WEBVTT - Blubber, Part 2 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.160 Hey, welcome to you Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:16.480 name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.680 And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with the second 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:24.840 part in our series on the biological prodigy that is blubber, 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.640 that subcutaneous blanket of the marine mammal world. A lot 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:31.760 of ways you could describe as kind of a dynamic 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:34.920 beer cooler worn underneath the skin of the whale and 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:38.440 seal alike. The interesting way that it's equipped with a 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:42.000 hot cold toggle switch that works by opening and closing 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.800 the inner floodgates of blood. So in part one of 0:00:45.840 --> 0:00:48.400 this series, we started off by talking about a couple 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:52.199 of passages from the novel Moby Dick, One from a 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.800 chapter about whale blubber, where the narrator sort of does 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.920 a mental dissection of the body of the whale and 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:02.640 then marvels at what he calls this cozy blanketing of 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:06.560 his body, the blanket underneath the skin by which the 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:10.000 whale can quote be cool at the equator and keep 0:01:10.080 --> 0:01:14.080 thy blood fluid at the pole. And the book deploys 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:17.240 this as a metaphor for a way that humans should 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:20.200 be ideally for how humans should try to cultivate a 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.920 sort of stoicism or a form of mental independence from 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.479 the influence of outside events. But in the literal sense, 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:31.280 this ability to carry your own weather with you is 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:35.319 indeed probably the most amazing thing about blubber. Blubber is 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:41.679 not just fat based insulation, but highly vascularized dynamic insulation, 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.319 which can keep the body core warm in freezing waters, 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:48.600 but open up those channels of blood flow within the 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:51.640 fat to dump excess heat when the whale is hot 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:53.760 from warmer water or from exertion. 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:56.640 Yeah, it's no mere coat. If it were a coat, 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.240 it would be some sort of high tech living smart coat. 0:01:59.600 --> 0:02:03.440 Yes, yeah, it's like it's cyber. It's very cyber. But 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:06.000 in the last episode we also talked about a bunch 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:10.959 of the weird fascinating biological characteristics of blubber, its role 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:15.720 not just in thermal insulation, but energy storage, supporting fasting seasons, 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:20.079 long migrations, and extreme reproductive challenges for some marine mammals. 0:02:20.760 --> 0:02:25.120 We also talked in particular about probably the blubberiest beast 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.280 in the seas, would you say, Rob the bowhead whale, 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:33.000 which uses thick, powerful walls of blubber insulation to survive 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.720 despite being a warm blooded mammal in the iciest of 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:40.080 polar waters. And we're back here today to talk about more. 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.720 As promised, we're going to be getting into the culinary 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:45.560 uses of blubber a bit here, right. 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:49.120 Yes, So if you are not from a blubber consuming 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.040 culture yourself, it might come as a surprise to you 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:56.360 that blubber plays a big role in multiple food traditions 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:59.680 around the world. One of the most interesting and important 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:02.600 of ways, which is the cultural use of blubber as 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:08.160 food known as muktuck, a traditional preparation of whale skin 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:11.880 and blubber made by the Inuit and other related peoples 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.880 of the Arctic Circle. So I've been reading about this 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:16.880 a lot today, and it seems like there is a 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:23.720 wide variety in how people enjoy muktuck. Traditionally it was 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:27.960 most often eaten raw or frozen, and still today it's 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:30.680 sometimes eaten raw. I've seen people compare it to, you know, 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:32.720 a preparation that's kind of like sushi. You know, you 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.400 would have these raw pieces of the whale blubber with 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.120 the skin together, served with a variety of different seasonings 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:43.520 and condiments according to people's tastes. I've read some people 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:45.960 talking about eating it with soy sauce, some people with 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:50.000 HP sauce, you know, the British brown sauce, different types 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.880 of seasonings people like. There are also recipes for pickled muktuck, 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:59.480 fried muktuck, boiled muktuck, aged, or fermented muktuck. The thing 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:03.400 that seems to be common between these is the source 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:06.240 of the product, of course, which is whale blubber, most 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:10.400 often from beluga or bowhead whales. So it's gonna be 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:14.720 whale blubber with the skin attached. So that's one thing 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:16.400 in common. And the other thing that seems to be 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:20.080 common is the way it is initially processed and cleaned 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:24.159 after the whale is harvested, and then after that you 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:26.680 can take it in a lot of different directions. I 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:30.080 was reading a short article in Mashed by an author 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:33.440 named Maria Sinto from twenty twenty three that was just 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:37.599 mentioning the various different flavors that people said muktuk reminded 0:04:37.600 --> 0:04:40.960 them of, and the list is pretty diverse. Quote anything 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:46.120 from fried eggs to coconut meat to beef jerky and sardines. 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.000 Yeah, that is a pretty wide ray. 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:55.440 So muktuk is traditionally an important dietary source of vitamin 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:59.120 C and vitamin D for people living in the Arctic Circle. 0:05:00.440 --> 0:05:03.720 I've seen some sources claim, or at least imply, I 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:09.039 believe inaccurately, that whale blubber and whale skin are the 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:12.680 only ways you can get vitamin C in the far North, 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:15.760 due to the lack of fresh fruit. From what I 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:18.560 can tell, this is not quite true, as some locally 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.240 available vegetable and animal sources will also supply you with 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:27.960 vitamin C. Examples could be algae, berries, meat, and various 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.640 organs from other animals, including from whales. But it is 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.760 true that muktuk is a good source of vitamin C, 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:38.120 I think, especially in the whale's skin, and traditionally for 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.560 the Inuit an important one. I was reading a bit 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:45.479 about the harvesting of the beluga and the processing of 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:50.080 the muktuk from an article from September twenty twenty four 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:53.120 hosted on the website of a marine conservation group called 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:55.960 Ocean's North, and this article was by an author named 0:05:56.400 --> 0:06:01.560 John Noxana Junior, who is Nuvi alu It beluga hunter 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:05.360 who lives in a coastal hammet called Tukta Yaktuk, which 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:07.400 is right up on the coast of the Arctic Sea 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.279 in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Actually got to this 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.960 article backwards because I was first watching a video of 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:19.080 Noxana showing how to prepare the aged muktuk. So he 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:23.480 starts with these pieces of a harvested beluga and showing 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:25.520 like how you clean it, how you cut it, and 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.119 how you soak it to get some of the blood out. 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:31.120 You go through these multiple stages of processing and then 0:06:31.160 --> 0:06:34.200 eventually you pack it with these strips of fat from 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:38.200 the whale to age it over time, and it takes 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.400 a lot of care. And in this post on the 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:47.520 Ocean's North website, Noxana talks about inuvialuate beluga harvesting practices 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:49.320 for one thing, and how the catch is used to 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:52.239 feed the community. So you can use the different parts 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:54.240 of the whale for different things, like you can turn 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:57.440 the flippers into a grilled meat that he compares to bacon. 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:01.640 You can soak the large muscle in this solution to 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.200 extract blood and oil so that they can be used 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:08.640 as meat. And cooking. And this process also includes cleaning 0:07:08.680 --> 0:07:11.320 and preparing these strips of skin and blubber to be 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:15.640 used as muktuck, and also the process of extracting an 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:19.440 oil called uzuk, which he says can be used with 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:23.200 other traditional foods that they harvest, like caribou and fish. 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:25.480 And so there's this video you can look up. I 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:28.280 think you'll probably find it if you google, like belugabytes. 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:33.640 But this video of him preparing aged to muktuck that's 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:37.240 very centered around I noticed making sure that the pieces 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.440 are clean and that all of the blood has been 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:44.480 removed from the layers of blubber and skin before it 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:48.360 gets packed in to age and the necessity of getting 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:51.000 the blood out. I thought was very interesting because it 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.320 put me back in mind of some of the biological 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.440 facts we were talking about in the last episode, the 0:07:56.440 --> 0:08:00.480 biological characteristics that make blubber unique and so different from 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:05.000 other fat, the main one being that it is highly vascularized, 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:08.480 so that it has all of this ability to allow 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:12.200 throughput of blood for when the whale needs to dump 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:12.960 excess heat. 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:16.920 That's right again, the idea that is not just not 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:19.320 just a coat, but a smart coat loaded with all 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:20.000 of these veins. 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.160 So anyway, if you kind of like me, are addicted 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:25.400 to cooking videos and you would like to learn about 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:27.720 this subject from that point of view, this video is 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:29.040 a good thing to look up. I think you can 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:32.319 find it if you google belugabytes aged mooktok m u 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.480 k t uk and I think this will come right up. 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:38.160 That's the title of the video on YouTube. Yeah, and 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:41.800 it shows the processing of the whale blubber and skin 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:45.440 and how the how it's packed for fermentation. Has a 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:47.600 lot of interesting details about the whole process. 0:08:48.440 --> 0:08:48.640 Yeah. 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.040 I was glancing at this video, and you know, I 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:55.560 don't currently eat meat, and I I've never had whale 0:08:55.920 --> 0:09:02.560 meat or blubber either. But there's something very appetizing about 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:04.439 the look of the meat. It has like this really 0:09:04.640 --> 0:09:09.360 like white coloration. You know, it reminds me. I guess 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:11.520 if I'm going to compare it to anything, I would 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:16.800 compare it to like calamari, like uncooked kalamari, or maybe 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.760 I've also seen tripe. I guess it's also this this 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.040 the same coloration, but it's almost like a You get 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:25.840 the sense of almost like a completely clean palate upon 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.520 which to build some sort of culinary creation. 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:31.960 Though I do want to say that although mukduck is 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:34.840 clearly one of the most interesting and famous of these 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:38.240 blubber preparations as food, it's not the only one. People 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:40.520 eat blubber in a variety of cultures. 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:40.840 It does. 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:43.760 It does seem especially far northern culture is you know, 0:09:43.800 --> 0:09:47.640 you will see whale meat and blubber in icelandic culture. 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:51.640 In I think there are some preparations in Norway or 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:54.199 Scandinavia generally, so. 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.120 Yeah, yeah, Whale drife proteins have served as an important 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:02.120 food source in Norway, i Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.080 as well as Japan, going back at least as far 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:08.240 as the Joman period, so we're talking twelve thousand BCE. 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:13.920 And I think it's interesting because you think about whaling, 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:19.120 and of course you can set aside more recent industrial era, 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.240 essentially modern whaling, and you get into these various indigenous 0:10:22.280 --> 0:10:26.280 practices and you can still think about them as pretty 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:33.120 labor intensive hone skills that were involved to go out 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:36.800 and actually hunt and catch these animals and then bring 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:41.480 them back for processing. But for a very long time 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.520 for humans, and it's still this way for various opportunistic 0:10:44.640 --> 0:10:49.560 non human carnivores. You have the bounty of the beached 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:53.240 live whale or a washed up dead whale, which is 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:58.240 an enormous caloric windfall. So well, before we humans had 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:00.800 the technology and the skills to actually go after many 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:04.000 of the whales of the sea, we were taking advantage 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.520 of opportunities like this. You're out there, you can just 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:11.080 imagine scraping together a living perhaps depending on the season, 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.160 you know, trying to find the nutrients and the calories 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:18.000 that you need, and then lo and behold, here is 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.600 a dead whale, or here's a whale that is yet 0:11:20.640 --> 0:11:23.680 still alive but is beached, and you don't even have 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.199 to venture out into the water to take advantage of it. 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.080 You might have to fend off other humans or other 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:32.880 opportunistic carnivores, but you got a shot at least some 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:34.760 of that whale, meet some of that blubber. 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:37.760 It is not just the sharks and the seagulls that 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:39.320 take advantage of a free whale. 0:11:39.800 --> 0:11:41.679 Yeah, you might have to deal with a bear or 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:43.839 some other organisms. 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.440 Oh no, I was referring to us humans, where we 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:48.839 benefit as well, but I'm sure other Yeah, whatever is 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.040 around that likes the smell is probably going to get 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:51.400 in there. 0:11:51.800 --> 0:12:02.440 Yeah, okay. 0:12:02.520 --> 0:12:05.640 I also wanted to revisit a source that we talked 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:10.079 about in the last episode. That was the Biological Overview 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.120 of blubber in the Encyclopedia of Marine Mammals from Academic Press, 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.440 two thousand and nine. This entry was written by the 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:21.120 marine biologist Sarah J. Iverson. Last time, we talked about 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.560 the summary of the role of blubber in thermoregulation and 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.800 energy storage, but I wanted to come back to Iverson's 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.839 article briefly to talk about the role of blubber in 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:36.440 low commotion and moving from one place to the other. Obviously, 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:41.360 getting around in water presents challenges that we don't have 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:45.000 to think about much on land. A major example here 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:50.240 is drag. Drag is the force that opposes the motion 0:12:50.400 --> 0:12:54.000 of an object moving through a fluid like air or water. 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:58.240 Drag is the main reason it's harder to walk through 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.120 water than it is to walk through air. Though both 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:04.920 water and air do exert drag on us, water usually 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:08.080 exerts hundreds of times as much drag as air at 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:11.600 sea level. Though drag is not static for each type 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.080 of fluid, it's not just like drag in water is 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:18.079 one number and drag in air is another. Drag varies 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:21.960 depending on the density of the fluid, the speed you're moving, 0:13:22.480 --> 0:13:27.320 and notably on your shape, which is an interesting thing. 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:32.160 Two objects of the exact same mass and the exact 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:36.760 same volume, moving at the exact same speed through the 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:41.680 exact same fluid can experience dramatically different levels of drag 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:47.280 depending on how their external surface is shaped and which 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:51.760 way their bodies are facing when they move. And that 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.360 might sound complicated, but you can actually illustrate it with 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:59.680 very simple examples. The human body experiences less drag diving 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.520 head first into the water, then it does belly flopping. 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:03.760 Into the water. 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:08.240 So same mass, same volume, same water, same everything. It's 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:11.120 just like how your body is trying, what part of 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:14.000 your body is facing, the direction you're moving into the 0:14:14.040 --> 0:14:18.400 water hugely changes the amount of drag you experience. I 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:20.360 assume you have a lot of experience with this in 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:21.480 your swimming rob. 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:24.360 Oh yeah, I mean it's I mean it's almost kind 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.600 of in the background ones thinking when you're swimming laps 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:29.560 and so forth. But yeah, I mean you're dealing with 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:33.280 with drag all the time with your the shape or 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:37.000 the imperfection of your strokes, the you know, whatever kind 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.080 of swimwear you're wearing, you know, is it something that's 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:44.080 form fitting and tight or is it baggy like a 0:14:44.120 --> 0:14:47.560 pair of beach swim trunks. You know, And then you know, 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.000 other folks take advantage of it, people who are jogging 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.560 in the water like they're doing so to use that 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:56.760 drag of as part of their exercise resistance. 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.920 I've never been good enough at swimming that I had 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.640 that I got to the point where thinking about hydrodynamics 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.560 made any sense. I never I've always just got the 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:08.840 baggy board shorts because like you know, I can't swim 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:11.720 good enough anyway that it matters. But I guess, yeah, 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.680 once you're moving pretty fast and you're trying to maximize 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:16.520 how fast you're moving, you really do think about like 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:18.520 what you're wearing, whether do you wear do you wear 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:19.400 a cap when you swim? 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:22.600 I wear a cap, but mainly it's to just keep 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:25.080 from having to wash my hair each time. Oh I see, 0:15:25.280 --> 0:15:28.240 so yeah, I'm I've never been a fast swimmer, so 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:31.480 I've never been too concerned with how streamlined I am. 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.600 But you know, sometimes I tend to wear shorts. I mean, 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:38.200 I wear swim trunks when I when I swim, and 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:41.280 it can at times you're like, this just seems like 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:43.280 an undignified way to do things. You know, You've got 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:45.840 like a draw string and you're having to I have 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:49.040 to keep retying it, and like so sometimes I feel like, 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:51.640 especially as the swim trunks get older and are wearing 0:15:51.680 --> 0:15:53.480 out and they need to be replaced, I feel like 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:57.080 I'm wearing a bag in the swim pool and I 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:59.680 think to myself, I should really buy something a little 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.880 more streamlined and in a way dignified, but I never 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:04.000 do well. 0:16:04.440 --> 0:16:07.360 So the same kinds of considerations that people have in 0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:10.080 mind when choosing what to wear when they get in 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:14.400 the pool trying to swim fast, those same considerations figure 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:18.120 into evolution. The bodies of fish and other water dwelling 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:22.800 animals are shaped by evolution to maximize hydrodynamics, so that 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.720 they usually I mean, there might be different considerations in 0:16:25.800 --> 0:16:28.280 play depending on what your ecological niche is. You know, 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.080 maybe you're trying to hide more than move fast or 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:32.960 something like that. But with a lot of fish and 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.360 marine animals, the deal is that you want to be 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.200 able to glide easily through the water with as little 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.280 drag as possible, allowing you to swim faster or to 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:48.000 use less energy and movement. Marine mammals need to maximize 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:52.480 hydrodynamics on their external surface as well, and it turns 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:56.280 out blubber is a great tool for doing this. This 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.600 might be counterintuitive to people because you might just think 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:04.280 like having extra blubber sounds like something that would slow 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:08.639 you down, but no, actually having extra blubber, especially in 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.920 the right place, can make it easier to move through 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.679 water by changing your shape to make it closer to 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:21.200 the optimally hydrodynamic shape to go diving and swimming. Ierson 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:24.239 gives some examples of this, and my favorite one that 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:29.000 she mentions is seal butts. So the blubber at the 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:33.439 back end of a seal is often thicker than it 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.960 would need to be for insulation alone. So you know 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.280 a seal all around its body, it's going to have 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:42.880 a layer of blubber. This blubber helps keep its body 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:45.000 heat in. It has the right amount for insulation, but 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:47.520 then toward the back end of the body, it's got 0:17:47.560 --> 0:17:51.720 extra Why is this well? Iverson writes that this extra 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:56.680 blubber quote serves to taper the animal more gradually than 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:01.680 would be dictated by the musculoskeleton. So, okay, you've got 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:04.960 the working parts of the seal's body, the bones and 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:09.040 the muscles needed for movement. If the blubber just wrapped 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.399 those parts at an even thickness all the way around 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:16.080 the body, what you would end up with is a 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:20.680 seal butt that narrows and terminates too fast. And rob, 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:22.760 I've got some illustrations for you to look at here 0:18:22.800 --> 0:18:24.600 in the outline. I don't know if you care to 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:28.040 comment on these, but for example, I've got the skeleton 0:18:28.119 --> 0:18:32.000 of a harbor seal next to a nice fleshy, plump 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:35.159 harbor seal with all of the soft tissue wrapped around it. 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:39.879 You can kind of see that the full fleshy harbor seal, 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:43.320 it tapers nicely, you know, it kind of like narrows 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:46.840 to a point, very gradually, going back towards the back flippers. 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.320 But if you look at the skeleton, you've got like 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:51.520 the big rib cage, and then you've got just a 0:18:51.640 --> 0:18:55.000 very narrow section around the lower area of the spine 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:58.480 and this pretty narrow looking pelvis, and then the back flippers. 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:00.639 It looks like it would it would sort of bulge 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:02.920 in the front and then narrow really fast. 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:07.480 Yeah. Absolutely, the image of the harbor seal too. Once 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.600 we're really focusing in on how streamlined the creature is, 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.480 I really do get a sense of like a commercial 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:15.760 airline looking at it, you know, it looks like like 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:16.920 an airline fuselage. 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:20.320 Yeah, exactly, and even much plumper seals. I mean, you 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:22.880 can see some seals that look very plump with blubber, 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:27.639 but still they taper at a nice gentle ratio. You know, 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:30.480 the way that their body narrows as it goes towards 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:33.280 the very end is a gentle sloping down of the 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:38.960 thickness of the body. So instead of the way that 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.760 the seal would taper off very quickly if it was 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:45.320 just wrapped tightly around the bones and the muscles, Iverson 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:49.719 says that to maximize hydrodynamic efficiency, marine organisms tend to 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.840 be adapted one way or another to have a gradually 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:58.919 tapering tail end, aka the spindle shape. This reduces the 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:02.800 wake behind the animal and thus reduces drag. And it's 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:07.080 not just seals. Whales, porpoises, and dolphins all apparently use 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:11.919 blubber to thicken and gradually taper the tail stock for 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:14.679 maximally smooth glide through the water. 0:20:15.400 --> 0:20:18.639 Yeah, and if I recommend, if you haven't had a 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:22.840 chance to see a seal or sea lion, especially moving 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:26.919 through the water, definitely check it out because it can 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:29.800 be quite impressive. I was in Vancouver with my family 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:31.439 a few months back when we went to the excellent 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.280 Vancouver Aquarium where they have different varieties of seals and 0:20:35.320 --> 0:20:38.639 sea lions that you can observe from above the water 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:42.760 and also below the water via some viewing areas. And 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:46.520 oh man, especially the stellar sea lions, especially the male 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.679 stellar sea lions, such an enormous creature and just moving. 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:51.840 It's such an incredible click through the water. 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:56.720 It's quite impressive, especially at hilarious contrast to how they 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.560 sometimes move on land. I mean, different seals are different 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:01.160 in this sort, but a lot of times you see 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:04.560 a seal moving on land and it's it's adorably awkward. 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.240 It's kind of scooting along, you know, like like you 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:09.080 would imagine job of the Hut moves. 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:12.679 Yeah, there's like big furry hot dogs kind of rolling around, 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.000 flopping around. But then when they get and then they 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:19.040 can move around. Not to say they can't move in 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:23.600 a very intimidating fashion. Yes, on the ground when they 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.200 need to, but in the water, of course, they're completely. 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:29.560 At ease, undulating plump worm sausage, just kind of like 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:32.239 scooting around on the beach. But then yes, once they 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:37.440 get into the water, suddenly it's totally different story, graceful, rapid, 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:42.040 agile movements. They're like, this is a strange comparison, but 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:44.760 I think of them flitting around like fairies in a movie. 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:49.040 Mm. Yeah, yeah, I've had a similar experience with with 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:51.280 other creatures that you think of as being you know, 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:56.160 from our terrestrial land based view we think of often 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:58.160 we think of sea turls this way sometimes, and I've 0:21:58.160 --> 0:21:59.879 been in the water where there'll be a sea turl, 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.399 like a smaller variety that suddenly zooms away from me, 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:06.639 and I'm just a little astounded because it moves with 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:09.240 such not only speed but ease through the water. 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:09.960 Yeah. 0:22:10.359 --> 0:22:14.000 So that's a big part of blubber in the marine 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:18.199 mammal's body. It's used to help shape the body to 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:22.359 be its ideal tapering ratio, generally to shape the body 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:26.040 for maximum hydrodynamic efficiency. In addition to all the other 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:29.240 things we've talked about energy storage and most importantly thermoregulation, 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:34.159 but there are a couple of other locomotion possibilities that 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:39.000 Iverson talks about in this overview. One thing she mentions 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:43.920 is that there's also some research indicating that cetaceans may 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:47.880 I think this is less firmly established, it's more speculative, 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:54.360 but cetaceans may use blubber as a form of biomechanical spring. 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:57.120 So I went looking elsewhere to try to find more 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:00.640 detail about this. I found an article in in Science 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:05.400 from January two thousand by Elizabeth Panissi talking about this research. Essentially, 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:10.560 the idea is studies conducted in trained dolphins showed how 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:15.040 blubber may help contribute to a spring like phenomenon that 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:19.320 increases efficiency in swimming. So, if you look at a 0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:23.680 dolphin or a porpoise, the blubber lining in the mid 0:23:23.800 --> 0:23:28.359 section of the body near the dorsal fin is quite stretchy, 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:31.840 but the blubber at the end of the tail is 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:35.760 relatively stiff. And remember we talked about in the last episode, 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:39.399 blubber has a lot of collagen and elastic fibers that 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:44.680 make it much bouncier and tougher than regular fat tissue, 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:49.840 and so this article talks about how researchers and Pabst 0:23:49.880 --> 0:23:53.680 and John Hamilton associated with the University of North Carolina 0:23:53.760 --> 0:23:57.199 at Wilmington found in this research. I think this was 0:23:57.359 --> 0:24:01.679 first published in the nineties that when a dolphin swims, quote, 0:24:02.080 --> 0:24:05.280 the stiffer blubber hardly bends at all, while the blubber 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:09.320 closest to the dorsal fin bends quite a lot, reaching 0:24:09.359 --> 0:24:12.920 its maximum distortion at the bottom of the tail's downstroke 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:17.720 and then bouncing back. Because remember, the dolphin's tail does 0:24:17.760 --> 0:24:20.919 not stroke side to side like the tail of a fish, 0:24:20.960 --> 0:24:24.919 but up and down, bending like the spine of a 0:24:25.000 --> 0:24:29.760 land mammal, because of course dolphins ancestors were land mammals. 0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:34.240 All marine mammals evolved from land mammals, so they still 0:24:34.280 --> 0:24:38.880 have that up and down flexing spine, unlike fish and reptiles. 0:24:39.560 --> 0:24:42.840 So as the dolphin swims, its spine flexes up and down, 0:24:42.920 --> 0:24:46.199 and its tail pushes with these powerful downstrokes and then 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:50.040 flexes back up with the return stroke. And at the 0:24:50.200 --> 0:24:55.240 extreme of these strokes, it seems some extra energy, instead 0:24:55.240 --> 0:25:00.639 of being wasted, is stored in the deformation of the 0:25:00.760 --> 0:25:04.600 elastic mid section of the animal's body, which when it 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:09.080 springs back from the extreme of the stroke, puts that 0:25:09.280 --> 0:25:13.280 energy back into locomotion. So it's of course it's muscle 0:25:13.359 --> 0:25:16.560 powered undulation of the body where it's flexing and producing 0:25:16.600 --> 0:25:19.520 these strokes, but some amount of that energy may get 0:25:19.640 --> 0:25:22.480 stored in the elastic tension of the body when it 0:25:22.520 --> 0:25:25.600 reaches the extreme and then bounces back, which helps propel 0:25:25.680 --> 0:25:30.280 each stroke. And because of its elastic properties, the idea 0:25:30.280 --> 0:25:34.320 here is blubber itself may be contributing to this. It 0:25:34.320 --> 0:25:37.479 wouldn't be just the blubber that is storing this potential energy, 0:25:37.920 --> 0:25:41.080 but the blubber itself may be contributing, storing and then 0:25:41.160 --> 0:25:43.639 releasing some of this energy along with other parts of 0:25:43.680 --> 0:25:44.119 the body. 0:25:44.480 --> 0:25:47.120 Wow, it makes you wonder where they would be without springs. 0:25:49.359 --> 0:25:50.720 Wait is that an mst short? 0:25:50.920 --> 0:25:53.359 I think it's. 0:25:52.400 --> 0:25:54.080 Gotta be no springs. 0:25:54.840 --> 0:25:59.080 Oh yeah, yeah, now that don't never wish such a thing, 0:25:59.280 --> 0:26:01.760 don't wish. 0:26:01.800 --> 0:26:05.679 And then one last thing for blubber and locomotion is 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:09.320 this one's fairly obvious, but buoyancy. This is a huge thing. Obviously, 0:26:09.359 --> 0:26:15.080 marine mammals use blubber to manage buoyancy. Fat tissue is 0:26:15.240 --> 0:26:18.320 generally less dense than water, while lean body mass is 0:26:18.359 --> 0:26:22.480 generally denser than water. And then the ratio between these 0:26:22.480 --> 0:26:25.959 two things within your body helps determine how easily your 0:26:26.000 --> 0:26:30.920 body sinks or floats Iversen writes quote. Studies have demonstrated 0:26:30.960 --> 0:26:34.880 that seals descend faster during diving when they are more 0:26:34.960 --> 0:26:38.680 negatively buoyant than when they are less negatively buoyant, providing 0:26:38.680 --> 0:26:42.640 evidence that seals adjust to their diving behavior in relation 0:26:42.880 --> 0:26:47.360 to seasonal changes in buoyancy. So during the fattening season 0:26:47.480 --> 0:26:50.320 and then the lean season, how buoyant you are in 0:26:50.359 --> 0:26:54.440 the water will actually change because of your relative level 0:26:54.480 --> 0:26:58.439 of blubber compared to the lean muscle and you know 0:26:58.480 --> 0:27:02.720 the rest of the mass of your body. So as 0:27:02.760 --> 0:27:05.760 that buoyancy changes, you will also have to go through 0:27:05.800 --> 0:27:09.960 some behavioral changes. But this could contribute to this could 0:27:09.960 --> 0:27:12.800 be adaptive for the marine mammals in some cases as well. 0:27:23.680 --> 0:27:26.000 All right, Joe, well, are you ready to talk about 0:27:26.080 --> 0:27:27.200 reptile blubber? 0:27:27.440 --> 0:27:29.800 Oh? I cannot wait. You told me you were going 0:27:29.840 --> 0:27:31.800 to go down this avenue and I got so excited. 0:27:32.200 --> 0:27:34.960 Yeah, yeah, And I didn't know to be excited about 0:27:34.960 --> 0:27:37.159 it because I'll be honest, I was not expecting to 0:27:37.200 --> 0:27:41.720 discuss prehistoric reptiles in an episode on Blubber because, as 0:27:41.720 --> 0:27:46.240 we've been discussing, it's generally considered a hallmark of aquatic mammals. 0:27:47.040 --> 0:27:50.720 But we've discussed convergent evolution before on the show, particularly 0:27:50.800 --> 0:27:53.160 in the way that certain body plans can be found 0:27:53.240 --> 0:27:57.679 in both prehistoric reptiles and mammals, birds and fish. 0:27:58.160 --> 0:28:02.280 Yeah, So sometimes there is a common problem presented by environments, 0:28:02.280 --> 0:28:06.400 and different evolutionary lineages get too roughly the same solution 0:28:06.600 --> 0:28:07.560 to that problem. 0:28:07.840 --> 0:28:10.520 Yeah, Like if multiple different creatures had to open cans 0:28:10.520 --> 0:28:15.680 of beans, they would evolve different appendages that carry out 0:28:15.720 --> 0:28:19.679 the same task, and they might appear rather similar to 0:28:19.720 --> 0:28:22.680 each other, and then they might have key differences as well. 0:28:23.920 --> 0:28:26.600 So you can consider the similarities and differences between the 0:28:26.600 --> 0:28:31.600 wing plans of birds, mammalian bats, and reptilian pterosaars. You 0:28:31.640 --> 0:28:34.840 can consider the similarities between the mammalian dolphin and the 0:28:34.880 --> 0:28:40.520 reptilian ichthiosaar. In both cases we see morphology that evolved 0:28:40.520 --> 0:28:43.440 to tack all the engineering and life challenges of locomotion 0:28:43.600 --> 0:28:47.000 through a particular medium. So you know, why not blubber 0:28:47.040 --> 0:28:51.440 as well, makes sense, and this does seem to be 0:28:51.600 --> 0:28:57.560 the case with ichthiosaurs. So these were the ancient Mesozoic, 0:28:58.560 --> 0:29:02.760 largely Mesozoic marine rep tiles whose story so closse closely 0:29:02.800 --> 0:29:06.320 resembles that of the dolphin, the descendants of land based 0:29:06.400 --> 0:29:09.920 organisms that took to the ocean and evolved into effective 0:29:10.040 --> 0:29:14.160 marine predators. Plus again, in many respects, the two organisms 0:29:14.200 --> 0:29:17.360 have a lot in common when it comes to general morphology. 0:29:17.480 --> 0:29:20.280 Like if you look at even just the skeletons of 0:29:20.280 --> 0:29:24.480 a nichthyosar or certainly paleo art depicting them, you get 0:29:24.720 --> 0:29:28.760 the idea that, oh, these were reptilian dolphins, these were 0:29:28.800 --> 0:29:34.200 lizard dolphins, you know, And I think the more evocative 0:29:34.240 --> 0:29:38.000 imagery kind of captures that. You're like, you recognize the 0:29:38.000 --> 0:29:42.080 outline of the thing as dolphin shaped or you know, 0:29:42.360 --> 0:29:44.200 large fish shape. But then when you get closer you 0:29:44.200 --> 0:29:46.120 see the differences. You know, you can you can tell 0:29:46.160 --> 0:29:49.640 there's something about it that stands distinct from any kind 0:29:49.640 --> 0:29:50.840 of mammalian legacy. 0:29:51.440 --> 0:29:54.040 Yeah, it really is striking how much they look like 0:29:54.080 --> 0:29:56.960 whales and dolphins. I mean, we can be aware of 0:29:57.040 --> 0:30:01.080 their their heritage if your pitch during something in your 0:30:01.120 --> 0:30:04.400 mind and that doesn't match what you're picturing. 0:30:04.480 --> 0:30:05.080 You might be. 0:30:05.120 --> 0:30:11.440 Thinking of applesiosaur, which I think looks more distinctly reptilian 0:30:11.560 --> 0:30:15.080 or more like a dinosaur the ichthiosaur. It has just 0:30:15.200 --> 0:30:17.120 such strong dolphin energy. 0:30:17.480 --> 0:30:17.720 Yeah. 0:30:17.880 --> 0:30:21.960 Yeah, And we know that the ichthiosaurs, this is an 0:30:22.040 --> 0:30:25.960 order containing various genuses by the way, we're also warm blooded, 0:30:26.400 --> 0:30:30.160 air breathing, and that they bore live young, and based 0:30:30.200 --> 0:30:33.720 on excellent fossil evidence, they may have also benefited from 0:30:33.760 --> 0:30:38.720 the thermal protection of blubber or a blubber like tissue. Johann 0:30:38.760 --> 0:30:41.280 Lindgren from Lund University in Sweden is one of the 0:30:41.280 --> 0:30:44.760 prime researchers on this topic, with a big major publication 0:30:45.840 --> 0:30:48.800 from this research came out in twenty eighteen Soft tissue 0:30:48.840 --> 0:30:54.120 Evidence for homeothermy and crypsis in Jurassic Ichthiosaur, as well 0:30:54.160 --> 0:30:56.840 as some more recent publications that have followed up. This 0:30:56.920 --> 0:31:00.560 is very much an area of continual study as our 0:31:01.120 --> 0:31:05.280 tools and our technology continues to improve in this area. 0:31:06.880 --> 0:31:10.760 Twenty twenty two's A review of Ichthyosaur soft tissue with 0:31:10.800 --> 0:31:15.920 implifications for life reconstructions published in Earth Science Reviews. This 0:31:16.000 --> 0:31:20.280 is one that I looked at more extensively, and Lindgren 0:31:20.280 --> 0:31:21.920 and his co authors walk through a number of the 0:31:22.000 --> 0:31:25.640 key points here. So for starters, yes, most of what 0:31:25.680 --> 0:31:30.040 we know about prehistoric reptiles in general comes via the 0:31:30.160 --> 0:31:35.880 inherently incomplete fossil record that consists largely of mineralized hard tissues. 0:31:37.280 --> 0:31:39.440 This is like the basic scenario where you go to 0:31:39.480 --> 0:31:42.920 the museum and you realize that the skeleton of a 0:31:42.960 --> 0:31:47.680 particular dinosaur, for example, is based on a number of 0:31:48.160 --> 0:31:51.960 actual fossil bone finds, and then we've kind of filled 0:31:52.000 --> 0:31:54.880 in the missing pieces based on other finds and also 0:31:55.040 --> 0:31:58.840 just extrapolations about what the rest of its skeletal system 0:31:58.880 --> 0:32:01.800 would look like. However, with the ichtheos are due to 0:32:01.840 --> 0:32:06.400 a combination of biological factors, rapid burial processes, and specific 0:32:06.880 --> 0:32:12.560 and oxic marine environments, we have some great representation of 0:32:12.600 --> 0:32:15.720 these creatures in the fossil record, and it includes not 0:32:15.800 --> 0:32:20.560 only hard tissues but soft tissues as well, and this 0:32:20.640 --> 0:32:24.360 means we're afforded just far more insight into the anatomy 0:32:24.400 --> 0:32:29.719 of these creatures and how they lived, of more so 0:32:29.880 --> 0:32:33.840 than many of the prehistoric reptiles of their age. 0:32:34.080 --> 0:32:35.960 The soft tissue prints are a real gym. 0:32:36.080 --> 0:32:39.560 Yeah, yeah, Yeah. There's sort of two major areas for 0:32:39.840 --> 0:32:44.880 key ichthiosr fossil finds. That's Pasidonia Shale and holds out 0:32:44.960 --> 0:32:49.480 in Germany and the Zapota Formation in Patagonia. So the 0:32:49.520 --> 0:32:53.200 first ichthiosaur fossils were described as far back as sixteen 0:32:53.320 --> 0:32:58.320 ninety nine, and the first known discovery of fossilized soft tissue, 0:32:58.360 --> 0:33:00.920 this would be patches of scaleless skins, were made in 0:33:00.960 --> 0:33:04.520 eighteen thirty six. So over time, just in general trying 0:33:04.560 --> 0:33:09.200 to understand what the ichthyosaurs were, paleontologists gradually went from 0:33:09.720 --> 0:33:11.720 this idea that well, maybe they were sort of like 0:33:11.760 --> 0:33:15.520 big crocodiles and they crawled back on land periodically. We 0:33:15.640 --> 0:33:18.360 kind of moved away from this to realize that no, 0:33:18.400 --> 0:33:23.960 they were essentially like modern dolphins. They lived out in 0:33:24.000 --> 0:33:26.080 the water and they were not coming back. They weren't 0:33:26.120 --> 0:33:28.240 crawling up on the land of lay eggs or anything 0:33:28.320 --> 0:33:31.880 like that. But yeah, like I was saying, the fossilized 0:33:31.920 --> 0:33:36.320 soft tissue here has apparently been just amazingly revealing, like 0:33:36.840 --> 0:33:42.080 to the point where we've had we've had an indication 0:33:42.240 --> 0:33:47.240 of what was inside of their guts, inside the abdominal cavity, 0:33:47.880 --> 0:33:50.520 we were able to tell that, in particular, they may 0:33:50.560 --> 0:33:54.040 have lived on a diet of cephalopods. And this in 0:33:54.080 --> 0:33:56.760 addition to just a general body outline as well. So 0:33:57.080 --> 0:34:01.960 when you look at especially modern images of ichthiosaurs, we're 0:34:02.000 --> 0:34:05.880 not just doing the exercise that we do with other 0:34:06.000 --> 0:34:08.239 prehistoric animals. We're like, Okay, we know what the skeleton 0:34:08.280 --> 0:34:10.440 looks like. We're gonna lay some skin over that and 0:34:10.520 --> 0:34:14.000 just sort of imagine it. No, we know with a 0:34:14.000 --> 0:34:16.440 great deal of accuracy that they were their shape like 0:34:16.480 --> 0:34:18.160 the way we think they were shaped. They have this 0:34:18.280 --> 0:34:20.960 dolphin shape to them, or the ichthyosaurs might say, well, 0:34:21.000 --> 0:34:23.600 that's the ichthyosaur shape, not the dolphin shape we had 0:34:23.600 --> 0:34:24.000 it first. 0:34:24.200 --> 0:34:25.799 Oh yeah, good point. 0:34:26.040 --> 0:34:29.440 The blubber find came about in twenty eighteen. This was 0:34:29.560 --> 0:34:33.239 a specimen discovered in the Hole Mountain area, and I'm 0:34:33.280 --> 0:34:35.160 going to read the description of it here from the 0:34:35.200 --> 0:34:39.440 paper that the fossilized remains provided evidence of a quote 0:34:40.239 --> 0:34:45.760 layer of condensed, densely laminated organic material enriched in hydrocarbons, 0:34:46.719 --> 0:34:54.080 including potential fatty acid moieties. Situated in between of phosphatized 0:34:54.120 --> 0:34:59.200 fibers and overlain by distinct epidermis and dermal layers, and 0:34:59.360 --> 0:35:02.080 this the is can tend provide strong evidence that they 0:35:02.120 --> 0:35:06.319 were home themic or intothermic like birds and mammals in 0:35:06.440 --> 0:35:10.000 order to sustain the high energy lifestyle they would have 0:35:10.080 --> 0:35:13.920 required in the ancient ocean. So again, it's living essentially 0:35:13.920 --> 0:35:16.440 the life of what a dolphin lives today. So it 0:35:16.480 --> 0:35:18.400 has to be out there as an active hunter in 0:35:18.440 --> 0:35:21.560 the water, chasing after things that are moving around with 0:35:22.160 --> 0:35:23.160 a great deal of speed. 0:35:24.560 --> 0:35:28.360 But that also means it cannot tolerate its body temperature dropping. 0:35:28.360 --> 0:35:30.520 Right right, It needs to maintain yeah, right, it has 0:35:30.560 --> 0:35:35.720 to maintain quote insulating blubber would have kept ichthiosaurs warmed 0:35:35.800 --> 0:35:40.600 during deeper dives into colder mesoplagic zones in pursuit of prey, 0:35:41.200 --> 0:35:44.839 but also help them tolerating excursions into frigid waters at 0:35:44.880 --> 0:35:50.120 higher latitudes, explaining their occurrence in polar regions. Back in 0:35:50.160 --> 0:35:53.120 twenty eighteen, there was a BBC article about some of 0:35:53.160 --> 0:35:56.920 this work by Paul Runken, and it has a wonderful 0:35:56.920 --> 0:35:59.279 side by side illustration. Everyone out there can look this 0:35:59.400 --> 0:36:02.800 up at Your Leisure included the image here for you, Joe. 0:36:03.400 --> 0:36:09.520 It shows a comparison between matured modern porpoise blubber and 0:36:09.600 --> 0:36:13.399 skin and the equivalent from the fossil ichtheos are. And 0:36:13.600 --> 0:36:15.560 I'm not going to lie and say that I'm well 0:36:15.640 --> 0:36:18.440 versed in interpreting this kind of kind of imagery, but 0:36:19.040 --> 0:36:22.280 it's you know, everything's labeled here, and you know, side 0:36:22.280 --> 0:36:25.719 by side, I can see it, you know. And I 0:36:25.719 --> 0:36:29.719 should say that the contemporary blubber images remind me of 0:36:29.719 --> 0:36:31.680 some of these other blobber images we've been looking at, 0:36:32.040 --> 0:36:33.800 particularly culinary preparations. 0:36:33.960 --> 0:36:36.120 Yeah, I wonder what the what people would say the 0:36:36.120 --> 0:36:39.560 ichtheos or blubber tastes like I'm looking at this and 0:36:39.560 --> 0:36:42.959 I'm trying to see is there any indication whether it's 0:36:43.120 --> 0:36:46.279 vascularized in the same way that marine mammal blubber is, 0:36:46.280 --> 0:36:49.319 you know, infused with all of these blood vessels that 0:36:49.520 --> 0:36:54.360 can sort of toggle on the blood gates, so to speak, 0:36:55.040 --> 0:36:59.320 when the animal is overheating, or whether it's it's less 0:36:59.400 --> 0:37:02.239 dynamic than the installation of modern marine mammals. 0:37:02.880 --> 0:37:05.360 Yeah, I think a lot of these answers. They stress 0:37:05.600 --> 0:37:09.480 in these articles that as the tools of molecular paleontology 0:37:09.520 --> 0:37:12.040 continue to improve, we're going to be able to tell 0:37:12.080 --> 0:37:16.160 even more about a fossil soft tissue fossil remains like this, 0:37:16.760 --> 0:37:20.480 and tell yeah, just how robust was the quote unquote 0:37:20.480 --> 0:37:24.720 blubber of the achthiosar compared to the blubber of modern 0:37:24.800 --> 0:37:26.080 day aquatic mammals. 0:37:26.320 --> 0:37:30.000 That we're getting a picture of the blubber of an 0:37:30.080 --> 0:37:33.840 animal that went extinct to this long ago is amazing 0:37:33.920 --> 0:37:36.799 on its own. Just that you're getting this level of 0:37:37.320 --> 0:37:41.360 granular detail on the soft tissue is pretty remarkable. 0:37:41.760 --> 0:37:44.400 Yeah. When I first was doing some searches and this 0:37:44.480 --> 0:37:46.319 came out, I was like, that doesn't sound right, this 0:37:46.400 --> 0:37:50.880 sound this this Yeah, prehistoric reptile blubber is surely not 0:37:50.960 --> 0:38:05.080 a thing. But lo and behold here it is. Now. 0:38:05.160 --> 0:38:07.000 I want to move on to one last topic here, 0:38:07.239 --> 0:38:11.520 but it connects because none of this concerning ichthiosaur blubber 0:38:11.560 --> 0:38:13.920 is really all that shocking when you consider that penguins, 0:38:14.760 --> 0:38:19.759 avian descendants of the reptilian dinosaurs also have blubber of 0:38:19.800 --> 0:38:23.600 a sort generally referred to as blubber. But as we'll discuss, 0:38:24.160 --> 0:38:27.200 there are some distinct differences between the quote unquote blubber 0:38:27.200 --> 0:38:30.719 of the penguin and the blubber of a whale. Joe, 0:38:30.719 --> 0:38:34.439 you've seen a penguin before, right, a few times? Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:38:34.600 --> 0:38:37.799 so you can agree that they have a little bit 0:38:37.840 --> 0:38:40.120 of that chalk going on. We've been discussing. They have 0:38:40.320 --> 0:38:43.880 a little bit of a blubbery body build that certainly 0:38:44.320 --> 0:38:46.480 aids them well when they're swimming underwater. 0:38:46.719 --> 0:38:49.759 I mean, we were just talking about the beautiful chonkiness 0:38:49.800 --> 0:38:52.680 of the seal earlier and the way that that translates 0:38:52.719 --> 0:38:57.760 to actually almost Elvin Grace in swimming. There's a similar 0:38:57.760 --> 0:39:00.160 thing going on with the penguin. It's like the bird 0:39:00.239 --> 0:39:03.920 version of that chonky grace. And for the record, my 0:39:04.000 --> 0:39:06.960 daughter thinks penguins are adorable, and so I think the 0:39:07.040 --> 0:39:08.240 chonkiness helps there. 0:39:08.520 --> 0:39:09.120 Yeah. Yeah. 0:39:10.040 --> 0:39:13.520 Penguins, of course are pretty much synonymous with cold environments 0:39:13.560 --> 0:39:17.160 and cold waters. They of course can and do live 0:39:17.239 --> 0:39:20.520 in less chilly areas as well, and also just they 0:39:20.520 --> 0:39:24.280 can live much further north than the Antarctic. One example, 0:39:24.320 --> 0:39:27.279 of course is the Galapagos penguin, the only penguin found 0:39:27.320 --> 0:39:30.320 north of the equator, though the waters of the Glapgos 0:39:30.360 --> 0:39:31.840 tend to be quite cold as well due to the 0:39:31.920 --> 0:39:35.360 Humboldt and Cromwell currents. But on the whole, yes, we 0:39:35.400 --> 0:39:38.160 have a variety of bird here that has evolved to 0:39:38.280 --> 0:39:43.840 thrive in cold and semi aquatic conditions, and you know 0:39:43.880 --> 0:39:47.560 it needs to dive into the water and go down 0:39:47.600 --> 0:39:50.320 to certain depths in order to obtain its food. 0:39:51.040 --> 0:39:55.279 And we talked in the last episode about mammals that 0:39:55.920 --> 0:39:59.600 do not have blubber as such, they don't have like 0:39:59.800 --> 0:40:03.600 vas uscularized marine mammal blubber, but they still do rely 0:40:03.880 --> 0:40:07.120 on a lot of fat as insulation. One example would 0:40:07.160 --> 0:40:10.799 be the polar bear, which, despite some differences, you could 0:40:10.840 --> 0:40:14.000 think of as having some ecological similarities to the penguin. 0:40:14.360 --> 0:40:17.600 Yeah, I think that's very fair. That's a very fair comparison, 0:40:18.160 --> 0:40:20.400 and we'll get into exactly how this plays out here. 0:40:20.680 --> 0:40:23.480 I was reading a twenty twenty two New York Times 0:40:23.560 --> 0:40:26.320 article titled How Penguins Beat the Heat and Went South 0:40:26.440 --> 0:40:30.239 by Jack Demsia, and the author here points out that 0:40:30.320 --> 0:40:33.279 some prehistoric penguins lived in tropical waters off the coast 0:40:33.280 --> 0:40:36.759 of Peru. Others had long legs and might have stood 0:40:36.840 --> 0:40:40.600 seven feet tall, but as they pushed south into Chilier waters, 0:40:41.000 --> 0:40:43.440 various adaptations kicked into eid them, and we've been able 0:40:43.520 --> 0:40:47.640 to study these changes by looking at their genes. And 0:40:47.719 --> 0:40:53.400 these include the transition of wing into flipper, the increase 0:40:53.719 --> 0:40:58.200 of low oxygen tolerance for deeper dies, boosted immunity, and 0:40:58.400 --> 0:41:03.160 that ability to pack on blubber or blubber like tissue. Now, 0:41:03.239 --> 0:41:07.960 blubber is not their only adaptation to cope with cold 0:41:08.160 --> 0:41:11.040 weather and cold water. And this is where we get 0:41:11.080 --> 0:41:15.840 back to that polar bear comparison, because penguins also have 0:41:16.000 --> 0:41:21.440 a dense layer of feathers, and they're so dense. If 0:41:21.480 --> 0:41:22.759 you didn't know what you were looking at, if you 0:41:22.760 --> 0:41:24.480 did not know that a penguin was a bird, you 0:41:24.560 --> 0:41:26.600 might look at it and think of it as fur. 0:41:26.640 --> 0:41:28.040 It almost reads more as fur. 0:41:28.600 --> 0:41:31.680 It doesn't look like feathers to me, at least in 0:41:31.719 --> 0:41:35.279 most cases. Maybe in some varieties. But the penguin I'm 0:41:35.320 --> 0:41:38.200 picturing in my mind looks fairly smooth to the touch. 0:41:38.719 --> 0:41:42.799 Yeah, And it's because of the density, more feathers per 0:41:42.840 --> 0:41:46.960 square inch than almost any other bird, layered and oiled 0:41:47.280 --> 0:41:51.000 and trapping that crucial layer of air insulation that we 0:41:51.120 --> 0:41:55.359 referenced in the last episode. You know that serves this 0:41:55.440 --> 0:41:59.959 is just a little barrier to help keep them insulated. 0:42:00.200 --> 0:42:03.160 So and more on that in just a second. But 0:42:03.719 --> 0:42:07.000 their circula story systems also evolve to conserve heat by 0:42:07.040 --> 0:42:10.359 better warming the cold blood that's returning from their extremities, 0:42:10.680 --> 0:42:15.200 and they also adapted to form these rotating huddles which 0:42:15.200 --> 0:42:18.200 we've all seen in documentaries where some varieties of penguins 0:42:18.200 --> 0:42:22.320 will share their body heat but also keep cycling around 0:42:22.440 --> 0:42:24.600 so that the penguins on the outside also get some 0:42:24.680 --> 0:42:29.480 time closer into the inside. So penguin blubber here. Again, 0:42:30.480 --> 0:42:33.120 it's not quite the same, but one of the reasons 0:42:33.160 --> 0:42:35.520 it's not quite the same is that it's essentially a 0:42:35.719 --> 0:42:40.000 second line of defense against the cold right behind their 0:42:40.080 --> 0:42:44.640 specialized feathers. So it's primarily the feathers, but then especially 0:42:44.719 --> 0:42:48.000 during deeper dives, this is going to cause this is 0:42:48.040 --> 0:42:49.840 going to you know, the deeper you dive, you're going 0:42:49.920 --> 0:42:52.320 to get greater pressure, and that pressure is going to 0:42:52.360 --> 0:42:55.560 collapse the layers of the feathers, and this is where 0:42:55.600 --> 0:43:00.600 the blubber really comes in and does its role. And 0:43:00.680 --> 0:43:04.720 so it's you get into the texture of the blubber. 0:43:04.760 --> 0:43:08.720 And actually, you know, comparing penguin blubber to mammalian blubber, 0:43:09.239 --> 0:43:13.880 and rather than the sophisticated, fibrous and highly regulated organ 0:43:14.160 --> 0:43:19.239 that is mammal blubber, penguin blubber is more it's a 0:43:19.280 --> 0:43:24.040 little simpler in its structure. It's still it's crucial again, 0:43:24.320 --> 0:43:26.880 but it is more of a subcutaneous fat. 0:43:26.719 --> 0:43:32.640 Layer, less of the vascularization exactly the tough collagen kind 0:43:32.640 --> 0:43:33.560 of meshing. 0:43:33.560 --> 0:43:36.680 Right, because they have not abandoned the feathers. The feathers 0:43:36.719 --> 0:43:38.960 are still doing most of the work. 0:43:39.280 --> 0:43:41.920 Yeah, and you can see that also still with some mammals. 0:43:41.960 --> 0:43:43.920 I mean, this is why it's good comparison to polar 0:43:43.960 --> 0:43:47.399 bears because some people have said, you know, creatures, you have, 0:43:47.640 --> 0:43:53.120 like you know, whales that have fully made the transition 0:43:53.320 --> 0:43:57.240 from terrestrial mammal to aquatic mammal, and then you've got 0:43:57.800 --> 0:44:02.240 polar bears and that are you know, that are somewhere 0:44:02.440 --> 0:44:04.600 on the beginning of that journey kind of you know, 0:44:04.640 --> 0:44:09.400 they're they're more fully terrestrial adapted, but they they you know, 0:44:09.480 --> 0:44:13.080 in millions of years, their descendants could be fully aquatic mammals. 0:44:13.680 --> 0:44:16.520 And then somewhere in between you have seals, which are 0:44:17.120 --> 0:44:20.000 basically they're you know, they're halfway there to being fully aquatic, 0:44:20.040 --> 0:44:23.239 but they still many seals do still have fur, and 0:44:24.120 --> 0:44:27.399 that you know, so they're using both blubber and fur 0:44:27.480 --> 0:44:30.600 at that point. But there is an evolutionary transition that 0:44:30.640 --> 0:44:34.160 has been documented from fur to blubber in these mammals, 0:44:34.200 --> 0:44:35.960 and so you can see a similar thing going on 0:44:36.040 --> 0:44:38.000 here with the feathers to to fat. 0:44:38.480 --> 0:44:41.280 Yeah, and it can get reasonably thick. With the penguins. 0:44:41.280 --> 0:44:44.320 I was reading the for the Emperor Penguin. The blubber 0:44:44.360 --> 0:44:46.640 layer can be three to four centimeters or one point 0:44:46.680 --> 0:44:49.319 two to one point six inches thick. Now, I know 0:44:49.360 --> 0:44:51.239 a number of you are asking, well, what does it 0:44:51.320 --> 0:44:53.719 taste like? Well, I looked into this a little bit. 0:44:54.440 --> 0:44:57.239 So first of all, penguin fat can be used to 0:44:57.280 --> 0:45:01.760 create oil, so in the same way that whale blubber 0:45:01.800 --> 0:45:04.040 has been used to create oil, certainly penguins have been 0:45:04.080 --> 0:45:07.200 exploited for the same purpose. But then when it comes 0:45:07.239 --> 0:45:11.400 to the eating of penguins, just penguin meat in general, 0:45:12.400 --> 0:45:14.680 they are like basically two ways to look at it. 0:45:14.680 --> 0:45:16.400 I mean, first of all, you have the accounts of 0:45:16.680 --> 0:45:20.680 Antarctic explorers, and then you also have indigenous practices, you know, 0:45:20.719 --> 0:45:23.960 people who for much longer lived within the range of 0:45:23.960 --> 0:45:29.800 different penguin species. The Antarctic explorers, the generally Europeans, would 0:45:29.840 --> 0:45:32.920 sometimes eat penguin meat out of desperation, but pretty much 0:45:32.920 --> 0:45:36.800 across the board disliked it strongly thought it was oily 0:45:36.880 --> 0:45:41.560 and fishy. Meanwhile, the indigenous groups on the whole would 0:45:41.600 --> 0:45:44.799 eat penguin meat as a supplementary but not primary soon 0:45:45.239 --> 0:45:47.359 a food source, and this was due to a few 0:45:47.360 --> 0:45:52.719 different factors, slow yield, limited range involved, but also potentially 0:45:52.880 --> 0:45:55.160 taste of versions as well. So I didn't go too 0:45:55.200 --> 0:45:58.640 deep on this, but it seems like the best recipes 0:45:58.800 --> 0:46:01.719 on either the indigenous end or the European end of 0:46:01.719 --> 0:46:04.960 the spectrum, they all seem to lean heavily on masking 0:46:05.000 --> 0:46:09.080 the natural flavor of the meat. So it's pretty much 0:46:09.120 --> 0:46:13.000 always been considered a famine food or supplementary food source, 0:46:13.280 --> 0:46:16.319 depending on the availability of other protein sources, with the 0:46:16.360 --> 0:46:19.799 eggs being much more desired than the meat of the 0:46:20.400 --> 0:46:21.320 actual bird. 0:46:22.360 --> 0:46:24.840 Yeah, to humans at least, I'd imagine if you're like 0:46:24.840 --> 0:46:26.760 a leopard seal, they're great. 0:46:27.080 --> 0:46:31.600 Yeah, So I'm about to lean far more heavily on 0:46:31.640 --> 0:46:32.640 the European accounts. 0:46:32.680 --> 0:46:32.839 Here. 0:46:32.920 --> 0:46:37.880 I couldn't find a good indigenous account of describing the 0:46:38.239 --> 0:46:42.359 treatment or impression of penguin meat. But in this one 0:46:42.400 --> 0:46:44.720 we have an individual who is both a harsh critic 0:46:45.000 --> 0:46:48.560 of penguin meat but also perhaps its greatest defender among 0:46:48.640 --> 0:46:49.640 European voices. 0:46:50.960 --> 0:46:53.480 And I read yeah, And. 0:46:53.440 --> 0:46:55.880 I was reading about this in Peter Smith's twenty twelve 0:46:55.880 --> 0:46:59.080 Smithsonian Magazine article A Different Kind of Dinner Bell in 0:46:59.120 --> 0:47:02.879 the Antarctic. This concerns doctor Frederick Cook, who served as 0:47:02.840 --> 0:47:06.239 a physician on the Belgica Expedition eighteen ninety seven through 0:47:06.239 --> 0:47:09.480 eighteen ninety nine. This was when the ship was trapped 0:47:09.600 --> 0:47:13.880 in the Antarctic ice, which, of course that means that 0:47:13.920 --> 0:47:17.720 it put a great strain on the cruise ability to survive. 0:47:18.360 --> 0:47:21.800 And during this time he observed that penguin meat tasted 0:47:21.920 --> 0:47:26.480 like quote, a piece of beef odoriferous codfish and a 0:47:26.640 --> 0:47:30.440 canvas back duck roasted together in a pot with blood 0:47:30.520 --> 0:47:32.360 and cod liver oil for sauce. 0:47:34.480 --> 0:47:35.319 Is that good or bad? 0:47:36.200 --> 0:47:39.080 I think he means it to be bad. And yet, 0:47:39.560 --> 0:47:41.959 as the ship's crew faced the as yet not fully 0:47:42.040 --> 0:47:45.960 understood threat of scurvy during the harsh winter, he landed 0:47:46.000 --> 0:47:49.160 on penguin meat as their deliverer. And I think part 0:47:49.160 --> 0:47:51.560 of this too was based on, you know, observations of 0:47:51.600 --> 0:47:59.360 how indigenous peoples lived in extreme regions. And so again 0:47:59.680 --> 0:48:02.240 he did not have nice things to say about the flavor, 0:48:02.400 --> 0:48:06.839 but ultimately ended up prescribing it to crew members and saying, 0:48:06.880 --> 0:48:10.200 what you need is some meat of the penguin. And 0:48:10.239 --> 0:48:12.560 this is where the dinner bell part comes in. They 0:48:12.680 --> 0:48:16.040 learned that they could summon penguins and seals to their vessel, 0:48:16.080 --> 0:48:20.359 apparently by playing the cornett. Yeah, and Cook himself wrote 0:48:20.360 --> 0:48:22.920 about this, saying, quote, at meal time, a cornet is 0:48:23.000 --> 0:48:25.799 used to call them in together. And the penguins, it 0:48:25.880 --> 0:48:29.000 seems also like the music, for when they hear it, 0:48:29.040 --> 0:48:31.719 they make directly for the ship and remain as long 0:48:31.760 --> 0:48:34.880 as the music lasts, but leave once it ceases. In 0:48:34.920 --> 0:48:36.920 this manner, we have only to wait and seize our 0:48:37.000 --> 0:48:40.560 visitor to obtain penguin steaks, which are just at present 0:48:40.800 --> 0:48:42.000 the prize of the menu. 0:48:42.440 --> 0:48:46.320 That's I'm feeling so many things. That's sad and funny 0:48:46.360 --> 0:48:47.359 and degree. 0:48:47.920 --> 0:48:51.800 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it becomes the prize of the menu 0:48:51.840 --> 0:48:53.400 when it is one of the only things on the 0:48:53.440 --> 0:48:57.160 menu obviously, but also yeah, a key to their survival. Again, 0:48:57.200 --> 0:49:01.520 they were consuming it as a survival meat. The author 0:49:01.600 --> 0:49:05.960 here of that Smithsonian piece also notes that Ernest Shackleton 0:49:06.160 --> 0:49:10.080 backed him up on this, saying, yeah, yeah, the penguins 0:49:10.120 --> 0:49:12.799 come when you play the cornette, but also observed that 0:49:12.840 --> 0:49:16.560 if you play the bagpipes drives them away. So do 0:49:16.719 --> 0:49:19.480 not try and lureen penguins to eat with a set 0:49:19.480 --> 0:49:20.920 of bagpipes. That's the lesson. 0:49:21.480 --> 0:49:25.000 Should we have some kind of stinger or tag for 0:49:25.239 --> 0:49:29.279 when our biology discussions inevitably turned to what does it 0:49:29.360 --> 0:49:29.960 taste like? 0:49:30.960 --> 0:49:34.359 Yeah, well, you know, it's kind of inevitable, you know, 0:49:34.880 --> 0:49:37.759 omnivores that we are. That is one way that we 0:49:37.840 --> 0:49:41.399 have always connected with the natural world. What happens when 0:49:41.440 --> 0:49:43.400 we eat it? Is it good? Is it bad? Does 0:49:43.440 --> 0:49:47.520 it kill us? Does it make us stronger? The answer 0:49:47.640 --> 0:49:51.960 varies tremendously, and you mean to a large extent, like 0:49:51.960 --> 0:49:54.279 the human stomach, the human taste buds. These were all 0:49:55.680 --> 0:49:58.600 one of the first laboratories by which we began to 0:49:58.719 --> 0:50:00.000 understand the natural world. 0:50:00.520 --> 0:50:04.279 Yeah, and as we've talked about in other contexts. It 0:50:04.320 --> 0:50:08.480 remains a kind of crude chemistry laboratory for the geologists, 0:50:08.520 --> 0:50:11.280 for the chemists sometimes when they don't have other equipment. 0:50:12.400 --> 0:50:16.000 Not recommending people taste things to discern their chemical properties, 0:50:16.000 --> 0:50:20.160 but people can do this and do sometimes. Yeah, see 0:50:20.160 --> 0:50:22.839 our old Ignobel episode about licking rocks if you want 0:50:22.880 --> 0:50:26.680 to learn. All right, does that do it for Blubber 0:50:26.680 --> 0:50:27.120 Part two? 0:50:27.440 --> 0:50:30.600 I think it does. Yeah, that's Blubber Part two. But 0:50:30.600 --> 0:50:32.080 we'd love to hear from everyone out there. You have 0:50:32.080 --> 0:50:36.680 additional insight on any of this, be it the meat 0:50:37.320 --> 0:50:41.239 of the penguin or the blubber of the whale, or 0:50:42.440 --> 0:50:47.800 how chonky prehistoric bosrs were, whatever the case, right in, 0:50:48.200 --> 0:50:51.160 we would love to hear from you. Just a reminder 0:50:51.200 --> 0:50:52.879 to everyone out there. The Stuff to Blow Your Mind 0:50:52.920 --> 0:50:55.600 is primarily a science and culture podcast with core episodes 0:50:55.640 --> 0:50:57.920 and Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Wednesday's we run a 0:50:57.960 --> 0:51:01.400 short form episode, and on Fridays we do Weird House Cinema. 0:51:01.400 --> 0:51:03.759 That's our time to set aside most serious concerns and 0:51:03.800 --> 0:51:06.120 just talk about a weird film. 0:51:06.320 --> 0:51:10.120 Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. 0:51:10.440 --> 0:51:11.840 If you would like to get in touch with us 0:51:11.920 --> 0:51:14.360 with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest 0:51:14.400 --> 0:51:16.399 a topic for the future, or just to say hello. 0:51:16.560 --> 0:51:19.160 You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow 0:51:19.160 --> 0:51:27.400 your Mind dot com. 0:51:27.520 --> 0:51:30.440 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. 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