1 00:00:06,360 --> 00:00:09,959 Speaker 1: An idea has taken hold of the public imagination. The 2 00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:14,760 Speaker 1: idea is that nature just keeps inventing crabs. Crabs are 3 00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:18,000 Speaker 1: just the ideal body plan and are incredibly beneficial. This 4 00:00:18,239 --> 00:00:21,040 Speaker 1: idea emerged from a review paper that was written during 5 00:00:21,079 --> 00:00:24,000 Speaker 1: the pandemic by a group of scientists led by doctor 6 00:00:24,079 --> 00:00:26,560 Speaker 1: Joe Wolf. But the thing is that the idea that 7 00:00:26,680 --> 00:00:31,120 Speaker 1: sort of emerged into the memo sphere is really quite 8 00:00:31,160 --> 00:00:33,800 Speaker 1: different than the idea that was initially presented in this 9 00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:36,640 Speaker 1: review paper. So today we have doctor Joe Wolf on 10 00:00:36,680 --> 00:00:38,519 Speaker 1: the show, and she's going to tell you about what 11 00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:42,479 Speaker 1: we actually know about how often the crab body shape 12 00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:45,200 Speaker 1: pops up in nature, and what we know about whether 13 00:00:45,280 --> 00:00:48,519 Speaker 1: or not that crab body plan is beneficial. Welcome to 14 00:00:48,640 --> 00:00:51,800 Speaker 1: Daniel and Kelly's extraordinarily crabby universe. 15 00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:08,320 Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'm crabby 16 00:01:08,440 --> 00:01:09,319 Speaker 2: in the evenings. 17 00:01:09,640 --> 00:01:13,320 Speaker 1: Oh. Hi, I'm Kelly wieder Smith. I'm a biologist, and 18 00:01:13,400 --> 00:01:17,200 Speaker 1: I want to believe I'm not crabby in a like 19 00:01:17,280 --> 00:01:22,080 Speaker 1: Circadian rhythm sort of way. Maybe never. What is crabby, Daniel? 20 00:01:22,160 --> 00:01:24,320 Speaker 2: Like, I've just noticed that between me and my wife, 21 00:01:24,360 --> 00:01:26,440 Speaker 2: I tend to have more energy in the mornings, and 22 00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:28,720 Speaker 2: she tends to have more energy in the evenings, which 23 00:01:28,760 --> 00:01:31,319 Speaker 2: actually has worked out well as parents, because I get 24 00:01:31,400 --> 00:01:33,360 Speaker 2: up early and I'm ready to go, go, go and 25 00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:35,680 Speaker 2: get stuff done and help the kids with X Y Z. 26 00:01:36,520 --> 00:01:39,119 Speaker 2: And when it's like nine pm and the kids you're like, oh, 27 00:01:39,160 --> 00:01:41,840 Speaker 2: by the way, I need forty five cupcakes for tomorrow, 28 00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:45,280 Speaker 2: Katrina's like okay, I'll spin that up, or like, let's 29 00:01:45,319 --> 00:01:48,520 Speaker 2: go buy these special shoes you need for tomorrow's activity 30 00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:51,320 Speaker 2: or whatever. So you know, as a team, it worked well. 31 00:01:51,360 --> 00:01:53,280 Speaker 2: But yeah, I tend to be more tired in the 32 00:01:53,320 --> 00:01:55,600 Speaker 2: evenings and she tends to be more slow to move 33 00:01:55,680 --> 00:01:56,320 Speaker 2: in the mornings. 34 00:01:56,640 --> 00:01:58,600 Speaker 1: We also have that division. Zach is more of a 35 00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:01,480 Speaker 1: night person and I'm more of a morning person, and 36 00:02:01,560 --> 00:02:03,160 Speaker 1: so I'm the one who make sure everybody gets up 37 00:02:03,160 --> 00:02:05,360 Speaker 1: in the morning and we don't miss school, and Zach 38 00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:07,080 Speaker 1: is the one who when the kids are kind of 39 00:02:07,120 --> 00:02:09,200 Speaker 1: dragging their feet, he makes sure they get into bed 40 00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:11,280 Speaker 1: because I'm a zombie. 41 00:02:11,360 --> 00:02:13,480 Speaker 2: Isn't it funny how to get together you have to 42 00:02:13,520 --> 00:02:15,359 Speaker 2: have sort of those rhythms in common. But then to 43 00:02:15,480 --> 00:02:18,680 Speaker 2: survive as a parent, it's better to actually have the 44 00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:19,920 Speaker 2: opposite routines. 45 00:02:20,360 --> 00:02:22,120 Speaker 1: I mean for us, Like when I was younger, I 46 00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:24,639 Speaker 1: could roll with it, like I'd rather not stay up late, 47 00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:26,320 Speaker 1: but okay, final I'll stay up late. And even if 48 00:02:26,360 --> 00:02:27,960 Speaker 1: I have to get up early, I can do that too, 49 00:02:27,960 --> 00:02:29,959 Speaker 1: because I'm young and I can do anything. But now 50 00:02:30,080 --> 00:02:33,800 Speaker 1: like I can't deny my daily rhythm anymore. 51 00:02:34,120 --> 00:02:36,720 Speaker 2: Well, I think that leads to the obvious and deep question, 52 00:02:36,800 --> 00:02:39,720 Speaker 2: which is when are crabs crabby? Do they tend to 53 00:02:39,720 --> 00:02:42,480 Speaker 2: be energetic in the mornings or what? Or crabs just 54 00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:43,440 Speaker 2: crabby all the time. 55 00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:46,160 Speaker 1: I don't know. Probably depends on if you're harassing them 56 00:02:46,240 --> 00:02:48,840 Speaker 1: or not. They're probably crabby whenever you know, young kids 57 00:02:48,880 --> 00:02:49,840 Speaker 1: are trying to pick them up. 58 00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:53,040 Speaker 2: They just want to be crabs, man. 59 00:02:52,919 --> 00:02:55,679 Speaker 1: Yeah, just let them be crabs. And speaking of crabs 60 00:02:55,760 --> 00:02:59,640 Speaker 1: have been sort of all over social media since the pandemic, 61 00:03:00,080 --> 00:03:04,120 Speaker 1: and there's this idea that the optimal form for organisms 62 00:03:04,280 --> 00:03:07,359 Speaker 1: is the crabby shape. And so we had this great 63 00:03:07,480 --> 00:03:10,079 Speaker 1: question from a listener, and let's go ahead and listen 64 00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:10,720 Speaker 1: to that question. 65 00:03:10,760 --> 00:03:15,519 Speaker 3: Now, Hi, Kelly and Daniel, listen, what's the deal with crabs? 66 00:03:16,040 --> 00:03:19,160 Speaker 3: Why does nature keep reinventing them? Can we get a 67 00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:25,440 Speaker 3: new blueprint, maybe something with wings, crab wings. Anyway, I'd 68 00:03:25,480 --> 00:03:28,560 Speaker 3: love to know why some of Nature's designs get recycled. Thanks, 69 00:03:28,560 --> 00:03:29,520 Speaker 3: guys love the show. 70 00:03:30,800 --> 00:03:35,080 Speaker 1: So it turns out that I happen to know doctor Wolf, 71 00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:37,280 Speaker 1: who is one of the people who wrote the review 72 00:03:37,320 --> 00:03:42,760 Speaker 1: paper from which this Crabby Body Shapes meme emerged from, 73 00:03:43,120 --> 00:03:45,720 Speaker 1: and she's a little bit frustrated with how it has 74 00:03:45,800 --> 00:03:48,160 Speaker 1: sort of taken off in a sort of inaccurate way, 75 00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:51,040 Speaker 1: and so I invited her onto the show to give 76 00:03:51,160 --> 00:03:53,400 Speaker 1: us all the details of what we know about this 77 00:03:53,520 --> 00:03:55,760 Speaker 1: question and to sort of talk about how this idea 78 00:03:56,360 --> 00:03:58,640 Speaker 1: took off and went off in weird directions. 79 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:02,440 Speaker 2: It's amazing that you know so many influential, famous scientists, Kelly. 80 00:04:03,120 --> 00:04:05,280 Speaker 1: I've just harassed a lot of people throughout my life, 81 00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:07,960 Speaker 1: I think, for various projects, and they've all just been 82 00:04:08,040 --> 00:04:09,280 Speaker 1: nice enough to keep talking to me. 83 00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:12,320 Speaker 2: That's wonderful. Well, it's really great to see friends succeed. 84 00:04:12,840 --> 00:04:16,320 Speaker 1: It is, yes, right, and Joe is at Harvard, which 85 00:04:16,360 --> 00:04:20,960 Speaker 1: is incredible, and so let's go ahead and start that interview. 86 00:04:22,600 --> 00:04:25,719 Speaker 1: Doctor Joe Wolf is a research associate in organismic and 87 00:04:25,760 --> 00:04:29,240 Speaker 1: evolutionary biology at Harvard. Welcome to the show. Joe. Hi, 88 00:04:30,279 --> 00:04:32,440 Speaker 1: I'm so excited to have you here. And my husband 89 00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:33,880 Speaker 1: I've been talking to him. I was like, Oh, we're 90 00:04:33,880 --> 00:04:35,800 Speaker 1: going to ruin the crab thing, and he's like, Oh, 91 00:04:36,640 --> 00:04:38,600 Speaker 1: you're gonna do the what planket thing, which is like 92 00:04:38,720 --> 00:04:41,120 Speaker 1: what he's sort of, you know, come to know me for. 93 00:04:41,400 --> 00:04:43,960 Speaker 1: But anyway, so let's jump right in. So when you 94 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:48,320 Speaker 1: hear folks say stuff like nature keeps inventing crabs, what 95 00:04:48,560 --> 00:04:51,560 Speaker 1: do they mean? And what are the crabby features that 96 00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:52,520 Speaker 1: are being honed in on? 97 00:04:52,560 --> 00:04:57,320 Speaker 4: Here, I'll answer the part about what the crabby features are. 98 00:04:57,440 --> 00:05:01,320 Speaker 4: I suppose this is something that's been and observed several 99 00:05:01,360 --> 00:05:05,480 Speaker 4: times within a group called decorpod crustaceans. So decor pods 100 00:05:05,480 --> 00:05:09,440 Speaker 4: contain probably the most crustaceans that most people are familiar with, 101 00:05:09,520 --> 00:05:13,320 Speaker 4: crabs as well as shrimps and lobsters. And what we 102 00:05:13,640 --> 00:05:17,760 Speaker 4: think that we understand when we see a crab, like, 103 00:05:17,839 --> 00:05:22,080 Speaker 4: everyone has an image of what they imagine, and that 104 00:05:22,320 --> 00:05:27,320 Speaker 4: is something that has a flat and wide carapace. Usually 105 00:05:27,400 --> 00:05:32,240 Speaker 4: it's kind of oval around shaped, right, and generally the 106 00:05:32,279 --> 00:05:35,039 Speaker 4: only thing that you see sticking out are legs and 107 00:05:35,120 --> 00:05:39,279 Speaker 4: cloths so unlike with a lobster, where it has like 108 00:05:39,400 --> 00:05:43,520 Speaker 4: this long abdomen and a tail fan sticking out, crabs 109 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:46,880 Speaker 4: don't visibly have that. It turns out that they do 110 00:05:47,320 --> 00:05:51,080 Speaker 4: have the abdomen, but it's actually folded underneath the body. 111 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:55,279 Speaker 4: So the folding that is kind of one of the 112 00:05:55,279 --> 00:05:59,840 Speaker 4: other major crabby features, and it actually covers up the underbelly, 113 00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:00,520 Speaker 4: if you will. 114 00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:04,040 Speaker 2: So the thing that makes something crabby are a flat 115 00:06:04,040 --> 00:06:08,840 Speaker 2: carapace and then eight legs. Basically no, no, all right. 116 00:06:09,040 --> 00:06:12,880 Speaker 4: Technically they do all have eight legs, but some of 117 00:06:12,920 --> 00:06:16,279 Speaker 4: them do not have eight visible legs, and some of 118 00:06:16,320 --> 00:06:20,360 Speaker 4: them that back there is super tiny, and sometimes it's 119 00:06:20,440 --> 00:06:23,920 Speaker 4: in a specified chamber where you couldn't see them. 120 00:06:24,240 --> 00:06:26,359 Speaker 1: Wow, all right, what are they doing in there? 121 00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:30,479 Speaker 4: They're like cleaning some of the more sensitive anatomy. 122 00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:34,080 Speaker 1: Huh yeah, okay, I didn't know that. Cool. 123 00:06:34,240 --> 00:06:36,440 Speaker 2: Well, I wish I had special invisible legs to clean 124 00:06:36,440 --> 00:06:37,359 Speaker 2: my sensitive anatomy. 125 00:06:41,480 --> 00:06:44,640 Speaker 4: Yeah. So this is actually one of the main differences. 126 00:06:44,800 --> 00:06:49,000 Speaker 4: So the idea that a crab like form has evolved 127 00:06:49,040 --> 00:06:51,080 Speaker 4: multiple times has been known for over one hundred and 128 00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:55,040 Speaker 4: forty years. And if we think about the tree of life, right, 129 00:06:55,600 --> 00:06:58,400 Speaker 4: so This is like how different species are related. It's 130 00:06:58,440 --> 00:07:01,880 Speaker 4: a bigger, an older version of the same thing as 131 00:07:01,960 --> 00:07:07,680 Speaker 4: us having a family tree. So in the crustacean family tree, 132 00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:11,440 Speaker 4: there are two groups which are each other's closest relative. 133 00:07:11,840 --> 00:07:14,560 Speaker 4: One group is called the true crabs and one group 134 00:07:14,640 --> 00:07:17,840 Speaker 4: is called false crabs. And so, Daniel, what you actually 135 00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:21,760 Speaker 4: mentioned is one of the main obvious ways to distinguish them. 136 00:07:22,000 --> 00:07:26,640 Speaker 4: True crab eight legs, false crab technically eight, but you 137 00:07:26,640 --> 00:07:31,600 Speaker 4: will only see six usually or less. Permit crabs are 138 00:07:31,640 --> 00:07:34,200 Speaker 4: part of that, and they usually only look like they 139 00:07:34,240 --> 00:07:39,040 Speaker 4: have four because actually the back two pairs are involved 140 00:07:39,040 --> 00:07:40,080 Speaker 4: in holding onto the show. 141 00:07:40,440 --> 00:07:43,280 Speaker 2: And is that an arbitrary labeled true crab and false crab? 142 00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:45,640 Speaker 2: Is there something just truer about one of them or 143 00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:47,480 Speaker 2: is there like a value judgment there or is it 144 00:07:47,560 --> 00:07:51,080 Speaker 2: like the remnants of an ancient argument among friends or what. 145 00:07:51,320 --> 00:07:54,720 Speaker 4: No, it's a colloquialism. They have Latin names, So true 146 00:07:54,720 --> 00:07:57,920 Speaker 4: crabs with brack eura and false crab with animura, and 147 00:07:58,000 --> 00:08:02,200 Speaker 4: that actually refers to basically the folded under ab. 148 00:08:02,880 --> 00:08:05,080 Speaker 2: It's really weird when you see an animal that's described 149 00:08:05,120 --> 00:08:06,200 Speaker 2: basically about what it's not. 150 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:10,160 Speaker 4: You know, well, I think it's because within the false 151 00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:13,120 Speaker 4: crabs you see something that looks like a crab, but 152 00:08:13,160 --> 00:08:16,080 Speaker 4: they're not within the same group. So what that means 153 00:08:17,120 --> 00:08:21,239 Speaker 4: intert of the family tree is that the ancestral form, 154 00:08:21,440 --> 00:08:23,880 Speaker 4: or at least what we assume to be the ancestral form. 155 00:08:23,920 --> 00:08:27,240 Speaker 4: And definitely many of the forms within the enemure or 156 00:08:27,240 --> 00:08:31,680 Speaker 4: false crabs, many of those are elongate and they look 157 00:08:31,760 --> 00:08:35,720 Speaker 4: more like a lobster. So some of them look like 158 00:08:36,120 --> 00:08:40,880 Speaker 4: crabby and oval, and some of them look wrong and 159 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:44,400 Speaker 4: have like this abdominent tail and the tail fan like 160 00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:45,840 Speaker 4: a lobster, which crabs don't have. 161 00:08:46,520 --> 00:08:49,400 Speaker 2: Well, I'm feeling for the false crabs because I'm often 162 00:08:49,440 --> 00:08:52,800 Speaker 2: described by my teenager's friends as like Hazel's dad or 163 00:08:52,840 --> 00:08:54,480 Speaker 2: signs of the dad. I'm just like to find a 164 00:08:54,520 --> 00:08:56,160 Speaker 2: relation to somebody. 165 00:08:55,720 --> 00:08:56,760 Speaker 1: Else, something better. 166 00:08:56,960 --> 00:09:00,720 Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, something better. That's the implication right there, And 167 00:09:00,760 --> 00:09:02,840 Speaker 2: so feeling for these false crabs. I'm on the false 168 00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:03,920 Speaker 2: crabs team over here. 169 00:09:04,080 --> 00:09:05,880 Speaker 4: They're actually my favorite, so. 170 00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:09,040 Speaker 2: They're your favorite too. Yeah, there we go. The downtroden exactly, 171 00:09:09,440 --> 00:09:11,400 Speaker 2: the crab crushed under the foot of evolution. 172 00:09:11,720 --> 00:09:15,480 Speaker 4: They do have fewer species, so the true crops they 173 00:09:15,520 --> 00:09:18,800 Speaker 4: have at least seventy five hundred described species, and the 174 00:09:18,840 --> 00:09:22,959 Speaker 4: false crabs have like twenty five hundred. I'm saying described 175 00:09:22,960 --> 00:09:24,840 Speaker 4: because we don't know their true. 176 00:09:24,600 --> 00:09:28,560 Speaker 2: Diversity, and so you're talking about the various shapes of 177 00:09:28,600 --> 00:09:30,800 Speaker 2: these critters today, and then you're also talking about the 178 00:09:30,800 --> 00:09:34,160 Speaker 2: family tree. What is the relationship between these things? Is 179 00:09:34,200 --> 00:09:38,199 Speaker 2: their common ancestor also krabby or did they evolve crabbiness independently? 180 00:09:38,480 --> 00:09:41,640 Speaker 2: How many times has nature like invented crabs. 181 00:09:41,720 --> 00:09:47,040 Speaker 4: So they did evolve it separately. It's challenging because we 182 00:09:47,080 --> 00:09:49,760 Speaker 4: don't know what their exact ancestral look like. In order 183 00:09:49,800 --> 00:09:52,839 Speaker 4: to be able to do that, we would ideally have 184 00:09:53,320 --> 00:09:57,880 Speaker 4: many many fossils that came from the oldest point as 185 00:09:57,880 --> 00:10:01,600 Speaker 4: close to the divergence of those groups possible. They do 186 00:10:01,679 --> 00:10:05,160 Speaker 4: have a pretty good fossil record, but a lot of 187 00:10:05,200 --> 00:10:09,000 Speaker 4: the fossils are just the care pace. And the reason 188 00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:11,640 Speaker 4: for that is if you think about what happens to 189 00:10:11,880 --> 00:10:14,360 Speaker 4: a quarks, Basically, if you throw it in the water, 190 00:10:15,040 --> 00:10:17,840 Speaker 4: you know the parts that can fall apart will fall 191 00:10:17,880 --> 00:10:22,840 Speaker 4: apart or be scavenged. So pretty much what happened to 192 00:10:22,920 --> 00:10:25,599 Speaker 4: them is that. And so if you only have the 193 00:10:25,640 --> 00:10:28,600 Speaker 4: care pace. Upon is that we already know that things 194 00:10:28,640 --> 00:10:31,720 Speaker 4: that look similar in this group might not be both relatives. 195 00:10:31,800 --> 00:10:34,880 Speaker 4: We know that from modern groups whose DNA that we have. 196 00:10:36,160 --> 00:10:38,240 Speaker 4: So if we see something that looks similar and it's 197 00:10:38,360 --> 00:10:41,240 Speaker 4: only the care pace, we can't always be certain in 198 00:10:41,280 --> 00:10:45,480 Speaker 4: the fossil record, so that's kind of why we don't 199 00:10:45,520 --> 00:10:50,160 Speaker 4: know what their exact ancestors are. However, we can look 200 00:10:50,200 --> 00:10:54,600 Speaker 4: at least within the living groups at what their closest 201 00:10:54,640 --> 00:10:57,920 Speaker 4: relatives are, and that can kind of help. And so 202 00:10:58,200 --> 00:11:03,040 Speaker 4: within both the true and crabs we see krabby and 203 00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:06,880 Speaker 4: not so krabby forms. So actually what we see is 204 00:11:06,920 --> 00:11:10,920 Speaker 4: within the true crabs. Probably there's two instances where the 205 00:11:10,960 --> 00:11:14,559 Speaker 4: Krabby form has evolved. One is in a pretty small group, 206 00:11:14,600 --> 00:11:17,600 Speaker 4: which is kind of what we call the out group 207 00:11:18,160 --> 00:11:21,559 Speaker 4: to the rest, So that means that basically the first 208 00:11:21,800 --> 00:11:27,280 Speaker 4: branch that evolved from the true crabs. Within that group, 209 00:11:27,800 --> 00:11:30,880 Speaker 4: we see one set of sort of rounded little guys 210 00:11:30,880 --> 00:11:33,080 Speaker 4: that look like craps, and these are called the sponge crabs. 211 00:11:33,480 --> 00:11:36,319 Speaker 4: They're called that because they usually make a hat out 212 00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:37,520 Speaker 4: of a sponge and they wear it. 213 00:11:37,920 --> 00:11:40,400 Speaker 1: Oh that's so cute. I have a new favorite crab. 214 00:11:40,480 --> 00:11:44,480 Speaker 2: Now, why do they make a hat out of a sponge? 215 00:11:44,559 --> 00:11:48,120 Speaker 4: Well, I guess it makes good camouflage if you look 216 00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:53,400 Speaker 4: like an inanimate object a living thing, but nonetheless, hopefully 217 00:11:53,520 --> 00:11:54,559 Speaker 4: no one's gonna come ool with you. 218 00:11:54,679 --> 00:11:56,920 Speaker 1: Right, Do we have any tests to see if that 219 00:11:56,960 --> 00:11:59,280 Speaker 1: actually works, like if you take their sponges off or 220 00:11:59,320 --> 00:12:01,920 Speaker 1: you give them a better sponge. Has anyone actually shown. 221 00:12:02,000 --> 00:12:05,640 Speaker 4: I don't know. I know I've seen some videos of 222 00:12:05,720 --> 00:12:09,480 Speaker 4: people making like out of kitchen sponges and seeing how 223 00:12:09,520 --> 00:12:11,240 Speaker 4: the crabs because they kind of like cut them up 224 00:12:11,240 --> 00:12:14,000 Speaker 4: a little bit of their claws so they can do that, 225 00:12:14,040 --> 00:12:17,000 Speaker 4: But I don't know if anyone's published a systematic test 226 00:12:17,040 --> 00:12:20,760 Speaker 4: of that. There are other groups that hold things on 227 00:12:20,840 --> 00:12:24,120 Speaker 4: top of themselves, like a hat. Hermit crabs technically are 228 00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:25,960 Speaker 4: kind of doing that, so they shove their back end 229 00:12:26,000 --> 00:12:26,600 Speaker 4: into it too. 230 00:12:27,120 --> 00:12:29,440 Speaker 1: I love that they're like cutting their hats to fit 231 00:12:29,920 --> 00:12:32,520 Speaker 1: the way that they want it. Anyway, this is very exciting. 232 00:12:32,600 --> 00:12:34,760 Speaker 1: I could talk about this for five hours, but maybe 233 00:12:34,760 --> 00:12:35,520 Speaker 1: we should keep going. 234 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:37,480 Speaker 4: Right, So that's the first group, and then the other 235 00:12:37,559 --> 00:12:40,160 Speaker 4: group from the true crabs is there isn't a good 236 00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:43,680 Speaker 4: common name for but it's the majority of true crab diversity, 237 00:12:44,200 --> 00:12:47,240 Speaker 4: and I guess they can be called the higher true crabs, 238 00:12:47,240 --> 00:12:51,040 Speaker 4: although that's a value judgment, and it's just referring to 239 00:12:51,040 --> 00:12:54,200 Speaker 4: the fact that they share a common ancestor amongst themselves. 240 00:12:54,200 --> 00:12:57,640 Speaker 4: So the vast majority of true crab species fit inside that. 241 00:12:57,760 --> 00:13:03,160 Speaker 4: So that's like spider crabs, swimming crabs, decorator crabs, pretty 242 00:13:03,200 --> 00:13:06,720 Speaker 4: much all land crabs, most of the ones that people eat, 243 00:13:07,120 --> 00:13:11,320 Speaker 4: those are all within the higher true crabs or you 244 00:13:11,480 --> 00:13:14,559 Speaker 4: breck eree, So those guys are almost all having the 245 00:13:14,640 --> 00:13:15,160 Speaker 4: crapit for. 246 00:13:15,800 --> 00:13:18,760 Speaker 2: And when we talk about this history, is this recent history, 247 00:13:18,920 --> 00:13:21,000 Speaker 2: like this stuff has evolved in the last ten thousand years, 248 00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:23,319 Speaker 2: one hundred thousand years. Are we talking hundreds of millions 249 00:13:23,360 --> 00:13:24,920 Speaker 2: of years or what's the timescale? 250 00:13:24,960 --> 00:13:28,400 Speaker 4: It's hundreds of millions, Yes, it's quite old. These guys 251 00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:32,000 Speaker 4: were and off pretty much around the time of the dinosaurs. 252 00:13:32,400 --> 00:13:35,840 Speaker 4: So if a dinosaur went for a swim, then they 253 00:13:35,920 --> 00:13:40,240 Speaker 4: might have encountered some crabs. Even there were some crabs 254 00:13:40,240 --> 00:13:44,720 Speaker 4: starting to go at least into brackish water environments also 255 00:13:44,840 --> 00:13:47,160 Speaker 4: at that time, so they could have met up. 256 00:13:47,520 --> 00:13:49,480 Speaker 2: I have the impression when I hear about a species 257 00:13:49,520 --> 00:13:52,280 Speaker 2: that hasn't changed in hundreds of millions of years. That 258 00:13:52,360 --> 00:13:56,240 Speaker 2: has sort of reached some plateau where like you can't 259 00:13:56,240 --> 00:13:58,880 Speaker 2: really improve very much. Is that totally falls And it's 260 00:13:58,920 --> 00:14:01,640 Speaker 2: just that the time scales so long, like in a 261 00:14:01,679 --> 00:14:04,840 Speaker 2: billion years, crabs will look different, or have we somehow 262 00:14:04,920 --> 00:14:07,200 Speaker 2: found some niche where it's really not going to change 263 00:14:07,280 --> 00:14:07,760 Speaker 2: much more. 264 00:14:08,240 --> 00:14:11,240 Speaker 4: That doesn't actually describe crabs, it's a term used to 265 00:14:11,240 --> 00:14:13,959 Speaker 4: describe horseshoe crabs. So I guess we've got to address that. 266 00:14:14,000 --> 00:14:17,840 Speaker 4: Elephant and horsy crabs are not a crustacean unfortunately. 267 00:14:17,960 --> 00:14:20,600 Speaker 2: Oh wow, they're false false crabs. 268 00:14:20,320 --> 00:14:23,479 Speaker 4: Right, yeah, yeah, they are. They're pretty much like interactive 269 00:14:23,760 --> 00:14:26,880 Speaker 4: like spiders and scorpions, and the way that we distinguish 270 00:14:27,440 --> 00:14:30,640 Speaker 4: different groups among arthropods. So archipods first of all, are 271 00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:36,680 Speaker 4: the animals that have jointed legs. So within the horseshoe 272 00:14:36,720 --> 00:14:40,760 Speaker 4: crabs and iraqeids those guys versus crustaceans, it's basically the 273 00:14:40,920 --> 00:14:44,360 Speaker 4: number of segments of their head that is the main 274 00:14:44,480 --> 00:14:49,800 Speaker 4: morphological way that they were first identified. And DNA data 275 00:14:50,200 --> 00:14:54,000 Speaker 4: also verifies that these are separate groups. So they are 276 00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:58,760 Speaker 4: at least five hundred million years different so horseshoe crabs Also, 277 00:14:59,360 --> 00:15:03,120 Speaker 4: although they are around it, they don't have the same 278 00:15:03,120 --> 00:15:07,120 Speaker 4: body parts as a crustacean, So they don't have this 279 00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:10,000 Speaker 4: abdomen that folds up underneath. When you imagine a crab, 280 00:15:10,040 --> 00:15:12,280 Speaker 4: it's not like this little taper bit and then a 281 00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:16,000 Speaker 4: long spine at the end. Right, there's like a middle 282 00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:21,000 Speaker 4: piece that crustaceans have that they don't have. So they're 283 00:15:21,040 --> 00:15:24,640 Speaker 4: a little similar, but I wouldn't personally describe them as 284 00:15:24,720 --> 00:15:27,200 Speaker 4: having the Krabby forma. Some people have said that they 285 00:15:27,240 --> 00:15:30,320 Speaker 4: do if they're trying to make a really really broad 286 00:15:30,360 --> 00:15:33,800 Speaker 4: ecological argument. People have also said that rais, you know, 287 00:15:33,920 --> 00:15:36,800 Speaker 4: like the sting rays, that they're like that too. Of 288 00:15:36,800 --> 00:15:41,400 Speaker 4: course those are vertebrates, so that's really different. So yeah, 289 00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:43,480 Speaker 4: if you want to get really broad, then there's a 290 00:15:43,560 --> 00:15:45,880 Speaker 4: lot more examples, but none of them have the abdomen 291 00:15:45,920 --> 00:15:47,960 Speaker 4: folding up, which is one of the features that I 292 00:15:47,960 --> 00:15:49,080 Speaker 4: think is really important. 293 00:15:49,360 --> 00:15:52,200 Speaker 2: But you brought up horseshoe crabs because they have sort 294 00:15:52,240 --> 00:15:54,720 Speaker 2: of stabilized on long terms and you don't expect them 295 00:15:54,800 --> 00:15:55,240 Speaker 2: to evolve. 296 00:15:55,400 --> 00:15:59,640 Speaker 4: Or here's the thing, they have been evolving the whole time. 297 00:16:00,160 --> 00:16:05,880 Speaker 4: Their morphologies are similar to fossils, But when we study 298 00:16:05,960 --> 00:16:10,120 Speaker 4: the DNA, they have been changing the whole time. So 299 00:16:10,400 --> 00:16:15,920 Speaker 4: the morphology what we see visually seems the same, but 300 00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:21,360 Speaker 4: they've been change so evolution has proceeded. I guess morphologically 301 00:16:21,600 --> 00:16:24,960 Speaker 4: maybe they are very suitable for life through a lot 302 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:28,840 Speaker 4: of changes in the world, which is great. But no, 303 00:16:29,120 --> 00:16:32,280 Speaker 4: it's kind of a fallacy that they haven't changed. 304 00:16:32,640 --> 00:16:35,760 Speaker 2: Well, it would make more sense for evolution to be constant, right, 305 00:16:35,800 --> 00:16:38,360 Speaker 2: I mean the environment keeps shifting, right. Earth is not 306 00:16:38,400 --> 00:16:40,360 Speaker 2: the same, the climate is not the same, the other 307 00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:43,320 Speaker 2: critters crawling around the Earth are not the same, so 308 00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:45,480 Speaker 2: it makes sense for things to continue. I always thought 309 00:16:45,480 --> 00:16:47,360 Speaker 2: that was weird. So you're telling me the things are 310 00:16:47,520 --> 00:16:50,360 Speaker 2: constantly evolving, And so the idea that like crabs have 311 00:16:50,440 --> 00:16:52,840 Speaker 2: reached some final form is a misunderstanding. 312 00:16:52,840 --> 00:16:56,920 Speaker 4: It is. Yeah, so even within like the crustacean crabs, 313 00:16:56,920 --> 00:16:59,920 Speaker 4: the deck pods, so true in false crabs, to say 314 00:17:00,120 --> 00:17:04,320 Speaker 4: that they haven't changed even since the fossils, that's completely untrue. Actually, 315 00:17:04,440 --> 00:17:08,080 Speaker 4: they have huge rphological variety. Why there are so many species. 316 00:17:08,200 --> 00:17:11,480 Speaker 4: The horses youp grabually have four living species. But I 317 00:17:11,640 --> 00:17:14,640 Speaker 4: just told you that there's like eleven thousand living species 318 00:17:14,680 --> 00:17:17,960 Speaker 4: of crabs, and then there's also thousands of fossil species 319 00:17:17,960 --> 00:17:20,960 Speaker 4: as well that are no longer a lot, so they 320 00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:24,440 Speaker 4: have actually changed a lot. But it's true that there 321 00:17:24,440 --> 00:17:28,240 Speaker 4: are examples of organisms like the horship crowd that haven't 322 00:17:28,320 --> 00:17:32,080 Speaker 4: changed that much morphologically. So yeah, the true crabs as 323 00:17:32,080 --> 00:17:35,159 Speaker 4: well as the false crabs, they have been morphologically changing 324 00:17:35,320 --> 00:17:38,399 Speaker 4: as well in response to changes in their environment and 325 00:17:38,440 --> 00:17:38,760 Speaker 4: so on. 326 00:17:39,600 --> 00:17:41,440 Speaker 1: And I'm going to pull us back a little bit. 327 00:17:41,720 --> 00:17:45,800 Speaker 1: So Daniel had asked you how many times nature invented crabs? 328 00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:48,960 Speaker 4: Right, I got to two of them, right, So the. 329 00:17:48,920 --> 00:17:52,320 Speaker 1: Sponge crabs and the higher true crabs are two examples. 330 00:17:52,359 --> 00:17:54,479 Speaker 4: So now we got to switch over to the false crabs, 331 00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:58,919 Speaker 4: which are Maya Daniel's favor. So those guys, they have 332 00:17:59,440 --> 00:18:04,040 Speaker 4: at least instances, and the probably the oldest instance is 333 00:18:04,040 --> 00:18:08,520 Speaker 4: what's called porcelain crabs. Those guys are little filter feeders 334 00:18:08,880 --> 00:18:13,520 Speaker 4: and they live mostly in core reefs or intertidle zones. 335 00:18:13,920 --> 00:18:18,840 Speaker 4: So if anyone lives near a beach, which in Irvine 336 00:18:18,840 --> 00:18:22,480 Speaker 4: you probably do, we definitely do, you could probably see them. 337 00:18:22,560 --> 00:18:25,320 Speaker 4: I went in a tide poole there I have definitely 338 00:18:25,359 --> 00:18:29,120 Speaker 4: seen them in southern California. So they'll look like a crab, 339 00:18:29,160 --> 00:18:32,880 Speaker 4: but count the number of legs and then you'll see 340 00:18:33,119 --> 00:18:34,080 Speaker 4: they're pretty small too. 341 00:18:34,480 --> 00:18:35,879 Speaker 2: We go to the tide pools all the time, but 342 00:18:35,920 --> 00:18:38,159 Speaker 2: we try not to disturb the little critters because I 343 00:18:38,160 --> 00:18:40,439 Speaker 2: feel like if everybody comes and like picks up a critter, 344 00:18:40,920 --> 00:18:43,120 Speaker 2: then we're just going to be like wiping out some population. 345 00:18:43,359 --> 00:18:48,440 Speaker 4: I think that probably is a safe bet. I wouldn't 346 00:18:48,480 --> 00:18:52,359 Speaker 4: recommend handling animals in the wild if you aren't going 347 00:18:52,440 --> 00:18:55,800 Speaker 4: to be very gentle. Obviously I have to do so 348 00:18:55,960 --> 00:18:59,160 Speaker 4: because I have to collect them for work. We can't 349 00:18:59,160 --> 00:19:02,760 Speaker 4: get the DNA if we don't capture and I'm sorry 350 00:19:02,960 --> 00:19:06,480 Speaker 4: kill them, I know. I mean, I'm a vegetarian, so 351 00:19:06,600 --> 00:19:09,280 Speaker 4: like I won't even a crab. I've never eaten a 352 00:19:09,280 --> 00:19:09,960 Speaker 4: crab in my life. 353 00:19:09,960 --> 00:19:11,960 Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Even the ones that you capture and 354 00:19:12,040 --> 00:19:13,919 Speaker 2: kill for their DNA, well, you. 355 00:19:13,960 --> 00:19:17,479 Speaker 4: Got to put them in preservatives. So actually a lot 356 00:19:17,520 --> 00:19:20,399 Speaker 4: of them we do put in ethanol. So yeah, that 357 00:19:20,440 --> 00:19:22,919 Speaker 4: would be like making an alcoholic beverage. 358 00:19:22,520 --> 00:19:25,320 Speaker 2: But crab cocktail. 359 00:19:25,359 --> 00:19:27,879 Speaker 4: That would be disgusting. Like if you actually open some 360 00:19:27,960 --> 00:19:30,919 Speaker 4: of these vials, I know Kelly has done this, Like, uh, 361 00:19:31,080 --> 00:19:33,240 Speaker 4: you know, a little one is fine, but like some 362 00:19:33,520 --> 00:19:36,000 Speaker 4: are really big or like even giant squids are nothing. 363 00:19:36,119 --> 00:19:37,920 Speaker 4: You open them up, you can pretty much get high 364 00:19:37,960 --> 00:19:38,800 Speaker 4: off the fumes. 365 00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:42,160 Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know that Kelly has done this. 366 00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:43,080 Speaker 4: Is that what? Yeah? 367 00:19:44,280 --> 00:19:48,840 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Kelly has snorted squid fumes. Wow, that is 368 00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:50,600 Speaker 2: something I've learned about Kelly today. 369 00:19:51,040 --> 00:19:51,920 Speaker 4: Well I've done it too. 370 00:19:52,760 --> 00:19:55,880 Speaker 1: It wasn't squid fumes, it was large quantities of preserved 371 00:19:55,880 --> 00:19:58,600 Speaker 1: fish vomit. But yes, you do get a little bit 372 00:19:58,720 --> 00:20:00,720 Speaker 1: sort of high sitting around these samples. 373 00:20:01,000 --> 00:20:03,280 Speaker 2: What does that go for on the street, Kelly. 374 00:20:03,480 --> 00:20:05,760 Speaker 1: Nobody wants it. Actually, it turns out. 375 00:20:07,080 --> 00:20:07,840 Speaker 2: Price is zero. 376 00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:11,360 Speaker 4: There were some samples that we did for one of 377 00:20:11,359 --> 00:20:14,320 Speaker 4: my projects that we had to dissect and we got 378 00:20:14,359 --> 00:20:17,879 Speaker 4: them from like the fish market. So actually my colleagues 379 00:20:18,280 --> 00:20:22,399 Speaker 4: ate the parts that I didn't dissect. I had to 380 00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:25,520 Speaker 4: dissect them, but I didn't look at it. So yeah, 381 00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:27,560 Speaker 4: so you can't eat force and the crabs though they're 382 00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:32,200 Speaker 4: really small. But the other main one within the false crabs, 383 00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:36,240 Speaker 4: lots of people eat that's king crabs. So like Alaska 384 00:20:36,320 --> 00:20:39,840 Speaker 4: king crab that's really famous. That's not truly a crab. 385 00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:43,239 Speaker 4: It's false crap. Count the number of legs. 386 00:20:42,680 --> 00:20:45,840 Speaker 2: Not truly a crab. Oh my gosh. Yeah, taste pretty crabby. 387 00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:50,760 Speaker 4: Yeah yeah. So those guys, they live pretty much white 388 00:20:50,800 --> 00:20:55,280 Speaker 4: bold waters. So the only way people are going to 389 00:20:55,359 --> 00:20:58,920 Speaker 4: encounter them without going out in a boat is if 390 00:20:58,960 --> 00:21:02,320 Speaker 4: you're in pretty much quite cold places, so like the 391 00:21:02,359 --> 00:21:07,040 Speaker 4: Pacific Northwest. I would say southern California. There might be 392 00:21:07,080 --> 00:21:10,000 Speaker 4: a few, but they're more common furthermore, so that's why, 393 00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:12,000 Speaker 4: like Alaska is one of their hot spots. 394 00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:13,520 Speaker 1: They've got their own TV show. 395 00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:16,440 Speaker 2: I don't know if we're just whims, but the water's 396 00:21:16,480 --> 00:21:18,119 Speaker 2: pretty cold hair in southern California. 397 00:21:18,280 --> 00:21:23,600 Speaker 4: Oh well, I am from Canada, so. 398 00:21:22,600 --> 00:21:24,800 Speaker 2: Do you call me a whim? That's why I live here? 399 00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:28,159 Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. So then there's the third group within that 400 00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:30,960 Speaker 4: false crabs, and I hesitate to quality group because there's 401 00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:34,159 Speaker 4: actually only one species, which is the only species in 402 00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:37,880 Speaker 4: his family, so it's just weird. And it's this one 403 00:21:37,920 --> 00:21:41,840 Speaker 4: species called lomas Herca is the Latin name. The nickname 404 00:21:41,880 --> 00:21:45,520 Speaker 4: of it is the harry Stone crab, and it's ecology 405 00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:48,400 Speaker 4: is pretty similar to porcelain crabs. They're in the enter 406 00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:52,320 Speaker 4: title zone, but it only lives in southern Australia and 407 00:21:52,680 --> 00:21:56,480 Speaker 4: its claws look like giant mittens. I was supposed to 408 00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:59,560 Speaker 4: go to a conference in Brazil in twenty twenty. Of 409 00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:02,679 Speaker 4: course that happened to the pandemic. But one thing I 410 00:22:02,760 --> 00:22:06,280 Speaker 4: was told is that at resilient conferences sometimes there's costume parties. 411 00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:09,680 Speaker 4: So I was planning to make giant mittens and wear 412 00:22:09,720 --> 00:22:11,520 Speaker 4: them on my hands to be this crab. 413 00:22:14,240 --> 00:22:17,360 Speaker 1: See there are some biologists that are fun at parties. 414 00:22:17,520 --> 00:22:20,879 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I don't know if people would think that 415 00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:23,560 Speaker 4: would fun, but you know my colleagues would ever. So 416 00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:26,120 Speaker 4: it's got that, and then the rest of it's kind 417 00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:29,159 Speaker 4: of camouflage to look like it's covered in algae and 418 00:22:29,200 --> 00:22:31,440 Speaker 4: it's brown, and then randomly it's got like these bright 419 00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:32,320 Speaker 4: blue antennae. 420 00:22:33,359 --> 00:22:35,320 Speaker 1: It doesn't sound like it would help with camouflage. 421 00:22:35,720 --> 00:22:37,199 Speaker 4: No, I don't know what's up with that. It's not 422 00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:39,960 Speaker 4: super well known. So I actually did get a chance 423 00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:45,000 Speaker 4: to see this species in Tasmania. I went there a 424 00:22:45,080 --> 00:22:48,040 Speaker 4: little before the pandemic and I pretty much went with 425 00:22:48,080 --> 00:22:51,159 Speaker 4: the express purpose of finding this crab. So I'm texting 426 00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:52,960 Speaker 4: my collaborators, I'm like, oh, I'm going to find it. 427 00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:55,959 Speaker 4: I'm going to find it. And it was like, you know, 428 00:22:56,119 --> 00:22:58,240 Speaker 4: because of the intertitle, you can only look for a 429 00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:00,200 Speaker 4: couple hours a day because the rest of the time 430 00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:03,280 Speaker 4: it's covered in water. It was like the last day 431 00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:06,000 Speaker 4: before I found them, I was kind of freaking out. 432 00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:08,360 Speaker 4: I was like, oh no, I came all this way 433 00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:10,280 Speaker 4: and I didn't and we got to them. 434 00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:13,600 Speaker 2: And what does it look like on the Crab Researcher 435 00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:16,439 Speaker 2: group chat when you finally find this elusive crab? 436 00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:19,760 Speaker 4: Well, we actually named the crab Researcher group chat to 437 00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:25,000 Speaker 4: I saw lo miss. I still call that years later. 438 00:23:25,080 --> 00:23:26,439 Speaker 4: Our chat is actually still called that. 439 00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:32,959 Speaker 2: I love these little revealing elements of nerd culture, you know. Yeah, 440 00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,440 Speaker 2: there was a great moment when I made the scientific discovery, 441 00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:36,919 Speaker 2: and then there was an even better moment when I 442 00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:38,480 Speaker 2: gloated about it in the group chat. 443 00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:39,520 Speaker 4: So true. 444 00:23:41,800 --> 00:23:43,760 Speaker 1: Well, we're all happy for our friends when they find 445 00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:45,160 Speaker 1: the thing that they've been looking for. 446 00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:48,280 Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely absolutely shared joy. 447 00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:51,720 Speaker 4: Anyway, it got meiled back to the US to my 448 00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:55,640 Speaker 4: colleague in Miami, and eventually she extracted DNA from it. 449 00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:57,760 Speaker 4: We got our data very nice. 450 00:23:57,560 --> 00:24:02,200 Speaker 1: Yes, awesome. Yeah, Okay, so we have established that as 451 00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,600 Speaker 1: far as we know right now, nature has quote invented 452 00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:09,200 Speaker 1: crabs five times. And when we get back from the break, 453 00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:11,560 Speaker 1: we're going to find out if five is a big 454 00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:33,359 Speaker 1: number or a little number. And we're back. So Joe 455 00:24:33,400 --> 00:24:36,880 Speaker 1: told us that nature has invented crabs five times. If 456 00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:39,320 Speaker 1: you go on social media, you would think that nature 457 00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:42,560 Speaker 1: is just like constantly inventing crabs. Whatever that means. Should 458 00:24:42,600 --> 00:24:44,480 Speaker 1: we feel like five is a big number or is 459 00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:47,840 Speaker 1: five a like little number? In terms of nature inventing things, 460 00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:48,680 Speaker 1: I think. 461 00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:52,880 Speaker 4: It's a bit of a Goldilocks situation. So basically convergent 462 00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:57,720 Speaker 4: evolution where you see similar traits evolved multiple times in 463 00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:02,800 Speaker 4: different unrelated groups. This is actually pervasive. So one quite 464 00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:07,679 Speaker 4: famous example is echolocation, where both That's and Wales have 465 00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,480 Speaker 4: both people, so that's two times, and a lot of 466 00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:13,880 Speaker 4: the examples are two times. But there's also a lot 467 00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:15,960 Speaker 4: of examples that have a ton of times, so like 468 00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:23,119 Speaker 4: bioluminescence or having venom, those have evolved like one hundred times, 469 00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:25,480 Speaker 4: so there can be some that are quite a lot. 470 00:25:25,720 --> 00:25:28,880 Speaker 4: I think though, that there's something that makes crabs being 471 00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:34,120 Speaker 4: five times particularly interesting, and it's kind of because it's 472 00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:35,480 Speaker 4: not just the number of times, but you have to 473 00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:38,160 Speaker 4: think how long is the period of time in which 474 00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:43,880 Speaker 4: that's happened, Right, So crabs common ancestor between the true 475 00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:48,080 Speaker 4: and false crabs is something like three hundred million years ago. 476 00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:50,680 Speaker 4: So five times within. 477 00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:54,119 Speaker 5: Three hundred million years is actually pretty good, whereas bar 478 00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:57,760 Speaker 5: the un essence being one hundred times, and so that's 479 00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:00,320 Speaker 5: including all of life, like even back to here to 480 00:26:00,359 --> 00:26:02,919 Speaker 5: have violins, So that's billions of years. 481 00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:06,000 Speaker 2: So we need to consider like the denominator like out 482 00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:08,639 Speaker 2: of how many possibilities, and we need to consider the 483 00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,919 Speaker 2: time span, like how many opportunities are there exactly, And 484 00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:14,400 Speaker 2: so you're saying five is actually not that big a number, Well. 485 00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:16,520 Speaker 4: It's not that big a number, but it's also not 486 00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:19,880 Speaker 4: that small. So there are some other groups that are 487 00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:22,320 Speaker 4: much more recently involved, that have more groups. But one 488 00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:25,200 Speaker 4: thing that I think is interesting is that in many 489 00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:28,280 Speaker 4: of those they're so recent that there's not that much 490 00:26:28,359 --> 00:26:31,440 Speaker 4: variation in them to begin this. So, like one famous 491 00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:34,679 Speaker 4: group that's a model for studying competant evolution is a 492 00:26:34,680 --> 00:26:38,800 Speaker 4: group of lizards called annals or anolus, and they live 493 00:26:39,080 --> 00:26:43,520 Speaker 4: in the neotropics and on different islands within the Caribbean, 494 00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:48,520 Speaker 4: they have repeatedly basically colonized to the islands and evolved 495 00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:53,840 Speaker 4: multiple what's called eco types. So there's animals that live 496 00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:56,960 Speaker 4: on the ground, there's animals that live on tree and 497 00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:59,560 Speaker 4: higher up in the tree. Something like that need happen 498 00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:03,800 Speaker 4: multiple times every major island, so like four times at least, 499 00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:08,760 Speaker 4: probably more. And the thing is, though they can't do 500 00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,640 Speaker 4: much else other than that, they're always going to keep 501 00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:15,639 Speaker 4: doing that every island that they go to. I'm simplifying it, 502 00:27:15,680 --> 00:27:19,880 Speaker 4: but perhaps there is so much variation. So even though 503 00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:25,320 Speaker 4: we see the same base form with the flattened carapace 504 00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:29,119 Speaker 4: and the folded up happening multiple times, within that, there's 505 00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:33,639 Speaker 4: a lot of variety. They have spikes or not spikes, 506 00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:37,680 Speaker 4: the shape and length of their legs and claws, all 507 00:27:37,720 --> 00:27:41,960 Speaker 4: of this is completely changed many many times. So it's 508 00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:45,480 Speaker 4: kind of a good example in that regard too, because 509 00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:49,560 Speaker 4: when we want to understand evolutionary process, at least to me, 510 00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:52,560 Speaker 4: the reason to understand this is because we want to 511 00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:57,280 Speaker 4: explain variation. You can do things with analysts like experiments. 512 00:27:57,320 --> 00:27:59,359 Speaker 4: You can move them from one island to another and 513 00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:02,680 Speaker 4: then see what are going to do much harder to crabs, 514 00:28:03,040 --> 00:28:06,000 Speaker 4: but you know, we don't know what we're going to 515 00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:09,280 Speaker 4: get either necessarily perhaps, so it's kind of fun. 516 00:28:09,320 --> 00:28:13,919 Speaker 1: If this is an intermediate example of how often this 517 00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:17,479 Speaker 1: kind of stuff happens. What are your thoughts on why 518 00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:21,160 Speaker 1: everybody thinks nature invented crabs? Why is this the example 519 00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:23,440 Speaker 1: that like just took off and took over the internet? 520 00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:28,520 Speaker 4: So in the paper, and I think the oversimplified explanation 521 00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:34,080 Speaker 4: is that we often talk about potential adaptations because the 522 00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:39,000 Speaker 4: assumption is that convergent evolution is a case where an 523 00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:42,280 Speaker 4: organism has faced with the same environmental challenge and so 524 00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:45,240 Speaker 4: it's going to solve that challenge in the same way. 525 00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:49,880 Speaker 4: So the two main ideas for this to adapt to 526 00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:55,360 Speaker 4: are either being best able to escape from predators, either 527 00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:58,560 Speaker 4: by running away, or also because when you're folded up, 528 00:28:58,600 --> 00:29:02,600 Speaker 4: you're potentially a smaller target to be grabbed, I suppose. 529 00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:05,640 Speaker 4: I guess, like just think about if you're trying to 530 00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:08,120 Speaker 4: grab a crow versus if you're trying to grab a lobster. 531 00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:10,560 Speaker 4: There's a back end on the lobster and there isn't 532 00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:14,200 Speaker 4: on a crap, right, So that's one and then the 533 00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:17,440 Speaker 4: other idea is that it improves their locomotion, so like 534 00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:21,160 Speaker 4: crabs can walk sideways. I think it's more complicated than 535 00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:25,160 Speaker 4: that because some of the groups within, even in the 536 00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:28,200 Speaker 4: false crabs that don't have this folded up body, they 537 00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:32,680 Speaker 4: can sort of jet backwards, sort of swimming like, and 538 00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:36,400 Speaker 4: this is called like the tail flip escape reaction. It's 539 00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,160 Speaker 4: got fancy name, but it's just jetting backwards. And crabs 540 00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:43,240 Speaker 4: can't do that anymore when they fold up. They need 541 00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:48,120 Speaker 4: the tail to do that so they can escape in 542 00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:51,080 Speaker 4: a different way. I don't know which one is better. 543 00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:54,239 Speaker 4: I think in science what we usually want to do 544 00:29:54,360 --> 00:29:56,920 Speaker 4: is we want to know if something is affecting an outcome, 545 00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:00,160 Speaker 4: we would have to do an experiment on it. And 546 00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:04,800 Speaker 4: there are biomechanical studies on how crabs walk, but none 547 00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:07,480 Speaker 4: of them are comparative, so there's no control you need 548 00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:12,080 Speaker 4: to look at. Is it a better performance at locomotion 549 00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:15,960 Speaker 4: or predator avoidance under the same conditions as a not 550 00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:18,680 Speaker 4: said crappy body and nobody has done that yet. 551 00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:21,680 Speaker 1: People keep saying nature invents crabs because that's great, but 552 00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:23,800 Speaker 1: we don't even really have great evidence that the crab 553 00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:26,760 Speaker 1: body shape is superior to other body shapes. 554 00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:29,720 Speaker 4: We don't know that. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised 555 00:30:29,880 --> 00:30:34,960 Speaker 4: if some of this was contributing to them, but it 556 00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,000 Speaker 4: may not be. We just don't have what I would 557 00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:40,840 Speaker 4: say is really strong evidence, and I wrote that in 558 00:30:41,000 --> 00:30:45,240 Speaker 4: this paper, but well, we'll get to that later. 559 00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:48,600 Speaker 2: I found it fascinating how different branches of science have 560 00:30:48,720 --> 00:30:52,160 Speaker 2: different abilities to sort of control the experiments. You know, 561 00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:54,920 Speaker 2: like in particle physics we can manipulate our experiments completely. 562 00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:57,880 Speaker 2: Astrophysics they just sort of watch what the universe does 563 00:30:57,920 --> 00:30:59,920 Speaker 2: and hope that it does something interesting that reveals some 564 00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:03,960 Speaker 2: thing here. You have some opportunities to like influence, but 565 00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:07,760 Speaker 2: you're not completely in control. But say you were somehow 566 00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:11,240 Speaker 2: you know God or could control the universe, how would 567 00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:13,680 Speaker 2: you set up the experiment to answer this question? How 568 00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:17,560 Speaker 2: would you definitively prove whether crabs are a good outcome 569 00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:17,880 Speaker 2: or not. 570 00:31:18,520 --> 00:31:21,640 Speaker 4: You have to have the hypothesis of what their outcome 571 00:31:22,120 --> 00:31:25,840 Speaker 4: is improving. So say you have the hypothesis that it's 572 00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,840 Speaker 4: going to make them that are at escaping from a predator. Right, 573 00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:32,920 Speaker 4: So you set up sets of tanks and you put 574 00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:36,959 Speaker 4: a bunch of crabby bodies in one set of tanks, 575 00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:39,920 Speaker 4: and you put a bunch of long boys in the 576 00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:43,080 Speaker 4: other set of tanks, and then you put like a 577 00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:44,840 Speaker 4: big scary fish in every single one. 578 00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,920 Speaker 2: Long boy is not a sandwich, right, a sandwich. 579 00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:50,600 Speaker 4: To me, sorry, I mean like squat lobsters or something. 580 00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:54,560 Speaker 2: Then I'm thinking, like, you know, I'll have a long boy. 581 00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:56,240 Speaker 2: Hold the olive oil, please. 582 00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:58,280 Speaker 4: But all right, I think people do eat some of 583 00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:01,320 Speaker 4: the squat lobsters actually, like in the Mediterranean. 584 00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:05,040 Speaker 2: Yeah, everything's in delicacy somewhere, right, fish vomit is like 585 00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:07,600 Speaker 2: very prized in the streets of some city around the world. 586 00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:08,440 Speaker 4: Exactly. 587 00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:10,200 Speaker 1: I'm not sure about that one. 588 00:32:10,280 --> 00:32:13,680 Speaker 2: But all right, to get back to your crabby versus 589 00:32:13,760 --> 00:32:14,600 Speaker 2: long boy experience, I. 590 00:32:14,640 --> 00:32:16,600 Speaker 4: Yes, So then you put like a fish in there 591 00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:18,640 Speaker 4: or I don't know, something that you know will predate 592 00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:22,160 Speaker 4: upon them big scrap. You have a big tank because 593 00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:24,760 Speaker 4: you're gone, right, So you have a really big tank 594 00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:27,080 Speaker 4: and the only thing in it is the crab, and 595 00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:33,720 Speaker 4: you maybe give them some rocks to hide in or not. 596 00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:37,360 Speaker 4: Some will have rocks, some will have not maybe, and 597 00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:40,200 Speaker 4: you basically see what happens and how many times the 598 00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:44,080 Speaker 4: fish is going to catch the crab versus the elongated 599 00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:47,920 Speaker 4: body form. And so this could be one example of 600 00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:52,960 Speaker 4: doing an experiment like that. If they survive, then I 601 00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:57,200 Speaker 4: guess natural selection has turned out in their favor. If 602 00:32:57,240 --> 00:32:59,720 Speaker 4: they die, if they don't get to reproduce, so they've 603 00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:00,520 Speaker 4: been lifings. 604 00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:03,200 Speaker 2: Do we need to think even bigger though? I mean 605 00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:06,720 Speaker 2: somebody could say, well, that's survival in your lab in 606 00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:09,840 Speaker 2: an aquarium. Really the metric is like, have you survived 607 00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,640 Speaker 2: on the planet. So when you need to like create 608 00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:16,200 Speaker 2: one hundred or one thousand, duplicate Earth's branch evolution from 609 00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:19,600 Speaker 2: the same point or something, and like see whether you 610 00:33:19,640 --> 00:33:22,160 Speaker 2: get more fewer crabs on these planets? Like what is 611 00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:24,720 Speaker 2: the real test? Like infinite resources here? 612 00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:27,840 Speaker 4: This isn't specific to crabs, but there is something called 613 00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:31,320 Speaker 4: the game of life, and it's a simulation to evolve. 614 00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:35,880 Speaker 4: It's not like specific forms, but it's basically like little 615 00:33:35,960 --> 00:33:37,400 Speaker 4: ask you guys or something. 616 00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:39,440 Speaker 2: It's a little cellular automata. 617 00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:42,560 Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, okay, so you know, yeah. 618 00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:43,680 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's famous in programming circles. 619 00:33:43,880 --> 00:33:48,760 Speaker 4: I would say that's actually the infinite resources explanation. It's 620 00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:51,080 Speaker 4: not going to tell you isn't crabs specifically, but maybe 621 00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:54,400 Speaker 4: you could add like a new package this programming thing 622 00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:57,880 Speaker 4: it was invented like twenty or thirty years ago. Maybe 623 00:33:58,120 --> 00:34:02,000 Speaker 4: make it a little more sophisticated now specifically crabby. Maybe 624 00:34:02,040 --> 00:34:03,960 Speaker 4: there's a way to do this as a simulation. 625 00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:05,920 Speaker 2: Well, that's fascinating you bring that up, because in the 626 00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:09,120 Speaker 2: game of life, they've observed these self sustaining little systems. 627 00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:11,160 Speaker 2: And for those of you who aren't familiar, there's like 628 00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:14,200 Speaker 2: very simple rules about whether a cell has something in 629 00:34:14,239 --> 00:34:17,040 Speaker 2: it or not, whether it eats something or moves or whatever. 630 00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:20,440 Speaker 2: And there are these emergent structures that people have discovered, 631 00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:23,600 Speaker 2: and some of them they call a crab. In this case, 632 00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:26,480 Speaker 2: it's called the diagonal spaceship sort of looks a little crabby, 633 00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:28,279 Speaker 2: And I don't know if it really would qualify as 634 00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:30,120 Speaker 2: a crab or a false crab, or as a digital 635 00:34:30,200 --> 00:34:33,160 Speaker 2: crab or whatever, or if it's just sort of inspired 636 00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,200 Speaker 2: by this, you know, sort of concept out there that 637 00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:38,279 Speaker 2: everything turns into a crab. So I don't know if 638 00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:41,360 Speaker 2: it's evidence or if it just shows us the pervasive 639 00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:42,200 Speaker 2: nature of the idea. 640 00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:45,880 Speaker 4: I'm sure they didn't know about it, because until my 641 00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:50,120 Speaker 4: paper and the associated work became famous recently, This wasn't 642 00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:54,360 Speaker 4: known outside of like plustation systematic circles, so they probably 643 00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:56,239 Speaker 4: saw it and thought it looked like a crab. I 644 00:34:56,239 --> 00:34:58,000 Speaker 4: didn't actually know that part about it, so I'm going 645 00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:00,319 Speaker 4: to have to check that out. Very cool. 646 00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:04,080 Speaker 1: Yeah, So to pull ourselves back to the real world 647 00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:07,200 Speaker 1: and out of the virtual world, we've talked about instances 648 00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:09,919 Speaker 1: where you know you're working through the tree of life 649 00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,960 Speaker 1: and the Krabby body form shows up. Do we see 650 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,600 Speaker 1: instances where the Krabby body form has shown up and 651 00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:18,000 Speaker 1: then you lose it? Do we go in the other direction? 652 00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:23,520 Speaker 4: Yes? Indeed we've seen this at least seven times, probably 653 00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:25,640 Speaker 4: more than that, because there's a lot of shape variation. 654 00:35:26,760 --> 00:35:31,960 Speaker 4: And the reason why this is possible is because of 655 00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,360 Speaker 4: something called trade offs. So one trade can increase in 656 00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:38,520 Speaker 4: Orban's fitness, and potentially the Krabby body can do this, 657 00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:42,759 Speaker 4: but it might be decreasing the fitness of other traits. 658 00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:47,439 Speaker 4: So depending on what happens in their environment, what's the balance, right, 659 00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:51,480 Speaker 4: So there might be something else that's overcoming an adaptive 660 00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:55,479 Speaker 4: advantage of being crabby, and I don't think there's something 661 00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:59,920 Speaker 4: that's universally the case for these what we call decarsonizations. 662 00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:03,799 Speaker 4: It's a pretty stupid name, but that's what we call it. 663 00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:05,200 Speaker 1: Sounds like you're getting rid of cancer. 664 00:36:05,719 --> 00:36:09,800 Speaker 4: Oh my god. So the actual name of crabs was 665 00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:15,160 Speaker 4: originally called cancer, and the term cancer for the human 666 00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:20,319 Speaker 4: disease actually came from crabs because the Latin name of 667 00:36:20,360 --> 00:36:24,239 Speaker 4: craps is cancer, and the original medical doctors who saw 668 00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:28,239 Speaker 4: tumors thought, oh, this like thing is branching inside of you. 669 00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:31,359 Speaker 4: It's psycho crab. So yeah, huh, it's actually the same. 670 00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:35,600 Speaker 2: Oh interesting. Well, I think the anomology is really fascinating 671 00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:39,200 Speaker 2: also because we've been using the phrase getting crabby, which 672 00:36:39,239 --> 00:36:41,000 Speaker 2: to me, you know, has all these implications like I'm 673 00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:43,880 Speaker 2: krabby in the morning without my coffee, or you know, 674 00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:46,880 Speaker 2: my husband gets crabby and I cook too much eggplant 675 00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:49,640 Speaker 2: or something. Do you know where that comes from? I mean, 676 00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:51,200 Speaker 2: I know that's totally not your field. 677 00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:54,200 Speaker 4: Well, I mean anyone's field. So actually, funny story. I 678 00:36:54,360 --> 00:36:57,200 Speaker 4: spent I would say a lot of years of my 679 00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:00,720 Speaker 4: childhood kind of being a little afraid of crabs because 680 00:37:00,880 --> 00:37:02,759 Speaker 4: I want to be very virild. Just when I was 681 00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:07,040 Speaker 4: a kid and I went to the Vancouver Aquarium and 682 00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:10,200 Speaker 4: my parents were filming me with like this ancient video 683 00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:16,400 Speaker 4: camera VHS all of that O young and yeah, and 684 00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:19,960 Speaker 4: I'm standing in front of the tidepool tank talking about it, 685 00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:23,080 Speaker 4: and I pick up the dungeons crab and I'm talking 686 00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:27,440 Speaker 4: and it's biting me and boom, what is hurting everywhere? 687 00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:32,480 Speaker 4: So I decided that crabs were my enemy. So I 688 00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:36,400 Speaker 4: think it's all about how you approached them. That crab 689 00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:39,920 Speaker 4: was crabby. It did not like being grabbed by a child. 690 00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:45,840 Speaker 2: Fair enough, But why does krabby even have a negative connotation? 691 00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:48,960 Speaker 2: I mean, it's the same with fishy, like something's getting fishy, 692 00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:51,120 Speaker 2: but you know other things are neutral, like there's no 693 00:37:51,160 --> 00:37:55,240 Speaker 2: meaning to I'm getting sharky or you know, I'm getting squiddy. 694 00:37:55,640 --> 00:38:01,040 Speaker 4: There is sharky like shark tank right, like, oh yeah, untrustworthy? 695 00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:01,719 Speaker 4: Are sharks right? 696 00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:03,440 Speaker 2: All right? Interesting? 697 00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:08,360 Speaker 4: I don't know why we use marine organisms as metaphors 698 00:38:08,360 --> 00:38:11,280 Speaker 4: for negative emotions. That's kind of weird. Maybe we should 699 00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:13,760 Speaker 4: all be compared to seals, where we're just like laying 700 00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:17,000 Speaker 4: there chilling. That'd be nice. 701 00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:18,480 Speaker 1: That's a vibe I can get behind. 702 00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:20,000 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I. 703 00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:23,080 Speaker 2: Think it's amazing that you decided to study crabs after 704 00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:25,880 Speaker 2: having that experience rather than running away from them, and 705 00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:28,279 Speaker 2: that you advertise the existence of this video, which now 706 00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:28,919 Speaker 2: we have to see. 707 00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:33,359 Speaker 4: Oh, I don't think it's digitized. My parents might have 708 00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:35,880 Speaker 4: a copy somewhere, but I don't know if it's in 709 00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:37,560 Speaker 4: a format that can be viewed anymore. 710 00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:39,960 Speaker 2: That should be on your website. I mean, if you're 711 00:38:39,960 --> 00:38:42,200 Speaker 2: a crab researcher and you have this formative moment. 712 00:38:42,200 --> 00:38:45,600 Speaker 4: Man, yeah, I should find out if I can. But 713 00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:49,040 Speaker 4: you know, I think it's because I actually didn't really 714 00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:52,640 Speaker 4: understand the difference between true and false crafts. But maybe 715 00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:55,200 Speaker 4: I did somehow understand it because I never stopped loving 716 00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:59,480 Speaker 4: hermit crafts. I thought they were wonderful, And when I've 717 00:38:59,800 --> 00:39:03,359 Speaker 4: got older and started studying arthropod evolution, I kind of 718 00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:07,400 Speaker 4: figured out that they were related. But yeah, hermit crabs 719 00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:09,600 Speaker 4: never fell out of my heart. I love them. 720 00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:12,319 Speaker 1: They also have a special place in my heart because 721 00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:14,239 Speaker 1: I grew up near Atlantic City, and so every time 722 00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:16,239 Speaker 1: we'd go to Atlantic City, you had to come home 723 00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:18,719 Speaker 1: with some hermit crab pets and take the best care. 724 00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:20,840 Speaker 1: And probably that was not good for the hermit crabs. 725 00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:23,200 Speaker 4: I did some really bad things too, So I grew 726 00:39:23,280 --> 00:39:25,440 Speaker 4: up in Toronto, which is as far away from the 727 00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:27,520 Speaker 4: ocean as you can possibly be, so I had very 728 00:39:27,560 --> 00:39:31,439 Speaker 4: limited chances to see any of these things. But when 729 00:39:31,480 --> 00:39:35,399 Speaker 4: I was a kid, I guess pre aquarian incident. We 730 00:39:35,560 --> 00:39:37,840 Speaker 4: did used to go to get caught a few times 731 00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:41,480 Speaker 4: and I was colecting. You know, the typical kid gets 732 00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:45,759 Speaker 4: bucket grabs whatever organisms, which I guess maybe Daniel, you 733 00:39:45,800 --> 00:39:49,760 Speaker 4: don't do that with I did that. I was always 734 00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:51,959 Speaker 4: grabbing them and putting them in a bucket. And there 735 00:39:52,040 --> 00:39:54,080 Speaker 4: was one case where I had like a blue crab, 736 00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:57,520 Speaker 4: like a swimming crab, and I put fishes in the 737 00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:01,040 Speaker 4: bucket with it and brought it back to like the 738 00:40:01,080 --> 00:40:04,239 Speaker 4: cottage that we stared at, and then it was just 739 00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:06,279 Speaker 4: like the crab ate all the fish heads and left 740 00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:06,920 Speaker 4: their bodies. 741 00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:11,200 Speaker 1: I think every biologist has a story about how they 742 00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:14,840 Speaker 1: learned about the cruelty of nature in an embarrassing or 743 00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:17,440 Speaker 1: you know, not ideal way when they brought some animals 744 00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:18,240 Speaker 1: into their homes. 745 00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:20,759 Speaker 4: Exactly at least there wasn't our home. 746 00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:23,879 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I've got some stories too, but I brought 747 00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:27,000 Speaker 1: it into my home. But let's take another break, and 748 00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:30,120 Speaker 1: when we get back we'll talk about if nature ever 749 00:40:30,200 --> 00:40:32,799 Speaker 1: invents crabs for reasons that are like random and not 750 00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:52,200 Speaker 1: so good, and we're back. Okay, So we've talked about how, 751 00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:54,760 Speaker 1: as far as we know right now, the crab shape 752 00:40:54,760 --> 00:40:56,719 Speaker 1: has popped up five times in the tree of life 753 00:40:56,760 --> 00:40:59,759 Speaker 1: and has been lost seven times in the tree of life. 754 00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:03,919 Speaker 1: For those five instances where the crab body shape popped up, 755 00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:07,160 Speaker 1: are those all because it was been official or do 756 00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:11,080 Speaker 1: you sometimes get like a big morphological change for reasons 757 00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:12,000 Speaker 1: that aren't beneficial. 758 00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:15,520 Speaker 4: Yeah, this is something that isn't that commonly discussed in 759 00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:18,600 Speaker 4: the public. But indeed, all traits don't necessarily evolve for 760 00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:21,200 Speaker 4: a reason, or at least not for a direct reason. 761 00:41:21,200 --> 00:41:25,120 Speaker 4: I would say, they're not all necessarily representing an adaptation. 762 00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:28,160 Speaker 4: So an adaptation is going to be the case where 763 00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:34,040 Speaker 4: individuals that have the trait where it improves this organism's 764 00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:37,160 Speaker 4: function within its environment or whatever, so like making better 765 00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:41,160 Speaker 4: at avoiding creditors and so on, then you will survive 766 00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:45,080 Speaker 4: because natural selection is going to let things die that 767 00:41:45,160 --> 00:41:50,719 Speaker 4: don't have this trait that benefits you. But parsonization, you know, 768 00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:53,040 Speaker 4: first of all, we don't know if it evolved in 769 00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:58,320 Speaker 4: the same kinds of environments every time, so it's tricky 770 00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:03,960 Speaker 4: to guess whether this was always the case. So there's 771 00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:09,440 Speaker 4: one term from biological literature called exceptation, and this is 772 00:42:09,440 --> 00:42:13,160 Speaker 4: a case where a trait improves the organism's function and 773 00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:16,560 Speaker 4: the environment where they live now, but the conditions where 774 00:42:16,680 --> 00:42:20,919 Speaker 4: evolved were different. I think king crabs and hermit crabs 775 00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:24,120 Speaker 4: are an example of this, So king crabs actually evolved 776 00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:28,160 Speaker 4: from within hermit crabs. There's still hermit crabs too, but 777 00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:32,520 Speaker 4: king crabs are parting them. So at some point in 778 00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:37,160 Speaker 4: their history they had to get rid of the shell. 779 00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:40,520 Speaker 4: The shell for the hermit crab is really important, right 780 00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:44,799 Speaker 4: because they have like this long soft abdomen that could 781 00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:49,239 Speaker 4: easily and immediately be eaten, and so the shell makes 782 00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:53,680 Speaker 4: them safe. But somewhere they had to lose them. So 783 00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:57,240 Speaker 4: what happened there They didn't like immediately get a mutation 784 00:42:57,320 --> 00:43:00,120 Speaker 4: that made them totally hard and fold it up. There 785 00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:04,000 Speaker 4: was some intermediate situation. So one thing that we suggested 786 00:43:04,040 --> 00:43:06,680 Speaker 4: the paper, and actually that has also been suggested prior 787 00:43:06,800 --> 00:43:10,800 Speaker 4: to us, is that maybe there was an environmental situation 788 00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:13,920 Speaker 4: where there just weren't shelves available and they were there already, 789 00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:17,120 Speaker 4: so they had to do something or die and probably 790 00:43:17,120 --> 00:43:19,680 Speaker 4: a lot of the gut. Maybe that's what happened, and 791 00:43:19,680 --> 00:43:23,319 Speaker 4: that would be a case of an exactation didn't evolve for 792 00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:26,560 Speaker 4: the reason that we know now, But there was a 793 00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:29,080 Speaker 4: reason then, and we don't know, because the fossil record, 794 00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:33,840 Speaker 4: particularly for hermit craps is pretty bad. Them being soft 795 00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:34,839 Speaker 4: or does not help. 796 00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:37,360 Speaker 1: Yeah, now that always makes fossil stuff. 797 00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:42,839 Speaker 4: It does, So that's one possibility. There's another possibility that 798 00:43:42,880 --> 00:43:47,040 Speaker 4: I'm pretty interested in and curious about. Sometimes we have 799 00:43:47,160 --> 00:43:51,000 Speaker 4: selection on a trait that isn't the one that you're 800 00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:55,520 Speaker 4: interested in, and maybe that trait is correlated in the 801 00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:58,640 Speaker 4: genome or in the process of development to the trait 802 00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:02,400 Speaker 4: that you're interested in. It maybe being crabby is actually 803 00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:04,960 Speaker 4: related to something else that selection is acting on that 804 00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:07,239 Speaker 4: we can't see, especially if it's in the genome. We 805 00:44:07,239 --> 00:44:09,759 Speaker 4: don't know very much about their genomes. Only a few 806 00:44:09,800 --> 00:44:12,880 Speaker 4: species have been sequenced, maybe like ten or something, and 807 00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:14,759 Speaker 4: that's only in the past couple of years. But two 808 00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:15,680 Speaker 4: years ago there was. 809 00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:18,680 Speaker 2: Like one why is it is it hard to sequence 810 00:44:18,719 --> 00:44:19,320 Speaker 2: crab DNA? 811 00:44:20,120 --> 00:44:23,520 Speaker 6: Well, we have lots of pieces of DNA, but sequencing 812 00:44:23,560 --> 00:44:27,640 Speaker 6: the whole genome the technology to assemble genomes for which 813 00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:34,160 Speaker 6: you don't have like a detailed reference has only become possible. 814 00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:36,120 Speaker 4: Really in the past couple of years. It was expensive 815 00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:40,640 Speaker 4: and technically difficult, and to spend that kind of money 816 00:44:40,760 --> 00:44:42,480 Speaker 4: to do it, not a lot of people were going 817 00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:48,799 Speaker 4: to pay for that. So yeah, it's recently become less expensive, 818 00:44:49,000 --> 00:44:52,080 Speaker 4: and the software to do it has become easier, as 819 00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:55,200 Speaker 4: well as the actual sequencing technology, because one of the 820 00:44:55,239 --> 00:44:59,760 Speaker 4: things when you're sequencing a genome is you're actually sequencing 821 00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:02,960 Speaker 4: arts like little pieces of DNA, and you have to 822 00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:05,799 Speaker 4: using software. And that's why I said assembly. You kind 823 00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:08,799 Speaker 4: of making the puzzle at the moment, and so if 824 00:45:08,840 --> 00:45:11,520 Speaker 4: you don't have enough overlap of those pieces, you don't 825 00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:16,120 Speaker 4: know what you've done. So the technology to do that 826 00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:20,759 Speaker 4: has advanced a lot recently, So it's possible now that 827 00:45:20,880 --> 00:45:21,560 Speaker 4: it wasn't before. 828 00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:24,680 Speaker 1: So given that we're just at this point now where 829 00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:28,200 Speaker 1: we're starting to acquire genomes and you know, maybe we 830 00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:30,520 Speaker 1: could discover some more fossils. Like if we were to 831 00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:33,120 Speaker 1: have you back on the show in twenty years, how 832 00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:35,560 Speaker 1: likely do you think it is that the number for 833 00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:39,719 Speaker 1: you know, carsonization would be five and decarcinization would be seven. Like, 834 00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:41,839 Speaker 1: how likely do you think these numbers are to change 835 00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:42,319 Speaker 1: over time? 836 00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:47,480 Speaker 4: Well, I definitely think that sampling more species will change 837 00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:50,560 Speaker 4: those numbers, and it will increase both of them, because 838 00:45:50,719 --> 00:45:55,400 Speaker 4: we are largely making generalizations. And for me, because I 839 00:45:55,400 --> 00:45:58,040 Speaker 4: didn't start out as a crab scientist, I mean, I 840 00:45:58,040 --> 00:45:59,759 Speaker 4: guess I've been doing it for a few years now. 841 00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:05,680 Speaker 4: My background was in other crustaceans before, so as I 842 00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:09,760 Speaker 4: keep learning more, I start seeing more variation in their shapes. 843 00:46:09,800 --> 00:46:12,000 Speaker 4: And one of the things here that we're also kind 844 00:46:12,040 --> 00:46:15,520 Speaker 4: of obscuring is we're talking about it like you're a 845 00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:17,680 Speaker 4: crab or you're not a crab, and I don't think 846 00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:22,120 Speaker 4: it's very discreet. There's a continuum, like you can have 847 00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:25,640 Speaker 4: some of the features but not all of it, especially 848 00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:28,320 Speaker 4: since you're talking about something like a shape. A shape 849 00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:33,240 Speaker 4: is like, you know, think about it like a vector graphic. 850 00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:38,400 Speaker 4: A vector graphic for a really detailed polygon with a 851 00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:41,279 Speaker 4: ton of little sides. If you zoom out far enough, 852 00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:45,040 Speaker 4: it looks like a circle. So something like that is 853 00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:49,880 Speaker 4: going on with these shapes too. They at different levels 854 00:46:49,880 --> 00:46:53,279 Speaker 4: of study could look more and less similar. So I 855 00:46:53,280 --> 00:46:56,920 Speaker 4: think we just need to have more species sampled and 856 00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:00,360 Speaker 4: to study them in very sophisticated. 857 00:47:00,680 --> 00:47:05,560 Speaker 1: So we've established that five is like a pretty big 858 00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:07,479 Speaker 1: number given the amount of time we've been talking about, 859 00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:11,080 Speaker 1: But evolving the crab shape five times is not a 860 00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:14,440 Speaker 1: huge number, and it's been lost more times than it 861 00:47:14,520 --> 00:47:17,800 Speaker 1: has been you know, found by nature. And there's tons 862 00:47:17,800 --> 00:47:20,560 Speaker 1: of stuff that we don't know. And so what are 863 00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:24,640 Speaker 1: your thoughts on how this idea became just like the 864 00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:27,440 Speaker 1: go to idea for like what nature wants to make 865 00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:28,440 Speaker 1: out of organisms. 866 00:47:28,760 --> 00:47:31,520 Speaker 4: I think people were surprised because everyone thinks that they 867 00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:34,839 Speaker 4: know what a crab is. Like some of these examples 868 00:47:35,040 --> 00:47:39,120 Speaker 4: you probably haven't encountered in your life, like echo location, 869 00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:42,080 Speaker 4: How many people have actually seen a bat in person? 870 00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:44,680 Speaker 7: What people would run away from it? And a whale 871 00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:46,319 Speaker 7: you have to be in the ocean to see it. 872 00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:48,759 Speaker 7: So it's true that a lot of people haven't, but 873 00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:51,320 Speaker 7: probably everyone has seen a crab in some way or another, 874 00:47:51,320 --> 00:47:54,040 Speaker 7: even if it's just dead, even if it's on SpongeBob, right, 875 00:47:54,520 --> 00:47:55,920 Speaker 7: they think they know what a crab is, and so 876 00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:58,080 Speaker 7: I think some of it was that people were surprised 877 00:47:58,719 --> 00:48:00,440 Speaker 7: to find out that not everything I think is a 878 00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:01,640 Speaker 7: crab is a crap. 879 00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:05,600 Speaker 4: The other thing is it went viral during the depths 880 00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:08,080 Speaker 4: of COVID and people had nothing better to do than 881 00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:11,759 Speaker 4: be on the internet. So some of it was probably that. 882 00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:15,919 Speaker 1: And were you surprised, Oh my god, yes, or like frustrated. 883 00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:21,480 Speaker 4: Well, I was surprised because we had recently gotten funded 884 00:48:21,560 --> 00:48:27,879 Speaker 4: to do research on the evolutionary relationships and morphology of this. 885 00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:31,560 Speaker 4: But our funding also actually started right before COVID, so 886 00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:34,000 Speaker 4: it was supposed to be this amazing like tons of 887 00:48:34,000 --> 00:48:37,520 Speaker 4: international travel blah blah blah. Yeah, we didn't get to 888 00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:42,000 Speaker 4: do much of that, so you know, we were basically 889 00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:46,600 Speaker 4: doing like phylogenetic systematics, like obscure stuff that most people 890 00:48:46,640 --> 00:48:50,719 Speaker 4: don't care about. So I was shocked that it went 891 00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:54,759 Speaker 4: like millions of people level viral. But I was kind 892 00:48:54,760 --> 00:48:59,200 Speaker 4: of annoyed because I think it accidentally set off a 893 00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:02,319 Speaker 4: few misconceptions. So one of them was that we discovered 894 00:49:02,560 --> 00:49:07,279 Speaker 4: parsonization and that it was new. I don't want to 895 00:49:07,360 --> 00:49:09,760 Speaker 4: imply that I just got this, because that's not true. 896 00:49:09,760 --> 00:49:12,440 Speaker 4: We've known about it since before we knew what DNA 897 00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:16,239 Speaker 4: even was, like over a century. We've known it's just 898 00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:20,200 Speaker 4: it hasn't been studied in a really systematic way, so 899 00:49:20,360 --> 00:49:24,200 Speaker 4: we're trying to put quantitative tools to the topic. And 900 00:49:24,480 --> 00:49:27,399 Speaker 4: you know, myself and my collaborators we were like crustacean 901 00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:30,400 Speaker 4: evolutionary biologists. We were just like, hey, this is cool. 902 00:49:31,200 --> 00:49:34,319 Speaker 4: But it has taken on a bigger life now. So 903 00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:36,840 Speaker 4: that's kind of one of the things that I just 904 00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:41,000 Speaker 4: wanted to set straight. But the other I think more 905 00:49:41,000 --> 00:49:44,560 Speaker 4: disturbing is the memes kind of set off some misconceptions 906 00:49:44,600 --> 00:49:45,240 Speaker 4: of that evolution. 907 00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:48,000 Speaker 2: And how do you think these misconceptions took root. Do 908 00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:52,400 Speaker 2: you think it's journalists in good faith misunderstanding or do 909 00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:54,600 Speaker 2: you think there's an aspect of like, hey, this story 910 00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:57,000 Speaker 2: would be more exciting if it were a little bit different, 911 00:49:57,080 --> 00:49:59,080 Speaker 2: so let me make it clickbaity and distort it a 912 00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:01,479 Speaker 2: little bit. What do you think is going wrong there? 913 00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:03,400 Speaker 4: I think a lot of the journalists have been in 914 00:50:03,440 --> 00:50:05,400 Speaker 4: good faith. A lot of the journalists I talk to 915 00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:09,240 Speaker 4: have science backgrounds. Yeah, but the headlines are often clicked 916 00:50:09,239 --> 00:50:13,680 Speaker 4: baby the editors. Yeah, it's more the memes. So the memes, 917 00:50:13,760 --> 00:50:16,640 Speaker 4: it's like multiple levels of translation. So someone's going to 918 00:50:16,719 --> 00:50:18,920 Speaker 4: read it and then the next person is going to 919 00:50:18,960 --> 00:50:20,759 Speaker 4: make a meme of it, and the next person can 920 00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:23,640 Speaker 4: make a meme with the meal. So I mean that's 921 00:50:23,640 --> 00:50:27,319 Speaker 4: like literally what memes are. Right, So when it starts 922 00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:30,879 Speaker 4: getting to crab the ultimate form, how can that be 923 00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:36,239 Speaker 4: if it's been lost seven times? Right, it can't. And 924 00:50:37,120 --> 00:50:42,240 Speaker 4: to say things like any form is firstly invented by nature. 925 00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:47,520 Speaker 4: Nature doesn't invent anything. Nature doesn't have a brain. That 926 00:50:47,640 --> 00:50:49,840 Speaker 4: skate's a little too close to intelligence design for me. 927 00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:55,680 Speaker 4: And then saying that one life form is superior to 928 00:50:55,719 --> 00:50:59,319 Speaker 4: another also doesn't really sit well with me. I don't 929 00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:02,880 Speaker 4: actually think that crabs are better than any other organism 930 00:51:02,960 --> 00:51:06,239 Speaker 4: except in my heart, which I love them. You know, 931 00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:09,480 Speaker 4: I got over the incident, so I love them alat 932 00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:12,359 Speaker 4: now and I got gloves to hold them with, so. 933 00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:14,919 Speaker 1: Good move. 934 00:51:15,080 --> 00:51:17,480 Speaker 4: So, you know, instead of seeing it as crabs are 935 00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:19,799 Speaker 4: better than everything else and that's why they evolved, you know, 936 00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:24,080 Speaker 4: they're part of an ecosystem, part of many eco citizens. 937 00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:26,840 Speaker 4: We see them all over the world, Like the amount 938 00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:29,840 Speaker 4: of places that they live is actually quite astonishing. It's 939 00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:32,920 Speaker 4: you know, from the deepest depths of the ocean and 940 00:51:33,000 --> 00:51:37,760 Speaker 4: hydrothermal vents where they're like in a chemosynthetic ecosystem and 941 00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:41,320 Speaker 4: all the way. There's a crab genus called Himalaya potomon 942 00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:43,880 Speaker 4: and they're called that because they actually live in the 943 00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:48,240 Speaker 4: Himalaya Mountains far far away from the ocean. What oh yeah, 944 00:51:48,560 --> 00:51:51,000 Speaker 4: those guys. They do live near streams, so they get 945 00:51:51,040 --> 00:51:54,200 Speaker 4: wet at least. But there are some crabs that are 946 00:51:54,239 --> 00:51:58,359 Speaker 4: so terrestrial that they will drown if you subverse them 947 00:51:58,360 --> 00:52:01,680 Speaker 4: in the ocean, like, they will live die. Yeah. 948 00:52:01,760 --> 00:52:03,040 Speaker 2: Land crabs love it. 949 00:52:03,120 --> 00:52:06,840 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, So they do have to mate like the 950 00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:08,920 Speaker 4: larvae go into the water, but that's it other than 951 00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:10,040 Speaker 4: that land. 952 00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:13,759 Speaker 2: So given the crabs are everywhere on Earth a very 953 00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:16,960 Speaker 2: adaptable to whatever environment, that sets me up perfectly for 954 00:52:16,960 --> 00:52:19,480 Speaker 2: the question I've been dying to ask you, which is 955 00:52:19,800 --> 00:52:25,160 Speaker 2: about Zeno krabologists. You know, imagine you're the biologist on 956 00:52:25,280 --> 00:52:28,120 Speaker 2: some landing party. You're about to, you know, land on 957 00:52:28,120 --> 00:52:30,120 Speaker 2: some alien planet for the first time. Do you expect 958 00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:34,320 Speaker 2: to see crabs in some other evolutionary independent environment. 959 00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:38,600 Speaker 4: Well, spoiler, but they did make crabs and star Wars recently, 960 00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:41,839 Speaker 4: so technically I have to say yes. 961 00:52:42,080 --> 00:52:44,640 Speaker 2: Right, I'm not a documentary. 962 00:52:45,440 --> 00:52:50,040 Speaker 4: No, so I would actually say no realistically, because to 963 00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:53,200 Speaker 4: be a crab. You have to have the parts of 964 00:52:53,239 --> 00:52:57,160 Speaker 4: an archipod. To start. You can't have a care pace 965 00:52:57,640 --> 00:52:59,759 Speaker 4: changing to this shape. If you don't have a care pace, 966 00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:02,200 Speaker 4: you can't fold up your open if you don't have 967 00:53:02,239 --> 00:53:06,160 Speaker 4: a segmented body in the first place, the legs and claws, 968 00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:10,359 Speaker 4: you have to have those. So for me, what I 969 00:53:10,360 --> 00:53:12,880 Speaker 4: imagine aliens to be, and this, of course now is 970 00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:17,719 Speaker 4: just complete speculation based in almost nothing. But you know, 971 00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:20,640 Speaker 4: I would say, why don't we assume that aliens could 972 00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:23,720 Speaker 4: be radio organisms? We have those on Earth like starfish. 973 00:53:23,920 --> 00:53:28,240 Speaker 4: Why wouldn't they be colonial organisms? We have those corals? Right? 974 00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:33,640 Speaker 4: I think crabs are awesome. And if Disney or any 975 00:53:33,680 --> 00:53:35,719 Speaker 4: other out you would like to hire me as a 976 00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:40,040 Speaker 4: consultant to help them make their monsters, I'd be happy. 977 00:53:40,320 --> 00:53:42,399 Speaker 4: But yeah, I don't actually think that's what you'd see 978 00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:42,880 Speaker 4: in space. 979 00:53:44,200 --> 00:53:48,120 Speaker 2: Well, fascinating space crabs unlikely, that's the new meme. 980 00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:53,240 Speaker 4: Yeah, so sad. But you know, if you do somehow 981 00:53:53,320 --> 00:53:56,919 Speaker 4: get like an arthropod like organism, something that's segmented, then yes, 982 00:53:57,080 --> 00:53:59,799 Speaker 4: I think it is possible you could. We don't know 983 00:53:59,800 --> 00:54:03,160 Speaker 4: what the conditions would be like. You know, it's also 984 00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:09,160 Speaker 4: not star wars where every planet is like one ecosystem. Right, 985 00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:12,080 Speaker 4: you know, hard to say, right what kind of gravity 986 00:54:12,120 --> 00:54:14,799 Speaker 4: they have? Do things live in the water at all? Right? 987 00:54:14,920 --> 00:54:15,640 Speaker 4: Who knows? 988 00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:18,640 Speaker 1: Let's end on more exciting notes. So we've poured a 989 00:54:18,640 --> 00:54:21,560 Speaker 1: little bit of cold water on the you know, nature 990 00:54:21,800 --> 00:54:25,200 Speaker 1: turns everything into crabs thing. But so let's talk about 991 00:54:25,239 --> 00:54:29,200 Speaker 1: what is exciting. So you study convergent evolution and crustaceans, 992 00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:32,160 Speaker 1: what are the interesting scientific questions you're excited about and 993 00:54:32,200 --> 00:54:34,960 Speaker 1: what are the societal benefits for studying this kind of stuff. 994 00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:38,440 Speaker 4: So from the biologist's perspective, we want to know if 995 00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:44,840 Speaker 4: we can basically predict evolutionary patterns. And I don't necessarily 996 00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:48,120 Speaker 4: mean predict the future. Although I don't necessarily not mean that, 997 00:54:48,440 --> 00:54:51,200 Speaker 4: I also mean predict as in, like, do you get 998 00:54:51,280 --> 00:54:56,000 Speaker 4: why given X, right? And convergent evolution is a really 999 00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:59,880 Speaker 4: wonderful system for this because we already saw it multiple times. 1000 00:55:00,640 --> 00:55:03,960 Speaker 4: So it's kind of like having experimental rapplicits that have 1001 00:55:04,040 --> 00:55:07,759 Speaker 4: already happened in nature. So when we do this. I 1002 00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:09,920 Speaker 4: kind of alluded to this when I was talking about 1003 00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:15,840 Speaker 4: animal lizards. They have very similar forms. They're not totally 1004 00:55:15,880 --> 00:55:18,640 Speaker 4: predictable what's going to happen because they have been experimented on. 1005 00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:23,640 Speaker 4: But there is a higher degree of predictability because they 1006 00:55:23,800 --> 00:55:27,520 Speaker 4: are all basically starting from already a very similar point. 1007 00:55:28,160 --> 00:55:31,240 Speaker 4: So if you look further back to something that evolved 1008 00:55:31,280 --> 00:55:35,200 Speaker 4: a really long time ago convergently, like say eyes vertebrates 1009 00:55:35,239 --> 00:55:39,799 Speaker 4: and several podsic squids, we all have similar eyes, and 1010 00:55:40,680 --> 00:55:43,359 Speaker 4: there are genetic similarities, so like there's a gene called 1011 00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:46,200 Speaker 4: past six that is basically like make eye here when 1012 00:55:46,239 --> 00:55:49,080 Speaker 4: the gene gets expressed, but everything else about the eyes 1013 00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:52,719 Speaker 4: can be different because they're so distantly related. So I 1014 00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:55,200 Speaker 4: think the fact that within true and false crafts we 1015 00:55:55,239 --> 00:55:57,640 Speaker 4: see this, I mean, it is a distant common ancestor, 1016 00:55:57,680 --> 00:56:01,080 Speaker 4: but it's not so distant. Million years. Yeah, it seems 1017 00:56:01,120 --> 00:56:04,520 Speaker 4: a long time, but like in the scheme of animal diversity, 1018 00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:10,600 Speaker 4: it's not that distant. So seeing also the amount of 1019 00:56:10,680 --> 00:56:15,799 Speaker 4: variation that they have with all the options that their 1020 00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:19,080 Speaker 4: bodies can take, why are we seeing some of the 1021 00:56:19,160 --> 00:56:22,359 Speaker 4: same basic forms. Are we seeing the same thing being 1022 00:56:22,400 --> 00:56:25,720 Speaker 4: innovated and then just elaborated on, or are we seeing 1023 00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:29,560 Speaker 4: different things happening entirely? Is it adaptive? Is it not 1024 00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:33,120 Speaker 4: adaptive is it a combination? And I think being able 1025 00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:38,000 Speaker 4: to study different scales of convergence is really important because 1026 00:56:38,640 --> 00:56:42,279 Speaker 4: if we just study the same thing, then we're not 1027 00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:44,560 Speaker 4: going to have a fuller picture of whether we can 1028 00:56:44,600 --> 00:56:46,920 Speaker 4: really predict evolutionary outcomes. 1029 00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:49,800 Speaker 1: And how about we all have to write our NSF 1030 00:56:49,840 --> 00:56:53,480 Speaker 1: grants and other than you know, creating incorrect memes, what 1031 00:56:53,560 --> 00:56:55,640 Speaker 1: are some society reasons to study this? 1032 00:56:56,239 --> 00:57:00,239 Speaker 4: Well, certainly studying conversion evolution is also important for if 1033 00:57:00,239 --> 00:57:04,880 Speaker 4: I'll use my NSF speak, the bioeconomy. We live in 1034 00:57:04,920 --> 00:57:09,719 Speaker 4: a world where conditions are changing, and we want to 1035 00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:13,759 Speaker 4: have crops that can adapt to changes. We want to 1036 00:57:13,800 --> 00:57:17,120 Speaker 4: develop drugs that are going to be effective against new pathogens, 1037 00:57:17,640 --> 00:57:20,520 Speaker 4: and many of those things, you're going to see that 1038 00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:24,400 Speaker 4: conditions change in the same way multiple times around the world. 1039 00:57:24,520 --> 00:57:28,920 Speaker 4: We've seen this, of course with variants of COVID having 1040 00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:32,400 Speaker 4: the same mutations, so like when we're trying to make 1041 00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:36,520 Speaker 4: vaccines against them, we're looking at trying to fight convergent evolution, 1042 00:57:37,480 --> 00:57:42,120 Speaker 4: so that can certainly be quite important. Or like you know, 1043 00:57:42,160 --> 00:57:44,520 Speaker 4: we want to see how plants are going to respond 1044 00:57:44,560 --> 00:57:47,640 Speaker 4: to different toxins in the ground. Stuff like this but 1045 00:57:47,720 --> 00:57:50,560 Speaker 4: I think even studying crustaceans is important because, I mean, 1046 00:57:50,600 --> 00:57:53,120 Speaker 4: we've kind of alluded to this, but there's a big 1047 00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:58,400 Speaker 4: economy in people eating crabs. Like two fisheries in Alaska 1048 00:57:58,560 --> 00:58:02,439 Speaker 4: collapsed about four years ago, both the snow crab, which 1049 00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:05,040 Speaker 4: is a crue crab, and the lasting king crab, which 1050 00:58:05,040 --> 00:58:09,200 Speaker 4: is a false crab, and this is attributed to either 1051 00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:13,280 Speaker 4: climate change and or over fishing. Both are pretty bad, 1052 00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:15,960 Speaker 4: and the reality is it's three hundred and twenty million 1053 00:58:16,080 --> 00:58:18,400 Speaker 4: dollars in the economy, plus people who are not going 1054 00:58:18,440 --> 00:58:21,240 Speaker 4: to be able to eat, plus people's jobs. So that's 1055 00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:24,200 Speaker 4: really serious. And for us to be able to understand 1056 00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:30,600 Speaker 4: the resilience of these species two changes environmentally. I mean, 1057 00:58:30,640 --> 00:58:33,040 Speaker 4: obviously this's on a smaller scale within a species, but 1058 00:58:33,720 --> 00:58:37,280 Speaker 4: maintaining genetic diversity and stuff like this is really important 1059 00:58:37,280 --> 00:58:40,160 Speaker 4: to know about. Another interesting thing I would say is 1060 00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:44,920 Speaker 4: that there can be some possible knowledge about diseases that 1061 00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:47,640 Speaker 4: we can actually get from crustaceans. For example, crabs can 1062 00:58:47,680 --> 00:58:51,120 Speaker 4: regenerate their legs if you put them off. Arthur pods 1063 00:58:51,200 --> 00:58:54,000 Speaker 4: have a lot of superpowers because the way that they 1064 00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:58,120 Speaker 4: grow is by molting their entire episoskeleton, and they make 1065 00:58:58,200 --> 00:58:59,920 Speaker 4: what will become a bigger one, but it's like stuck 1066 00:59:00,080 --> 00:59:03,320 Speaker 4: inside and it sucks, and then when the old one 1067 00:59:03,360 --> 00:59:07,520 Speaker 4: fops off, then it kind of inflicts, and so they 1068 00:59:07,720 --> 00:59:10,200 Speaker 4: stick a new leg in there. So you know, obviously, 1069 00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:14,520 Speaker 4: people who have injuries might want to know about ways 1070 00:59:14,600 --> 00:59:17,880 Speaker 4: that this could be improved. So there's actually quite a 1071 00:59:17,920 --> 00:59:22,560 Speaker 4: lot even in these really obscure animals and seemingly obscure topics. 1072 00:59:22,600 --> 00:59:26,320 Speaker 4: It's true that I'm studying biodiversity. I want to know 1073 00:59:26,440 --> 00:59:29,360 Speaker 4: about why we see the forms that we do, and 1074 00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:31,680 Speaker 4: that may be very high level, but these organisms are 1075 00:59:31,680 --> 00:59:32,840 Speaker 4: important to us. 1076 00:59:33,160 --> 00:59:35,360 Speaker 2: So you can solve a lot of interesting science mysteries 1077 00:59:35,440 --> 00:59:38,479 Speaker 2: and learn about broader implications. But maybe you can't crack 1078 00:59:38,520 --> 00:59:41,480 Speaker 2: one of the deepest mysteries, which is why husbands are 1079 00:59:41,520 --> 00:59:42,760 Speaker 2: sometimes crabby in the morning. 1080 00:59:44,440 --> 00:59:46,400 Speaker 4: No, I can't crack that one. 1081 00:59:47,160 --> 00:59:49,680 Speaker 1: That's more of an NIH question than an NFF question. 1082 00:59:50,560 --> 00:59:53,600 Speaker 2: That's true, a set is more like our aliens krabby, 1083 00:59:53,640 --> 00:59:55,360 Speaker 2: and that we actually might have some hints about. 1084 00:59:55,880 --> 00:59:59,480 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, NASA does have an extra biology director, or 1085 00:59:59,480 --> 01:00:02,040 Speaker 4: at least we'll see what happens. But they have had 1086 01:00:02,120 --> 01:00:04,760 Speaker 4: but they don't usually do stuff like this. It's more 1087 01:00:04,960 --> 01:00:09,040 Speaker 4: realistic questions that they asked, like how would you detect 1088 01:00:10,040 --> 01:00:13,439 Speaker 4: if there's water on another planet and stuff like that. 1089 01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:16,760 Speaker 4: So yeah, not like literally our organs is going to 1090 01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:19,959 Speaker 4: be crabs on another planet. I think that it's cute, 1091 01:00:20,000 --> 01:00:21,880 Speaker 4: but they're not going to actually give you a million 1092 01:00:21,960 --> 01:00:22,640 Speaker 4: always could. 1093 01:00:22,440 --> 01:00:25,360 Speaker 1: Do that well. I see lots of great reasons to 1094 01:00:25,440 --> 01:00:28,560 Speaker 1: fund crab research, and Joe, we look forward to seeing 1095 01:00:28,560 --> 01:00:31,280 Speaker 1: what you do in the crabby space in the future. 1096 01:00:31,720 --> 01:00:33,360 Speaker 4: Thank you so much, thanks for. 1097 01:00:33,320 --> 01:00:43,560 Speaker 1: Being on the show. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is 1098 01:00:43,600 --> 01:00:46,560 Speaker 1: produced by iHeart Reading. We would love to hear from you. 1099 01:00:46,760 --> 01:00:49,680 Speaker 2: We really would. We want to know what questions you 1100 01:00:49,880 --> 01:00:52,560 Speaker 2: have about this Extraordinary Universe. 1101 01:00:52,680 --> 01:00:55,640 Speaker 1: We want to know your thoughts on recent shows, suggestions 1102 01:00:55,640 --> 01:00:58,640 Speaker 1: for future shows. 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