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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck

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Speaker 1: and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you should

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Speaker 1: know about Eel.

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Speaker 2: I know another podcast that has ruined something I like

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Speaker 2: to eat.

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Speaker 1: But now I can what did it ruin? Or why? How? What? What? Part?

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Speaker 1: How about this? When we get to the part where

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Speaker 1: you're like, this ruined eel for me, shout scream at

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Speaker 1: the top of your lungs. Okay, okay. I want to

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Speaker 1: give a hat tip to David Byrne via you Me

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Speaker 1: who inspired this episode.

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Speaker 3: David Byrne.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, d David Byrne you me. He was watching David

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Speaker 1: Byrne videos. He's on tour and I think she's going

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Speaker 1: to see him.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great show.

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Speaker 1: Have you seen it?

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I've seen the last couple of tours.

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Speaker 1: It's it's great, awesome. So he apparently he was talking

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Speaker 1: about a book he was reading about Eels and how

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Speaker 1: fascinating it was. So that kicked off the idea for

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Speaker 1: an episode on Eels.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I went to read a new book.

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Speaker 2: I just finished my book, Cameron Crowe's Memoir, which is fantastic,

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Speaker 2: I'm sure. And by the way, I commented on his

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Speaker 2: Instagram about what a great book it.

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Speaker 3: Was, and he started following me.

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Speaker 1: No.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I got to think that it was either

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Speaker 2: an accident or maybe he listens to stuff you should know.

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Speaker 2: I don't see why he would randomly just be like,

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Speaker 2: I'll follow anyone who says they like my book, right, So,

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Speaker 2: I don't know, Cameron Crow, if you're listening, it's pretty

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Speaker 2: exciting for us.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, what uh great book.

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Speaker 2: Though his memoir is just it's almost too incredible to

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Speaker 2: believe that that happened to him in his life.

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Speaker 1: Is it called recounting Crow? Uh?

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Speaker 2: Oh boy, No, it's called the Uncool But man, he

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Speaker 2: really missed an opportunity there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I think more he dodged a bullet.

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Speaker 3: Probably so. But I went to read a new book,

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Speaker 3: Talking Heads. It was.

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Speaker 2: I had two books in my hand, the Talking Heads

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Speaker 2: book and Abel Ferrara's memoir The Filmmaker, and I went

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Speaker 2: with the Abel ferrar just because Bonnie Prince Billy recommended

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Speaker 2: it and it's shorter.

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Speaker 3: But Talking Heads is up next. That's it.

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Speaker 1: I just watched Bad Lieutenant all the way through for

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Speaker 1: the first time. Oh, This is a.

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Speaker 3: Good movie, buddy, what a film.

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Speaker 1: I've got King of New York next.

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Speaker 3: So are you on a kick now for him a

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Speaker 3: little bit?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 3: Where'd that come from? Bonnie Prince Billy?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I don't remember. I think I just ran

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Speaker 1: across Bad Lieutenant. And I've known about it since I

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Speaker 1: was a teenager and it's never really watched it.

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Speaker 3: Oh have you ever seen King of New York?

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Speaker 1: No?

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Speaker 3: Oh, dude, it's so good.

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Speaker 1: Oh good, I can't wait.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I mean he's one of my favorite filmmakers.

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Speaker 1: Great. Yeah, Apparently there's lots of rumors that Harvey Kitel

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Speaker 1: actually was on all the drugs he was supposed to

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Speaker 1: be on on Bad Lieutenant.

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Speaker 3: I'll let you know when I get to that chapter.

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Speaker 1: And I saw someone say, like, no, he actually wasn't

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Speaker 1: he's just that good of an actor. But that Abel

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Speaker 1: Ferrara and the rest of the crew probably were on

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Speaker 1: all those same drugs while they were shooting it.

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Speaker 2: I know he was pretty into drugs. So I've only

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Speaker 2: a couple of chapters in so far, but it's really good.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Well, when you get to the chapter called drugs, Colon,

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Speaker 1: I love them.

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Speaker 2: Let me know, all right, all that to say is

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Speaker 2: that we're talking about eels, and we'll get right into it.

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Speaker 2: If you're an eel, if you want to claim to

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Speaker 2: be an eel, you got to have certain qualifications. You

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Speaker 2: can't just be like a sea snake or an electric eel,

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Speaker 2: which isn't an eel by the way. You have to

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Speaker 2: be a member of the order Anguilliforms or Anguilliformis. Twenty

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Speaker 2: families of eels, one hundred and eleven gen era, more than

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Speaker 2: eight hundred species, ranging from just about four inches to

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Speaker 2: those big old morey eels sometimes up to twelve feet.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, twelve foot long eel. That's just amazing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The one thing that they all have in common is

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Speaker 1: that they have long bodies that are typically worm like.

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Speaker 1: They don't have pelvic fins, right, so, yeah, the ones

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Speaker 1: that you would have developed head you descended from water hippos.

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Speaker 1: That's whales. A lot of them don't have pectoral fins.

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Speaker 1: Some of them do have the dorsal fin on the back.

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Speaker 1: But essentially they're just like worms or snakes, like slithering

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Speaker 1: through the water, and that actually is exactly what they're doing.

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Speaker 1: They're slithering in a wave like motion. That's how they

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Speaker 1: make their way because again, they don't really have fins.

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Speaker 1: This to me is one of the facts of the podcast.

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Speaker 1: Do you know what I'm talking about?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? Take it though.

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Speaker 1: So eels can swim backward just by changing the direction

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Speaker 1: of the wave. Yes, they make a beeping sound when

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Speaker 1: they do.

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Speaker 2: Oh man, that's amazing. I mean they got to let

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Speaker 2: everyone know. It's like I can't I can't see where

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Speaker 2: I'm going. Everyone eel coming through.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Also, I just want to take a second for

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Speaker 1: a ps A. If you drive a truck that makes

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Speaker 1: a beeping sound when it backs up, never ever just

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Speaker 1: sit there idling with your reverse gear and reverse. People

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Speaker 1: are allowed to do that. Yes, you mean I used

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Speaker 1: to live next to it was like a nursing home,

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Speaker 1: I guess, and they like we lived on the side

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Speaker 1: of their like delivery area, and dudes would just do that,

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Speaker 1: just sit there with with their truck and reverse not moving. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: at like six in the morning.

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Speaker 2: No, all right, I agree. Eels had that smooth, slippery

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Speaker 2: skin and it is coated in a slime. It's a

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Speaker 2: protective slime. It helps them with they're swimming. It makes

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Speaker 2: them very streamlined, and it also helps regulate how much

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Speaker 2: water is in their bodies, which is pretty unusual. And

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Speaker 2: they're predatory, like they're eating other fish basically while they're

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Speaker 2: down there. Yea.

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Speaker 1: What something else that's very neat about eels is that

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Speaker 1: they don't like they're not boring little baby eels and

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Speaker 1: then they grow up into big twelve foot long, two

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty pound eels. They actually go through stages

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Speaker 1: of metamorphosis like the butterfly does. Yeah, Like they don't

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Speaker 1: look anything like an eel when they're born, and as

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Speaker 1: they grow they actually change shape and color in addition

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Speaker 1: to size. They also very frequently will move from like

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Speaker 1: the ocean to freshwater creeks far inland. Like, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of great stuff that eels do that we just

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Speaker 1: had overlooked for a very long time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there's some fun, really fun stuff coming.

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Speaker 2: They're basically solitary. I think there's a couple that we'll

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Speaker 2: talk about later that hang out in the hundreds or thousands,

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Speaker 2: but generally, yeah, like, if you're an eel of size,

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Speaker 2: you're gonna be swimming around by yourself, backing up by yourself,

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Speaker 2: beeping by yourself. They migrate, and you know, we'll talk

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Speaker 2: more about how they spawn later, because it was a

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Speaker 2: bit of a mystery for a long long.

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Speaker 3: Time and still kind of is in some ways.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but they do migrate to a spawning area, and

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Speaker 2: they think they use the urtht magnetic fields. They use

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Speaker 2: magnetite in their bodies to navigate.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're not the only animals that do, so

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Speaker 1: we don't know for a fact. We just know that

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Speaker 1: there is magnetite in their heads and that that is

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Speaker 1: probably what's going on because it's so spectacular the migrations

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Speaker 1: that they go. That's essentially the only explanation we have

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Speaker 1: on hand.

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Speaker 3: That's right.

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Speaker 2: If they are in tropical areas, warmer waters, where they

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Speaker 2: get migrate to spawn is probably nearish. But if they're

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Speaker 2: in the colder areas, it seems like they migrate to

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Speaker 2: the warmer areas to spawn, so they may have to

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Speaker 2: go a long way.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like how people in the Caribbean they don't

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Speaker 1: go on vacation because they live on vacation. That's right.

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Speaker 1: And like you said, electric eels aren't eels, and there's

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Speaker 1: really not a whole lot else to say about electric

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Speaker 1: eels really.

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Speaker 3: No, they're knife fish. They're closer to a catfish than

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Speaker 3: an eel.

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Speaker 2: Sure, so forget those guys pretty much.

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Speaker 1: We really looked too. We're like electric kills. We got

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Speaker 1: to find out even though they're not eels, they've got

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Speaker 1: to be kind of interesting. Not really, so sorry everybody.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but what is interesting is the more a eel.

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Speaker 2: This is the sort of the most famous of the

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Speaker 2: ocean dwelling eels, the saltwater eels, member of the family

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Speaker 2: Muraneda fifteen genera. There two hundred species makes up about

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Speaker 2: twenty five percent of all the eels, and they live

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Speaker 2: like you know, if you've ever been snorkeling or scuba diving,

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Speaker 2: you probably haven't seen one during the day. But if

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Speaker 2: you've ever gone and put your face in a heidi

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Speaker 2: hole in that coral, maybe you could see one because

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Speaker 2: that's where they like to hide.

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Speaker 1: Yes, be careful though, because they probably will buy you

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Speaker 1: if you stick your face in their heidi hole.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I did that a little bit in Belize. I was

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Speaker 2: asked to snorkel fishing guys with this. There were spearfishing

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Speaker 2: and stuff, and I was like, like with spear guns.

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Speaker 2: I was like, can you teach me? They're like, come on,

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Speaker 2: just follow along. And then you know, he told me

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Speaker 2: dive down there and put your face in that hole

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Speaker 2: and tell me what he saw.

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Speaker 3: Did you really Yeah, yeah, it was It was cool.

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Speaker 2: I was like, I was trying to do it like

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Speaker 2: they did it, you know, sure, but I didn't get

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Speaker 2: anything they did, but I didn't.

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Speaker 1: Did you see an eel though?

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Speaker 2: No?

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Speaker 3: But it was a little scary to put your face

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Speaker 3: down there, you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean doing that above ground can be

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Speaker 1: pretty unnerving. Under the sea, that's just scary. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I felt like Timothy Dalton then Flash Gordon when he

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Speaker 2: reached his hand into that thing, or.

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Speaker 1: I guess Indiana Jones. Didn't he do that in One

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Speaker 1: of them had spiders everywhere.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they were insects. He had to stick his hand,

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Speaker 3: I think, reaching for a lever or something.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so great. One of my favorites are it's a

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Speaker 1: type of mori. It's called the ribbon eel. Did you

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Speaker 1: look pictures up of these guys.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they're gorgeous, gorgeous.

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Speaker 1: So there. They are very appropriately named. They're very flat

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Speaker 1: and wide. They do look like ribbons, especially when they're

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Speaker 1: undulating through the water. But one of the cool things

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Speaker 1: is is that they're born as males blue and yellow males,

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Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden they go boop, I'm

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Speaker 1: in all yellow female now yeah, check me out. And

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Speaker 1: they can reproduce either way, depending on what phase of

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Speaker 1: life they're in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're just incredible, very bright, almost fluorescent like, kind

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Speaker 2: of one of those you know, undersea colors that just

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Speaker 2: don't feel like they should exist in nature, but it

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Speaker 2: definitely exists in the ocean.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, beautiful, all right, so there.

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Speaker 2: If you know a more, you know, they have a

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Speaker 2: great smile. They're known for those those really scary looking teeth.

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Speaker 2: They have two sets of jaws. The second set, the

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Speaker 2: fairyngeal jaws, faces backwards to kind of lock you in

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Speaker 2: and keep you from escaping if they have you in

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Speaker 2: their grasp. Yeah, but they're not dead or not after you.

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Speaker 2: You don't need to be afraid of the moray eel

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Speaker 2: like if they if they get you in the water,

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Speaker 2: it's probably because you're in there at night and it's

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Speaker 2: obviously an accident.

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Speaker 3: They're not like after people.

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Speaker 1: Right, they only get you when you stick your face

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Speaker 1: in their heidi hole.

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Speaker 3: H Yeah, I guess so.

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Speaker 1: One of the reasons why people are like man, those

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Speaker 1: things look really aggressive. Is because they show their teeth

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Speaker 1: a lot. And that's not because they're trying to scare

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Speaker 1: you or because they're really proud of their teeth. It's

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Speaker 1: because they lack opercula, which are those plate like covers

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Speaker 1: that go over fish gills, you know that they kind

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Speaker 1: of go back and forth on.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, they flamber like.

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Speaker 1: That Mondy python sketching with the Meaning of Life where

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Speaker 1: their goldfish and they're moving their hands. They were simulating opercula,

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Speaker 1: and one of the things opercula does is it regulates

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Speaker 1: and kind of moves water over the gills. Well, the

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Speaker 1: mores don't have that, so they have to get a

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Speaker 1: lot of water through their mouth and then that's how

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Speaker 1: they funnel the water through the gills. And of course

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Speaker 1: the gills is where the oxygen is absorbed out of

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Speaker 1: the water into the circulation.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. So that's when you're gonna see the teeth.

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Speaker 2: Like I said, you're not gonna get bitten most likely,

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Speaker 2: but if you do, it's not going to be fun

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Speaker 2: for you.

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Speaker 3: Those teeth are very sharp.

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Speaker 2: It's a very painful bite apparently because it punctures very deep,

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Speaker 2: so it could always get like tendons and nerves and stuff.

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Speaker 2: And while they are not venomous, they do that slime.

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Speaker 2: They have slime in their mouths as well, and it's

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Speaker 2: a substance called hema glutenin, and it causes red blood

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Speaker 2: cells to clump up.

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Speaker 3: But they also.

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Speaker 2: They think they generate something called chriinotoxin, so that destroys

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Speaker 2: red blood cells. So all of that stuff is a

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Speaker 2: why it's painful, and it can be like super prone

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Speaker 2: to infection. Those teeth can break off in your wound.

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Speaker 2: It's really not good.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw Chriinotoxins also are the reason catfish things hurt.

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Speaker 2: Uh.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like we talked about that in our

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Speaker 3: noodling episode.

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Speaker 1: That makes sense. Yeah, that's like sticking your face in

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Speaker 1: the Heidi hole, but using your arm instead of your face.

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Speaker 1: That's right. So the more is a type of ocean eel,

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Speaker 1: and you can kind of divide eels into ocean and

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Speaker 1: fresh water as we'll see, although ocean eels are far

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Speaker 1: and away the largest in number and type, right. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: One of the other big big I guess ocean eels

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Speaker 1: is called the conger from family congrete A, and they

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Speaker 1: are like deep water dwellers like three thousand feet below

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Speaker 1: the surface. Some of them hang out in some rocky

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Speaker 1: areas like More's maybe around coral reefs. But the thing

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Speaker 1: that's remarkable about the European conger is that that's the

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Speaker 1: heaviest one, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not as long and slender as the more

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Speaker 2: they're they're still long and snakelike, but they're they're rounder.

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Speaker 2: Like the biggest one recorded as two hundred and forty

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Speaker 2: two pounds, Yeah, which is you know, it's it's a

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Speaker 2: game fish. So if you got a two hundred and

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Speaker 2: forty two, that's a pretty good catch that day.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was like how much a couchways? Yeah, yeah, Oh,

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Speaker 1: I'm so glad I said that because I've been forgetting

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Speaker 1: just to mention this. So our dear awesome friend Brandon Reid, right,

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Speaker 1: he created he's our webmaster everybody. He runs and created

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Speaker 1: stuff you should know dot com Yeah and pal, yes,

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Speaker 1: and great great pal. He created a website called Josh

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Speaker 1: Clark Calculates and you can go to Josh Clark Calculates

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00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:34,600
Speaker 1: dot com. I didn't look it up and get this,

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00:14:34,720 --> 00:14:39,120
Speaker 1: so you can basically describe anything in a measurement of

306
00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:43,920
Speaker 1: whatever you want so somebody is a big Max tall,

307
00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:47,000
Speaker 1: so you can select big Max Olympic swimming pools. All

308
00:14:47,040 --> 00:14:50,720
Speaker 1: the stuff that we've ever used to essentially describe the

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00:14:50,760 --> 00:14:53,600
Speaker 1: size or shape or volume of something you can now

310
00:14:53,680 --> 00:14:56,080
Speaker 1: do on Josh Clark calculates dot com.

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Speaker 3: Why why am I just now learning about this?

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Speaker 1: Because I kept forgetting to mention it and he showed

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Speaker 1: it to me before. I guess he showed it to

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Speaker 1: me in Chicago when he came to the show.

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Speaker 3: All right, I'm looking at it now.

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Speaker 2: Josh Clark calculates the weirdest way to measure absolutely anything, right,

317
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Speaker 2: the Space Then the example in the homepage is the

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Speaker 2: Space Shuttle Endeavor has the speed of how many washing

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Speaker 2: washing machines? And he press a button and it says,

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Speaker 2: beat boob, the Space Shuttle Endeavor has the speed of

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Speaker 2: twenty two thousand, seven hundred and seventy eight washing machines.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was telling me like, that's like those

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Speaker 1: are legitimate measurements, like comparison.

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Speaker 3: Well, this is my new favorite homepage.

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Speaker 1: That awesome. Yeah, that is so cool, man, Love Brandon.

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Speaker 3: We'll have to get a band named Generator or something going.

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Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good idea to you.

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Speaker 2: All Right, that was a lot of fun. I feel

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Speaker 2: like we should take a break. Everyone can go visit

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Speaker 2: that website and calculate some stuff and we'll be back

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Speaker 2: with more about eels.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck, we're back, and now we're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about my favorite kind of eel. Is this your favorite

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Speaker 1: kind of eel? Uh? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: These cute little guys look like plants.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I've seen these before. I had no idea

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Speaker 1: there were eels, but they're like, yeah, little worm like

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Speaker 1: stems sticking up out of the sandy bottom, waving kind

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Speaker 1: of back and forth with the current. And there's so

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Speaker 1: many of them it does it looks like just kind

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Speaker 1: of a field of plants. But if you zoom in,

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Speaker 1: they are these cute little eels with cute little faces. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: just eating plankton that goes past, and they spend most

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Speaker 1: of their lives cemented in the sandy bottom, even though

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Speaker 1: they're able to get out and move free. That's just

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Speaker 1: kind of where they live. It's also their heidi.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're called garden eels, and I think when they

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00:17:03,720 --> 00:17:07,360
Speaker 2: get startled, they their whole body goes back in their

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Speaker 2: little burrow. But yeah, these are the ones that can

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Speaker 2: hang out together, so it look like a little field

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Speaker 2: of seagrass and beat thousands of these little guys just

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Speaker 2: waving around.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, they're so cute too, just lolick up garden eel

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Speaker 1: and look at their little very serious faces.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, if you are an eel that's living deep in

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Speaker 2: the ocean, you're not going to be one of the

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Speaker 2: colorful ones. You're probably going to be black or dull gray.

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Speaker 2: And the gulp or eel is another one that you

359
00:17:32,040 --> 00:17:33,920
Speaker 2: should look up when it's safe to do so. This

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Speaker 2: is it's also called the pelican eel. They're all over

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Speaker 2: the world, basically in tropical and temperate climates, and they

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Speaker 2: are very deep dwellers, like five to ten thousand feet

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Speaker 2: below the surface, and they look crazy. They are a

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Speaker 2: few feet long, and their jaw is really the star

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Speaker 2: of the show. It's a lot bigger than their skull

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Speaker 2: and it can unhinge and act as a scoop. It

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Speaker 2: looks sort of like well, I mean, they call it

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Speaker 2: pelican for a and it looks pelican s but its

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Speaker 2: shaped like a shovel, like if a shovel and a

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Speaker 2: bucket got together and made it.

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Speaker 3: This is what it would look.

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Speaker 1: Like yeah, and it doesn't always look like that, right,

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Speaker 1: so when it changes shape it looks extremely alien. It's

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Speaker 1: really neat. The video I saw was Gulper eel balloons

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Speaker 1: its massive jaw a nautilus live and it's just amazing

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Speaker 1: to watch that thing do its thing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, that very very cool.

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Speaker 2: This is this next section to me is kind of

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Speaker 2: one of the most astounding things that I didn't know about.

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Speaker 2: It is the fact that eels have a real big

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Speaker 2: significance in human history, and especially in medieval Europe. But

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Speaker 2: we're talking mainly about the American eel, the European eel,

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Speaker 2: and the Japanese eel. These are fresh water eels. They

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Speaker 2: go to spawn in the oceans, but they live in

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Speaker 2: fresh water, and they were a huge, huge, huge source

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Speaker 2: of food for a very long time in a lot

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Speaker 2: of parts of the world.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and still are. Japan loves unagi.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah.

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Speaker 1: So yeah. One of the reasons why they played such

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Speaker 1: a role as a food source around the world is

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Speaker 1: that number one, they were easy to come by, like literally,

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Speaker 1: they're swimming around in streams and rivers all over the

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Speaker 1: northern hemisphere. And in addition to that, they're really really nutritious.

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Speaker 1: It turns out high in protein, lots of vitamin B twelve,

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Speaker 1: vitamin A, vitamin D that's hard to come by if

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Speaker 1: you're not out in the sun. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: B twelve for goats.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, And only three hundred and seventy five calories

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00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:46,200
Speaker 1: for an eel fil a, which is actually pretty new

401
00:19:46,640 --> 00:19:50,960
Speaker 1: calorie dnse for a fish. But it's it's very good

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00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:51,560
Speaker 1: for you too.

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00:19:51,680 --> 00:19:51,880
Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: A lot of good fat and protein in there as well.

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Speaker 2: And that unagi that I used to love to eat.

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Speaker 2: I would cook it up myself. It was delicious.

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00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:03,000
Speaker 1: Oh really, you cooked it yourself?

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00:20:03,480 --> 00:20:05,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I talked about this before. There's a

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Speaker 2: near the Decab farmers market near where I live. There's

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00:20:08,760 --> 00:20:12,480
Speaker 2: the I think it's cool stand, the first Oriental market,

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00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:15,879
Speaker 2: and they sell eel as well as lots of like

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00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:19,720
Speaker 2: kitchen wars and kind of cool stuff from Japan. But sure, yeah,

413
00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:21,119
Speaker 2: you can go get eel there out of the fridge

414
00:20:21,119 --> 00:20:23,320
Speaker 2: and bake it in your oven and coat it with

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Speaker 2: some I used taraaki, but I think traditionally is the

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00:20:27,040 --> 00:20:28,560
Speaker 2: kabayaki sauce is used.

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Speaker 1: Is that right to drill.

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Speaker 2: To grill those things up and it's I mean, kabayaki

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Speaker 2: is basically the same. I think it just doesn't have

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Speaker 2: like I think it's like a stripped down taraiyaki. It

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00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:38,479
Speaker 2: doesn't have ginger and garlic in it.

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00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:41,120
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's also a little thicker too, right,

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Speaker 1: I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I think it's about the same, but it's just uh,

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00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:46,639
Speaker 2: it's kind of just the sweet stuff.

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Speaker 1: It is very good. I agree with you. I nothing

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00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:53,960
Speaker 1: in here really put me off of eel, especially your nagi.

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Speaker 3: Hey, that's good for you.

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Speaker 1: One of the things you haven't screamed yet. We haven't

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Speaker 1: reached that part yet.

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00:20:59,400 --> 00:21:00,439
Speaker 3: No, no, okay.

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Speaker 1: So one of the reasons zunagi is, I guess noteworthy

433
00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:10,000
Speaker 1: in Japanese culture. One as far as sushi goes, it's

434
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Speaker 1: one of the rare parts of sushi that's ever cooked,

435
00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:17,240
Speaker 1: like across the board. Yeah. And then number two, it's

436
00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:21,080
Speaker 1: called one of the big four foods of the Edo period,

437
00:21:21,480 --> 00:21:23,720
Speaker 1: which I think ran from the seventeenth century to the

438
00:21:23,840 --> 00:21:29,600
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Those four were soba, sushi, and doctor pepper.

439
00:21:32,359 --> 00:21:34,400
Speaker 3: I know this answer, So you didn't get me this time.

440
00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:36,760
Speaker 1: What is the other one?

441
00:21:36,840 --> 00:21:39,119
Speaker 2: The other one is timpura and you mentioned it's the

442
00:21:39,200 --> 00:21:41,760
Speaker 2: only one that's like routinely cooked because you have to

443
00:21:42,160 --> 00:21:44,159
Speaker 2: because eel blood is toxic to human so you have

444
00:21:44,160 --> 00:21:47,159
Speaker 2: to grill that stuff up just right. Yeah, this is

445
00:21:47,160 --> 00:21:48,560
Speaker 2: one of the things that is dound to me. Is

446
00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:51,160
Speaker 2: I didn't know that it was such a big deal

447
00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:56,880
Speaker 2: in the northeastern US in eastern Canada before and after colonization,

448
00:21:57,040 --> 00:22:00,359
Speaker 2: so indigenous peoples loved eel. I think eel's made up

449
00:22:00,359 --> 00:22:03,040
Speaker 2: about a quarter more than a quarter of the fish

450
00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:06,520
Speaker 2: found in streams along the coast of the of northern

451
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:11,439
Speaker 2: northeastern Northern America. Yeah, and you know, you could smoke

452
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:14,639
Speaker 2: it and carry it with you on the trail, you

453
00:22:14,680 --> 00:22:17,760
Speaker 2: could salt it and cure it, and obviously you could

454
00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:20,800
Speaker 2: you know, trap them and grill them up.

455
00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:24,720
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think one of the things that I've read

456
00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:28,280
Speaker 1: somewhere is that like an eel file at is it

457
00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:31,520
Speaker 1: does not taste fishy. I saw it compared to a

458
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:35,720
Speaker 1: taste of venison. Even I've my experience with eel has

459
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:37,400
Speaker 1: never been like that. It's always been like a little

460
00:22:37,440 --> 00:22:41,200
Speaker 1: bit like on on sushi. Have Did you ever eat

461
00:22:41,280 --> 00:22:43,200
Speaker 1: like a big hunk of eel at once?

462
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:47,920
Speaker 2: No, It's always just been, you know, like you would

463
00:22:47,920 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 2: eat on sushi, but they come in a in a

464
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:52,000
Speaker 2: long eel like package.

465
00:22:52,960 --> 00:22:55,040
Speaker 3: Sure, and then you know, you just bake it in

466
00:22:55,040 --> 00:22:57,200
Speaker 3: the oven. I think they're already pre cooked.

467
00:22:58,359 --> 00:22:58,879
Speaker 1: Oh gotcha?

468
00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:01,520
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, so you're so they maybe shrunk or something,

469
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:03,800
Speaker 2: but you're basically just heating it up and glazing it.

470
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:07,359
Speaker 1: I gotcha. Smoke deal sounds kind of good. I would

471
00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:08,160
Speaker 1: try smoke deal.

472
00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:09,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds really good.

473
00:23:10,119 --> 00:23:13,960
Speaker 1: So it wasn't just the indigenous peoples of North America

474
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:17,280
Speaker 1: who were eating eel. The people in Europe at the

475
00:23:17,320 --> 00:23:19,679
Speaker 1: same time were crazy for eel and had been for

476
00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:24,360
Speaker 1: centuries and centuries. Apparently they've found old willow traps, which

477
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:27,640
Speaker 1: are basically like woven baskets that are easy to get

478
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 1: into and hard to get out of. That eel would

479
00:23:30,320 --> 00:23:33,119
Speaker 1: swim into and they'd be like, oh no, not again,

480
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:37,680
Speaker 1: and they would become smoked or salted or dried and

481
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:41,480
Speaker 1: very interestingly chuck. They would often be used as currency.

482
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:45,600
Speaker 1: That's how valued eel were, but also how common they

483
00:23:45,640 --> 00:23:46,120
Speaker 1: were too.

484
00:23:46,359 --> 00:23:48,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the fact that the episode for me

485
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:54,639
Speaker 2: had no idea that in medieval times, not at medieval times,

486
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:59,920
Speaker 2: but during medieval times, about half a million dried eels

487
00:24:00,240 --> 00:24:03,160
Speaker 2: were used to pay rent in England every single year.

488
00:24:03,840 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, for all sorts of debts. And I mean it

489
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:09,200
Speaker 1: continued on for a very long time. And to kill

490
00:24:09,200 --> 00:24:13,280
Speaker 1: a mockingbird, Walter Cunningham from Old Saram pays Atticus Finch

491
00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: and a thousand live eels at one point.

492
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 3: Is that for real? Oh man? I never wanted to

493
00:24:19,840 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 3: cuss so bad on the show.

494
00:24:22,400 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 1: No. And the reason why that's a giveaway, Chuck, is

495
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:28,879
Speaker 1: that I said live eels. Nobody wanted the live eels.

496
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:33,480
Speaker 1: They wanted them prepared, smoked, yeah, dried, and then depending

497
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:35,560
Speaker 1: on how many were put together. Did you see like

498
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:39,480
Speaker 1: there were different names for like ten eels together, Yeah,

499
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:40,919
Speaker 1: twenty five eels together.

500
00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:43,680
Speaker 3: Like wrap them up? And when was a stick? Was one?

501
00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:47,640
Speaker 1: Uh huh, that's like twenty five okay, and then uh no,

502
00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:52,640
Speaker 1: that's ten. Yeah, a bind is twenty five, And those

503
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:55,880
Speaker 1: are basically they were treated like denominations, like I'll give

504
00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 1: you a bind of eels for that can of doctor pepper.

505
00:24:59,359 --> 00:25:04,480
Speaker 3: Two bindes stick. Yeah, it'd be twenty five or it'd

506
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:07,679
Speaker 3: be sixty. Well we should type it into Josh Clark.

507
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 1: Exactly see, it'd be like, does not compute.

508
00:25:11,640 --> 00:25:14,200
Speaker 3: There needs to be one in there. For Josh Clark calculates.

509
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:15,840
Speaker 2: It was like, how many eels would it take to

510
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:18,040
Speaker 2: live in the East village for a month?

511
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 1: That's a good one man, whatever year, ten trillion eels.

512
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 3: Or how many sticks is that?

513
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:28,480
Speaker 1: That's a trillion sticks?

514
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:30,320
Speaker 3: Oh okay, thank you.

515
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:31,439
Speaker 1: That was an easy one.

516
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:35,160
Speaker 2: They were very popular food wise though, during church holidays

517
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:39,239
Speaker 2: and during fasting seasons because and this is like up

518
00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:41,159
Speaker 2: to like a few months out of the year or

519
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:42,639
Speaker 2: more than that one hundred and twenty days.

520
00:25:44,640 --> 00:25:46,639
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's like six months.

521
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: A quarter of the year.

522
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:51,480
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, third, Oh god, here we go, a third

523
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:52,160
Speaker 3: a third?

524
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:54,200
Speaker 2: All right, I'm gonna type it into your website again.

525
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:58,960
Speaker 2: You could not eat meat, but you could eat fish

526
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 2: during those fasting season. So because there were so many eels,

527
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:06,160
Speaker 2: they were you know, it's a pretty attractive meal.

528
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:11,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, a nice meal of eels, that's right. There was

529
00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 1: one other reason too, that we'll see why they were

530
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:17,919
Speaker 1: highly thought of for fasting during Christian or Catholic I

531
00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:21,680
Speaker 1: guess feast days was that they are have long been

532
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:24,960
Speaker 1: considered a sexual because as we'll see that, like people

533
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:29,160
Speaker 1: have no idea how they've reproduced. And I thought that.

534
00:26:29,119 --> 00:26:31,240
Speaker 3: Was pretty interesting, Yeah, super interesting.

535
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:34,280
Speaker 1: Like regular fish that have sex would just make you

536
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:36,680
Speaker 1: think of nothing but sex while you're eating them, I guess.

537
00:26:36,680 --> 00:26:38,640
Speaker 1: But at eel you're all good.

538
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, should we take a break or should

539
00:26:41,320 --> 00:26:43,240
Speaker 2: we talk about the reproduction now?

540
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:45,880
Speaker 1: I'd say we take a break, man, Okay.

541
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 2: All right, we're going to talk about how they reproduce

542
00:26:47,560 --> 00:27:18,159
Speaker 2: right after this. All right, everybody back to the mystery

543
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,520
Speaker 2: of eel reproduction. In the old days, in the classical

544
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 2: Mediterranean era, they had all kinds of crazy ideas about

545
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:29,959
Speaker 2: how eels reproduce because they seemed to just appear. No

546
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:32,360
Speaker 2: one ever saw them doing it. No one ever saw

547
00:27:32,440 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 2: eel eggs. People had cut eels open and found no

548
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:42,719
Speaker 2: reproductive organs. Seems to be unusually preoccupied with this, in

549
00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:46,600
Speaker 2: my opinion. They had a lot of weird opinions and

550
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 2: theories as well.

551
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:51,959
Speaker 1: Right, sure, sure, but imagine if, like, you know how

552
00:27:52,000 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 1: much cow stay chicken. Okay, humans eat a lot of chicken.

553
00:27:57,440 --> 00:27:59,520
Speaker 1: Imagine if while you're eating chicken, you're like, where the

554
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:02,400
Speaker 1: hell do you chickens come from? No one has any

555
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:05,120
Speaker 1: idea like the chicken is solicious, but I have no

556
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 1: idea how chickens are born.

557
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you probably should have picked something that

558
00:28:09,520 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 2: doesn't lay an egg in front of you.

559
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:13,080
Speaker 3: But yeah, sure, I get what you mean.

560
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:15,760
Speaker 1: But I think that's another reason why the mystery is

561
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:19,440
Speaker 1: so deep. As they're like, yeah, chickens lay eggs, pigs,

562
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:22,640
Speaker 1: they'd love to do it. Like they're all like they

563
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 1: knew how everything else came about. Basically, eels, they're like,

564
00:28:26,600 --> 00:28:28,800
Speaker 1: I guess they just spontaneously generate.

565
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:29,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.

566
00:28:30,440 --> 00:28:33,240
Speaker 2: Finally, in seventeen seventy seven, there was an Italian surgeon

567
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 2: and researcher named Carlo Mundine and he finally don't ask

568
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:43,280
Speaker 2: me how, but he finally located the ovaries of an eel,

569
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 2: and they for decades no one could replicate that fact.

570
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,479
Speaker 2: And then eventually they found the testicles as well. And

571
00:28:52,040 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 2: no less than Sigmund Freud was one of the one

572
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:57,560
Speaker 2: of the people looking for those eel testes.

573
00:28:58,000 --> 00:28:59,800
Speaker 1: My friend, he was the one who found them.

574
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this is earlier in his career, but yeah,

575
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 2: he dissected four hundred eels. I guess he on the

576
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:07,160
Speaker 2: four hundred and first found him.

577
00:29:07,960 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: It's always the last deal you look in. Yeah, so yeah,

578
00:29:12,360 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: So Freud was the person who identified for the first time.

579
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 1: People have been thinking about this for two thousand years

580
00:29:18,080 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 1: at least, how eels reproduced. But at the same time

581
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 1: they were like, great, they have gonads, they have ovaries,

582
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 1: where do they like Why don't we ever see them

583
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:30,160
Speaker 1: using these things? Why don't we ever see their babies?

584
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 1: This is all very weird. So the mystery continued even

585
00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:37,000
Speaker 1: after Freud, although it was really kind of starting to

586
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:40,680
Speaker 1: heat up around that time. I think Freud found the

587
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 1: gonads in eighteen seventy six, and within a couple of decades.

588
00:29:45,040 --> 00:29:48,960
Speaker 1: I think within a decade they had far more material

589
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 1: to work with than they had. So, like it went

590
00:29:50,960 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: from two thousand years of not knowing what the heck

591
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 1: was going on to Bam, bam bam, we almost have

592
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 1: it figured out.

593
00:29:57,240 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure, Like we knew that they met morphosize.

594
00:30:00,680 --> 00:30:06,120
Speaker 2: We knew that those glass eels, they're basically transparent little babies.

595
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:09,000
Speaker 2: They would show up in coastal waters every spring, and

596
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 2: they knew that they shurned into adolescent eels they're called elvers,

597
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 2: and they know that they would eventually turn color and

598
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 2: swim up rivers, and they knew they would eventually become

599
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 2: yellow eels and that they love to eat those things,

600
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:26,440
Speaker 2: and then eventually they would become silver eels. Is the

601
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 2: final stop on the eel train, and that is when

602
00:30:29,360 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 2: they developed the equipment to reproduce and go up river

603
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 2: into the ocean. But the part between silver eels going

604
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:41,000
Speaker 2: from the river and then the glass eel floating around

605
00:30:41,280 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 2: was the mystery.

606
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if you put those two things together, like, Okay,

607
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:48,080
Speaker 1: the glass eels show up on the coast, the silver

608
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: eels swim out to sea, seems like that these freshwater

609
00:30:51,840 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 1: eels breeding grounds are somewhere out there in the ocean.

610
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:59,760
Speaker 1: It's gotta be right. Yeah. So before that, there was

611
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 1: this idea that there were these little things, almost plankton

612
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 1: like organisms, or I think they were plankton, which apparently

613
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 1: the definition of plankton is any floating sea life that

614
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 1: just gets moved along by the current, can't move around itself.

615
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:17,719
Speaker 1: There were these little tiny floating I guess they were

616
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 1: shaped like willow leaves, and they were identified as leptocephalous

617
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 1: Revostis rostras, and they thought this was a whole different

618
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 1: type of fish, and it turned out what they were

619
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:36,000
Speaker 1: looking at were the larva of eels. They misidentified them

620
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:38,760
Speaker 1: as something and it took like a couple of decades

621
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 1: before they were like, no, this is actually eel larva.

622
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:43,960
Speaker 1: And they found out thanks to a French guy named

623
00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: Eve Delage, who probably was quite surprised when he put

624
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:48,720
Speaker 1: one of these things in a tank.

625
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:50,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, he put one in a tank and saw it

626
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 2: go through every metamorphosis. I guess I would assume he

627
00:31:55,360 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 2: kept getting bigger tanks, unless you had a big one

628
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 2: to begin with. But eventually it became a glass, and

629
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 2: then an elver, and then about ten years after that,

630
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 2: there was an Italian zoologist named Giovanni Battista who saw

631
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 2: this happen out in the wild. And so, all right,

632
00:32:11,720 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 2: we really are cooking with gas now, but where do

633
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 2: those little silver eels go? Where are they going to

634
00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:21,160
Speaker 2: make this larva? They still hadn't figured out that part.

635
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:25,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, once they mature. So there's a Dutch marine biologist

636
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:29,640
Speaker 1: named Ernst Johann Schmidt, which is a great Danish name.

637
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: I think I said Dutch, right, He's a Dane, Sorry,

638
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: Danish people. He was supported by the Carlsburg Foundation, and

639
00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: yet they were founded by the beer company. Yeah, and

640
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 1: they essentially funded scientific expeditions. They funded Ernst Schmidt and

641
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 1: he started He just basically set out to figure out

642
00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 1: this mystery of how silver eels produce the little willow

643
00:32:56,320 --> 00:32:57,360
Speaker 1: leaf larva.

644
00:32:57,520 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 3: That's right.

645
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 2: So he started fishing his nets along the coast and

646
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 2: he found them in the North Sea. He found them

647
00:33:06,280 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 2: in the Mediterranean, and they were pretty big by this point.

648
00:33:09,360 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 2: So he was like, I don't think this is where

649
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:13,920
Speaker 2: they started because they've grown a little too much. So

650
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 2: he got together with some commercial fishing boats, said hey,

651
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:19,479
Speaker 2: I could use some help because you guys are all

652
00:33:19,520 --> 00:33:22,440
Speaker 2: over the Atlantic, and they helped him out, and in

653
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 2: nineteen twelve he had a report finally to publish that said, really,

654
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 2: these little small larvae and silver eels are, which is

655
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:36,360
Speaker 2: the end stage, all the way out in the mid Atlantic,

656
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 2: in the middle of nowhere.

657
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. So he was like, I think that they probably

658
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 1: breed in the Sargasso Sea. And he never found them.

659
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 1: He never saw that they were in the Sargasso Sea.

660
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:52,320
Speaker 1: But it turned out he was correct.

661
00:33:52,360 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 3: That's right.

662
00:33:54,720 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 2: Sargasso see apparently is a pretty rich breeding ground for

663
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 2: a lot of reasons. One reason and because of the

664
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 2: brown sarcasm that floats on top, I think it just

665
00:34:03,440 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 2: creates a sort of a nice, covered, shady habitat. Yeah,

666
00:34:07,800 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 2: and it's not just the eels. I think a lot

667
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:11,240
Speaker 2: of things kind of reproduce in the Sargasso.

668
00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: Sea, for sure. And the reason the Sargasso Sea is

669
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:16,880
Speaker 1: remarkable is it's a sea in the Atlantic.

670
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 3: Ocean, yeah, for sure.

671
00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:20,800
Speaker 1: And it's kept in place by I think four currents

672
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 1: that kind of come together and create a gyre. And

673
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 1: in the middle of this gyre is what we call

674
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:29,799
Speaker 1: the Sargasso Sea. And it's relatively still compared to the

675
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:34,000
Speaker 1: rest of the ocean. It's very high in saline, and

676
00:34:34,040 --> 00:34:39,840
Speaker 1: it stays pretty warm. It's largely off the coast of

677
00:34:39,160 --> 00:34:43,719
Speaker 1: the eastern United States, I believe, is where it's mostly situated,

678
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 1: all the way out to the Azores zorusors sure. And

679
00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:55,520
Speaker 1: it turns out in I think twenty eighteen, a European

680
00:34:55,560 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 1: team led by Rosalind Wright found out that yes, Ernest

681
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 1: Schmidt was correct that they do eels do actually mate

682
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:06,600
Speaker 1: in the Sargasso Sea.

683
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 2: That's right now, that's those There are other freshwater eels

684
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 2: that spawn in other places. Obviously, they don't all go there.

685
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:20,760
Speaker 2: I think Japanese eels spawn at these underwater mountains around

686
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:23,240
Speaker 2: the Marianna Ridge, which is pretty incredible.

687
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:27,120
Speaker 1: So neat. Yeah, yeah, And then I think African long

688
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 1: fin eels spawn in the Indian Ocean. And you might say,

689
00:35:30,640 --> 00:35:33,319
Speaker 1: like who cares, Like, yeah, it was a mystery, but yeah,

690
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:38,760
Speaker 1: think about this. Eels are like halfway up the Rhine

691
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 1: in Germany. Yeah, They're like, well, it's time for me

692
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:44,160
Speaker 1: to go reproduce, so I'm getting to be that age.

693
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 1: They swim all the way down to the Atlantic Ocean,

694
00:35:48,040 --> 00:35:50,360
Speaker 1: swim all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to the

695
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:54,440
Speaker 1: Sargasso Sea. That's where they mate, and then their little

696
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 1: tiny larvae, these little floating plankton, make their way all

697
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:03,759
Speaker 1: the way back two Europe again, where they turn into

698
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: glass eels then elvas, and then swim back up and

699
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 1: take their place up the Rhine until they do the

700
00:36:09,440 --> 00:36:13,520
Speaker 1: same thing. That's a very strange reproductive strategy, but that's

701
00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:14,160
Speaker 1: what eels do.

702
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 3: Yeah. Eels are like salmon, please exactly.

703
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:20,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a word for it. I can't quite bring

704
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:23,279
Speaker 1: to mind. I want to say catacephalic, that might be it.

705
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 1: But essentially it's they're born in the ocean, but they

706
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 1: live their lives in fresh water.

707
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:32,320
Speaker 3: Now yeah, yeah, what was that word? I remember seeing

708
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 3: it now, catacephalic.

709
00:36:34,680 --> 00:36:37,840
Speaker 1: It's probably wrong, but I'm going to say that authoritatively.

710
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 2: All right, So today eels the International Union for Conservation

711
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 2: of Nature the Red List listen as threatened species. The

712
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:51,600
Speaker 2: European eels are critically endangered, and the American, Japanese and

713
00:36:51,640 --> 00:36:53,600
Speaker 2: New Zealand long fin eels are endangered.

714
00:36:56,840 --> 00:36:59,319
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm screaming out. Yeah I could see that.

715
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:00,600
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're endangered.

716
00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:02,120
Speaker 2: And then some of this other stuff to come was

717
00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:03,560
Speaker 2: a pretty big turn off for me as far as

718
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:04,239
Speaker 2: eating them goes.

719
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess that puts me off of eating eels.

720
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:08,160
Speaker 3: Hey, no pressure bud.

721
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:11,000
Speaker 2: American and European eel populations have dropped by more than

722
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 2: ninety percent since the nineteen seventies, same with Japanese eel populations.

723
00:37:16,840 --> 00:37:19,920
Speaker 2: Hydropower turbines and dams is a big reason. We know

724
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 2: that they disrupt all sorts of underwater aquatic life, but

725
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:29,320
Speaker 2: also overfishing, the loss of wetlands and pollution.

726
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:33,879
Speaker 3: So they you know, the eels that you eat.

727
00:37:34,200 --> 00:37:36,200
Speaker 2: And this almost got me back on it. They're raised

728
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 2: in aquaculture facilities. They aren't bread in captivity because it's

729
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:43,400
Speaker 2: really hard to do as obviously that we've seen. Their

730
00:37:43,400 --> 00:37:47,279
Speaker 2: reproduction is pretty tricky overall, so if they were to

731
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 2: try and do that, they would have to introduce hormones

732
00:37:49,440 --> 00:37:53,800
Speaker 2: to induce sexual development. Keeping those larvae alive is really

733
00:37:53,800 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 2: difficult in captivity just because of the organic matter that

734
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:00,800
Speaker 2: exists in the wild, like they really need that stuff.

735
00:38:01,200 --> 00:38:04,840
Speaker 2: So what they do is they capture those little glass

736
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:08,400
Speaker 2: eels in the wild and bring them to the farms

737
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:09,959
Speaker 2: to raise them to maturity so you can.

738
00:38:09,880 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 1: Eat them right. And one of the reasons, maybe the

739
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:17,840
Speaker 1: reason that American and European eels have dropped by ninety

740
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 1: percent since the seventies is that when you're taking these

741
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: glass eels out of the ocean. Number one, you're preventing

742
00:38:24,400 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 1: that same number of eels from ever growing up to

743
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:30,000
Speaker 1: reproduce because they're going to get eaten before they get

744
00:38:30,040 --> 00:38:33,839
Speaker 1: a chance to. And two, if eels follow any kind

745
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:38,799
Speaker 1: of typical evolutionary strategy, they probably have a ton of

746
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 1: larva and a huge percentage of them die off, and

747
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:45,000
Speaker 1: the glass eels are the ones that make it so

748
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:48,240
Speaker 1: what you're doing is saying, like, thanks for the surviving larva, everybody,

749
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:50,640
Speaker 1: We're going to take them and eat them. So that

750
00:38:50,760 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: prevents an entire species from reproducing for the most part,

751
00:38:54,680 --> 00:38:57,879
Speaker 1: and that's why their stocks have died off from those fisheries.

752
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, don't I think we skip the part where like,

753
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,799
Speaker 2: didn't they tag eels to track them?

754
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how they found out Rosalind Wright in twenty

755
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:08,480
Speaker 1: eight That's how they found out. But yeah, I forgot

756
00:39:08,520 --> 00:39:09,279
Speaker 1: to mention that part.

757
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:12,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, crazy to tag a little eel. Maine, the US

758
00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 2: state of Maine is the only state that has a

759
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:18,319
Speaker 2: glass eel fishing industry. They have license what they're called

760
00:39:18,320 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 2: elverman because remember the elvers is the third to I guess,

761
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:24,520
Speaker 2: the penultimate stage, and there are four hundred and twenty

762
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 2: five licensed elvermen that can harvest around seventy five hundred

763
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:31,200
Speaker 2: pounds between late March and early June every year, and

764
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:32,920
Speaker 2: then they ship it off to Hong Kong.

765
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:35,840
Speaker 1: Very nice. Do you know what the third to last

766
00:39:35,960 --> 00:39:36,359
Speaker 1: is called?

767
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 3: Oh is that a word for that? Are you about

768
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 3: to dupe me?

769
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 1: No? This is for real, chuck, I promise, Okay, what

770
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 1: it's anti penultimate but like ante, like anti chamber antipenultimate.

771
00:39:49,160 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 3: Yeah.

772
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:51,640
Speaker 2: I like that. That always reminds me. And I think

773
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 2: I mentioned this in the Gary Larson episode the second

774
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:59,719
Speaker 2: to the last of the Mohicans cartoon, Yeah, which is

775
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 2: just a big line of indigenous I guess Mohicans and

776
00:40:04,120 --> 00:40:07,000
Speaker 2: the second the last of the one in line. Everyone's

777
00:40:07,040 --> 00:40:08,720
Speaker 2: facing one way and he just turned around and waving

778
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:09,280
Speaker 2: and smiling.

779
00:40:11,400 --> 00:40:15,840
Speaker 1: How great, man? YEI guy, you got anything else about eels?

780
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 3: No, that's it?

781
00:40:17,560 --> 00:40:21,960
Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah, If you want to know more about eels,

782
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:24,560
Speaker 1: I go watch videos about David Byrne and see what

783
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 1: books he recommends. You can also visit your local aquarium.

784
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:32,400
Speaker 1: You can also go online and visit the website of

785
00:40:32,440 --> 00:40:34,839
Speaker 1: your local aquarium. There's all sorts of stuff you can

786
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:36,879
Speaker 1: do to learn more about eels. And I urge you too,

787
00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 1: and maybe stop eating them. I'm going to too, Okay, Chuck, really,

788
00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 1: I'm going to stop eating American or European eels for sure.

789
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 3: All right, No more unagi for us.

790
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: No, it's been a while since I had it anyway,

791
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,000
Speaker 1: so it's not like it's a huge given loss me.

792
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:57,040
Speaker 1: All right. Well, since Chuck agreed, that we're both going

793
00:40:57,080 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 1: to give up. Eel, It's time for listener now.

794
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 2: This is from Alex and this is a follow up

795
00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:08,400
Speaker 2: about the baking soda and coconut oil deodorant from the

796
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,359
Speaker 2: listener mail. Apparently Alex is sort of an expert on this,

797
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 2: so okay, again, you don't tread carefully whenever you're applying

798
00:41:15,600 --> 00:41:16,920
Speaker 2: anything to your skin and body.

799
00:41:17,200 --> 00:41:19,399
Speaker 1: Can you refresh my memory? I don't remember that.

800
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:22,520
Speaker 2: Deodorant basically like baking soda and coconut oil, if you

801
00:41:22,520 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 2: mix together into a paste, can be a good like

802
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:27,440
Speaker 2: natural deodorant, Okay, but it can also like chafe your

803
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:31,640
Speaker 2: skin and cause outbreaks if you don't get the mix right.

804
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:33,919
Speaker 3: Okay, So this is what Alex says.

805
00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 2: I've been doing this for the better part of fifteen years, guys,

806
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 2: and have continuously adjusted the recipe to balance what I

807
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:43,800
Speaker 2: found to be three main factors, odor eliminating effectiveness, skin reaction,

808
00:41:44,040 --> 00:41:47,239
Speaker 2: and staining of clothing. Baking soda is responsible for the

809
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 2: first two and needs to be carefully balanced to be

810
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:52,200
Speaker 2: effective enough while not causing a rash. Coconut oil is

811
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 2: commonly used to act as a concentration, reduction and application medium.

812
00:41:56,360 --> 00:41:57,640
Speaker 3: But it stains the clothes.

813
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:01,000
Speaker 2: I found that corn starch is an x is excellent

814
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:04,320
Speaker 2: and being a neutral alternative. To reduce a concentration of

815
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 2: the baking soda, I usually go about equal volumes of

816
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 2: the two, then add only enough coconut oil to make

817
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:11,840
Speaker 2: a thick paste in a pinch. If I find myself

818
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 2: having forgotten to use deodorant, I will moisten my finger

819
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:17,840
Speaker 2: and dab it directly in baking soda so that it

820
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:20,040
Speaker 2: is only very lightly dusted, and then rub that on

821
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:22,879
Speaker 2: my armpits. But don't do that too often, guys, you'll

822
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:24,160
Speaker 2: end up with unhappy pits.

823
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:25,720
Speaker 3: But it's a great.

824
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:28,080
Speaker 2: Backup because most people have a box of baking powder

825
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:30,319
Speaker 2: open in the fridge and don't care about fingers in

826
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:33,640
Speaker 2: it because it's not there for eating. A girlfriend from

827
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:37,240
Speaker 2: another lifetime once told me I should start an armpit empire.

828
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 2: And by the way, guys, I'm in Puerto Rico, so

829
00:42:40,440 --> 00:42:41,919
Speaker 2: if you ever feel like coming to do a show

830
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:43,919
Speaker 2: in the tropics, would be the first one out telling

831
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:44,880
Speaker 2: everyone to buy tickets.

832
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 3: And that is Alex.

833
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:49,280
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Alex. Can you just see Alex dipping

834
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:51,560
Speaker 1: his fingers in some baking soda and rubbing him on

835
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:54,160
Speaker 1: his arm pit and saying, ah, refreshed.

836
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:55,520
Speaker 3: I can just see it.

837
00:42:56,360 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 1: If you want to be like Alex and give us

838
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:02,120
Speaker 1: even more detail about a whatever it is you know

839
00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:04,520
Speaker 1: a lot about, we would love that. You can send

840
00:43:04,560 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 1: it to us at stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.

841
00:43:11,239 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

842
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:17,240
Speaker 3: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

843
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:20,320
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows