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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. This

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb. Today's Saturday, so of course we have

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Speaker 1: a vault episode for you. This is going to be

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Speaker 1: the Parrotfish Part one. It originally published five twenty one,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. I hope you enjoy.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 3: And today on the podcast we're going to be beginning

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Speaker 3: a look at parrotfish or parrotfishes. This is one of

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Speaker 3: those topics that literally just started with me looking at

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Speaker 3: a picture. I was staring at a picture of a

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Speaker 3: bizarre goofy, goofy appearing animal and thinking I want to

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Speaker 3: know more about this critter, and then discovering that indeed,

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Speaker 3: this organ is a is a peculiar and fascinating story,

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Speaker 3: and there is so much more to it than you

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Speaker 3: might guess just by looking at it at its strange

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Speaker 3: beak or toothy mouth.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, parrotfish are pretty fascinating. I've snorkeled among the parrotfish

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Speaker 1: many times and can attest that they're curious looking fish.

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Speaker 1: They're pleasure to watch. They're often very colorful. So I'm

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Speaker 1: going to throw in more of my observations as we proceed.

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Speaker 1: But I think, on the other hand, in coral reef environments,

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Speaker 1: where I've done most of my snorkeling, and where a

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Speaker 1: lot of snorkeling takes place, they can actually be easy

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Speaker 1: to take for granted because they're generally around and you

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Speaker 1: know significant numbers that these environments. Often these are protected

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Speaker 1: reefs that I've been to, they're not particularly shy, they're

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Speaker 1: easily found in shallow water, so you know, oftentimes you're

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Speaker 1: dealing with like reef environments that are either very accessible

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Speaker 1: just from the shore or just a very short boat

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Speaker 1: ride sort of a situation. So in a way, it's

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Speaker 1: easy to take them for granted because they're there, you

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Speaker 1: see them, and then you end up focusing a lot

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Speaker 1: more of your attention looking for some of the harder

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Speaker 1: to find organisms that are going to live in these

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Speaker 1: reef environments. So it's actually a great opportunity to stop

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Speaker 1: and focus on this remarkable fish that I honestly had

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Speaker 1: never really thought about devoting a whole episode or series

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Speaker 1: of episodes too. But there's more than enough to talk about.

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Speaker 3: I've never snorkeled and seen them in person, so I'm

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Speaker 3: envious of this experience and maybe I will someday. I

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Speaker 3: look forward to that. But I've seen video and in

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Speaker 3: some cases that there's almost a feeling of like bees

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Speaker 3: buzzing around a shrub that's covered in flowers. You know,

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Speaker 3: it's just kind of the general gentle grazing activity of

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Speaker 3: some animals surrounding a plant like structure, but in this

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Speaker 3: case it's of the big skeleton of stony corals.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the grazing observation is key, and it's something that

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Speaker 1: has long been observed for these creatures, as we'll discuss

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Speaker 1: going back into ancient times, even when we didn't have

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Speaker 1: snorkelers as we think of them today, you still had

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Speaker 1: individuals fishing in shallow environments, sometimes fishing for the parrotfish

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Speaker 1: in question, and observing that, Hey, these creatures appear to

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Speaker 1: be grazing, unlike most of the fish that we are observing.

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Speaker 3: So parrotfish are not one species, but a larger group

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Speaker 3: of fish containing about ninety something individual species. I've seen

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Speaker 3: different estimates on the numbers. I think it's older ones

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Speaker 3: that say, maybe like eighty species. Others say closer to

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Speaker 3: one hundred, but I think ninety something is about right.

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Speaker 3: They range broadly in terms of size and appearance. In fact,

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Speaker 3: they range broadly in terms of appearance even within a species,

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Speaker 3: as we'll get to maybe in this part or maybe later,

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Speaker 3: but some adult parrotfish are less than a foot in length,

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Speaker 3: and some of the largest are almost four feet or

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Speaker 3: about one point two meters in length, so they can

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Speaker 3: range from medium small to quite large. These fish are

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Speaker 3: sometimes taxonomized as a family called scarid and in other

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Speaker 3: cases regarded as a subfamily of Labridy, which are commonly

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Speaker 3: known as the rasses. I think you can see some

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Speaker 3: morphological similarities with the fish called rasses, kind of the

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Speaker 3: way they swim, the way they use their pectoral fins,

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Speaker 3: and stuff like that. But a characteristic come into many

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Speaker 3: parrotfishes is that they tend to live around coral reefs,

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Speaker 3: especially in the tropics.

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Speaker 1: I also want to throw in there that there are

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Speaker 1: occasionally fish that are just sort of commonly called a

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Speaker 1: parrotfish or informally called a parrotfish, that are not parrotfish,

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Speaker 1: mainly the blood red parrot chick lid, which apparently is

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Speaker 1: a popular aquarium species.

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Speaker 3: This is not.

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Speaker 1: Actually related to proper parrotfish that we're going to be

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Speaker 1: talking about here today. And I've also seen some some

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Speaker 1: fossil evidence that is sometimes categorized as a parrotfish in

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Speaker 1: a way that I'm not sure actually lines up with

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about here. But if you've seen a

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Speaker 1: picture of a parrotfish proper parrotfish, indeed, go ahead and

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Speaker 1: look one up if you're in a position to do so.

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Speaker 1: I think it's hard to miss what we're talking about.

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Speaker 1: These are very recognizable fish, though again they do very

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Speaker 1: greatly in coloration.

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Speaker 3: Size, that's right. Yeah, So if you look up pictures

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Speaker 3: of them, you'll see that they're often kind of elongated

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Speaker 3: in body. They have different shapes. Some are more kind

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Speaker 3: of that elongated oval shape and others are blunter in

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Speaker 3: the front with like blunt heads. They're in fact, our

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Speaker 3: parrotfish called like the blunt head pair of parrotfish or

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Speaker 3: the steep head parrotfish. The coloration you'll see on them

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Speaker 3: depends on some facts about them and not just their species,

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Speaker 3: but sometimes they have quite bright patterns of almost neon color,

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Speaker 3: surprising colors to see in nature. Very you know, tropical

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Speaker 3: kind of color signals. There's one picture I kept seeing

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Speaker 3: where the fish had a color pattern that reminded me

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Speaker 3: of the as design from paper cups in the nineties.

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Speaker 3: But if you also threw some hot pink in there.

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Speaker 3: So there's a lot to take in when you look

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Speaker 3: at look at a parrot fish. But before you notice

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Speaker 3: any of that, but you know, the head shape, the

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Speaker 3: body shape, the coloration patterns, what you will probably notice

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Speaker 3: first about any given parrotfish is the mouth. I mean,

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Speaker 3: look at these chompers. Rob I've included just several pictures.

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Speaker 3: I know you've seen them in person, so your experience

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Speaker 3: of the teeth the beak is probably more direct and

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Speaker 3: visceral and profound even than mine. But I was just

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Speaker 3: looking at these pictures for quite a while the other day,

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Speaker 3: and my God, that these beaks, these mouths, it's it's incredible.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, their mouths are quite fascinating in some of

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Speaker 1: the photos. Yeah, they can actually look a little intimidating, though,

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Speaker 1: I would say based on the species that I've primarily

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Speaker 1: been exposed to in Hawaii and the Caribbean, they tend

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Speaker 1: to look more silly then than threatening. But they're definitely

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Speaker 1: very cool looking, not taking anything away from that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So I guess it varies from species to species.

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Speaker 3: So parrotfish have these rows of fused teeth on the

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Speaker 3: outside of their jaws, which, in some cases, as the

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Speaker 3: name implies, look very similar to the beak of a parrot.

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Speaker 3: It can look like a bird's beak, But in other cases,

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Speaker 3: these fused rows of teeth look like jagged monster jaws,

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Speaker 3: sort of like a horseshoe shaped ceramic saw blade. But

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Speaker 3: in other cases still they are like a big goofy

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Speaker 3: cartoon overbite, like Alfred Y Newman's mouth got hit with

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Speaker 3: the radiation from the amazing Colossal Man.

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Speaker 1: Now I want to throw in one more note here

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Speaker 1: about species classifications coloration. It is worth noting that with

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Speaker 1: parrotfish that classifications in naming have long proof challenging because

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Speaker 1: they tend to show different colorizations depending on an individual's

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Speaker 1: age and sex. So, for example, was pointed out by

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Speaker 1: the Waikiki Aquarium, the spectacled parrotfish is reddish brown when

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Speaker 1: it's a juvenile, then it develops a pale tail spot

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Speaker 1: when it becomes a reproductive female, and then develops bright

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Speaker 1: blue green coloration. With pink markings when it becomes male.

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Speaker 1: So you can imagine a lot of the early confusion

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Speaker 1: at figuring out, well, what is a different species of parrotfish,

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Speaker 1: and you will have multiple species of parrotfish in a

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Speaker 1: given region, and then what is just parrotfish are the

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Speaker 1: same species that's just in a different phase of its

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Speaker 1: life cycle.

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Speaker 3: That's right. In fact, I was even reading like some

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Speaker 3: blog posts by marine biologists who had worked with these

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Speaker 3: animals firsthand, talking about just how difficult it was sometimes

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Speaker 3: to identify these fish because of all the variation even

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Speaker 3: within species. But to come back to the main attraction,

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Speaker 3: the teeth, the beaks. The crazy thing is, as much

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Speaker 3: as these look like biting teeth in some cases, in

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Speaker 3: reality they are scraping teeth. Because parrotfish are primarily herbivores

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Speaker 3: for the most part, they do not eat by swimming

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Speaker 3: around biting semi circular chunks out of other fish, as

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Speaker 3: you might imagine just looking at their mouths. They mostly

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Speaker 3: eat by grazing along the hard surfaces of coral reefs,

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Speaker 3: scraping away algae and soft bits of coral and other

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Speaker 3: bits of organic matter, along with some hard bits of

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Speaker 3: the coral skeletons with their teeth, So that's what the

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Speaker 3: teeth are for. These are for grazing. These are the

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Speaker 3: life of a herbivore, not the life of a predator.

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Speaker 1: Now, of course, as this we'll be discussing here. Coral,

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Speaker 1: of course is hard matter. And one of the crazy

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Speaker 1: things about snorkeling with parrotfish is that you don't just

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Speaker 1: get to watch them, you get to listen to them.

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Speaker 1: So as they feast on the algae that's growing on

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Speaker 1: the coral, they're scraping the coral, and it's producing a

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Speaker 1: sound in the snorkeler's ear that I would compare to

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Speaker 1: kind of a static paper crunching or even the snap

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Speaker 1: crackle crunch of rice crispies and milk. It's one of

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Speaker 1: those things when when you first explore. When I first

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Speaker 1: experienced it, I wasn't exactly sure what I was listening to,

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Speaker 1: because it's kind of like, oh, is there something in

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Speaker 1: my ears and it's just just the sound of the

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Speaker 1: ocean and so forth. But no, it it becomes clear,

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Speaker 1: and it's often pointed out to one that yeah, this

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Speaker 1: is the sound of these the parrotfish feeding, and yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's pretty remarkable. So you listen to them, you watch them,

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Speaker 1: and they just become part of the background sound escape

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Speaker 1: to your snortling.

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Speaker 3: It's a funny other comparison to bees, almost, you know,

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Speaker 3: the way the buzzing of a bee just kind of

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Speaker 3: like blends in becomes the ambient sound of a landscape.

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Speaker 3: The tooth and beak scraping on coral sound produced by

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Speaker 3: these animals is maybe comparable to the buzzing of bees.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's also consistent, like that's the other thing.

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Speaker 1: They're constantly grazing, and therefore it is a constant soundtrack.

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Speaker 1: It's not like say, the occasional sound of a woodpecker

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Speaker 1: in a forest, Like it's just NonStop. So it's just

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Speaker 1: in the background, and you could easily if you didn't

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Speaker 1: know what you were listening to, you might not realize

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Speaker 1: that this is the sound of organisms feeding.

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Speaker 3: Now, I think there are probably other people out there

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Speaker 3: like me, Rob, I don't know if you fall into

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Speaker 3: this category of people whose minds are easily captured and

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Speaker 3: revolted by just imagining kind of tooth trauma. Like I

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Speaker 3: very easily can like get a shiver across my whole

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Speaker 3: body when I imagine, say, trying to bite down on

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Speaker 3: a rock, And that is what you have to constantly

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Speaker 3: imagine when you're thinking about these animals. It's not technically

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Speaker 3: a rock, though I guess in some cases they do

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Speaker 3: scrape rocks as well, but most often it's going to

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Speaker 3: be like a rock. It will be the skeletons of

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Speaker 3: stony corals. But can you just imagine that, as painful

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Speaker 3: as it might be, imagine having to live by like seeing,

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Speaker 3: you know, a moss covered rock and thinking I'm going

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Speaker 3: to use my front teeth to scrape that bad boy clean,

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Speaker 3: and I'm going to bite off some chunks of the

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Speaker 3: rock as I'm getting the moss off of it. Delicious.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it can be a bit squeamish. It can

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Speaker 1: make one a bit squamish sometimes imagining these other dental

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Speaker 1: scenarios in the natural world.

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Speaker 3: So I want to talk a bit more later about

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Speaker 3: how parrotfish eat and get their nutrition, and a bit

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Speaker 3: more about their teeth. But before we do that, Rob,

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Speaker 3: I think you've found some interesting stuff about writings on

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Speaker 3: parrotfish from the ancient world. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I did, And this was a whole avenue that I

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Speaker 1: had not been down. I had no idea this was

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Speaker 1: a thing. So again, given that species of parrotfish are

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Speaker 1: found around the world, and that they can frequently be

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Speaker 1: found in shallow water, and that they have traditionally been

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Speaker 1: caught for culinary purposes for food, it should come as

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Speaker 1: no surprise that these fish were known to people so

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Speaker 1: the ancient world, you know, even in times when folks

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Speaker 1: didn't have axe to the underwater world in any way

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Speaker 1: comparable to what we have today, they still knew what

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Speaker 1: these fish were, and in some cases they had some

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Speaker 1: rather insightful ideas about what they were doing. In other cases,

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Speaker 1: there are some very long standing misconceptions about what parrotfish do.

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Speaker 1: So in this we're going to actually bring up the

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Speaker 1: work of our dear old friend Roman historian Plenty of

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Speaker 1: the Elder, who is one of several sources of antiquity

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Speaker 1: that discusses the parrotfish, you know, and of course there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of shared content and so forth going on.

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Speaker 1: The fish would have been known as the scars. This

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Speaker 1: is of course, now where we get the name of

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Speaker 1: the genus for parrotfish, and we might assume that in

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Speaker 1: particular we're dealing with discussions of the Mediterranean parrotfish, though

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Speaker 1: based on what I was reading. Also, you had like

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Speaker 1: the red sea parrotfish that was also known to various

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Speaker 1: cultures of antiquity. So Plenty of the Elder in the

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Speaker 1: Natural History seventy nine CE rites at the present day

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Speaker 1: the first place, and this is he's speaking from a

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Speaker 1: culinary perspective here. First place at the Roman table is

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Speaker 1: given to the scars, the only fish that is said

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Speaker 1: to ruminate and to feed on grass and not on

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Speaker 1: other fish. It is most commonly found in the Carpathian Sea,

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Speaker 1: and never of its own accord passes lectum a promontory

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Speaker 1: of trois now. Nineteenth century naturalist George Cuvier and his

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Speaker 1: annotations to Plenty points out again that the first place

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Speaker 1: here is in reference to the Roman dinner table, where

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Speaker 1: this fish was celebrated for several attributed characteristics that I'll

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Speaker 1: get to in a minute, and was also typically quote

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Speaker 1: salted with the intestines in it. M okay, and some

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Speaker 1: Roman authors actually absolutely insisted that you do not eat

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Speaker 1: this fish without the intestines included. It's just too delicious

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Speaker 1: this way.

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Speaker 3: Oh boy, So like, are you saying they would eat

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Speaker 3: the intestines directly or it's like you got to leave

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Speaker 3: the intestines in there to give them meat some flavor.

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Speaker 1: You've got to leave them in. Yeah, okay, And I

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Speaker 1: know they were often in many cultures salted and then traded,

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Speaker 1: So I'm offhand, I'm not entirely sure if this is

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Speaker 1: a definite case of we're talking about salted parrotfish with

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Speaker 1: the intestines still in, or some other form of preparing them.

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Speaker 1: But at any right, they really liked it. There are

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Speaker 1: also Roman references to eating parrotfish livers as a delicacy.

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Speaker 3: Mm so all the value here is just for their

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Speaker 3: flesh as food. This is a first place distinction that

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Speaker 3: would probably not be so flattering to the fish itself, right.

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Speaker 1: Right, And the Romans weren't alone in appreciating eating parrotfishes.

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Speaker 1: We'll get to some other far flowing examples. Plenty of

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Speaker 1: humans have eaten parrotfish and still eat parrotfish. The Greeks

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Speaker 1: love them. There's some I think twenty species of Mediterranean parrotfish. Again,

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Speaker 1: there's the red sea parrotfish, considered a delicacy in antiquity,

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Speaker 1: And in both of these cases, I believe they were

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Speaker 1: often dried and then widely traded. I've read that in fact,

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Speaker 1: they were easily dried. I'm not sure about the particulars

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Speaker 1: of that, but I'll take their word on it that, Okay,

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Speaker 1: this is a fish that is easier to dry and

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Speaker 1: prepare and then trade across distances. You don't have to

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Speaker 1: eat it fresh by the seaside. Anyway, it was celebrated

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Speaker 1: at the Roman table, not just because you ate it

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Speaker 1: salted and with the guts in it, but also for

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Speaker 1: several reasons, according to Cuvier, and I think a lot

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Speaker 1: of these seem to get down to the fact that

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Speaker 1: I'm assuming the Romans liked a great story at the table.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's not just about what the fish smells like,

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Speaker 1: taste like, looks like on the plate, but also what

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Speaker 1: is the story of it, what ideas are wrapped up

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Speaker 1: in this particular organism. So here that first of all,

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Speaker 1: it was thought to be the only ruminating fish.

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Speaker 3: So so wait, does that mean ruminating as in like

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Speaker 3: a like chewing the cud like a cow or a sheep.

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Speaker 1: Yes, though basically I think what this comes down. First

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Speaker 1: of all, they're not truly chewing the cut. They're not

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Speaker 1: truly ruminating, you know, they're not chewing something that has

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Speaker 1: previously been chewed and swallowed. They are grazing like a cow.

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Speaker 1: And I think it has to do with observations of

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Speaker 1: these animals grazing, and it's like, oh, look they're they're

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Speaker 1: like a cow. They're ruminating. But still the idea that

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Speaker 1: they're ruminating, the idea that they're chewing their cut continues

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Speaker 1: to be mentioned all through antiquity on all the way

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Speaker 1: up through like medieval besty areas those some voices such

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Speaker 1: as Saint Ambrose in the fourth century said that did

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Speaker 1: point out the chud the cud chewing thing is not accurate,

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Speaker 1: that's not what they're doing. So but but still a

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Speaker 1: lot of misinformation about these fish persisted for a very

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Speaker 1: long time now. As Aristotle also observed in History of Animals,

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Speaker 1: the parrett fish were thought to be vegetarians, and indeed,

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Speaker 1: I guess you could say they're essentially herbivores. Many sources

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Speaker 1: will classify them as such, but also note that they're

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Speaker 1: maybe more more correct to say that they're algavores. But

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Speaker 1: still ancient people observe that these fish are not eating

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Speaker 1: in the same way that other fish are.

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Speaker 3: Wow, this is something I feel like I should know.

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Speaker 3: The answer to, but I actually don't what is it called.

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Speaker 3: If you mostly eat you know, algae or plant things

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Speaker 3: that are like plants, plants, or types of bacteria microorganisms,

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Speaker 3: but sometimes you eat animals. But the animals are not

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Speaker 3: like you know, large moving animals, they're you know, basically

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Speaker 3: small invertebrate animals like corals.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess you would be some sort of a

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Speaker 1: coral war or something to that effect, right, But on

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Speaker 1: a number of the different fish databases that I was

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Speaker 1: looking at, yeah, sometimes they'll say herbivore, sometimes they'll say herbivore, algivore,

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Speaker 1: and then sometimes there's kind of an omnivore note as well.

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Speaker 1: I guess there's always a margin of error, as we've

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Speaker 1: discussed here, like even things like a cow, which we

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Speaker 1: think of is kind of a pure herbivore. There are examples,

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Speaker 1: as we've discussed on the show in the past, where

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Speaker 1: they have been observed to if meat is available, they

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Speaker 1: might eat set meat.

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Speaker 3: But it is true that in the cases where parrotfish

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Speaker 3: are eating animals, they're not generally like chasing after other

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Speaker 3: fish and eating them or something. I don't know if

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Speaker 3: that might happen in some particular case but that's not

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Speaker 3: generally what parrotfish do. They're mostly going to be eating algae,

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Speaker 3: and then if they're eating animals, they're like marine invertebrate animals.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so I mean we can, I think basically say

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Speaker 1: that ancient people were correct in this judgment. Now, and

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Speaker 1: I guess maybe it made the story at the dinner

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Speaker 1: table a little more interesting. They're like, this is the

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Speaker 1: cow of the sea, that sort of thing. Now, the

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Speaker 1: third attribute that Kuvia mentions is quote because it had

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Speaker 1: the faculty of producing a sound. Now, perhaps I'm not

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Speaker 1: completely understanding Cuvier's point here, but I guess this is

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Speaker 1: referring to that constant chewing sound, that constant grazing sound

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Speaker 1: that one hears if your head is below water with

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Speaker 1: the fish. And again, this is not something that I

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Speaker 1: would think actually impacts one's enjoyment of dinner. But again,

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Speaker 1: I guess they liked a good story.

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Speaker 3: You know, sometimes people they say they want their steak

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Speaker 3: rare by saying I want it still mooing. It's kind

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Speaker 3: a kind of a gruesome way to ask for it.

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Speaker 3: But people do say that. Can you say that, like,

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Speaker 3: I want my parrot fish steak rare? I want it

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Speaker 3: still scraping, I guess.

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Speaker 1: So the fourth attribute that he mentions is quote for

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Speaker 1: its salacious propensities numbers being taken by means of a

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Speaker 1: female attached to a string. This, I guess alluding to

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Speaker 1: a supposed method of catching them. And I suppose the

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Speaker 1: Romans just like Randy food, though I'm not sure it

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Speaker 1: was actually considered an afrodisiac because I didn't see it

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Speaker 1: listed in another source I was looking at that had

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Speaker 1: to do with various foods of the Romans did believe

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Speaker 1: were aphrodisiacs.

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Speaker 3: Uh huh okay.

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Speaker 1: And then fifthly for its quote remarkable sagacity and affording

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Speaker 1: assistance to another when taken in the net.

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Speaker 3: Huh, Now what would that mean?

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Speaker 1: So this is referring to something that is that that

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Speaker 1: pops up in various old sources as well, and again

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Speaker 1: continues to persist for centuries. May be particularly referring to

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Speaker 1: a passage in Ovid. Ovid has the following passage quote,

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Speaker 1: the scas is caught by a stratagem beneath the waves,

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Speaker 1: and it length dreads the bait. Fraught with treachery, it

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Speaker 1: dares not strike the osers. This refers to a reed

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Speaker 1: basket with an effort of its head, but turning away

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Speaker 1: as it loosens the twigs with frequent blows of its tail,

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Speaker 1: it makes its passage and escapes safely into the deep. Moreover,

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Speaker 1: if perchance any kind scarus swimming behind sees it struggling

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Speaker 1: with the osures, he takes hold of its tail in

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Speaker 1: his mouth and it is thus turned away, and so

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Speaker 1: it makes its escape. So, okay, they have this idea

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Speaker 1: that these fish, these parrotfish, are essentially I don't think

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Speaker 1: you social would be the term, but they are. They

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Speaker 1: help each other out. They're capable of some form of

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Speaker 1: altruism where if they see another one of their kinds

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Speaker 1: stuck in one of these wicker basket traps, they will

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Speaker 1: try and help them out.

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Speaker 3: Huh.

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Speaker 1: And so this idea ends up sticking around for against

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Speaker 1: centuries and centuries. The idea that the scais or parrotfish

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Speaker 1: is not only a cud chewing herbivore of the sea,

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Speaker 1: but also a friendly fish that looks out for it's fellows.

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Speaker 3: Well, that's fascinating, But I wonder what would this belief

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Speaker 3: about their like friendly behavior be based on. So the

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Speaker 3: idea is they help each other avoid traps, or say

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Speaker 3: each other from traps. Is there any modern research on this?

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Speaker 1: So the main source I found on this, and this

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Speaker 1: is where I got turned onto the idea, it was

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Speaker 1: the blog of Fishtories. It's like histories and fish combined.

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Speaker 1: That's f I S H T O r I E

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Speaker 1: S dot net. It is a blog maintained by Sophia Hendricks,

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Speaker 1: an information scientist and historian of science. She discusses this

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Speaker 1: whole weird scenario with imagery of the parrotfish, because indeed

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Speaker 1: there's there's there's imagery associated. I included this illustration here

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Speaker 1: for you here Joe from a munch latter later source.

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Speaker 1: But but she does point out that based on what

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Speaker 1: we can tell, the fish are actually anything but friendly

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Speaker 1: to each other in these scenarios. Wicker baskets like this

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Speaker 1: are still used in some places to catch fish, she

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Speaker 1: points out. But she writes that the parrotfish have actually

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Speaker 1: been observed too violently attacked their fellow parrotfish that become

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Speaker 1: caught in the reeds of the fishing basket. So I

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Speaker 1: don't know that there's really much evidence to back this up.

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Speaker 1: I also get to an example here in a bit

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Speaker 1: involving traditional Hawaiian techniques for catching parrotfish that also uses

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Speaker 1: the basket, like the idea of being essentially that the

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Speaker 1: parrotfish are roaming around the corals feeding and they kind

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Speaker 1: of have these paths that they follow. They also tend

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Speaker 1: to sort of group together, and you may have what

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Speaker 1: seems to be a leader of the pack. And if

429
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:35,280
Speaker 1: you set up these baskets at the right time, you

430
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:37,399
Speaker 1: can catch them, and you can end up catching a

431
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:41,119
Speaker 1: bunch of them even and you can then release the

432
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:43,159
Speaker 1: ones you don't want, make use of the ones you

433
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:47,440
Speaker 1: want to harvest. So I don't know. On one level,

434
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:50,159
Speaker 1: it seems like, OK, you're ending up with an artificial

435
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:54,960
Speaker 1: environment scenario here, where you're dealing essentially with captive fish

436
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:58,200
Speaker 1: doing things in a captive environment and a high stakes

437
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 1: environment for them that they might not do otherwise, and

438
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:04,840
Speaker 1: that may mean attacking each other that I guess could

439
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: also mean some sort of observational behavior, especially without the

440
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 1: aid of any kind of like snorkeling mask and so forth,

441
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:15,560
Speaker 1: it might look like one's helping the others out. I'm

442
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 1: not sure, but still the idea becomes entrenched and the

443
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 1: image of the parrotfish helping each other escape from fishing

444
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:27,960
Speaker 1: baskets ends up becoming a symbol of friendship. Oh yeah,

445
00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 1: so this is something that she discusses at length in

446
00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 1: another paper. This is something that published in Emblems of

447
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:40,600
Speaker 1: the Natural World from twenty fifteen Ichthyology and Emblematics in

448
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:48,200
Speaker 1: Conrad Gesner's Historia Piscium and Joham Kamarius's Kamarus the Youngers

449
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 1: Simbola at Emblemata. She points out that Plenty was one

450
00:25:53,600 --> 00:25:56,639
Speaker 1: of the key sources for this misconception, but plenty of

451
00:25:56,640 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: others sources in the ancient world echoed at Plutarch chimes

452
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: in on it, and so some sources identified this as

453
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 1: a sign of intelligence in the parrotfish, while other fishes

454
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: were often held up as examples of a lack of intelligence,

455
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:13,640
Speaker 1: and fish, such as then Conrad Gessner's sixteenth century work

456
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:18,160
Speaker 1: Historian Animalium, the mackerel was held up as a stupid fish.

457
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 3: For example, how do you get that distinction as a fish?

458
00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, maybe they just it's probably

459
00:26:25,119 --> 00:26:28,160
Speaker 1: a little bit unfair, right in some cases the macvil

460
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:30,440
Speaker 1: looks to and you're basing everything on the human perspective

461
00:26:30,520 --> 00:26:34,239
Speaker 1: and human expectations of what an animal's intelligence is, you know,

462
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 1: whereas ultimately you can I think you can approach these

463
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,280
Speaker 1: scenarios by saying, well, yeah, the parrotfish is in a

464
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: way a genius. It's as smart as it needs to

465
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 1: be to do the things that it does.

466
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,879
Speaker 3: Well. Actually, you know what, I wonder if some of

467
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 3: this I have no idea if it applies in this case,

468
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:53,439
Speaker 3: but I wonder if some general ideas about smartfish versus

469
00:26:53,520 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 3: dumbfish come just from the experience of fishing for different

470
00:26:57,800 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 3: types of fish, because I know, you know, and people

471
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 3: who are into fishing right in and let us know

472
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:08,640
Speaker 3: if this matches your experience. In my experience, people who

473
00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:11,119
Speaker 3: like to fish will like say that a fish that

474
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,720
Speaker 3: is harder to catch is a smart fish, and one

475
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 3: that's easier to catches like a dumb fish. And I

476
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:20,720
Speaker 3: don't know if intelligence actually has anything to do with

477
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:23,280
Speaker 3: how easy they are to catch or not. You know,

478
00:27:23,400 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 3: might just have to do with like ingrained behavioral patterns,

479
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:28,480
Speaker 3: someone responding distress or something.

480
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And it's kind of curious because it sounds

481
00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 1: like if you have the right traps for it, catching

482
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: parrotfish is generally not considered super challenging. So but you know,

483
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:44,080
Speaker 1: we have this other narrative that emerges again that they're

484
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:46,360
Speaker 1: helping each other and that they can sort of help

485
00:27:46,359 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: each other escape from these traps and so forth. Now

486
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:03,119
Speaker 1: I mentioned Hawaiian traditions because again, you know, you have

487
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:04,760
Speaker 1: parrotfish all over and you do have them in the

488
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:10,960
Speaker 1: Hawaiian Islands and in Hawaii. The parrotfish was historically known

489
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 1: in the Hawaiian language as uhu. The fish are prominent

490
00:28:15,359 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 1: there and they were eaten by Hawaiians. Traditionally. There's a

491
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 1: saying in Hawaiian, according to the online Hawaiian dictionary Ulucal,

492
00:28:25,119 --> 00:28:28,199
Speaker 1: that translates to my craving makes my mouth water for

493
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 1: the parrotfish passing before my eyes. The Hawaii Coral Reef

494
00:28:32,560 --> 00:28:35,000
Speaker 1: Network points out that not only were they a delicacy,

495
00:28:35,240 --> 00:28:39,000
Speaker 1: but their liver was especially favored. So again, you know,

496
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:41,320
Speaker 1: you know, other side of the world, you still have

497
00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: people eating parrotfish and also realizing that the liver is

498
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: apparently really good.

499
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 3: Interesting.

500
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:49,200
Speaker 1: Now, the fish itself, to the Hawaiians, had connotations of

501
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:52,520
Speaker 1: physical beauty, as in one's love interest, but also in

502
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:56,080
Speaker 1: terms of a desirable bachelor. There was also apparently a

503
00:28:56,080 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 1: tradition that held that a fisherman could observe the behavior

504
00:28:59,560 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 1: of a pair of fish and it would serve as

505
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 1: a kind of portent as to what was going on

506
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:06,960
Speaker 1: back home. So like, you know, certain things the parrotfish

507
00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: was doing. It's like, okay, everything's cool back of the house.

508
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: Other things the parrotfish might be doing. It's like you

509
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 1: need to go back and check on your wife, that

510
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:18,440
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Now, the parrotfish who also factors into

511
00:29:18,800 --> 00:29:23,000
Speaker 1: one of the stories of a legendary figure in Hawaiian mythology.

512
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:27,360
Speaker 1: And I could not find a like a solid pronunciation

513
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 1: guide for this name, so I hope I'm saying it

514
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:32,720
Speaker 1: somewhere close to correctly, and my apologies if I'm not

515
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: punia Kaya. This is in these stories. He's a dashing

516
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:42,560
Speaker 1: young man who one day leaves his parents' house because

517
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:44,480
Speaker 1: he feels this call of the ocean. He wants to

518
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:48,560
Speaker 1: go fishing, and so he catches this young, supernatural fish

519
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: the first Ooh, and it makes it his pet, and

520
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 1: then he releases it where it becomes the parent of

521
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 1: all fish, and so afterwards he's able to go call

522
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: upon the fish to the or fellow fish to the fishermen. Yeah.

523
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:06,280
Speaker 1: I was reading more about this in Native Use of

524
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 1: Fish in Hawaii by Margaret Titcomb, and the author makes

525
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:13,160
Speaker 1: a connection to the manner in which parrotfish move along

526
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 1: in a school, often single file, seemingly led by a leader.

527
00:30:18,280 --> 00:30:20,480
Speaker 1: So that, yeah, this special trap was devised by the

528
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 1: early Hawaiians for use during a particular season. The trap

529
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: allowed them to allow the fish to file into the

530
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: trap led by the leader, but then they're unable to escape,

531
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,480
Speaker 1: and they keep the trap in use during the May

532
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 1: June July season, collect enough fish for personal use, and

533
00:30:36,280 --> 00:30:39,360
Speaker 1: then release the rest, though another source I've looked at

534
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:42,360
Speaker 1: seems to indicate that excess fish might have been harvested

535
00:30:42,400 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 1: to feed pigs and dogs, So I don't know. There

536
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: may be some variety in the practice, or there might

537
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: be a misconception on one side or the other, but

538
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 1: at any rate, this is how they caught them, and

539
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:57,200
Speaker 1: I guess by virtue of that leader fish leads into

540
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 1: this idea that there's kind of like a fish that

541
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:03,239
Speaker 1: is a friend of the people that will help you

542
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: catch more fish.

543
00:31:04,960 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 3: Like it's the leader of the school is deliberately leading

544
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 3: them into the trap for you.

545
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, though not so much that it's like a trader fish,

546
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:15,440
Speaker 1: but more than like it is this fish that a

547
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: like a legendary figure made a deal with that's sort

548
00:31:19,200 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 1: of thing. So yeah, this was a new one to

549
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 1: me as well. I don't think i'd heard this in

550
00:31:23,960 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 1: my previous trips to Hawaii. So and there may be

551
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 1: some more interesting partfish mythologies out there that I'll have

552
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 1: to turn up for the next episode.

553
00:31:33,720 --> 00:31:37,360
Speaker 3: That's really interesting. I like it. As I promised earlier,

554
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:39,840
Speaker 3: I wanted to come back and talk a bit more

555
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:44,680
Speaker 3: about how parrotfish eat and a little bit about the

556
00:31:44,720 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 3: equipment they used to do it and what happens after

557
00:31:47,120 --> 00:31:50,040
Speaker 3: they do it after they eat. So one source I

558
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 3: was looking at here is a chapter in the Biology

559
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 3: of Parrotfishes by CRC Press twenty eighteen. And this chapter

560
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 3: was by Peter S. Wainwright and Samantha A. Price. It's

561
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 3: called Innovation and Diversity of the Feeding Mechanism in Parrotfishes.

562
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 3: And I'll probably come back to this in subsequent episodes

563
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 3: as well. But about the authors, Peter C. Wainwright is

564
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:15,040
Speaker 3: a biologist at UC Davis and Samantha A. Price is

565
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 3: a biologist at Clemson, and so the authors here say

566
00:32:20,120 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 3: that how parrotfishes eat to the various species of parrotfish,

567
00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 3: how they eat is quote one of the fundamental ecological

568
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 3: processes in coral reef ecosystems. So when you think about parrotfish,

569
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:36,960
Speaker 3: you shouldn't just think of them as something you occasionally

570
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 3: see in a coral reef, but rather they are an

571
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:44,440
Speaker 3: integral part of how coral reef ecosystems work, and kind

572
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 3: of the whole ecosystem doesn't really work without them. Now,

573
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 3: as we mentioned earlier, the feeding process of parrotfish involves

574
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:58,320
Speaker 3: a lot of scraping and biting into hard stony materials.

575
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 3: Parrotfishes swim around coral reefs using their teeth to scrape

576
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 3: edible stuff off the outside of coral, and they break

577
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 3: off some coral and bring it along with them in

578
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:12,800
Speaker 3: the process. Now, what is that edible stuff on the

579
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 3: outside of the coral. The authors say that it includes

580
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 3: primarily algae. Algae is a big part, but also detritis,

581
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:24,920
Speaker 3: and in a marine context this usually means dead organic material,

582
00:33:25,080 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 3: so parts of dead organisms, fecal matter, all that yummy stuff.

583
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:34,440
Speaker 3: Sometimes it will include bacteria, little colonies of bacteria, and

584
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:39,160
Speaker 3: then they just say, quote a wide range of encrusting invertebrates,

585
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 3: so all kinds of little invertebrate animals that could be

586
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:46,800
Speaker 3: found on a coral reef. This might include coral polyps themselves,

587
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 3: and it might also include things like sponges. Now, a

588
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 3: couple of sources I was looking at sort of classified

589
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:57,840
Speaker 3: several different types of parrotfish feeding strategies, and the main

590
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 3: variation here seemed to be how how deep the parrotfish

591
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 3: would cut into the stony parts of the coral. So

592
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 3: you might have some that are referred to more as

593
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 3: browsers or grazers, that tend to typically just take the

594
00:34:11,480 --> 00:34:14,560
Speaker 3: soft parts off the surface of the coral. You've got

595
00:34:14,640 --> 00:34:17,839
Speaker 3: scrapers which scrape the coral a little harder and get

596
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 3: some of what's underneath. And then you've got what are

597
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 3: called excavators, which are really just taking chunks out of

598
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 3: the hard stuff. So the parrotfishes swim along on the reef,

599
00:34:27,760 --> 00:34:30,879
Speaker 3: scraping the stuff off with their outer teeth or excavating

600
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:34,719
Speaker 3: bits of it and inevitably leaving scars on the rock

601
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 3: or the coral skeletons as they go. And then all

602
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 3: of this mixture of both hard and soft parts goes

603
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 3: into the mouth, where it is subjected to a second obstacle,

604
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 3: which is the trial of the inner jaws. Because parrotfishes

605
00:34:50,520 --> 00:34:54,359
Speaker 3: don't only have these fascinating outer teeth, they have a

606
00:34:54,520 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 3: second set of teeth at the back of their mouth,

607
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 3: known as the fyringeal jaw. Now you might have read

608
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:06,040
Speaker 3: about pharyngeal jaws with respect to other animals that have them.

609
00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:08,320
Speaker 3: A number of fish and creatures that live in the

610
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 3: sea have them, and a well known example is the

611
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:12,440
Speaker 3: more eel.

612
00:35:12,840 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, And of course, you know, those of

613
00:35:16,040 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: you who've watched any amount of science fiction, you might

614
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,800
Speaker 1: also note that very angel jaws from in the world

615
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:28,240
Speaker 1: of fictional monsters, we do have, of course, the alien xenomorph,

616
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 1: at least the main morph of the creature that we

617
00:35:30,239 --> 00:35:32,879
Speaker 1: see in those films, where we see this inner jaw

618
00:35:33,160 --> 00:35:36,160
Speaker 1: that functions as both a feeding mechanism and a puncturing weapon,

619
00:35:36,840 --> 00:35:39,480
Speaker 1: while elsewhere in the alien universe we see other morphs,

620
00:35:39,520 --> 00:35:42,360
Speaker 1: such as the deacon and the neo morph, that boast

621
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 1: extendable inner jaws rather than a secondary set of jaws.

622
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:52,280
Speaker 1: But yeah, generally you often see some like comparative biology

623
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:54,279
Speaker 1: write ups, and I think I've done right up to

624
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 1: this and this nature in the past, where when you're

625
00:35:56,560 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 1: comparing xenomorph physiology to the now world, the more a

626
00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:04,960
Speaker 1: eel is like a prime stopping point of comparison.

627
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:08,400
Speaker 3: Now, the exact design of the fyrngeal jaw in the

628
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:12,200
Speaker 3: xenomorphos a little bit extra like. I'm not aware of

629
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 3: any examples in the in the natural world where like

630
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:18,200
Speaker 3: the inner jaw comes out of the mouth and stabs

631
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:21,120
Speaker 3: like a spear, like bites through the torso of a

632
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:25,319
Speaker 3: prey animal. The inner jaws in the cases I'm aware of,

633
00:36:25,320 --> 00:36:28,359
Speaker 3: tend to stay mostly within the outer jaws, but they

634
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 3: do do something fascinating and perhaps to some horrifying. So

635
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 3: in the case of the more a eel, which is

636
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:39,840
Speaker 3: a predator, the fyryngial jaw helps the eel capture and

637
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:44,160
Speaker 3: swallow large live prey animals without allowing them to escape.

638
00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:47,520
Speaker 3: So the eel first bites the prey with its regular

639
00:36:47,600 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 3: outer jaws. These are the jaws you'd see, you know,

640
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 3: with the teeth. They have backward curving teeth, and those

641
00:36:53,480 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 3: the orientation of the teeth, the backward curving nature of

642
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:59,399
Speaker 3: them helps them keep the keep the prey in place

643
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 3: without allowing it to back out and escape. And then

644
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:05,400
Speaker 3: while the eel is holding the prey in place with

645
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 3: these outer jaws, the inner jaws reach up from out

646
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:13,280
Speaker 3: of the eel's throat to bite the animal and pull

647
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:17,200
Speaker 3: it further inside the mouth and down into the esophagus.

648
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:22,800
Speaker 3: So it's a two step capture and conveyance mechanism. Now

649
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:25,160
Speaker 3: just to stick with the more eel in a sidebar

650
00:37:25,200 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 3: for a second, I got interested in this. The evolutionary

651
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 3: reasoning for this is an interesting question. Apparently, most predatory

652
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:37,160
Speaker 3: fish rely in large part on suction to capture and

653
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 3: swallow their prey. So these other fish use their muscles

654
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:46,000
Speaker 3: to rapidly expand the mouth through the throat cavity, and

655
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:48,880
Speaker 3: so when it expands like this, it creates a negative

656
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:52,000
Speaker 3: pressure and it sucks in water from outside the mouth,

657
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:56,120
Speaker 3: including the prey in that water. And this suction mechanism

658
00:37:56,520 --> 00:37:59,239
Speaker 3: can either be the action that pulls the prey into

659
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 3: the mouth in the first place, or it can also

660
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:04,880
Speaker 3: be that after a predatory fish bites the prey with

661
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:08,880
Speaker 3: its jaws, the suction mechanism then pulls the prey farther

662
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:11,640
Speaker 3: into the mouth and down into the esophagus.

663
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:14,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, the scorpion fish is a great example of this,

664
00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:16,640
Speaker 1: and you can find some great video footage of this

665
00:38:16,760 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 1: where it's an ambush predator down there, hidden on the

666
00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: floor of the sea, and then as its prey comes by,

667
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,240
Speaker 1: it just kind of goes woomf and just rapidly sucks

668
00:38:27,239 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 1: it into its mouth and it's just gone like that.

669
00:38:30,120 --> 00:38:32,680
Speaker 1: And the scorpion fish is of course you'll note get

670
00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 1: very robust looking, kind of frog ish looking, and that

671
00:38:37,400 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 1: is key here too, Right.

672
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:41,720
Speaker 3: So I was reading a two thousand and seven National

673
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:46,000
Speaker 3: Science Foundation press release about research on moray eels published

674
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 3: in Nature that year, and the studies lead author, a

675
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 3: UC Davis scientist named Rita Meta, says that her study

676
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:57,360
Speaker 3: found because of the way more eel bodies are shaped,

677
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:01,960
Speaker 3: they're not able to generate much suction in the mouth cavity,

678
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:05,880
Speaker 3: so instead they have this secondary set of jaws in

679
00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 3: the throat. More eels are predators that often live in

680
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 3: coral reefs and they hide in little holes, gaps and

681
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:16,840
Speaker 3: niches in the reef, and so a possible reason given

682
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:20,960
Speaker 3: for this evolutionary difference why they have the feryngial jaws

683
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:25,360
Speaker 3: instead of the suction mechanism is that by having pharyngeal jaws,

684
00:39:25,680 --> 00:39:29,640
Speaker 3: they can attack and swallow relatively large prey in tight,

685
00:39:29,800 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 3: confined little spaces where there would not be enough room

686
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,480
Speaker 3: for them to expand the mouth or throat cavity to

687
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:37,280
Speaker 3: create suction.

688
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 1: Fascinating, it makes perfect sense.

689
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 3: So that's an interesting idea, But I also think it's

690
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:47,879
Speaker 3: an interesting parallel. You've got more eels and parrotfishes, which

691
00:39:47,880 --> 00:39:52,240
Speaker 3: are both coral reef dwellers and both have forryngial jaws,

692
00:39:52,280 --> 00:39:55,760
Speaker 3: but they use these inner jaws for totally different purposes. Again,

693
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:58,319
Speaker 3: in the eel, it's to pull the prey down the

694
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 3: throat once it's in the mouth. Parrotfishes are again not

695
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:05,919
Speaker 3: generally going to be chasing large live prey. They're mostly herbivores,

696
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,759
Speaker 3: and they eat by scraping or gouging the coral and

697
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:12,400
Speaker 3: getting stuff off the outside or in the layers underneath

698
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 3: the surface. This material that they scrape off of rocks

699
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 3: and coral, which mostly includes algae and other microbial organisms,

700
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 3: but also dead organic matter and coral skeleton bits, is

701
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:29,920
Speaker 3: pulled down into the pharyngeal teeth where to quote Wainwright

702
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:33,280
Speaker 3: and Price, it is quote mixed with mucus and ground

703
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:37,200
Speaker 3: to a fine slurry before being passed to the intestines.

704
00:40:37,760 --> 00:40:40,279
Speaker 3: And Rob I was just looking up some photos of

705
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 3: parrotfish phyngeal teeth, and oh boy, what what are we

706
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:48,760
Speaker 3: looking at here? These are some organs like they're clearly

707
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:53,000
Speaker 3: specialized for grinding down this mixture of hard and soft

708
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:57,520
Speaker 3: substances into a mucous, lubricated slurry. But some of these

709
00:40:57,880 --> 00:41:02,480
Speaker 3: pieces of parrotfish anatomy look like a car transmission gear

710
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 3: made out of bone. Others look like a bone pine cone.

711
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 3: It's it's interesting.

712
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:11,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does kind of look like interlocking

713
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:12,960
Speaker 1: gear teeth.

714
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy. So the digestive system extracts nutrients from

715
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:22,320
Speaker 3: this slurry, and then the parrotfish excretes what is left over,

716
00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 3: which is a big part of which is sand. Because

717
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 3: they're grinding down this coral. They bite off and scrape

718
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:32,920
Speaker 3: off pieces of coral, grind up that coral with the

719
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 3: nightmare throat teeth, and then they poop sand. So I've

720
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:39,880
Speaker 3: read it described that if you swim around with these buddies,

721
00:41:40,000 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 3: you will see them just like letting out kind of

722
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 3: poofs of sand or blasting clouds of sand into the

723
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:47,240
Speaker 3: water column.

724
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:50,600
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, yeah, Like they're just they're kind of constantly

725
00:41:50,640 --> 00:41:52,880
Speaker 1: doing it. I mean, it makes sense. They're grazing and

726
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:55,120
Speaker 1: they're kind of like goats, and they're kind of pooping

727
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 1: like goats, except it's coming out in this kind of

728
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:00,640
Speaker 1: like puff of sand. And I know you included some

729
00:42:00,640 --> 00:42:02,560
Speaker 1: photos here where it's like more than a puff. It

730
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 1: looks like they're crop dusting. It's quite impressive.

731
00:42:08,840 --> 00:42:13,839
Speaker 3: In fact, parrotfish poop so much sand. They are by

732
00:42:13,920 --> 00:42:19,160
Speaker 3: themselves a significant source of the bioroosion of coral and

733
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 3: a significant source of fine grained white sand in certain environments,

734
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:28,320
Speaker 3: as in, when you are walking along a beautiful white

735
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 3: sand beach on some tropical island, there is a very

736
00:42:31,680 --> 00:42:35,120
Speaker 3: good chance a large proportion of the sand under your

737
00:42:35,160 --> 00:42:37,040
Speaker 3: feet is parrotfish poop.

738
00:42:37,680 --> 00:42:41,840
Speaker 1: That's right. They are beach creation machines, and some of

739
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:45,080
Speaker 1: the estimates for individual sand creation are quite stunning.

740
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 3: Unbelievable to me. Actually, Like I had no idea about

741
00:42:47,719 --> 00:42:50,080
Speaker 3: this going in, So you might be thinking, yeah, how

742
00:42:50,160 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 3: much sand can these fish really poop? Again? It depends

743
00:42:53,239 --> 00:42:56,799
Speaker 3: where you are. There are obviously other sand creation mechanisms

744
00:42:56,800 --> 00:42:58,840
Speaker 3: in the sea, so this is not the only one.

745
00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:03,000
Speaker 3: But in some place parrotfish are responsible for a lot

746
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 3: of the sand that's there. One example I came across

747
00:43:06,239 --> 00:43:09,400
Speaker 3: is a paper in the journal Geology from twenty fifteen

748
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 3: by Perry at All called Linking reef Ecology to island building.

749
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 3: Parrotfish identified as major producers for island building sediment in

750
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:21,160
Speaker 3: the Maldives and so again this is by Perry at All,

751
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:26,080
Speaker 3: and so the Maldives Archipelago. This is an island chain

752
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:30,759
Speaker 3: that contains approximately twelve hundred individual reef islands, which are

753
00:43:30,800 --> 00:43:34,160
Speaker 3: islands that are made entirely out of sediment that is

754
00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 3: produced from underwater coral reefs. So the primary reason these

755
00:43:38,760 --> 00:43:42,360
Speaker 3: islands exist is that there are coral reef ecosystems on

756
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:46,280
Speaker 3: an underwater platform. Of course, the reefs themselves are mostly

757
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:50,640
Speaker 3: made up of the calcium carbonate skeletons of stony coral polyps,

758
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 3: and over time these coral reefs decompose into sediments like

759
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:59,800
Speaker 3: sand and gravel. Parry at All right quote all coral

760
00:43:59,800 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 3: reef islands are inherently dependent on their surrounding reef habitats

761
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:07,360
Speaker 3: not only because they provide the foundations for island development,

762
00:44:07,600 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 3: but also because they are the primary production sites for

763
00:44:10,440 --> 00:44:15,200
Speaker 3: the sediments necessary to sustain island building, growth and maintenance.

764
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:19,480
Speaker 3: So without sediments from the coral reefs decomposing into sand

765
00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 3: and gravel, you may not have an island here. But

766
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:26,839
Speaker 3: the authors of this study say before their research, how

767
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:30,400
Speaker 3: exactly that sediment is produced from the coral reef is

768
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:34,479
Speaker 3: poorly quantified, so they investigated they're looking at where does

769
00:44:34,560 --> 00:44:39,239
Speaker 3: the sediment come from, and they used the example of Vakaru,

770
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 3: which is an interior reef island in the Maldives. They

771
00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:46,799
Speaker 3: found that the area around this island produces about six

772
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:50,000
Speaker 3: hundred and eighty five thousand kilograms of sediment per year,

773
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:53,279
Speaker 3: about seventy five percent of which comes from a place

774
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:56,480
Speaker 3: they call the outer reef flat. So if you look

775
00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 3: at the island from above, you'll see the part that

776
00:44:58,400 --> 00:45:01,560
Speaker 3: rises above water and is forested and has plants and

777
00:45:01,560 --> 00:45:04,839
Speaker 3: all that, the beach surrounding it, and then there's sort

778
00:45:04,880 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 3: of an inner lagoon and then an inner reef ring

779
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:11,840
Speaker 3: and an outer reef ring. So most of the sediment

780
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:14,759
Speaker 3: is coming from that outer ring of coral reef environments

781
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:18,480
Speaker 3: in the water, about seventy five percent of the sediment

782
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:22,920
Speaker 3: comes from the outer reef flat. Now within that outer reef,

783
00:45:22,960 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 3: which creates about seventy five percent of the island's yearly

784
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:29,160
Speaker 3: supply of new sand, the author's discovered that more than

785
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 3: eighty five percent of the sand is produced by parrotfish.

786
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 3: And if you're curious what the second place was. The

787
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,480
Speaker 3: runner up producer of reef sand in a distant second

788
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:42,759
Speaker 3: place at about eight point eight percent in the outer

789
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:47,680
Speaker 3: reef is a type of macroalgy called halimata, which makes

790
00:45:47,719 --> 00:45:51,120
Speaker 3: like calcified body parts and then those get shed and

791
00:45:51,160 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 3: eventually decompose a breakdown into sand. But almost all of

792
00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 3: it is coming from what the parrotfish excrete. So parrotfish

793
00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:04,600
Speaker 3: are continually defecating this island into existence, and they remain

794
00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:08,680
Speaker 3: critical for maintaining its existence the author's right quote. The

795
00:46:08,760 --> 00:46:12,440
Speaker 3: generation of sediments suitable for maintaining this reef island is

796
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 3: thus critically dependent on a narrow zone of high productivity reef,

797
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:20,320
Speaker 3: but most especially on the maintenance of healthy parrotfish populations

798
00:46:20,719 --> 00:46:25,000
Speaker 3: that can convert reef framework to sand grade sediment, and

799
00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:29,840
Speaker 3: so the parrotfish are crucial for the health of island

800
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:32,839
Speaker 3: environments like this. But this is not just true of

801
00:46:32,840 --> 00:46:36,000
Speaker 3: these tiny coral reef islands that are generated from coral

802
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 3: reef sediments, even on many other coasts and larger islands,

803
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 3: where the island itself might be, you know, have other

804
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 3: geological explanations, like it's not just sand rising out of

805
00:46:44,920 --> 00:46:47,319
Speaker 3: the water. It might be a volcanic island or the

806
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 3: coast of a continent or something. In places where there

807
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:55,000
Speaker 3: are coral reefs, beaches in many cases are still largely

808
00:46:55,080 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 3: parrotfish lavatory constructions. A figure sighted in several reputable looking sources,

809
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:04,080
Speaker 3: though I couldn't find the exact origin of it, is

810
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:07,360
Speaker 3: that around seventy percent of the sand on the White

811
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 3: Sandy Beaches of Hawaii is parrotfish excretion. It's hard to imagine,

812
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:15,520
Speaker 3: like you're walking on a beach or even on a

813
00:47:15,560 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 3: whole island, and to imagine it having a biological fish

814
00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 3: digestive system origin of this kind.

815
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:27,440
Speaker 1: I know, it's just it's crazy. It's one of those

816
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 1: mind blowing facts though that again, it gets pointed out

817
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:35,240
Speaker 1: a lot when you are going to these places and snorkeling,

818
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 1: it becomes easy to sort of take for granted and

819
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:39,399
Speaker 1: you have to sort of remind yourself. Then when you're

820
00:47:39,400 --> 00:47:41,640
Speaker 1: walking on the beach, it's like, no, for real, all

821
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:44,920
Speaker 1: this sand and it's still kind of you know, beggars

822
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:45,640
Speaker 1: the imagination.

823
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:57,959
Speaker 3: Yeah. Now, another thing that's interesting is that, of course

824
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,920
Speaker 3: we know now that parrotfishes are very important for the

825
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:04,279
Speaker 3: for creating the sand that in some cases makes it

826
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:06,840
Speaker 3: possible to have an island and like these reef island

827
00:48:06,920 --> 00:48:12,160
Speaker 3: environments or helps replenish the beaches. But you might think,

828
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:15,240
Speaker 3: on the other hand, well, the parrotfishes are the enemy

829
00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:18,680
Speaker 3: of the coral reefs though, because they're preying on, you know,

830
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:21,960
Speaker 3: the coral. They're like scrape in the coral. In fact,

831
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:26,360
Speaker 3: it is thought that parrotfishes help protect coral reefs because

832
00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:29,240
Speaker 3: as they're going along taking bites out of the barrel

833
00:48:29,600 --> 00:48:32,000
Speaker 3: coral reefs, they might be leaving scars in them, biting

834
00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 3: pieces off, taking chunks out, But by grazing in this way,

835
00:48:37,560 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 3: they prevent the reefs from becoming overgrown by things like

836
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:46,640
Speaker 3: algae and other encrusting invertebrates like sponges and stuff. So

837
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:49,360
Speaker 3: they may eat some coral as they munch along, but

838
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 3: overall they keep the coral reefs healthy.

839
00:48:52,880 --> 00:48:56,719
Speaker 1: That's right. This is a very important fact concerning like

840
00:48:56,840 --> 00:49:01,560
Speaker 1: necessary conservation for parrotfish because and it goes beyond that too,

841
00:49:01,640 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 1: Like I was reading that by constantly eating algae off

842
00:49:06,680 --> 00:49:10,320
Speaker 1: the coral. Again, they're constantly in doing this cleaning the coral,

843
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 1: creating new surfaces on the coral. And this is where

844
00:49:13,120 --> 00:49:17,320
Speaker 1: baby corals can attach and grow, so that's in play.

845
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:20,640
Speaker 1: And on top of this, yeah, they're keeping like seaweed,

846
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:23,759
Speaker 1: which remember is a microalgae. They're keeping seaweed growth in check.

847
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 1: And this is apparently one of the prime results of

848
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:31,000
Speaker 1: parrotfish overfishing in parts of the Caribbean and the Pacific

849
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:36,319
Speaker 1: seaweed overgrowth. And I was even reading this is from

850
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:40,839
Speaker 1: Kramer at all. In twenty seventeen's prehistorical and historical declines

851
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:45,360
Speaker 1: in Caribbean coral reef accretion rates driven by loss of parrotfish.

852
00:49:45,360 --> 00:49:48,760
Speaker 1: The authors here say that we see this connection proven

853
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:53,200
Speaker 1: out in sediment fossils. There's a strong observable connection between

854
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:57,600
Speaker 1: declines and coral accretion rates and parrotfish abundance. So and

855
00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:01,160
Speaker 1: it's more evidence that we need to conserve parrotfish in

856
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:04,360
Speaker 1: order to help prevent coral reef environments from becoming quote,

857
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:09,439
Speaker 1: algael dominated habitats. And yeah, so this is worth keeping

858
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 1: in mind. If you're traveling somewhere and parrotfish is on

859
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 1: the menu, it's advisable to eat something else. And indeed,

860
00:50:17,440 --> 00:50:19,800
Speaker 1: there are a number of efforts and protections in places

861
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:23,520
Speaker 1: around the world to help protect these populations like the

862
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:27,160
Speaker 1: parrotfish are a vital part of those coral environments which

863
00:50:27,160 --> 00:50:29,759
Speaker 1: are already threatened in a number of ways. This is

864
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:33,080
Speaker 1: one that we can we can we can do a

865
00:50:33,080 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 1: lot to help coral reefs, but not eating parrotfish is

866
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:40,520
Speaker 1: perhaps even more accessible than some of the things we

867
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:42,080
Speaker 1: need to do to protect them.

868
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:44,640
Speaker 3: Now, there's one more brief thing I wanted to get

869
00:50:44,680 --> 00:50:47,360
Speaker 3: into before we wrap up part one here, and that

870
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:50,520
Speaker 3: is about the material makeup of parrotfish teeth. I was

871
00:50:50,560 --> 00:50:55,200
Speaker 3: reading about this in a press release for the Lawrence

872
00:50:55,239 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 3: Berkeley National Laboratory. This was published in twenty seventeen. It's

873
00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 3: called X raysor Reveal the Biting Truth about Parrotfish Teeth

874
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:05,919
Speaker 3: by Glenn Roberts, Junior. And so this is talking about

875
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 3: research conducted at the Berkeley Lab, which used X rays

876
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:14,440
Speaker 3: to examine parrotfish teeth and better understand what makes them

877
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:18,040
Speaker 3: so resilient in the face of essentially scraping, biting, and

878
00:51:18,120 --> 00:51:20,879
Speaker 3: chewing on rocks all day. You know, on these these

879
00:51:20,920 --> 00:51:24,400
Speaker 3: coral skeletons are are not soft, you know, they're hard

880
00:51:24,440 --> 00:51:28,440
Speaker 3: calcium carbonate, and they're just these teeth are relentlessly munching.

881
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:32,320
Speaker 3: So the particular parrotfish species in question was the steep

882
00:51:32,360 --> 00:51:36,640
Speaker 3: head parrotfish also known as the blunt head parrotfish scientific

883
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:42,280
Speaker 3: name Chlorurus micro rhinos. And in this analysis, the researchers

884
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:46,400
Speaker 3: found that the resilience of prot parrotfish teeth was due

885
00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 3: to this woven microstructure of minerals in the enameloid of

886
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:55,680
Speaker 3: the teeth, and the article compares it in fact in

887
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:59,920
Speaker 3: structure to chain mail, which I thought was interesting. So this,

888
00:52:00,000 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 3: this microstructure creates a tooth the material that is incredibly

889
00:52:04,600 --> 00:52:07,640
Speaker 3: hard at the biting surface. The article points out that

890
00:52:07,680 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 3: the hardness of the biting surface is about five hundred

891
00:52:11,080 --> 00:52:14,359
Speaker 3: and thirty tons of pressure per square inch and they

892
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:19,600
Speaker 3: compare this to the weight of eighty eight African elephants

893
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:24,560
Speaker 3: on a single square inch of space. Now that microstructure

894
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 3: of the teeth fits into a larger structure, the sort

895
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:30,279
Speaker 3: of morphology of the jaw, which is that these parrotfish

896
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:35,200
Speaker 3: have like fifteen rows of teeth totaling about one thousand teeth,

897
00:52:35,239 --> 00:52:39,279
Speaker 3: all fused together, biologically glued or cemented together into this

898
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:44,000
Speaker 3: single beak like structure, and the stiffness of the underlying

899
00:52:44,040 --> 00:52:47,759
Speaker 3: mineral crystals increases as it goes toward the tip the

900
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:51,480
Speaker 3: biting surface. And the article quotes one of the researchers

901
00:52:51,520 --> 00:52:55,840
Speaker 3: involved named PUPA. Gilbert, who is a professor in the

902
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:59,720
Speaker 3: physics department at the University of Wisconsin Madison, who says, quote,

903
00:53:00,120 --> 00:53:03,480
Speaker 3: fish teeth are the coolest biominerals of all. They are

904
00:53:03,520 --> 00:53:06,560
Speaker 3: the stiffest, among the hardest, and the most resistant to

905
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:11,000
Speaker 3: fracture and to abrasion ever measured. And so given the

906
00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:15,920
Speaker 3: incredible material qualities of these parrotfish teeth and beaks, researchers

907
00:53:15,920 --> 00:53:20,040
Speaker 3: are looking into ways that the woven crystals of parrotfish

908
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:22,920
Speaker 3: teeth might be used as an inspiration for human engineering,

909
00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:26,520
Speaker 3: a design pattern that could be reproduced in synthetic materials

910
00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:28,759
Speaker 3: to create a tougher, more resilient product.

911
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:32,040
Speaker 1: Now, just a couple of notes about these teeth for one.

912
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:34,760
Speaker 1: On one hand, to come back to the alien xenomorph.

913
00:53:34,880 --> 00:53:37,560
Speaker 1: You know, it is interesting that they're sometimes described, at

914
00:53:37,640 --> 00:53:39,920
Speaker 1: least for some of the morphs, as possessing metal teeth,

915
00:53:40,520 --> 00:53:43,440
Speaker 1: and here we have the parrotfish, whose teeth are sometimes

916
00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:47,680
Speaker 1: described as being stronger than many metals metals, so it's

917
00:53:47,760 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 1: kind of interesting comparison there. Also, you know, inevitably there

918
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:54,319
Speaker 1: is the question in the same way that we can't

919
00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:58,120
Speaker 1: look at a creature that is biting coral and you know,

920
00:53:58,200 --> 00:54:01,239
Speaker 1: think about our own teeth biting coral, we also can't

921
00:54:01,280 --> 00:54:03,840
Speaker 1: help but look at a creature with interesting teeth and

922
00:54:03,920 --> 00:54:06,879
Speaker 1: wonder what happens if I get bitten by one of these?

923
00:54:08,680 --> 00:54:11,560
Speaker 1: So I mean to be clear, you know, humans are

924
00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:15,120
Speaker 1: not on the menu for the parrotfish. There are accounts

925
00:54:15,120 --> 00:54:19,560
Speaker 1: of parrotfish rarely biting humans, though it does seem very rare,

926
00:54:20,120 --> 00:54:22,279
Speaker 1: and the incidents I was looking at, most of them

927
00:54:22,320 --> 00:54:25,080
Speaker 1: seem to be related to incidents with fishermen who were

928
00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:28,160
Speaker 1: actively harvesting them or you know, engaging with a trap

929
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:34,560
Speaker 1: or something. But they have bitten humans before, so it

930
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 1: can happen. But I mean that can be said of

931
00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:39,560
Speaker 1: a lot of creatures, like you know, a horse can

932
00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:39,960
Speaker 1: bite you.

933
00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:42,959
Speaker 3: Oh lord, why did I google this? But I did?

934
00:54:43,080 --> 00:54:46,040
Speaker 1: Oh did you just google? You may have googled one

935
00:54:46,040 --> 00:54:46,879
Speaker 1: that comes up a lot.

936
00:54:47,239 --> 00:54:51,160
Speaker 3: Came across a news article that claims to be a

937
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:54,680
Speaker 3: photo of a wound from somebody who was bitten by

938
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:58,960
Speaker 3: a parrotfish, and it looks it's grotesque. Listeners be warned.

939
00:55:00,640 --> 00:55:03,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a particular story that comes up in search

940
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:06,120
Speaker 1: involving a fisherman, that is that was bitten in a

941
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:10,799
Speaker 1: delicate area by one of these these parrotfish. So uh yeah,

942
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:14,640
Speaker 1: I you know, weighed carefully if you decide to pursue these,

943
00:55:14,760 --> 00:55:17,680
Speaker 1: uh these stories for yourself. But yeah, it can happen,

944
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:21,760
Speaker 1: it has happened, but uh, these are generally not considered

945
00:55:21,960 --> 00:55:25,680
Speaker 1: you know, risky fish, and people snorkel around them almost

946
00:55:25,800 --> 00:55:27,719
Speaker 1: constantly without issue.

947
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:30,319
Speaker 3: They're not looking to bite you. They're they're just trying

948
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:32,040
Speaker 3: to go about their business. They're scraping.

949
00:55:32,080 --> 00:55:35,040
Speaker 1: They're buzz't like bees, they have so much coral to scrape,

950
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:39,960
Speaker 1: Like biting you takes time away from vital coral scraping time,

951
00:55:41,640 --> 00:55:43,480
Speaker 1: all right, well, we're gonna go and close up this

952
00:55:43,520 --> 00:55:47,280
Speaker 1: episode now, but we actually have even more exciting content

953
00:55:47,360 --> 00:55:53,920
Speaker 1: to cover about the parrotfish we didn't. We briefly mentioned their, their, their,

954
00:55:53,920 --> 00:55:56,560
Speaker 1: their sex changing ability, so we're going to get into

955
00:55:56,640 --> 00:55:59,000
Speaker 1: that for sure. Uh. There's also some other stuff that

956
00:55:59,040 --> 00:56:01,560
Speaker 1: will and I think in ways get us even closer

957
00:56:01,560 --> 00:56:03,120
Speaker 1: to that xenomorpha area again.

958
00:56:03,640 --> 00:56:07,080
Speaker 3: So yeah, we're gonna have some cocoonings, some all kinds

959
00:56:07,120 --> 00:56:08,560
Speaker 3: of good stuff to get into next time.

960
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:11,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so tune in for that. In the meantime,

961
00:56:11,800 --> 00:56:13,879
Speaker 1: I love to hear from anyone else out there who

962
00:56:13,920 --> 00:56:19,360
Speaker 1: has personal experience being around parrotfish. You know, we're not

963
00:56:19,480 --> 00:56:22,680
Speaker 1: encouraging anyone to actively seek out and eat parrotfish, but

964
00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:25,719
Speaker 1: you know, it has been a tradition of cuisines. So

965
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:28,279
Speaker 1: if you would like to ride in and share your

966
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:32,839
Speaker 1: culinary experience with parrotfish, If you have tasted a parrotfish liver, yes,

967
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:35,040
Speaker 1: we would like to know what that is like that

968
00:56:36,520 --> 00:56:38,960
Speaker 1: We just would like to know. We'd like to know

969
00:56:38,960 --> 00:56:42,279
Speaker 1: what the Romans were into when they were consuming their

970
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:44,800
Speaker 1: parrot fish meals. So write in. It's all fair game

971
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:47,080
Speaker 1: as always, you know, if you have. When you do

972
00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:49,560
Speaker 1: write into us, you can always flag something is and

973
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:51,279
Speaker 1: say hey, don't use my name on this, I want

974
00:56:51,280 --> 00:56:53,759
Speaker 1: it to be anonymous. Or you can say hey, this

975
00:56:53,840 --> 00:56:57,160
Speaker 1: is information for you, but don't actually read this. That's

976
00:56:57,160 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 1: fair as well. Just write in. We would love to

977
00:56:59,560 --> 00:57:02,120
Speaker 1: hear from you. Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow

978
00:57:02,160 --> 00:57:04,319
Speaker 1: Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with

979
00:57:04,360 --> 00:57:07,360
Speaker 1: core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, listener mail on Mondays,

980
00:57:07,560 --> 00:57:10,120
Speaker 1: short form episode on Wednesdays, and on Fridays. We set

981
00:57:10,160 --> 00:57:12,120
Speaker 1: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird

982
00:57:12,160 --> 00:57:13,680
Speaker 1: film on Weird House Cinema.

983
00:57:13,880 --> 00:57:17,600
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

984
00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:19,360
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

985
00:57:19,360 --> 00:57:21,920
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

986
00:57:21,920 --> 00:57:23,960
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

987
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:26,880
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

988
00:57:26,920 --> 00:57:35,680
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

989
00:57:35,760 --> 00:57:38,680
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

990
00:57:38,760 --> 00:57:41,560
Speaker 2: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

991
00:57:41,720 --> 00:58:00,760
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