WEBVTT - Listener Questions: Do Fish Smell Fishy to Fish? 0:00:05.320 --> 0:00:08.680 Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host 0:00:08.720 --> 0:00:13.800 of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:18.520 and today on the show, I'm answering your questions. That's right, 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:25.400 your questions about animal behavior, about biology, about sometimes pets. Uh. 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:30.080 You can send me your questions at Creature featurepot at 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:34.080 gmail dot com and I do my best to answer them. 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.000 Got some really good questions this time around, so let's 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:43.879 get right into it. Here is the question. I've been 0:00:43.920 --> 0:00:46.920 breathing here since shortly after I was born, so maybe 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.120 it's hard to think about having gills. We can't smell 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.880 anything without drawing air through our nostrils. How to fish smell? 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:56.440 And how do shark smell blood in the water for 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:59.920 miles away? Do they smell with their gills or something? 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:04.240 This is from j T. And I do want to 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:10.480 point out the title of the email because it's very funny. 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:16.960 It is do fish smell fishy to fish? So very 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:21.679 good question, and yes, so fish do smell fishy to 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:27.160 fish in the sense that fish can smell other fish 0:01:27.200 --> 0:01:30.200 and other things in the water, So this is a 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:35.160 great question. Smells work a little differently under water. So 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:39.840 up here in the air, molecules are carried by the air. 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.000 We inhale them and they go up in our nostrils 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:49.600 and they bind two olfactory receptors in our nasal cavity, 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.840 and so that is how we will smell something. The 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:58.400 molecule will lock on, that'll trigger a chain reaction of 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:04.720 neural cells to our brain, and then we identify something 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:10.600 as a smell. And obviously the strength at which we 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:16.040 can detect smells depends on our species. Humans are decent smellers, 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:20.000 We're not amazing. Something like a dog is really really good, 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:24.200 and you can see with a dog they have a 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:28.520 lot of techniques that involve the passage of air in 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:32.280 terms of smelling things. So you see a dog kind 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:37.000 of sniffing the ground and then exhale like snort out. 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:39.760 That doesn't mean that the dog doesn't like the smell. 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:42.160 Means the dog is trying to get a better whiff 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.320 of it, with the air going both into the nostril 0:02:45.560 --> 0:02:48.520 and then those molecules binding to receptors and then forcing 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:52.320 it back out of the nostrils once again, the air 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:59.800 carrying the molecules passing over these sensitive receptors once again, 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:02.600 and then they have a second pass at picking up 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:05.959 even more molecules, and they have really really sensitive sense 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:09.000 of smell. So all of that is enabled by the 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:15.960 air carrying these molecules. But underwater you can have a 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:19.400 very similar thing happening. So in the water, obviously you 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.679 don't have molecules carried by the air. You have them 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:28.240 carried by the water. So fish receive chemical information through 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:33.200 the water. It's a very good hypothesis that there might 0:03:33.280 --> 0:03:38.360 be olfactory receptors in their gills, given that the waters 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:42.600 they have to have water pass over those anyway, so 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:47.480 it's a good spot to have some receptors there. In fact, 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:53.200 they do have receptors there. Technically they're not considered olfactory receptors. 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:58.280 They are taste receptors in their gills. In effect, it's 0:03:58.320 --> 0:04:03.720 a very similar result where these receptors are picking up 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:09.080 on chemicals in the water, chemicals being any kind of 0:04:09.120 --> 0:04:16.120 like compound, any molecule, and are sensing that. It's just 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.240 like they're the way that we've mapped sort of the 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:25.560 fish brain. Some we categorize as olfactory receptors and some 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:29.480 as taste receptors, just like in humans. But yeah, taste 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:35.680 and smell are very very much connected, very similar in 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:40.320 terms of how it works in terms of things binding 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:43.440 to receptors. So technically the receptors that they have in 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:48.800 their gills are taste receptors. But they do have noses. 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.279 I know it doesn't look like it, but if you 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.919 look at a fish or close up, they have nostrils 0:04:55.640 --> 0:05:02.880 and those open up to olfactory chambers. Their nostrils, unlike ours, 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.760 are only used for smells. They do not breathe through 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:11.039 these nostrils. Their gills they use for breathing, as in, 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:15.159 they take in water and the water flows over these 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:21.480 gill structures that collect oxygen molecules from the water that 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.919 the fish can use. The nostrils don't do that. The 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:29.040 nostrils collect water solely for the purpose of smelling it 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:32.960 by the water flowing through, and again they pick up 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:36.080 these molecules, but instead of it being oxygen, they're picking 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:40.919 up any kind of like small molecule that combined to 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:48.240 these olfactory or scent receptors in this nasal cavity. And 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:54.599 then since what that is, so water containing molecules of 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:59.279 things like amino acids or other chemicals enter into this 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:03.920 old factory chamber and bind to the receptors in there. 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:08.160 This exact same thing goes for sharks. So sharks are 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:13.839 a type of fish. They have a similar situation with 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:18.440 their nostrils where the water goes in and carries these 0:06:18.480 --> 0:06:22.960 molecules with it and then binds to the olfactory receptors. 0:06:23.800 --> 0:06:28.240 So they may pick up on say, amino acid proteins 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:33.880 from blood which flow into their nostrils and bind to 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:38.480 their receptors, allowing them to follow its scent from up 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:42.520 to around a quarter of a mile away. They're very, 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:46.000 very sensitive to this. But it's not true that they 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.760 can smell a drop of blood a mile away. The 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.760 scent would be too diffuse before reaching them, because you 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:57.039 think about it, the physics of it, the molecules from 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.599 that blood droplet have to diffuse use far away enough 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:07.040 that the shark can get, you know, some amount of 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.440 the molecules, these little proteins from the blood up in 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:15.640 its nostrils. So if it's too far away, just mechanically speaking, 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:22.200 it's not feasible. But the sensitivity of a nose can 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:25.760 be that it picks up on a very small number 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.840 of these molecules, where for maybe other fish or other animals, 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.080 it would be way too low of a concentration for 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.840 them to pick up on it, but they can smell it. 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:38.680 So like the difference between say, humans and dogs, we 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:41.920 need a higher concentration of these molecules to actually like 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.720 have it trigger a response in us, whereas with dogs 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.320 they have more receptors, they're able to pick up on 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:53.480 lower concentrations of molecules in the air. So a similar 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:59.040 thing with sharks, who are very sensitive smellers, but not 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:04.240 maybe as much as the sort of internet or old 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:08.239 wives myths have about them being able to like smell 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:10.840 a drop of blood from miles away. So there are 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:15.000 other animals in the ocean aside from bony fish, and 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:18.760 they have different methods of smelling, but it follows the 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:22.320 same principle of picking up molecules from the water that 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:26.440 then bind to receptors. So, for example, sea slugs have 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:30.720 a rhinophores, which are these horn like protrusions that pick 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:34.000 up on chemicals in the water and it binds to 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:36.520 them and it's you know, sort of a form of 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:42.240 taste or form of smell. Octopuses have dimples in their mantles, 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:47.079 so the mantle is the main part of the octopus 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.000 and they have these little these little indentations, very very 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:56.320 tiny pores where they can detect smells and you know, 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:58.920 so like the water will flow over their mantle and 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.080 it'll pick up on these molecules and they'll bind to 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:06.559 these receptors. Their tentacles have taste receptors to further explore 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:11.359 their environment, so like they have to for their tentacles 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:13.760 to pick up on tastes and stuff like, you know, 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:16.200 it's more of a tactile thing. They can like touch 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:20.280 things and that will help them to pick up on 0:09:20.679 --> 0:09:26.760 the taste of an object or the chemicals that are 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:31.559 coming off from it, and then other like all sorts 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:38.719 of different animals have sort of different organs or places 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:43.560 upon which these receptors are, but the mechanics of it 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.360 are pretty similar, where it's like a molecule binding to 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:50.880 a receptor. So for example, starfish have olfactory receptors all 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:55.199 over their skin, but it's the same technique where the 0:09:55.240 --> 0:10:00.760 water passes over it, molecule binds to a receptor and 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:05.280 then that they perceive that they have the feedback of 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.520 like oh, here's something, and they can move towards it 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.880 or away from it, depending on what it is so 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:18.480 great question. Yes, fishes can smell, both smell as in 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:25.560 being smelly and smell as in detect odors. Onto the 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:30.080 next listener question. Hi Katie. Recently I've seen a post 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:35.199 circulating online claiming that hyenas can grow a winter coat 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:39.240 when exposed to colder climates. I cannot find proof one 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:41.280 way or another and was hoping you could help me 0:10:41.320 --> 0:10:45.640 find some evidence. Thank you for the help, longtime listener 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:51.240 and zookeeper. This is from k Ewart and there is 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:56.120 a Reddit post that they sent as well. And I'm 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:59.600 looking at a fluffy hyena who appears to be sort 0:10:59.640 --> 0:11:03.280 of buy some rocks and also buy some snow. So 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.760 this is a This is a great question. Always, if 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:09.960 you have there's like some kind of internet claim about 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:14.520 animals and you're sort of curious about it, please do 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.280 contact me because I love digging into these things, especially 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.080 when it's like something you just see all over and 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:24.120 there's no never like a link to a study or 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:29.160 an article or some experts say anything about it. So 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:35.240 let's investigate this. Do hyenas grow winter coats? A social 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.319 media post also makes a claim that that hyenas can 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:43.560 grow winter coats? Because they used to roam Europe. So 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:46.959 first let's let's explore the second claim, because that's that 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:51.240 one's easier to address. We're hyenas ever in Europe. This 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:55.119 part is true. So spotted hyenas, as well as extinct 0:11:55.160 --> 0:12:01.240 relatives of hyenas, including the giant cave hyena, did live 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:05.320 in Europe for around a million years, but at about 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:10.280 twenty thousand years ago, their range was forced south. It's 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:14.839 not exactly known why they had to abandon Europe. It 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:19.080 may have been due to the colder climate or having 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:23.200 to compete with humans for resources. It could have been 0:12:23.240 --> 0:12:27.240 a combination of these factors. Right, it got colder, harder 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.640 to get food, but then they also had to compete. 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:36.320 There's no definitive theory on this that has been sort 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.520 of I mean, it's really hard. It's really hard to 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:44.360 prove anything that happened in the past. But the understanding 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:49.680 of why hyenas had to leave Europe is not super 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:53.440 well understood. There's just some theories that lack a whole 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:59.079 lot of evidence. So they did exist in Europe though, 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:03.160 for sure, and they did exist in cold climates before 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.640 they were forced to leave, And we don't know whether 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:11.360 they were forced to leave because say, their coats were 0:13:11.840 --> 0:13:17.920 insufficient or something like that. So onto the winter coat claim. 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:21.800 So I looked and do this. I saw tons of 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:27.040 posts about this on various social media websites, and like you, 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:32.000 none of them I could find any reliable sources, Like 0:13:32.040 --> 0:13:34.400 it would just be this claim like did you know 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:38.000 that hyenas grow winter coats because they used to live 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:43.080 in Europe? And variations of that all over. Very frustrating, right, like, 0:13:43.520 --> 0:13:45.640 you know, how do you determine whether this is true? 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:51.600 And I looked on Google scholar which is sort of 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:56.600 my go to resources in terms of really trying to 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:03.680 find some kind of evidence of something. I couldn't actually 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:09.600 find any really good sort of studies on this. The 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:12.719 closest things I found were like kind of vague claims 0:14:12.760 --> 0:14:19.200 made by books written I don't know, like in the 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:23.560 nineteen thirties or something, right, So not really I wouldn't 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.360 consider that a reliable source, so I'm not going to 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:31.040 use that as one. But I kind of dug into 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:36.600 the posts themselves, these social media posts, and interestingly, I 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:41.360 found that they depict different species of hyenas, So some 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:45.360 of these posts depict like a brown hyena, And if 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.120 you a brown hyena is going to be different than 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:52.320 a spotted hyena. They actually have a longer, shaggier coat 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:56.000 than a spotted hyena. But they have this coat year 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.880 round and they're they're they're very they're very cute, they 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:04.800 look very nice. But it's like basically claiming that this 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:08.720 is a spotted hyena, right, because spotted hyenas are the 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.280 ones that used to be in Europe, and then showing 0:15:12.720 --> 0:15:16.240 a brown hyena. So I think part of that is 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:20.480 that it's subverting the expectations of the person, right, like, 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:23.920 who may not know the brown hyena exists because they're 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:28.440 only expecting the lion King's sort of hyenas with the 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:32.000 really short coats and not the brown hyena, which has 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:37.040 a longer coat. So yeah, brown hyenas are a different species. 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.520 They have thicker coat year round. They live in Africa. 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:44.120 Their coat could be used for thermal regulation or protection, 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:49.080 but it's not really meant for cold winter seasons. But 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.800 including the post that the listener sent me, there are 0:15:53.920 --> 0:16:00.440 posts that genuinely depict spotted hyenas with shaggy coats and 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:06.640 the images of actual spotted hyenas In these posts, to me, 0:16:06.840 --> 0:16:12.880 actually do show a normal variation in coat and main 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:19.800 and not necessarily one that is seasonal. So one source 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.880 of the confusion could be that spotted hyena fur length 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:27.600 changes as they age, So from seven to fifteen months 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.280 old they have longer fur, which then gets a bit 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:35.160 shorter as they're older, and then really old hyenas might 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:38.240 have some hair loss that gives them a much shorter coat. 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.600 Can also depend on the health of the hyena. If 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:45.480 the hyenas more malnourished, it's not going to be able 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:49.760 to find off mites and parasites as well, so then 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.200 it might have more mange or more hair loss, more itchiness, 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:55.760 so then it'll have a thinner coat. And so there 0:16:55.760 --> 0:17:00.600 are a lot of factors that can affect coat length 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:06.560 and hyenas. I really couldn't find any evidence any indication 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:13.560 of their coat length changing seasonally with colder weather or 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:17.760 being triggered somehow to grow out, say if they're at 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:21.520 a zoo where there's colder weather than they would encounter 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:26.120 in their natural habitat. Really couldn't find any evidence of that. 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.520 That doesn't mean it couldn't be true, right, Like, there 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:34.359 could certainly be some effect that temperature has on their shedding, right, 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:41.200 I think it's completely plausible that if it's cold, somehow 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:48.080 the hyena's hair follical growth cycle could be affected by that, right, 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:54.439 very believable, But couldn't find any studies on it, couldn't 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.840 find any evidence. But I did find plenty of evidence 0:17:58.000 --> 0:18:03.320 that there are lots of variations in hyena coat length 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:07.200 as well as the patterns on it that does not 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:12.080 have to do with temperature, So that could be basically, 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.280 these these posts, like these images could just be say 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:20.200 a younger hyena at a zoo where there's snow around 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:23.399 and someone took a picture, and that are making this 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:28.760 claim that in general hyenas grow out these longer coats 0:18:28.760 --> 0:18:32.399 in the winter without any evidence of this being true. 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:36.240 So I'm not going to say it's not true, because 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:40.520 again I think there's a it's a plausible hypothesis that 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:46.240 hyenas could grow out their coats in the winter, but 0:18:46.920 --> 0:18:50.159 I couldn't find any evidence of it, And so when 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:53.400 there's no evidence, I think it's not responsible to make 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.120 the claim that this is something that is happening, right, 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:00.679 especially knowing that you can have a law kind of 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:05.920 a long haired spotted hyaena uh in perfectly warm weather 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.720 like that. If you if you look at like go 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:11.480 online right like, if you're curious and look at images 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:16.400 of spotted hyaenas, you will see uh pictures of them 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:22.679 in Africa in what's probably perfectly warm weather, with a 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:27.880 variety of coat lengths, short, longer. And I would suspect 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:30.639 that a lot of that has to do with age 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:34.920 and health things like that. Yeah, but no evidence. It's 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.000 it's temperature based. There could be some effect, but yeah, 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.560 we don't know. And this claim that they have this 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:45.080 sort of latent gene or capability to do it because 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:47.280 they used to be in Europe, yeah, I really could. 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:50.560 I couldn't find I could not find evidence of that, 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:53.960 so you know, still could still could be true, but 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:58.000 you can't can't make a claim unless you actually have 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:01.840 evidence of that. So it's you know, social media is 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:06.199 frustrating in that way, really spreading like something that it 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:11.240 could be misinformation, and it's I think what's frustrating about 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:16.560 it is there are plenty of really cool facts about 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:20.960 hyenas and other animals that have plenty of evidence supporting it. 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.560 And if this is true, and somehow the first person 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:29.480 who posted it had some access to a study that 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:31.800 was done on this, and then that got lost in 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:36.000 a mix. That's also really frustrating because I can't using 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:40.119 my modest research skills, I'm unable to track it down. 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:44.320 The listener, who I'm sure also has research skills, couldn't 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.679 track it down. So then you lose that like if 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:51.679 it ever existed. You lose that connection to actual research, 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:55.680 which is especially important with like social media posts, because 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.920 there might be some real research and then you look 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:02.000 into it, maybe the details are a little different right 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:05.720 from what the social media claim is. And yeah, I 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:08.600 mean things are just gonna get worse and worse with AI. 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:13.880 I've seen a lot of posts of animals that are 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:17.320 making some claim about an animal and it's not even 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:19.959 a it's not even a real image of the animal, guys. 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.280 It's like it's AI and it's you know, my There's 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:29.119 like this video of a koala quote unquote adopting kittens 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:32.320 and picking them up, and I was looking at it 0:21:33.240 --> 0:21:38.040 and my immediate feeling was this is not real. Just 0:21:38.160 --> 0:21:40.480 there is something about it that felt a little uncandy, 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:44.320 even though it was very photorealistic and indeed it's a I. 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:46.840 And then when you really looked at it, you could 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:49.639 see that the number of toes and the placement of 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:53.719 the toes on the koala is all wrong. So yeah, 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:58.359 there's gonna be a lot of these claims made online 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:03.320 about things, so please do, like, I really do like 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:08.119 to try to either debunk or bunk these things. I 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.280 don't know if bunk is the opposite of dbunk, but yeah, like, uh, 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:14.520 send me if you find something online on social media 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:17.680 where it's like making some claim about animals or even 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:19.480 like an image of an animal that you're like, is 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:21.919 this real or not? Do feel free to send that 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:23.480 to me. You can write to me at Creature Future 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:26.159 Pod at gmail dot com and I'll help you figure 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:31.959 that out. Because I think it's increasingly difficult to parse 0:22:32.119 --> 0:22:34.880 media landscape. It's important to be able to do that, 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:37.680 and it's it's getting it's getting harder. It's getting a 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:43.400 lot tougher to uh identify misinformation. And so if it's 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:48.080 something that's like outside of my area of expertise, I'm 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:50.879 not very good at it because like the like AI 0:22:51.200 --> 0:22:56.040 and stuff is getting really good at faking faking you out. 0:22:56.160 --> 0:23:01.400 So yeah, thank you so much for that question. All right, 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:05.479 on to another listener question. I watched a video recently 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:08.920 about human persistence hunting and the video said the hunt 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:11.800 took eight hours. This make me think, first, are there 0:23:11.880 --> 0:23:16.159 other persistent hunters in the wild? And then what is 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:19.600 the longest an animal will take to do a single task? 0:23:19.760 --> 0:23:23.240 For clarification on what I mean, what is the longest 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:25.760 amount of time a spider will take to build a 0:23:25.800 --> 0:23:29.080 web and doesn't take breaks while building its web? What 0:23:29.200 --> 0:23:32.520 about burrowing animals? How long will they take to build 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:36.400 their home? What about mating displays? What is the longest 0:23:36.440 --> 0:23:40.000 an animal continues its dance or display before it will stop? 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:43.360 Or are there animals that will dance to their deaths? Thank 0:23:43.400 --> 0:23:45.800 you for the wonderful podcast and for helping me understand 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:48.360 evolution a little better, which is to say, now understand 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:51.360 evolution less than I thought, but more than I did. 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:55.840 But that's science. And this is from Daniel Hi. Daniel, Yeah, 0:23:55.920 --> 0:23:59.320 I mean, I think when you start learning stuff, you 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:04.040 realize how much you don't understand. So getting more confused 0:24:04.080 --> 0:24:08.960 is actually sometimes assign your understanding things better. And I'm 0:24:09.000 --> 0:24:12.399 certainly confused a lot of the time. So you are 0:24:12.520 --> 0:24:15.280 right in that humans are thought to have hunted not 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:19.600 by necessarily being the fastest or the strongest, but by 0:24:19.640 --> 0:24:23.720 being able to out endure or outsmart their prey, so 0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:29.159 distance running, tiring out the prey, but also hunting together 0:24:29.320 --> 0:24:33.879 and using strategy. We have a pretty unique ability for 0:24:34.040 --> 0:24:39.600 patients long term or medium term planning. That doesn't mean 0:24:39.640 --> 0:24:42.760 that we are the only ones, though, So let me 0:24:43.280 --> 0:24:45.639 I would actually just like to eat with your examples. 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:50.320 Just answer all the questions in your examples. So the 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:54.720 spider web question of like how long you could a 0:24:54.760 --> 0:24:58.240 spider take to build a web, it's a really interesting one. 0:24:58.240 --> 0:25:02.399 We can both look at individual spiders who build a 0:25:02.400 --> 0:25:07.240 web on their own and social spiders who There are 0:25:07.359 --> 0:25:11.760 various species of social spiders who usually are these little 0:25:11.920 --> 0:25:16.560 tidy spiders who live in these big communal webs. And 0:25:16.920 --> 0:25:20.680 so first let's look at individual spiders. A spider who 0:25:20.720 --> 0:25:25.600 will build her web all on her own. Many species 0:25:25.640 --> 0:25:29.040 of spiders can complete a web in around an hour. 0:25:30.000 --> 0:25:33.000 Kind of depends on how big it is, how complex 0:25:33.040 --> 0:25:36.119 it is, so anywhere from like twenty minutes to an hour. 0:25:38.000 --> 0:25:43.400 It certainly takes some patience, especially because there might be 0:25:43.480 --> 0:25:47.679 some interference and they have to start over again. But 0:25:48.119 --> 0:25:53.960 for a real marathon weaver. We can take a look 0:25:54.040 --> 0:25:58.840 at the Darwin's bark spider. These are little spiders. They're 0:25:58.880 --> 0:26:03.120 less than an inch and diameter, cute little fluffy spiders 0:26:03.119 --> 0:26:06.320 if you are into that sort of thing. They're found 0:26:06.400 --> 0:26:11.639 in Madagascar and they make these giant webs all on 0:26:11.680 --> 0:26:18.560 their own, so like where the basic the baseline structure 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:22.880 of the web can be up to twenty five meters 0:26:23.000 --> 0:26:28.159 or eighty feet long and then two meters wide, so 0:26:28.960 --> 0:26:32.920 they have what's basically like a giant bridge made out 0:26:32.920 --> 0:26:35.600 of web, and then kind of in the center of it, 0:26:35.640 --> 0:26:39.400 you have this large expanse where it is an actual 0:26:39.520 --> 0:26:44.600 like spider web with the spiral and the reticulated structure, 0:26:45.200 --> 0:26:47.479 and that one is about two meters wide, which is 0:26:47.520 --> 0:26:53.959 still quite big. So the spider will sit on a 0:26:54.000 --> 0:26:57.679 tree branch and spray out a line of silk and 0:26:57.760 --> 0:27:01.160 let the wind carry it off to another tree. They 0:27:01.240 --> 0:27:05.320 like to do this sort of at river banks where 0:27:05.320 --> 0:27:07.760 there's like trees on one side and the other side 0:27:07.760 --> 0:27:11.440 of the river and you have a lot of insect activity. 0:27:12.520 --> 0:27:17.440 So the silk is really strong for it's a diameter, 0:27:17.800 --> 0:27:21.920 but it's also really really light, so it might carry 0:27:21.880 --> 0:27:26.720 it across the river, and then the wind takes it, 0:27:26.800 --> 0:27:29.439 and then it settles on another tree and wants the 0:27:29.480 --> 0:27:33.240 spider sense is that it basically has this long line, 0:27:34.000 --> 0:27:36.760 like I said, up to like twenty five meters, and 0:27:36.800 --> 0:27:41.000 now it can use that as a bridge for building 0:27:41.160 --> 0:27:45.640 the central web. So it goes out. It reinforces first 0:27:45.920 --> 0:27:51.520 this like sort of tether this line running between the trees, 0:27:52.480 --> 0:27:58.119 and then she starts to build the center of the web. 0:27:59.600 --> 0:28:04.000 And yeah, it takes a really long time. I wasn't 0:28:04.040 --> 0:28:08.520 able to find the exact amount of time that it takes, 0:28:08.640 --> 0:28:14.320 but many hours, many many hours to build this. And 0:28:15.560 --> 0:28:19.840 she is really really patient because often she has to 0:28:19.880 --> 0:28:23.639 restart if some bigger animal messes up the web, or 0:28:23.640 --> 0:28:29.000 even if another another spider, either her own species a 0:28:29.080 --> 0:28:33.040 Darwin spark spider or some other orb weaver spider finds 0:28:33.600 --> 0:28:36.239 the structure that she's building and tries to sort of 0:28:36.280 --> 0:28:43.240 steal her foundation to build its own web, and so 0:28:43.280 --> 0:28:45.680 she'll have to like fight off this other spider or 0:28:48.160 --> 0:28:51.959