Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, it's listener questions.
Speaker 1: That's right, you write to me, I read them and
Speaker 1: then I answer them in that order. Usually, if you
Speaker 1: have a question that you want to ask me, you
Speaker 1: can email me at Creature Feature pot at gmail dot
Speaker 1: com and I will answer them to the best of
Speaker 1: my ability. So, first up is this question. Growing up,
Speaker 1: I knew that typically we see owls during twilight hours
Speaker 1: and or at night, but just recently I had a
Speaker 1: co worker tell me that owls can choose whether or
Speaker 1: not they want to be out during the daytime or nighttime,
Speaker 1: and depending on what the owl the sides, its eye
Speaker 1: color changes. Accordingly, this person told me that daytime owl's
Speaker 1: eye color will be yellow and nighttime owl's eye color
Speaker 1: will be black. Is this true or is it a myth?
Speaker 1: Melissa H Thank you so much for your questions. So
Speaker 1: first of all, uh, you should definitely call out your
Speaker 1: coworker because this is not exactly true, and you should
Speaker 1: call them out in front of everyone and point of
Speaker 1: them and say you lie to me, you liar, No,
Speaker 1: don't do that. So it's not true that an individual
Speaker 1: owl's eyes can change color based on whether it wants
Speaker 1: to be out during the day or night, but on
Speaker 1: the species level, yes, their eyes are different based on
Speaker 1: their habits. So different owl species have different sleep wake habits.
Speaker 1: Some are nocturnal, meaning they're most active at night, some
Speaker 1: are crepuscular, meaning they're most active at dawn and dusk.
Speaker 1: There are only two species of owls who are dire
Speaker 1: all like us, meaning they sleep during the night and
Speaker 1: are awake during the day, and these are the northern
Speaker 1: hawk owl found in the Northern Hemisphere and the Northern
Speaker 1: pygmy owl, a little owl found in Northwest America. The
Speaker 1: iris color in owls tends to correlate to the owl's
Speaker 1: wake sleep habits, so nocturnal species are more likely to
Speaker 1: have dark irises than crepuscular or diurnal owl species. The
Speaker 1: theory is that the dark irises allow the nocturnal owls
Speaker 1: to be more camouflaged in the night, as their irises
Speaker 1: are less likely to show up. While there are nocturnal
Speaker 1: owl species with yellow or gold irises, these are more unusual.
Speaker 1: Researchers have been able to establish a trend amongst nocturnal
Speaker 1: species favoring worker irises, and they believe that the evolution
Speaker 1: of dark irises is likely due to owl species evolution
Speaker 1: towards nocturnality. So it sounds kind of like your coworker
Speaker 1: may have heard this and either it wasn't explained to
Speaker 1: them all that clearly. So it is not a single
Speaker 1: individual owl cannot at will change its eye color, but
Speaker 1: different owl species do have different colored irises based on
Speaker 1: whether they are nocturnal or crepuscular or diurnal. Although there
Speaker 1: are it is certainly not a hard and fast rule.
Speaker 1: There are nocturnal owls who have lighter irises and vice versa.
Speaker 1: But generally speaking, those dark irises really help out the
Speaker 1: nocturnal owls to keep those bright irises from alerting their
Speaker 1: prey that they're coming for them, because owls like to
Speaker 1: be swift and unseen death for many mice. So some
Speaker 1: bird irises do actually change color throughout their life as
Speaker 1: they mature. In some species, young birds are born with
Speaker 1: brown irises, which eventually develop into yellow irises as they mature.
Speaker 1: This is the case for golden eyed ducks, bald eagles,
Speaker 1: and ring build goals. Cooper's Hawk irises actually start out
Speaker 1: as yellow as youngsters, and they turn red as they
Speaker 1: grow into adults. The theory behind this kind of eye
Speaker 1: color change with maturity is that the change in the
Speaker 1: iris may help with sexual selection by being an honest
Speaker 1: indicator of the bird's maturity. But there are some animals
Speaker 1: whose eye colors will change back and forth throughout their life,
Speaker 1: and this is the case with the reindeer. So not
Speaker 1: a bird, a reindeer. Their eyes are gold in the
Speaker 1: summer and blue in winter. The change in their eye
Speaker 1: color is not due to pigment, but the structural changes
Speaker 1: in their timpeedeum, a membrane of reflective tissue behind the retina.
Speaker 1: By reflecting light, it helps amplify dim light, making it
Speaker 1: more likely to hit a photoreceptor cell, so the animal
Speaker 1: can detect light in dark conditions. So essentially they have
Speaker 1: a mirror like membrane at the back of their eye
Speaker 1: that will reflect light back out and that allows them
Speaker 1: another shot at hitting one of their photoreceptor cells. So
Speaker 1: you've probably seen a timped them in the glowing eyes
Speaker 1: of a cat at night. So for these reindeer during winter,
Speaker 1: it's very dark, and so they keep their pupils more
Speaker 1: dilated all the time, and that constant dilation of their
Speaker 1: eyes actually causes ice rain and pressure to build up,
Speaker 1: which is a temporary case of glaucoma. This also squeezes
Speaker 1: the tapped um, which changes its structure, so instead of
Speaker 1: reflecting yellow light, it starts to reflect blue light and
Speaker 1: changes from yellow to blue. We actually talked about the
Speaker 1: difference between pigmentation and structural coloration in the podcast I
Speaker 1: did recently with Daniel Whitzen, a particle physicist, called Physics
Speaker 1: Is Why Nature Is Pretty? I think that's the title.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so you can have these changes in physical
Speaker 1: structure of something like a membrane or a lens or
Speaker 1: or a crystalline structure, and that will actually cause a
Speaker 1: change in how we perceive that color because it will
Speaker 1: bend the light differently, will reflect or refract different types
Speaker 1: of wavelength. So when they have this kind of squished
Speaker 1: tampeedum and the turn due to eye strain, because their
Speaker 1: pupils are constantly dilated, it has changed it such that
Speaker 1: it refracts that blue wavelength rather than that more yellow wavelength.
Speaker 1: So I think that's really interesting, and yeah, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for the question. Even when someone it maybe
Speaker 1: has a here's an Old wives tale or has a
Speaker 1: misunderstanding about nature, usually if you dig into it, you'll
Speaker 1: still find something really, really amazing. So onto question two.
Speaker 1: That's my question too. Song Okay, Hi Katie, thank you
Speaker 1: for your super great show. We and my family love
Speaker 1: spiders and possums, and I myself actually love earwigs too,
Speaker 1: because they're just so cute with their kind of idiotic
Speaker 1: curiosity braveness mixed with how well they take care for
Speaker 1: their littles. I've been fascinated by convergent evolution, especially hawk
Speaker 1: moths and hummingbirds wild that morpholo agically and behaviorally they
Speaker 1: match so well given how far apart they are philo genetically. Wow,
Speaker 1: I can't believe I pulled that word out of my brain.
Speaker 1: I blame your show. So if we found a planet
Speaker 1: that's Earth's twin and has one dominant intelligent technological species,
Speaker 1: would it possibly be humanoid? Obviously science fiction creators seem
Speaker 1: to think so, or they just write about blue women
Speaker 1: because of all of the best actors on Earth are
Speaker 1: already humanoid. Anyways, thank you a million times. I never
Speaker 1: miss an episode. Jan Thank you so much. You're very sweet,
Speaker 1: and I love your question, so it is a really
Speaker 1: fascinating question. Obviously, I've never seen an alien myself, so
Speaker 1: I cannot answer for sure, but I do think there's
Speaker 1: a very good chance of an alien who evolved on
Speaker 1: like Earth Point too could be very humanoid, and I
Speaker 1: believe in the idea that they would probably be a
Speaker 1: terrestrial maybe kind of human ish human adjacent kind of animal,
Speaker 1: if it were able to develop a civilization like we
Speaker 1: have with technological advancements. Now, this doesn't necessarily extend to
Speaker 1: all intelligent life. Obviously, there's a lot of intelligent life
Speaker 1: right here on Earth who don't really have technologies so
Speaker 1: to speak. They may have tools, but not technology, And
Speaker 1: so I can imagine a lot of really interesting alien
Speaker 1: life that wouldn't necessarily have technological advancements, but would still
Speaker 1: be really intelligent and may look completely different from humans
Speaker 1: or anything else we have on Earth. But in terms
Speaker 1: of a specifically an alien creature evolving on Earth Point
Speaker 1: to you know, carbon based life form same conditions and
Speaker 1: evolved to have a technological society, I believe yes, it's
Speaker 1: very likely to be at least humanoid, somewhat human looking
Speaker 1: maybe not exactly like humans, probably a lot of weird differences.
Speaker 1: But here's here's why I think it's likely they at
Speaker 1: least share a few key traits with us. So there
Speaker 1: are a lot of intelligent species on Earth, but there
Speaker 1: are factors that may prevent them from developing a civilization
Speaker 1: like we have. So take octopuses. They are very clever,
Speaker 1: very intelligent, but there are a few issues that would
Speaker 1: prevent them from, say, developing a technological civilization unless they
Speaker 1: went through some pretty dramatic evolution, even more dramatic than say,
Speaker 1: from a primate to a human. So octopuses live in
Speaker 1: an aquatic environment that makes civilization building tasks really challenging
Speaker 1: to impossible, such as trying to create lasting structures or
Speaker 1: fire or agriculture. That's all really really difficult underwater. Obviously,
Speaker 1: you can't even really make fire underwater, and that can
Speaker 1: be really important for technological advancement. And in addition to that,
Speaker 1: octopuses have a couple other things that would prevent them
Speaker 1: from developing a utopian octopus civilization. As much as I
Speaker 1: would love that one, is there pretty solitary. They did
Speaker 1: not evolve to be social, and that is a real
Speaker 1: bummer if you're trying to make a civilization because you
Speaker 1: need help. And another issue is their lifespans are so
Speaker 1: gosh darn short. They usually only live a year or so,
Speaker 1: maybe a little over a year, and they will die
Speaker 1: after reproducing, and it's both very sad and heartbreaking. But
Speaker 1: you also, I think would need a much longer lifespan
Speaker 1: to ever hope to have a civilization. So unless the
Speaker 1: octopus went through some really rigorous changes, maybe even became terrestrial,
Speaker 1: then maybe they could develop into a more society building
Speaker 1: type animal, but it would be difficult, it would be
Speaker 1: a long journey. Terrestrial life, meanwhile, gives you a lot
Speaker 1: more opportunity to create things like lasting structures, to create
Speaker 1: tools that you can store somewhere, and they don't, you know,
Speaker 1: drift away. Um. But why, I mean, we have a
Speaker 1: lot of terrestrial life, right, We have a lot a
Speaker 1: huge diversity of terrestrial life, from flying to slithering to
Speaker 1: hopping everything. So why would a civilization ready animal be
Speaker 1: humanoid and not something like a super intelligent snake or
Speaker 1: spider or a super society of dogs. So having hands
Speaker 1: and the ability to manipulate in craft tools I think
Speaker 1: is really important. If you want a technologically advanced society,
Speaker 1: you can obviously have a social group of animals like
Speaker 1: wolf packs have these complex social groups without having hands,
Speaker 1: but they can't really build things complex tools. Um. Of course,
Speaker 1: there are a few non primate species who can build tools,
Speaker 1: like New Caledonian crows and other intelligent birds who are
Speaker 1: also highly intelligent puzzle solvers and can be highly social
Speaker 1: and are also capable of complex language skills. So it
Speaker 1: seems like birds might be a prime candidate for building
Speaker 1: like a technological society. So why not a civilization of birds? Well,
Speaker 1: I would think that flying is going to get in
Speaker 1: the way of them ever really evolving to the level
Speaker 1: of humans. Uh. While flying is a wonderful adaptation, it
Speaker 1: is a costly one. It consumes a lot of energy,
Speaker 1: and our brains are huge energy hogs. If you want
Speaker 1: a big brain, it's going to take a lot of energy,
Speaker 1: like a fancy computer graphics card and processor. So if
Speaker 1: you want a huge brain that's really capable of next
Speaker 1: level technological stuff, you probably don't want to invest as
Speaker 1: much in flying. And so if you're a flightless bird, uh,
Speaker 1: maybe you'd have a better chance, but you'd still have
Speaker 1: the issue of you don't have hands, you have a beak,
Speaker 1: which you know, birds can use their beaks to develop tools,
Speaker 1: like take a twig and kind of bend it into
Speaker 1: a hook. But that's it's I mean, the the motor
Speaker 1: capabilities of a hand versus a beak are quite stunningly different.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot more you can do with a
Speaker 1: pair of hands to like with one beak. It's relatively
Speaker 1: hard for them to sort of do actions together. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are some birds who can like push their beak
Speaker 1: against their feet or against the ground and get a
Speaker 1: little more leverage. But having those two really motor capable,
Speaker 1: dextrous hands are very very useful for bill holding complex tools.
Speaker 1: So I think basically what you would need for a
Speaker 1: not just an intelligent species, not just a social species,
Speaker 1: but a species capable of building a civilization with technology,
Speaker 1: you would need two eyes. Uh, because having that depth
Speaker 1: perception UM I think is really important to be able
Speaker 1: to um basically build and plan things. I think you
Speaker 1: wouldn't need more eyes than that. You probably actually wouldn't
Speaker 1: want more eyes than that because more eyes, more sensory tools,
Speaker 1: more sensory equipment means investing more brain power into visual processing,
Speaker 1: which takes resources away from the cognitive and social centers
Speaker 1: of the brain. So you kind of you wanna be
Speaker 1: careful about what you are in vesting your brain power in,
Speaker 1: and for a civilization, you need a lot in terms
Speaker 1: of that social and cognitive processing center. So if you
Speaker 1: invest too much in the visual center, you're going to
Speaker 1: have less for those centers of the brain. You would
Speaker 1: also need some kind of complex language. This could be
Speaker 1: achieved through vocalizations. I think it could also be achieved
Speaker 1: through sign language, some kind of visual language that you
Speaker 1: can create signs and symbols really quickly. Um. If you
Speaker 1: have some appendages that would be capable of creating a
Speaker 1: language out of gestures like human sign language can do,
Speaker 1: I think that would be UM. I think that would
Speaker 1: be enough in terms of being able to communicate. Vocalizations
Speaker 1: have the advantage of being able to alert your group
Speaker 1: of danger from afar, Like a lot of primates will
Speaker 1: have alarm cries because there's a hawk above. So that's
Speaker 1: probably the fulness of that is probably why we developed
Speaker 1: a vocalization type communication rather than all humans developing sign language.
Speaker 1: Although sign language is a very it is a form
Speaker 1: of language that comes very naturally for us to develop,
Speaker 1: so you can have there have been instances of like
Speaker 1: groups of children who are deaf, like in a deaf school,
Speaker 1: spontaneously coming up with their own sign language. So that
Speaker 1: is a really innate ability to create a language out
Speaker 1: of whatever tools we have, whether it's vocalization or signs.
Speaker 1: So I could see good arguments for either vocalization based
Speaker 1: language or sign based language in some kind of alien
Speaker 1: species in Earth two point oh uh, chemical communication like
Speaker 1: that we see with ants and many other animals, such
Speaker 1: as pheromones. I'm not entirely sure if that could be
Speaker 1: if that would be enough to develop into a really complex,
Speaker 1: dynamic language, because vocalizations or signs have the advantage of
Speaker 1: being able to like be quickly expressed in real time
Speaker 1: and quickly read in real time, whereas a pheromone is
Speaker 1: kind of a thing you leave out, uh for something
Speaker 1: to happen upon. So you would need to basically be
Speaker 1: able to puff out rapid pheromones and a complex stream
Speaker 1: of pheromones that your conversation partner could quickly detect. And
Speaker 1: I think that's it may be more complex and difficult
Speaker 1: than sale language that is either vocal or through sign
Speaker 1: and so those I think are the requirements for this
Speaker 1: like Earth point to intelligent species? Would this happen? Like?
Speaker 1: Is it likely that you would have another basically like
Speaker 1: civilization building species on Earth point to? Or are we
Speaker 1: sort of supremely lucky or unique? In my opinion, I
Speaker 1: think it's actually fairly fairly likely. I think that you know,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of evidence that brains and eyes
Speaker 1: evolved multiple times independently. We had eyes kind of coming
Speaker 1: up over and over again, uh, and complex brains kind
Speaker 1: of evolving independently over and over again. And so it
Speaker 1: seems like with similar evolutionary pressures, as long as you
Speaker 1: could get life to start on this Earth, which you know,
Speaker 1: may not be a guarantee, but if you could, I
Speaker 1: think it's probably pretty likely you would get intelligent species.
Speaker 1: And if the Earth lasts long enough and evolution runs
Speaker 1: its course, I think having a species that ends up
Speaker 1: uh the selective pressure favoring so much uh socialization and
Speaker 1: intelligence and cognition that you actually start to get to
Speaker 1: civilization levels of intelligence, I think that's pretty likely, if
Speaker 1: not maybe maybe even inevitable. I don't know if I
Speaker 1: would go that far, but yeah, maybe, And you know,
Speaker 1: I think that these earth point to civilization. They may
Speaker 1: not look exactly like us and sound exactly like us.
Speaker 1: I just think they would have some striking similarities. So
Speaker 1: maybe not like a blue human, but maybe they would
Speaker 1: have two eyes. They may actually be front facing eyes
Speaker 1: like ours are, to allow us depth perception for hunting.
Speaker 1: They would probably have a big head and a big brain.
Speaker 1: Maybe their offspring would be born prematurely to accommodate the
Speaker 1: big brain by allowing their skull to kind of be squishy,
Speaker 1: just like our offspring. And maybe they would have two
Speaker 1: arm appendages with some kind of dexterrous grasping ends. They
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to be hands with fingers, but something
Speaker 1: that allows them that fine precision of making tools. And
Speaker 1: would they be bipedal? I mean, I think it's certainly possible,
Speaker 1: because you know, we developed that bipedal walking behavior, probably
Speaker 1: so we could do things like hold our tools as
Speaker 1: we walked. So I would expect there to be at
Speaker 1: least some capability of being bipedal, even if they're not
Speaker 1: always bipedal. Uh, you know, would they be like a
Speaker 1: centaur where they would have like four legs and then
Speaker 1: two arms. I don't know, I think that that's possible.
Speaker 1: I suppose I would think that would make developing a
Speaker 1: sort of immature, big brained offspring kind of more difficult
Speaker 1: to be able to kind of, you know, hold and
Speaker 1: carry something of those proportions. But you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: you know, maybe that would be possible. I I just
Speaker 1: my sense is, and maybe I'm just not being creative enough,
Speaker 1: but my sense is, Yeah, it would be something may
Speaker 1: be similar to us, maybe harrier, maybe less hairy. Lots
Speaker 1: of possibilities for differences, you know, different skin texture, like
Speaker 1: could we have scales, Yeah, sure, I don't know. Would
Speaker 1: we have a completely different kind of vocalization, completely different
Speaker 1: sorts of facial expressions and bone structure? Yeah, absolutely, I
Speaker 1: think that's possible. But yeah, I think there would be
Speaker 1: some really interesting, really bizarre similarities between us and an
Speaker 1: alien species that evolved on an earthlike planet, which I
Speaker 1: think is interesting. Onto the final question of the day,
Speaker 1: not the final question in general, There's always going to
Speaker 1: be more questions. I don't think there would ever be
Speaker 1: a final question that would be sad and bad. It'd
Speaker 1: mean like the universe would implode or we'd learn everything,
Speaker 1: and both of those sound really boring. So yeah, final
Speaker 1: question of this podcast, but not final question in the
Speaker 1: universe gratings. So I've had to limit the number of
Speaker 1: questions to ask from your informative episodes. Otherwise I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure this would be a book. Thank you for doing that.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, but I'm also glad you have so
Speaker 1: many questions. That's a good thing. Listening to the Squid
Speaker 1: Games episode, which I can't watch because it's only in
Speaker 1: subtitles after Colossal Squid, I can only assume there would
Speaker 1: be a kraken. My question is, if there was a
Speaker 1: cephalopod capable of reaching such an extreme size, do you
Speaker 1: think it would resemble a squid appearance, octopus, octopus appearance,
Speaker 1: or a mixture of both. Your fan Dan, Well, thanks
Speaker 1: fan Dan, So interesting question about cephalopod size. The short
Speaker 1: answer is that I believe squid is probably the most
Speaker 1: likely thing to reach crack in size. Now, would they
Speaker 1: reach crack in size, I'm not sure. Um, I suppose
Speaker 1: it's possible. I would think though. It seems like the
Speaker 1: biggest animals in the sea are ones that breathe with lungs,
Speaker 1: like the blue whales, So blue whales have a couple
Speaker 1: of advantages for them in terms of getting too huge
Speaker 1: crack in size, and that is their lungs, because lung
Speaker 1: breathing is a lot more efficient than gills even if
Speaker 1: they are underwater, surprisingly like coming up to surface every
Speaker 1: forty minutes or hour or so to breathe and get
Speaker 1: in a huge amount of oxygen, and diving is surprisingly
Speaker 1: more efficient than breathing water and extracting oxygen from water.
Speaker 1: So they have a lot of efficiency when it comes
Speaker 1: to getting enough oxygen through a massive body. And so
Speaker 1: I don't know if you would ever have a cephalopod
Speaker 1: that and does not have air breathing lungs to those proportions,
Speaker 1: but if you did, I would gets squid shape. And
Speaker 1: so first that is based on the current situation, which
Speaker 1: is octopuses tend to be smaller than squid and the
Speaker 1: largest octopus is the giant Pacific octopus. And the absolute
Speaker 1: largest specimen of giant pacific octopus is ever known was
Speaker 1: thirty ft long and over six hundred pounds or nine
Speaker 1: meters and two d seventy which is wow, pretty big,
Speaker 1: pretty big, old squishy boy. This was a special individual
Speaker 1: though typically Pacific giant op Wow, giant pacific oct jeez,
Speaker 1: why am I pacific? No? Alright, I'm gonna get it
Speaker 1: this time, promise. Giant pacific octopus. Wow, I did that
Speaker 1: Like a champ um. They are typically smaller, about half
Speaker 1: as long in a sixth of the weights, so that
Speaker 1: specimen I described that as absolutely massive. That was a
Speaker 1: unique individual. But because it did get that size, look,
Speaker 1: then it means it's physically possible. So that seems pretty big. However,
Speaker 1: in comparison, one of the largest squid species in terms
Speaker 1: of heft is the colossal squid, which uh can weigh
Speaker 1: up to around one thousand, five hundred pounds and are
Speaker 1: over thirty three ft long, so that's six eight and
Speaker 1: ten meters, so yeah, pretty big boys. A giant squid
Speaker 1: specimen is actually the largest cephalopod recorded that I was
Speaker 1: able to find um. Even though colossal squid tend to
Speaker 1: be heavier on average than the giant squid, uh, giant
Speaker 1: squid tend to be longer, and the largest squid recorded
Speaker 1: was a giant squid specimen, and this was over forty
Speaker 1: three ft or thirteen meters long and likely weighed around
Speaker 1: two thousand pounds or over nins, which yeah, it's pretty big.
Speaker 1: So why do squid get so much larger than octopuses?
Speaker 1: So I think likely their anatomy gives them a leg
Speaker 1: or I guess a tentacle up on being able to
Speaker 1: get that big. So the way to get that big, uh,
Speaker 1: and the evolutionary pressures to get that big would be
Speaker 1: to be a deep deep sea creature, like really far down.
Speaker 1: And most octopuses are not necessarily well adapted for the
Speaker 1: deepest ocean, although there are some, and those that are,
Speaker 1: like the Dumbo octopus, have actually developed fins to allow
Speaker 1: them to move at low energy levels, where a lot
Speaker 1: of squid have fins. Now, this is key because both
Speaker 1: octopuses and squid use jet propulsion to move. That's taking
Speaker 1: in water on through one siphon then farting it out
Speaker 1: and that makes them go forward. But squid also tend
Speaker 1: to have fins that will help them coast along on
Speaker 1: low amounts of energy, and so they can actually be
Speaker 1: more energy efficient in moving over longer distances. And this
Speaker 1: is really important for the deep sea giant squid lifestyle. So,
Speaker 1: like I mentioned just a little bit ago, if you
Speaker 1: want a species to get real big in the ocean,
Speaker 1: usually you want to force him to go deeper in
Speaker 1: the ocean. I mean obviously over you know, evolution periods
Speaker 1: of time, Like you've got the giant is a pod,
Speaker 1: you've got the giant crabs, and these are deep sea
Speaker 1: creatures that to negate really huge. And why does this
Speaker 1: gigantism happen, Well, this is because the deep ocean is
Speaker 1: sparse and nutrition. It's like a big desert, but the
Speaker 1: sand is water. And while you might think that you
Speaker 1: should be small so you don't need as much food,
Speaker 1: actually being small means you have a much more rapid metabolism.
Speaker 1: If a hummingbird or a tiny bat or a shrew
Speaker 1: just skips a few meals, they can die, whereas a
Speaker 1: larger animal like a bear can hibernate through long periods
Speaker 1: of time. And you know or or you know, like
Speaker 1: something like a big snake can eat a meal and
Speaker 1: go for a long time in between meals. So being
Speaker 1: bigger can actually help you have a much slower metabolism.
Speaker 1: So even though you need more food to get that big,
Speaker 1: you can have a big meal and then a long
Speaker 1: break in between those meals. And so that's important if
Speaker 1: you're in a food dessert. Essentially where you may go
Speaker 1: a long time before seeing any food as long as like,
Speaker 1: once you see some food, you can get a good
Speaker 1: amount of it. And because the squid are more hydrodynamic,
Speaker 1: they have those fin lined bodies and they can travel
Speaker 1: longer distances. They can have that sort of lifestyle of
Speaker 1: just sort of carefully casually drifting in this deep ocean,
Speaker 1: and then when they see a fish or even a
Speaker 1: smaller squid, they can eat it, uh and then go
Speaker 1: a long period of time without eating again. Whereas octopuses
Speaker 1: tend not to I think, be as hydrodynamic, they are
Speaker 1: not as efficient and they don't aren't able, wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to travel those long distances as efficiently as say
Speaker 1: in a squid type body shape. So that is why
Speaker 1: I think the kraken would probably be a squid. But
Speaker 1: if you want a kraken, uh, it would probably actually
Speaker 1: need to breathe oxygen, which currently suffle pods don't do.
Speaker 1: So you oh, that's why I think whales tend to
Speaker 1: be the big ones that we find so whale sized
Speaker 1: cracking probably not, but you know, the biggest cephalopods are
Speaker 1: probably going to have that nice like um, you know,
Speaker 1: long distance train like body that the giants would have
Speaker 1: with the fins that helped them coast over long distances,
Speaker 1: so they can get a nice meal sort of just
Speaker 1: cruise for a while and then get another nice meal. So, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, thank you so much for your questions.
Speaker 1: I love them so much. They make me think and
Speaker 1: research and you know, really, I just really appreciate it
Speaker 1: and I love interacting with you guys. So hey, if
Speaker 1: you have a question, you can write to me a
Speaker 1: Creature feature pod act gmail dot com. I'll do the
Speaker 1: answer to to the guests who squawking thing next week
Speaker 1: and so look forward to that. Hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate it. Uh.
Speaker 1: And also thanks to the Space Costics for their super
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