WEBVTT - From the Vault: Jumping Fish 0:00:05.760 --> 0:00:07.880 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:10.920 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we are back. 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:13.119 It is Saturday. It is time to go into the 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:15.880 vault for a classic Stuff to Blow your Mind episode. 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:18.040 This one is going to be an episode we did 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:21.759 on jumping and flying fish after Robert saw some leaping 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.800 mullets in Florida. Yeah. I believe it was the coolest springs. 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:28.400 This is one of several episodes that ended up being 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:30.160 in Well, really, I think both of us have had 0:00:30.200 --> 0:00:33.320 episodes that have been inspired by vacations. We would go 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:35.760 out into the world, we relax a little bit, we 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:37.760 learned something, and then we come back and we want 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:40.920 a podcast on it. And this in this case, I said, 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.639 a less podcast about jumping fish. Trust me, it's more 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.159 interesting than it sounds, and it is. We never end 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:49.760 up doing like the science of Margarita's No, wait a minute, 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:51.559 I think maybe you went on vacation and then we 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:53.880 did the science of cocktails. We did right, well, um, 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:56.560 I don't know if that was vacation related, but it was. 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:00.240 It was certainly based on interest in cocktails. Well, that 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:02.920 was a Christmas gift inspired when I received books about 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.000 cocktails for Christmas, and then I was like, hey, let's 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:08.959 do an episode on this. Well, the jumping Fish episode 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:10.840 turned out to be a lot more interesting of a 0:01:10.880 --> 0:01:13.440 topic than I might have expected going in, So I 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:15.240 thought this one was a lot of fun and we 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:16.920 are happy to bring it back to you. This originally 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:21.679 aired Thursday, July sixteen, and here it is again for 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:28.399 your listening pleasure. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:38.479 from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:40.520 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:43.720 I'm Joe McCormick. So, Robert, I know that recently you 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:46.880 were on vacation somewhere. I was, Yeah, I went down 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:49.400 to Florida with the family, and on the way back 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:53.480 up we stopped at this place called Wakola Springs. Cooling 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.640 Springs State Park in Florida near Tallahassee. Ended up just 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:00.880 being really delightful. What's this place like? Basically, what you 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.640 have here is just an enormous spring, Okay, like a 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.320 geological spring. Water coming out of the ground. Yeah, water 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:07.960 coming out of the ground, water coming out of just 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:12.480 enormous caverns that are under the water here, really clear 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:16.320 water and it maintains a constant temperature of around sixty 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:19.840 nine or seventy degrees so when winter comes it's a 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.760 haven for manatees, and especially manatees, but other creatures too 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:28.359 that that did want that constant temperature. Um. Interestingly enough, 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:30.160 they filmed a few scenes from the creature from the 0:02:30.560 --> 0:02:36.920 from the Black Lagoon there, Yeah, particularly the creatures layer. Uh. 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:38.600 You get to pass by that if you take these 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.560 boat tours uh, and that's really the main reason. Ago. 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:43.120 You can swim there, but you can, but you get 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:45.160 to go in these these really cool boat tours where 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.880 you get to see all of these crazy estuary um 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:54.359 uh species doing their thing, all the diving birds, gators, 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:58.400 gators laying in the sun by the dozens, get to 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:02.680 see manatees, and you also get to see these uh 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:06.440 these mullets, the fish mullet, not the hairstyle. You probably 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:08.680 saw some of those. Yeah, I think I did see 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:13.839 see a traditional um hairstyle mullet here there, But but yeah, 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:15.679 these are the fish and they're just leaping out of 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:19.440 the water. It's like it's you look around, you expect 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.680 to see like a Disney princess waiting around like that's 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:26.120 how active the wildlife is here. And uh, but but 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.320 it really makes you think, like, why are these creatures, 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:31.480 why of these fish jumping out of the water. If 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:33.000 you're like me and you didn't have a lot of 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:36.840 preconceived notions, or you hadn't researched it before, you might think, oh, well, 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:38.920 there's all sorts of animals around here, they're gators in 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:41.560 the water. They're probably jumping out of the water to 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.440 escape predators. Right, Yeah, that makes pretty easy sense. A 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:47.960 lot of the maneuvering you'd see and the fish, especially 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:52.640 a prey species, would be fleeing behavior. And yet it 0:03:52.680 --> 0:03:56.800 turns out there's more to it than that. And uh, 0:03:57.000 --> 0:03:59.720 not only with the with mullets, but with other species 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:03.760 of ish as well. And that's the reason we're having 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:07.920 this episode discuss some of the mystery, some of the theories, uh, 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:12.920 some of the at times myths surrounding leaping fish, fish 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.960 that actually throw themselves out of the water, out of 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:20.159 their their habitat, their aquatic habitat, into this strange, alien 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.880 world of gases and vapors. Yeah, when you think about it, 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:26.800 it is so weird. Um, it's hard for us to 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:30.440 imagine what it's like crossing this boundary between worlds from 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:34.080 the water up into the land of gas into the atmosphere. 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.880 Because it's not exactly like a terrestrial animal diving into 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:41.320 the water, because when you jump out of the water, 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:44.120 the water is your natural environment. Gravity is always going 0:04:44.200 --> 0:04:47.640 to be pulling you back down into this watery world. 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.360 Plus there's just so much more going on underwater than 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:53.919 there is going on in the air. I mean, on 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:56.279 the land is one thing, but you know, think about 0:04:56.320 --> 0:04:59.560 what most of the air above the water is like. 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.919 It's just it's a void. Under the water is another ecosystem. 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.320 Leaping into the air is almost as if terrestrial animals 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:10.520 could briefly leap into outer space. Yeah, or at least me, 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:12.880 It makes me think of the part in Phantasm where 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:15.680 they go through like the stargate into the barren world 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:18.400 with the dwarves or hauling stuff around. It is like 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.960 it's like zipping out of your world into another and 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:24.279 then coming back into your your world, perhaps in a 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.800 different location, making it kind of kind of like that 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.320 teleport that the raiding character does in the first couple 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:32.960 of Mortal Kombat games. You know, it's great, Yeah, what 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:35.840 does he say? When he teleports or does he have one? Um? 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:38.400 I have something he says when he does the Superman, 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:40.680 but I don't remember if he says anything when he teleports. 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.599 But maybe he should. He just grins and as lightning 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:45.640 come out of his eyes. What he should do? I 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.880 hope someday somebody goes back to the first Mortal Kombat 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:53.360 game and dubs in Christopher Lambert's lines from the movie. 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:56.599 Oh yeah, that's right, I forgot that he played the 0:05:56.640 --> 0:06:00.359 first one. But back to leaping fish. Yeah, So, Robert, 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.360 knowing your inquisitive nature, I bet you asked somebody at 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:06.400 the park about the mullet jumping behavior, didn't you. I did, 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:10.520 and the park ranger was very insightful and all this 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:15.279 and mentioned that they're a handful of theories here, okay, um, 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:17.839 and the idea that they're escaping predators is not one 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:21.240 of them. So one is that they may jump to 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.760 dislodge parasites, and certainly, aquatic life is full of many 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:30.040 strange parasite removal strategies, including allowing cleaner organisms to crawl 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:35.400 into your body? Right? Um? Wait, what allowing cleaner you've seen? 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.080 I see you mean? Um, an organism that does cleaning, 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.000 not a relatively cleaner organisms, no, no no, no, yeah, I'm 0:06:42.000 --> 0:06:45.880 talking like allowing a small shrimp to climb into your 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:49.000 gills or your mouth in order to eat these things. Um, 0:06:49.320 --> 0:06:52.800 even at times, even allowing creatures from the air to 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:55.320 come down and feast on your parasites. I believe it's 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.240 the sunfish that does that allows all of certain birds 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.719 to help remove its parasites. That's fantastic. Now can you 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.719 imagine if every time we got like a guinea worm 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:06.719 or something like that, we could just leap into outer 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:11.480 space to try. Well, that sounds kind of ridiculous and 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.120 and indeed that's go one of the criticisms against this 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:18.360 theory um broadly speaking concerning fish, because you see that 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:20.360 thrown out a lot with with jumping fish. Oh, it's 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:23.800 a parasite removal strategy. But critics of this theory will 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.800 point out that, hey, parasites, once they get in you, 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.480 they have ways of lodging themselves where they want to be, 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.560 just merely that the frantic leaping through the air is 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:37.400 not going to dislodge them. Well, then what are the 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:40.520 other theories? Well, the crazier theory and this is one 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.640 that I find really interesting is that mullets spend a 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.200 lot of their time in waters that are low and 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:49.680 dissolved oxygen, and so they may exit the water in 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:52.800 order to clear their gills and expose themselves to higher 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:57.640 levels of oxygen. So that that really blew my mind 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:00.920 the idea that essentially the fish is coming out of 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:05.240 the water to breathe and then returned. But fish breathe, 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:09.080 I know, but but it's this is one of the theories. Um. 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.920 They also may jump during spawning season to break over 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.880 their eggs acts in preparation for the spawn, and marine 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:20.320 biologist Dr Grant Gilmore thinks it may come down to 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:24.320 their sometimes dark habitats. They may jump in these cases 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:26.800 to let others in the school know where they are, 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.239 so in this case it would be a form of 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.760 communication or social signaling, which comes up later in this 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:35.120 episode with some of the other jumping fish, we talk 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:37.880 about some of the more ferocious ones. Alright, so for 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:39.760 the rest of this episode, we're gonna be looking at 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:42.720 some of these some of the most interesting fish jumping 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:45.720 behaviors around the world. And I want to say that 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:50.720 I found this topic way more interesting than I expected to. Yeah, first, 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:52.480 I was like Okay, what is there to say about 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.840 fish jumping? They jump? But but fish jumping can be 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:58.720 very strange, can be a danger, can be a nuisance, 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:02.360 can be very money. Uh, and the reasons why they 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:04.920 do it are more mysterious in some cases than I 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:08.520 would have guessed. But okay, so I guess we should 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:12.600 start broadly. What do we know about in general why 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:15.599 fish jump? Well, oh, and start one more thing, I 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.400 should say, we should specify you all out there. You 0:09:18.440 --> 0:09:20.480 know the difference between a fish and a mammal. So 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:23.640 you've seen dolphins jump playing in the waves or at 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:27.000 a dolphin show, or uh, maybe just playing echo of 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.800 the dolphin. We're not talking about mammals today. This is 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.680 gonna be a fish focused episode. Yeah. I mean there's 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.360 even a gliding squid that propels itself out of the 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.680 ocean by shooting out a jet of water at high 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:40.680 a high pressure water jet. We're not gonna get into 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:44.360 that either. Well, if there's enough demand, will save other 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:48.559 leaping um sea life for other episodes. But yeah, I 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:50.439 think a good place to start is just to sort 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:53.280 of go back to this idea that okay, fish jump 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:55.840 out of the water to escape predators and acknowledge that yes, 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:59.840 this actually is a strategy with some creatures, for instance, 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.719 killie fish. Now they're roughly one thousand, two hundred and 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:07.160 seventy different species of killy fish, and most are fully 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:12.960 aquatic with no obvious morphological specializations for terrestrial locomotion. Locomotion 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:16.680 individuals from several different species have been observed moving across 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.400 land though via a tail flip behavior that generates a 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.000 terrestrial jump. But wait a minute, so this isn't just 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:26.160 jumping into the air. This is jumping onto a dry 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.040 land surface. Yeah, it's essentially it's getting due to too 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.160 dangerous in the water, I gotta jump out and and 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:34.960 then flop back in. And they do. They do this 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:38.839 to escape predators or occasionally apparently pour water conditions. Okay, 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.480 so in our outer space analogy, this is more like, 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:44.640 instead of just briefly leaping into outer space, if things 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.559 got really hairy wherever you were, you could jump onto 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.080 the moon for a minute and then jump back down 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.160 somewhere on Earth. Yeah, or taking like you know, a 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:56.240 proposed space tourism flight that just sends you into low 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.920 orbit and then brings you back down. Huh, be that 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:01.439 kind of thing I think, uh, but indeed kind of 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.520 like Raiden's teleport where he's blinking out of this world, 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.360 I guess going to some godland and then coming back 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:11.559 into the picture somewhere else. And this is interesting because too, 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.840 because that the aquatic amphibious distinction is a key because 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:18.640 it's one thing for saying, air breathing walking catfish for 0:11:18.800 --> 0:11:22.280 mud skippers or lungfish to behave in this baby this 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:24.439 way because they've taken things to the next level, right 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.080 bordering on you know, creature from the Black Lagoon or 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:32.200 bloodwaters of doctor Z territory. But aquatic fish that just 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:36.319 seems crazy, right, Um? So yeah, the tail flip flings 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:38.400 him out of the water through the air several body 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:40.720 lengths sometimes out of the water and onto the bank, 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:42.800 and then they have to flip to get back in. 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:45.800 Sounds dangerous though, I mean, if you you're a fish, 0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:48.160 you flip out of the water and then you rapidly 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.440 twist your body around to try to flip back into 0:11:50.440 --> 0:11:52.840 the water. I mean, you've only got a very limited 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:55.079 amount of time, they're right, right, yeah, because if you 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:57.480 because the big risks here are that you're going to 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:01.280 you're gonna you could dry out or gets sixty eight. 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:04.080 So and and you know, of course also banking on 0:12:04.160 --> 0:12:07.640 the idea that there are no um terrestrial predators on 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:10.840 the water bank. So that's the killie fish. Yeah, what 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:12.800 else do we have take us to the next the 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:16.360 next level here with our leaping aquatic creatures. Well, I 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:21.080 want to talk Robert about an Asian carponado. Oh sounds good, okay, 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:23.680 so stop me. If you've seen this video, this YouTube 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.160 video before, You've got two passengers sitting in a boat 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:30.440 there in twin seats, facing off the stern of a 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:33.200 fishing boat with an outboard motor. Is this guy father 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:38.240 to no? No, this is a grainy YouTube, okaysing to 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:42.320 set to some slick new metal riffs. Now, the boat 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:44.840 appears to be sitting in like a river or a lake. 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.960 It's opaque fresh water, and each of the two passengers 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:51.120 sitting facing off the back of the boat are holding 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:55.720 a compound hunting bow with a knocked arrow, and the 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:58.400 driver then throttles up the engine. The boat starts to 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:01.839 move in these lines of why churning wake peel out 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:03.040 the back of the boat and you can see the 0:13:03.040 --> 0:13:07.199 waves coming out. And as this happens, dozens of fish 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:09.920 or maybe hundreds of fish begin to leap out of 0:13:09.960 --> 0:13:12.440 the water into the air by the looks of it, 0:13:12.520 --> 0:13:15.520 sometimes flying above the heads of the passengers and they 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.000 arc over the boat. Sometimes they fly right into somebody's 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:21.480 neck and slap them on the face if fish hits 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:23.959 you in the back or it lands flopping in the 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:27.120 driver's lap, And as you would expect based on the setup, 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.840 the passengers try to shoot the fish with their arrows 0:13:30.960 --> 0:13:34.200 as they leap through the air. And other similar videos 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:37.560 you might scratch the bow and arrow and feature just 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.000 nets people trying to catch the fish with nets or 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.640 shooting at them with shotguns, trying to hit him with 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:45.920 baseball bats or maybe a modified baseball bat with nails 0:13:45.920 --> 0:13:50.760 in it, uh pitchforks, et cetera. I might add that 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:52.920 in the very first video I watched that I mentioned, 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.240 the one with the compound bow, it was sort of 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.280 this fish human collision super cut with with the new 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:02.839 metal background mu zick. It looks pretty dangerous, especially because 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:05.600 there are sometimes other boats in the water down range 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:09.240 of the bow fishers. So we are not recommending this behavior. Yeah, 0:14:09.240 --> 0:14:12.959 it sounds sounds a bit reckless, but what's going on here? 0:14:13.040 --> 0:14:16.240 Why why are these hundreds of fish flying through the 0:14:16.280 --> 0:14:19.440 air to be shot of? I need a better metaphor 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:21.880 than like fish in a barrel, like like fish in 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:27.560 outer space. Uh. Well, the video identifies these very unfortunate 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:30.880 vaulting fish as Asian carp, and I can't confirm the 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:33.960 identification through all the graininess. But but this would make 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:37.720 sense because some species of so called Asian carp are 0:14:37.800 --> 0:14:42.360 known for this bizarre frenzy jumping behavior in the presence 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.600 of boats. So what are Asian carpet? Asian carp is 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.800 not one species, but it's a common group name applied 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:53.280 to several species of carp native to East and Southeast Asia, 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:57.760 including waterways of Siberia, China, and Vietnam. And these species 0:14:57.800 --> 0:15:02.720 would be bighead carp, black carp, grass carp, and silver carp. 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:07.240 So carp belonged to the freshwater fish family known as Cyprinids, 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.200 and before the Asian carp were introduced a couple of 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.040 decades ago, there there were already carp in North America 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:16.480 that were considered kind of a benign nuisance species. But 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.480 several species now known as Asian carp were introduced the 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.960 United States in the nineteen sixties and seventies, and originally 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:27.640 they were contained. They were contained in southern aquaculture and 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:31.400 sewage treatment enclosures, I think in Arkansas. Originally I saw 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.320 and so the idea was that these imported carp would 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.960 help control contaminants in these areas. For example, they'd swim 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:41.040 around and eat algae out of ponds that were being 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:45.720 used as fish farms, like for catfish farming. But flooding events, 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:50.680 of course, often connect waters that are not apparently connected, 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:54.360 and so flooding allowed these non native species to escape 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:57.640 their farms and enclosures and spread into natural waterways around 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.920 the Mississippi Watershed, and now they're all over the place. 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.120 They're spread all over freshwater fisheries in the Midwest and 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:06.880 beyond there in the Mississippi, they're in the Illinois River. 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:09.600 And a lot of people are worried about these and 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:13.680 consider them UH an invasive species since they can represent 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.520 a threat to native wildlife. They reproduce quickly, they grow quickly, 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:22.120 they supposedly degrade the quality of aquatic environments, and they 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.720 tend to outcompete other fish UH and I've seen estimates 0:16:25.760 --> 0:16:28.400 that they can some of these species consume about twenty 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.000 of their own body weight every day, but they don't 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:35.160 necessarily prey on other fish. Instead, they're mostly plankton and 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:39.240 algae feeders, which still is a big problem because that's 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:41.520 the bottom of the food chain, right, that's what everything 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:43.560 has to eat in order to work its way up 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:46.120 the food chain and get that energy to survive. So 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:49.720 they're causing problems for every organism everywhere along the line. 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:53.800 So why do they jump, Well, the big head carp 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:56.040 in the silver carp can both jump, but it's the 0:16:56.080 --> 0:17:00.160 silver carp in particular that's just notorious for frequent lee, 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.600 having these frenzies where they leap out of the water 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:07.199 all over the place. And the commonly accepted explanation for 0:17:07.240 --> 0:17:10.840 why they do it is pretty simple. It's the main 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:12.720 one that came to your mind when you were thinking 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:15.160 about the mullet. First. It's that they're scared. They're leaping 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:18.320 out of the water as an escape mechanism, triggered by 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:21.320 a threatening stimulus like the roar of a boat motor. 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:24.800 So somebody revs up their engine, they get their their 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:27.600 arrows knocked, and the fish here that sound and they 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:30.600 start leaping all over the place. And once one starts leaping, 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:33.800 all of them start leaping. So that sounds like a 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:37.840 pretty funny situation. And I will admit seeing these images 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.600 of fish just flapping all over the place through the air, 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:43.680 slapping people in the back of the head, leaving a big, 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:47.600 slimy streak across somebody's like chin and throw because they 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:50.960 slap up under there. It sounds funny, but when you 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:52.880 think about what it's actually like to be in the 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.119 middle of it, it can get kind of scary. Because 0:17:56.440 --> 0:17:58.400 the big head and silver carp were known to jump 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:01.520 about three meters or about feet vertically out of the 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:05.160 water about six meters or twenty feet horizontally across the surface. 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:08.240 Uh silver carp tend to weigh up to about twenty pounds. 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.639 Big head carp commonly wigh up about twice that, but 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.960 in rare cases, these fish can reportedly grow very large, 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.760 up to around a hundred pounds. So think of like 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:20.480 a hundred pound object flying at you out of the water, 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.399 especially if you're moving at a rapid speed. Also, just 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:27.200 do the quick new tony in physics in your head. 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:30.800 That can be a heavy impact. Now. I found one 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:33.720 survey of people who used the Illinois River in two 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:35.760 thousand ten and two thousand eleven. And it was a 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:38.000 small sample size, so don't read too much into this, 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:42.159 but it found this was hilarious to me. Sixty five 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.000 of residents from these Illinois River sites who used the 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:50.080 river had seen Asian carp jump. Okay, but of those 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:53.720 people who had seen a carp jump, almost three quarters 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.600 of them had been hit by a car um And 0:18:56.640 --> 0:18:59.159 so if you've seen a carp jump, chances are a 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.880 carp has slim ammed into you. Nine percent of them 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:08.600 sustained injuries and reported uh sustained watercraft damage from the 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:12.240 Asian carp. And there's just one example I want to 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:14.919 give of the kinds of injuries these things can cause. 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:17.720 I found a kt v I local news story from St. 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.560 Louis from last year August, and it tells the story 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.560 of this guy named Jordan Fiedler who got his face 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.679 messed up real bad by some Asian carp while inner 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.280 tubing along a channel in the Mississippi. So, according to 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:33.479 the story, his father was driving the boat and he 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.080 was riding in an inner tube behind it, and then 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:38.480 the fish start leap and they jump up all over 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:40.720 the place, and one hits him in the face and 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:44.280 a quote he gave his quote, I knew something was wrong. 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:46.720 I felt my nose and it was way over here. 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:51.320 So uh, the impact fractured his nose, It dented his forehead, 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:55.600 shattered bones in his eye sockets and above his eyebrow. Uh, 0:19:55.640 --> 0:19:57.280 and he had to undergo a three and a half 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:00.399 hour surgery to install a piece of mesh and cruise 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.239 to fix the shape of his skull. So this is 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:07.520 no small injury. This is This is a devastating fish impact. 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:10.960 If nobody has made a Jaws style movie about carp yet, 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:14.240 about the leaping carp I think they should. This is 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:17.360 the real Sharknado, except it's not a shark. This is Carponado. 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:20.440 Well hopefully, I'm really hoping someone will take this whole 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:23.320 episode as inspiration and maybe it'll be an overall just 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:28.160 jumping fish horror movie. All the various examples we throw 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.040 out here, it's the fish version of the birds. Maybe, yeah, 0:20:31.240 --> 0:20:36.080 the fishes. Uh, the fish. Weirdly, though as mundane as 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:39.879 Carpon may seem, they actually also have a mythological significance. 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.919 I bet you didn't think that we'd wrap some some 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:45.639 mythology into this episode. But it's I really yeah, I 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:47.959 didn't even think about it, and normally I'm I'm all 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:50.200 about finding it. I didn't even think to look. Well, 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.280 apparently the jumping ability of carp has a cultural and 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:57.679 slight mythological significance in Chinese tradition. So there's a story 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:03.280 in Chinese mythology of carp swimming upstream and that if 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:05.960 a carp swimming upstream is able to jump over a 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.520 waterfall that's known as the dragon gate, that carp will 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.919 transform into a dragon, and with that comes all of 0:21:12.960 --> 0:21:15.920 the symbolic uplift that applies. Right, you know, the dragon 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:20.240 is a is a majestic regal creature associated with power 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:23.639 and with with grandeur and and with the the the 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:28.239 imperial authority basically and flight, yes, and fly there you go. 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:32.439 So apparently the expression of quote a carp that jumps 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.760 over the dragon gate commonly signifies a person who accomplishes 0:21:36.840 --> 0:21:39.720 some feet that leads to like a sudden improvement in 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:43.879 life status, such as passing exams at university or acquiring 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.639 some coveted government position. It's like if you get a 0:21:46.640 --> 0:21:51.199 major life upgrade due to some some achievement of yours. 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:54.480 You're a carp who has jumped the dragon gate and 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:58.760 hopefully not smashed anybody's face on the way. Alright, what everyone, 0:21:58.880 --> 0:22:01.200