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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to you Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with the second

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Speaker 3: part in our series on the biological prodigy that is blubber,

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Speaker 3: that subcutaneous blanket of the marine mammal world. A lot

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Speaker 3: of ways you could describe as kind of a dynamic

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Speaker 3: beer cooler worn underneath the skin of the whale and

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Speaker 3: seal alike. The interesting way that it's equipped with a

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Speaker 3: hot cold toggle switch that works by opening and closing

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Speaker 3: the inner floodgates of blood. So in part one of

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Speaker 3: this series, we started off by talking about a couple

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Speaker 3: of passages from the novel Moby Dick, One from a

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Speaker 3: chapter about whale blubber, where the narrator sort of does

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Speaker 3: a mental dissection of the body of the whale and

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Speaker 3: then marvels at what he calls this cozy blanketing of

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Speaker 3: his body, the blanket underneath the skin by which the

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Speaker 3: whale can quote be cool at the equator and keep

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Speaker 3: thy blood fluid at the pole. And the book deploys

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Speaker 3: this as a metaphor for a way that humans should

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Speaker 3: be ideally for how humans should try to cultivate a

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Speaker 3: sort of stoicism or a form of mental independence from

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Speaker 3: the influence of outside events. But in the literal sense,

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Speaker 3: this ability to carry your own weather with you is

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Speaker 3: indeed probably the most amazing thing about blubber. Blubber is

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Speaker 3: not just fat based insulation, but highly vascularized dynamic insulation,

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Speaker 3: which can keep the body core warm in freezing waters,

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Speaker 3: but open up those channels of blood flow within the

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Speaker 3: fat to dump excess heat when the whale is hot

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Speaker 3: from warmer water or from exertion.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's no mere coat. If it were a coat,

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Speaker 2: it would be some sort of high tech living smart coat.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, it's like it's cyber. It's very cyber. But

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Speaker 3: in the last episode we also talked about a bunch

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Speaker 3: of the weird fascinating biological characteristics of blubber, its role

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Speaker 3: not just in thermal insulation, but energy storage, supporting fasting seasons,

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Speaker 3: long migrations, and extreme reproductive challenges for some marine mammals.

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Speaker 3: We also talked in particular about probably the blubberiest beast

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Speaker 3: in the seas, would you say, Rob the bowhead whale,

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Speaker 3: which uses thick, powerful walls of blubber insulation to survive

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Speaker 3: despite being a warm blooded mammal in the iciest of

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Speaker 3: polar waters. And we're back here today to talk about more.

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Speaker 2: As promised, we're going to be getting into the culinary

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Speaker 2: uses of blubber a bit here, right.

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Speaker 3: Yes, So if you are not from a blubber consuming

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Speaker 3: culture yourself, it might come as a surprise to you

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Speaker 3: that blubber plays a big role in multiple food traditions

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Speaker 3: around the world. One of the most interesting and important

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Speaker 3: of ways, which is the cultural use of blubber as

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Speaker 3: food known as muktuck, a traditional preparation of whale skin

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Speaker 3: and blubber made by the Inuit and other related peoples

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Speaker 3: of the Arctic Circle. So I've been reading about this

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Speaker 3: a lot today, and it seems like there is a

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Speaker 3: wide variety in how people enjoy muktuck. Traditionally it was

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Speaker 3: most often eaten raw or frozen, and still today it's

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Speaker 3: sometimes eaten raw. I've seen people compare it to, you know,

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Speaker 3: a preparation that's kind of like sushi. You know, you

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Speaker 3: would have these raw pieces of the whale blubber with

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Speaker 3: the skin together, served with a variety of different seasonings

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Speaker 3: and condiments according to people's tastes. I've read some people

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Speaker 3: talking about eating it with soy sauce, some people with

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Speaker 3: HP sauce, you know, the British brown sauce, different types

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Speaker 3: of seasonings people like. There are also recipes for pickled muktuck,

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Speaker 3: fried muktuck, boiled muktuck, aged, or fermented muktuck. The thing

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Speaker 3: that seems to be common between these is the source

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Speaker 3: of the product, of course, which is whale blubber, most

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Speaker 3: often from beluga or bowhead whales. So it's gonna be

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Speaker 3: whale blubber with the skin attached. So that's one thing

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Speaker 3: in common. And the other thing that seems to be

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Speaker 3: common is the way it is initially processed and cleaned

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Speaker 3: after the whale is harvested, and then after that you

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Speaker 3: can take it in a lot of different directions. I

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Speaker 3: was reading a short article in Mashed by an author

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Speaker 3: named Maria Sinto from twenty twenty three that was just

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Speaker 3: mentioning the various different flavors that people said muktuk reminded

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Speaker 3: them of, and the list is pretty diverse. Quote anything

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Speaker 3: from fried eggs to coconut meat to beef jerky and sardines.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a pretty wide ray.

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Speaker 3: So muktuk is traditionally an important dietary source of vitamin

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Speaker 3: C and vitamin D for people living in the Arctic Circle.

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Speaker 3: I've seen some sources claim, or at least imply, I

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Speaker 3: believe inaccurately, that whale blubber and whale skin are the

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Speaker 3: only ways you can get vitamin C in the far North,

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Speaker 3: due to the lack of fresh fruit. From what I

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Speaker 3: can tell, this is not quite true, as some locally

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Speaker 3: available vegetable and animal sources will also supply you with

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Speaker 3: vitamin C. Examples could be algae, berries, meat, and various

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Speaker 3: organs from other animals, including from whales. But it is

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Speaker 3: true that muktuk is a good source of vitamin C,

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Speaker 3: I think, especially in the whale's skin, and traditionally for

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Speaker 3: the Inuit an important one. I was reading a bit

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Speaker 3: about the harvesting of the beluga and the processing of

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Speaker 3: the muktuk from an article from September twenty twenty four

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Speaker 3: hosted on the website of a marine conservation group called

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Speaker 3: Ocean's North, and this article was by an author named

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Speaker 3: John Noxana Junior, who is Nuvi alu It beluga hunter

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Speaker 3: who lives in a coastal hammet called Tukta Yaktuk, which

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Speaker 3: is right up on the coast of the Arctic Sea

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Speaker 3: in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Actually got to this

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Speaker 3: article backwards because I was first watching a video of

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Speaker 3: Noxana showing how to prepare the aged muktuk. So he

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Speaker 3: starts with these pieces of a harvested beluga and showing

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Speaker 3: like how you clean it, how you cut it, and

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Speaker 3: how you soak it to get some of the blood out.

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Speaker 3: You go through these multiple stages of processing and then

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Speaker 3: eventually you pack it with these strips of fat from

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Speaker 3: the whale to age it over time, and it takes

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Speaker 3: a lot of care. And in this post on the

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Speaker 3: Ocean's North website, Noxana talks about inuvialuate beluga harvesting practices

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Speaker 3: for one thing, and how the catch is used to

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Speaker 3: feed the community. So you can use the different parts

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Speaker 3: of the whale for different things, like you can turn

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Speaker 3: the flippers into a grilled meat that he compares to bacon.

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Speaker 3: You can soak the large muscle in this solution to

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Speaker 3: extract blood and oil so that they can be used

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Speaker 3: as meat. And cooking. And this process also includes cleaning

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Speaker 3: and preparing these strips of skin and blubber to be

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Speaker 3: used as muktuck, and also the process of extracting an

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Speaker 3: oil called uzuk, which he says can be used with

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Speaker 3: other traditional foods that they harvest, like caribou and fish.

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Speaker 3: And so there's this video you can look up. I

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Speaker 3: think you'll probably find it if you google, like belugabytes.

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Speaker 3: But this video of him preparing aged to muktuck that's

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Speaker 3: very centered around I noticed making sure that the pieces

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Speaker 3: are clean and that all of the blood has been

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Speaker 3: removed from the layers of blubber and skin before it

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Speaker 3: gets packed in to age and the necessity of getting

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Speaker 3: the blood out. I thought was very interesting because it

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Speaker 3: put me back in mind of some of the biological

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Speaker 3: facts we were talking about in the last episode, the

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Speaker 3: biological characteristics that make blubber unique and so different from

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Speaker 3: other fat, the main one being that it is highly vascularized,

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Speaker 3: so that it has all of this ability to allow

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Speaker 3: throughput of blood for when the whale needs to dump

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Speaker 3: excess heat.

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Speaker 2: That's right again, the idea that is not just not

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Speaker 2: just a coat, but a smart coat loaded with all

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Speaker 2: of these veins.

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Speaker 3: So anyway, if you kind of like me, are addicted

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Speaker 3: to cooking videos and you would like to learn about

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Speaker 3: this subject from that point of view, this video is

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Speaker 3: a good thing to look up. I think you can

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Speaker 3: find it if you google belugabytes aged mooktok m u

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Speaker 3: k t uk and I think this will come right up.

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Speaker 3: That's the title of the video on YouTube. Yeah, and

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Speaker 3: it shows the processing of the whale blubber and skin

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Speaker 3: and how the how it's packed for fermentation. Has a

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Speaker 3: lot of interesting details about the whole process.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I was glancing at this video, and you know, I

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Speaker 2: don't currently eat meat, and I I've never had whale

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Speaker 2: meat or blubber either. But there's something very appetizing about

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Speaker 2: the look of the meat. It has like this really

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Speaker 2: like white coloration. You know, it reminds me. I guess

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Speaker 2: if I'm going to compare it to anything, I would

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Speaker 2: compare it to like calamari, like uncooked kalamari, or maybe

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Speaker 2: I've also seen tripe. I guess it's also this this

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Speaker 2: the same coloration, but it's almost like a You get

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Speaker 2: the sense of almost like a completely clean palate upon

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Speaker 2: which to build some sort of culinary creation.

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Speaker 3: Though I do want to say that although mukduck is

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Speaker 3: clearly one of the most interesting and famous of these

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Speaker 3: blubber preparations as food, it's not the only one. People

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Speaker 3: eat blubber in a variety of cultures.

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Speaker 4: It does.

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Speaker 3: It does seem especially far northern culture is you know,

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Speaker 3: you will see whale meat and blubber in icelandic culture.

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Speaker 3: In I think there are some preparations in Norway or

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Speaker 3: Scandinavia generally, so.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Whale drife proteins have served as an important

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Speaker 2: food source in Norway, i Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands,

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Speaker 2: as well as Japan, going back at least as far

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Speaker 2: as the Joman period, so we're talking twelve thousand BCE.

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Speaker 2: And I think it's interesting because you think about whaling,

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Speaker 2: and of course you can set aside more recent industrial era,

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Speaker 2: essentially modern whaling, and you get into these various indigenous

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Speaker 2: practices and you can still think about them as pretty

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Speaker 2: labor intensive hone skills that were involved to go out

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Speaker 2: and actually hunt and catch these animals and then bring

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Speaker 2: them back for processing. But for a very long time

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Speaker 2: for humans, and it's still this way for various opportunistic

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Speaker 2: non human carnivores. You have the bounty of the beached

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Speaker 2: live whale or a washed up dead whale, which is

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Speaker 2: an enormous caloric windfall. So well, before we humans had

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Speaker 2: the technology and the skills to actually go after many

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Speaker 2: of the whales of the sea, we were taking advantage

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Speaker 2: of opportunities like this. You're out there, you can just

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Speaker 2: imagine scraping together a living perhaps depending on the season,

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Speaker 2: you know, trying to find the nutrients and the calories

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Speaker 2: that you need, and then lo and behold, here is

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Speaker 2: a dead whale, or here's a whale that is yet

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Speaker 2: still alive but is beached, and you don't even have

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Speaker 2: to venture out into the water to take advantage of it.

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Speaker 2: You might have to fend off other humans or other

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Speaker 2: opportunistic carnivores, but you got a shot at least some

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Speaker 2: of that whale, meet some of that blubber.

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Speaker 3: It is not just the sharks and the seagulls that

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Speaker 3: take advantage of a free whale.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you might have to deal with a bear or

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Speaker 2: some other organisms.

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Speaker 3: Oh no, I was referring to us humans, where we

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Speaker 3: benefit as well, but I'm sure other Yeah, whatever is

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Speaker 3: around that likes the smell is probably going to get

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Speaker 3: in there.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, okay.

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Speaker 3: I also wanted to revisit a source that we talked

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Speaker 3: about in the last episode. That was the Biological Overview

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Speaker 3: of blubber in the Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals from Academic Press,

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Speaker 3: two thousand and nine. This entry was written by the

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Speaker 3: marine biologist Sarah J. Iverson. Last time, we talked about

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Speaker 3: the summary of the role of blubber in thermoregulation and

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Speaker 3: energy storage, but I wanted to come back to Iverson's

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Speaker 3: article briefly to talk about the role of blubber in

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Speaker 3: low commotion and moving from one place to the other. Obviously,

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Speaker 3: getting around in water presents challenges that we don't have

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Speaker 3: to think about much on land. A major example here

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Speaker 3: is drag. Drag is the force that opposes the motion

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Speaker 3: of an object moving through a fluid like air or water.

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Speaker 3: Drag is the main reason it's harder to walk through

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Speaker 3: water than it is to walk through air. Though both

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Speaker 3: water and air do exert drag on us, water usually

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Speaker 3: exerts hundreds of times as much drag as air at

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Speaker 3: sea level. Though drag is not static for each type

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Speaker 3: of fluid, it's not just like drag in water is

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Speaker 3: one number and drag in air is another. Drag varies

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Speaker 3: depending on the density of the fluid, the speed you're moving,

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Speaker 3: and notably on your shape, which is an interesting thing.

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Speaker 3: Two objects of the exact same mass and the exact

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Speaker 3: same volume, moving at the exact same speed through the

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Speaker 3: exact same fluid can experience dramatically different levels of drag

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Speaker 3: depending on how their external surface is shaped and which

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Speaker 3: way their bodies are facing when they move. And that

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Speaker 3: might sound complicated, but you can actually illustrate it with

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Speaker 3: very simple examples. The human body experiences less drag diving

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Speaker 3: head first into the water, then it does belly flopping.

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Speaker 4: Into the water.

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Speaker 3: So same mass, same volume, same water, same everything. It's

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Speaker 3: just like how your body is trying, what part of

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Speaker 3: your body is facing, the direction you're moving into the

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Speaker 3: water hugely changes the amount of drag you experience. I

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Speaker 3: assume you have a lot of experience with this in

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Speaker 3: your swimming rob.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean it's I mean it's almost kind

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Speaker 2: of in the background ones thinking when you're swimming laps

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Speaker 2: and so forth. But yeah, I mean you're dealing with

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Speaker 2: with drag all the time with your the shape or

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Speaker 2: the imperfection of your strokes, the you know, whatever kind

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Speaker 2: of swimwear you're wearing, you know, is it something that's

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Speaker 2: form fitting and tight or is it baggy like a

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Speaker 2: pair of beach swim trunks. You know, And then you know,

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Speaker 2: other folks take advantage of it, people who are jogging

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Speaker 2: in the water like they're doing so to use that

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Speaker 2: drag of as part of their exercise resistance.

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Speaker 3: I've never been good enough at swimming that I had

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Speaker 3: that I got to the point where thinking about hydrodynamics

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Speaker 3: made any sense. I never I've always just got the

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Speaker 3: baggy board shorts because like you know, I can't swim

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Speaker 3: good enough anyway that it matters. But I guess, yeah,

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Speaker 3: once you're moving pretty fast and you're trying to maximize

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Speaker 3: how fast you're moving, you really do think about like

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Speaker 3: what you're wearing, whether do you wear do you wear

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Speaker 3: a cap when you swim?

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Speaker 2: I wear a cap, but mainly it's to just keep

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Speaker 2: from having to wash my hair each time. Oh I see,

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Speaker 2: so yeah, I'm I've never been a fast swimmer, so

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Speaker 2: I've never been too concerned with how streamlined I am.

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Speaker 2: But you know, sometimes I tend to wear shorts. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I wear swim trunks when I when I swim, and

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Speaker 2: it can at times you're like, this just seems like

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Speaker 2: an undignified way to do things. You know, You've got

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Speaker 2: like a draw string and you're having to I have

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Speaker 2: to keep retying it, and like so sometimes I feel like,

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Speaker 2: especially as the swim trunks get older and are wearing

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Speaker 2: out and they need to be replaced, I feel like

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Speaker 2: I'm wearing a bag in the swim pool and I

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Speaker 2: think to myself, I should really buy something a little

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Speaker 2: more streamlined and in a way dignified, but I never

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Speaker 2: do well.

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Speaker 3: So the same kinds of considerations that people have in

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Speaker 3: mind when choosing what to wear when they get in

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Speaker 3: the pool trying to swim fast, those same considerations figure

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Speaker 3: into evolution. The bodies of fish and other water dwelling

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Speaker 3: animals are shaped by evolution to maximize hydrodynamics, so that

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Speaker 3: they usually I mean, there might be different considerations in

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Speaker 3: play depending on what your ecological niche is. You know,

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Speaker 3: maybe you're trying to hide more than move fast or

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Speaker 3: something like that. But with a lot of fish and

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Speaker 3: marine animals, the deal is that you want to be

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Speaker 3: able to glide easily through the water with as little

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Speaker 3: drag as possible, allowing you to swim faster or to

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Speaker 3: use less energy and movement. Marine mammals need to maximize

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Speaker 3: hydrodynamics on their external surface as well, and it turns

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Speaker 3: out blubber is a great tool for doing this. This

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Speaker 3: might be counterintuitive to people because you might just think

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Speaker 3: like having extra blubber sounds like something that would slow

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Speaker 3: you down, but no, actually having extra blubber, especially in

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Speaker 3: the right place, can make it easier to move through

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Speaker 3: water by changing your shape to make it closer to

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Speaker 3: the optimally hydrodynamic shape to go diving and swimming. Ierson

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Speaker 3: gives some examples of this, and my favorite one that

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Speaker 3: she mentions is seal butts. So the blubber at the

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Speaker 3: back end of a seal is often thicker than it

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Speaker 3: would need to be for insulation alone. So you know

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Speaker 3: a seal all around its body, it's going to have

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Speaker 3: a layer of blubber. This blubber helps keep its body

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Speaker 3: heat in. It has the right amount for insulation, but

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Speaker 3: then toward the back end of the body, it's got

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Speaker 3: extra Why is this well? Iverson writes that this extra

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Speaker 3: blubber quote serves to taper the animal more gradually than

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Speaker 3: would be dictated by the musculoskeleton. So, okay, you've got

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Speaker 3: the working parts of the seal's body, the bones and

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Speaker 3: the muscles needed for movement. If the blubber just wrapped

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Speaker 3: those parts at an even thickness all the way around

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Speaker 3: the body, what you would end up with is a

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Speaker 3: seal butt that narrows and terminates too fast. And rob,

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Speaker 3: I've got some illustrations for you to look at here

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Speaker 3: in the outline. I don't know if you care to

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Speaker 3: comment on these, but for example, I've got the skeleton

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Speaker 3: of a harbor seal next to a nice fleshy, plump

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Speaker 3: harbor seal with all of the soft tissue wrapped around it.

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Speaker 3: You can kind of see that the full fleshy harbor seal,

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Speaker 3: it tapers nicely, you know, it kind of like narrows

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Speaker 3: to a point, very gradually, going back towards the back flippers.

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Speaker 3: But if you look at the skeleton, you've got like

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Speaker 3: the big rib cage, and then you've got just a

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Speaker 3: very narrow section around the lower area of the spine

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Speaker 3: and this pretty narrow looking pelvis, and then the back flippers.

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Speaker 3: It looks like it would it would sort of bulge

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Speaker 3: in the front and then narrow really fast.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, the image of the harbor seal too. Once

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Speaker 2: we're really focusing in on how streamlined the creature is,

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Speaker 2: I really do get a sense of like a commercial

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Speaker 2: airline looking at it, you know, it looks like like

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Speaker 2: an airline fuselage.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, and even much plumper seals. I mean, you

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Speaker 3: can see some seals that look very plump with blubber,

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Speaker 3: but still they taper at a nice gentle ratio. You know,

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Speaker 3: the way that their body narrows as it goes towards

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Speaker 3: the very end is a gentle sloping down of the

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Speaker 3: thickness of the body. So instead of the way that

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Speaker 3: the seal would taper off very quickly if it was

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Speaker 3: just wrapped tightly around the bones and the muscles, Iverson

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Speaker 3: says that to maximize hydrodynamic efficiency, marine organisms tend to

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Speaker 3: be adapted one way or another to have a gradually

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Speaker 3: tapering tail end, aka the spindle shape. This reduces the

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Speaker 3: wake behind the animal and thus reduces drag. And it's

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Speaker 3: not just seals. Whales, porpoises, and dolphins all apparently use

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Speaker 3: blubber to thicken and gradually taper the tail stock for

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Speaker 3: maximally smooth glide through the water.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and if I recommend, if you haven't had a

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Speaker 2: chance to see a seal or sea lion, especially moving

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Speaker 2: through the water, definitely check it out because it can

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Speaker 2: be quite impressive. I was in Vancouver with my family

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Speaker 2: a few months back when we went to the excellent

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Speaker 2: Vancouver Aquarium where they have different varieties of seals and

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Speaker 2: sea lions that you can observe from above the water

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Speaker 2: and also below the water via some viewing areas. And

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Speaker 2: oh man, especially the stellar sea lions, especially the male

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Speaker 2: stellar sea lions, such an enormous creature and just moving.

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Speaker 2: It's such an incredible click through the water.

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Speaker 3: It's quite impressive, especially at hilarious contrast to how they

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Speaker 3: sometimes move on land. I mean, different seals are different

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Speaker 3: in this sort, but a lot of times you see

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Speaker 3: a seal moving on land and it's it's adorably awkward.

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Speaker 3: It's kind of scooting along, you know, like like you

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Speaker 3: would imagine job of the Hut moves.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like big furry hot dogs kind of rolling around,

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Speaker 2: flopping around. But then when they get and then they

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Speaker 2: can move around. Not to say they can't move in

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Speaker 2: a very intimidating fashion. Yes, on the ground when they

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Speaker 2: need to, but in the water, of course, they're completely.

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Speaker 3: At ease, undulating plump worm sausage, just kind of like

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Speaker 3: scooting around on the beach. But then yes, once they

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Speaker 3: get into the water, suddenly it's totally different story, graceful, rapid,

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Speaker 3: agile movements. They're like, this is a strange comparison, but

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Speaker 3: I think of them flitting around like fairies in a movie.

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Speaker 2: Mm. Yeah, yeah, I've had a similar experience with with

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Speaker 2: other creatures that you think of as being you know,

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Speaker 2: from our terrestrial land based view we think of often

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Speaker 2: we think of sea turls this way sometimes, and I've

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Speaker 2: been in the water where there'll be a sea turl,

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Speaker 2: like a smaller variety that suddenly zooms away from me,

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Speaker 2: and I'm just a little astounded because it moves with

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Speaker 2: such not only speed but ease through the water.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: So that's a big part of blubber in the marine

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Speaker 3: mammal's body. It's used to help shape the body to

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Speaker 3: be its ideal tapering ratio, generally to shape the body

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Speaker 3: for maximum hydrodynamic efficiency. In addition to all the other

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Speaker 3: things we've talked about energy storage and most importantly thermoregulation,

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Speaker 3: but there are a couple of other locomotion possibilities that

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Speaker 3: Iverson talks about in this overview. One thing she mentions

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Speaker 3: is that there's also some research indicating that cetaceans may

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Speaker 3: I think this is less firmly established, it's more speculative,

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Speaker 3: but cetaceans may use blubber as a form of biomechanical spring.

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Speaker 3: So I went looking elsewhere to try to find more

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Speaker 3: detail about this. I found an article in in Science

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Speaker 3: from January two thousand by Elizabeth Panissi talking about this research. Essentially,

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Speaker 3: the idea is studies conducted in trained dolphins showed how

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Speaker 3: blubber may help contribute to a spring like phenomenon that

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Speaker 3: increases efficiency in swimming. So, if you look at a

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Speaker 3: dolphin or a porpoise, the blubber lining in the mid

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Speaker 3: section of the body near the dorsal fin is quite stretchy,

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Speaker 3: but the blubber at the end of the tail is

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Speaker 3: relatively stiff. And remember we talked about in the last episode,

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Speaker 3: blubber has a lot of collagen and elastic fibers that

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Speaker 3: make it much bouncier and tougher than regular fat tissue,

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Speaker 3: and so this article talks about how researchers and Pabst

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Speaker 3: and John Hamilton associated with the University of North Carolina

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Speaker 3: at Wilmington found in this research. I think this was

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Speaker 3: first published in the nineties that when a dolphin swims, quote,

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Speaker 3: the stiffer blubber hardly bends at all, while the blubber

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Speaker 3: closest to the dorsal fin bends quite a lot, reaching

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Speaker 3: its maximum distortion at the bottom of the tail's downstroke

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Speaker 3: and then bouncing back. Because remember, the dolphin's tail does

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Speaker 3: not stroke side to side like the tail of a fish,

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Speaker 3: but up and down, bending like the spine of a

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Speaker 3: land mammal, because of course dolphins ancestors were land mammals.

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Speaker 3: All marine mammals evolved from land mammals, so they still

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Speaker 3: have that up and down flexing spine, unlike fish and reptiles.

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Speaker 3: So as the dolphin swims, its spine flexes up and down,

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Speaker 3: and its tail pushes with these powerful downstrokes and then

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00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:50,040
Speaker 3: flexes back up with the return stroke. And at the

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Speaker 3: extreme of these strokes, it seems some extra energy, instead

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Speaker 3: of being wasted, is stored in the deformation of the

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Speaker 3: elastic mid section of the animal's body, which when it

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00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 3: springs back from the extreme of the stroke, puts that

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00:25:09,280 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 3: energy back into locomotion. So it's of course it's muscle

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Speaker 3: powered undulation of the body where it's flexing and producing

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Speaker 3: these strokes, but some amount of that energy may get

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00:25:19,640 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 3: stored in the elastic tension of the body when it

432
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:25,600
Speaker 3: reaches the extreme and then bounces back, which helps propel

433
00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 3: each stroke. And because of its elastic properties, the idea

434
00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 3: here is blubber itself may be contributing to this. It

435
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:37,479
Speaker 3: wouldn't be just the blubber that is storing this potential energy,

436
00:25:37,920 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 3: but the blubber itself may be contributing, storing and then

437
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 3: releasing some of this energy along with other parts of

438
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:44,119
Speaker 3: the body.

439
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:47,120
Speaker 2: Wow, it makes you wonder where they would be without springs.

440
00:25:49,359 --> 00:25:50,720
Speaker 3: Wait is that an mst short?

441
00:25:50,920 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 2: I think it's.

442
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 4: Gotta be no springs.

443
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, now that don't never wish such a thing,

444
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 2: don't wish.

445
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:05,679
Speaker 3: And then one last thing for blubber and locomotion is

446
00:26:05,760 --> 00:26:09,320
Speaker 3: this one's fairly obvious, but buoyancy. This is a huge thing. Obviously,

447
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:15,080
Speaker 3: marine mammals use blubber to manage buoyancy. Fat tissue is

448
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 3: generally less dense than water, while lean body mass is

449
00:26:18,359 --> 00:26:22,480
Speaker 3: generally denser than water. And then the ratio between these

450
00:26:22,480 --> 00:26:25,959
Speaker 3: two things within your body helps determine how easily your

451
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:30,920
Speaker 3: body sinks or floats Iversen writes quote. Studies have demonstrated

452
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:34,880
Speaker 3: that seals descend faster during diving when they are more

453
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:38,680
Speaker 3: negatively buoyant than when they are less negatively buoyant, providing

454
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:42,640
Speaker 3: evidence that seals adjust to their diving behavior in relation

455
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:47,360
Speaker 3: to seasonal changes in buoyancy. So during the fattening season

456
00:26:47,480 --> 00:26:50,320
Speaker 3: and then the lean season, how buoyant you are in

457
00:26:50,359 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 3: the water will actually change because of your relative level

458
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:58,439
Speaker 3: of blubber compared to the lean muscle and you know

459
00:26:58,480 --> 00:27:02,720
Speaker 3: the rest of the mass of your body. So as

460
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:05,760
Speaker 3: that buoyancy changes, you will also have to go through

461
00:27:05,800 --> 00:27:09,960
Speaker 3: some behavioral changes. But this could contribute to this could

462
00:27:09,960 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 3: be adaptive for the marine mammals in some cases as well.

463
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:26,000
Speaker 2: All right, Joe, well, are you ready to talk about

464
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 2: reptile blubber?

465
00:27:27,440 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 3: Oh? I cannot wait. You told me you were going

466
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 3: to go down this avenue and I got so excited.

467
00:27:32,200 --> 00:27:34,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I didn't know to be excited about

468
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:37,159
Speaker 2: it because I'll be honest, I was not expecting to

469
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:41,720
Speaker 2: discuss prehistoric reptiles in an episode on Blubber because, as

470
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 2: we've been discussing, it's generally considered a hallmark of aquatic mammals.

471
00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 2: But we've discussed convergent evolution before on the show, particularly

472
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,160
Speaker 2: in the way that certain body plans can be found

473
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:57,679
Speaker 2: in both prehistoric reptiles and mammals, birds and fish.

474
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, So sometimes there is a common problem presented by environments,

475
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:06,400
Speaker 3: and different evolutionary lineages get too roughly the same solution

476
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 3: to that problem.

477
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:10,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like if multiple different creatures had to open cans

478
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:15,680
Speaker 2: of beans, they would evolve different appendages that carry out

479
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:19,679
Speaker 2: the same task, and they might appear rather similar to

480
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:22,680
Speaker 2: each other, and then they might have key differences as well.

481
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:26,600
Speaker 2: So you can consider the similarities and differences between the

482
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 2: wing plans of birds, mammalian bats, and reptilian pterosaars. You

483
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:34,840
Speaker 2: can consider the similarities between the mammalian dolphin and the

484
00:28:34,880 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 2: reptilian ichthiosaar. In both cases we see morphology that evolved

485
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 2: to tack all the engineering and life challenges of locomotion

486
00:28:43,600 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 2: through a particular medium. So you know, why not blubber

487
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 2: as well, makes sense, and this does seem to be

488
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 2: the case with ichthiosaurs. So these were the ancient Mesozoic,

489
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:02,760
Speaker 2: largely Mesozoic marine rep tiles whose story so closse closely

490
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:06,320
Speaker 2: resembles that of the dolphin, the descendants of land based

491
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 2: organisms that took to the ocean and evolved into effective

492
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:14,160
Speaker 2: marine predators. Plus again, in many respects, the two organisms

493
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 2: have a lot in common when it comes to general morphology.

494
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:20,280
Speaker 2: Like if you look at even just the skeletons of

495
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 2: a nichthyosar or certainly paleo art depicting them, you get

496
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:28,760
Speaker 2: the idea that, oh, these were reptilian dolphins, these were

497
00:29:28,800 --> 00:29:34,200
Speaker 2: lizard dolphins, you know, And I think the more evocative

498
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 2: imagery kind of captures that. You're like, you recognize the

499
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 2: outline of the thing as dolphin shaped or you know,

500
00:29:42,360 --> 00:29:44,200
Speaker 2: large fish shape. But then when you get closer you

501
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 2: see the differences. You know, you can you can tell

502
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:49,640
Speaker 2: there's something about it that stands distinct from any kind

503
00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 2: of mammalian legacy.

504
00:29:51,440 --> 00:29:54,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is striking how much they look like

505
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 3: whales and dolphins. I mean, we can be aware of

506
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:01,080
Speaker 3: their their heritage if your pitch during something in your

507
00:30:01,120 --> 00:30:04,400
Speaker 3: mind and that doesn't match what you're picturing.

508
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:05,080
Speaker 2: You might be.

509
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 3: Thinking of applesiosaur, which I think looks more distinctly reptilian

510
00:30:11,560 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 3: or more like a dinosaur the ichthiosaur. It has just

511
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:17,120
Speaker 3: such strong dolphin energy.

512
00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:17,720
Speaker 4: Yeah.

513
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, And we know that the ichthiosaurs, this is an

514
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 2: order containing various genuses by the way, we're also warm blooded,

515
00:30:26,400 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 2: air breathing, and that they bore live young, and based

516
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 2: on excellent fossil evidence, they may have also benefited from

517
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 2: the thermal protection of blubber or a blubber like tissue. Johann

518
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,280
Speaker 2: Lindgren from Lund University in Sweden is one of the

519
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 2: prime researchers on this topic, with a big major publication

520
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 2: from this research came out in twenty eighteen Soft tissue

521
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 2: Evidence for homeothermy and crypsis in Jurassic Ichthiosaur, as well

522
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 2: as some more recent publications that have followed up. This

523
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:00,560
Speaker 2: is very much an area of continual study as our

524
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 2: tools and our technology continues to improve in this area.

525
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty two's A review of Ichthyosaur soft tissue with

526
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 2: implifications for life reconstructions published in Earth Science Reviews. This

527
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 2: is one that I looked at more extensively, and Lindgren

528
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 2: and his co authors walk through a number of the

529
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 2: key points here. So for starters, yes, most of what

530
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 2: we know about prehistoric reptiles in general comes via the

531
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 2: inherently incomplete fossil record that consists largely of mineralized hard tissues.

532
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 2: This is like the basic scenario where you go to

533
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:42,920
Speaker 2: the museum and you realize that the skeleton of a

534
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:47,680
Speaker 2: particular dinosaur, for example, is based on a number of

535
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:51,960
Speaker 2: actual fossil bone finds, and then we've kind of filled

536
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 2: in the missing pieces based on other finds and also

537
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 2: just extrapolations about what the rest of its skeletal system

538
00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 2: would look like. However, with the ichtheos are due to

539
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 2: a combination of biological factors, rapid burial processes, and specific

540
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:12,560
Speaker 2: and oxic marine environments, we have some great representation of

541
00:32:12,600 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 2: these creatures in the fossil record, and it includes not

542
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 2: only hard tissues but soft tissues as well, and this

543
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:24,360
Speaker 2: means we're afforded just far more insight into the anatomy

544
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:29,719
Speaker 2: of these creatures and how they lived, of more so

545
00:32:29,880 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 2: than many of the prehistoric reptiles of their age.

546
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:35,960
Speaker 3: The soft tissue prints are a real gym.

547
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Yeah. There's sort of two major areas for

548
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 2: key ichthiosr fossil finds. That's Pasidonia Shale and holds out

549
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 2: in Germany and the Zapota Formation in Patagonia. So the

550
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 2: first ichthiosaur fossils were described as far back as sixteen

551
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 2: ninety nine, and the first known discovery of fossilized soft tissue,

552
00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 2: this would be patches of scaleless skins, were made in

553
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 2: eighteen thirty six. So over time, just in general trying

554
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 2: to understand what the ichthyosaurs were, paleontologists gradually went from

555
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:11,720
Speaker 2: this idea that well, maybe they were sort of like

556
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 2: big crocodiles and they crawled back on land periodically. We

557
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:18,360
Speaker 2: kind of moved away from this to realize that no,

558
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 2: they were essentially like modern dolphins. They lived out in

559
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 2: the water and they were not coming back. They weren't

560
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:28,240
Speaker 2: crawling up on the land of lay eggs or anything

561
00:33:28,320 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 2: like that. But yeah, like I was saying, the fossilized

562
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 2: soft tissue here has apparently been just amazingly revealing, like

563
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 2: to the point where we've had we've had an indication

564
00:33:42,240 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 2: of what was inside of their guts, inside the abdominal cavity,

565
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 2: we were able to tell that, in particular, they may

566
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 2: have lived on a diet of cephalopods. And this in

567
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 2: addition to just a general body outline as well. So

568
00:33:57,080 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 2: when you look at especially modern images of ichthiosaurs, we're

569
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 2: not just doing the exercise that we do with other

570
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 2: prehistoric animals. We're like, Okay, we know what the skeleton

571
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:10,440
Speaker 2: looks like. We're gonna lay some skin over that and

572
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 2: just sort of imagine it. No, we know with a

573
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 2: great deal of accuracy that they were their shape like

574
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:18,160
Speaker 2: the way we think they were shaped. They have this

575
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 2: dolphin shape to them, or the ichthyosaurs might say, well,

576
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:23,600
Speaker 2: that's the ichthyosaur shape, not the dolphin shape we had

577
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 2: it first.

578
00:34:24,200 --> 00:34:25,799
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, good point.

579
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:29,440
Speaker 2: The blubber find came about in twenty eighteen. This was

580
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:33,239
Speaker 2: a specimen discovered in the Hole Mountain area, and I'm

581
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:35,160
Speaker 2: going to read the description of it here from the

582
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 2: paper that the fossilized remains provided evidence of a quote

583
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:45,760
Speaker 2: layer of condensed, densely laminated organic material enriched in hydrocarbons,

584
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:54,080
Speaker 2: including potential fatty acid moieties. Situated in between of phosphatized

585
00:34:54,120 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 2: fibers and overlain by distinct epidermis and dermal layers, and

586
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 2: this the is can tend provide strong evidence that they

587
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:06,319
Speaker 2: were home themic or intothermic like birds and mammals in

588
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 2: order to sustain the high energy lifestyle they would have

589
00:35:10,080 --> 00:35:13,920
Speaker 2: required in the ancient ocean. So again, it's living essentially

590
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,440
Speaker 2: the life of what a dolphin lives today. So it

591
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:18,400
Speaker 2: has to be out there as an active hunter in

592
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 2: the water, chasing after things that are moving around with

593
00:35:22,160 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 2: a great deal of speed.

594
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:28,360
Speaker 3: But that also means it cannot tolerate its body temperature dropping.

595
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 2: Right right, It needs to maintain yeah, right, it has

596
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:35,720
Speaker 2: to maintain quote insulating blubber would have kept ichthiosaurs warmed

597
00:35:35,800 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 2: during deeper dives into colder mesoplagic zones in pursuit of prey,

598
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,839
Speaker 2: but also help them tolerating excursions into frigid waters at

599
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 2: higher latitudes, explaining their occurrence in polar regions. Back in

600
00:35:50,160 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, there was a BBC article about some of

601
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 2: this work by Paul Runken, and it has a wonderful

602
00:35:56,920 --> 00:35:59,279
Speaker 2: side by side illustration. Everyone out there can look this

603
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:02,800
Speaker 2: up at Your Leisure included the image here for you, Joe.

604
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 2: It shows a comparison between matured modern porpoise blubber and

605
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:13,399
Speaker 2: skin and the equivalent from the fossil ichtheos are. And

606
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:15,560
Speaker 2: I'm not going to lie and say that I'm well

607
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 2: versed in interpreting this kind of kind of imagery, but

608
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,280
Speaker 2: it's you know, everything's labeled here, and you know, side

609
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:25,719
Speaker 2: by side, I can see it, you know. And I

610
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 2: should say that the contemporary blubber images remind me of

611
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:31,680
Speaker 2: some of these other blobber images we've been looking at,

612
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:33,800
Speaker 2: particularly culinary preparations.

613
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:36,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder what the what people would say the

614
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 3: ichtheos or blubber tastes like I'm looking at this and

615
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:42,959
Speaker 3: I'm trying to see is there any indication whether it's

616
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:46,279
Speaker 3: vascularized in the same way that marine mammal blubber is,

617
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:49,319
Speaker 3: you know, infused with all of these blood vessels that

618
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:54,360
Speaker 3: can sort of toggle on the blood gates, so to speak,

619
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:59,320
Speaker 3: when the animal is overheating, or whether it's it's less

620
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 3: dynamic than the installation of modern marine mammals.

621
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a lot of these answers. They stress

622
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 2: in these articles that as the tools of molecular paleontology

623
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:12,040
Speaker 2: continue to improve, we're going to be able to tell

624
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 2: even more about a fossil soft tissue fossil remains like this,

625
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:20,480
Speaker 2: and tell yeah, just how robust was the quote unquote

626
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:24,720
Speaker 2: blubber of the achthiosar compared to the blubber of modern

627
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 2: day aquatic mammals.

628
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 3: That we're getting a picture of the blubber of an

629
00:37:30,080 --> 00:37:33,840
Speaker 3: animal that went extinct to this long ago is amazing

630
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:36,799
Speaker 3: on its own. Just that you're getting this level of

631
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:41,360
Speaker 3: granular detail on the soft tissue is pretty remarkable.

632
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:44,400
Speaker 2: Yeah. When I first was doing some searches and this

633
00:37:44,480 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 2: came out, I was like, that doesn't sound right, this

634
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:50,880
Speaker 2: sound this this Yeah, prehistoric reptile blubber is surely not

635
00:37:50,960 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 2: a thing. But lo and behold here it is. Now.

636
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 2: I want to move on to one last topic here,

637
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 2: but it connects because none of this concerning ichthiosaur blubber

638
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 2: is really all that shocking when you consider that penguins,

639
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 2: avian descendants of the reptilian dinosaurs also have blubber of

640
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:23,600
Speaker 2: a sort generally referred to as blubber. But as we'll discuss,

641
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 2: there are some distinct differences between the quote unquote blubber

642
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 2: of the penguin and the blubber of a whale. Joe,

643
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:34,439
Speaker 2: you've seen a penguin before, right, a few times? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

644
00:38:34,600 --> 00:38:37,799
Speaker 2: so you can agree that they have a little bit

645
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 2: of that chalk going on. We've been discussing. They have

646
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 2: a little bit of a blubbery body build that certainly

647
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:46,480
Speaker 2: aids them well when they're swimming underwater.

648
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 3: I mean, we were just talking about the beautiful chonkiness

649
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 3: of the seal earlier and the way that that translates

650
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:57,760
Speaker 3: to actually almost Elvin Grace in swimming. There's a similar

651
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 3: thing going on with the penguin. It's like the bird

652
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 3: version of that chonky grace. And for the record, my

653
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:06,960
Speaker 3: daughter thinks penguins are adorable, and so I think the

654
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:08,240
Speaker 3: chonkiness helps there.

655
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah.

656
00:39:10,040 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 2: Penguins, of course are pretty much synonymous with cold environments

657
00:39:13,560 --> 00:39:17,160
Speaker 2: and cold waters. They of course can and do live

658
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 2: in less chilly areas as well, and also just they

659
00:39:20,520 --> 00:39:24,280
Speaker 2: can live much further north than the Antarctic. One example,

660
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 2: of course is the Galapagos penguin, the only penguin found

661
00:39:27,320 --> 00:39:30,320
Speaker 2: north of the equator, though the waters of the Glapgos

662
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:31,840
Speaker 2: tend to be quite cold as well due to the

663
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:35,360
Speaker 2: Humboldt and Cromwell currents. But on the whole, yes, we

664
00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:38,160
Speaker 2: have a variety of bird here that has evolved to

665
00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:43,840
Speaker 2: thrive in cold and semi aquatic conditions, and you know

666
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 2: it needs to dive into the water and go down

667
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:50,320
Speaker 2: to certain depths in order to obtain its food.

668
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:55,279
Speaker 3: And we talked in the last episode about mammals that

669
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 3: do not have blubber as such, they don't have like

670
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:03,600
Speaker 3: vas uscularized marine mammal blubber, but they still do rely

671
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:07,120
Speaker 3: on a lot of fat as insulation. One example would

672
00:40:07,160 --> 00:40:10,799
Speaker 3: be the polar bear, which, despite some differences, you could

673
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 3: think of as having some ecological similarities to the penguin.

674
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:17,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's very fair. That's a very fair comparison,

675
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 2: and we'll get into exactly how this plays out here.

676
00:40:20,680 --> 00:40:23,480
Speaker 2: I was reading a twenty twenty two New York Times

677
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:26,320
Speaker 2: article titled How Penguins Beat the Heat and Went South

678
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:30,239
Speaker 2: by Jack Demsia, and the author here points out that

679
00:40:30,320 --> 00:40:33,279
Speaker 2: some prehistoric penguins lived in tropical waters off the coast

680
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 2: of Peru. Others had long legs and might have stood

681
00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 2: seven feet tall, but as they pushed south into Chilier waters,

682
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 2: various adaptations kicked into eid them, and we've been able

683
00:40:43,520 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 2: to study these changes by looking at their genes. And

684
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 2: these include the transition of wing into flipper, the increase

685
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 2: of low oxygen tolerance for deeper dies, boosted immunity, and

686
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:03,160
Speaker 2: that ability to pack on blubber or blubber like tissue. Now,

687
00:41:03,239 --> 00:41:07,960
Speaker 2: blubber is not their only adaptation to cope with cold

688
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 2: weather and cold water. And this is where we get

689
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 2: back to that polar bear comparison, because penguins also have

690
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 2: a dense layer of feathers, and they're so dense. If

691
00:41:21,480 --> 00:41:22,759
Speaker 2: you didn't know what you were looking at, if you

692
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 2: did not know that a penguin was a bird, you

693
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:26,600
Speaker 2: might look at it and think of it as fur.

694
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 2: It almost reads more as fur.

695
00:41:28,600 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 3: It doesn't look like feathers to me, at least in

696
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:35,279
Speaker 3: most cases. Maybe in some varieties. But the penguin I'm

697
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 3: picturing in my mind looks fairly smooth to the touch.

698
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:42,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's because of the density, more feathers per

699
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:46,960
Speaker 2: square inch than almost any other bird, layered and oiled

700
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 2: and trapping that crucial layer of air insulation that we

701
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:55,359
Speaker 2: referenced in the last episode. You know that serves this

702
00:41:55,440 --> 00:41:59,959
Speaker 2: is just a little barrier to help keep them insulated.

703
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:03,160
Speaker 2: So and more on that in just a second. But

704
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 2: their circula story systems also evolve to conserve heat by

705
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:10,359
Speaker 2: better warming the cold blood that's returning from their extremities,

706
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:15,200
Speaker 2: and they also adapted to form these rotating huddles which

707
00:42:15,200 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 2: we've all seen in documentaries where some varieties of penguins

708
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:22,320
Speaker 2: will share their body heat but also keep cycling around

709
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 2: so that the penguins on the outside also get some

710
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:29,480
Speaker 2: time closer into the inside. So penguin blubber here. Again,

711
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:33,120
Speaker 2: it's not quite the same, but one of the reasons

712
00:42:33,160 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 2: it's not quite the same is that it's essentially a

713
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:40,000
Speaker 2: second line of defense against the cold right behind their

714
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:44,640
Speaker 2: specialized feathers. So it's primarily the feathers, but then especially

715
00:42:44,719 --> 00:42:48,000
Speaker 2: during deeper dives, this is going to cause this is

716
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:49,840
Speaker 2: going to you know, the deeper you dive, you're going

717
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:52,320
Speaker 2: to get greater pressure, and that pressure is going to

718
00:42:52,360 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 2: collapse the layers of the feathers, and this is where

719
00:42:55,600 --> 00:43:00,600
Speaker 2: the blubber really comes in and does its role. And

720
00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:04,720
Speaker 2: so it's you get into the texture of the blubber.

721
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:08,720
Speaker 2: And actually, you know, comparing penguin blubber to mammalian blubber,

722
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:13,880
Speaker 2: and rather than the sophisticated, fibrous and highly regulated organ

723
00:43:14,160 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 2: that is mammal blubber, penguin blubber is more it's a

724
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:24,040
Speaker 2: little simpler in its structure. It's still it's crucial again,

725
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:26,880
Speaker 2: but it is more of a subcutaneous fat.

726
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:32,640
Speaker 3: Layer, less of the vascularization exactly the tough collagen kind

727
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 3: of meshing.

728
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 2: Right, because they have not abandoned the feathers. The feathers

729
00:43:36,719 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 2: are still doing most of the work.

730
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:41,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you can see that also still with some mammals.

731
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:43,920
Speaker 3: I mean, this is why it's good comparison to polar

732
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:47,399
Speaker 3: bears because some people have said, you know, creatures, you have,

733
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 3: like you know, whales that have fully made the transition

734
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:57,240
Speaker 3: from terrestrial mammal to aquatic mammal, and then you've got

735
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:02,240
Speaker 3: polar bears and that are you know, that are somewhere

736
00:44:02,440 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 3: on the beginning of that journey kind of you know,

737
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:09,400
Speaker 3: they're they're more fully terrestrial adapted, but they they you know,

738
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:13,080
Speaker 3: in millions of years, their descendants could be fully aquatic mammals.

739
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:16,520
Speaker 3: And then somewhere in between you have seals, which are

740
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 3: basically they're you know, they're halfway there to being fully aquatic,

741
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:23,239
Speaker 3: but they still many seals do still have fur, and

742
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:27,399
Speaker 3: that you know, so they're using both blubber and fur

743
00:44:27,480 --> 00:44:30,600
Speaker 3: at that point. But there is an evolutionary transition that

744
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:34,160
Speaker 3: has been documented from fur to blubber in these mammals,

745
00:44:34,200 --> 00:44:35,960
Speaker 3: and so you can see a similar thing going on

746
00:44:36,040 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 3: here with the feathers to to fat.

747
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:41,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it can get reasonably thick. With the penguins.

748
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:44,320
Speaker 2: I was reading the for the Emperor Penguin. The blubber

749
00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:46,640
Speaker 2: layer can be three to four centimeters or one point

750
00:44:46,680 --> 00:44:49,319
Speaker 2: two to one point six inches thick. Now, I know

751
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:51,239
Speaker 2: a number of you are asking, well, what does it

752
00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:53,719
Speaker 2: taste like? Well, I looked into this a little bit.

753
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:57,239
Speaker 2: So first of all, penguin fat can be used to

754
00:44:57,280 --> 00:45:01,760
Speaker 2: create oil, so in the same way that whale blubber

755
00:45:01,800 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 2: has been used to create oil, certainly penguins have been

756
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:07,200
Speaker 2: exploited for the same purpose. But then when it comes

757
00:45:07,239 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 2: to the eating of penguins, just penguin meat in general,

758
00:45:12,400 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 2: they are like basically two ways to look at it.

759
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:16,400
Speaker 2: I mean, first of all, you have the accounts of

760
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 2: Antarctic explorers, and then you also have indigenous practices, you know,

761
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:23,960
Speaker 2: people who for much longer lived within the range of

762
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:29,800
Speaker 2: different penguin species. The Antarctic explorers, the generally Europeans, would

763
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:32,920
Speaker 2: sometimes eat penguin meat out of desperation, but pretty much

764
00:45:32,920 --> 00:45:36,800
Speaker 2: across the board disliked it strongly thought it was oily

765
00:45:36,880 --> 00:45:41,560
Speaker 2: and fishy. Meanwhile, the indigenous groups on the whole would

766
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:44,799
Speaker 2: eat penguin meat as a supplementary but not primary soon

767
00:45:45,239 --> 00:45:47,359
Speaker 2: a food source, and this was due to a few

768
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:52,719
Speaker 2: different factors, slow yield, limited range involved, but also potentially

769
00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 2: taste of versions as well. So I didn't go too

770
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 2: deep on this, but it seems like the best recipes

771
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:01,719
Speaker 2: on either the indigenous end or the European end of

772
00:46:01,719 --> 00:46:04,960
Speaker 2: the spectrum, they all seem to lean heavily on masking

773
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 2: the natural flavor of the meat. So it's pretty much

774
00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 2: always been considered a famine food or supplementary food source,

775
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:16,319
Speaker 2: depending on the availability of other protein sources, with the

776
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:19,799
Speaker 2: eggs being much more desired than the meat of the

777
00:46:20,400 --> 00:46:21,320
Speaker 2: actual bird.

778
00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:24,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, to humans at least, I'd imagine if you're like

779
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:26,760
Speaker 3: a leopard seal, they're great.

780
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:31,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'm about to lean far more heavily on

781
00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:32,640
Speaker 2: the European accounts.

782
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:32,839
Speaker 4: Here.

783
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:37,880
Speaker 2: I couldn't find a good indigenous account of describing the

784
00:46:38,239 --> 00:46:42,359
Speaker 2: treatment or impression of penguin meat. But in this one

785
00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:44,720
Speaker 2: we have an individual who is both a harsh critic

786
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 2: of penguin meat but also perhaps its greatest defender among

787
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:49,640
Speaker 2: European voices.

788
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:53,480
Speaker 4: And I read yeah, And.

789
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:55,880
Speaker 2: I was reading about this in Peter Smith's twenty twelve

790
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:59,080
Speaker 2: Smithsonian Magazine article A Different Kind of Dinner Bell in

791
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:02,879
Speaker 2: the Antarctic. This concerns doctor Frederick Cook, who served as

792
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:06,239
Speaker 2: a physician on the Belgica Expedition eighteen ninety seven through

793
00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 2: eighteen ninety nine. This was when the ship was trapped

794
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:13,880
Speaker 2: in the Antarctic ice, which, of course that means that

795
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:17,720
Speaker 2: it put a great strain on the cruise ability to survive.

796
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:21,800
Speaker 2: And during this time he observed that penguin meat tasted

797
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 2: like quote, a piece of beef odoriferous codfish and a

798
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 2: canvas back duck roasted together in a pot with blood

799
00:47:30,520 --> 00:47:32,360
Speaker 2: and cod liver oil for sauce.

800
00:47:34,480 --> 00:47:35,319
Speaker 3: Is that good or bad?

801
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 2: I think he means it to be bad. And yet,

802
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:41,959
Speaker 2: as the ship's crew faced the as yet not fully

803
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:45,960
Speaker 2: understood threat of scurvy during the harsh winter, he landed

804
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 2: on penguin meat as their deliverer. And I think part

805
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:51,560
Speaker 2: of this too was based on, you know, observations of

806
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:59,360
Speaker 2: how indigenous peoples lived in extreme regions. And so again

807
00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:02,240
Speaker 2: he did not have nice things to say about the flavor,

808
00:48:02,400 --> 00:48:06,839
Speaker 2: but ultimately ended up prescribing it to crew members and saying,

809
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:10,200
Speaker 2: what you need is some meat of the penguin. And

810
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 2: this is where the dinner bell part comes in. They

811
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 2: learned that they could summon penguins and seals to their vessel,

812
00:48:16,080 --> 00:48:20,359
Speaker 2: apparently by playing the cornett. Yeah, and Cook himself wrote

813
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:22,920
Speaker 2: about this, saying, quote, at meal time, a cornet is

814
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:25,799
Speaker 2: used to call them in together. And the penguins, it

815
00:48:25,880 --> 00:48:29,000
Speaker 2: seems also like the music, for when they hear it,

816
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:31,719
Speaker 2: they make directly for the ship and remain as long

817
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:34,880
Speaker 2: as the music lasts, but leave once it ceases. In

818
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:36,920
Speaker 2: this manner, we have only to wait and seize our

819
00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:40,560
Speaker 2: visitor to obtain penguin steaks, which are just at present

820
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:42,000
Speaker 2: the prize of the menu.

821
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:46,320
Speaker 3: That's I'm feeling so many things. That's sad and funny

822
00:48:46,360 --> 00:48:47,359
Speaker 3: and degree.

823
00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:51,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it becomes the prize of the menu

824
00:48:51,840 --> 00:48:53,400
Speaker 2: when it is one of the only things on the

825
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 2: menu obviously, but also yeah, a key to their survival. Again,

826
00:48:57,200 --> 00:49:01,520
Speaker 2: they were consuming it as a survival meat. The author

827
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 2: here of that Smithsonian piece also notes that Ernest Shackleton

828
00:49:06,160 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 2: backed him up on this, saying, yeah, yeah, the penguins

829
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:12,799
Speaker 2: come when you play the cornette, but also observed that

830
00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 2: if you play the bagpipes drives them away. So do

831
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 2: not try and lureen penguins to eat with a set

832
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:20,920
Speaker 2: of bagpipes. That's the lesson.

833
00:49:21,480 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 3: Should we have some kind of stinger or tag for

834
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:29,279
Speaker 3: when our biology discussions inevitably turned to what does it

835
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 3: taste like?

836
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:34,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you know, it's kind of inevitable, you know,

837
00:49:34,880 --> 00:49:37,759
Speaker 2: omnivores that we are. That is one way that we

838
00:49:37,840 --> 00:49:41,399
Speaker 2: have always connected with the natural world. What happens when

839
00:49:41,440 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 2: we eat it? Is it good? Is it bad? Does

840
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:47,520
Speaker 2: it kill us? Does it make us stronger? The answer

841
00:49:47,640 --> 00:49:51,960
Speaker 2: varies tremendously, and you mean to a large extent, like

842
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 2: the human stomach, the human taste buds. These were all

843
00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 2: one of the first laboratories by which we began to

844
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:00,000
Speaker 2: understand the natural world.

845
00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, and as we've talked about in other contexts. It

846
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:08,480
Speaker 3: remains a kind of crude chemistry laboratory for the geologists,

847
00:50:08,520 --> 00:50:11,280
Speaker 3: for the chemists sometimes when they don't have other equipment.

848
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:16,000
Speaker 3: Not recommending people taste things to discern their chemical properties,

849
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:20,160
Speaker 3: but people can do this and do sometimes. Yeah, see

850
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:22,839
Speaker 3: our old Ignobel episode about licking rocks if you want

851
00:50:22,880 --> 00:50:26,680
Speaker 3: to learn. All right, does that do it for Blubber

852
00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:27,120
Speaker 3: Part two?

853
00:50:27,440 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 2: I think it does. Yeah, that's Blubber Part two. But

854
00:50:30,600 --> 00:50:32,080
Speaker 2: we'd love to hear from everyone out there. You have

855
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:36,680
Speaker 2: additional insight on any of this, be it the meat

856
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:41,239
Speaker 2: of the penguin or the blubber of the whale, or

857
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:47,800
Speaker 2: how chonky prehistoric bosrs were, whatever the case, right in,

858
00:50:48,200 --> 00:50:51,160
Speaker 2: we would love to hear from you. Just a reminder

859
00:50:51,200 --> 00:50:52,879
Speaker 2: to everyone out there. The Stuff to Blow Your Mind

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Speaker 2: is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes

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Speaker 2: and Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Wednesday's we run a

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Speaker 2: short form episode, and on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema.

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Speaker 2: That's our time to set aside most serious concerns and

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Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film.

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Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

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Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

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Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

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Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello.

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Speaker 3: You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

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Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.