WEBVTT - Selects: How Coelacanths Work 0:00:00.840 --> 0:00:02.200 Hi everyone, Happy weekend. 0:00:02.200 --> 0:00:05.160 I hope you're having a lovely, lovely Saturday wherever you 0:00:05.200 --> 0:00:08.119 are in the world. We're gonna jump back in time 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:12.320 to June six, twenty seventeen to talk about Sela cants, 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:15.400 how Cela cants work. What in the world is a 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:20.319 Cela cant? I think I kind of remember. Check it 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:20.919 out right now. 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:35.400 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:39.559 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:44.640 Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry, Jerome Roland, just the whole 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.360 house Stuff Works Gang here to present to you Stuff 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:49.040 you should. 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:54.959 Know, all three of us. How you doing. I'm good? Yeah, yeah, 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:56.920 Oh I'm a little caffeinated. 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:59.440 I should warn you, oh a little bit, like when 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:01.640 teeth are to just come right out of my face. 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:02.400 That's not good. 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:07.080 You know, we did a video about Cela cants one time. 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:09.319 Yeah, like was it this day in history about when 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:10.280 they were discovered? 0:01:10.360 --> 0:01:13.920 Yeah. I ran across because it smacked as familiar to me. 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.880 And you know, the constant fear we have of recording 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.760 an entire podcast over is sort of always there. 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:22.839 Yeah, the fear that sometimes comes true. 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:26.120 Yeah, So I definitely went back and looked, and I 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:27.520 was like, I knew he did something. 0:01:27.880 --> 0:01:29.679 Yeah, we were trapped in a shipping container. 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.160 Right, I didn't watch it. I didn't either. 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:35.240 Enough to say, oh, yeah I remember that one. Yeah, 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:37.640 that really weird, weird thing we did. 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:40.520 But this is really cool. I think I do too. 0:01:40.560 --> 0:01:45.880 Cela cants were well, they're interesting, despite what the house 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:48.040 Stuff Works article. 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:48.760 Would lead you to believe. 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:51.680 Oh it was, Yeah, it was a little thin, wasn't 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.480 it a little bit? It was all right, okay, but 0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:56.360 luckily the rest of the Internet is. 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:56.840 There for us. 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:02.280 Right, thanks especially to Smithsonian and Mental floss for this one. 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.520 Right, Yeah, that mental Flass article is kind of neat, 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:06.360 actually it was. 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:11.680 So you want to go back to the beginning, actually 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:13.440 the second beginning maybe. 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:16.480 Oh, well, I don't know what you're talking about now, so. 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:19.919 Just okay, well follow me. We'll go back to the 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.600 very beginning. We'll go back to something about four hundred 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:27.160 million years ago, okay, during the Devonian period, which is 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:30.520 aka the Rise of the fish, Yes, the Age of 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:34.320 the Fish. Right, And in this Devonian period there's a 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.799 lot a lot of stuff going on. Things have been 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.240 swimming around for a while on Earth. There's a nice 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.560 atmosphere that's developed. The things in the ocean are starting 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:46.880 to say, oh, what's out there? I want to see 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:47.680 what's on land? 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.040 Yeah, I want can just crawl out and see. 0:02:50.160 --> 0:02:54.520 Yeah, I want to taste clover. So they start trying. 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:58.120 And during this period there was the progression from the 0:02:59.040 --> 0:02:59.959 sea to the lane. 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:00.600 Yeah. 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:05.280 And one of those things that was starting to develop 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:09.040 legs to get onto land was called the Cela canth. 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:15.320 Yeah, which A it means hollow spine, which is we'll 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.440 get to there's a reason for that. And B it's 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:23.399 spelled ceo E l A c A n t h, 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.600 which is, you know, not how you would think it 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:27.720 might be spelled. 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:31.640 No or pronounced rather right, either one. But it's Cela camp. 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:32.640 It is Cela camp. 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:37.400 And what it is is a fish that is, like 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:39.760 you said, been around for a long long time. It's 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:42.760 kind of funny looking, and we'll get into all the 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.480 physical characteristics that make it unusual in a sect, but 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:52.720 it is notable mainly for the fact that everyone thought 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:57.080 it was gone forever until it was suddenly discovered. This 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.680 thing that that swam with the dinosaurs was discovered anew 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:04.320 in the nineteen thirties, right, and then again a little 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:04.840 bit later on. 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.720 Yeah, because it was it pops up for the first 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:12.400 time around four hundred and seven million years ago, I think, 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:17.040 I said, and then it just drops off eighty million 0:04:17.120 --> 0:04:19.400 years ago. So they said, well, a lot of stuff 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:22.880 went the way of the dinosaur around the time the 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.479 dinosaurs went away, so that's probably what happened to the 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.479 Cela canth So it was quite a big surprise. In 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:34.720 the nineteen thirties when a trawler that was out fishing, 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:38.400 a trawler called the Narreen which is captained by Hendrik 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:43.560 Goosen off the coast of South Africa, came in and 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.719 as was Captain Goosen's wont he contacted the director of 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.680 the local museum in East London, a woman named Miss 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.919 Marjorie Courtney Latimer, and she used to come over and 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:56.960 look at the fish loads this guy would bring in 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.920 because they were buddies. Yeah, And he gave her a 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:01.880 call like normal and said, I got a load, you 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:03.560 want to come look at it? And she was like, 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.960 it's two days before Christmas and is blazing hot out. 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:10.360 Don't forget we're in South Africa at the time, huh. 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:11.520 And she's like, I. 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:17.200 Don't feel like it, but the world was saved. The 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:21.680 world of ichthyology was saved this day. Yeah, because this lady, 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:26.320 Marjorie Courtney Latimer was so nice that she decided to 0:05:26.360 --> 0:05:28.479 go look at the fish anyway, just to wish the 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:30.479 captain and his crew a merry Christmas. 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:32.880 So she takes a look at this fish. 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:38.159 And here is her quote as she recounted. It wasn't 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:39.719 her quote at the time or quote at the time. 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:44.800 It's probably a South African explative, right, but she said later, 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.839 I picked away the layers of slime to reveal the 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:51.520 most beautiful fish I had ever seen. And of course 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:55.240 only a fish lover can find this thing truly beautiful, Yeah, 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.760 because it's kind of ugly it is. It was five 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:01.560 feet long, a pale mauve blue with faint flecks of 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:05.240 whiter spots. It had an iridescent silver blue green sheen 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:07.960 all over. It was covered in hard scales, and it 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:11.480 had four limb like fins and a strange little puppy 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:16.760 dog tail. Not literally, of course, it was such which 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:18.680 would be great, though actually it did. 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:20.279 That's the dogfish that has that. 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:22.480 It was such a beautiful fish, more like a big 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.880 China ornament. But I didn't know what it was. And 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:30.839 it was pretty faithful that she was called in to 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.160 look at this thing, because it ended up being one 0:06:33.160 --> 0:06:37.360 of the most important zoological finds of you know, history, 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:38.160 probably of the. 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:42.240 Twentieth century at least. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, this woman's curiosity, 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:48.080 something in her said, this is weird, this is unusual, 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.159 this is this is something worth looking into. So she 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:54.240 took it with her. This thing was like five feet long, 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.880 just under two meters, about one hundred and how many pounds. 0:06:57.600 --> 0:06:59.400 One hundred and twenty seven pounds. This is a. 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:04.600 Significant fish, Yeah, and Mss Courtney Latimer talked her way 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:05.920 into a cab with it. 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:07.359 She took a cab back. 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.680 To the East London Museum with this fish stuffed in 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:14.920 the back seat, and she took it to the taxidermist 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.679 and had it stuffed. Unfortunately, the taxidermist wasn't completely aware 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:23.200 of how to preserve a fish for identification and threw 0:07:23.240 --> 0:07:25.680 out the skeleton and the gills, which are what you 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:26.080 need for. 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:29.160 The idea fish. 0:07:29.200 --> 0:07:34.120 Apparently, well, she probably should have said something, well, she like, 0:07:34.160 --> 0:07:37.440 this is no ordinary mount. 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.320 Yeah, right, she probably should have, or maybe she did, 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:40.360 and he just ignored her. 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:42.960 He's like, I'm not going to get boss drawn by 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.400 a woman's nineteen thirty eight. So she contacts a guy 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:50.640 named J. L. B. Smith, who is an ichthyologist. He's 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.400 the head of the ichthyology department at a university in 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:59.360 Grahamstown and PhD in chemistry. He's a smart guy and 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.760 he's the the local fish expert as far as she knows. 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:05.320 Yeah, and their pals and so she said, hey, I've 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:10.160 got this weird looking fish. And then Smith his quote 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:12.360 was I told myself sternly not to be a fool, 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:17.200 but there was something about that sketch, and apparently it 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:18.160 was sketch. 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:20.120 She sent him a sketch of the fish to begin with. 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:23.840 Yeah, that seized upon my imagination and told me that 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:26.520 this was something very far beyond the usual run of 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:27.880 fishes in our seas. 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:30.080 And luckily, even though. 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:34.680 The fish was, I guess mounted in a traditional form, which, 0:08:34.760 --> 0:08:37.920 like you said, takes away, it's how you can identify it, 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:41.160 she was able to preserve some of the scales, and 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.960 somehow from these scales he was able to say, this 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.199 is a cola cant seala cant Well, that's what he said. 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:50.040 At first, and she went his pronounced seala cant. 0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:53.480 He's like, oh, apparently, he said when he saw that 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:56.760 scale and I and identified it positively as a seala cant. 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.600 His quote was, if I'd met a dinosaur in the street, 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:01.439 I't have been more astonished. 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:05.800 I like that guy, a little hyperbole there, but I 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:06.199 like it. 0:09:06.280 --> 0:09:09.000 So he I mean, this is seriously, this is like 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:11.559 the zoological find of the century and would be for 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:16.920 the next sixty something years. Right, So he very magnanimously says, 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:20.360 you know what, I'm going to name this thing after you, 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:25.960 and he named it as a new species, Latimeria chilumnae, 0:09:26.840 --> 0:09:32.320 because well, obviously her name is Courtney Latimer. Yeah, Courtney 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:33.240 hyphen Latimer. 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:33.600 Yes. 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:37.560 And it was found in the Chilumna River at the 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:39.599 mouth of it where it hits the coast off of 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.760 the eastern coast of South Africa. 0:09:43.040 --> 0:09:43.920 So that's a great name. 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:47.360 It's perfect. Yeah, it really puts it in a place 0:09:47.360 --> 0:09:47.720 in time. 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.920 So they have now discovered this thing, they realize that 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.400 they have a big find on their hands. They thought 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:58.480 this thing had long been extinct by tens of millions 0:09:58.480 --> 0:10:03.760 of years, and so they started to research and you know, 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:05.319 trying to learn more about this fish. 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:07.760 Yeah, which is no ordinary fish. 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:10.600 No, but I mean this was so this was nineteen 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:13.480 thirty eight, right, Yeah, and it was the only one 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.559 that had been found for another sixty years. 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:18.199 Yeah. 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:20.480 I mean there's only so much you can find from 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:25.000 a stuffed fish. But it did prove because it had 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.480 been caught alive. It wasn't like they pulled up a 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:29.959 fossil or a dead fish. It had been alive when 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:30.520 it was caught. 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:31.000 Yeah. 0:10:31.000 --> 0:10:33.800 I think it was attached to another fish. Oh, really, 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.520 like potentially trying to eat it. Oh, okay, which is 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.520 one of the well, not unusual but interesting things about 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:43.200 the Sela camp is that it's it eats meat. 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:47.480 Well, there's a lot of unusual things about the Cela camp. Yeah. 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:53.520 So fast forward another sixty years exactly in Indonesia, which 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:55.560 is on the other side of the Indian Ocean, the 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:59.440 eastern side of the Indian Ocean. It was actually first 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.240 seen in nineth ninety seven by a biologist named Mark 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:05.760 Erdman who was in Indonesia doing his PhD dissertation, and 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:07.640 he saw a Cela cant in the market. 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:10.000 That's crazy, that's a cela. 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:12.960 Can't what's that doing here? So apparently he put a 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:15.400 bit of a bounty out on it with the locals, 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.760 and within a year, by nineteen ninety eight, they had 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:21.040 brought him a freshly caught one. 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:23.240 Yeah, which is quite a task. 0:11:24.160 --> 0:11:30.000 Yeah, it's finding a once thought extinct fish. Yeah, it's 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:32.040 a big one. Well, and we'll get to a little 0:11:32.040 --> 0:11:34.160 bit why. It's even tougher than you would think too. 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:39.080 Sure. So the one that Erdman found was brown, right, Yeah, 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:40.800 it was a little bit different color. 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:45.520 Right, the one like Courtney Latimer described, those are known 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.080 to be like steel blue. This is brown, a little 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:52.680 smaller than the one that Courtney Latimer found. And so 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:57.520 eventually when Erdman got his hands on that one, he 0:11:57.640 --> 0:11:59.720 described it as a new species. 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:01.280 Yeah. 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:05.120 I mean, it turns out that at one point, you know, 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:07.920 hundreds of millions of years ago, there were you know, 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:11.520 potentially over one hundred different varieties of this fish, and 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:15.040 they came in all shapes and sizes. These obviously were 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:18.360 pretty big, but there were some that were smaller and faster. 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.839 Basically just kind of a wide variety. And as far 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:25.600 as we know, I think, are these the only two 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:28.040 known survivors? 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:30.080 Yes, so far? 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:33.560 Yeah, the one that Corney Latimer founder known as the 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.200 West Indian Ocean Seala camp those are the blue ones. 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.520 They're typically found off of the west, you know, the 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:46.479 east coast of Africa, south of Kenya, I believe, yeah, 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:51.040 down to about the Cormeros Islands. I think that's they're 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.440 actually also known as the Cormeroos Islands sela cant because 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:58.080 there's that's that seems to be where they inhabit the 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.760 most or the highest density of them is Yeah. 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.720 And some of the weird some of the weirdos that 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:07.680 have well, we assume that they've been extinct, but you 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:11.640 never know. One of them was toothless and over ten 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:16.360 feet long. That was the megalo se Lacanthus very appropriately 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.599 some of them said, forget you, ocean, I'm going to 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:20.520 go to the fresh water. 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:23.400 So there were actually freshwater selacants at one time. 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:26.720 And like I said, some of them were slow and 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:33.319 ambushed prey somewhere smaller and faster. But they've pretty much 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:35.760 universally all been predators from what I've seen. 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.400 Right, And the two species that are alive today that 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:44.800 we know of are aside from that megalis Selacanth tend 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:48.120 to be a little bigger than the extinct species. Yeah, 0:13:48.160 --> 0:13:53.240 which I read is a good it's a good example 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:55.840 of why they shouldn't be called living fossils, which is 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:57.160 what they're frequently called. 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:02.520 Yeah, that's Darwin's term for something that basically never changed. 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:07.199 And they've actually studied the genome of the selacant and 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:11.480 found that they very much haven't changed. And the kind 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:14.560 of the main reason is they haven't had to. They've 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:17.760 kind of stayed in the same places. And when you 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:20.120 say in the same places and you eat the same stuff, 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:22.240 then maybe you don't change so much. 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:22.880 Read. 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:25.600 I read the opposite of that that they have changed 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.600 enough that they that they have been evolving, and a 0:14:28.680 --> 0:14:30.920 good example of that is that they're bigger than they 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:31.480 used to be. 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:32.480 Oh interesting. 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.760 Yeah, but the two species that are alive today, they 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.160 have traced their genomes back and decided that they've been 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:42.760 separated for several million years at least. 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.560 Yeah, this one, they finally got the full genome and 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:50.680 they said that it does indeed match the fish's appearance 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.760 of slower evolution, and a journal published in Nature because 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:56.400 they have a slower rate of substitution. 0:14:57.000 --> 0:14:57.360 Gotcha. 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.400 Basically, she's the the doctor. 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.520 Well, yeah, I guess she is a doctor. Just sounded 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:05.160 weird to say that. 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:08.400 The doctor the researcher who was also a doctor, Yeah, 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:10.480 who was She said it may reflect the fact that 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:13.000 they do not need to evolve quickly because they've lived 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.520 in relatively unchanging environment where there are a few predators, 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:20.640 and they basically haven't needed to change over time like 0:15:20.680 --> 0:15:21.520 other organisms. 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:24.680 Well, that brings up another thing too. There's a big 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:27.320 question why would they just drop off of the fossil 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.080 record if they've been around this whole time, if they 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.320 didn't just go extinct eighty or sixty five million years ago. 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:37.440 The only explanation I've seen is that the places where 0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:41.360 the fossils turned up were areas conducive to fossilization, Like 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:43.960 there's a lot of sentiment that could turn bone into rock, 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:48.360 and then the areas that the living species live at 0:15:48.400 --> 0:15:51.680 now are not conducive to that kind of thing, possibly 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:55.400 because they're mostly living around volcanic rock that doesn't necessarily 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:56.960 produce fossils. 0:15:57.960 --> 0:15:59.720 You want to take a break, Yeah, let's take a break, 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:32.040 go back and talk a little bit about this funny fish. 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:20.360 Sevy shit. 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.240 All right, So we've talked a little bit about what 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.560 makes the Sela camp such a interesting critter. 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:34.080 Can a critter be a fish? Yeah? 0:16:34.200 --> 0:16:36.320 Have you heard of the cuddlefish? That's a critter if 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:36.800 there ever. 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:41.120 Was, Yeah, a cuddly critter. So here are some remarkable 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:45.760 things about the Cela camp. They can live as deep 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:47.760 I mean they're deep water dwellers. They can live as 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:52.000 deep as two thousand or more feet, but generally they 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:57.760 think the I think they generally live about five hundred 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:01.200 to eight hundred feet and what they call the twilight zone, right, which. 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:01.880 Is still pretty deep. 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:06.400 Remember our cave episode, Yeah, that had the same thing. 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:09.320 Remember there was like organisms that live in the dark, 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:12.199 organisms that live in the twilight zone, and organisms that 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:14.439 live in the lighted zone. Yeah, these guys live in 0:17:14.480 --> 0:17:17.440 that threshold between light and dark and the ocean. And 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.800 they apparently are nocturnal hunters. 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:24.520 Yeah, they come out at night, kind of stay hidden. 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:30.400 Most of these habitats are caves, right, that they tend 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:33.160 to stay in. But there's one off of Tasmania that 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.680 do not live in caves, and so they have officially 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:38.520 been placed on an endangered list because they don't have 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:43.359 the protection from bycatch that these other cave dwellers have. 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:45.720 Right, that makes sense. 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:50.080 Yeah, So the average day or in the life of 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:54.920 Azila canth or at least the cave dwelling species, they'll 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:57.119 you know, during the day time, they're hanging out in 0:17:57.119 --> 0:17:59.320 a cave. They'll hang out in a cave with I've 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:03.000 seen between up to twelve to sixteen other sela camps. 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:05.560 Yeah, have a little coffee, Yeah, maybe just talk. 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.960 Yeah, you know, talk about their night and then as 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:12.480 night falls, they'll leave their caves and they they'll go hunting. 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:17.280 And like you said, they're carnivorous predators. They do that 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.840 passive bycatch thing for the most part right where they 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:24.760 let the current bring the food to them. 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:25.960 But they. 0:18:27.320 --> 0:18:30.880 Just basically hang out and wait for a cuttlefish. It's 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:36.359 one thing. They eat, squids, other cephalopods, some fishes, but 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:40.000 they seem to not show aggression toward one another from 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:40.879 what I understand. 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:44.679 Yeah, and while they are passive hunters, they do have 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:48.680 an unusual feature which is, like we said, one of many. 0:18:48.680 --> 0:18:51.560 But they have what's called a rostral organ which just 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:55.199 means it's in the nasal region and their snout and 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:57.919 it's filled with a jelly like substance that they think, 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:01.800 and they think most of this stuff. I mean, they've 0:19:01.800 --> 0:19:03.840 done a lot of good studying, but for something so rare, 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.000 you can't be super sure. But they think that it 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:12.720 detects low level electrical signals and frequencies from prey. 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:14.760 Yeah, like a shark or a ray. Yeah. 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:19.280 It's an electro sensory organ where when living tissue contacts water, 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.200 it can make an electrical impulse that can be picked up. 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:22.840 Yeah. 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:26.080 And this cool Mental Floss article is I think eleven 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.479 eleven things about the sei loocanth. I can't remember how 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:34.159 it was put, but just eleven interesting features. 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:36.719 Eleven fishy facts was that it. 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:41.040 Unfortunately that's why I forgot it title aside, it's an 0:19:41.080 --> 0:19:45.400 interesting article. And one of the things that they don't 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:46.720 know why they do, and I have a feeling it 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:49.680 has to do with that electrical frequency, is they'll swim 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:53.719 nose down for up to two full minutes, which is 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:55.200 weird for a fish. 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:58.400 They're just kind of hovering in place, head standing, right. 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:01.359 Yeah, yeah, And I guess I mean, if they have 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:06.360 that nasal bag of jelly that helps them locate fish, 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:08.159 I would imagine that's what they're doing there. 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.920 Right, I imagine it like tonto, like holding a railroad track, 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:15.400 you know, Yeah, I think it's the same thing. 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:16.880 Basically, So. 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.000 When they catch their prey, they eat them, and they 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.080 can eat stuff that's way bigger than them because again, 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.760 which is this is unique to see the cants among 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:33.760 living things. They have a hinge in their cranium that 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:36.760 allows basically their head is convertible, the top of their 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.760 skull can retract, allowing their mouth to open really wide, 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:44.200 so they can eat a large, large cuttlefish. 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:44.760 Yeah. 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:48.640 And I think that feature also allows it to their 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:50.840 mouth to close with like much greater. 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:52.760 Force with extreme prejudice. 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:58.880 Yeah, like when it's unhinged emotionally, and basically it can 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.399 really close that mouth super hard. 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.439 They hate themselves for eating cuttle fish, so they just 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:05.159 can't stop. 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:07.840 So those are just a couple of the features. 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:12.440 Another is, and we mentioned earlier that the name literally 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:16.720 translates into hollow spine. This is because they have what's 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:21.520 called a notochord, which is a hollow pressurized tube filled 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:26.280 with oil where a lot of fish start this way 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:29.320 and then they'll eventually get a spine. But this doesn't 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:30.040 go away. 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:33.080 Right, and not just fish vertebrates apparently there's a lot 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:35.480