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Speaker 1: I was interested in animal behavior, and for my master's degree,

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Speaker 1: I was studying juvenile smallmouth pass So I went out

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Speaker 1: in the wild and after getting all of the permits

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Speaker 1: I needed, I brought a bunch of them back into

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Speaker 1: the lab and they were like these little guys. And

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Speaker 1: as they were growing up, I noticed that the number

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Speaker 1: of fish in the tanks was going down, and I

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Speaker 1: was totally stuffed. The water quality was great. I wasn't

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Speaker 1: finding any dead bodies in the tank. They weren't like

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Speaker 1: getting sucked into the filters. I was crawling around on

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Speaker 1: the ground trying to see if they were somehow getting

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Speaker 1: out of the tanks despite there being a lid on

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Speaker 1: all of the tanks. And then one morning I walked

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Speaker 1: into the environmental chamber and I was shocked. One of

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Speaker 1: the fish had a giant tail sticking out of its mouth.

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Speaker 1: It had not occurred to me that they were eating

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Speaker 1: each other like one. It hadn't occurred to me because

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Speaker 1: the fish in the tank were pretty similarly sized, and

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Speaker 1: this was not the first time in my life. I

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Speaker 1: was going to be amazed at how big prey items

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Speaker 1: are for these basts, like how much food they can

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Speaker 1: fit into their gigantic mounds, so they were apparently able

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Speaker 1: to eat each other even when they were like pretty

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Speaker 1: close to the same size. But also I was totally

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Speaker 1: naive to how common cannibalism apparently is in the animal Kingdom.

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Speaker 1: I was like, you can't eat your brothers and sisters,

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Speaker 1: but no, absolutely, they were totally fine with that. And

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Speaker 1: that's what we're going to be talking about today is

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Speaker 1: cannibalism in the animal Kingdom. We're gonna mostly be talking

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Speaker 1: about non human animals and it's going to be quite

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Speaker 1: a ride. We're interviewing Folka Rudolph and he'll tell us

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Speaker 1: all about his research in this field. Welcome to Daniel

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Speaker 1: and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe.

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Speaker 2: Lone epetite.

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Speaker 3: Do Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. I'm Daniel, I'm a

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Speaker 3: particle physicist and I've never eaten a human being.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kelly Waider Smith. I also have never eaten a

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Speaker 1: human being, no desire to do so, but as an ecologist,

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Speaker 1: I have seen lots of animals eating other members of

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Speaker 1: the same species.

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Speaker 3: Well, let's dig into that a little bit more. Kelly,

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Speaker 3: my question for you today is what is the most

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Speaker 3: intelligent animal you have ever eaten.

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Speaker 1: Oh, geez, probably pigs because they're super intelligent. I eat

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Speaker 1: meat less these days because ever since I got on

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Speaker 1: a farm and I've started interacting with like cows and

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Speaker 1: pigs and goats and sheep, I'm like, oh my gosh,

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Speaker 1: you all like you have personalities if some of you

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Speaker 1: are very smart. But I gotta be honest, I feel

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Speaker 1: way better about eating chicken because our chickens are so stupid,

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Speaker 1: and I don't feel too bad about eating chicken.

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Speaker 2: So anyway, what about you?

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Speaker 3: Where are you saying the dumb deserved to be eaten?

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Speaker 3: Is that what's happening here?

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Speaker 1: That is not what's happening here. You don't need to

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Speaker 1: extrapolate to the forbidden meal. But I do think chickens,

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Speaker 1: you know, they're delicious and silly.

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Speaker 2: What about you?

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Speaker 3: I'm not going to answer your question yet, I'm gonna

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Speaker 3: keep pushing you. Would you eat a champanzee or a

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Speaker 3: buonovo if somebody puts a chimp of skull in front

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Speaker 3: of you and flips it open and says, here's a

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Speaker 3: brain delicacy. Is Kelly saying no, thank you? Or are

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Speaker 3: you digging in?

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Speaker 2: Hm? I am saying no thank you. Yeah, why am

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Speaker 2: I saying no, thank you?

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Speaker 4: Oh?

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Speaker 1: So much introspection happening right now? Are there not loads

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Speaker 1: of bonobos in the wild. I don't know their status, so,

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Speaker 1: like one, I don't want to eat anything that's like

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Speaker 1: endangered or threatens or anything like that. But also, I

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Speaker 1: guess I do feel uncomfortable the closer they are to me.

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Speaker 1: And partly that's because, like, there's a lot of zonotic diseases,

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Speaker 1: so a lot of diseases that jump from wild animals

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Speaker 1: to humans, and I guess I would worry that the

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Speaker 1: more closely related you are to those organisms, the more

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Speaker 1: likely something is to jump.

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Speaker 2: But I wouldn't have that excuse if it was like.

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Speaker 1: A labraze chimpanzee. I still don't think i'd want to

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Speaker 1: eat it. Yeah, nope, I don't know that I have

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Speaker 1: a good logical reason, but my tummy is saying no.

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Speaker 3: Well, I'm an una bashed speciesist. I feel like being

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Speaker 3: human is different from being a puppy or a chicken

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Speaker 3: or a pig. And I used to feel like that

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Speaker 3: wasn't fair that you couldn't just say, hey, members of

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Speaker 3: the human species have certain rights that pigs and dogs

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Speaker 3: and whatever, don't. But these days I've come to accept

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Speaker 3: that that's just kind of how I feel, even if

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Speaker 3: it is wrong. And so, for example, I'm happy to

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Speaker 3: eat an intelligent pig, but I wouldn't eat a very

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Speaker 3: stupid person. Okay, you're cool with that.

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Speaker 1: Well, trying to figure out what is the logical framework behind?

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Speaker 1: Is it just anything that's not humans as good?

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Speaker 5: Like?

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Speaker 1: So you still haven't answered. Would you eat the chimpanzee

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Speaker 1: and the bonobo?

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Speaker 3: I probably would eat the champanzee and the bonobo. Yeah, exactly,

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Speaker 3: nice clean libraries. Chimpanzee, Yeah why not? I mean I

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Speaker 3: eat pigs, and so let's go all in. They're probably delicious.

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Speaker 2: At least you're consistent.

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Speaker 1: I recognize I'm not very consistent, which is part of

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Speaker 1: why I shy away from meat all together, because I

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Speaker 1: feel like I haven't quite formulated the framework for what

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Speaker 1: I feel comfortable with and what I don't feel comfortable with.

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Speaker 1: Props to you for being consistent.

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Speaker 3: Well, I think it's interesting that a lot of people

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Speaker 3: probably haven't really thought through what they would eat and

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Speaker 3: what they wouldn't eat and why. I remember reading an

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Speaker 3: article about speciesism like twenty something years ago that actually

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Speaker 3: inspired me to become a vegetarian. Made me realize that

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Speaker 3: I was being unfair to really smart pigs because I

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Speaker 3: was giving them fewer rights then I was giving to,

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Speaker 3: you know, not smart humans that I would refuse to eat.

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Speaker 3: It made me feel like, hmm, maybe I just shouldn't

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Speaker 3: be eating any creatures at all. And you know that

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Speaker 3: lasted for like ten years. I was a militant vegetarian

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Speaker 3: for like ten years until I had a son and

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Speaker 3: he was very obviously a carnivore, and we lived in France,

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Speaker 3: where if you ask for vegetarian lunch they give you

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Speaker 3: like chicken or fish. So it didn't last that long.

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Speaker 3: And these days I just feel like, yes, there is

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Speaker 3: something special about being human.

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Speaker 1: For a while, I was some special kind of vegetarian

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Speaker 1: where I like mostly wouldn't eat meat, but if I

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Speaker 1: knew that the animal had been treated mainly its whole

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Speaker 1: life and was euthanized humanely, so it was a cow

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Speaker 1: that lived on this beautiful farm and had free range

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Speaker 1: and had buddies.

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Speaker 3: It could paint twice a week and do arts and

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Speaker 3: crafts and.

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Speaker 1: Stuff yoga class on Wednesdays. I would make exceptions for that.

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Speaker 1: And since I was in grad school at the time.

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Speaker 1: I couldn't afford to do that very often. So it

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Speaker 1: was like I'd have, you know, one meat dish a

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Speaker 1: month where I would go and pay for that. And Zach,

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Speaker 1: my husband, likes to laugh because the thing that ended

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Speaker 1: up breaking my like vegetarian streak was I just couldn't

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Speaker 1: stop craving Arby's beef and cheddars.

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Speaker 2: Can't witches, which is just the lowest quality food ever.

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Speaker 1: But like my grand student heart just had to have one,

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Speaker 1: and that was the thing. Like I had one, and

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Speaker 1: then I was like, well, I've broken it, and then

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Speaker 1: for a while I just ate what I could afford,

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Speaker 1: which was Arby's because I was a grand student. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: I've always had a complicated relationship with meat, I guess.

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Speaker 3: And all of these behaviors are not rational, right, These

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Speaker 3: are people's emotional feelings about what's right and what's wrong.

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Speaker 3: What you grew up with, you know, I grew up

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Speaker 3: not eating the shellfish at all, and so like I

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Speaker 3: think shellfish are gross, and you cannot catch me eating shrimp.

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Speaker 3: I'll eat a chimpanzee. But like shellfish, if it's icky,

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Speaker 3: it's like insects of the ocean. I'm as likely to

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Speaker 3: eat a cricket as I am to eat a shrimp.

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Speaker 2: I am more likely to eat a cricket than a shrimp.

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Speaker 1: I mean, so you kind of like deep poop the

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Speaker 1: shrimp before you eat them, Like, I know that's just gross.

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Speaker 3: Are gross? Exactly? And so on today's episode, I'm looking

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Speaker 3: forward to exploring that line, like who eats who? And

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Speaker 3: why do they do it? Why don't we eat our

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Speaker 3: neighbors kids or should we?

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Speaker 1: You know, I think law probably plays into why we

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Speaker 1: don't eat our children's kids.

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Speaker 3: Why is the law that way? And should it be

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Speaker 3: that way?

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Speaker 6: Right?

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Speaker 3: Should we have a reform movement that says cannibalism is

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Speaker 3: actually okay?

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Speaker 2: You are asking all the big questions, Daniel.

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Speaker 3: This is not my field, and so I feel totally

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Speaker 3: comfortable just like asking the big dumb questions.

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Speaker 2: Well that's great, I love that, all right.

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Speaker 1: So, speaking of big dumb questions, I asked, how common

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Speaker 1: is cannibal and non human animals? And have you ever

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Speaker 1: seen it in nature? So I asked this to some

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Speaker 1: of my friends. And the big dumb thing that I

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Speaker 1: did was I accidentally mistyped my friend's number in because

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Speaker 1: like it was somebody I hadn't messaged for a while,

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Speaker 1: and I said some questions about cannibalism to like random

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Speaker 1: person who's probably very confused.

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Speaker 2: They never responded by like said the questions, and I

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Speaker 2: was like.

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Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I'm sorry, prom number, I'm a scientist. This

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Speaker 1: is for like a science thing, and uh, like I

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Speaker 1: got all awkward and I was like, I need to

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Speaker 1: just stop texting this person. Let the more texts I send,

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Speaker 1: the more crazy they think.

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Speaker 2: I am.

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Speaker 3: Well, at least you gave them a funny story that

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Speaker 3: they can tell at their next dinner party, which I

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Speaker 3: hope is not a cannibalistic one. And if you would

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Speaker 3: like to give answers to random questions, maybe about cannibalism,

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Speaker 3: maybe about particle physics for future episodes of the podcast,

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Speaker 3: please write to us to questions at Daniel and Kelly

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Speaker 3: dot org.

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Speaker 2: And now let's hear from Kelly's friends.

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Speaker 7: I have definitely heard of animals being cannibalistic. I remember

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Speaker 7: being in the fifth grade and I had gotten like

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Speaker 7: a tink of fish as a birthday peasant, and I

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Speaker 7: had one fish that attacked all the other fish and

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Speaker 7: ate them, and it.

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Speaker 5: Was a little traumatic I am really not sure. I

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Speaker 5: don't think that it's terribly common in the vertebrate world,

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Speaker 5: but maybe more common in some invertebrates for some reason.

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Speaker 5: I'm thinking among the insects possibly. I do think I

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Speaker 5: have seen, especially some insects cannibalizing other insects that I

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Speaker 5: believe would be the same species.

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Speaker 4: I think it is pretty widely you know, out there,

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Speaker 4: So I think like insects and even like some amphibians

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Speaker 4: and things like that do it because it's one of

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Speaker 4: those things where you want to eat no matter what

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Speaker 4: and survive. I've also heard about bears, so bears will

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Speaker 4: do it to other young cubs from from breeding mothers

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Speaker 4: because that will then induce them into like a breeding

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Speaker 4: cycle so that they can then become the father, et cetera

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Speaker 4: and pass on their genes.

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Speaker 8: I think this is probably pretty common in the animal kingdom,

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Speaker 8: but I mostly associated with parenting. My understanding is that

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Speaker 8: it in my brain anyway, is that it comes up

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Speaker 8: most often in situations where like a cat or a

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Speaker 8: rabbit or a dog like is really kind of distressed,

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Speaker 8: maybe like whatever. The dog equivalent of postpartum depression is,

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Speaker 8: I don't know, and they eat their offspring.

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Speaker 9: I would guess that cannibalism is kind of common among

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Speaker 9: fogs and snakes and insects, possibly fish. I do remember

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Speaker 9: that I had signed these fighting fish that gave birth

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Speaker 9: to babies, and you had to quickly separate the babies

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Speaker 9: otherwise mom and dad would eat them.

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Speaker 6: Yeah.

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Speaker 9: I guess if the bud dies in a colony, they're

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Speaker 9: not just gonna.

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Speaker 4: Give it a burial.

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Speaker 9: They'll probably just repurpose all it's nutrients or something. I'm

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Speaker 9: just guessing.

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Speaker 3: How do you feel about these answers, Kelly?

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Speaker 1: I thought that my friends gave great answers about cannibalism.

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Speaker 1: I also felt like they were really great sports.

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Speaker 6: One of the.

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Speaker 1: People, like, I texted in the question and they texted back,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know what to expect, but this is so

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Speaker 1: totally on brand for you.

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Speaker 2: I was like, what does that mean?

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Speaker 1: But then also, yes, you're right, totally on brand. So no,

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Speaker 1: I thought they were great. It seems like there's this

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Speaker 1: like hypothesis building based on the answers that invertebrates maybe

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Speaker 1: do cannibalism more than vertebrates, because I thought that was

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Speaker 1: like a pretty common theme. I don't actually know if

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Speaker 1: like insects are more likely to eat each other than

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Speaker 1: fish or frogs. I've seen lots of fish eating the

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Speaker 1: same species. But yeah, I thought there were great answers.

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Speaker 1: What did you think? And how are you going to

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Speaker 1: try to connect it to humans?

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Speaker 2: This time?

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Speaker 3: I thought it was interesting how widespread the answers were.

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Speaker 3: Some people thought it almost never happens, and some people

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Speaker 3: think it's pretty common. I'm pretty curious to know how

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Speaker 3: often does this happen out there in the animal kingdom?

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Speaker 3: Is just humans that awkwardly joke about cannibalism on podcasts?

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Speaker 3: Or is that also something that happens in the fish world.

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Speaker 1: Let's learn more about the forbidden meal on today's show,

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Speaker 1: We Have Folk Are Rudolph. He's a full professor of

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Speaker 1: ecology and evolutionary biology at RICE. He's editor in chief

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Speaker 1: at The American Naturalist, which in my field, that is

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Speaker 1: a huge stinking deal. He is self diagnosed with scientific

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Speaker 1: add He studies stuff like a penology, which is like

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Speaker 1: the timing of when stuff happens in nature, like when

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Speaker 1: are the flowers blooming, when are the tadpoles turning into frogs?

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Speaker 2: And how does that change over time?

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Speaker 1: He also studies like temporal dynamics, you know how that

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Speaker 1: stuff is changing across the United States, for example, and

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Speaker 1: climate change. But we're not talking about any of that

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Speaker 1: today because a few years ago he was studying cannibalism

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Speaker 1: and I've never forgotten how awesome that is. So we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk to him today about cannibalism.

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Speaker 2: So what got you into cannibalism.

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Speaker 3: And what do your parents think about that?

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Speaker 10: So I got interested in doing grad school. I was

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Speaker 10: looking for a thesis topic, and I did some reading.

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Speaker 10: I was generally interested like in the role of size

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Speaker 10: and like mediating interactions, and at some point it came

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Speaker 10: across some work in cannibalism and fish, and they were

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Speaker 10: really curious about kind of like the role of cannibalism

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Speaker 10: and regulating the populations. And then this had bigger consequences

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Speaker 10: for the entire ecosystem because this was like a top

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Speaker 10: predator and they got this interesting dynamics that were all

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Speaker 10: driven by cannibalism, and so like look more into it

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Speaker 10: and realize that there is not much known about cannibalism,

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Speaker 10: especially ecological consequences of it, and most have been tweeted

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Speaker 10: this kind of like weird thing that happens, but we

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Speaker 10: don't want to talk about it kind of like, but

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Speaker 10: it was really interesting to me, and so like I focused,

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Speaker 10: I wanted to know more about the ecology of it,

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Speaker 10: kind of.

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Speaker 6: Like what's driving it.

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Speaker 10: We've now been looking more into like the evolution of

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Speaker 10: it as well, so it's been more like a slow

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Speaker 10: organic process.

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Speaker 1: So as a parasitologist, people always want to tell me

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Speaker 1: about the time they thought they were infected by a parasite.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes they want to show me photos of their feces.

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Speaker 1: As someone who studies cannibalism, do people try to tell

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Speaker 1: you stories about like, oh, my fish, ate my other fish?

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Speaker 1: Have you acquired many weird stories?

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Speaker 10: If I talk about my research, then you should people

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Speaker 10: get stuck on the cannibalism stuff because the most interesting

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Speaker 10: dinner conversation topic.

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Speaker 3: People wanted to talk about cannibalism over dinner.

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Speaker 10: Yeah, but it's like once we start publishing some more

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Speaker 10: and then especially and then we're going to talk about

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Speaker 10: later this stuff we did on the interaction between comes

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Speaker 10: from disease. I started getting a lot of you know,

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Speaker 10: like media stuff from like in radio shows and other

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Speaker 10: podcasts thing, and nine of those all had to do

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Speaker 10: with some weird human anecdote thing, which is like nothing

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Speaker 10: I do at all or right, but it's like so

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Speaker 10: I got a little frustrating. They're like, okays, like this

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Speaker 10: is not really what I do, but sure, yeah.

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Speaker 3: Well, how widespread is any knowledge of cannibalism, Like do

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Speaker 3: people have mostly a misunderstanding of what cannibalism is and

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Speaker 3: how it works? Or is the concept in the minds

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Speaker 3: of the general public pretty much accurate.

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Speaker 10: I would say there's a pretty big misconception overall. And

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Speaker 10: most of that so really comes from like our take

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Speaker 10: on like entreprenmdvising the whole thing when we think about

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Speaker 10: cannibalism it so it goes back to the idea that

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Speaker 10: this is something that only happens on the extreme weird circumstances.

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Speaker 6: It's not normal.

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Speaker 10: I think that's kind of like how most people think, like, oh,

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Speaker 10: there's this week antidote about the shark doing some freaky thing,

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Speaker 10: and like.

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Speaker 6: That's not normal.

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Speaker 10: And in reality, and when cannibalism is completely normal, it's

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Speaker 10: super widespread. It's everywhere in animal kingdom, And there's why

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Speaker 10: do we take the morals away from it? It makes

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Speaker 10: sense because it's some normal ecological interactions just to predator

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Speaker 10: prey interactions.

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Speaker 6: This happens to be like the same species.

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Speaker 2: And how widespread is it?

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Speaker 1: So I tell a story at the beginning of the

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Speaker 1: episode where my small mouth bass we're eating each other

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Speaker 1: during my master's project, and I was like totally surprised

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Speaker 1: by you know, where all the fish and my experiment

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Speaker 1: were going.

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Speaker 2: What other organisms do it?

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Speaker 10: I mean, I would say, like, if it's predatory, there's

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Speaker 10: really high chance it's cannibalistic. So most species and other

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Speaker 10: predators are probably to some extent cannibalistic, and then there's

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Speaker 10: some variation and nuanced. But I would say for me

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Speaker 10: that it's like the default. There are exceptions to that

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Speaker 10: that are not cannibalistic, and there various reasons for that.

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Speaker 10: But I'd say the default is kind of like predatory.

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Speaker 10: It's cannibalistic, and there are a bunch of other species

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Speaker 10: that are not even predatory. There's still cannibalistic, right because

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Speaker 10: it can help, but like nutrient deficiencies, the components or

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Speaker 10: just removing competitors from the field, right, So it's all

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Speaker 10: over the place. It's probably one of the most underreported

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Speaker 10: interactions in the animal kingdom.

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Speaker 3: I think a lot of people might wonder why cannibalism

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Speaker 3: is so widespread. I think like a naive understanding of evolution,

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Speaker 3: like the one that I have, for example, would suggest

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Speaker 3: that it might be detrimental to the population as a whole. Right,

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Speaker 3: But is it as simple as yeah, but it helps

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Speaker 3: you and your genes or all you care about pretty much.

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Speaker 10: Yeah, it's from a in real perspective, it's just another

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Speaker 10: way of getting resources, and you're not doing it to

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Speaker 10: the benefit of the population. You're just trying to increase

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Speaker 10: your own personal fitness. And in many scenarios that's a

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Speaker 10: good option. Right, So you can think of it, for instance,

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Speaker 10: if you're cannibalistic, you can remove competitors from the environment.

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Speaker 6: Right, that's like a direct goal.

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Speaker 10: Not only do you remove them from the environment, you

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Speaker 10: actually get energy from them on top of it. Right,

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Speaker 10: So it's a double wind situation and the costs are something.

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Speaker 10: Then that's like under which conditions is it not beneficial?

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Speaker 10: And then you come back on like inclusive fitness and

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Speaker 10: kind of like what does it do to your offspring

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Speaker 10: and what's the risk of eating those.

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Speaker 3: It's like Google acquiring other companies, right, competitors off the field.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, pretty much.

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Speaker 3: All right, Well, then I have a question for you

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Speaker 3: about cannibalism that I'm pretty sure you've never gotten before.

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Speaker 6: Okay, So I've.

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Speaker 3: Heard the argument that on other planets, if life evolves,

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Speaker 3: it's very likely that there will be predators there because

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Speaker 3: beings will chomp on other beings because, as you say,

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Speaker 3: it's a rich source of nutrients. So then my question

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Speaker 3: to you is are you suggesting that aliens are very

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Speaker 3: likely also cannibals.

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Speaker 6: That's a pretty good chance.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, and I think we have our spinoff

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Speaker 3: movie Alien Cannibals. We'll wait for the first drafter the

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Speaker 3: script from you looking forward to that.

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Speaker 6: It's the question I heard before.

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Speaker 2: So Daniel.

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Speaker 3: And I got the work in Aliens double bonus.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So is there a difference between cannibalism if you're

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Speaker 1: the one killing the conspecific you plan on eating, or

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Speaker 1: if you like come across it and it's dead, both

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Speaker 1: of those are cannibalism or does the definition of cannibalism

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Speaker 1: imply that you had to like kill the organism before

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Speaker 1: you eat it or is it all the same?

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Speaker 10: So the definition were kind of stuck in bin was

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Speaker 10: like killing in at least partial consumption of a conspecific,

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Speaker 10: So if it's already dead, we would call it necrophagi.

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Speaker 10: As I comment, so we talked about this, so like

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Speaker 10: in the disease perspective, that's like a different dynamic. But

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Speaker 10: I guess so I would usually we can talk about

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Speaker 10: cannibalism and most of the literature in the walls the

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Speaker 10: killing part. But of course, like most terms, there's various

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Speaker 10: definitions of it floating around.

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Speaker 1: Okay, all right, so I know that all of us

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Speaker 1: on this call are parents, So what are some benefits

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Speaker 1: of eating your children?

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Speaker 10: Interesting choice? I mean, so when you see parents consuming

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Speaker 10: their offspring, right, But for many ways, that's like the

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Speaker 10: thing that usually selects against cannibalism. But there are reports

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Speaker 10: of this and various instances where you have parents eating

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Speaker 10: their offspring. And the example for instance, like in fish,

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Speaker 10: there's an interesting study that came out a while ago

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Speaker 10: where they showed that males that was regarding the eggs

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Speaker 10: for the females, we're more likely to cannibalize the eggs

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Speaker 10: if they thought that they weren't actually the deads, right,

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Speaker 10: so the other dad would swoop in doing like the

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Speaker 10: fertilization process, and if they thought someone else actually fertilized

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Speaker 10: the eggs that would just eat it and do it

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Speaker 10: over again. There's another one where you have scenarios where

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Speaker 10: like parents will consume their offspring, for instance, in case

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Speaker 10: of a disturbance for instance, or like the risk of predation.

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Speaker 10: I think in those cases it's kind of like the

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Speaker 10: idea behind it is the evaluating is, Okay, if some

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Speaker 10: preter comes in, they're going to eat all my eggs,

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Speaker 10: I get nothing. If I eat the eggs, I at

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Speaker 10: least get part of the energy back that invested in it,

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Speaker 10: all right, So it's kind of like a very risky

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Speaker 10: kind of like to lose it all or do it

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Speaker 10: keep some of it? So like scenario which it does

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Speaker 10: happen in some scenarios that's cold, yeah.

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Speaker 3: Rather cannibal dilemma, huh yeah.

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Speaker 10: But there very few instances where eating your offspring is beneficial.

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Speaker 6: I mean, I can not really think of a whole lot.

440
00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:44,640
Speaker 10: Like I said, in most cases, that's what selects against it.

441
00:21:44,720 --> 00:21:45,960
Speaker 6: Don't eat your kids.

442
00:21:47,440 --> 00:21:49,119
Speaker 1: Follow up on that one, we do like a random

443
00:21:49,160 --> 00:21:51,520
Speaker 1: survey of people before we do an interview to ask

444
00:21:51,560 --> 00:21:53,359
Speaker 1: what their opinions are on the topic, and one of

445
00:21:53,359 --> 00:21:56,920
Speaker 1: the people we interviewed said that they thought mostly cannibalism

446
00:21:57,040 --> 00:21:59,520
Speaker 1: was about eating their young because they had heard so

447
00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:00,879
Speaker 1: many store worries and I guess they had a lot

448
00:22:00,920 --> 00:22:03,120
Speaker 1: of like hamsters, and the hamsters would get stressed out

449
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:04,840
Speaker 1: and they'd eat their young, so it was like a

450
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:08,760
Speaker 1: stress thing. But you're saying that, like, it definitely happens sometimes,

451
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:12,960
Speaker 1: but it's probably not the most common example of cannibalism.

452
00:22:12,480 --> 00:22:14,320
Speaker 10: So, I mean, the most part is like the eating

453
00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:16,239
Speaker 10: you're on is kind of like a byproduct of just

454
00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:18,760
Speaker 10: eating your conspecifics, right, So it does happen.

455
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:20,800
Speaker 3: Sorry, what's a conspecific for those of us who are

456
00:22:20,800 --> 00:22:21,520
Speaker 3: not biologists.

457
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:24,640
Speaker 10: Sorry, conspecific means like a member of your own species.

458
00:22:24,960 --> 00:22:28,159
Speaker 10: I see, Okay, because sometimes cannibalism gets so confused with

459
00:22:28,359 --> 00:22:31,320
Speaker 10: like predation, but it has to be the same species or.

460
00:22:31,280 --> 00:22:33,840
Speaker 6: It's not cannibalism.

461
00:22:33,920 --> 00:22:37,120
Speaker 10: So in most scenarios where you have cannibalism, you get

462
00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:41,600
Speaker 10: the accidental or occasional eating of your own offspring, right,

463
00:22:41,680 --> 00:22:44,280
Speaker 10: and so incentce Like, we did a study in flower beetles,

464
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:46,040
Speaker 10: so we kind of tried to figure out whether these

465
00:22:46,080 --> 00:22:50,520
Speaker 10: guys recognize their eggs their own eggs and whether they

466
00:22:50,520 --> 00:22:54,520
Speaker 10: would eat them less, because these are really cannibalistic. And

467
00:22:54,600 --> 00:22:56,920
Speaker 10: so what we figured out is that, yes, they do

468
00:22:57,040 --> 00:22:59,600
Speaker 10: seem to recognize it, but that just means they eat

469
00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:01,919
Speaker 10: them some what less, not that don't eat it.

470
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:04,840
Speaker 6: Right.

471
00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:07,520
Speaker 10: And so I feel like many examples, it's kind of

472
00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:12,240
Speaker 10: like when the risk of encountering your own like babies

473
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 10: is relatively there's no real selection for like recognizing or

474
00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:19,800
Speaker 10: worrying about it, and you just eat whoever's like it

475
00:23:19,800 --> 00:23:21,959
Speaker 10: fits in your mouth sort of perspective.

476
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:25,199
Speaker 6: And sometimes those may be your offspring and sometimes they're not.

477
00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:28,680
Speaker 10: And I think in the case of the hamsters and

478
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:31,120
Speaker 10: the others, it's like they would probably eat other babies too.

479
00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:33,320
Speaker 10: In there, it's not that they specifically want to eat

480
00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:35,879
Speaker 10: their own babies. They're just like stressed at they're trying

481
00:23:35,880 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 10: to remove competitors the territorial and there's just not enough

482
00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:43,000
Speaker 10: of a bear to like select against not eating your

483
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:44,040
Speaker 10: own in that scenario.

484
00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:47,040
Speaker 3: But yeah, I'm still trying to understand the fact that

485
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:52,040
Speaker 3: there's no selection pressure against eating your neighbor's kids. I mean,

486
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:55,240
Speaker 3: don't a lot of creatures survive because of communities, You know,

487
00:23:55,280 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 3: A bunch of penguins held together to survive the wind,

488
00:23:57,760 --> 00:24:00,680
Speaker 3: or a pride of lions help each other out or whatever.

489
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 3: Don't we all get along better if we stop eating

490
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:05,680
Speaker 3: our kids and worry about our kids being eaten every

491
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:08,080
Speaker 3: time we leave the house. Isn't there some benefit to that?

492
00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:11,080
Speaker 10: I just brought up the pride of line because lines

493
00:24:11,080 --> 00:24:17,920
Speaker 10: are also pretty cannibalistic, so i'llout that helping now. In fact,

494
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:20,440
Speaker 10: you often have so like the meals go in and

495
00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:23,479
Speaker 10: like when the takeover, probably to especially like kill all

496
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:26,200
Speaker 10: the offsprings of the female and eat them because they

497
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:29,520
Speaker 10: want to be like the dad's of the kids and

498
00:24:29,560 --> 00:24:31,919
Speaker 10: not like raise somebody else's kid. At least that's how

499
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:34,399
Speaker 10: the theory goes. I mean, that's a very sort of

500
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:38,240
Speaker 10: group selecting perspective, which is an interesting discussion. I'm sure

501
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 10: Kelly has some ideas about it too.

502
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:45,639
Speaker 3: Is that a controversial topic or something partial because we

503
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:48,159
Speaker 3: don't understand whether it happens or some people believe it

504
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:50,720
Speaker 3: does and some people who believe it doesn't. Or as

505
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:52,480
Speaker 3: a non biologist, I don't know what sort of the

506
00:24:52,520 --> 00:24:54,040
Speaker 3: third rail to discuss in terms of.

507
00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:57,080
Speaker 10: Evolution, because it's a hard scenario to really make work

508
00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:02,280
Speaker 10: to like care and like help the unrelated individuals. It's

509
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 10: a complicated strategy to get working because it's just so

510
00:25:05,680 --> 00:25:09,359
Speaker 10: prone to cheating. And so usually when you see this

511
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:12,680
Speaker 10: or like helping behavior, that's kind of like more something

512
00:25:12,720 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 10: where it's like your offspring or your siblings or something

513
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:18,199
Speaker 10: like that. In that case, is it comes back to

514
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:22,160
Speaker 10: like kind selection and inclusive fitness, which is also something

515
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:26,280
Speaker 10: that influences cannibalism. In fact, for the helping, I often

516
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 10: like to think of this altruistic behavior, and cannibalism is

517
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,640
Speaker 10: like the flip side of a coin. Right, then both

518
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:36,240
Speaker 10: extreme there's the helping and being mutualistic and beneficial, and

519
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:38,000
Speaker 10: then there's the other extreme of like just being as

520
00:25:38,040 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 10: selfish as you possibly can. And so cannibalism is like

521
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:45,400
Speaker 10: the selfish as possibly can because you're literally killing someone

522
00:25:45,440 --> 00:25:48,199
Speaker 10: on for your own benefit, right, it's hard to be

523
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 10: more selfish and understanding at what point you know, like

524
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 10: selection favors one strategy over the other.

525
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,320
Speaker 6: That's kind of like I think one of the interesting questions.

526
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:00,959
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like my take on it is that

527
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:03,360
Speaker 1: for a while, you know this idea that animals were

528
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 1: doing things for the benefit of the species was kind

529
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: of a popular idea. It was a long time ago,

530
00:26:07,920 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 1: and then pretty quickly when we started digging in, it just.

531
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:11,680
Speaker 2: Wasn't making sense.

532
00:26:11,720 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 1: And doing things for the benefit of the species at

533
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:16,640
Speaker 1: the expense of yourself just sort of doesn't really work evolutionarily.

534
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:19,879
Speaker 1: And now the big question is when organisms are helping

535
00:26:19,880 --> 00:26:21,440
Speaker 1: each other, why the heck are they doing that.

536
00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 2: So we've almost swung to the opposite direction.

537
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:26,720
Speaker 1: Now we're trying to explain why animals help each other out,

538
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:29,160
Speaker 1: and often it turns out that they're related in some way,

539
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 1: or maybe they're like reciprocally sharing resources, and it's like,

540
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:33,960
Speaker 1: all right, you helped.

541
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:34,880
Speaker 2: Me out, so I'll help you out.

542
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 1: But like if someone doesn't help out, then you know,

543
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:40,280
Speaker 1: maybe you eat them instead. That's sort of my take

544
00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:42,639
Speaker 1: on how we've sort of swung from one direction to another.

545
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 3: Is that how biologists all look at each other. They're like, look,

546
00:26:45,119 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 3: we'll collaborate on this paper, but if you stop pulling

547
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 3: your weight, I might just eat you.

548
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 2: Academia is tough, exactly, but not that tough.

549
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:54,879
Speaker 3: I guess. Well, you know, something that's forefront in my

550
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:58,200
Speaker 3: mind during this conversation is the obvious counter example which

551
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:01,120
Speaker 3: is humans right, as humans, we do help each other out.

552
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:03,959
Speaker 3: Young men go off and die in wars to protect

553
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:07,159
Speaker 3: other people. It's also one of the examples of a

554
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 3: species that maybe has less cannibalism than other species. Is

555
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:14,399
Speaker 3: it because we've succeeded to help each other out so

556
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 3: much and work together as a society. Is that why

557
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 3: we have a stigma against cannibalism? Or are you going

558
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:21,439
Speaker 3: to tell me that people eat each other just as

559
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 3: much as other species.

560
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 10: So I'm not an althropologist, but it's like when we

561
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:28,119
Speaker 10: so I looked into some of this, we kind of

562
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:31,919
Speaker 10: got into the anthropology literature, and I will say, like,

563
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:35,399
Speaker 10: for most of the human history there's been an element

564
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:39,360
Speaker 10: of cannibalism, and they're linked back to Neanderthal it's different cultures.

565
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:43,560
Speaker 10: The point at which all societies, as far as we know,

566
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 10: stop cannibalism is actually pretty recent, like and some of

567
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:49,199
Speaker 10: Papua New Guinea you still have cannibalism, and they're like

568
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 10: the nineteen fifties to nineteen seventies somewhere around that. So

569
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:57,640
Speaker 10: for modern humans, right, twenty first century humans, that's definitely true.

570
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:00,880
Speaker 10: But in the past cannibalism has been pretty much part

571
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 10: off like many different cultures, like across all the different continents,

572
00:28:06,160 --> 00:28:09,960
Speaker 10: and that ranged between you know, like some ancestral ritual.

573
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:12,600
Speaker 10: It's about now ensuring that you ants live on to

574
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:15,800
Speaker 10: like getting the powers of your enemies and these sort

575
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 10: of different commonents. So humans have definitely engaged in cannibalist

576
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:22,760
Speaker 10: activities in path societies for sure.

577
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:25,680
Speaker 1: You mentioned that in the nineteen fifties cannibalism was still

578
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: happening in Papua New Guinea and that group became fairly

579
00:28:28,320 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: famous because of a disease that they got through that practice.

580
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 1: And when we come back from the break, we're gonna

581
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 1: go ahead and talk about that.

582
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:36,600
Speaker 3: So everybody finished cooking up your dinner and get ready

583
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:54,720
Speaker 3: to hear about it. Kelly, do you have a snack

584
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 3: in front of you? Are you ready to talk about cannibalism?

585
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 2: Somemore, Oh, you know, I always have snacks.

586
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:01,560
Speaker 1: I've got my cheese and crackers in salami, and I'm

587
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 1: just not thinking too hard about it. And you know,

588
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 1: as a person who studies parasites, I never think too

589
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 1: hard about what are meeting or maybe I.

590
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:10,960
Speaker 2: Should, but anyway, it would be a good diet strategy.

591
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 1: We talked about the folks in Papua New Guinea who

592
00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: were engaging in cannibalism up until the nineteen fifties. And

593
00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: another area of research that you focused on is disease

594
00:29:22,160 --> 00:29:25,600
Speaker 1: and how it maybe makes cannibalism less beneficial. So can

595
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 1: you tell us a little bit more about Kuru and

596
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:32,840
Speaker 1: then about disease transmission from cannibalism in the non human animals.

597
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:35,680
Speaker 10: So Van Koura got famous because it's like it's a

598
00:29:35,720 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 10: prime disease that's in some way you can think of

599
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 10: it like creterrali arc up disease, another prime disease that's

600
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 10: like an alternative disease.

601
00:29:43,680 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 6: And it's interesting about it that it.

602
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:48,480
Speaker 10: Often can take a long time for it to come up,

603
00:29:48,680 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 10: like in a several years.

604
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: Can you tell us real quick what are prion diseases?

605
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: Because I think a lot of people don't know.

606
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 6: About this, right, it's a prime disease.

607
00:29:56,360 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 10: Is diseases that are called by infectious proteins, which actual

608
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:04,280
Speaker 10: proteins the normally in your body, but they're being inspired

609
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 10: to change their shape and that shape then.

610
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 6: Is not as functional, can cause various diseases.

611
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:11,360
Speaker 8: Right.

612
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 10: There's like I mentioned critrial yaka disease, which is like

613
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 10: a new generative disease. There are several equivalents that we

614
00:30:17,680 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 10: know of, like an animal disease is like make out disease,

615
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 10: a few other ones.

616
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 3: So if prions are proteins, it means they're not alive, right,

617
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:26,840
Speaker 3: there's like little bits of stuff. They are little molecular machines.

618
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:29,720
Speaker 3: What makes it a disease and not like a poison?

619
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 3: Is it because it replicates itself somehow.

620
00:30:32,520 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 10: Or it replicates itself in the body Because it's basically

621
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 10: so like a dynamic reaction where it's like you can

622
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 10: think of one protein that's like changed in the shape,

623
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:43,840
Speaker 10: bumping into the normal shape one and like changing it

624
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:46,120
Speaker 10: to that shape like with chain reaction.

625
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 3: That's crazy. Proteins are amazing.

626
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 10: It was a long controversy to prove that they're actually

627
00:30:51,640 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 10: the cause of a disease because they're like normal parts

628
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 10: of your body and there's no like external infectious agent

629
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:01,000
Speaker 10: that was initially identified. So they it's a really interesting

630
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 10: history about like how long it took them to figure

631
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:07,600
Speaker 10: out what prime diseases are and what causes them.

632
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:10,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're crazy, but so as you noted for the

633
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 1: folks who were suffering from this neurodegenerative disease. It was

634
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: really hard to figure out a cause because there was

635
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: this long delay between the activity and then the onset

636
00:31:18,240 --> 00:31:18,880
Speaker 1: of symptoms.

637
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:20,480
Speaker 2: Can you tell us some more about that before I

638
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 2: derailed you.

639
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:24,400
Speaker 10: The idea was that they found these diseases in certain

640
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 10: cultural groups and Papua New Guinea, and ultimately it was

641
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 10: tracked to some of their like burying rituals, which involved

642
00:31:31,760 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 10: actually so consuming part of the dead ancestor right so

643
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 10: like it handsome diseased, and they figured that this was

644
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 10: like the main source and how these things were actually

645
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:44,440
Speaker 10: being transmitted. And that's kind of like the history of

646
00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 10: how curu was linked to the cannibalistic practices in humans.

647
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 3: Wait, so they would bury the ancestors and then eat

648
00:31:50,800 --> 00:31:52,440
Speaker 3: them or eat them and then bury them or eat

649
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 3: them and bury them. I lost track.

650
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 6: That's a good question. I've hard to remember how.

651
00:31:56,320 --> 00:31:58,479
Speaker 3: Or maybe it's like that Swedish dish where you bury them,

652
00:31:58,480 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 3: you let them rode for six months and you dig

653
00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 3: them up and eat them.

654
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:04,320
Speaker 10: No, I think was before I remember the details. I

655
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:07,400
Speaker 10: would have to look that up again. Listening about prime

656
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 10: diseases too, the extra very stable so sometimes even cooking

657
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 10: can kill them, right, which is another sort of thing

658
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:15,240
Speaker 10: that mixed firing disease is weird.

659
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 3: And so the connection to cannibalism is that if this

660
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:21,200
Speaker 3: exists in the person you're eating, you eat the thing,

661
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 3: now you have the protein in you, and so now

662
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:23,800
Speaker 3: you have the disease.

663
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 6: Yes, So that's how it was like traced back.

664
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 10: It was tricky, but I mean they used to like

665
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 10: in the records of like previous infections or like weird

666
00:32:31,440 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 10: behaviors of people and other sort of stuff and trying

667
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 10: to trace it back to like where they came from.

668
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 10: But of course it's hard to trace a disease back.

669
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 10: That sometimes takes twenty plus us to establish and figure

670
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:42,720
Speaker 10: out where's coming from.

671
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, so how common is this in non human animals?

672
00:32:46,600 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: Not necessarily pryons jumping back and forth during cannibalism, but

673
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 1: just like any disease, and what kind of diseases are

674
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:54,120
Speaker 1: most commonly transmitted.

675
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 10: It's an interesting question because the things like in one way,

676
00:32:57,320 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 10: you can just think of like cannibalism being so like

677
00:32:59,520 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 10: a way of acting with members of your own species,

678
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 10: which can always increase the risk of infection.

679
00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 6: Right, So if you.

680
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 10: Consume an individual that's infected just by like getting in

681
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,240
Speaker 10: contact with infacted individual as a good chance that you

682
00:33:14,320 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 10: pick it up.

683
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:16,800
Speaker 3: What are you saying you're more likely to get a

684
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:19,479
Speaker 3: disease if you eat somebody from your own species, then

685
00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 3: if you eat somebody not from your species. Is that

686
00:33:21,680 --> 00:33:24,360
Speaker 3: because you're more likely to be susceptible to the same diseases, it's.

687
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 6: More likely to go to susceptible to the same diseases.

688
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 10: In fact, there spends like some theories and experiments like

689
00:33:29,680 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 10: Dave Finnick who was like testing that and so that

690
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 10: I was like, are you more likely to get infected

691
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:35,200
Speaker 10: by your own species?

692
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 6: They did that actually in tadpoles.

693
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 10: Believe it or not, they also cannibalistic, some of them

694
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 10: spayed for tadpoles actually, and they found that like when

695
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 10: they consumed the conspecific that was infacted, they get more

696
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:50,760
Speaker 10: likely to be in facted and if they ate another species,

697
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:54,239
Speaker 10: And so they used that as like an idea of

698
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 10: selecting against cannibalism. And they did find that they were

699
00:33:57,440 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 10: more likely to discriminate against their own species than any

700
00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 10: other unless likely to eat them. And so there was

701
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 10: the idea that disease could select against cannibalism because there's

702
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:08,120
Speaker 10: a higher risk of infection.

703
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 1: Does it depend on the kind of diseases? So, like,

704
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:13,839
Speaker 1: you know, if someone's not sneezing anymore because they're dead,

705
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 1: they're probably not going to give me the cold or

706
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: the flu. If I eat their brains, I might get

707
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 1: a pry on disease. So is there certain kinds of

708
00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 1: diseases you're more likely to get or is it not

709
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: that easy because it's ecology.

710
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 10: I think ultimately there is not a lot of research

711
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 10: on this specific topic. You might be surprising, but them,

712
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 10: I was like there, for instance, I have like an

713
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:37,279
Speaker 10: insects and others, Like it's pretty common there. When the

714
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:42,760
Speaker 10: individuals become infected, then the jest can lead to another infection.

715
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 10: But there's also this scenario where like if it's a

716
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:47,719
Speaker 10: disease that for instance, needs to be inhaled to get

717
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:50,960
Speaker 10: any respiratory tract or like go a certain route and

718
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:52,760
Speaker 10: you eat it and they're just go in your stomach

719
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:56,319
Speaker 10: and get digested, They're not going to actually become infected, right,

720
00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:59,760
Speaker 10: So if you consume the individuals before it's an infectious state,

721
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 10: especially then you know, like you could actually remove sick

722
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 10: individuals from the population. So it really so depends on

723
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:12,319
Speaker 10: how much the infection relies on you actually come in

724
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,000
Speaker 10: contact with it, or whether it relies on you being.

725
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:16,280
Speaker 6: Ingested by the individual.

726
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 10: I think there are no hard facts on it, but

727
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 10: I think it comes down to the transmission mode of

728
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:21,040
Speaker 10: the disease.

729
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:24,879
Speaker 3: And in general, most of these diseases are killed by cooking, right,

730
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 3: So if you cook the creature, you're most likely going

731
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 3: to kill the disease, except for preons, which is why

732
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 3: they're so terrifying. Right, Yeah, I guess in the natural world,

733
00:35:32,280 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 3: temples don't usually like grill each other before eating.

734
00:35:34,920 --> 00:35:36,800
Speaker 6: There's not a lot of cooking going on in the

735
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:37,560
Speaker 6: natural world.

736
00:35:39,080 --> 00:35:41,479
Speaker 3: But is there zero, like I mean, is there really

737
00:35:41,560 --> 00:35:44,360
Speaker 3: zero use of fire by any other creature other humans?

738
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 3: Excuse my completely naive question.

739
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 1: I don't think chimpanzees are Bonobo's cook over fire. They've

740
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:55,840
Speaker 1: got other ways of trying to remove parasites that folks

741
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 1: have postulated, but they're not cooking their meat beforehand.

742
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:02,000
Speaker 3: And so are there other species where cannibalism seems to

743
00:36:02,040 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 3: be sort of disinclined or suppressed the way it is

744
00:36:05,120 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 3: in modern humans or is it really everywhere in the

745
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 3: animal kingdom?

746
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:11,760
Speaker 6: I would say it's almost everywhere. It's like I always

747
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:12,839
Speaker 6: call it ubiquitous.

748
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 10: I'm not saying everybody is cannibalistic, but a lot of

749
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:16,000
Speaker 10: them are.

750
00:36:16,560 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 6: And there's of course a gradi end, right.

751
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,799
Speaker 10: It's like some species are highly cannibalistic and some species

752
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:24,800
Speaker 10: may not be cannibalistic.

753
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:27,040
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a full spectrum, I would say.

754
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:30,040
Speaker 3: And is there any organization to that spectrum. Is it

755
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:32,879
Speaker 3: like the more you're fish, like the more cannibalistic you are,

756
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:36,840
Speaker 3: or you know, the larger your number of offspring or something.

757
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:37,279
Speaker 3: One of the.

758
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:39,200
Speaker 6: Patterns, well, Kelly is like list digress.

759
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 10: So I always thought about it, and it's like I

760
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:44,960
Speaker 10: don't think there is a general Somatan land list that

761
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:47,319
Speaker 10: I can pull that out. I think part of that

762
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 10: is because I don't think cannibalism is sufficiently reported in

763
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 10: most organisms.

764
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:56,320
Speaker 6: Sometimes I remember reading like papers.

765
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:57,799
Speaker 10: About food webs where it's like, oh, like in this

766
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 10: food web, there's like, you know that no cannibalistic link

767
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:02,200
Speaker 10: in it, And like I looked at it and like

768
00:37:02,320 --> 00:37:04,640
Speaker 10: pulled out ten spieces that are known to be cannibalistic.

769
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:06,800
Speaker 6: There's a strong under reporting.

770
00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 10: That makes it difficult to go out there and say, okay,

771
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:12,720
Speaker 10: are the general patterns are like certain taxa or certain

772
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 10: functional groups and more cannibalistic than others.

773
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:16,799
Speaker 6: I don't think we even have the data to test

774
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:17,839
Speaker 6: that right now.

775
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 10: That's why I say, like, I do think like most

776
00:37:20,680 --> 00:37:25,239
Speaker 10: prosit cannibalistic, But then after that it's very hard to

777
00:37:25,640 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 10: make more generalization about which ones are more likely. I

778
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 10: think there's certain like if your species with parental care

779
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 10: or certain social structure, it's a lot less likely or

780
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:38,960
Speaker 10: even selected against it. So there should be some patterns,

781
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:41,840
Speaker 10: but I'm not aware of any analysis it'll look to that.

782
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 3: And when you say underreported, that makes it sound like

783
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:46,799
Speaker 3: it's you know, stigmatized or something people who don't want

784
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:48,479
Speaker 3: to talk about it. Is it just that we don't

785
00:37:48,480 --> 00:37:50,879
Speaker 3: have the data because there isn't enough funding, or because

786
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 3: it's difficult to gather for some reason, or.

787
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 10: I think it's because for like decades people stigmatized it.

788
00:37:57,960 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 6: Right So if you think if.

789
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:01,160
Speaker 10: You go back to like Bibil apples Felt was a

790
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:04,520
Speaker 10: famous behavior psycologist, and he was the one that I

791
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:07,480
Speaker 10: was talked about like they're good for the species, whereas like, oh,

792
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:10,840
Speaker 10: we don't do that, and cannibalism was immediately linked into.

793
00:38:10,680 --> 00:38:12,520
Speaker 6: This where it's kind of like, oh, that's just a

794
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 6: freak of nature.

795
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 10: It only happens, you know, like maroond On and Alan

796
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 10: and have nothing else to eat over the airplane crashes

797
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:20,720
Speaker 10: in the Arctic or something. Right, I was definitely considered

798
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:24,880
Speaker 10: as non normal interactions, and I still think to this

799
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 10: day it's like it's lester in other interactions.

800
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 6: Also, it's a lot more than it was let's.

801
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:31,320
Speaker 10: Say, like in the nineties or the early two thousands,

802
00:38:31,320 --> 00:38:33,359
Speaker 10: So I was like, so it's getting a little bit

803
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,839
Speaker 10: more attention. But because of the stigmatization, there was very

804
00:38:36,840 --> 00:38:39,480
Speaker 10: little research for law, and I felt every time I

805
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 10: publish it on my paper at first to argue and saying, actually,

806
00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:45,440
Speaker 10: this is everywhere, we just don't talk about it, right,

807
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:48,799
Speaker 10: So I was like I had to justify why we've

808
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 10: been doing this, and then it's not weird and and

809
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:53,960
Speaker 10: just you know, like an unnatural behavior, but it's like

810
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:54,920
Speaker 10: pretty common.

811
00:38:55,640 --> 00:38:57,959
Speaker 3: So if I had to summarize your entire academic career

812
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 3: in one sentence, would it be fair to say cannibalism

813
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:03,239
Speaker 3: is everywhere? And actually it's usually good.

814
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:04,799
Speaker 2: He does a lot of other stuff too.

815
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 6: But yes, I think it's.

816
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 10: Fair to say that it's really a part of the

817
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:12,879
Speaker 10: natural ecosystem, and in many ways it can be good.

818
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:13,160
Speaker 6: Right.

819
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 10: For instance, cannibalism in predatory species can really stabilize predative

820
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:22,480
Speaker 10: predynamics and in fact help natural ecosystem do not cyclis much, right,

821
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:25,840
Speaker 10: or it can promote coexistence, so it actually plays an

822
00:39:25,880 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 10: important role in natural ecosystems.

823
00:39:27,640 --> 00:39:28,799
Speaker 6: Test we haven't appreciated.

824
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 3: I didn't expect we were going to end up being

825
00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:32,719
Speaker 3: pro cannibalism, but here we are.

826
00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:37,400
Speaker 1: We jumped around, which is totally great. But we were

827
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,319
Speaker 1: talking about parents eating their kids. I feel like it's

828
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 1: much worse for kids to eat their parents because like,

829
00:39:43,360 --> 00:39:45,440
Speaker 1: how can you not appreciate all the effort your parents

830
00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:46,160
Speaker 1: have put in there?

831
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 2: But does that happen? Yes, what could you give us.

832
00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 6: Some exp.

833
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 10: I mean in those cases, well, as if you think

834
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,320
Speaker 10: about it's like there's subspecies out there, they are pretty

835
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:00,560
Speaker 10: much just reproducing once in their lifetime, right. It's like

836
00:40:00,840 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 10: we often think about like these repeated reprodactive events where

837
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 10: during a lifetime you have multiple babies and so on.

838
00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:09,200
Speaker 10: But for many species it's a one time thing. Right,

839
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 10: It's like they put all their eggs in the basket

840
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:14,440
Speaker 10: that reproduced and in those instances actually is like there

841
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 10: are some species. I'm trying to think of it. I

842
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:19,720
Speaker 10: think there's at least like a spider species. As essentially,

843
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,720
Speaker 10: the idea there is that the parents would die anyway,

844
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 10: and it's kind of like parent nourishment position.

845
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:27,279
Speaker 6: Right, It's like they give their kids.

846
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 10: More food and in this case it's just their last

847
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:31,759
Speaker 10: donation and it's them man.

848
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:35,440
Speaker 6: Right, it's like all in investment, the ultimate parenting.

849
00:40:35,360 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 2: Kids, they're always taking taking.

850
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:41,320
Speaker 3: All right, Well, I feel like I have to connect

851
00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 3: the obvious dots here. You're telling us that cannibalism is

852
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 3: actually pretty widespread. It even existed in human society for

853
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:50,719
Speaker 3: a long time. It's often beneficial, and it's probably a

854
00:40:50,760 --> 00:40:53,879
Speaker 3: good idea to eat your parents. So would you advise cannibalism?

855
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 3: Were you saying, like, hey, you're putting your parents to rest,

856
00:40:56,120 --> 00:41:00,480
Speaker 3: your options or like cremation, burial or sate. Is that

857
00:41:00,560 --> 00:41:01,319
Speaker 3: something we should have?

858
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 2: And I'm really shocked you're going there, Daniel, But.

859
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:07,800
Speaker 10: Okay, yeah, yeah, I feel like I should be answered

860
00:41:07,840 --> 00:41:08,719
Speaker 10: that question at all.

861
00:41:10,280 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 3: Look, when the aliens come, they're going to ask us

862
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:14,359
Speaker 3: this question, and we need to have an answer. You know, you.

863
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 2: Complete the fifth.

864
00:41:15,640 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 10: I always go back to like what Kelly says, like

865
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 10: with parasites and all items, like that's just an iffy thing.

866
00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 1: God, yeah, we're not going to think too hard about that.

867
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:28,840
Speaker 1: So I'm trained as an ecologist. I love hearing about,

868
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 1: you know, ecological systems. And I was going through the

869
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:34,160
Speaker 1: like titles of papers that you've published, and I got

870
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: really excited about the bulgie frogs and so tell us

871
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:43,280
Speaker 1: about why salamander cannibalism results in bulgie frogs.

872
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 10: So the frogs is the tadpoles that are bulgey, right,

873
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 10: So now that people think of like giant blobby frogs,

874
00:41:51,600 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 10: so they're actually tadpoles and they like get bulger by

875
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:57,240
Speaker 10: getting these like out of jelly layers that really make him.

876
00:41:57,200 --> 00:41:58,759
Speaker 6: Way bigger than they normally would be.

877
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:02,480
Speaker 10: And so that's a species in Japan and like one

878
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 10: of our collaboratives that came across and it's a defense mechanism,

879
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 10: but being bigger, they can't get eaten by salamanders potentially

880
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:13,040
Speaker 10: because they don't fit in their mouth right, So it's

881
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 10: like blow yourself up like the popper fish, so you

882
00:42:16,080 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 10: don't fit in somebody else's mouth.

883
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 6: Which means you survive too big to fail, and so and.

884
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:25,520
Speaker 10: So these researchers found is like so cannibalism in these salamandos,

885
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 10: which actually cannibalism in salamandes is really common. I've seen

886
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:32,240
Speaker 10: one species so far that it's not cannibalistic, but everybody

887
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 10: else have worked with all the other species.

888
00:42:33,840 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 6: We're all cannibalistic to some extent.

889
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:36,840
Speaker 2: But they're so cute.

890
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:39,680
Speaker 6: They are very cute. I agree.

891
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:43,279
Speaker 10: Salamanos will leave whatever fits in their mouth, right, It's

892
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 10: kind of like if it moves, they'll try to shove

893
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:45,879
Speaker 10: it in.

894
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:51,879
Speaker 3: Their mouth like toddlers. I'm convinced if your parents would

895
00:42:51,880 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 3: fit in your mouth.

896
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 10: They probably would just shove it out there. It's like,

897
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:57,919
Speaker 10: if you don't think about it, right, it's just like food,

898
00:42:58,800 --> 00:43:03,799
Speaker 10: exactly more food and so in salomon is. Sometimes you

899
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 10: get so like different courts betweens, Like some parents lay

900
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:10,320
Speaker 10: their eggs earlier and then maybe like a few weeks later,

901
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:14,160
Speaker 10: another egg laying events, right, and these guys hatch and

902
00:43:14,200 --> 00:43:18,640
Speaker 10: they're smaller than the earlier ones. And for those early

903
00:43:18,800 --> 00:43:23,120
Speaker 10: ones they often get eaten by the older salamon the larvae,

904
00:43:23,640 --> 00:43:26,320
Speaker 10: and because of that, they actually grow a lot faster

905
00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:30,799
Speaker 10: and get bigger, like way bigger than they would without cannibalism. Right,

906
00:43:30,840 --> 00:43:34,279
Speaker 10: So there's the clear beneficial roll of like you now

907
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 10: eating it con specific to get bigger and stronger, and

908
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:40,799
Speaker 10: that's like accelerates growth for a few individuals, as like

909
00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 10: the cannibolts in the system, and they are the ones

910
00:43:43,920 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 10: that then also pose the biggest risk for the tadpolts

911
00:43:47,400 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 10: in the system because that's the other main food source.

912
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 10: And so when you have those giant cannibals in the system,

913
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 10: that select for balgy tadpoles. And so that's kind of

914
00:43:57,360 --> 00:43:58,280
Speaker 10: how to get the feedback.

915
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:00,880
Speaker 1: So why aren't the tadpoles all is bulgi? Is it

916
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:03,440
Speaker 1: just like hard to move around if you're always bulgy,

917
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:05,640
Speaker 1: So you only do it if you have to be bulgie.

918
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:08,799
Speaker 10: I think there's a big investment cost in doing that,

919
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:12,080
Speaker 10: and they don't have to they don't do it. So

920
00:44:12,120 --> 00:44:14,360
Speaker 10: it's kind of like an antipredator response, like once the

921
00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:18,480
Speaker 10: predation is clearly happening, they're like, oh crap, like I

922
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 10: better get boldry fast.

923
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 3: So it's expensive, but it saves your life. Yes, but

924
00:44:24,080 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 3: you don't do it unless you have to exactly excellent.

925
00:44:27,200 --> 00:44:29,960
Speaker 3: So this is something at the cutting edge of understanding cannibalism.

926
00:44:30,480 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 3: Can we zoom out and understand like what are the

927
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 3: big questions remain? Like you're a researcher, your professor, you're

928
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 3: doing research right now in a cannibalism What is like

929
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:39,959
Speaker 3: a big question you would love to know the answer

930
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 3: to about cannibalism, or what are we going to know

931
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:44,880
Speaker 3: about cannibalism in twenty years that we don't know today?

932
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:46,719
Speaker 6: Thanks, I get for me.

933
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 10: What's something we're working on and we currently actually have

934
00:44:49,239 --> 00:44:51,399
Speaker 10: a grant they'd just like submitted to look at this more.

935
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:57,040
Speaker 10: It's trying to understand kind of like what limits cannibalism because,

936
00:44:57,120 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 10: like what I've seen work with a bunch of different spieces,

937
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:03,759
Speaker 10: there a range of cannibalistic behavior, like I said, that

938
00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:07,400
Speaker 10: goes from like the super cannibalistic, right, it's like they

939
00:45:07,560 --> 00:45:10,040
Speaker 10: see another conspasy, they will eat them.

940
00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:13,640
Speaker 6: I merely was one where like it's prutty uncommon.

941
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:16,759
Speaker 10: Even within the same species, you can find populations where

942
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:19,880
Speaker 10: some or more cannibalistic than others, and it has a

943
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:22,520
Speaker 10: genetic component to it, so it's not just like some

944
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:25,680
Speaker 10: environmental media one. It's like it's an inherited trade, where

945
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 10: like some are more cannibalistic, some or less, and we

946
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:32,399
Speaker 10: don't really understand why. And I always like to think

947
00:45:32,440 --> 00:45:36,400
Speaker 10: of this, whereas I said before, catalysm is a form

948
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 10: or the ultimate selfish behavior. And kel I mentioned before

949
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:43,399
Speaker 10: that for like decades people were really interested in kind

950
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:47,440
Speaker 10: of like, Okay, when should selfish behavior move to altruistic behavior?

951
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 10: And we spend on like decades on like figuring out

952
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:52,320
Speaker 10: when vidualism antalism should happen.

953
00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:54,319
Speaker 6: But we don't really have a rule.

954
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:57,880
Speaker 10: It tasts like what should stop being extremely selfish?

955
00:45:58,080 --> 00:45:58,239
Speaker 8: Right?

956
00:45:58,280 --> 00:46:02,200
Speaker 10: Why isn't everybody as cannibalistic as they can possibly be?

957
00:46:02,520 --> 00:46:04,280
Speaker 6: Right? There has to be something that's limited.

958
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:07,040
Speaker 10: And so what we're trying to understand is like, what

959
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:09,680
Speaker 10: are the environmental conditions that can do this? Is this

960
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 10: something that really can go in different ways? And they

961
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 10: are like multiple behaviors that can mitigate the cost of cannibalism.

962
00:46:18,239 --> 00:46:19,920
Speaker 10: We talked about like one big of the cost of

963
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:23,840
Speaker 10: cannibalism is eating your own offspring, right, your own children,

964
00:46:23,880 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 10: because that's a big loss of fitness. You can mitigate

965
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 10: this by recognizing your own offspring, and you can still

966
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 10: be as cannibalistic as you want, right, because then you's

967
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 10: like set off the cost of fitness loss, but you

968
00:46:36,440 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 10: can still remove your competitors.

969
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 6: You can still get extra meals and all that stuff.

970
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:42,799
Speaker 3: And your kids competitors. Right, if you eat your neighbor's kids,

971
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:44,360
Speaker 3: then your kids are like top of the class.

972
00:46:44,560 --> 00:46:47,200
Speaker 2: Right, So many lessons here.

973
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:52,400
Speaker 10: So there are many different ways of like mitigating the

974
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:54,719
Speaker 10: cost of cannibalism. And it's more like so like a

975
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 10: behavioral multidimensional space where you can like just recognize them,

976
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:01,960
Speaker 10: or could be that your kids just get the genes

977
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:03,960
Speaker 10: to get the hell out of here, right, leave your

978
00:47:04,000 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 10: parents as fast as possible and walk.

979
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 6: Away from them.

980
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:09,160
Speaker 10: And then also like the parents can just continue to

981
00:47:09,200 --> 00:47:12,399
Speaker 10: be cannibalistic. Right, So the different behaviors that can play

982
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 10: a role with it, and understanding how they're all interact

983
00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 10: with the jail that to really drive the evolution of cannibalism,

984
00:47:19,280 --> 00:47:21,920
Speaker 10: and then see how that can like explain a lot

985
00:47:21,960 --> 00:47:24,240
Speaker 10: of the variation that we see within and across PCs.

986
00:47:24,280 --> 00:47:25,799
Speaker 6: I think that's a big question for us.

987
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:27,799
Speaker 1: So you said, you've been like beating the drum that

988
00:47:27,840 --> 00:47:30,040
Speaker 1: like cannibalism is common, this happens all the time. We

989
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:32,359
Speaker 1: need to understand it more. Has that message gotten out?

990
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:35,480
Speaker 1: Are ecologists over the stigma? Are more people studying this now?

991
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:37,960
Speaker 10: I think there are more people studying it now. It's

992
00:47:37,960 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 10: like I'm not sure that this is because of me

993
00:47:39,960 --> 00:47:42,239
Speaker 10: or whether that's just well, actually, I'm pretty sure it's

994
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:42,880
Speaker 10: not because of me.

995
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 6: I'm sure there's nothing to do with it.

996
00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 10: I think that the stigma is like seeded in is

997
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 10: just by having more and more studies over the time

998
00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 10: to like look at this. I know that there's been

999
00:47:53,640 --> 00:47:56,440
Speaker 10: like a popular book on cannibalism that came out a

1000
00:47:56,440 --> 00:47:59,040
Speaker 10: few years ago that it was just on like talking

1001
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 10: about the misconception behind and how that's pretty common. I

1002
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:04,359
Speaker 10: don't think it was actually a scientist necessarily who works

1003
00:48:04,360 --> 00:48:05,839
Speaker 10: on it that wrote it, but they just thought it

1004
00:48:05,880 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 10: was a cool topic or something that probably helped too

1005
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:10,719
Speaker 10: to like get it more out and then like public's mind.

1006
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:12,920
Speaker 6: But I think for researchers it's funny.

1007
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 10: Whenever I gave this talk and then talked about cannibalisms

1008
00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:16,520
Speaker 10: and other things, and people would.

1009
00:48:16,239 --> 00:48:17,680
Speaker 6: Always come up and say, yeah, I see this all

1010
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:19,960
Speaker 6: the time and just never thought about it, or like

1011
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:21,440
Speaker 6: what are the consequences?

1012
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 10: And so right post people that work in natural system,

1013
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:27,640
Speaker 10: unless they're work on plans, probably have seen cannibalism at

1014
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:29,560
Speaker 10: some point, Like you said, like or at home, I

1015
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 10: do you see you fish getting eatings and you're like, oh,

1016
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:34,560
Speaker 10: how Colm, I'll never get you know, more guppies.

1017
00:48:34,120 --> 00:48:38,960
Speaker 6: And it's like they're eating ill got eaten up. Yeah.

1018
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:41,680
Speaker 1: One books that cannibalism have the best titles I've got

1019
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:45,000
Speaker 1: is Eating People Wrong, which I found on my husband's

1020
00:48:45,000 --> 00:48:48,080
Speaker 1: table the other day and I got fairly nervous. So

1021
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:49,920
Speaker 1: the children and I you know, went on a vacation.

1022
00:48:50,040 --> 00:48:53,400
Speaker 1: But it turned out it was not about us, just

1023
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:54,680
Speaker 1: for research, just for research.

1024
00:48:56,400 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 3: Well, what about portrayals in popular media? You know when

1025
00:48:59,040 --> 00:49:02,000
Speaker 3: I watch a show and they talk about particle physics

1026
00:49:02,000 --> 00:49:04,279
Speaker 3: and often cringing because they get all the details wrong.

1027
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:07,080
Speaker 3: If you watch Silence of the Lambs or you know

1028
00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 3: that TV show Hannibal was very popular, are you cringing

1029
00:49:09,920 --> 00:49:11,560
Speaker 3: because you're like, oh my god, that would never happen

1030
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:13,719
Speaker 3: that way, or are you just glad to hear people

1031
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 3: talking about cannibalism since it's your position that more people

1032
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:20,160
Speaker 3: should do it.

1033
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:24,239
Speaker 10: They both of this is nolla, right because like all

1034
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 10: the human cannibalism is nothing that I do.

1035
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:32,239
Speaker 6: It's all really like a psychological, mostly weird behavior that it's.

1036
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:35,440
Speaker 10: Not in line with like the natural cannaalistic behavior that

1037
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:38,799
Speaker 10: we see like in these ecosystems. So no, it's like,

1038
00:49:38,920 --> 00:49:41,040
Speaker 10: I don't think they get it wrong because to me,

1039
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:42,799
Speaker 10: it has nothing to do with what I see out

1040
00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:43,320
Speaker 10: in nature.

1041
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:47,120
Speaker 1: All right, So Folka is not saying that any of

1042
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:49,879
Speaker 1: us should engage in cannibalism. No, And I think that's

1043
00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:51,440
Speaker 1: where we need to end this conversation.

1044
00:49:54,480 --> 00:49:56,840
Speaker 10: I feel like we pushed you to like brace it

1045
00:49:56,920 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 10: and adorse it, but like, no, we should study it more,

1046
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:02,680
Speaker 10: not actually do it.

1047
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:05,480
Speaker 3: That's right, right, all right, the lawyers have gotten to

1048
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:08,360
Speaker 3: you both. You're so afraid to say the truth, all.

1049
00:50:08,280 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 2: Right, all right, Well, thank you so much for being

1050
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 2: on the show.

1051
00:50:12,760 --> 00:50:14,920
Speaker 1: You might have noticed I've avoided saying your name the

1052
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:17,200
Speaker 1: whole time because now I'm convinced that I'm doing it

1053
00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:18,640
Speaker 1: wrong and I'm super.

1054
00:50:18,320 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 2: Embarrassed about it.

1055
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:21,359
Speaker 1: But anyway, this has been a ton of fun. Thanks

1056
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 1: for being a good sport about all of the jokes

1057
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:25,960
Speaker 1: that we made and the weird human references that we

1058
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:29,799
Speaker 1: insisted on shoehorning in. And we look forward to having

1059
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:31,360
Speaker 1: you back on the show in like a decade to

1060
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:32,800
Speaker 1: tell us about what you've discovered.

1061
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:33,879
Speaker 6: All right, it sounds good.

1062
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:36,319
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Thanks for the delicious conversations.

1063
00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:47,760
Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by iHeartRadio.

1064
00:50:47,960 --> 00:50:50,520
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1065
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:53,400
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1066
00:50:53,640 --> 00:50:55,320
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1067
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:58,359
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1068
00:50:58,400 --> 00:50:59,360
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1069
00:50:59,480 --> 00:51:01,840
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1070
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:05,560
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1071
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:08,360
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1072
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:09,879
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1073
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:13,839
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1074
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:14,800
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1075
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:17,800
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1076
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:19,440
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