Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature future production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, from Katy
Speaker 1: Tales to Sperm Whales, it's listener questions. You guys come
Speaker 1: up with some real brain tickling questions and I try
Speaker 1: to answer them. We're talking about house cats to lions
Speaker 1: and salmon to deep sea events. Discover this more as
Speaker 1: we answer the age old question is the answer to
Speaker 1: life back tear ya poop. So let's get to our
Speaker 1: first question, first question of the day. So, why do
Speaker 1: cats wag their tails when they're hunting or annoyed? Every
Speaker 1: time there's squirrels outside? The cats are almost creating a breeze,
Speaker 1: holding still while wagging their tails around. This is from
Speaker 1: Will h. So there are two kind of butt area
Speaker 1: movements you might notice when your cat is hunting, butt
Speaker 1: wiggles and tail twitching. The butt wiggle has a pretty
Speaker 1: simple explanation. It is your kitty cat aligning her feet
Speaker 1: into the perfect position for a well executed pounce. Um.
Speaker 1: It also maybe helps them kind of warm up their muscles.
Speaker 1: It's not just house cats that do that. Little, but wiggle.
Speaker 1: It is also big cats and wildcats. It's pretty funny
Speaker 1: and adorable to see. As for the tail twitching, it's
Speaker 1: interesting because cats use their tails uh to communicate or
Speaker 1: express a number of emotions, which you may have noticed
Speaker 1: if you are a cat owner. A tail that is
Speaker 1: up but smooth, with a slight curve at the tip,
Speaker 1: it probably means this is a relax kitty, maybe attentive,
Speaker 1: but at ease. Whereas a tail that is up that
Speaker 1: is poofed out it generally means a scared or agitated cat.
Speaker 1: Do not try to pet the cat, it will scratch
Speaker 1: your eyeballs out. A tail being whipped around can mean
Speaker 1: anxiousness or excitement. A twitching tail usually means that the
Speaker 1: cat is focused and interested in something. So if your
Speaker 1: cat is focused on squirrels while twitching or whipping her tail,
Speaker 1: she's probably very excited and interested. Because cats like to
Speaker 1: murder for fun, house cats generally speaking live off of
Speaker 1: not hunting, but on the food that we give them,
Speaker 1: but they just enjoy hunting. It brings satisfaction to their
Speaker 1: murderous little hearts. Cats love murder, and so when they
Speaker 1: see a potential murder victim outside, they get excited. So
Speaker 1: uh as to why this twitching happens in terms of life,
Speaker 1: does it serve any purpose? I don't think there's really
Speaker 1: any evidence that the tail twitching helps with their hunting
Speaker 1: at all. Unlike the other tail positions, which can communicate
Speaker 1: with other cats or with humans what they're feeling, like
Speaker 1: when it's poofed up. That helps communicate to other animals
Speaker 1: like I'm angry, and it also makes them seem bigger
Speaker 1: so that they can scare off potential foes that twitching tail.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've seen any real compelling research that
Speaker 1: it has anything to do with anything. Really. It may
Speaker 1: just be an expression of their excitement, sort of like
Speaker 1: when we bounce our knees because we're excited or nervous,
Speaker 1: or tap our fingers because we're impatient. It may just
Speaker 1: be their excitement and and and anticipation kind of bubbling
Speaker 1: out through their tail muscles. So another question is I've
Speaker 1: heard of scary creatures like vampire bats that are actually
Speaker 1: sweethearts which share blood to more hungry members of its cauldron.
Speaker 1: As well, there are beautiful creatures like milkweed butterflies that
Speaker 1: are horror fests which feed on their own babies. Are
Speaker 1: there any other examples of good monsters and snow white
Speaker 1: step moms out there in the animal world? Thanks? This
Speaker 1: is from Michael D from San Antonio. Great question. I
Speaker 1: agree with you so much on this. Vampire bats are sweet,
Speaker 1: precious little angels. They share food with each other. They'll
Speaker 1: like give each other little backrubs, little scratches, and then
Speaker 1: exchange blood meals. So if a vampire bat missed a meal,
Speaker 1: they have very rapid metabolisms, and missing a eel can
Speaker 1: be really dangerous, if not fatal. So they have this
Speaker 1: great system of friendship where they will share meals with
Speaker 1: their friends, and that is kind of a social safety
Speaker 1: net for these bats. And a lot of bat species
Speaker 1: actually babysit. It's called allow parenting, where unrelated adults will
Speaker 1: help look after young in it. It's it's just they're
Speaker 1: such harmonious little creatures. They actually are pretty chill in
Speaker 1: terms of sort of big social groups animals, like. They
Speaker 1: are one of the types of animals that tend not
Speaker 1: to fight that much. I mean, there are fights, there
Speaker 1: is bickering, but they're pretty chill, pretty pretty sweet. They
Speaker 1: have nice dispositions, and indeed, there are many examples of
Speaker 1: beautiful but scary animals and horrifying looking but sweet creatures.
Speaker 1: So like bald eagles are majestic looking, beautiful and regal.
Speaker 1: But there's little babies is cute little white huffballs will
Speaker 1: kick each other out of the nest. There's also strikes,
Speaker 1: a cute little bird that looks like an innocent little
Speaker 1: songbird who will impale their prey on thorns. Sometimes their
Speaker 1: prey is still alive and just left to languish until
Speaker 1: they die. Meanwhile, something is frightening, as a scorpion will
Speaker 1: often carry their babies on their backs or even sacrifice
Speaker 1: themselves for their young. And there are species of social
Speaker 1: spiders who all work together to make giant webbing to
Speaker 1: house they're young, and it helps protect them, and it
Speaker 1: also helps protect the newer generations. So you definitely cannot
Speaker 1: judge a book by its looks. Uh. Indeed, uh, as
Speaker 1: Michael D pointed out, milkly butterflies, as beautiful as they are,
Speaker 1: are pretty horrifying in terms of their behavior. They will
Speaker 1: rip open caterpillars of their own species. And remember, caterpillars
Speaker 1: are the babies, they are the young juvenile version of
Speaker 1: these butterflies before they go through metamorphosis. But yeah, the
Speaker 1: adult butterflies will rip open caterpillars of their own species
Speaker 1: and drink their sweet, delicious inner group basically the blood
Speaker 1: and fluids of these caterpillars like they're sucking out the
Speaker 1: jelly from a jelly doughnut. Male milk weed butterflies will
Speaker 1: do this to get an easy meal and a lot
Speaker 1: of nutrition to help increase the vibrancy of their colorful
Speaker 1: wings and their fitness to attract females, So literally eating
Speaker 1: babies to improve their pickup game. Real nice, nice job. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: horrifying looking insects like earwigs are extremely sweet and caring
Speaker 1: mothers watching over their young for months without eating any
Speaker 1: food just to protect them from predators and pathogens. And
Speaker 1: there are some great insect dads to Male giant water
Speaker 1: bugs will carry their eggs on their backs to protect
Speaker 1: those eggs, and looking at them is pretty horrifying. It's
Speaker 1: like a tripophobes or snightmare. Tropophobia is the fear of
Speaker 1: a bunch of sort of sequential holes or bubbles um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it is kind of upsetting looking as it
Speaker 1: is a weird looking kind of diamond shaped insect with
Speaker 1: a bunch of squishy, shiny eggs on its back. But
Speaker 1: this is such a sweet act of fatherhood. And of
Speaker 1: course there's also a little black beetle. It's kind of
Speaker 1: intimidating looking. It's got this really um tough armor. It's
Speaker 1: called lethrus app terrorist. But despite looking you know, kind
Speaker 1: of tough and um like, it's just kind of pugnacious,
Speaker 1: they are actually extremely sweet and caring parents. The mother
Speaker 1: guards the eggs, and the father guards the entrance to
Speaker 1: the borrow, and the father will protect the borrow from
Speaker 1: any invaders, and these beetles will fight to the death
Speaker 1: to protect their eggs. So there was a study that
Speaker 1: looked at these beetles and they were wondering, you know
Speaker 1: why these beetles they're they're relatively small, maybe like about
Speaker 1: the size of your thumb, maybe a little thicker but shorter,
Speaker 1: and they are they actually are able to fend off
Speaker 1: much larger animals to prevent them from entering this burrow.
Speaker 1: And researchers were wondering, well, why do they have such
Speaker 1: a high success rate at defending these burrows despite their size,
Speaker 1: And it turns out, uh, this research seemed to determine
Speaker 1: that they were just so much more dedicated in the
Speaker 1: fight because they had something to fight for, their family
Speaker 1: so cute. So it's funny, I mean nature. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes something that's beautiful will be a real nasty animal.
Speaker 1: Sometimes something that's ugly will be a really sweet, wonderful animal.
Speaker 1: Sometimes something that's ugly is also just a mean, terrible animal,
Speaker 1: and something that's pretty as a sweet animal. It's you
Speaker 1: just don't know. You can't you can't know until you
Speaker 1: really get to know them. You know, sit down, have
Speaker 1: a little coffee, you know, just get to know your
Speaker 1: local insects and talk to them, find out what they're
Speaker 1: all about. Um. And while you do that, we're going
Speaker 1: to take a real quick break, and when we get back,
Speaker 1: we're going to answer more listener questions, more listener questions.
Speaker 1: So welcome back to this show. Uh. This listener question
Speaker 1: is from one of my younger listeners, Charlie, who wants
Speaker 1: to be an astronomer, naturalist, and even more when he
Speaker 1: grows up, and he has a bunch of questions. He
Speaker 1: actually only asked me to answer one. Uh. He gave
Speaker 1: me a bunch of questions to choose from. But hey,
Speaker 1: guess what, Charlie, I'm gonna try to answer them all.
Speaker 1: Let's see if we can do this. All right, I drink,
Speaker 1: drink some coffee. I'm ready to go. Here we go.
Speaker 1: First question from Charlie, why do rhinos have horns? Very
Speaker 1: good question. Rhinos use their horns for a bunch of
Speaker 1: different things. I mean, it's kind of like asking why
Speaker 1: do humans have thumbs? So they use their horns for
Speaker 1: self defense. They use it for digging up roots or
Speaker 1: even digging for water. They can use them to break
Speaker 1: branches to get out some tasty vegetation. They will also
Speaker 1: use them socially in dominance displays to try to award
Speaker 1: off competitors without having to get in a fight. Males
Speaker 1: will use them to attract females and to defend their mates,
Speaker 1: and females will use them to defend their young or
Speaker 1: also to help guide their young, so they gently nudge
Speaker 1: their babies with their horns to direct them in a
Speaker 1: certain way. You know. So, yeah, it's just an all
Speaker 1: purpose utility tool. Next question, why are cheetahs so fast? So?
Speaker 1: Why cheetahs are fast from an evolutionary perspective, is so
Speaker 1: they can outrun prey. So predators, despite being fierce, actually
Speaker 1: have a pretty hard job they have. They often have
Speaker 1: quite tough lives because they have to catch prey. They
Speaker 1: have to eat a lot of meat to survive, and
Speaker 1: so they have to have a really good advantage both
Speaker 1: against prey and other predators so they can outcompete them.
Speaker 1: Uh So, you look at different big cat species and
Speaker 1: you see each of them has some kind of advantage.
Speaker 1: So lions have the advantage of their incredible size. They
Speaker 1: also have a social structure where they live in groups
Speaker 1: and they will hunt together. Jaguars of South America have
Speaker 1: the most incredible jaw strength of any big cat, capable
Speaker 1: of cracking open skulls, so they can they're basically ambush
Speaker 1: predators that like drop out of the tree, grab some
Speaker 1: poor little thing and can crack open its head. Uh.
Speaker 1: Mar Gas which are a much smaller spotted cat. They
Speaker 1: kind of look like awesol lots if you know what
Speaker 1: that is. But yeah, they're much smaller, sleeker, little spotted cat.
Speaker 1: They also live in South America. They are very graceful
Speaker 1: and skilled tree climbers and they can basically walk up
Speaker 1: a tree vertically like they're defined gravity, and they can
Speaker 1: mimic the cries of baby monkey monkeys to lure in
Speaker 1: the adult monkeys and eat them so devious and graceful,
Speaker 1: like some kind of little assassin. So, as you can see,
Speaker 1: all of those wildcats have some kind of advantage that
Speaker 1: helps them hunt, whether it's strength or agility or guile.
Speaker 1: So cheetahs are specialized for incredible speed over impressive distances,
Speaker 1: giving them a huge advantage when it comes to chasing
Speaker 1: down prey. In terms of how they're so fast, in
Speaker 1: terms of physics, we have to look at their anatomy.
Speaker 1: So first, their respiration and circulatory systems are specialized to
Speaker 1: provide their bodies with adequate oxygen for being able to run,
Speaker 1: So they have large nasal passageways and a huge heart
Speaker 1: to draw in oxygen and pump blood effectively. Also, their
Speaker 1: bodies are aero dynamic. They have this small triangular head
Speaker 1: in a long, smooth, sleek body, and a sort of
Speaker 1: medium length stocky tail that works as a rudder to
Speaker 1: help them control their movements in high speed chases. So
Speaker 1: their legs are also longer proportional to their body versus
Speaker 1: other big cats, allowing them larger strides and the bones
Speaker 1: of their lower legs are actually designed to limit rotation.
Speaker 1: This sacrifices their climbing ability to actually allow them to
Speaker 1: run faster without losing their footing and tripping. Their spinal
Speaker 1: vertebrae are highly flexible and can stretch to allow them
Speaker 1: huge strides while running, so basically they can launch themselves
Speaker 1: like little feline ronkets off the ground and travel a
Speaker 1: huge amount of distance in a single stride, sometimes up
Speaker 1: to thirteen to twenty three feet or four to seven meters.
Speaker 1: It's like they're running with a bunch of long jumps.
Speaker 1: So not only are they great at maintaining speed, but
Speaker 1: they can accelerate much more quickly than their prey. So
Speaker 1: while they can run up to speeds of around fifty
Speaker 1: five miles per hour eighty eight kilometers an hour during
Speaker 1: a hunt, the average speed of a cheetah is only
Speaker 1: around thirty three miles an hour or fifty three kilometers
Speaker 1: an hour during a single sort of chase. So the
Speaker 1: reason this is is that the cheetah accelerates extremely quickly
Speaker 1: at the start of the chase, then slows down as
Speaker 1: it catches up to its victims. So basically, give it
Speaker 1: all they've got at the very start catch up to
Speaker 1: that poor little gazelle or springbok, and then as they're
Speaker 1: closing in on them, they can slow down their speed
Speaker 1: and make a grab for them. Alright, Question number three,
Speaker 1: why do some fish live in freshwater and others insalt?
Speaker 1: And how do salmon do both? Charlie, this is an
Speaker 1: excellent question. So the question of why they would live
Speaker 1: in fresh water has to do with ecological niches that
Speaker 1: animals find. So basically, if there is a livable space
Speaker 1: the planet, like an area on this planet Earth where
Speaker 1: life can physically live, they will do it. They will
Speaker 1: find a way to exploit it. That's because competition selective
Speaker 1: pressures elsewhere are always going to drive animal species all
Speaker 1: around the world to find a niche that they can
Speaker 1: exploit and they can compete in. So that's why we
Speaker 1: have mammals that could live in a desert or live
Speaker 1: in a rainforest, in these very different areas of the
Speaker 1: planet with very different environments, and yet they are going
Speaker 1: out and they're finding these niches and they're evolving to
Speaker 1: be able to survive there. So uh, fish are actually
Speaker 1: an incredibly diverse group of animals that have this really
Speaker 1: long time span of evolution, much longer than a lot
Speaker 1: of species alive today in in the mammalian class and
Speaker 1: and other classes of animals. So some fish are actually
Speaker 1: more related to us, like more related to mammals uh
Speaker 1: than they are too another fish. So these are just
Speaker 1: an incredibly diverse group of animals um. And so it
Speaker 1: is pretty likely that these fish that have been going
Speaker 1: through revolution for so long or going to venture from
Speaker 1: the ocean to these rivers um So it was basically
Speaker 1: inevitable the way that river systems were because they actually
Speaker 1: connect to the ocean and as they go inland, the
Speaker 1: salinity of the water goes from being you know, salt
Speaker 1: ocean salt water to more brackish and lower salinity gradients
Speaker 1: until you get to freshwater. So you know, a fish
Speaker 1: that is a sea dwelling fish could venture into these
Speaker 1: where these rivers meet the ocean and be fair okay.
Speaker 1: So that gives a lot of room for a sort
Speaker 1: of evolution to help them start to survive in these
Speaker 1: lower salinity environments. So basically, because you have there's so
Speaker 1: many fish in the sea, it's almost inevitable that fish
Speaker 1: are going to find their way to this river and
Speaker 1: because animals nature cores of vacuum. Animals will always try
Speaker 1: to find a niche to exploit because it's got resources,
Speaker 1: it's got space. Uh, they will find that and they
Speaker 1: will go into these fresh water areas and then they
Speaker 1: will adapt to them. So interestingly, there is a greater
Speaker 1: diversity of freshwater species as compared to ocean species of fish.
Speaker 1: So there are more species of freshwater's fish than there
Speaker 1: are in the ocean. Fact, forty I think about of
Speaker 1: species of fish are actually freshwater fish, which is incredible.
Speaker 1: Despite the fact that the ocean covers so much more
Speaker 1: of the lance a proportional to how much fresh water
Speaker 1: there is, they're way more species per you know, square
Speaker 1: unit of fresh water is compared to the ocean. So
Speaker 1: the reason for this is actually because freshwater environments are
Speaker 1: constantly changing, you know when you look at time on
Speaker 1: a much larger perspective. So, uh, the the rivers and
Speaker 1: freshwater systems are changing due to erosion, seismic activity, flooding, uh,
Speaker 1: and even the activity of animals like beavers or humans.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile the ocean remains relatively stable. Yeah, it changes
Speaker 1: a little bit, but it's a much more stable environment
Speaker 1: than say rivers and streams and ponds, um so uh,
Speaker 1: and you'll have like a river, you know, get blocked off, right,
Speaker 1: So you can have a population of fish that's in
Speaker 1: a river, and then that river like maybe a tree
Speaker 1: falls off for there's a landslide. Now you have this
Speaker 1: little this lake or something that is now separated from
Speaker 1: the river. And then uh, you know, you have a
Speaker 1: separation of this population of fish. And then that can
Speaker 1: help speciation where you have one species become two species
Speaker 1: because they're physically separated and they will encounter different environmental pressures.
Speaker 1: So now onto uh, the other part of your question
Speaker 1: about salmon. So, most species of fish tend to be
Speaker 1: either freshwater or saltwater. If you try to stick a
Speaker 1: freshwater fish in a saltwater aquarium or vice versa, they
Speaker 1: will die very likely they will die pretty quickly due
Speaker 1: to the effects that the high salinity or low salinity
Speaker 1: has on their specialized cells, causing their cells either to
Speaker 1: explode or implode. But some fish are anadromists, meaning they
Speaker 1: spend most of their lives at sea, but then migrate
Speaker 1: to freshwater to reproduce, and they're young, start off life
Speaker 1: as freshwater fish and then migrate to the ocean as adults.
Speaker 1: Salmon are a great example of this, as our sturgeons, herrings, smelt,
Speaker 1: and some species of eels. So the way that salmon
Speaker 1: and other anadroma species of fish managed to live in
Speaker 1: both saltwater and fresh water are adaptations that help with
Speaker 1: OSMO regulation. OSMO regulation is managing the osmosis of water
Speaker 1: and salt in our cells. So and animal cells, the
Speaker 1: cells that we have, the cells that other animals have
Speaker 1: like to have. They like to maintain equilibrium, so they
Speaker 1: like to have equal amounts of salt and water inside
Speaker 1: the cell as outside the cell. So the concentration of
Speaker 1: the concentration of the salt in the water inside the
Speaker 1: cell likes to be the same as outside of the cell.
Speaker 1: So if that concentration is different, you'll have water moving
Speaker 1: across the cell membrane to make it more or less equal.
Speaker 1: So that is called osmosis. So water will um leave
Speaker 1: the cell uh if there is a higher concentration of
Speaker 1: salt outside the cell, or it will enter the cell
Speaker 1: if there's a higher concentration of salt inside the cell.
Speaker 1: So if the water so if a salt water fish
Speaker 1: is dropped into fresh water, it's problem because water in
Speaker 1: its system is less salty than the inside of the cell.
Speaker 1: So the saltwater fish used to a more salty environment
Speaker 1: it cells have more salt inside of them. You drop
Speaker 1: it in fresh water, Suddenly the inside of their cells
Speaker 1: are saltier than the fluid outside of their cells. And
Speaker 1: what happens, water rushes into their cells, causing them to
Speaker 1: explode way, which is bad for the life of the fish.
Speaker 1: So fresh water fish have the opposite problem. In salt water.
Speaker 1: The water outside their cells is more salty than inside,
Speaker 1: and so water leaves their cells trying to reach equilibrium,
Speaker 1: and that causes their cells to shrink, which is also
Speaker 1: bad for the life of the fish. This kills the fish.
Speaker 1: So the way that salmon and other anadromast species of
Speaker 1: fish avoid this horrifying fate is through osmo regulations, so
Speaker 1: managing the osmosis of water and salt in their cells
Speaker 1: using other organs and other processes. So first strategy that
Speaker 1: salmon and other anadroumas fish employ is drinking. You may
Speaker 1: not think that fish need to drink, but ocean fish
Speaker 1: that live in saltwater actually do drink because they need
Speaker 1: the hydration freshwater fish actually don't really need to drink.
Speaker 1: They get enough water passively as it kind of infiltrates
Speaker 1: their body and it's they live in a low salinity environment,
Speaker 1: so they don't need extra hydration through like drinking water
Speaker 1: and then trying to process out the extra salt. So
Speaker 1: um a salmon or another anadromas fish will drink water
Speaker 1: when they're in the ocean, but then they stopped drinking
Speaker 1: as soon as they go into freshwater environments because if
Speaker 1: they start, if they continue to drink the water, if
Speaker 1: they were in freshwater, they would have that problem of
Speaker 1: there being too much of that sailing free water in
Speaker 1: their system trying to rush into their salty cells. So
Speaker 1: this is not sufficient though to prevent them from becoming
Speaker 1: victims of this uh osmos has gone wrong, So they
Speaker 1: have some very clever adaptations At the cellular level. Their
Speaker 1: gills actually produce an enzyme that creates energized molecules that
Speaker 1: will transport salt against the rules of osmosis, so they
Speaker 1: use energy to pump salt out of the salmon's bloodstream.
Speaker 1: Another thing working in the anadromist fish is favor is
Speaker 1: the gradient of salinity as freshwater river meets the ocean.
Speaker 1: Remember how I said it's kind of nice that when
Speaker 1: a river meets the ocean, it's not just like freshwater
Speaker 1: than saltwater. You have this gradient as you go further
Speaker 1: into the freshwater area, and this maybe helps facilitate evolution,
Speaker 1: but it also helps with the life cycle of something
Speaker 1: like a salmon, because the salmon, as it travels from
Speaker 1: fresh water to the ocean, it is going in a
Speaker 1: kind of gradient, so his body is adjusting to this
Speaker 1: higher salinity and vice versa. So there you go. That
Speaker 1: is it's such a like short question in such a
Speaker 1: big answer. But Charlie has got another couple of questions
Speaker 1: and I want to get to those two because they
Speaker 1: are also very interesting. So question number four is how
Speaker 1: do the animals around deep sea vents survive? This is
Speaker 1: a great question. Deep sea vents are hot, and they
Speaker 1: produce sulfur and hydrogen. It's basically these many volcanoes that
Speaker 1: are churning out this heat and and um chemicals in
Speaker 1: the same way that like a like a volcano would
Speaker 1: and so they actually are producing sulfur and hydrogen. And
Speaker 1: there are a special kind of bacteria that can feed
Speaker 1: on sulfur and hydrogen, so bacteria will feed on this
Speaker 1: stuff that it's something like an animal cannot eat. In fact,
Speaker 1: it can be very toxic. But these bacteria converted into
Speaker 1: organic matter that an animal could actually use for energy.
Speaker 1: So clams and giant tube worms are actually in a
Speaker 1: symbiotic relationship with these bacteria. Now you know what a
Speaker 1: clam looks like, but a giant tube warm is this
Speaker 1: really interesting thing. It looks like the pipe of a
Speaker 1: pipe organ this huge tube, but it's an animal, and uh,
Speaker 1: they are in a symbiotic relationship with these sulfur and
Speaker 1: hydrogen eating bacteria. The bacteria creates organic compounds as a
Speaker 1: byproduct that the clams and tube worms can get energy from,
Speaker 1: while the clams and tube worms provide shelter for the bacteria.
Speaker 1: It's like you and your hat, Like you feed your house,
Speaker 1: and your house houses you, except your house is a
Speaker 1: clam or a tube worm. It's perfect, it's beautiful. So
Speaker 1: now you've got a stew going because now that you
Speaker 1: have clams and tube worms able to survive down here,
Speaker 1: other animals can then eat the clams and tube worms,
Speaker 1: and then you've got larger animals eating on those guys,
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth until you guys nice, nice,
Speaker 1: big old like big old gumbo, big old pottiest in
Speaker 1: the ocean. Alright. The last question from Charlie is why
Speaker 1: do you male lions except the one in Savo have manes.
Speaker 1: So it's because they look cool, Seriously, that is the
Speaker 1: reason lionesses think they look attractive. So basically, manes are
Speaker 1: something of a drawback for male lions because they add
Speaker 1: weight and are hot temperature wise, they don't really provide
Speaker 1: much benefit to them. So only the strong and healthy
Speaker 1: lions can maintain a large, luxurious mane, and the lionesses
Speaker 1: think that is totally dreamy. You actually see this in
Speaker 1: birds as well. Male birds of paradise will sometimes have
Speaker 1: these incredibly elaborate long tails, which makes it harder to fly.
Speaker 1: It makes it harder to ward off parasites because you've
Speaker 1: got more surf this area that parasies can get on.
Speaker 1: And but if the male bird of paradise is really healthy,
Speaker 1: then it can actually maintain this long tail, you know,
Speaker 1: and it will look splendid, and these female birds are like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's a beautiful tail. And anyone who has such a beautiful,
Speaker 1: ungainly inconvenient tail must be pretty healthy to be able
Speaker 1: to have such a thing. It's a flex they're flexing.
Speaker 1: Lions with manes are flexing. So with that, we're going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break and when we return, another question,
Speaker 1: and we're back in it's time for questions about whales.
Speaker 1: That's a that's my number one top hit of the day.
Speaker 1: Question about whales is what I called that song. So
Speaker 1: here's the question. Hello, Katie, I have some dumb questions
Speaker 1: about sperm whales. No, stop it. None of your sans
Speaker 1: are ever dumb. Don't you don't you do that. Don't
Speaker 1: you ever say your questions are dumb because they're not.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear it. I don't want any
Speaker 1: of you tell them your questions are dumb because they're not.
Speaker 1: They're never dumb, no dumb questions unless you're like, Hi, Katie,
Speaker 1: should I continue to breathe air? Yeah, that would be
Speaker 1: a little bit dumb, And do please do that because
Speaker 1: without air you can't live no more, So keep breathing air.
Speaker 1: But otherwise, all your questions are not dumb. They're very
Speaker 1: good and I love them, so shut up. Okay, here's
Speaker 1: the question. Why are sperm whales the largest thing deep
Speaker 1: in the ocean. I feel like, wouldn't fish inherently have
Speaker 1: an advantage because they don't have to breathe? There is
Speaker 1: there something about mammals that makes them better at deep
Speaker 1: sea stuff. Also, do you think that whales will eventually
Speaker 1: evolve gills? When sperm whales come up for air, I
Speaker 1: assume it takes a few minutes. So when they decide
Speaker 1: to go up for air, are they timing it so
Speaker 1: they can barely make it with enough air or are
Speaker 1: they going whenever they have time? And this is from
Speaker 1: Frank W. This is a good question, Frank, not not
Speaker 1: a dumb one. It's very good. I had to do
Speaker 1: some research about it, so here we go. So, first
Speaker 1: of all, some fish do grow to be pretty big.
Speaker 1: Not as big as a sperm whale, but pretty big.
Speaker 1: Uh So, for example, the whale shark um. And what
Speaker 1: you'll notice with the whale shark is it is not
Speaker 1: an ambush predator like great whites or other predatory predatory sharks.
Speaker 1: Whale sharks feed on large amounts of small fish, filter feeding,
Speaker 1: kind of like a baling whale. Despite the fact that
Speaker 1: whale sharks and baling whales are completely different animals. Whale
Speaker 1: sharks are fish, uh, baling whales are mammals, but they
Speaker 1: both filter feed. So in order to maintain a large size,
Speaker 1: I mean an incredibly large size, you need to have
Speaker 1: plenty of nutrition and you need to outcompete other animals
Speaker 1: who want that same food. So whale sharks have these
Speaker 1: huge mounts and they in a bunch of tiny fish
Speaker 1: or plankton and filter out the water through specialized teeth.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the largest whales in the world are
Speaker 1: actually not a toothed whale like the sperm whale, but
Speaker 1: a baling whale like the blue whale, who also filter feeds.
Speaker 1: So this feeding method is good for sucking in huge
Speaker 1: amounts of nutrition. Even though each individual praise very tiny,
Speaker 1: they're taking advantage of a huge amount of nutrition that
Speaker 1: exists in the ocean in the form of these little
Speaker 1: individual animals that have huge populations. So, but this does
Speaker 1: not answer why whales generally speaking, uh tend to be
Speaker 1: larger than fish. And so it is actually the fact
Speaker 1: that they're mammals because it is the fact that they
Speaker 1: do breathe oxygen. So to explain we have to go
Speaker 1: back to the Paleozoic a time when the earth was
Speaker 1: covered in far more oxygen than it is today, dragon
Speaker 1: flies could be the size of hawks. We had these
Speaker 1: huge g insects that we don't have today. But as
Speaker 1: oxygen in the atmosphere fell, insects got smaller because it
Speaker 1: was really hard for them to actually breathe and get
Speaker 1: in enough oxygen to maintain their bodies based on the
Speaker 1: way that they're breathing works through these like weird little spiricles.
Speaker 1: Birds also helped the existence of birds seemed to cut
Speaker 1: down on some of the larger, more slow, less agile insects,
Speaker 1: but so did the lack of oxygen. So getting enough
Speaker 1: oxygen to keep a large body alive is a limiting
Speaker 1: factor to growth. So it's may seem that fish should
Speaker 1: have an advantage, right they have guilts, they can breathe
Speaker 1: whenever they want in the water, but this is not
Speaker 1: necessarily true. Extracting oxygen from water is harder than getting
Speaker 1: oxygen from air. Even though whales need to surface every
Speaker 1: so often to get oxygen, what they do suck in
Speaker 1: every time, with their massive respiratory system and massive circulatory
Speaker 1: system that can store that oxygen, is much more significant
Speaker 1: and much more efficient than what fish can get through
Speaker 1: their gills. Basically, getting a deep breath of air every
Speaker 1: so often gets you more oxygen than constantly breathing with gills,
Speaker 1: because breathing with gills is less efficient, and so whales
Speaker 1: are able to get enough oxygen to grow to be gigantic.
Speaker 1: And why would they want to get to be so
Speaker 1: big if it means that they need more food and oxygen.
Speaker 1: One of the reason is that whales are mammals. They
Speaker 1: have to thermoregulate, and so they need to stay warm,
Speaker 1: and staying warm means more blubber and bigger sizes. Being
Speaker 1: bigger also gives you a huge advantage of not being
Speaker 1: a victim to predators and for whales, being able to
Speaker 1: store a lot of oxygen in their bloodstream and not
Speaker 1: having to surface as often. So dolphins are smaller, they
Speaker 1: have to surface a lot more frequently than something like
Speaker 1: a sperm whale or a blue whale, who can go
Speaker 1: long periods of time underwater without having to surface. So
Speaker 1: um as to whether they're sort of rushing back to
Speaker 1: the surface whenever it's like, oh, I need I need
Speaker 1: to breathe, I better go up. I don't really know
Speaker 1: the answer to this, but I looked into it, and
Speaker 1: I think there's probably some wiggle room. Unlike our breathing,
Speaker 1: they have a much slower countdown clock, right, they have
Speaker 1: so much blood carrying oxygen in their massive bodies. It
Speaker 1: provides them so much oxygen. So they usually surface at
Speaker 1: a rate of about ninety minutes between breath, so over
Speaker 1: an hour of just chilling out in the ocean. This
Speaker 1: is sperm whales. But some sperm whales have been voted
Speaker 1: to last for almost a hundred and twenty minutes, so
Speaker 1: I think that seems to indicate that they may have
Speaker 1: an urge to come up and breathe well before they're
Speaker 1: going to run out of oxygen and die of oxygen deprivation,
Speaker 1: which would make sense because you know, if you run
Speaker 1: into some obstacle. I don't know what would be an
Speaker 1: obstacle for sperm whale. I don't know a tenacious giant squid.
Speaker 1: That Well, here's the thing, giant squid don't actually attack
Speaker 1: sperm whales. Sperm whales eat giant squid, and the only
Speaker 1: time they get attacked by giant squid is when giant
Speaker 1: squid are defending themselves. So anyways, I uh. And as
Speaker 1: to whether whales are ever gonna evolve gills. No, I
Speaker 1: don't think so unless there is some huge change in
Speaker 1: the composition of the atmosphere, as if that will ever happen. Um.
Speaker 1: Because the thing is, gills are just less efficient than
Speaker 1: the whales ability to respire with air into their lungs
Speaker 1: much more efficient. I don't think that they would be
Speaker 1: better suited with gills. All right, So before we go,
Speaker 1: one more listener question. Dear Katie. On a trip to
Speaker 1: the Austrian Alps last month, I saw a diving beetle.
Speaker 1: I had never seen it before outside of animal crossing,
Speaker 1: so I was shocked to encounter this slightly creepy bath
Speaker 1: toy of a beetle in real life. I'm curious how
Speaker 1: it breathes, Does it come up for air? How about
Speaker 1: its larva? Do different insects have different respiratory systems? How
Speaker 1: did diving beetles evolved to become paddling danger submarines. This
Speaker 1: is from Meryl in the Netherlands, so yeah, this is
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna do a real quick answer to this one,
Speaker 1: but it's real interesting. Before they dive, diving beetles will
Speaker 1: get air bubbles trapped in their wing cases, so they
Speaker 1: have a portable air system. It's especially interesting when you
Speaker 1: consider that there is a theory that insect wings originally
Speaker 1: evolved from gills from their ancestors. So maybe in the
Speaker 1: case of the diving beetle, it could be that its
Speaker 1: wings were once skills and then they re evolved into
Speaker 1: scuba gear. Evolution is crazy like that, you know, just
Speaker 1: likes to screw around, go on loop deloops. So, um,
Speaker 1: I think I might in terms of the mystery animal sound,
Speaker 1: I might be kind of mean and replay you last
Speaker 1: week's mystery sound because nobody has gifts the right answer,
Speaker 1: So I kind of wanted to give you another chance
Speaker 1: because this one, to me, it's one of my my
Speaker 1: favorites because it's so shocking. Um. And so I'm going
Speaker 1: to replay the sound and I'll give you an even
Speaker 1: more detailed hint. First of all, kind of matching the
Speaker 1: theme of these last two questions. The hint is, this
Speaker 1: is under the water, and it is potentially someone trying
Speaker 1: to find his damn Emazel in distress. So it's underwater
Speaker 1: and he's trying to find his damsel and distress. Here
Speaker 1: is the sound, all right, So it's not one shield wipers.
Speaker 1: I'll give you that one a freebee. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: if you think you know the answer to it or
Speaker 1: want to guess, uh, send me an email at Creature
Speaker 1: Feature Pot at gmail dot com. Uh. You can also
Speaker 1: write to me on Twitter at Creature feat Pod. That's
Speaker 1: not feet. I'm also on instagramp. I'm also on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Creature feature Pod. Uh. I am not as good
Speaker 1: as checking the messages on Instagram, but I do try.
Speaker 1: I try it, but the most reliable one is the
Speaker 1: Gmail Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com. But I
Speaker 1: will endeavor to check my Instagram more. Um. But thank
Speaker 1: you guys so much for listening. Feel free to send
Speaker 1: me in your questions. And the next time I do
Speaker 1: one of these listener questions, hey, maybe I'll answer yours.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll answer it over email. Who knows? Who knows?
Speaker 1: What will happen in this crazy world? Uh. If you're
Speaker 1: liking this show and you leave a review, I'll read
Speaker 1: it and the little it'll make my day. Um and
Speaker 1: thanks so much to the Space Classics for their super
Speaker 1: awesome song x Aluminate. Creature features a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just
Speaker 1: heard is the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast? Or
Speaker 1: Hey guess what? Where have you listen to your favorite shows?
Speaker 1: I don't judge you. See you next Wednesday.