WEBVTT - BrainStuff Classics: How Do Sea Spiders Breathe Through Their Legs?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey

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<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel Bomb here with another episode from

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<v Speaker 1>our archives. I've been holding off on this one for

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<v Speaker 1>a couple of weeks because it's about the weird life

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<v Speaker 1>and times of a sea creature. And I've just kept

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<v Speaker 1>finding pieces about the weird lives and times of sea

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<v Speaker 1>creatures that I wanted to make new episodes about. And

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<v Speaker 1>I didn't want this whole podcast to become the Weird

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<v Speaker 1>sea Creatures podcast, or I do, but you know anyway, Finally,

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<v Speaker 1>today we return to sea spiders and how they breathe

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<v Speaker 1>through pores in their legs. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vogel

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<v Speaker 1>bomb here. Unsurprisingly, a human doesn't have much in common

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<v Speaker 1>with a sea spider. Actually, no other organism on Earth

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<v Speaker 1>has much in common with one of these spindle legged

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<v Speaker 1>Arthur pods that look more like a tinker toy experiment

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<v Speaker 1>than a living thing. My favorite top five weird things

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<v Speaker 1>about them. Their hearts are so weak that they require

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<v Speaker 1>the digestive system to move blood around their body. Most

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<v Speaker 1>of their digestive system and their genitals are encased in

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<v Speaker 1>their delicate legs. Their males carry their young. They eat

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<v Speaker 1>by sticking their probiscus into a mushy sea creature and

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<v Speaker 1>sucking out its juices, and until recently nobody could figure

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<v Speaker 1>out how they breathed. Strange as they may be, sea

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<v Speaker 1>spiders occupy marine habitats the world over. In deep and

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<v Speaker 1>shallow waters, they can be minuscule, with a leg span

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<v Speaker 1>of only a millimeter, but Antarctic sea spiders grow to

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<v Speaker 1>be unusually large, about the size of a frisbee. Polar

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<v Speaker 1>gigantism is the term that describes the way animals at

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<v Speaker 1>our planets poles tend to grow much larger than in

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<v Speaker 1>other parts of the world, even at their biggest This

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<v Speaker 1>isn't to say that their bodies are very big. Their

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<v Speaker 1>trunks are improbably small in contrast to the sheer area

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<v Speaker 1>their legs take up. There's not a lot of surface

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<v Speaker 1>area on a sea spiders abdomen and thorax to trick

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<v Speaker 1>it out with unnecessary amenity. A lot of jobs have

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<v Speaker 1>to be farmed out to those long, skinny legs. Scientists

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<v Speaker 1>have pretty much identified how they pack most of the

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<v Speaker 1>necessary physiological processes into such a teen c body and

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<v Speaker 1>such delicate appendages, but they haven't been able to figure

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<v Speaker 1>out how they breathe. Until recently, a study published in

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<v Speaker 1>a twenty eighteen issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology

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<v Speaker 1>has gotten to the bottom of how sea spiders move

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<v Speaker 1>oxygen through their bodies by studying several species of giant

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<v Speaker 1>Antarctic sea spiders. Most sea creatures have gills like fish

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<v Speaker 1>and lobsters, or lungs like whales, and some can even

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<v Speaker 1>take oxygen in through their skin. But sea spiders have

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<v Speaker 1>a tough exo skeleton and no gills or lungs, so

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<v Speaker 1>what gives The research team found sea spiders take oxygen

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<v Speaker 1>into their bodies through hundreds of tiny pores in their cuticle.

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<v Speaker 1>That's the tough outer skin that gives them structure and protection.

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<v Speaker 1>They put giant Antarctic sea spiders in respiration tanks to

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<v Speaker 1>see exactly how much oxygen they were absorbing, and they

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<v Speaker 1>found that they were taking in enough through tiny holes

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<v Speaker 1>all over their legs to run their entire bodies, which

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<v Speaker 1>of course is great for the c spider for now,

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<v Speaker 1>but as polar seas warm as a result of global

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<v Speaker 1>climate change, their ability to absorb oxygen in this novel

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<v Speaker 1>way might be compromised. Today's episode is based on the

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<v Speaker 1>article c Spiders breathe through pours and their legs on

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<v Speaker 1>house toffworks dot com, written by Desoline Shields. Brain Stuff

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