1 00:00:06,360 --> 00:00:09,080 Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 2 00:00:09,200 --> 00:00:11,760 Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb, and Hey, we were going to 3 00:00:11,840 --> 00:00:14,920 Speaker 1: do our Hunters of the Dark Ocean Part two today, 4 00:00:15,200 --> 00:00:18,520 Speaker 1: but Joe is outsick, so we're gonna come back in 5 00:00:18,640 --> 00:00:23,239 Speaker 1: and continue that series on Tuesday. But don't worry, we 6 00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:27,200 Speaker 1: should be back tomorrow with a brand new episode of 7 00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:31,080 Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema. So instead we're going to go ahead 8 00:00:31,080 --> 00:00:34,519 Speaker 1: and air the next Vault episode in the Life in 9 00:00:34,560 --> 00:00:37,880 Speaker 1: the Hypogean World series. This is going to be part three. 10 00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:42,640 Speaker 1: It originally published three twelve, twenty twenty four. Let's dive 11 00:00:42,720 --> 00:00:43,040 Speaker 1: right in. 12 00:00:46,800 --> 00:00:50,599 Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio. 13 00:00:56,520 --> 00:00:58,360 Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 14 00:00:58,440 --> 00:00:59,720 Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb. 15 00:00:59,480 --> 00:01:01,880 Speaker 3: And I m Joe McCormick, and we're back with part 16 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:07,160 Speaker 3: three of our series on cave biology and cave environments. 17 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:09,559 Speaker 3: Let's see what did we talk about in the last 18 00:01:09,560 --> 00:01:11,800 Speaker 3: two episodes of the series. Obviously, if you haven't listened 19 00:01:11,800 --> 00:01:14,080 Speaker 3: to those already, maybe you should go back and check 20 00:01:14,120 --> 00:01:16,959 Speaker 3: those out first, But if you'd rather just jump in here, 21 00:01:17,080 --> 00:01:20,440 Speaker 3: that's okay too. In the previous parts, we talked about 22 00:01:20,600 --> 00:01:24,679 Speaker 3: some of the common characteristics of cave environments and especially 23 00:01:24,680 --> 00:01:29,280 Speaker 3: in ways that would affect animal life. We talked about 24 00:01:29,680 --> 00:01:33,160 Speaker 3: the presence of guano in some caves, bat dropping guano 25 00:01:33,280 --> 00:01:35,800 Speaker 3: as sort of the base of a food chain, the 26 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:39,240 Speaker 3: equivalent of sunlight to the outside world to the inside 27 00:01:39,240 --> 00:01:42,520 Speaker 3: of the cave. And we also talked about some specific 28 00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:47,240 Speaker 3: cave organisms, such as the blind Mexican cavefish, about which 29 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:49,960 Speaker 3: there has been a lot of research research on how 30 00:01:50,040 --> 00:01:54,240 Speaker 3: exactly these fish evolve. These various populations of fish in 31 00:01:54,320 --> 00:01:58,800 Speaker 3: northeastern Mexican caves evolved to lose their sight and lose 32 00:01:58,840 --> 00:02:02,000 Speaker 3: the pigment and their flight and so forth, Why that 33 00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:05,720 Speaker 3: evolutionary pathway takes place in the cave environment and so forth. 34 00:02:06,080 --> 00:02:10,840 Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're gonna so we've established to a degree, 35 00:02:10,919 --> 00:02:15,200 Speaker 1: the cave environment, the cave ecosystem. We've talked about characteristics, 36 00:02:15,200 --> 00:02:18,160 Speaker 1: We've talked about some individual species, and we're going to 37 00:02:18,240 --> 00:02:19,919 Speaker 1: kind of continue that trend here. We're going to talk 38 00:02:19,919 --> 00:02:25,440 Speaker 1: about some more specific organisms that make their homes in 39 00:02:25,440 --> 00:02:29,920 Speaker 1: the cave environment, or we're going to look at creatures 40 00:02:29,960 --> 00:02:34,680 Speaker 1: that dip into that ecosystem, dip into that biomass that 41 00:02:34,800 --> 00:02:36,200 Speaker 1: is already living in the cave. 42 00:02:36,720 --> 00:02:38,359 Speaker 3: All right, Well, I think I'm going to kick things 43 00:02:38,400 --> 00:02:40,640 Speaker 3: off today with a full cave entry. 44 00:02:41,560 --> 00:02:42,560 Speaker 1: All right, let's do it. 45 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:44,519 Speaker 3: No, no halfway in on this one. 46 00:02:45,000 --> 00:02:46,520 Speaker 1: This is an obligate cave dweller. 47 00:02:46,880 --> 00:02:50,240 Speaker 3: Right, So according to one source I was reading, actually 48 00:02:50,360 --> 00:02:53,720 Speaker 3: this has been claimed as the first animal to be 49 00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:58,280 Speaker 3: recognized as permanently adapted to a cave environment. I couldn't 50 00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:00,799 Speaker 3: verify that priority, but that's the claim at least, so 51 00:03:00,840 --> 00:03:05,320 Speaker 3: that may be true. This animal is an aquatic cave 52 00:03:05,600 --> 00:03:11,440 Speaker 3: salamander called the oulm, also known as the proteus. Scientific 53 00:03:11,520 --> 00:03:15,799 Speaker 3: name proteus. I think you would say Anguinus proteus a 54 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:22,760 Speaker 3: n g ui in us. The ulm occupies underground waterways 55 00:03:22,960 --> 00:03:27,919 Speaker 3: in Europe, especially karst caves of the Dynaric Mountains, which 56 00:03:28,080 --> 00:03:31,760 Speaker 3: is the region of the Balkans along the eastern coast 57 00:03:31,800 --> 00:03:34,880 Speaker 3: of the Adriatic Sea, so you can think east of Italy, 58 00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:38,680 Speaker 3: across the Adriatic from Italy. And I was looking around 59 00:03:38,760 --> 00:03:41,320 Speaker 3: for some good sources on the history of human knowledge 60 00:03:41,320 --> 00:03:43,640 Speaker 3: of this animal, because I know the first writings about 61 00:03:43,680 --> 00:03:47,040 Speaker 3: it were very interesting. And I came across a paper 62 00:03:47,200 --> 00:03:50,240 Speaker 3: in the Journal of Cave and Karste studies from twenty 63 00:03:50,280 --> 00:03:55,280 Speaker 3: twenty one by Evo Lucic called an underworld tailored to tourists, 64 00:03:55,360 --> 00:04:00,280 Speaker 3: a dragon, a photomodel, and a bioindicator. And Lucik does 65 00:04:00,320 --> 00:04:03,040 Speaker 3: an interesting thing in this article. It's not really focused 66 00:04:03,040 --> 00:04:06,000 Speaker 3: on biology. Instead, he's sort of focused on the history 67 00:04:06,040 --> 00:04:10,440 Speaker 3: of how this animal has been perceived and categorized by 68 00:04:10,480 --> 00:04:13,800 Speaker 3: the media and the public. So the earliest writings about 69 00:04:13,800 --> 00:04:16,440 Speaker 3: the ulm are sort of famous. There is an account 70 00:04:16,520 --> 00:04:19,760 Speaker 3: in the writing of a seventeenth century author and natural 71 00:04:19,839 --> 00:04:28,960 Speaker 3: historian named Johann Weikard von Valvasor VLVASR. Valvasor, who was 72 00:04:29,080 --> 00:04:33,760 Speaker 3: from the region then known as Carneola what is today Slovenia, 73 00:04:34,440 --> 00:04:38,640 Speaker 3: and Valvasor famously published a sort of encyclopedia of the 74 00:04:38,720 --> 00:04:42,360 Speaker 3: region known as the Glory of the Duchy of Carniola. 75 00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:45,480 Speaker 3: And because of the striking geology of this region with 76 00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:49,039 Speaker 3: the kar the caves, the work did contain some investigations 77 00:04:49,040 --> 00:04:52,960 Speaker 3: of the local k Its caves, its associated culture and life. 78 00:04:53,560 --> 00:04:59,720 Speaker 3: So here, summarizing Valvasor, Lucik says that around sixteen eighty nine, 79 00:05:00,160 --> 00:05:04,400 Speaker 3: Valvasore reported that he had heard stories from peasants in 80 00:05:04,440 --> 00:05:09,000 Speaker 3: a region known as the Vernica that they had seen 81 00:05:09,160 --> 00:05:13,240 Speaker 3: a baby dragon in the local water source known as 82 00:05:13,279 --> 00:05:16,880 Speaker 3: the Bayliss Spring, and the people who knew this spring 83 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:19,719 Speaker 3: said that the water would flow from it reliably twice 84 00:05:19,720 --> 00:05:23,520 Speaker 3: a day, once around midnight and once again around nine am. 85 00:05:23,720 --> 00:05:26,839 Speaker 3: And this apparently was linked to some kind of belief 86 00:05:27,000 --> 00:05:31,920 Speaker 3: in an underground dragon, which, when it became angry, would 87 00:05:31,960 --> 00:05:34,799 Speaker 3: spit out water and perhaps one of its own young 88 00:05:35,560 --> 00:05:38,039 Speaker 3: One of the peasants that Valvasore spoke to said he 89 00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:41,240 Speaker 3: had seen three young dragons spit up in this way 90 00:05:41,240 --> 00:05:44,760 Speaker 3: by the spring, and a local mail carrier claimed that 91 00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:47,360 Speaker 3: at one point he took one of the baby dragons 92 00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:49,640 Speaker 3: home with him and it was about as big as 93 00:05:49,640 --> 00:05:51,480 Speaker 3: his hand and looked like a lizard. 94 00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:54,919 Speaker 1: And it does sort of look like a lizard, but 95 00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:59,160 Speaker 1: I would say a little bit lizard, a little bit vampire, princess, 96 00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:03,919 Speaker 1: little bit just you know, it depends what the lightings like. 97 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:08,600 Speaker 1: But yeah, it's this long, slender organism with this elongated 98 00:06:08,640 --> 00:06:11,679 Speaker 1: head and these wonderfully dainty little limbs. 99 00:06:12,440 --> 00:06:15,760 Speaker 3: Yeah, so it is a salamanderin form. It has a 100 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:19,440 Speaker 3: kind of flat, almost elongated I was gonna say shovel 101 00:06:19,480 --> 00:06:21,600 Speaker 3: shaped head, but it's not really shovel shaped. It's more 102 00:06:22,279 --> 00:06:24,320 Speaker 3: kind of if you look down from above, the head 103 00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:27,520 Speaker 3: is sort of crocodile head shaped, but yeah, it is 104 00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:31,719 Speaker 3: a kind of flat head. It has frilly red gills 105 00:06:31,800 --> 00:06:34,960 Speaker 3: extending out from the base of its head around its neck. 106 00:06:35,279 --> 00:06:37,839 Speaker 3: It has yeah, as you say, delicate little limbs that 107 00:06:37,920 --> 00:06:39,960 Speaker 3: don't look like you know, they would do a whole lot, 108 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:42,560 Speaker 3: but it can use them. And otherwise the body is 109 00:06:42,680 --> 00:06:48,600 Speaker 3: like a long kind of white snake. It is a translucent, white, 110 00:06:49,560 --> 00:06:53,200 Speaker 3: fleshy skin going in this snakelike shape. I've heard some 111 00:06:53,360 --> 00:06:55,640 Speaker 3: authors say that if you look at it closely, you 112 00:06:55,680 --> 00:06:59,119 Speaker 3: can actually sort of see its organs through its skin, 113 00:06:59,640 --> 00:07:01,839 Speaker 3: like they'll the light can sort of penetrate it and 114 00:07:01,880 --> 00:07:04,880 Speaker 3: you can see its insides. And you can look up 115 00:07:04,920 --> 00:07:07,880 Speaker 3: pictures of the ulm online. They're they're pretty readily accessible. 116 00:07:08,360 --> 00:07:11,480 Speaker 3: It's it's a creepy looking organism. I mean, it does 117 00:07:12,320 --> 00:07:14,400 Speaker 3: in some of these photos it almost seems to kind 118 00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:17,520 Speaker 3: of glow because I guess of the maybe low light 119 00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:21,240 Speaker 3: conditions in which it is being photographed, and it's very 120 00:07:21,280 --> 00:07:23,520 Speaker 3: pale skin is like reflecting a lot of light. 121 00:07:23,880 --> 00:07:26,200 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess, kind of creepy, but also 122 00:07:26,800 --> 00:07:30,920 Speaker 1: just haunting, almost kind of elfin in its in its appearance, 123 00:07:30,960 --> 00:07:33,120 Speaker 1: you know, like this is a being from another world 124 00:07:33,640 --> 00:07:37,400 Speaker 1: and it's its body and form, it's is entirely alien 125 00:07:37,480 --> 00:07:37,960 Speaker 1: to us. 126 00:07:38,360 --> 00:07:40,320 Speaker 3: And it's funny. So the rest of this paper by 127 00:07:40,400 --> 00:07:45,640 Speaker 3: Lucik really emphasizes the extent to which sort of mythological 128 00:07:45,680 --> 00:07:49,880 Speaker 3: themes have permeated the public understanding of this creature and 129 00:07:50,080 --> 00:07:54,240 Speaker 3: are even in some ways still prevalent because of the 130 00:07:54,280 --> 00:07:59,320 Speaker 3: ways that this creature is marketed by the local cave 131 00:07:59,400 --> 00:08:03,920 Speaker 3: systems as tourist attraction, and those that marketing places a 132 00:08:03,920 --> 00:08:06,800 Speaker 3: lot of emphasis on mythological themes, like referring to it 133 00:08:06,840 --> 00:08:11,120 Speaker 3: as a dragon. However, of course, over the following generations 134 00:08:11,160 --> 00:08:15,520 Speaker 3: after Valvasor, a scientific view of this creature began to 135 00:08:15,560 --> 00:08:18,440 Speaker 3: take shape. That it was not a dragon, of course, 136 00:08:18,480 --> 00:08:23,200 Speaker 3: but an amphibian, an amphibian that lived in waterways underneath 137 00:08:23,200 --> 00:08:27,440 Speaker 3: the earth, which could explain why specimens were sometimes disgorged 138 00:08:27,480 --> 00:08:31,800 Speaker 3: from a spring or cave opening after heavy rains. And 139 00:08:31,880 --> 00:08:34,800 Speaker 3: so I wanted to get a scientific perspective on this creature, 140 00:08:35,160 --> 00:08:37,600 Speaker 3: and I dug up a paper that I thought was interesting. 141 00:08:37,640 --> 00:08:40,120 Speaker 3: This was a paper published in the Journal of Zoology 142 00:08:40,160 --> 00:08:45,160 Speaker 3: in twenty twenty by belaws, Lwarn and Hertzcheg called extreme 143 00:08:45,360 --> 00:08:49,840 Speaker 3: site fidelity of the oulm Proteus anguinus revealed by a 144 00:08:50,040 --> 00:08:54,120 Speaker 3: long term capture mark recapture study. So I'm going to 145 00:08:54,160 --> 00:08:56,240 Speaker 3: try to do a bit of a recap of what 146 00:08:56,280 --> 00:08:59,400 Speaker 3: this paper does in reviewing some of the main biological 147 00:08:59,520 --> 00:09:03,040 Speaker 3: characteristicks of this animal and then discuss the findings of 148 00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:06,000 Speaker 3: their specific experiment. One thing they do, and this is 149 00:09:06,040 --> 00:09:08,360 Speaker 3: important to do, I think in the episodes of this 150 00:09:08,480 --> 00:09:11,760 Speaker 3: series is they remind us about the common characteristics of 151 00:09:11,880 --> 00:09:15,360 Speaker 3: cave habitats. There can be some variation between different caves, 152 00:09:15,400 --> 00:09:19,880 Speaker 3: but cave ecosystems are usually going to be shaped by 153 00:09:20,360 --> 00:09:23,800 Speaker 3: a reduction or total absence of light that changes a 154 00:09:23,840 --> 00:09:28,000 Speaker 3: lot about how organisms survive food scarcity. This is common 155 00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:31,400 Speaker 3: to a lot of caves because, as you might recall 156 00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:35,120 Speaker 3: other organisms we talked about, like the blind Mexican cavefish, 157 00:09:35,160 --> 00:09:38,480 Speaker 3: seem to have adapted to their environment by having lower 158 00:09:38,600 --> 00:09:43,640 Speaker 3: nutritional or energy needs than their surface surface variant cousins, 159 00:09:44,280 --> 00:09:47,360 Speaker 3: that they need less food to survive, and they have 160 00:09:47,440 --> 00:09:49,720 Speaker 3: to adapt to be this way. Because there's less food 161 00:09:49,800 --> 00:09:52,560 Speaker 3: in a cave. Another thing the authors identify is what 162 00:09:52,600 --> 00:09:56,480 Speaker 3: they call simplified communities. I looked this up to make 163 00:09:56,520 --> 00:09:58,679 Speaker 3: sure I was understanding it right, So I found one 164 00:09:58,720 --> 00:10:02,120 Speaker 3: other paper discussing this concept in the journal Bioscience, And 165 00:10:02,440 --> 00:10:06,320 Speaker 3: according to their definition, simplification seems to be a quote 166 00:10:06,360 --> 00:10:10,280 Speaker 3: reduction in niche diversity. So I think that means, you know, 167 00:10:10,400 --> 00:10:13,959 Speaker 3: fewer ways for organisms to specialize, which kind of makes 168 00:10:13,960 --> 00:10:14,840 Speaker 3: sense within a cave. 169 00:10:15,440 --> 00:10:15,640 Speaker 1: Yeah. 170 00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:19,520 Speaker 3: And then finally they mention that the cave environments are 171 00:10:19,559 --> 00:10:22,120 Speaker 3: usually shaped by the fact that there the cave environment 172 00:10:22,200 --> 00:10:26,160 Speaker 3: is a major buffer against changes in climate and other 173 00:10:26,400 --> 00:10:32,040 Speaker 3: environmental variations. So living in a deep cave largely removes 174 00:10:32,160 --> 00:10:35,920 Speaker 3: the variation of things like the night day cycle, seasonal 175 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:39,640 Speaker 3: changes to weather, and so forth. So a cave environment, 176 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:43,120 Speaker 3: though some changes can still come. And obviously if you're 177 00:10:43,160 --> 00:10:47,600 Speaker 3: living in an underground waterway, like changes in water flow 178 00:10:47,720 --> 00:10:50,360 Speaker 3: are possible, like heavy rains could still cause you know, 179 00:10:50,880 --> 00:10:53,760 Speaker 3: increasing currents in the in the waterway and so forth. 180 00:10:54,080 --> 00:10:58,880 Speaker 3: But there are going to be fewer cyclical, seasonal day, night, 181 00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:02,760 Speaker 3: and other environmental changes in a cave than there are outside. 182 00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:04,480 Speaker 1: You mean, of course, you also might want to throw 183 00:11:04,480 --> 00:11:09,040 Speaker 1: in seasonal habitation by certain organisms such as bats or 184 00:11:09,679 --> 00:11:14,440 Speaker 1: historically things like a cave bear. But even then, the 185 00:11:14,480 --> 00:11:17,959 Speaker 1: deeper into the cave you get, you could potentially be 186 00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:21,600 Speaker 1: even further removed from the influence of sad organisms. 187 00:11:22,080 --> 00:11:24,839 Speaker 3: Right, And so the authors say, as several authors we've 188 00:11:24,840 --> 00:11:27,400 Speaker 3: looked at have mentioned this, that the evolutionary ecology of 189 00:11:27,440 --> 00:11:31,320 Speaker 3: caves is kind of hard to study for maybe obvious reasons, 190 00:11:31,400 --> 00:11:35,360 Speaker 3: like aquatic caves especially are kind of hard to access, 191 00:11:35,400 --> 00:11:40,200 Speaker 3: they require difficult diving and so forth. And they say 192 00:11:40,200 --> 00:11:42,959 Speaker 3: that in the continent of Europe, vertebrates that are fully 193 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:46,880 Speaker 3: adapted to cave life are actually somewhat rare. There are 194 00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:49,079 Speaker 3: more species that might go in and out of caves, 195 00:11:49,080 --> 00:11:52,240 Speaker 3: but the ones that are the full on troglobions, the 196 00:11:52,360 --> 00:11:56,280 Speaker 3: fully adapted to cave organisms, that there are not a 197 00:11:56,280 --> 00:11:58,720 Speaker 3: whole lot of those. But one of the best known 198 00:11:58,720 --> 00:12:02,800 Speaker 3: exceptions is the ome. It is not only a fully 199 00:12:02,840 --> 00:12:07,880 Speaker 3: cave adapted organism, it is the largest cave dwelling vertebrate 200 00:12:08,080 --> 00:12:11,680 Speaker 3: on Earth. The authors cite a couple of studies from 201 00:12:11,880 --> 00:12:16,400 Speaker 3: Boulog in nineteen ninety four and Tronte in two thousand 202 00:12:16,400 --> 00:12:19,880 Speaker 3: and seven to suggest that the ancestors of the OLM 203 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:24,000 Speaker 3: probably colonized caves somewhere between eight point eight and twenty 204 00:12:24,040 --> 00:12:29,440 Speaker 3: million years ago. All known populations except for one, have 205 00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:33,439 Speaker 3: regressed eyes and lack pigment in their bodies, so they 206 00:12:33,440 --> 00:12:38,319 Speaker 3: appear eyeless and pale or translucent. The one accepted population 207 00:12:39,080 --> 00:12:41,720 Speaker 3: is in a cave system in southeast Slovenia. 208 00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:45,280 Speaker 1: There's one called the Black Ome. I remember running across 209 00:12:45,360 --> 00:12:48,160 Speaker 1: and it stuck with me because that sounds like such 210 00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:52,480 Speaker 1: a like a death metal olme. Yeah, in your European gaverns. 211 00:12:52,960 --> 00:12:55,600 Speaker 3: But apparently just the difference is for some reason, this 212 00:12:55,679 --> 00:12:59,559 Speaker 3: is the one population that has retained its pigment within 213 00:12:59,600 --> 00:13:03,679 Speaker 3: the cave if they are top predators, which is kind 214 00:13:03,679 --> 00:13:05,200 Speaker 3: of funny because when you look at them, they don't 215 00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:09,320 Speaker 3: look like top predators. They look kind of unassuming, maybe creepy, 216 00:13:09,360 --> 00:13:12,199 Speaker 3: but you know, they don't look scary. If that distinction 217 00:13:12,360 --> 00:13:12,800 Speaker 3: makes sense. 218 00:13:13,720 --> 00:13:17,280 Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it comes down to again, how scary 219 00:13:17,320 --> 00:13:19,200 Speaker 1: do you have to be in order to be the 220 00:13:19,240 --> 00:13:22,839 Speaker 1: top predator in a cave ecosystem where again, you have 221 00:13:23,120 --> 00:13:26,000 Speaker 1: you do have food chain, you do have a certain 222 00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:30,160 Speaker 1: amount of biomass available, but it is, it's all niche, 223 00:13:30,160 --> 00:13:35,400 Speaker 1: it's reduced, so you're not going to have these enormous organisms. 224 00:13:35,400 --> 00:13:38,280 Speaker 1: You know, everything's going to be on a smaller, hungrier, 225 00:13:38,640 --> 00:13:39,920 Speaker 1: and more versatile scale. 226 00:13:40,280 --> 00:13:43,000 Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. And to be clear, I mean I'm not 227 00:13:43,040 --> 00:13:46,360 Speaker 3: saying I actually think scariness is a biological indicator of 228 00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:48,640 Speaker 3: whether you're a top predator or not. But you know, 229 00:13:48,679 --> 00:13:52,280 Speaker 3: it's just the intuitions they don't seem to match. But 230 00:13:52,360 --> 00:13:54,560 Speaker 3: they are the top predator in their cave environments. They 231 00:13:54,559 --> 00:13:59,200 Speaker 3: prey on small animals like cave shrimp, snails, little insects, 232 00:13:59,600 --> 00:14:02,320 Speaker 3: and they have no natural predators of their own, so 233 00:14:02,360 --> 00:14:05,440 Speaker 3: there's nothing they have to normally watch out for preying 234 00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:08,760 Speaker 3: on them there. They're the top of the pyramid because 235 00:14:08,840 --> 00:14:10,800 Speaker 3: they have no predators. There's a part later in this 236 00:14:10,840 --> 00:14:14,599 Speaker 3: paper where the authors observe that the olmuh do not 237 00:14:14,720 --> 00:14:17,920 Speaker 3: seem to engage in hiding behaviors that they observed. At 238 00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:21,840 Speaker 3: least they said it's possible that some olms are like 239 00:14:21,960 --> 00:14:24,520 Speaker 3: hide back in cracks and crevices that they were never 240 00:14:24,560 --> 00:14:26,960 Speaker 3: able to access on their dives, so you know, they 241 00:14:26,960 --> 00:14:30,120 Speaker 3: couldn't locate them back there. But the ones they saw 242 00:14:30,360 --> 00:14:33,080 Speaker 3: float out in the open, maintaining their place within the 243 00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:36,120 Speaker 3: current of the cave waterway. Like you know, they're just 244 00:14:36,120 --> 00:14:37,840 Speaker 3: not worried about that. They don't have to go hide. 245 00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:42,200 Speaker 3: Now another way in which our naive intuitions about what 246 00:14:42,240 --> 00:14:44,600 Speaker 3: it means to be a top predator can be violated. 247 00:14:44,600 --> 00:14:48,200 Speaker 3: You might hear top predator and you think voracious appetite. 248 00:14:48,240 --> 00:14:50,760 Speaker 3: You know, they're they're eating a lot, eating everything around them. 249 00:14:51,480 --> 00:14:51,640 Speaker 1: No. 250 00:14:51,840 --> 00:14:57,440 Speaker 3: Actually, the ome is famous for having an incredibly incredibly 251 00:14:57,480 --> 00:15:01,120 Speaker 3: elastic energy needs. Like it it can survive five years 252 00:15:01,160 --> 00:15:05,440 Speaker 3: apparently without food and can avoid starvation, so it can 253 00:15:05,480 --> 00:15:09,640 Speaker 3: go into very low energy mode, can maintain a low metabolism, 254 00:15:09,680 --> 00:15:12,640 Speaker 3: and can go for a long time without food. 255 00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:17,800 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, because again the reduced availability of prey and 256 00:15:17,800 --> 00:15:19,680 Speaker 1: a given environment, you need to be able to really 257 00:15:19,680 --> 00:15:22,560 Speaker 1: stretch out those the spaces between meal times. 258 00:15:22,800 --> 00:15:26,960 Speaker 3: It's noted that they are neotonic, meaning they retain juvenile 259 00:15:27,000 --> 00:15:30,200 Speaker 3: features into adulthood, and there's some other salamander species that 260 00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:33,800 Speaker 3: do this as well. They can tolerate water with very 261 00:15:33,960 --> 00:15:38,120 Speaker 3: little dissolved oxygen in it, so they have low food 262 00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:42,520 Speaker 3: energy needs and low oxygen needs. And while they are 263 00:15:42,560 --> 00:15:46,080 Speaker 3: blind to light. They do have a number of compensating 264 00:15:46,240 --> 00:15:50,760 Speaker 3: sense mechanisms. The authors mention one of them is what's 265 00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:55,280 Speaker 3: known as raotaxis. Raeotaxis is the ability to sense the 266 00:15:55,360 --> 00:15:59,120 Speaker 3: direction of flow within the water, and then that's also 267 00:15:59,280 --> 00:16:03,280 Speaker 3: paired with a behavioral instinct that causes the salamander to 268 00:16:03,520 --> 00:16:07,640 Speaker 3: turn to orient its body facing into the water flow. 269 00:16:08,120 --> 00:16:10,280 Speaker 3: And this is a common way for fish and other 270 00:16:10,320 --> 00:16:15,120 Speaker 3: aquatic organisms to remain stationary rather than drifting away with 271 00:16:15,200 --> 00:16:19,840 Speaker 3: water currents. They also use other senses than site. They 272 00:16:19,880 --> 00:16:22,920 Speaker 3: have underwater hearing, they use their sense of smell or 273 00:16:22,960 --> 00:16:26,720 Speaker 3: old faction, and they appear to have a magnetic sensoryability 274 00:16:26,720 --> 00:16:29,520 Speaker 3: as well, which may help them orient with respect to 275 00:16:29,600 --> 00:16:35,640 Speaker 3: Earth's magnetic field, possibly useful for orientation and navigation. As 276 00:16:35,680 --> 00:16:38,640 Speaker 3: I said, the ulme has very restricted food needs like 277 00:16:38,680 --> 00:16:42,360 Speaker 3: some other troglobiants we've discussed. You remember the blind Mexican 278 00:16:42,400 --> 00:16:45,240 Speaker 3: cave fish had very low food needs compared to its 279 00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:49,720 Speaker 3: surface variant cousin. They have what the authors call extreme 280 00:16:50,160 --> 00:16:56,360 Speaker 3: life history adaptations, meaning their life just appears to sort 281 00:16:56,400 --> 00:17:00,000 Speaker 3: of go in slow motion compared to salamanders you might 282 00:17:00,240 --> 00:17:02,800 Speaker 3: on the surface. So I was looking up the maximum 283 00:17:02,840 --> 00:17:06,040 Speaker 3: life span of surface amphibians, and of course that varies, 284 00:17:06,080 --> 00:17:07,679 Speaker 3: but you know, on average it's going to be more 285 00:17:07,720 --> 00:17:10,680 Speaker 3: in the range of ten to twenty years for large 286 00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:14,920 Speaker 3: amphibians that live on the surface. The olem is thought 287 00:17:14,960 --> 00:17:20,359 Speaker 3: to live for one hundred years or more, with females 288 00:17:20,400 --> 00:17:24,800 Speaker 3: only reproducing once every twelve and a half years roughly, 289 00:17:25,160 --> 00:17:28,720 Speaker 3: So that is incredibly long life for an amphibian, incredibly 290 00:17:28,760 --> 00:17:32,760 Speaker 3: long in between mating and reproduction. So this experiment tried 291 00:17:32,800 --> 00:17:36,320 Speaker 3: to study the behavior of the olm, especially the movement 292 00:17:36,359 --> 00:17:40,040 Speaker 3: and migratory patterns of the olm, by using a capture, 293 00:17:40,119 --> 00:17:42,880 Speaker 3: mark and recapture method, so you know, they'd catch one, 294 00:17:42,960 --> 00:17:46,040 Speaker 3: they'd market, and then they would come back and see 295 00:17:46,040 --> 00:17:48,560 Speaker 3: if they could capture the same ones again later note 296 00:17:48,600 --> 00:17:53,280 Speaker 3: where they were relative to the original capture and so forth. Specifically, 297 00:17:53,720 --> 00:17:58,280 Speaker 3: they were studying an eastern Herzegovinian population and the authors 298 00:17:58,320 --> 00:18:03,040 Speaker 3: found what they called extra sdream site fidelity. Most of 299 00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:07,320 Speaker 3: the creatures that they captured had barely moved since the 300 00:18:07,400 --> 00:18:11,160 Speaker 3: years before. The average distance was about five meters from 301 00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:15,120 Speaker 3: the original capture location a year before, and they also 302 00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:19,080 Speaker 3: did multiple interval studies, so like capturing them at different times, 303 00:18:19,080 --> 00:18:22,399 Speaker 3: and then checking up on them again. They found that 304 00:18:22,600 --> 00:18:27,400 Speaker 3: moving distance was not correlated with the time since capture. 305 00:18:27,920 --> 00:18:29,840 Speaker 3: So for a lot of species you might expect that 306 00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:33,680 Speaker 3: the longer you go in between captures, the farther away 307 00:18:33,720 --> 00:18:37,680 Speaker 3: from their original location they might have moved. In these salamanders, 308 00:18:37,760 --> 00:18:40,400 Speaker 3: not the case. The longer you go in between captures 309 00:18:40,440 --> 00:18:42,760 Speaker 3: it does not, on average affect how far away they 310 00:18:42,760 --> 00:18:45,800 Speaker 3: are from the first time. So the question is why 311 00:18:45,840 --> 00:18:49,720 Speaker 3: do they move so little? There could be a number 312 00:18:49,760 --> 00:18:52,440 Speaker 3: of answers here, and the authors say, to be fair 313 00:18:53,359 --> 00:18:57,440 Speaker 3: extreme site fidelity the extreme site fidelity of these salamanders 314 00:18:57,480 --> 00:19:01,560 Speaker 3: is not necessarily extreme among amphibians. There are also some 315 00:19:02,000 --> 00:19:06,479 Speaker 3: surface amphibians that may have very limited movement ranges. The 316 00:19:06,520 --> 00:19:09,720 Speaker 3: authors could not find any reason based on the environment 317 00:19:09,760 --> 00:19:12,359 Speaker 3: itself that would limit movement. In other words, there were 318 00:19:12,400 --> 00:19:15,720 Speaker 3: no like gaps in the movement patterns that would indicate 319 00:19:15,880 --> 00:19:19,640 Speaker 3: environmental features they were trying to avoid, and so they 320 00:19:19,640 --> 00:19:24,080 Speaker 3: say their best guess is that this hyper sedentary lifestyle 321 00:19:24,320 --> 00:19:28,840 Speaker 3: is probably related to energy constraints. The author's right quote, 322 00:19:29,040 --> 00:19:31,960 Speaker 3: We can only speculate that animals feeding on a very 323 00:19:32,000 --> 00:19:38,160 Speaker 3: low food supply and as consequence resistant to starvation, reproducing sporadically. Again, 324 00:19:38,240 --> 00:19:41,320 Speaker 3: females reproducing on average only once in twelve point five 325 00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:45,800 Speaker 3: years and living for a century, are very energy cautious 326 00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:49,359 Speaker 3: and limit their movements to the minimum. It's a different 327 00:19:49,440 --> 00:19:52,159 Speaker 3: kind of animal life to imagine, isn't it like an 328 00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:56,280 Speaker 3: animal that to be clear, it's not incapable of moving quickly, 329 00:19:56,320 --> 00:19:59,440 Speaker 3: like if you try to capture one and it has 330 00:19:59,480 --> 00:20:03,000 Speaker 3: to perform orm an evasive maneuver essentially like it's trying 331 00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:05,600 Speaker 3: to get away from you. They can move quickly. It 332 00:20:05,720 --> 00:20:10,399 Speaker 3: just seems like undisturbed in their natural environment. If you 333 00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:14,000 Speaker 3: use the capture recapture method, they haven't moved much after 334 00:20:14,040 --> 00:20:16,120 Speaker 3: a year, after two years, and so on. 335 00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:17,280 Speaker 1: Wow. 336 00:20:17,680 --> 00:20:19,840 Speaker 3: The author is also note I thought this was interesting 337 00:20:19,920 --> 00:20:21,760 Speaker 3: that I don't know exactly what to make of it, 338 00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:24,840 Speaker 3: But they say that they have never seen a dead individual. 339 00:20:25,320 --> 00:20:26,080 Speaker 3: Kind of interesting. 340 00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:30,640 Speaker 1: H Yeah. I mean, obviously we're dealing with creatures that are, 341 00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:34,320 Speaker 1: like we said, difficult to observe anyway, and you know, 342 00:20:34,359 --> 00:20:38,000 Speaker 1: we can't count out various other organisms that would then 343 00:20:38,080 --> 00:20:40,840 Speaker 1: scavenge a dead one. We also have to take into account, 344 00:20:40,960 --> 00:20:42,719 Speaker 1: you know, the movements of the waters that have at 345 00:20:42,800 --> 00:20:46,639 Speaker 1: least historically been attributed to ones occasionally washing out and 346 00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:50,600 Speaker 1: so forth. And even if one didn't wash out all 347 00:20:50,680 --> 00:20:52,840 Speaker 1: the way to where humans could have observed them, it 348 00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:56,720 Speaker 1: might wash them out to where other organisms would have 349 00:20:56,880 --> 00:21:00,000 Speaker 1: a shot at scavenging them. But still it's an interesting 350 00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:01,000 Speaker 1: tid bit. 351 00:21:01,119 --> 00:21:03,760 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. To be clear, I don't think they 352 00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:06,960 Speaker 3: meant like humans have never observed a dead one obviously. 353 00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:09,280 Speaker 3: I think they mean like in the in the region 354 00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:11,560 Speaker 3: where they're looking at the live ones, they've never seen 355 00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:13,600 Speaker 3: a dead one there, right right, yeah. 356 00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:14,960 Speaker 1: Yeah, And like I said, that could be because it 357 00:21:15,040 --> 00:21:18,520 Speaker 1: is they do get periodically fleshed out I'm guessing, or yeah, 358 00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:20,359 Speaker 1: scavengers of one sort or another. 359 00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:24,280 Speaker 3: The author is add a conservation note in their paper, 360 00:21:24,280 --> 00:21:26,879 Speaker 3: which is that the extreme site fidelity of the of 361 00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:30,760 Speaker 3: the olm makes it quite vulnerable to water pollution. You know, 362 00:21:30,880 --> 00:21:33,720 Speaker 3: it changes to water quality, especially like if it can't 363 00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:36,399 Speaker 3: I think, if it can't really migrate very effectively to 364 00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:38,800 Speaker 3: get to a place where there's better water, it's more 365 00:21:38,880 --> 00:21:42,200 Speaker 3: vulnerable to changes in water quality locally. 366 00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:43,840 Speaker 1: Though. 367 00:21:44,359 --> 00:21:47,120 Speaker 3: Vulnerability to water pollution I think is also true of 368 00:21:47,119 --> 00:21:50,639 Speaker 3: many surface amphibians who are especially vulnerable because of the 369 00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:55,080 Speaker 3: permeability of their skin. So yeah, another reason why, I 370 00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,440 Speaker 3: mean not like we needed that many more reasons why 371 00:21:57,440 --> 00:21:59,760 Speaker 3: water pollution is a bad thing. But here's another one. 372 00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:02,080 Speaker 3: But final note, if you haven't seen a picture of 373 00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:04,920 Speaker 3: the olm, you should look this one up. You want 374 00:22:04,920 --> 00:22:06,040 Speaker 3: to see this flesh. 375 00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:07,840 Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, it's a. 376 00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:09,960 Speaker 3: Very it's a very Cronenberg biodesign. 377 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:13,879 Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like I say, they're a little creepy, a 378 00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:28,240 Speaker 1: little cute. They're very unique. All right. I want to 379 00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:31,960 Speaker 1: get into a topic here that that came up early 380 00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:34,119 Speaker 1: on in my research and a paper that came up 381 00:22:34,119 --> 00:22:36,960 Speaker 1: pretty early on in researching these episodes, and it has 382 00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:41,840 Speaker 1: to do with intraguilled predation. That's the killing and eating 383 00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:46,000 Speaker 1: of potential competitors within an ecosystem, which is apparently a 384 00:22:46,000 --> 00:22:50,119 Speaker 1: pretty big deal in the food chain of the Hypogean world. So, 385 00:22:50,160 --> 00:22:53,159 Speaker 1: as we discussed in previous episodes and specifically in the 386 00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:55,840 Speaker 1: last episode, you know, bat guano is kind of an 387 00:22:55,880 --> 00:22:59,199 Speaker 1: alternative sunlight that forms sort of the base of the 388 00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:02,240 Speaker 1: subtrain in Easystem a lot of the times as bats 389 00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:05,119 Speaker 1: roost in the cave and defecate, thus bringing new resources 390 00:23:05,119 --> 00:23:07,879 Speaker 1: for various organisms to feed on, which in turn feed 391 00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:12,280 Speaker 1: other consumers. And as discussed in a twenty twenty one 392 00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:17,399 Speaker 1: paper published in Scientific Reports by Param Mutchova at all quote, 393 00:23:17,440 --> 00:23:20,160 Speaker 1: the food web in a subterranean ecosystem is driven by 394 00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:24,439 Speaker 1: intragild predation. So in this paper they drive home some 395 00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:28,520 Speaker 1: of what we discussed last time. That quote. Detritus based 396 00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:32,240 Speaker 1: food webs are prevalent in cave systems, though you do 397 00:23:32,320 --> 00:23:36,200 Speaker 1: have cases where again sunlight enters cavern openings or through 398 00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:40,760 Speaker 1: other fissures, and also have situations where some manner of 399 00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:45,679 Speaker 1: chemo autotrophy is taking place. But still you know, it 400 00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:49,200 Speaker 1: often falls to bat guano as well as other transportation 401 00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:51,880 Speaker 1: networks for dead plants and to tried us such as 402 00:23:52,280 --> 00:23:57,960 Speaker 1: via gravitation, pawn or streams. It's like a steep sinkhole 403 00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:04,199 Speaker 1: situation percating water. And also animal cadavers, the animal cadaver 404 00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:06,480 Speaker 1: being something that is you know, the animal has gone 405 00:24:06,520 --> 00:24:08,560 Speaker 1: in there and died or something has brought the animal 406 00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:11,280 Speaker 1: couldaver into the cave generally. 407 00:24:11,320 --> 00:24:13,960 Speaker 3: So that's a good list. So as you said, there 408 00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:17,200 Speaker 3: are places where the sunlight gets in. Chemo autotrophy would 409 00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:20,880 Speaker 3: be an alternative to photo autotrophy. You know, mostly we're 410 00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:24,520 Speaker 3: on the on the surface, the autotrophs are making energy 411 00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:27,040 Speaker 3: out of sunlight, but it can also be done with 412 00:24:27,119 --> 00:24:31,400 Speaker 3: certain types of chemicals in the darkness. And then as 413 00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:35,080 Speaker 3: you said, bat iguano, and then just basically various ways 414 00:24:35,080 --> 00:24:37,600 Speaker 3: for stuff to fall into the cave or be brought 415 00:24:37,640 --> 00:24:38,720 Speaker 3: into the cave that could. 416 00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:42,240 Speaker 1: Be eaten, yeah, falling in and potentially flowing in in 417 00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:44,760 Speaker 1: the same way that a dead olme might flow out 418 00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:48,480 Speaker 1: of a cave, if we're to take that earlier accounted 419 00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:52,159 Speaker 1: face value. So anyway, that's the base, you know, and 420 00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,080 Speaker 1: you have all of these consumer interactions atop of all 421 00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:58,359 Speaker 1: that in a cave. And this particular study examined the 422 00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:04,399 Speaker 1: subterranean ecosystem of the Autovaska Cave and Slovakia. The predators 423 00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:08,680 Speaker 1: they examined were all arthropods living in the cave, including 424 00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:12,359 Speaker 1: a species of might a beetle, two different spiders, and 425 00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,520 Speaker 1: a couple of other species, and they were able to 426 00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:18,720 Speaker 1: examine DNA in the guts of each species to see 427 00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:23,200 Speaker 1: what they were eating. As expected, they found a complex 428 00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:27,440 Speaker 1: system of intragil prediction, again killing and eating of potential competitors, 429 00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:30,680 Speaker 1: and they included a handy visual guy that I really liked, 430 00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:32,480 Speaker 1: so I included it here for you to look at, Joe. 431 00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:39,639 Speaker 1: They have essentially five dots scored here on the illustration, 432 00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:43,440 Speaker 1: each one representing one of these five species they looked at, 433 00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:46,639 Speaker 1: and then each one is color coded with color coded 434 00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:50,239 Speaker 1: lines indicating which one feeds on which, and you end 435 00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:53,880 Speaker 1: up with this complex almost pretty much a star pattern, 436 00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:58,119 Speaker 1: but with a few more lines on some connections, and 437 00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,000 Speaker 1: sometimes there's not a line connecting ones species to another. 438 00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,280 Speaker 3: It looks like almost all of them are eating each other. 439 00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:09,520 Speaker 3: There's one that's really eating everybody and almost and all 440 00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:12,280 Speaker 3: the others are eating at least two other ones. 441 00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:16,159 Speaker 1: Right right. And then you know they acknowledge their limitations 442 00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:17,840 Speaker 1: and their study and so forth, so it's not this 443 00:26:17,920 --> 00:26:21,640 Speaker 1: is not necessarily all that ever happens between these these species, 444 00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:24,679 Speaker 1: but this is what they're they're got syndicated when they 445 00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:30,239 Speaker 1: were studied, and so they stress that integill predation is 446 00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:35,760 Speaker 1: often important in nitrogen poor diets, as is cannibalism, which 447 00:26:35,880 --> 00:26:38,840 Speaker 1: that which they found evidence of, and it should be 448 00:26:38,840 --> 00:26:42,440 Speaker 1: stressed that scavenging may be part of both cases. So 449 00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:44,760 Speaker 1: you know, on one hand, you have like straight up 450 00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:47,520 Speaker 1: predation like well there's my competitor, I've got the drop 451 00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:50,040 Speaker 1: on them. I shall eat them, but also a situation 452 00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:52,639 Speaker 1: of well there is my competitor, they have died. 453 00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:57,919 Speaker 3: What you're going to do right, Yeah, because often in 454 00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:03,800 Speaker 3: energy relationships like this, trying to prey on a healthy 455 00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:07,840 Speaker 3: adult of like a of a competitor within the food 456 00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:10,400 Speaker 3: chain is usually going to be kind of dangerous. So 457 00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:14,679 Speaker 3: I think we've read about integuild predation before, some of 458 00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:17,680 Speaker 3: it being not predation but scavenging, but other ones being 459 00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:21,159 Speaker 3: like adults of one species preying on the young of 460 00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:21,560 Speaker 3: the other. 461 00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:25,240 Speaker 1: Yeah, because you know, otherwise, going toe to toe with 462 00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:30,040 Speaker 1: someone or something in the ecosystem that is your equal, like, 463 00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:35,240 Speaker 1: that's that's a gamble and survival is on the line 464 00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,440 Speaker 1: regardless if you engage in that struggle, And you might 465 00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:41,840 Speaker 1: only engage in that struggle if survival is already on 466 00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,840 Speaker 1: the line. And yeah, it would seem in the impoverished 467 00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:46,840 Speaker 1: food web of the dark, you get what you get. 468 00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,240 Speaker 1: You don't pitch a fit. Each of the species here 469 00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:52,919 Speaker 1: that they looked at consumed a wide variety of prey 470 00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:58,560 Speaker 1: and indulged in integral predations as presumably necessary. So it 471 00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:01,280 Speaker 1: would seem based on what reading here that Yeah, while 472 00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:04,240 Speaker 1: you know, integral predation of course, as you said, occurs 473 00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:07,440 Speaker 1: in the sunlit world as well and in the oceans 474 00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:11,439 Speaker 1: and so forth, within the cave environment, it might be 475 00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:16,320 Speaker 1: more pronounced again due to the limited scope of the 476 00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:19,119 Speaker 1: available biomass, available nutrients and so forth. 477 00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:21,080 Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I mean the fact that it's a place 478 00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:25,720 Speaker 3: where food is scarce creates weird biological incentives and emphasies. 479 00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:29,359 Speaker 1: Yeah. So so, yeah, I thought this was very interesting. 480 00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:32,480 Speaker 1: But I want to get into this other area here 481 00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:35,960 Speaker 1: for the remainder of the episode here, having to do 482 00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:39,520 Speaker 1: with outsiders in the cave, creatures who have come into 483 00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:43,400 Speaker 1: the cave to take advantage of what is there. Because 484 00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:45,560 Speaker 1: once again there's the there, there's the idea that the 485 00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:49,560 Speaker 1: cave environment comes with pros and cons. One cons, as 486 00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:52,600 Speaker 1: we've discussed already, is that the food chain here is 487 00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:58,320 Speaker 1: just less robust, specialized obligate cave organisms generally have carved 488 00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:01,400 Speaker 1: out a very narrow niche in which to live. A 489 00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:04,880 Speaker 1: big pro, however, is, as with the OLM, you're often 490 00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:09,040 Speaker 1: dealing with fewer predators and a more secluded life mm hmm. 491 00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:11,080 Speaker 1: It's like the Phantom of the Opera. You know, you 492 00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:14,680 Speaker 1: have this vast catacomb empire over which to rule and 493 00:29:15,080 --> 00:29:17,880 Speaker 1: row your boat around, and you have great acoustics, you know, 494 00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:21,120 Speaker 1: for your singing, for your your your cool pipe organ. 495 00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:25,320 Speaker 1: But the real music scene is upstairs in the sunlit world, 496 00:29:25,400 --> 00:29:27,560 Speaker 1: and you are, you know, to a large extent cut 497 00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:28,080 Speaker 1: off from that. 498 00:29:28,480 --> 00:29:30,920 Speaker 3: You really need to kidnap a singer from up there 499 00:29:31,160 --> 00:29:34,520 Speaker 3: to make your songs work better down there. 500 00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:39,560 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so there there is a potential advantage here 501 00:29:39,680 --> 00:29:42,480 Speaker 1: for creatures of both worlds and creatures of the surface 502 00:29:42,760 --> 00:29:45,640 Speaker 1: that have figured out how and when to venture indicates 503 00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:50,360 Speaker 1: to take advantage of the creatures that live there, at 504 00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:55,320 Speaker 1: least live there periodically. And you know, I don't think 505 00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:58,360 Speaker 1: we've run across anything that's going in to harvest the olms. 506 00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:01,000 Speaker 1: But as we've been discussing, one of the most abundant 507 00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:05,360 Speaker 1: life forms you might pray or scavenge upon the in 508 00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:10,120 Speaker 1: caverns are creatures that spend part of their time there 509 00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:14,200 Speaker 1: as well. That being bats, they roost in great numbers. 510 00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:17,400 Speaker 1: They enjoy a great deal of security there. But a 511 00:30:17,480 --> 00:30:20,520 Speaker 1: specialist could get in there and reap the bounties. 512 00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:22,960 Speaker 3: Oh, I don't know if I ever thought about that, 513 00:30:23,040 --> 00:30:24,400 Speaker 3: So what would do that? 514 00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:28,760 Speaker 1: Well, a number of organisms. Actually, I was looking at 515 00:30:28,800 --> 00:30:31,280 Speaker 1: a paper from nineteen seventy two. This is by Winkler 516 00:30:31,320 --> 00:30:36,680 Speaker 1: and Atoms titled Utilization of Southwestern Bat Caves by Terrestrial Carnivores, 517 00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:38,520 Speaker 1: and this is published in the Journal of the American 518 00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:42,080 Speaker 1: Middland Naturalist. And they point out that various predators venture 519 00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:46,280 Speaker 1: into caves to enjoy the occasional bat feast, either via 520 00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:51,360 Speaker 1: active hunting or by scavenging for fallen bats. And this 521 00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:58,080 Speaker 1: includes broadly like various reptiles, raptorial birds, and mammals. For instance, 522 00:30:58,120 --> 00:31:02,600 Speaker 1: they point out that at Braw Cave, raccoons and some 523 00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:05,560 Speaker 1: skunks were observed to venture into the cave to prey 524 00:31:05,640 --> 00:31:09,200 Speaker 1: on fallen bats at the cave mouth. Because you know, 525 00:31:09,360 --> 00:31:11,880 Speaker 1: I think we discussed this at least in Passing earlier. 526 00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:17,040 Speaker 1: You have large populations of bats residing in many of 527 00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:21,880 Speaker 1: these caves, and occasionally bats do fall be they you know, 528 00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:25,960 Speaker 1: young bats, older bats, in firm bats, et cetera. They're 529 00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,160 Speaker 1: just too many of them this for this not to happen. 530 00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:32,200 Speaker 1: It will occasionally rain a little bit of food in 531 00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,360 Speaker 1: the form of a bat and an organism that is 532 00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:38,560 Speaker 1: operate into tunistic enough can get in there and collect 533 00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:41,080 Speaker 1: those and eat them, or you know, eat them before 534 00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:44,360 Speaker 1: they're able to crawl across the cave floor and then 535 00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,000 Speaker 1: back up the walls to enjoy their roost again. 536 00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:52,040 Speaker 3: So the cave buffet underneath the bat roost is mostly guano, 537 00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:54,240 Speaker 3: but occasionally bat meat as well. 538 00:31:54,600 --> 00:31:59,520 Speaker 1: That's right. So ringtail cats were observed at another cave, 539 00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:03,040 Speaker 1: but it's aimed as if, especially at Brackencave, raccoons were 540 00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:05,920 Speaker 1: the most likely to take advantage of the bat bounty 541 00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:09,520 Speaker 1: during both the day and the night. And and you 542 00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:14,520 Speaker 1: know this, this makes sense concerning the raccoon because as 543 00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:16,680 Speaker 1: we've talked about in the show before, you know, they're 544 00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:22,680 Speaker 1: they're great opportunists. Uh they are. They're nocturnal omnivores and 545 00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:24,400 Speaker 1: they have exceedingly wise pause. 546 00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:28,600 Speaker 3: Oh that's right. I'm just now recalling that we did 547 00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:31,360 Speaker 3: an episode a while back about their apparent their strange 548 00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:34,720 Speaker 3: apparent washing of food behavior and the question about like 549 00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:37,160 Speaker 3: whether that really is washing or some other type of 550 00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:41,000 Speaker 3: behavioral instinct. And oh, I can't remember off the top 551 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:42,520 Speaker 3: of my head what episode that was in But I 552 00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:45,240 Speaker 3: remember that that that one really got my mind. 553 00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,840 Speaker 1: Going, Yeah, I remember talking about like, for instance, they 554 00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:51,800 Speaker 1: are they're they're great opportunistic organisms that can adapt to 555 00:32:51,840 --> 00:32:54,800 Speaker 1: various environments, so they've done quite well with urban environments. 556 00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:59,280 Speaker 1: Uh and uh and yeah. We also discussed the heartbreaking 557 00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:02,480 Speaker 1: video foot that you can look up online of a 558 00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:07,720 Speaker 1: raccoon attempting to to dunk. It's uh it's a plunder 559 00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:12,200 Speaker 1: of cotton candy into the water and then seemingly confused 560 00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:15,400 Speaker 1: as it draws the bounty back out of the water 561 00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:19,760 Speaker 1: and finds that it is no longer uh there for it. 562 00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:21,400 Speaker 1: It's again kind of heartbreaking to watch. 563 00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:23,640 Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, I just looked it up. By the way, 564 00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:27,959 Speaker 3: it was in our series on animals, quote cooking things 565 00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:31,600 Speaker 3: on the cuisine and kitchen behavior is observed in animals, 566 00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:34,719 Speaker 3: including the apparent washing of food. But again, I think 567 00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:37,520 Speaker 3: there was a question of whether that's really what raccoons 568 00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:38,160 Speaker 3: are doing or not. 569 00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:41,080 Speaker 1: Yeah, but they're they're they're they're little paws, they are 570 00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:44,680 Speaker 1: little hands. If you will are are are excellent. I've 571 00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:47,200 Speaker 1: I've seen it described that they can essentially see you 572 00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:50,719 Speaker 1: with their hands in ways that we could maybe relate 573 00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:53,160 Speaker 1: to on some level, but as is often the case 574 00:33:53,200 --> 00:33:57,840 Speaker 1: with the sense worlds of animals, of non human animals, 575 00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:03,600 Speaker 1: we generally can't fully image what it's like like they 576 00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:05,760 Speaker 1: they can see with their hands is the best way 577 00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:07,000 Speaker 1: that we can perhaps understand it. 578 00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:10,320 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that was one of the hypotheses. It was 579 00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:13,759 Speaker 3: like that the water somehow hypercharges the sensitivity of the 580 00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:15,600 Speaker 3: hands and sensing the food. Yeah. 581 00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:19,480 Speaker 1: Yeah. Now this cave in question, Bracken Cave, This is 582 00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:22,880 Speaker 1: a Texas cave outside of San Antonio that is home 583 00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:27,200 Speaker 1: to the largest known bat colony in the world. Some 584 00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:32,400 Speaker 1: twenty million Mexican freetail bats roost here between March and October. 585 00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:36,319 Speaker 1: This also apparently makes it the largest known concentration of 586 00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:40,520 Speaker 1: mammals period, including humans. I'm assuming, and I imagine this 587 00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,279 Speaker 1: takes into account the size of the cave and the 588 00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:47,360 Speaker 1: estimates and estimated concentration of bats as compared to human cities. 589 00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:50,839 Speaker 1: But even among human cities, they're only something like six 590 00:34:50,920 --> 00:34:54,200 Speaker 1: cities with populations of more than twenty million, So we're 591 00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:57,319 Speaker 1: talking a lot of bats. And I didn't run, I 592 00:34:57,320 --> 00:34:58,799 Speaker 1: didn't look up or do the math on this, but 593 00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:00,960 Speaker 1: you know, you think about twenty million bats, how many 594 00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:05,480 Speaker 1: bats are going to potentially fall So that does create 595 00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:08,879 Speaker 1: a certain opportunity for animals that are willing to get 596 00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:11,640 Speaker 1: in there day or night and pick them off before 597 00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:13,000 Speaker 1: they can get back up to the top. 598 00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:15,840 Speaker 3: Yeah, with twenty million bats, I mean, even if you 599 00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:18,799 Speaker 3: assume a low death rate, that's got to be thousands 600 00:35:18,840 --> 00:35:20,320 Speaker 3: falling into the floor all the time. 601 00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:23,920 Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, reptiles also get on the action as well, 602 00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:27,759 Speaker 1: as that paper indicated, And one of the more alarming examples, 603 00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:30,080 Speaker 1: I don't know, it could be alarming, depends on what 604 00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:34,879 Speaker 1: you think about snakes is the example of yellow red 605 00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:38,480 Speaker 1: rat snakes found in a cave in Mexico that is 606 00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:41,320 Speaker 1: sometimes referred to as the Cave of Hanging Snakes. 607 00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:42,960 Speaker 3: Hanging snakes. 608 00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:47,640 Speaker 1: Yes, so the yellow red rat snake is endemic to 609 00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:54,040 Speaker 1: Mexico and Central America, so it's fairly widespread. It's non venomous. 610 00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:57,360 Speaker 1: It prays mostly on rodents and birds and lizards, but 611 00:35:57,560 --> 00:36:01,799 Speaker 1: also on the menu are bats. So the Mexican cave 612 00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:06,120 Speaker 1: in question is Cantemo Cave in the Mexican state of 613 00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:10,840 Speaker 1: kintani Roo, about one hundred and eighty miles from Cancun, 614 00:36:11,400 --> 00:36:15,040 Speaker 1: known locally, just as the bat cave. According to Jose 615 00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:20,399 Speaker 1: Maria Morells, writing for Atlas Obscura, the snakes here have 616 00:36:20,719 --> 00:36:25,920 Speaker 1: developed an amazing method of eating those bats that doesn't 617 00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:29,839 Speaker 1: involve picking them off on the cave floor. So what 618 00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:33,560 Speaker 1: they do, apparently, is they crawl up into the cracks 619 00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:35,960 Speaker 1: in the ceiling of the cave as well as high 620 00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:39,600 Speaker 1: up on the cave walls. And then when the bats, 621 00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:42,000 Speaker 1: you know, the bats are roosting in there, so they 622 00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:45,840 Speaker 1: leave and then they come back. They leave to feed, 623 00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:48,239 Speaker 1: and then they come back. And when they're doing this, 624 00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:50,680 Speaker 1: when they're going in or out of the cave, that 625 00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:55,120 Speaker 1: is when the snakes will either dangle down or otherwise 626 00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:59,920 Speaker 1: like lash out to catch a passing bat in its mouth. Wow. 627 00:37:01,320 --> 00:37:03,360 Speaker 1: And I've included a couple of photos here for you 628 00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:07,160 Speaker 1: to look at, Joe, one of the snake grabbing having 629 00:37:07,200 --> 00:37:10,319 Speaker 1: grabbed a bat and it's like, you know, just swallowing it. 630 00:37:10,360 --> 00:37:12,640 Speaker 1: And then there's another one of the snake up in 631 00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:16,000 Speaker 1: the recesses. This is these are actually, these are excellent photos. 632 00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:20,160 Speaker 1: They're from a Newsweek article that put that that profiled 633 00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:21,280 Speaker 1: these snakes. 634 00:37:21,640 --> 00:37:24,319 Speaker 3: That is crazy. Now, I had a question that I 635 00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:26,399 Speaker 3: think I may have partially answered, but I just looked 636 00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:31,600 Speaker 3: up more images of these snakes jumping out to snag bats, 637 00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:34,920 Speaker 3: and my question was, well, how do they have the 638 00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:37,560 Speaker 3: leverage to do that? Because I was imagining them just 639 00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:39,680 Speaker 3: sort of like crawling up a cave wall. But in 640 00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:41,680 Speaker 3: some of the pictures I'm looking at, they have found 641 00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:44,200 Speaker 3: like a they're in like a recess, like a cubby 642 00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:46,960 Speaker 3: hole in the wall, and so I think they're gripping 643 00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:49,360 Speaker 3: something back there with the back half of their body 644 00:37:49,400 --> 00:37:51,640 Speaker 3: where they while they lunge out with the front half 645 00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:52,680 Speaker 3: to to grab a bat. 646 00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:54,920 Speaker 1: Now you mentioned looking up images of this, Yeah, there 647 00:37:54,920 --> 00:37:58,000 Speaker 1: there are a lot of images of these of these snakes. 648 00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:01,120 Speaker 1: There's some footage as well. This cave has become an 649 00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:03,799 Speaker 1: ecotourism destination, so a lot of people have gotten to 650 00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:05,719 Speaker 1: go there. It's been covered in by a lot of 651 00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:10,080 Speaker 1: news outlets, various documentaries. So you can definitely see some 652 00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:13,719 Speaker 1: images of these snakes either you know, dangling from the 653 00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:17,280 Speaker 1: ceiling or consuming the bats that they have acquired. 654 00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,800 Speaker 3: Wow, that's one of those behaviors where it's like I 655 00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:24,239 Speaker 3: would love an evolutionary account of how that arises, if 656 00:38:24,280 --> 00:38:29,479 Speaker 3: that's known or if there's something suspected, like how long 657 00:38:29,560 --> 00:38:32,920 Speaker 3: have these snakes specialized in attacking bats this way? And 658 00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:34,520 Speaker 3: like what were they doing before that? 659 00:38:35,160 --> 00:38:37,640 Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I mean I guess it's kind of a 660 00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:44,040 Speaker 1: natural extrapolation of surface world environments, especially I'm thinking our 661 00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:47,880 Speaker 1: boreal environments. Right. The cave is just like a novel 662 00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:51,440 Speaker 1: form of that. And with the bat population, you have 663 00:38:51,560 --> 00:38:55,080 Speaker 1: just such a concentration of potential prey. You're going to 664 00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:57,600 Speaker 1: have organisms that are drawn to it and ones that 665 00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:02,960 Speaker 1: are able to adapt their existing practices. They're existing predation 666 00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:07,480 Speaker 1: and scavenging practices to it, or as with the raccoon, 667 00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:10,560 Speaker 1: are just generally great opportunists. You know, they're going to 668 00:39:10,560 --> 00:39:13,440 Speaker 1: be able to help reap some of that bounty for themselves. 669 00:39:13,680 --> 00:39:16,520 Speaker 3: Well, Rob, thank you for introducing me to these hanging snakes. 670 00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:18,719 Speaker 3: I didn't know they existed, and now I love them. 671 00:39:20,239 --> 00:39:22,320 Speaker 3: So I think we probably have to call it there 672 00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:24,880 Speaker 3: for part three of our series on cave biology, but 673 00:39:24,920 --> 00:39:26,520 Speaker 3: I think we're going to be back for one more. 674 00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:29,920 Speaker 3: Three was not enough. There will be one more episode. 675 00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:31,799 Speaker 1: I think, So I think a fourth episode will wrap 676 00:39:31,840 --> 00:39:34,120 Speaker 1: it up for this journey into the caves, But you know, 677 00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:36,200 Speaker 1: after that we'll probably be back in the future at 678 00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:40,160 Speaker 1: some point or another. Caves and their ecosystems and human 679 00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:43,680 Speaker 1: traditions associated with them are just too fascinating, all right. 680 00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:45,440 Speaker 1: In the meantime, we're going to go ahead and remind 681 00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:47,759 Speaker 1: everybody that's stuff to blow your mind. Is primarily a 682 00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:51,279 Speaker 1: science and culture podcast that publishes new core episodes on 683 00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:55,279 Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays, sandwiched in between there on Wednesdays there's 684 00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:58,840 Speaker 1: a short form episode for you Monster Fact Artifact or 685 00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:03,040 Speaker 1: Animalia stipendium. On Mondays we do listener mail, and then 686 00:40:03,040 --> 00:40:05,400 Speaker 1: on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just 687 00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:09,160 Speaker 1: talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. Usually 688 00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:12,000 Speaker 1: those are self contained single episodes, but if you're just 689 00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:14,200 Speaker 1: tuning into our channel for the first time, this week, 690 00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:19,239 Speaker 1: we are covering David Lynch's nineteen eighty four adaptation of 691 00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:22,840 Speaker 1: Dune in two parts, because it is that weird that 692 00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:25,600 Speaker 1: packed with talent, and also, you know, Dune is in 693 00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:27,479 Speaker 1: the air right now, the spice is in the air, 694 00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:29,319 Speaker 1: and we have to acknowledge that. 695 00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:34,680 Speaker 3: Cool wahad huge thanks as always to our excellent audio 696 00:40:34,719 --> 00:40:37,600 Speaker 3: producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get in 697 00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:40,120 Speaker 3: touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, 698 00:40:40,239 --> 00:40:42,440 Speaker 3: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to 699 00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:45,680 Speaker 3: say hello. You can email us at contact at stuff 700 00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:55,239 Speaker 3: to Blow your Mind dot com. 701 00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:58,279 Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 702 00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:02,200 Speaker 2: more podcasts from my heart Radio's the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 703 00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:16,319 Speaker 2: or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.