WEBVTT - From the Vault: Into the Egg Chamber 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.000 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:11.800 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In today's episode 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:16.120 is a fault episode. This originally published on July second, 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:19.400 and it's about eggs. Yeah. I don't remember this one 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:24.960 at all. Um, maybe listeners do. Sometimes I have very 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.760 fond memories of recording one an episode. Other times, Um, 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:30.840 I don't know. It just kind of I have I 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:33.960 have missing time there. Oh this one was fun. Yeah, 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:36.440 it was your idea. Yeah, well I'm not I'm not 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:38.760 doubting that, nor am I doubting that it's a fun episode. 0:00:38.760 --> 0:00:41.599 I just don't remember it at all. All Right, here 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:47.519 we go. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:56.560 of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:56.560 --> 0:00:59.440 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:01.000 And today we're going to reach into a jar of 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:03.760 pickled eggs and and see what we pull out. Yes, 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:07.760 that's right, we are venturing into the egg chamber. Uh. 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:11.119 This is going to be kind of a potpourri episode. Uh, 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:13.560 kind of a you know, a salad bar episode with 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:19.479 with multiple curiosities plucked from the vinegar soaked vat here, 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:21.880 and if everyone digs it, perhaps will come back and 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:26.399 explore more topics along this line. But basically, yeah, we're 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:31.040 talking about eggs, and eggs just in general are pretty amazing, 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:34.759 even in their most mundane form. Factoring you know, into 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:38.880 the equation the more familiar examples of reproduction and cuisine, 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:41.039 you know, I feel like we need to take a 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.759 step back and just consider how weird and wonderful they 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:47.480 are there in the organic vessel. A means for biology 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.560 to leave one being and then develop into another and 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:54.560 then burst free of this protective shell or casing that 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:57.440 has served as its vehicle the egg and way makes 0:01:57.440 --> 0:01:59.720 me think of that quote that we've talked about a 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.560 couple of times that was in Brian Green's book about 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.400 how when we learned to take the water with us 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:09.840 out of the ocean, that's like how organisms move to land, 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:13.239 like you know that where water bags slashing around on feet, 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:15.440 and in a way, the egg is sort of the 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:19.280 same principle. It takes some of the same sustaining conditions 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:24.120 from being within the mother's body, outside of the body 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:26.799 where you can eventually hatch out after you mature enough. 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:29.280 I like that you brought up the ocean here, because 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:32.760 we all of course come from the ocean, that is 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:37.440 the the ultimate origin of of life here on Earth. 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.000 But but in addition to that, we see of course 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:44.040 primordial oceans factoring into various world mythologies, and we also 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:48.760 see the idea of an egg featuring prominently in world 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:51.920 mythologies as well. We see variations of the world egg 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:57.880 in many different myth cycles, including but not limited to Vedic, Greek, Egyptian, 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.000 and Chinese mythologies, and we can we can easily devote 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:04.000 an entire episode just to these varied myths, because they're 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.000 all pretty pretty fabulous. The idea of of of the 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:12.280 universe or some primordial creator being emerging from this egg uh. 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:15.240 In the Greek tradition, it's known as the and it's 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:18.239 often depicted as being kind of serpent bound, this orphic 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:23.200 egg from which the primordial fanniase emerges. Isn't it interesting though, 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:25.520 the way that the egg is kind of a biological 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:29.560 Pandora's box to go to another Greek myth, because you 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.800 can't always tell from the external morphology of the egg 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:36.120 what kind of animal is inside, right right, and certainly 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:38.160 in the case so we've We've of course talked about 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:42.400 like various brood parasites in the show before, including avian 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.440 examples like the cuckoo. Uh and, in which case, you know, 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:48.160 the a mother bird may not be able to tell 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.920 if one of the eggs has been placed into her 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:57.600 nest by another species, the speaking of mysterious and and 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:02.640 difficult to identify orbs. Uh So, the idea that made 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:05.600 us want to do this episode was something that you 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:07.920 shared with me last week. It was a news article 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:12.520 about a really interesting fossil find. This was so. The 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:16.680 article you shared was a June NPR article by Nell 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:21.000 Greenfield Boice, and it tells the story of how a 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:25.760 paleontologist from U T. Austin named Julia Clark was visiting 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:28.960 a colleague named David Rubyl R. Rogers, who works at 0:04:29.040 --> 0:04:32.520 Chile's National Museum of Natural History. And this was back 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:37.159 in and Ruble R. Rogers apparently wanted Clark's opinion on 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:41.279 a very strange fossil in his collection, which had been 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:45.240 found in an Arctico way back in two thousand eleven. Specifically, 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:47.200 it was on an island off the tip of the 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:51.280 Antarctic Peninsula called Seymour Island. And Seymour Island has been 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.039 a rich site for fossil excavations for more than a 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.160 hundred years now. I think I've read about fossils being 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.720 found there in the eighteen nineties. But Greenfield Voice describes 0:04:59.839 --> 0:05:04.560 the fossil that these two paleontologists were looking at as 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.360 more than eleven by seven inches, so it's about twenty 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:11.200 nine by twenty centimeters and of pretty much the exact 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:15.960 size and appearance of a deflated football, except its stone. 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:20.520 Now it's it's petrified, it's fossilized, and Ruble R. Rogers 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:24.200 and his colleagues referred to this object as the thing, 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.320 so you can see why we were intrigued. Absolutely, And 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:31.160 the images that that that accompanied this article of the 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:34.240 thing do look very thing ish, uh it is it 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.560 almost almost looks like it's like a withered face, you know, 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:40.520 kind of like the face of the sorting hat or something, 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:43.600 or what's that the oogie Boogie creature from the nine 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.640 Are before Christmas. I was thinking exactly that, and I 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.479 think that's a really good point. The comparison to a 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:53.559 deflated football or this kind of wrinkly oogie boogeyman face 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.919 is really good because when you look at this object, 0:05:57.400 --> 0:06:00.720 even though it is now fully fossilized, is basically it 0:06:00.839 --> 0:06:04.400 is a mineral product. You can immediately see in its 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:08.960 creases and textures the remnants of what must have been 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:14.880 some kind of soft, leathery membrane collapsed in on itself. So, yes, 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.960 it's mysterious, Yes it's creepy. It is definitely a thing. 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:23.400 But what is it? It's just this strange collapsed, deflated orb. Well. 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:27.480 Upon further analysis, the researchers here figured out that this 0:06:27.760 --> 0:06:32.040 was an egg. It's a fossil of a giant soft 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:36.000 shelled egg from around sixty eight million years ago, so 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:37.880 that this would be just towards the ends of the 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.120 Cretaceous period, near the KPg boundary that marks the end 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.960 of the non avian dinosaurs. And the researchers published their 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.640 findings in the journal Nature earlier this month. The article 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.320 was called a giant soft shelled egg from the Late 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:56.960 Cretaceous of Antarctica, and this is now the largest soft 0:06:57.080 --> 0:07:00.800 shelled egg ever known to exist, and it's uh in 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:03.560 addition to being the largest soft shelled egg, it's the 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:07.440 second largest egg of any kind and known to ever exist, 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:12.360 falling only slightly behind the huge eggs of Madagascar's flightless 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.160 elephant birds, which would extinct sometime in the past few 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:17.680 hundred years. Yeah, we we discussed them a little bit 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:20.920 in our MOA episodes, right, But but even that was 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.240 only a little bit bigger than this egg. And the 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:27.600 author's conclude that this was probably the egg of a 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:33.560 gigantic marine reptile such as a mosasaur, of which adult 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:36.320 remains had been found nearby the same fossil beds. So 0:07:36.400 --> 0:07:39.840 you find adult mosasaurs nearby there and around the same layer, 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.239 it seems like this very likely came from a creature 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.880 like that. And on the importance of this find, Greenfield 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.840 voice in her n p R piece, quotes an evolutionary 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:55.240 biologist from Princeton University named Mary Caswell Stoddard, who says, quote, 0:07:55.240 --> 0:07:58.680 a soft shelled fossil egg like this is a rare gym. 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.040 The lack of soft shelled fossil eggs, which are extremely rare, 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:05.080 makes it challenging to flesh out a detailed picture of 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:09.840 egg evolution invertebrates. This discovery helps provide one critical piece 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:12.480 of the puzzle. So this is important because it gives 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:14.720 us a look at something that we don't often see 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:18.280 captured in fossil form, the soft shelled egg, and it 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:20.960 helps us get a better picture of how exactly eggs 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:24.640 changed and evolved as dinosaurs evolved over time. Oh and 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:26.880 real quick, if you if you're out there listening and 0:08:26.880 --> 0:08:28.920 you're like, okay, mossaur, which one is that put it 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.680 in Jurassic Park terms for me? Well, in the movie 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.000 Jurassic World, that's supposed to be a mosasaur in the 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.160 big aquatic part of the park, or the one that 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.800 like eats an executive assistant or something. Yeah. Yeah, the 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:46.840 really horrible scene in the film where where it sleeps 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.400 up and eats this, uh, this I think otherwise innocent 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.360 character in the film. Yeah, I remember that. That was. 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:54.880 Well I'm not going to get off on all my 0:08:54.960 --> 0:09:00.760 Jurassic World beefs, but that scene felt totally strange. Yeah, yeah, 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:05.120 I agreed, But still great dinosaur sequence. I just wish 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:08.920 she had been more of a villain or something. But yeah, So, 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:11.520 so back to the thing, so that the characteristics of 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:16.240 this egg are strange. Instead of the hard calcified shells 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:20.240 that paleontologists used to believe, we're just the norm for dinosaurs. This, 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:24.120 along with other recent egg finds, for example, from the 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:29.440 genus Protoceratops and the genus um Moossaris, reveals that many 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:33.440 dinosaurs and Cretaceous marine reptiles laid eggs that were like 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.760 this that we're pliable and soft like some turtle species 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:39.920 due today. And it looks like it, just it varied 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:42.520 according to different groups of dinosaurs. So you would have 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:47.199 therapod dinosaurs like the t rex and they would lay calcified, 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.400 hard shelled eggs, and you'd have many saua pods or 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:54.080 hadrosaurs also laying hard shelled, calcified eggs like the ones 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.839 you would imagine from birds or many reptiles that live 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:01.040 on land today. While you have these their animals like 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:06.640 probably mosasaurs, probably Protoceratops, laying softer, leathery or eggs. And 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.680 so the question is why would the egg shell be 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.840 so thin and soft. What's the advantage to that. Well, 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:16.319 one possibility is maybe that's just the way things had 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:19.320 always been, and they would stay that way unless they 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:23.720 were driven by specific environmental pressures to become otherwise, to 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:27.199 harden and calcify. The researchers in this other nature paper 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.040 from this year, the one I mentioned a minute ago. 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.880 It's called it's just called the first dinosaur egg was soft. 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:38.080 They argued that ancestral dinosaurs probably all laid soft shelled eggs, 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:41.360 and then over time, over the millions of years, via 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:47.599 convergent evolution, several different groups of later dinosaurs independently evolved 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:51.840 the adaptation of hard shelled eggs at least three different 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:54.120 times that we know of. So there would have been 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:58.160 just been evolutionary pressure for thicker shells on some of 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:00.920 these other dinosaurs, but apparently not on this one. Probably 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:04.959 not on this mosasaur creature. Uh so, So, looking specifically 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.880 at the thing, the authors of that study in Nature 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:10.600 posits something really interesting about it. They say at the 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.600 end of their abstract quote, such a large egg with 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:18.280 a relatively thin eggshell may reflect a derived constraints associated 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:23.480 with body shape, reproductive investment linked with gigantism and lepido 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:28.040 sarian viviparity, in which a vestigial egg is laid and 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.480 hatches immediately. So we don't know this for sure, but 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.240 what they're saying it looks like here is this was 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:38.400 very likely a creature that laid an egg, but it 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:41.920 was almost a sort of egg assisted live birth. So 0:11:41.960 --> 0:11:46.880 you would lay lay a soft, thin, pliable egg and 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:50.640 then nearly immediately the hatchling would tear out of this 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:53.200 egg sac and escape, and then the egg would fall 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.400 to the ocean floor and collapse. Yeah. All right, yeah, 0:11:56.480 --> 0:11:59.199 I think this this is making sense here because uh 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.040 and you can imagine the world of the mosasaur like 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:05.280 like all aquatic uh worlds. You know, it's it's it's 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:09.040 probably not a really peaceful place. So that uh, that creature, 0:12:09.160 --> 0:12:11.600 that that young ling needs to be highly developed and 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:14.240 just ready to burst out and go, not to sink 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:16.720 to the bottom of the muck. Yeah. And this level 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.120 of maturity at the time of hatching is a theme 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:22.120 that will come back to a few other times here. Yeah. 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:25.960 In fact, our our next example of curious eggs from 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:28.760 the natural world gets into this a little bit. I 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:33.640 want to talk about the eggs of the volcano birds. Good. So, 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.360 uh specifically we're going to be talking about the Malayo 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.960 birds of the You'll find them on the Indonesian island 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.680 of Sulawesi, uh and then there's a smaller island named 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.440 Bhutan where you'll also find them. Uh And uh Sulawesi 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.600 is one of the four Greater Sunda Islands, actually the 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:55.600 world's eleventh largest island. I believe listeners might remember us 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:59.880 from discussing this in the recent episode about archaeological finds there. 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.880 It may push back the earliest date for known examples 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:05.839 of hunting scenes and prehistoric art. Oh. Yeah, and there 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.079 was also a question I think about whether the same 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:12.920 cave artwork in Indonesia depicted theory and thropes right, the 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:17.960 idea of of UH theeomorphic or animal form humans, and 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.440 if so, whether that would push back the earliest physical 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:26.560 evidence we have of fantasy thinking or supernatural magical thinking 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.760 in humans. Yeah, so, as far as I know, that's 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:32.520 still kind of an open question. More research remains to 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:37.760 be UH conducted. But it's certainly exciting. But also the 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:41.400 Malayo bird is rather exciting. I was not familiar with 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:43.600 this creature until very recently, but basically it's a it's 0:13:43.640 --> 0:13:47.400 a chicken sized bird and we had and of course 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:49.520 it lays eggs. And one of the important jobs of 0:13:49.520 --> 0:13:52.640 an egg layer is of course UH to provide for 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:56.400 the eggs incubation. Now, in some cases an egg UH 0:13:56.920 --> 0:13:59.400 may basically be ready to go, like we said, the 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.200 and it comes out. But then other times the egg 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.640 needs to uh be cared for, it needs to be 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.080 incubated a bit longer. And in many cases, you know, 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.560 a bird is just going to use their own body 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:15.640 to incubate the egg. This is the classic scenario of 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:19.480 a chicken, um uh you know land laying on its eggs. 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:23.840 The example of penguins keeping their eggs warm, uh you know, 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.360 by their feet, that sort of thing. It's a good 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:29.440 energy move because I mean, you've got extra body heat 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:31.280 coming off of you, whether you want that or not. 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.280 Why not put it to use exactly? And then it 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:38.920 also opens up the door for various uh additional strategies 0:14:38.920 --> 0:14:42.880 such as again the cuckoo's brood parasites that don't actually 0:14:43.000 --> 0:14:47.120 incubate the egg further themselves, but have another bird another 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.560 species do it through a mix of mimicry and or 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:55.200 threats of violence. But then there are also there are 0:14:55.800 --> 0:15:00.240 sort of environmental engineers animals that use the environment meant 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:04.000 that build structures of some kind to help them incubate 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:06.680 eggs without having to make a personal time commitment of 0:15:06.760 --> 0:15:09.040 just sitting on it the whole time. That's right, I 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:11.440 mean it's almost it's almost as if the bird would 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:12.920 think back, It's like, all right, what am I doing 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.600 Here'm providing heat? Where else can I get heat? Um? So, 0:15:16.720 --> 0:15:19.040 like in Australia, you see the example of the bush turkey, 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:23.280 which actually builds a compost pile that incubates the eggs 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:26.600 via the heat of microbial decay. Oh yeah, these things 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.840 are great. I think some listeners in Australia have actually 0:15:29.840 --> 0:15:32.880 talked to us about them before, regarding them somewhat as 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.200 pests for making giant mounds in their yard and things 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:39.600 like this. But uh, but yeah, the the bush turkey 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:43.120 or brush turkey, these are examples of these megapode birds, 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.640 uh that that are they're sort of like the beavers 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:50.160 of the bird world. Yeah. And uh, you know, if 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:52.000 you if anyone out there, if you, if you like 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.160 like me, if you have a compost, uh, you know, 0:15:55.240 --> 0:15:57.960 spinner that sort of thing, you'll notice it does heat 0:15:58.040 --> 0:15:59.920 up in there. You know, there's a lot of acting 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.400 of it going on inside the compost. When my son 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:04.680 was younger, he would call it the hot hot machine. 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:07.640 And indeed that's what the bush turkey has done here, 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.360 is that it creates its own hot, hot machine to 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:13.320 incubate the eggs. Yeah. So it makes a big compost 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:15.920 pile out of litter and leaf litter and things like 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:17.880 that that I've read. I think sometimes that they can 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:20.200 be as big as a car. Like these piles can 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:22.400 be huge. Yeah, their size, well, I can see why 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.440 it could be in some cases considered a pest because 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.320 it just creates a big old heap. But you know what, 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.080 if you've got a heap in your yard, don't be ashamed. 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:33.600 Don't be embarrassed. Be proud of your heat pointed out 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:36.160 to your neighbors, say, check out that heap. That's really cool. 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:40.200 It's hot. It's the hot hot heat. Yeah. Alright, So 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.560 let's get back to the Malayo bird here um, which 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:48.880 which also has a cool pair of solutions to this problem. 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:52.359 It depends on one of two options for the incubation 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:55.960 of its eggs. Either by burying its eggs in solar 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:58.760 heated sands. So there's some hot sand over here, I'll 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.520 put my eggs in there. Solar power will do the 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.080 rest or. And this is the exciting part, burying them 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:11.480 in geothermally heated volcanic soils hot sands adjacent to volcanic events. Well, 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:14.680 that's a strategy on the edge that that that bird 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:18.399 is living on the edge. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.320 pretty amazing. There's a wonderful some wonderful footage of this 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:23.880 as well, and it's just it's almost phoenix like this 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:27.760 idea right of of of the the egg being deposited 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:32.840 in the of volcanically heated ground and then it emerges. 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.040 Um by the way that the maleos egg is roughly 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.840 watermelon shaped. And I was reading in a two thousand 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.800 seventeen study from Princeton University that was doing like kind 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.680 of an overall uh you know, catalog ng of egg 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:50.960 sizes and game characteristics. They point out that it is 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:55.199 the most elliptical of all Avian eggs. And the idea 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.600 here is that the bird may have evolved to become 0:17:57.760 --> 0:18:01.040 a skillful flyer, and it's egg may also have evolved 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.600 this way to accommodate a streamlined body that is built 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.320 for instantaneous flight. Now, wait a minute, would that mean 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:12.080 the egg was shaped to accommodate the body of the 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:15.320 of the embryo inside it or of the mother that's 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:19.359 carrying it before it is laid. Um, my, interpretation. My 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:23.040 understanding is that we're dealing more with the chick because 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:25.719 the chick when it when it hatches, needs to be 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:28.320 ready to go, because the whole idea of letting a 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.480 volcano incubate your eggs letting a volcano raise your children 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.119 is that you don't have to do anything. When the 0:18:35.200 --> 0:18:40.720 egg hatches, the mother malao is long gone. So yeah, 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:43.959 so the the young male the malayo chick, hatches and 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:46.560 is on its own and ready to fly almost immediately. 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:49.760 And this is actually a very special feature of megapode 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:53.440 birds generally, the megapode. I was just wondering, Actually, everybody 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.240 I've heard pronounced this word says megapodes, But then I 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:58.320 was thinking about the antipodies, and I was like, it 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:03.040 isn't megapades but words. But no, I think it's megapoets anyway. Um, 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:05.320 but yeah, these other birds, like the bush turkey, are 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:10.119 famous for having young that are extremely quick to adapt 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:13.520 to life, like immediately after hatching. They can run around, 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.679 they can hunt, they can fly on a dime. All right, 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:18.639 on that note, we're going to take a quick break, 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:25.159 but we'll be right back with more eggs. Thank Alright, 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:29.240 we're back, So what's next in the egg chamber here, Joe, Well, Robert, 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:31.480 as soon as you suggested the idea of doing an 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:34.920 episode on eggs, my mind instantly filled with thoughts of 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:37.840 Ridley Scott's Alien because I think, you know, we come 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.160 back to this text quite a bit, and I think 0:19:40.160 --> 0:19:43.880 of John Hurt descending into an enclosed pit of these 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:47.240 leathery orbs, and then he comes in closer to get 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:49.399 a better look at one, and one of the eggs 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:53.160 nearby starts to throb, and it's flaps peel back, and 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:55.280 of course we all know what happens next, right, the 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:59.199 parasite and just leaps out, attaches itself to its to 0:19:59.320 --> 0:20:03.080 his face, mobilizes him, and begins putting some kind of 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:07.440 alien pupa in his body. So in Alien, we're presented 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:10.359 with the vision of a sort of predatory egg or 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:14.240 ambush egg, and an egg which opens to unleash a 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:18.920 parasite that requires no additional maturation outside the egg before 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:21.280 it is lethal. And that made me wonder, is there 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:25.600 anything like a predatory egg in the natural world? Yeah, 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:27.960 because this is, of course the most famous example is 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:32.840 Alien BC. Versions of this throughout science fiction, influenced by alien, 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.399 where there's some sort of horrible egg and yeah, you 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:38.959 look at it wrong and it will open and get you, 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.400 or you know, open and dix. It exudes some sort 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:44.800 of a parasite that will creep up on you and 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:48.720 get you. Yeah. Now I couldn't find anything exactly like alien, 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:51.040 but there are some pretty close parallels. In fact, things 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:53.200 we've already talked about a good bit on the podcast, 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:54.600 so we're not going to linger on too much, but 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:56.239 I want to go in a few directions with this. 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.040 One is just to talk about an interesting distinction in 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:03.000 zoology that we've already been coming up against the border 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:08.719 of and that's the relevant distinction between altriciality and precociality 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:12.040 and animals. So, think of the hatchlings of a songbird, 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.080 like like a sparrow, you know, the passive forms. Here 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:19.240 the sparrow, once it emerges from an egg, it is helpless. 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.000 It could not survive on its own. It lacks the 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:24.520 ability to fly, and I'm not sure if it even 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:26.760 lacks the ability to walk really, I mean, it can't 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:30.040 move around much by itself. It certainly can't forage for itself. 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:34.639 Once it hatches. The sparrow hatchling sits in the nest 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:38.280 waiting to be brought food while it matures, and there 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:40.280 there are many animals that are like this, you know, 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:43.560 upon whether it's hatching from an egg or live birth. 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:47.200 Upon being born, they can't really do much for themselves. 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:50.280 They certainly can't move around much, and a species like 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:54.320 this would be called altricial, meaning it's young or relatively helpless, 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:57.520 unable to move around by themselves for a long time 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:01.560 after they're born or hatched. The opposite of altriciality is 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:04.960 known as precociality, and this is from the same root 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:08.000 word is precocious, a word that often gets applied to 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:12.520 like creepily mature human children. Yes, when there's the little 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:14.720 boy who speaks like an adult man and you know, 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:21.359 quite surely temple is is often an example of this. Uh. 0:22:21.800 --> 0:22:25.440 A precocial species is one that matures and is able 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:27.600 to move around on its own and finn for itself 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:31.080 relatively soon after being born or hatched. I think the 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:34.440 most common metric used to measure this distinction is a 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:37.159 movement like how much can this animal you know do 0:22:37.240 --> 0:22:41.040 its own locomotion? And there are some animals that take 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:44.280 precociality to the extreme, and these are known as super 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:48.359 precocial animals. A very commonly cited example is exactly what 0:22:48.400 --> 0:22:52.240 we've been talking about already, megapode birds. Of course, the 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:55.240 megapodes include the malayo bird that you were just talking about. 0:22:55.359 --> 0:22:58.720 They include the mound builder birds like the brush turkeys 0:22:58.800 --> 0:23:01.560 or the bush turkeys, and obviously not all of them 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:05.440 are exactly the same, but megapodes generally, you're going to 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:08.920 see that once they hatch, they're able to see. They're 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:11.479 not born blind. They can see, they can walk, they 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:14.600 can run, they can hunt, they can fly pretty much 0:23:14.600 --> 0:23:17.159 on the same day that they emerge from their eggs, 0:23:17.200 --> 0:23:19.760