones of the thin skin that you can see through,

508
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,440
Speaker 3: the gelatinous coating of slime on the body, the broad

509
00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 3: pectoral fins, like what would be the scary things to

510
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:25,040
Speaker 3: the organisms down there? Because it's got to be something

511
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 3: that looks like these these critters.

512
00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, something with no exoskeleton, disgusting, horrifying. Look at that

513
00:31:32,120 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 2: pink flesh. You can see it's guts. I mean that'd

514
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:36,680
Speaker 2: be pretty horrifying for us as well, of course.

515
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 3: But well, gut stuffed in cellphone doesn't seem threatening. It

516
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 3: just looks like it's like ikey, It's like you don't

517
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:44,440
Speaker 3: want to touch it, but it doesn't seem like it's

518
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 3: gonna hurt you. Hmmm, maybe if it were big enough.

519
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 3: I don't know. I guess size is always going to

520
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:53,720
Speaker 3: be a major part of the monster hood equation. Yeah,

521
00:31:53,720 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 3: but oh man, uh what what? What a beauty? All right?

522
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 2: Well, at last, I would like to turn our attention

523
00:32:04,160 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 2: to one of the most iconic fish of the deep sea,

524
00:32:07,920 --> 00:32:11,520
Speaker 2: the deep sea anglerfish. A true superstar, this become the

525
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 2: poster fish for the deep end, even pops up in

526
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 2: such animated films as Finding Nemo, pops up of course

527
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 2: on SpongeBob square Pants and as this was the fish

528
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:24,960
Speaker 2: I was referencing earlier. When you think of deep sea fish,

529
00:32:25,080 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 2: you probably think of a handful of illustrations of deep

530
00:32:30,080 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 2: sea fish. I used to have a pote when I

531
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 2: was a kid. I had a poster out of it

532
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 2: like a national geographic that had a bunch of these illustrations,

533
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 2: and I was always captivated by several of like the

534
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 2: needle toothed a variety of deep sea fish, and the

535
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,560
Speaker 2: angler fish is definitely one of the more alarming looking.

536
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:51,479
Speaker 2: You know, it has that frog like face, sharp teeth,

537
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 2: and then of course this bizarre bioluminescent lure that hangs

538
00:32:55,960 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 2: in front of its face and encourage it's prey to

539
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 2: move in and check out the light, only to be

540
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:05,720
Speaker 2: sucked into this fierce maw.

541
00:33:06,040 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 3: I assume that's where the name of it comes from,

542
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 3: because it's like a sort of like a fishing pole.

543
00:33:10,480 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, they're fisherfish. Yeah, that's that's why. So when

544
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:17,600
Speaker 2: we talk about anglerfish in general, we're talking about multiple

545
00:33:17,680 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 2: species of the teleost order lava forms. Anglerfish in general

546
00:33:23,560 --> 00:33:28,240
Speaker 2: live in deeper waters, though there are some lavaform species

547
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:31,800
Speaker 2: that live in shallower waters as well. We previously discussed

548
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 2: some shallow water frog fishes in our episode episodes about

549
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:40,520
Speaker 2: the Sargasso Sea, concerning an ecosystem right near the surface

550
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 2: of the water. All told, when we're talking about anglerfish,

551
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 2: we have sea toads, we have brightly colored frog fishes,

552
00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:52,480
Speaker 2: and we have batfishes, we have goose fishes and more.

553
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:57,040
Speaker 2: They're all ambush predators of one sort or another. They'll

554
00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:59,640
Speaker 2: also all do a little bit of scavenging. They're not

555
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 2: too proud. Some hunt on the seafloor, others in midwater

556
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 2: or again even near the surface. Now, why all the

557
00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 2: like frog and toad. Why aren't we invoking these terrestrial

558
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:13,000
Speaker 2: organisms in particular. Well, they tend to have frog like

559
00:34:13,040 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 2: heads due to their broad mouths, which they use in

560
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 2: suction feeding, which is something you see in a lot

561
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 2: of sea organisms. In order to swallow something. What do

562
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 2: you do? You just suck it in. You just you know,

563
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 2: create that vacuum and just take in a portion of

564
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:31,560
Speaker 2: water that has an organism in it and you consume it.

565
00:34:31,600 --> 00:34:31,799
Speaker 3: Hole.

566
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 2: But again here we're talking about deep sea varieties of

567
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 2: the angler fish found in tropical to temperate latitudes at

568
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 2: depths of twenty five hundred meters or eighty two hundred feet,

569
00:34:44,000 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 2: So at their deepest they get down to the bathy

570
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:51,759
Speaker 2: pelagic zone, the midnight zone, which is plenty deep, a

571
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:56,879
Speaker 2: lightless realm of pressure and chilling waters. Now you asked

572
00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 2: about their name and their lures, Yeah. Angler are of

573
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:02,760
Speaker 2: course known for their lures. They are again the fishermen

574
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:07,400
Speaker 2: fish of the sea. Some seafloor anglers have a frilly

575
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:11,840
Speaker 2: but non bioluminescent lure, sometimes said to resemble a worm,

576
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:16,839
Speaker 2: and then batfishes actually release a bait chemical from their

577
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:19,919
Speaker 2: lures in order to bring in prey, but the deep

578
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:24,600
Speaker 2: sea anglerfish are best known for their glow. Morphologically, the

579
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 2: lure or even lures can vary greatly, so what we're

580
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:31,280
Speaker 2: talking about here is generally the first dorsal fin spine

581
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 2: has modified. It's evolved into a long, wiggling rod an elysium,

582
00:35:37,560 --> 00:35:39,800
Speaker 2: and again they can wiggle it so they can actively

583
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 2: move it to help bring in the prey. And then

584
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 2: there's a lure at the end of the elysium called

585
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 2: the esca, and in bioluminescent anglerfish, the esca is a

586
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:56,359
Speaker 2: sack of glowing bacteria chef's kiss. Yes, so these are

587
00:35:56,600 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 2: symbiotic photobacteria. Embiotic relationship here is that, of course, the

588
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,879
Speaker 2: angler fish uses the light to draw and prey, and

589
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:09,880
Speaker 2: in return, the photobacteria get to live in a little

590
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 2: fleshy knob at the end of this protrusion on the

591
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:16,840
Speaker 2: fish's head, which I know doesn't sound very attractive to

592
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:20,759
Speaker 2: most of us. But if you're a if you are

593
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 2: a photobacterium, this is advantageous because you get to live

594
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:30,719
Speaker 2: with a whole bunch of your fellow photobacteriums by the millions,

595
00:36:31,040 --> 00:36:34,480
Speaker 2: inside of this lure. And you get to see the world. Baby,

596
00:36:35,040 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 2: maybe not all the world, but you get to travel around.

597
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 2: It takes you places.

598
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:43,240
Speaker 3: So it's a mutualistic form of symbiosis bothas benefit. Yeah. Yeah.

599
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 2: Now, one of the big questions that scientists have puzzled

600
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:51,720
Speaker 2: over for years is well, how do the fish first

601
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 2: acquire the bacteria, and scientists have largely been unsure whether

602
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 2: this is a situation where it developing anglerfish would encounter

603
00:37:01,760 --> 00:37:05,560
Speaker 2: the bacteria in the open ocean, or if they were

604
00:37:05,760 --> 00:37:10,719
Speaker 2: inoculated with them by a parent during spawning, you know,

605
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:15,879
Speaker 2: or in some way like it's passed on parent to offspring. Now,

606
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 2: most of the recent research I was looking at does

607
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:21,000
Speaker 2: seem to point more towards the idea that they acquire

608
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:27,399
Speaker 2: the photobacteria in the open ocean. And it's also worth

609
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:31,759
Speaker 2: noting that the anglerfish do have specific species of bacteria

610
00:37:31,880 --> 00:37:35,239
Speaker 2: that they pair with and when when you get into

611
00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:37,319
Speaker 2: some of the other details, you can see how you

612
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:39,440
Speaker 2: could potentially lean one way or another and trying to

613
00:37:39,480 --> 00:37:43,200
Speaker 2: figure out where they get this stuff, because on one hand,

614
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:47,320
Speaker 2: young female anglerfish apparently don't seem to yet have room

615
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:51,000
Speaker 2: for the bacteria in that little knob in the escap Also,

616
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 2: as Baker at All reported in twenty nineteen's Diverse Deep

617
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:58,880
Speaker 2: Sea anglerfishes share a genetically reduced luminous symbiate that is

618
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 2: acquired from the environ. This was published in Ecology Evolutionary Biology.

619
00:38:04,560 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 2: They point out that if the bacteria were transferred parent

620
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 2: to young then we would then we would be able

621
00:38:11,680 --> 00:38:14,080
Speaker 2: to observe it in the bacteria DNA. There would be

622
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:18,320
Speaker 2: this sort of lineage of coevolution, and we don't see

623
00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:22,279
Speaker 2: the telltale markers of that with the angler fish and

624
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:25,080
Speaker 2: their specific bacteria.

625
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:27,640
Speaker 3: So it seems to be a more kind of capture

626
00:38:27,680 --> 00:38:31,000
Speaker 3: and cultivate kind of situation right now.

627
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:33,680
Speaker 2: On the other hand, the reduced genome of these particular

628
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:37,600
Speaker 2: bacteria species seem to indicate that they've lost the ability

629
00:38:37,640 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 2: to exist separately from their host fish. This is something,

630
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:45,440
Speaker 2: of course, we see in such symbiotic relationships in nature,

631
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:48,360
Speaker 2: as say the leafcutter ants who have their own fungus

632
00:38:48,480 --> 00:38:51,160
Speaker 2: that has essentially become extinct in the wild because it's

633
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:58,919
Speaker 2: a domesticated species, and so on one hand, given that

634
00:38:59,760 --> 00:39:03,040
Speaker 2: it's it seems like these bacteria species have lost the

635
00:39:03,080 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 2: ability to exist without the angler fish. Well, then maybe

636
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 2: it's something that's passed on initially from parent to offspring,

637
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 2: because otherwise how could it live free out there in

638
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 2: the water. However, the other studies have added different wrinkles

639
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:21,720
Speaker 2: to this by pointing out, well, okay, maybe there are examples,

640
00:39:21,719 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 2: and it seems like there are examples of free floating

641
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:28,280
Speaker 2: symbiants of the angler's photobacteria, at least in some cases.

642
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 2: So based on what I've read here and elsewhere, it

643
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 2: sounds like the current wisdom on the topic drifts somewhat

644
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 2: towards the acquired in the wild argument, but with some

645
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:41,640
Speaker 2: possible shades of the parent transfer theory as well, like

646
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:44,920
Speaker 2: perhaps they pick up the bacteria from an environmental population

647
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:50,319
Speaker 2: that is supplied by symbiants ejected from adult anglerfish. Now

648
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if they're ejected at some point during

649
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 2: the fish's life or a death, but the idea here

650
00:39:55,200 --> 00:39:59,400
Speaker 2: would be that perhaps the bacteria live the majority of

651
00:39:59,440 --> 00:40:03,200
Speaker 2: their life within the anglerfish, within that fleshy knob at

652
00:40:03,239 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 2: the in the esca. But then at some point they're

653
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 2: going to escape or they're going to be released, and

654
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 2: it's when they're free living that's when they're picked up

655
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:18,600
Speaker 2: by other anglerfish. Okay, the esca, by the way, does

656
00:40:18,640 --> 00:40:21,560
Speaker 2: have a pore on it that seems to be the

657
00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:25,360
Speaker 2: likely exit entry point in question, so it's not, you know,

658
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:27,760
Speaker 2: completely sealed. There does seem to be like a hatch

659
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 2: to go in and out of. I should also add

660
00:40:30,480 --> 00:40:34,440
Speaker 2: that the exact findings on all this it may depend

661
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:40,399
Speaker 2: on which specific anglerfish species and corresponding bacteria species you're

662
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:43,160
Speaker 2: looking at, but again, things in general do seem to

663
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 2: tip toward the acquired and the wild model. However they

664
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 2: get their glow, they definitely use it, drawing in hungry

665
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:55,520
Speaker 2: or perhaps mate seeking prey that the anglers then suck

666
00:40:55,560 --> 00:41:00,399
Speaker 2: and gobble into their large mouths. We already mentioned that

667
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:02,719
Speaker 2: you know, it's good to have a large belly in

668
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:04,719
Speaker 2: addition to a large mouth in the deep, because again,

669
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 2: you don't know when you're gonna get your next meal,

670
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:09,680
Speaker 2: and in the case of the anglerfish, specifically, this means

671
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:13,160
Speaker 2: they can also kind of take in oversized prey. They've

672
00:41:13,160 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 2: got the big mouth and they've got the big belly,

673
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:19,359
Speaker 2: so they're really here for it. They're gonna clean house

674
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 2: anytime there's an all you can eat buffet. Also, those teeth,

675
00:41:23,480 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 2: those noticeable teeth of the anglerfish. They can depress the

676
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 2: teeth at will to allow unobstructed travel down their throat,

677
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:34,880
Speaker 2: and they can likewise raise them again like the bars

678
00:41:34,920 --> 00:41:37,760
Speaker 2: of a cage, to prevent engulfed prey from escaping.

679
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 3: Again, that is horrifying. Yeah, so like the teeth. Wow,

680
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:44,879
Speaker 3: So when it's trying to get its mouth around something

681
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 3: that's just too big to get past the teeth, the

682
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:49,800
Speaker 3: teeth come down, but then they close again.

683
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:52,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, what big teeth you have, Grandma to

684
00:41:53,120 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 2: bite me with, note to trap you with to keep

685
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 2: you from escaping.

686
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 3: Let me let me get these out of the way

687
00:41:57,480 --> 00:41:58,279
Speaker 3: so I can get in there.

688
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 2: I should also note that the light on the end

689
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 2: of the lure, it has a kind of lid, a

690
00:42:05,080 --> 00:42:08,320
Speaker 2: kind of like flap of skin that can muscularly hide

691
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 2: or reveal the glow. I guess we might think of

692
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:21,480
Speaker 2: it almost like an eye lid or something.

693
00:42:23,400 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 3: Now.

694
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:28,839
Speaker 2: The other really noticeable thing and headline catching thing about anglerfish,

695
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:32,920
Speaker 2: of course, is the extreme sexual dimorphism we see in

696
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:38,279
Speaker 2: some anglerfish species. The female is larger and fiercer by

697
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:42,399
Speaker 2: a considerable margin in these species, and the male's main

698
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:46,920
Speaker 2: purpose is to provide sperm for sexual reproduction. So for

699
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 2: black sea devils, for example, there are like five species

700
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 2: of black sea devil. The male is free swimming but

701
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 2: doesn't even feed as an adult. In other species, the

702
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:01,880
Speaker 2: male is small and parasitic nature, so what it does

703
00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 2: is and in general the males again, they're small, they

704
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:10,759
Speaker 2: often have like oversized sense organs, and they are basically

705
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 2: like heat seeking little missiles. Their one goal in life

706
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:17,440
Speaker 2: is to find the female, which you know, this matches

707
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 2: up with with other modes of reproduction sexual reproduction we

708
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:23,919
Speaker 2: see in the animal kingdom. But when they get there,

709
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:27,960
Speaker 2: some of them, particularly like these black sea devils, they

710
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:31,160
Speaker 2: will attach to the female's body. They will latch on

711
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:33,800
Speaker 2: and they will fuse with her.

712
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:37,240
Speaker 3: Body, almost blurring the line between like the male adult

713
00:43:37,280 --> 00:43:39,840
Speaker 3: itself and like the germ cells. Like it's almost like

714
00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 3: an infection, like.

715
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:44,720
Speaker 2: Let me become part of your body. Let us share

716
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,400
Speaker 2: a circulatory system, because that is exactly what happens. Uh.

717
00:43:48,600 --> 00:43:50,560
Speaker 2: There is a there is a merging, There is a

718
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:54,280
Speaker 2: fusing of the male and female, and in some cases

719
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:59,000
Speaker 2: multiple males. The female will have multiple males attached to her. Joe,

720
00:43:59,000 --> 00:44:00,920
Speaker 2: if you if you slide down in our notes here,

721
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:03,799
Speaker 2: I included an image here and you can really see.

722
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:08,280
Speaker 2: I mean when I say there's a difference in size here,

723
00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:12,520
Speaker 2: it is extreme. The female here looks like she just

724
00:44:12,560 --> 00:44:14,720
Speaker 2: has You could mistake this for just like a little

725
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:17,880
Speaker 2: flourish on the creature's back, but that is a male

726
00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 2: that is fused with her. It would be like, I

727
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:23,759
Speaker 2: don't think a mole. Yeah, yeah, it would be like

728
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 2: you have a male if the male human being was

729
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:30,800
Speaker 2: the size of a squirrel, you know, compared to the female.

730
00:44:30,880 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 2: Like that's how small he is.

731
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 3: But waite, does she have two males stuck to her?

732
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 3: Is there another one on her face? Or is that

733
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:37,720
Speaker 3: the lure?

734
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:41,480
Speaker 2: That may be a lure. I'm not completely certain I'm

735
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:45,680
Speaker 2: that but indeed, yeah, the females will end up with

736
00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:50,000
Speaker 2: multiple males, and the males continue to live, but they

737
00:44:50,040 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 2: become entirely dependent on the female for nutrients. They don't feed,

738
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:58,000
Speaker 2: they're just latched on. They are essentially part of her body.

739
00:44:59,000 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 2: The upside for her is they don't take up much space.

740
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 2: They're small, and they also require comparably little nourishment, so

741
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 2: they're not too much of a drain, and they're just

742
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:13,279
Speaker 2: they're ready to provide sperm whenever she is ready to

743
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:18,040
Speaker 2: reproduce again. This comes down to the idea that in

744
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 2: these deep waters you may have trouble running in to prey,

745
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 2: and when you do, you need to be able to

746
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:25,879
Speaker 2: be ready to eat them entirely, eat as much as

747
00:45:25,880 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 2: you can. And likewise it's going to be hard to

748
00:45:28,600 --> 00:45:31,280
Speaker 2: find a mate. So when you find one, you better

749
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:33,839
Speaker 2: be ready to fuse with her body, and or if

750
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:35,760
Speaker 2: you're the female, you need to go ahead and attach

751
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:38,759
Speaker 2: them to you and carry them with you so you

752
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:39,640
Speaker 2: can use them later.

753
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 3: It's a brilliant adaptation, perfect it is.

754
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:45,960
Speaker 2: It's amazing. And it's by the way, their reproduction is

755
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 2: still carried out externally via spawning, So the females release eggs,

756
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:53,560
Speaker 2: the males release sperm, and then the fertilized eggs drift

757
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:54,680
Speaker 2: off in the water column.

758
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:57,320
Speaker 3: The male is right there, is stuck to her yeah.

759
00:45:57,200 --> 00:45:59,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's just right there, right there, on the whole

760
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:02,759
Speaker 2: of the ship. I mean, there's a lot crazy about this. Again,

761
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 2: this is about as far from the human model of

762
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:07,160
Speaker 2: sexual reproduction as you can you can get, and it

763
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:11,239
Speaker 2: certainly gets into like, certainly body horror realms when you

764
00:46:11,280 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 2: start imagining like human versions of this. But one of

765
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:16,839
Speaker 2: the crazy things about the merging here is that we're

766
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:21,879
Speaker 2: dealing with genetically disparate male and female counterparts, and yet

767
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 2: they're able to fuse together without invoking a strong anti

768
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:28,719
Speaker 2: graft immune rejection response, let's say on the part of

769
00:46:28,719 --> 00:46:31,920
Speaker 2: the female. This is you know, this is the what

770
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:37,680
Speaker 2: you generally see in cases of parabiosis, particularly of the

771
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:42,279
Speaker 2: surgical variety, in pretty much all other vertebrates, any kind

772
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 2: of grafting like this, you know, limb transplant, organ transplant,

773
00:46:46,680 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 2: tissue transplant, depending on exactly on what you're transplanting. You know,

774
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:53,440
Speaker 2: when you get down into bones, it's a little different,

775
00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:57,400
Speaker 2: but generally you're going to generate an immune system response

776
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 2: resulting in the rejection of the grafted tissue, unless immunosuppressant

777
00:47:03,080 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 2: medications are employed, or i know, in the case of

778
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:09,319
Speaker 2: some organ transplants, you'll have bone marrow transplants that are

779
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:11,280
Speaker 2: sometimes employed to reduce rejection.

780
00:47:11,920 --> 00:47:14,719
Speaker 3: You're saying, the angler fish immune systems do not do this.

781
00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:17,040
Speaker 3: They can have the male graft right on there and

782
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:19,520
Speaker 3: the immune system does not reject.

783
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:22,880
Speaker 2: It exactly exactly. So yeah, like this, we have to

784
00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:29,800
Speaker 2: jump through so many hoops to actually successfully transplant tissues, limbs,

785
00:47:29,840 --> 00:47:34,839
Speaker 2: and so forth with our human bodies, and with anglerfish

786
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 2: that they just do it as part of their sexual reproduction.

787
00:47:38,320 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 2: And so this has been a major point of fascination

788
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:43,320
Speaker 2: for scientists. I was reading an article from twenty twenty

789
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 2: two that gets into some of this, titled Histocompatibility and

790
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:53,880
Speaker 2: Reproduction Lessons from the Anglerfish by Noah Issakoff in the

791
00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 2: journal Life, and they point out that it's thought that

792
00:47:57,040 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 2: anglerfish evolved to quote tolerate the history incompatible tissue antigens

793
00:48:02,560 --> 00:48:06,480
Speaker 2: of their mate and prevent the occurrence of reciprocal graph

794
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 2: rejection responses, and so they likely this is where it

795
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 2: gets interesting. This doesn't mean that they just like flipped

796
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 2: off all defenses and they're like, well, we don't care

797
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:20,040
Speaker 2: about infections now because we need to breed. It's likely

798
00:48:20,320 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 2: The author points out that they evolved other immune strategies

799
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:27,239
Speaker 2: to protect against, to protect against the sorts of infections

800
00:48:27,239 --> 00:48:30,719
Speaker 2: and threats that those very defense systems would otherwise be

801
00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:34,880
Speaker 2: in place for. So they're arguing, there's obviously there's so

802
00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:38,800
Speaker 2: much we could learn, you know, from these fish to

803
00:48:39,560 --> 00:48:43,640
Speaker 2: better you know, to better understand how, for instance, on

804
00:48:43,640 --> 00:48:46,520
Speaker 2: one hand, how we might just protect against infections, like

805
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 2: what sort of strategies are they using that are different

806
00:48:49,000 --> 00:48:51,960
Speaker 2: from what we see in other organisms. And then of course,

807
00:48:52,160 --> 00:48:57,120
Speaker 2: the the obvious ramification here is what if we could

808
00:48:57,239 --> 00:49:00,600
Speaker 2: learn from them to improve human too, is shoe limb

809
00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:04,319
Speaker 2: and organ transplants. Those are the potential quote lessons from

810
00:49:04,360 --> 00:49:08,440
Speaker 2: the anglerfish. Now, Joe, I only shared like one, maybe

811
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:11,839
Speaker 2: two pictures of anglerfish in our document, but I do

812
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 2: I recommend that everyone out there just do a few

813
00:49:15,560 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 2: image searches. Look around there. Anglerfish vary so much in

814
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:24,839
Speaker 2: their appearance and their morphology. You know, it's really wild

815
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:27,200
Speaker 2: and wonderful. And once you see, especially when you get

816
00:49:27,200 --> 00:49:30,279
Speaker 2: out of deep sea angler fish and you start looking

817
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:32,880
Speaker 2: at like all of these like colorful examples you find

818
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:37,359
Speaker 2: in shallower waters. Yeah, there's some amazing diversity here.

819
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:40,160
Speaker 3: Well, you know, It's funny. We were just talking about

820
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:45,040
Speaker 3: how ecology affects esthetic values, you know, in terms of

821
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:47,880
Speaker 3: like what looks scary to us is affected by the

822
00:49:48,239 --> 00:49:51,520
Speaker 3: animals that we're afraid could harm us. And if you,

823
00:49:51,520 --> 00:49:53,960
Speaker 3: you know, you're a prey animal and the Mariana trench,

824
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:56,320
Speaker 3: would what looks scary to you be these cute little

825
00:49:57,480 --> 00:50:00,520
Speaker 3: snail fishes? I have think we have to ask the

826
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:04,080
Speaker 3: same question about the biology underlying aesthetics. If you were

827
00:50:04,120 --> 00:50:09,239
Speaker 3: a highly evolved anglerfish species, what looks sexy do you? Yeah?

828
00:50:09,920 --> 00:50:13,400
Speaker 3: Interesting question looking either way at the at the anglerfish sexes.

829
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:16,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, if you're a female anglerfish, you're really

830
00:50:16,320 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 2: looking for a guy who no longer eats and is

831
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:23,080
Speaker 2: really ready to change for you.

832
00:50:23,880 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 3: Trying to imagine the cosmetic trends of like technology of

833
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:32,160
Speaker 3: anglerfish that evolve technological intelligence, what would they be doing

834
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:34,200
Speaker 3: to try to enhance the look of the jail bar

835
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:39,399
Speaker 3: teeth and they'd be messing with the lure somehow. Yeah.

836
00:50:39,600 --> 00:50:41,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of them have kind of a like a

837
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:45,400
Speaker 2: beard going on that is also biolinminescence, so they they

838
00:50:45,480 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 2: might be you know, wanting a more robust, glowing beard,

839
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:51,319
Speaker 2: you know, that's that's certainly advisable.

840
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:53,480
Speaker 3: These are wonderful creatures.

841
00:50:53,840 --> 00:50:56,839
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And I mean they're horrifying, but they're also there.

842
00:50:56,880 --> 00:50:59,319
Speaker 2: They are attractive in their own way. I just doing

843
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:01,920
Speaker 2: a quick image and I'm running across tattoos that people

844
00:51:01,960 --> 00:51:05,000
Speaker 2: have of angler fish, so they have their own vibe

845
00:51:05,000 --> 00:51:08,799
Speaker 2: going on that definitely people love. All Right, we're going

846
00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:11,120
Speaker 2: to go ahead and close up this episode of Stuff

847
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:13,719
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind. We were just chatting off Mike

848
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 2: and we think we're probably going to come back and

849
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:17,920
Speaker 2: do one more episode, but we're going to leave it

850
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:20,759
Speaker 2: a little open. High likelihood that you're going to get

851
00:51:20,800 --> 00:51:24,640
Speaker 2: another episode on deep sea predators and it will also

852
00:51:24,760 --> 00:51:28,200
Speaker 2: be gross and amazing and weird. But if not, you know,

853
00:51:28,239 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 2: we'll come back with something else. In the meantime, we'd

854
00:51:31,080 --> 00:51:32,839
Speaker 2: like to remind everyone that Stuff to Blow Your Mind

855
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:35,600
Speaker 2: is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes

856
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:38,920
Speaker 2: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes on Wednesdays and

857
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Speaker 2: on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns to just

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Speaker 2: talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. Follow

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Speaker 2: us wherever you get your podcasts. Follow us on various

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Speaker 2: social media accounts. I can't keep track of what's going

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Speaker 2: on social media these days, but we're on some of

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Speaker 2: them and you can follow us. I know we're on

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Speaker 2: Instagram where we are stb Yan.

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Speaker 3: Podcasts Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer

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Speaker 3: JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch

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Speaker 3: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

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Speaker 3: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

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Speaker 3: say hello, you can email us at contact Stuff to

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Speaker 3: Blow your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.