Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature 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, I guess
Speaker 1: what we are doing another listener questions episode. That's right.
Speaker 1: You send me in those questions and I try to
Speaker 1: answer them. Uh, you guys seem to like it when
Speaker 1: I did this last time, so I'm gonna do these occasionally.
Speaker 1: Um as always, you can send me your questions at
Speaker 1: Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com, or on Twitter
Speaker 1: or Instagram at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram at Creature
Speaker 1: feet Pot on Twitter. That's f e a T, not
Speaker 1: f e e T. This is something very different. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you send me in those questions and I answer them.
Speaker 1: And I got some wonderful questions to get through today.
Speaker 1: So here we go. Okay, today in San Diego we
Speaker 1: had some weather. What are the birds doing? How are
Speaker 1: the sparrows dealing? What about the owls that live in
Speaker 1: the palm trees. I would love to hear about how
Speaker 1: our suburban creatures deal. Hope you are doing well, safe
Speaker 1: and snuggled up. Danielle Harcus. So this is a great question.
Speaker 1: What do little birdies do in the rain. Some birds,
Speaker 1: we know waterfowl love the water, but a lot of
Speaker 1: birds are not semi aquatic. They don't necessarily love to
Speaker 1: get wet. But here's the thing. Even though birds may
Speaker 1: not look waterproof, birds actually have surprisingly good protection from
Speaker 1: the elements. Their outer feathers are covered in a natural
Speaker 1: oil which repels water. You know that saying rolls off
Speaker 1: like water off a duck's back. That is due to
Speaker 1: how these oils on their feathers provides a hydrophobic coating
Speaker 1: and keeps them waterproof. So the outer feathers are actually
Speaker 1: called veined feathers, which are characterized by a sturdy central
Speaker 1: shaft which supports the vein, the feathery part of the
Speaker 1: feather that like has that solid shape, you know, that
Speaker 1: feather shape. That is what the vein is. It's this
Speaker 1: this solid feather shape. Like when you think of the
Speaker 1: characteristic bird feather, like think about how like if you've
Speaker 1: ever held like an eagle feather or a larger feather,
Speaker 1: and you think about like how stiff it is and
Speaker 1: if you wave it around you can feel some wind resistance. Uh,
Speaker 1: that is a vein feather and they need these for flight,
Speaker 1: they need to be stiff and water resistance so they
Speaker 1: can maintain their shape for flight. And then under this
Speaker 1: outer layer are the downy feathers. These are the smaller,
Speaker 1: very fuzzy feathers that almost look like fur. Uh. They
Speaker 1: don't have a rigid shape, they're just poufy and fluffy.
Speaker 1: And these are for insulation and warmth. So basically birds
Speaker 1: have this outer raincoat, this waterproof outer shell, and then
Speaker 1: a cozy sweater underneath that. Of course, like if they
Speaker 1: can find some shelter in a tree, they're going to
Speaker 1: be very happy for that because non aquatic birds tend
Speaker 1: not to like to get super soaking wet, but you know,
Speaker 1: they do have some natural protection and that's really important
Speaker 1: because they need to be able to fly even if
Speaker 1: they get a little bit of moisture on them. And
Speaker 1: here is a question from actually my friend Hannah Michaels,
Speaker 1: who has been on the show before. Who rights I
Speaker 1: remember whale bones had something to do with evolution, but
Speaker 1: not what they had to do with evolution? Do you remember? Also,
Speaker 1: why did that bio professor contact me a year after
Speaker 1: I graduated for marriage advice? Thank you for this question,
Speaker 1: Hannah I do not know the answer to why your
Speaker 1: bio professor wanted marriage advice from you. I'm gonna say though,
Speaker 1: because I know how well versed you are in the
Speaker 1: world of Garfield comics that maybe he thinks you'd have
Speaker 1: insight into the conflicts between man and cat, and I
Speaker 1: guess that also extends to man and wife. Anyways, we
Speaker 1: did a great episode with Hannah and also Joey Clift
Speaker 1: on the animals that we ranked on a scale of
Speaker 1: how Garfield like they were, So that was a that
Speaker 1: was a fun episode. Now to answer the whale part
Speaker 1: of the question, so you are absolutely correct, Whale bones
Speaker 1: really do show a really interesting story when it comes
Speaker 1: to evolution. So they demonstrate the unusual path that cetaceans,
Speaker 1: which are whales, dolphins, and porpoises, took on their evolutionary journey.
Speaker 1: So they are mammals who once lived on land and
Speaker 1: decided to go back to the sea. Every whale, dolphin,
Speaker 1: and porpoise they are a descendant of a land mammal,
Speaker 1: so they're bones actually showed this journey. You can see
Speaker 1: vestigial hind feet, uh that are very small and you
Speaker 1: can barely even really see them when the whale is
Speaker 1: like a full fleshed out whale, but you can see
Speaker 1: definitely see them in the whale skeleton. And then the
Speaker 1: front toe or finger bones of the whales you can
Speaker 1: see have been modified. They actually have these these joints
Speaker 1: that really could only be explained as having once been
Speaker 1: used in a front foot, and their pelvic bone and
Speaker 1: spine also indicates that they evolved from mammals who walked
Speaker 1: on land. So when fish swims like you know, you've
Speaker 1: got your your your tuna or your salmon or whoever,
Speaker 1: they have this side to side undulating motion, whereas whales
Speaker 1: and other cetaceans swim with an up and down undulation motion.
Speaker 1: So you look at the difference between a ale fin
Speaker 1: and a fish fin. Um. Fish fins have those uh
Speaker 1: upright vertical fins, whereas whales have those sideways horizontal uh fins.
Speaker 1: And then so that facilitates that up and down swimming
Speaker 1: motion for the whale, and that up and down motion
Speaker 1: of the spine matches that of terrestrial four legged mammals
Speaker 1: who when they walk up like when they walk on
Speaker 1: all fours, there's actually this undulating up and down motion
Speaker 1: of the spine which matches the up and down motion
Speaker 1: of the spine of whales and dolphins. So that shows
Speaker 1: that evolutionary history of like, well, why do whales swim
Speaker 1: differently from fish? Will they evolved from land mammals whose
Speaker 1: spines and hip joints actually originally evolved to facilitate traversing
Speaker 1: on land. Just so you get a picture of like
Speaker 1: what these early ancestors actually looked like. Uh, some of
Speaker 1: these super early land mammals that were the ancestors of whales,
Speaker 1: like Indo Highlas, actually looked like a small dog deer
Speaker 1: like thing that really really interesting looking. It's like it
Speaker 1: looks a little bit like a like a chevrotaine if
Speaker 1: I think we've talked about that on the show before.
Speaker 1: They're these teeny tiny, cute, little deer like animals. And
Speaker 1: then there later ancestors who became semi aquatic, like Ambulocetus
Speaker 1: actually looked like kind of huge, weird looking, long snouted otters,
Speaker 1: and they grew to be up to ten feet or
Speaker 1: three meters big. So if you can imagine like a big, long,
Speaker 1: very toothy otter, that's sort of what the ambulo Cetis
Speaker 1: looked like. Into that was like what they had started
Speaker 1: to evolve into before they made further, uh further development
Speaker 1: towards becoming wail like or dolphin like. They lost their fur,
Speaker 1: of course, because they have that nice layer of blubber
Speaker 1: to keep them warm and they don't need need that
Speaker 1: for insulation. So we're gonna take a real quick break
Speaker 1: and then I will be right back to answer some
Speaker 1: more of your questions. And we are back, and I
Speaker 1: am answering your questions today about animals. Uh, that's right.
Speaker 1: And if you want your question answered on the show,
Speaker 1: you can send me an email at Creature feature pot
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com on the internet. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you can ask me any question really, mostly if
Speaker 1: you ask it about animals, that's what I'll be able
Speaker 1: to answer. If you're like, hey, what's the best music
Speaker 1: band in the world, I'll probably give you pretty uh
Speaker 1: you know, biased answer. I'm not an expert. I can't
Speaker 1: tell you what the best music band in the world is.
Speaker 1: But when it comes in to animals, yeah, sure, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll give you an answer, all right. So here is
Speaker 1: a question from Jay's Harrison. I hope I pronounced your
Speaker 1: name wrong or no, I hope I pronounced it right.
Speaker 1: I hope I pronounced your name wrong. Take that Jay's
Speaker 1: or jay c anyways, No, I'm sorry, I hope I
Speaker 1: pronounced it right. Um. So, Also, this person requested that
Speaker 1: I read this in an Australian accent, which I kind
Speaker 1: of assume this is a form of bullying against me
Speaker 1: because I'm bad at accents. Um. I think this person
Speaker 1: is from Australia, though, so I will try and I'm
Speaker 1: sorry and I apologize to all of Australia for this,
Speaker 1: but I have been dared to do it, so I
Speaker 1: have to. Anyways, here's the question. Here's me trying to
Speaker 1: do it in an Australian accent. Here we go. Do
Speaker 1: dogs have any conciped that a cause operated by a
Speaker 1: human or do they bicyclely think oh yeah, we're going
Speaker 1: in the box now and when we stop will be
Speaker 1: in a different place. Please royd in an Australian accent
Speaker 1: from J. C. Harrison, thank you for the question. Thanks
Speaker 1: for making me read that in an Australian accent, which
Speaker 1: I'm great at. Um So, great question though, So, as
Speaker 1: far as I know, dots don't really have a great
Speaker 1: ability to nest concepts, especially like nesting mechanical concepts, even
Speaker 1: their wild counterparts, the wolves, who are much better at
Speaker 1: solving puzzles than dogs are, particularly because wolves seem to
Speaker 1: have this sense of like it's up to them to
Speaker 1: solve the puzzle, whereas dogs like to give up on
Speaker 1: a puzzle and then just look at their owner pathetically
Speaker 1: because they kind of know we're going to help them
Speaker 1: at some point, so they invest less in these problems
Speaker 1: solving skills and invest more in human loving skills. Um.
Speaker 1: But some dogs do seem to pick up on patterns
Speaker 1: really well. They are very intelligent in a lot of ways. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, stray dogs in Moscow have figured out how
Speaker 1: to ride the subway and they can commute from more
Speaker 1: rural areas where they like to sleep at night into
Speaker 1: the city area where they're able to beg for food
Speaker 1: from humans. So they've learned the patterns of the subway
Speaker 1: how to get on and off. That doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: they understand what the subway is or how it works,
Speaker 1: but they've learned the pattern of if I go to
Speaker 1: this place, I am magically transported to this other place,
Speaker 1: and then I can go and beg for food and
Speaker 1: get get free free scraps, and another thing that dogs
Speaker 1: are really good at is being able to read physical
Speaker 1: cues from humans, and they pick up on that in
Speaker 1: terms of understanding like what is safe, what they should do,
Speaker 1: like like what they should trust. So, uh, if you
Speaker 1: get into a car with them and they learn car
Speaker 1: trips are usually good things happening. It's not always going
Speaker 1: to the v e T. Sometimes it's going to the
Speaker 1: park or visiting friends, and you have maybe a relaxed demeanor. Uh,
Speaker 1: they will often associate it as a happy place and
Speaker 1: they trust you. So they know, like we're getting in
Speaker 1: the car. Uh, they don't know that necessarily you're driving
Speaker 1: the car, but they trust you because you've led them
Speaker 1: there and they have no reason not to trust you. Now,
Speaker 1: given that some dogs do have a bad association with
Speaker 1: car trips and it's not nothing that you have done,
Speaker 1: Like they might get motion sickness or anxious due to
Speaker 1: the sounds or the sides of the road, and that
Speaker 1: can be kind of hard, Like if you have a
Speaker 1: relatively anxious dog, it can be hard to train them
Speaker 1: that it's really okay, you know, especially if they have
Speaker 1: Tommy aches. That's like, you know, it's really hard to
Speaker 1: explain to them that that sensation will go away. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, they probably still feel reassured by your presence,
Speaker 1: like they know that, uh, ultimately they're safe in your care.
Speaker 1: And yeah, like as very social animals, animals that have
Speaker 1: co evolved with humans, and they're basically their whole survival
Speaker 1: strategy is to be friends with us humans. They are
Speaker 1: highly attuned to our our body language and um, and
Speaker 1: they like to take notice of like what we're doing
Speaker 1: and what they can trust. So uh, this also takes
Speaker 1: the form of like when they see you eating food,
Speaker 1: they really want what you eat, and it really doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what you're eating and could be eating like broccoli
Speaker 1: or something that they may not really want to have,
Speaker 1: but they will still beg you for that food because
Speaker 1: they really trust your opinion on food. Often they will
Speaker 1: prefer what you have on your plate versus what they
Speaker 1: have in your bowl, even if it's the exact same thing.
Speaker 1: Hopefully like you know you're not eating dog food. I
Speaker 1: don't think you should do that, but again, uh, they
Speaker 1: just really prefer to figure out what you're doing, what
Speaker 1: you're interested in. Their highly attuned to that. So in
Speaker 1: terms of puzzle solving or being able to have these
Speaker 1: concepts of you having control over a car. I'm not
Speaker 1: so sure, but they definitely have this concept of like, hey,
Speaker 1: when I'm whenever I'm with my human things generally work out.
Speaker 1: You know, we're gonna have a good time, alright. So
Speaker 1: for our next question, this is from Jean Luke Pocorgi.
Speaker 1: Uh I think it's a oh no, no, wait wait,
Speaker 1: I get it now, I get it now, let me
Speaker 1: retake it. John Luke pick Corgi, the Corgi version of
Speaker 1: John Luke Picard. So this is the question. Sperm whales
Speaker 1: go super deep in the water and they're not weird
Speaker 1: jellyballs that explode when they are pulled up to the
Speaker 1: surface pressure like a lot of abyssal creatures. How do
Speaker 1: they do that? Especially because they have lungs? This is
Speaker 1: this is a great question. H yeah, why don't sperm
Speaker 1: whales turn into a big pile of exploded organs like
Speaker 1: we probably would if we were forced in unprotected, into
Speaker 1: the depths of the ocean. So a little background on this.
Speaker 1: Sperm whales travel up to two thousand meters under the sea. Humans,
Speaker 1: for reference, will start to get squished by water pressure
Speaker 1: at about thirty meters, where it becomes harder to breathe
Speaker 1: due to the pressure on our lungs, and our heart
Speaker 1: rates start to fall. Professional divers have reached depths up
Speaker 1: to one hundred twenty meters, but not for extended periods
Speaker 1: of time and only very carefully. Don't try this at home.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't even think you could try it
Speaker 1: at home. I don't think you would have tall bathtub.
Speaker 1: But if you do, don't try it, because first of all,
Speaker 1: if you go further past that, it starts to get
Speaker 1: really hard to survive because your internal organs are going
Speaker 1: to start to turn into kind of a gooey salad
Speaker 1: inside your body. Also, divers have to deal with the bins,
Speaker 1: which is a process of like decompression as you come
Speaker 1: back up to the surface, which affects not just your organs,
Speaker 1: but like the gases inside of your body, and it
Speaker 1: can cause all sorts of bad stuff to happen. Um So,
Speaker 1: in terms of deep sea critters, most deep sea organisms
Speaker 1: are actually specially designed for these pressure so uh, they
Speaker 1: don't have air filled cavities in their body because liquids
Speaker 1: can't be compressed like air. So if you are a
Speaker 1: human and you're like I'm going to dive to the
Speaker 1: bottom of the sea. Uh, and you have you know,
Speaker 1: you've got air in your body, right, Like you've got
Speaker 1: the lungs full of air, and you dive down, your
Speaker 1: lungs are gonna get crushed in because the air inside
Speaker 1: your lung is getting squeezed into a much smaller area. Uh.
Speaker 1: Liquids meanwhile, basically can't really be compressed um that much.
Speaker 1: So like so like, if you're a fish, and fish
Speaker 1: that are not at these deep sea levels will have
Speaker 1: swim bladders that allow them to achieve sort of stability
Speaker 1: and buoyancy. And often these swim bladders are filled with
Speaker 1: a gas but with deep sea fish, their swim bladders
Speaker 1: are filled with oil instead of gas so that they
Speaker 1: don't get crushed. But sperm whales breathe air. They are
Speaker 1: a mammal. They have lungs and they have to come
Speaker 1: to the surface to breathe air every so often. So
Speaker 1: how do they dive without damage? They're actually specially designed
Speaker 1: to be able to withstand repeated lung collapse, so their
Speaker 1: rib cage is flexible and they have reinforced airways and
Speaker 1: lungs that are designed to be able to collapse when
Speaker 1: they're deep underwater, and then when they resurface, their lungs
Speaker 1: and re rib cage can expand again without damage. And
Speaker 1: so in order to store oxygen at these depths, because
Speaker 1: like they're not going to really be able to store
Speaker 1: air in their lungs and keep it there um. So
Speaker 1: that that's both can cause some of the issues in
Speaker 1: terms of like the bends where you have like as
Speaker 1: you surface too fast, like these gases and your lungs
Speaker 1: can start to like as they like expand and dissolve,
Speaker 1: basically causes the cellular damage tissue damage. They don't rely
Speaker 1: on the on the air and their lungs, they lit
Speaker 1: the lungest basically collapse and push all the air out,
Speaker 1: and in order for them to continue to get oxygen
Speaker 1: while they're that deep in the water, they actually have
Speaker 1: a very high concentration of hemoglobin in their blood and
Speaker 1: they have a huge amount of blood. So by having
Speaker 1: so much hemoglobin, which carries oxygen throughout your vascular system.
Speaker 1: In fact, these sperm whales have like twice the concentration
Speaker 1: of hemoglobin and humans do, they can actually store a
Speaker 1: lot of oxygen in their blood um. So yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why sperm whales are good at diving and if we
Speaker 1: tried to do that, we would turn into salad jelly,
Speaker 1: So don't don't do that alright. Our next question is
Speaker 1: from nano naturalists who writes baculum Why so? The baculum
Speaker 1: is the penis bone. It is a bone that supports
Speaker 1: the penile tissues and erection during mating in animals who
Speaker 1: have a penis. So the question really isn't in my opinion,
Speaker 1: why baculum? But actually why not baculum because most mammals,
Speaker 1: including our primate cousins, have them. Humans as well as
Speaker 1: some other animals like patians which we just talked about, whales,
Speaker 1: uh on gullets, which are hooved animals, elephants, rabbits, hyenas,
Speaker 1: and manatees all do not have a baculum. So it's weird, right,
Speaker 1: Like we like our close relatives, Primates often do have
Speaker 1: the baculum, humans don't, and a handful of other animals
Speaker 1: also do not have it. So a little bit of
Speaker 1: background on the baculum. It is a bone that is
Speaker 1: inside of the penis and it will help support the penis,
Speaker 1: especially in terms of mating, and it allows for actually
Speaker 1: longer mating periods because it helps support erectile tissue. In
Speaker 1: addition to the baculum is the boobellum, which is the
Speaker 1: bone found in the cliturus in many mammals, although not
Speaker 1: in humans. The cliturus is sort of the female uh
Speaker 1: analog of the penis, and the bow bell um therefore
Speaker 1: is the female analog of the baculum. So the bob
Speaker 1: bell um actually is is interesting because it has gone
Speaker 1: through much more like frequent and rapid evolutionary changes like
Speaker 1: loss in um mass or or just like being reduced
Speaker 1: over time or even being lost. So there's this idea
Speaker 1: that it may not be as functional in some species. Um.
Speaker 1: But there's actually, as far as I know, there's seems
Speaker 1: to be a lot less research on the ball bellum
Speaker 1: than on the baculum. So, hey, you know, penis bones
Speaker 1: scientists and and clitoris bones scientists, break that clitoral bone ceiling.
Speaker 1: Let's get some more research on that, unless I'm just
Speaker 1: not aware of it. In case. In that case, please
Speaker 1: send me bob bellum research. Uh, just I spam me
Speaker 1: with it, that would be great. So, in terms of
Speaker 1: why humans don't have a baculum or a bow bellum,
Speaker 1: the answer isn't necessarily clear, but there are a few theories. Um.
Speaker 1: Here are some of my favorites. One is that getting
Speaker 1: rid of the baculum made sex more fun for humans
Speaker 1: because it made the penis more flexible. And it's important
Speaker 1: for a species for sex to have a reward because
Speaker 1: you need to have sex in most cases in order
Speaker 1: to have offspring. And so we are a species that
Speaker 1: relays relies on sex to have offspring. And if sex
Speaker 1: is no fun, then why would we do it? So
Speaker 1: it's gotta it's gotta be fun. And so if getting
Speaker 1: rid of the baculum made sex more fun, uh, then
Speaker 1: that would that would be a positive evolutionary trait to have.
Speaker 1: Another theory is that it encouraged the lack of the
Speaker 1: baculum encouraged more frequent but shorter copulation sessions. So in
Speaker 1: humans um estrus, which is ovulation and fertility of the ovaries. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's hidden. There are no external signs, unlike for other
Speaker 1: animal mammals where there may be like a scent or
Speaker 1: like in giraffes. In fact, the males will actually drink
Speaker 1: the females urine to see if they're an astros. But
Speaker 1: as far as I know, no such thing exists for humans.
Speaker 1: So having sex more frequently, even if it's for shorter
Speaker 1: periods of time, would actually have been preferable because you're
Speaker 1: basically it's like playing at a sex casino. Like you're
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily know when it's going to pay out,
Speaker 1: but if you keep doing it over and over, it
Speaker 1: eventually will. That's actually more of a pro sex message
Speaker 1: that I'm trying to get out than it is a
Speaker 1: pro casino message, because of course, like the house always
Speaker 1: wins casino, it's actually not pure chance. Uh but like,
Speaker 1: so what I'm saying is, don't go to a casino anyways. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, So the more that uh, humans have sex, basically,
Speaker 1: the more chance there would be to get get it
Speaker 1: at the right time of fertility to be able to
Speaker 1: have offspring. Another theory is that if early humans were
Speaker 1: more monogamous, there would actually be less sperm competition. So
Speaker 1: if you're more of a monogamous species, males don't have
Speaker 1: to compete as more, especially on the sperm level, like
Speaker 1: they basically most of the competition happens at the point
Speaker 1: of mate initial mate selection, but after that their sperm
Speaker 1: doesn't really have to compete with each other that much. Um,
Speaker 1: So if humans are more monogamous, uh, you just don't
Speaker 1: need longer sessions of mating because you don't like in
Speaker 1: terms of sperm competition, that favors like getting as much
Speaker 1: passing along as much sperm as possible, and that can
Speaker 1: mean longer mating sessions. Uh, Whereas like if you're monogamous
Speaker 1: or at least semi monogamous, you don't have to compete
Speaker 1: as much with other male sperm, so you don't need
Speaker 1: to have that really long mating session because it is
Speaker 1: it is actually costly, like you know, for any species
Speaker 1: to have really long mating sessions, especially you know in
Speaker 1: our early stages of evolution, because you don't want to
Speaker 1: spend too much time distracted. It's also an energy cost
Speaker 1: um and even producing a lot of sperm that is
Speaker 1: an energy cost, so you know, being somewhat more energy
Speaker 1: efficient with with sex. This theory may tie into the
Speaker 1: other theories I've mentioned to where it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe it's just favoring sort of these more frequent copulations
Speaker 1: but shorter and more fun. And then another theory that
Speaker 1: I think is maybe my favorite, but that bipedal walking
Speaker 1: made the penis more vulnerable to injury, and if you
Speaker 1: have a bone in there and you trip and fall,
Speaker 1: you could get a broken penis bone. Nobody wants a
Speaker 1: broken penis bone. So we just got rid of the
Speaker 1: whole dang bone because come on, like no. Anyways, we're
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break and we will be right
Speaker 1: back with a few more listener questions. And we are
Speaker 1: back with more listener questions. Here is another great questions.
Speaker 1: I gotta thank you guys again for sending these in.
Speaker 1: You always ask such amazing questions. Often it sends me
Speaker 1: down research tunnel of reading a lot of interesting papers
Speaker 1: that I otherwise might not have, so I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: And this is a really good one too. So this
Speaker 1: is from sukal Uh who writes in I can't remember
Speaker 1: where I heard it, but I heard there was an
Speaker 1: animal that didn't have blind spots because their eyes evolved
Speaker 1: there receptor cells in the front. Do you know anything
Speaker 1: about that? And this is oh also their their nickname
Speaker 1: is definitely not nine snakes in a trench coat, which
Speaker 1: is specific, but I get because I'm definitely not a
Speaker 1: flock of birds and a human shaped robot machine. Anyways,
Speaker 1: so yes, there are animals that do not have blind
Speaker 1: spots because their eyes evolved differently from mammalian eyes. One
Speaker 1: such animal is the octopus and other cephalopods, so they
Speaker 1: do not have a blind spot because their eyeballs are
Speaker 1: designed differently then mammals. In fact, their eyes likely evolved
Speaker 1: independently from ours, as did their brains and nearly everything
Speaker 1: about them. Our last common ancestor with octopuses and other
Speaker 1: cephalopods was likely an ancient flat worm with just a
Speaker 1: few basic nerves and eye spots. So this is really
Speaker 1: kind of an incredible example of parallel evolution. Um. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about our human eyeballs. So the photoreceptor cells
Speaker 1: in our eyes are actually behind the nerve fiber fibers
Speaker 1: that run along the inside of the retina to the
Speaker 1: optic nerve that runs through and behind our eyes and
Speaker 1: will transmit information to our brains. So basically, imagine this.
Speaker 1: You have a little photoreceptor cell, and in front of
Speaker 1: the receptor cell is a thin wire and there are
Speaker 1: many of these cells, each with their thin wire coming
Speaker 1: out of the front, and that is the nerve fiber um.
Speaker 1: And so if you have like a bunch of these
Speaker 1: and the fibers sort of all kind of like going
Speaker 1: bent around to all lead to a major bundle of
Speaker 1: these wires like throughout where the actual cells are with
Speaker 1: their thin wires. Light can actually pass through these thin wires.
Speaker 1: But once they're all bundled up into this large mass
Speaker 1: cable of these collected fibers, that's that's too solid. It's
Speaker 1: too dense for there to be any receptor cells behind,
Speaker 1: and so that is the blind spot that big bundle
Speaker 1: of of nerve fibers, which is called the optic nerve,
Speaker 1: and this eyeball design is called an inverted retina, and
Speaker 1: this is the case for vertebrates. On the opposite end
Speaker 1: of eyeballs is the verted retina, which is found en
Speaker 1: cephalopods and other invertebrates. Basically, their photoreceptor nerve fibers are
Speaker 1: behind the photoreceptor cells, so that big bundle of wires
Speaker 1: that makes up the optic nerve is actually behind the
Speaker 1: photoreceptor cells and therefore there's no blind spot. So uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's there's a lot of like kind of
Speaker 1: question of like, okay, well why is this Why do
Speaker 1: octopuses have this different eyeball design? I mean, one thing
Speaker 1: is that it's important to note like if you have
Speaker 1: parallel evolution, while you may have a very similar end result, uh,
Speaker 1: there can be these like interesting differences that can result
Speaker 1: from just kind of quirks of evolution. There's something called
Speaker 1: an evolutionary spandrel, which is actually a term borrowed from architecture,
Speaker 1: where you have a spandrel, which is where when you
Speaker 1: have like to I think it's basically like two corners
Speaker 1: of a structure meeting you have like an arch, then
Speaker 1: like a rectangular passageway, you have these two where the
Speaker 1: arch meets the corners of the rectangle. You have these
Speaker 1: like triangles, and these are purely just because the physics
Speaker 1: of the design requires these triangles to be there there.
Speaker 1: They don't really serve any function necessarily, uh, structurally or otherwise.
Speaker 1: But like these spandrels would often be decorated in stuff
Speaker 1: in architecture, and so like it's this question of like, wait,
Speaker 1: what what are these things? It's like they don't seem
Speaker 1: to serve any purpose, and it's they don't really, They
Speaker 1: just happen to be there because of the way an
Speaker 1: arch in a rectangle has to be constructed. So similarly,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things that happen in evolutionary
Speaker 1: biology world. You'll have a structure that is maybe puzzling,
Speaker 1: but it just turns out like that is how the
Speaker 1: structure had to form due to physical constraints. So uh.
Speaker 1: Some research indicates that the inverted retina of vertebrates may
Speaker 1: have been a way to save space inside the eyeball.
Speaker 1: So like if you have a tiny fish, Uh, it
Speaker 1: may have allowed this fish to evolve with really good
Speaker 1: vision without taking too much of the fish's body mass
Speaker 1: in eyeball space. But yeah, it's it's still uh. I
Speaker 1: don't think there's a definitive answer to this um quite yet,
Speaker 1: but it's it is really fascinating. I just wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 1: say that an inverted retina is like an example of um,
Speaker 1: bad bad eyeball design, like the blind spot. Definitely like
Speaker 1: a blind spot. It's like, Okay, well, why would we
Speaker 1: have this? There may be there has to be some
Speaker 1: evolutionary reason to make up for the fact that there's
Speaker 1: a blind spot, because that does seem to be like
Speaker 1: a slightly um deletarious thing. But yeah, there could be
Speaker 1: a really solid reason for it that is yet to
Speaker 1: be sort of decisively discovered. So the last two questions
Speaker 1: I'm going to address are really related. So the first
Speaker 1: one is from Waffles the Magic who writes, what great
Speaker 1: mystery of evolutionary biology? Would you like to get the
Speaker 1: answer too? So I'm gonna do the annoying thing and
Speaker 1: answer this question with another question. This is from my
Speaker 1: friend and guest of the show, actually, Daniel whites and
Speaker 1: of Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, who sent in
Speaker 1: a listener question asking what do we know about a biogenesis? So,
Speaker 1: a biogenesis, simply put, is the origin of life. It's
Speaker 1: the emergence of life from non living compounds, like how
Speaker 1: did the first living sell form on Earth? So you
Speaker 1: may have heard of the primordial soup, And we're often
Speaker 1: shown like an image of a fish like creature emerging
Speaker 1: from a puddle of like prehistoric stew. But it's very complicated,
Speaker 1: and it's it's a lot more complicated than like, oh
Speaker 1: this like life just kind of randomly emerged from a
Speaker 1: random puddle. Um uh. So this issue of a biogenesis
Speaker 1: is really complex and has elicited a lot of research.
Speaker 1: And it's not it's a mystery that I wouldn't say,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, it's an unsolved mystery, but it's it's
Speaker 1: not I'd say it's like not definitively solved, but there
Speaker 1: are so many really compelling theories about it, and so
Speaker 1: many studies involved looking at this. So um, basically life
Speaker 1: has to start from like a chain of proteins. So
Speaker 1: earl the Earth had bodies of water with the right
Speaker 1: chemical components to be able to make strands of protein.
Speaker 1: So there there have been a lot of studies establishing
Speaker 1: that we did have the right chemical compounds in order
Speaker 1: to make these protein chains. Um, and you'd need some
Speaker 1: kind of energy source. So various theories exist on this,
Speaker 1: like it could be from lightning or radiation like like
Speaker 1: solar radiation, or even from deep sea hydrothermal vents, which
Speaker 1: would be a different theory from the one of like
Speaker 1: it's from a surface puddle, like what if it happened
Speaker 1: you know, deeper down in in these c's. So the
Speaker 1: reason you need a chain of protein is that these
Speaker 1: strands of protein are the foundation of DNA, which is
Speaker 1: the instruction manual for all life. So once you have
Speaker 1: this these chains of protein, you can start to make
Speaker 1: something like d N A, and then that can be
Speaker 1: used as the instruction annual to build life, sort of
Speaker 1: like an Ikea manual. It's hopeless to build anything unless
Speaker 1: you have that cool i Kea manual with a little
Speaker 1: little dudes drawn on it where they don't talk words,
Speaker 1: but they show you how to hold the ranch and stuff. Anyways,
Speaker 1: the big problem with the primordial soup theory is the
Speaker 1: chaos that would be occurring on like this, like the
Speaker 1: roiling soup of materials. Like, even if you have all
Speaker 1: of the compounds and you have the energy required for
Speaker 1: the chemical reaction to create a strand of protein, a
Speaker 1: strand of protein is very delicate, So how could that
Speaker 1: be formed in a chaotic, turbulent soup without getting torn
Speaker 1: apart every time it starts to form. So there's actually
Speaker 1: a few theories that may explain this. There is the
Speaker 1: primordial pizza hypothesis, which makes me hungry. It is that
Speaker 1: life formed in shallow sheets of water on the land.
Speaker 1: So by having this like flat pizza like pool of water,
Speaker 1: you would have a less chaotic environment for biological molecules
Speaker 1: to form. But that's comes with a bit of a problem, right,
Speaker 1: because if it's this shallow pizza sheet of something like,
Speaker 1: how you may not have enough components within that that
Speaker 1: surface area to be able to create a chain of proteins,
Speaker 1: so that that would seem like it would take a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of mischances to be able to form.
Speaker 1: But there's this other theory as well that is called
Speaker 1: the primordial soup and sandwich. I do love that, like
Speaker 1: all of the names for the theories of the origin
Speaker 1: of life, is food based, because it really tells you
Speaker 1: what these researchers, like, where their minds were at. Like
Speaker 1: they're probably doing all this research, skipping lunch, they're really hungry,
Speaker 1: and they're like, yeah, this could be like a primordial
Speaker 1: soup and a sandwich. Uh. So this is actually a
Speaker 1: really really interesting theory by physicist hell and hansma Um,
Speaker 1: which I like to call primordial baklava. Actually. So the
Speaker 1: theory goes that these thin sheets of mica, which is
Speaker 1: a silicate mineral uh may have formed uh inside of
Speaker 1: like a body of water, like a primordial soup, which
Speaker 1: and by having like these these thin layers of mica,
Speaker 1: little biological molecules could have sought shelter between these flakes
Speaker 1: um and squeezed into the structures and then been able
Speaker 1: to form these delicate change these delicate protein chains for
Speaker 1: forming things like RNA and cellular structure, and that would uh.
Speaker 1: You know, basically, she's combining the concept of like a
Speaker 1: primary mortal soup, where you have a bunch of compounds
Speaker 1: that could possibly you know, bump into each other and
Speaker 1: form these protein chains, and the idea of like you
Speaker 1: need a stable, protected environment in which this could happen.
Speaker 1: Which I really love this theory and not just because
Speaker 1: it makes me think of Baklavan makes me hungry. Um.
Speaker 1: And then there's of course the theory that maybe a
Speaker 1: meteor crashed on Earth with some simple alien life on it.
Speaker 1: But in my opinion, like even if this were true,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't answer everything right because we would still need
Speaker 1: an explanation on how that alien life formed on its
Speaker 1: home planets. So I think if I could get a
Speaker 1: definitive answer on how life could start, uh, not only
Speaker 1: would I be like super famous and solve one of
Speaker 1: the greatest mysteries of life. I feel like, yeah it
Speaker 1: would uh. I would be probably one of the most
Speaker 1: famous uh people on the Earth, and I would be
Speaker 1: very smart, and I would start a podcast called Primorial
Speaker 1: Soup and a sandwich. Please, I'll have what she's having. Yep,
Speaker 1: that's what I'd do with that earth shattering discovery. Anyways,
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much for these questions, really interesting questions.
Speaker 1: I hope that I have answered them well and that
Speaker 1: you enjoyed learning just a little bit about the gosh
Speaker 1: darn spaceship we all call planet Earth. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean, This gosh darn bloom marble in the universe
Speaker 1: just flying around the the USS Earth. Okay, I'm gonna stop,
Speaker 1: but thank you so much. If you want to ask
Speaker 1: me questions, because I'm certainly going to do more of
Speaker 1: these listener questions podcasts in the future, you can send
Speaker 1: me an email at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: You can hit me up on Instagram at Creature Feature
Speaker 1: Pod uh and then on Twitter it's Creature Feet Pod
Speaker 1: ft e e T not f e ET. That is
Speaker 1: something very different. Um. Yeah, thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you would
Speaker 1: like to leave me a rating or review, that would
Speaker 1: help me immensely. Not only do I read them all
Speaker 1: and really love to read them, and it really warms
Speaker 1: my heart to get feedback and to get positive comments.
Speaker 1: It also tangibly helps the podcast because by leaving a review,
Speaker 1: you're telling all the algorithms that it's so worthwhile podcast,
Speaker 1: and that helps me out with convincing the podcast robots
Speaker 1: you know to like my show. Uh and thank you
Speaker 1: to the Space Classics for their super awesome song. Ex
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