WEBVTT - Hunters of the Dark Ocean, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:15.400 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:16.520 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:19.400 And I am Joe McCormick. And today on Stuff to 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:21.520 Blow Your Mind, we're going to be starting a discussion 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.639 about animal life in the deepest parts of the ocean, 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:30.240 specifically the deep ocean's predators, looking at what it takes 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:33.879 to be an active hunter in the deep. And I 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:36.960 thought a good place to start off with this series 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:40.320 would be the story that inspired me to look at 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:44.279 this topic, and that was the discovery last year of 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:49.639 a new species known as Delsabella common chaka. You may 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:52.600 have seen stories about this. It was covered in some 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:57.800 popular press, but the finding was described in a November 0:00:58.000 --> 0:01:01.680 twenty twenty four paper published in the journal Systematics and 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:09.120 Biodiversity by Johanna Weston, Carolina Gonzales, Reuben Escribano, and Osvaldo Uloa, 0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:14.000 and the paper was called a new large predator Amphibida 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:19.480 useyrite hidden at Haitl depths of the Atacama Trench. Now, 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:21.399 one of the things that really got my attention when 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:24.320 I was first reading about this was simply what this 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.080 animal looks like. We'll get to a physical description of 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.440 it in just a minute. But the other thing that 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:33.640 I thought was really interesting is the ecological question how 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:37.759 an animal like this makes its living in such an environment, 0:01:37.800 --> 0:01:40.960 what it takes to be a predator so far down 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.400 in the ocean. And we'll be continuing to explore that 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:46.640 question as we as we move on in the series. 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:51.240 So the authors of this paper included scientists affiliated with 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.840 the Woodshole Oceanographic Institute in the United States and the 0:01:56.320 --> 0:02:01.440 Instituto millenniody Oceanographia, which is based at the Universidad des 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:05.200 Concepcion in Chile. Now, again, this paper was marking the 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.960 discovery of a new species of oceanic predator, and the 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:13.960 name they gave to the new predator was del Sibella Kemanchaka. 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.079 And this is interesting for a number of reasons. I'll 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:19.560 do a full etymology in just a minute here, but 0:02:19.760 --> 0:02:25.079 especially I wanted to draw attention to the species name Kemanchaka, 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:29.280 which I saw in several sources was derived from an 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:32.520 Andean language word, a word apparently in several of the 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:37.760 Indian languages meaning darkness, but apparently it has multiple meanings. 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:42.120 So kemanchaka also refers, according to the authors of this paper, 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:46.600 to quote a dense, low coastal fog that forms by 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:51.519 the Atacama Desert and moves inland. Kamanchakas was also the 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:54.720 name given to some of the littoral inhabitants of this 0:02:54.840 --> 0:03:00.240 desertic region, so mysterious swirling ideas. There a name that 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:04.600 means fog, a kind of fog that rolls in, rolls 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:08.560 in around the desert. And then also darkness itself. Now 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:12.399 why would the species be named darkness, Well, it's because 0:03:12.760 --> 0:03:15.840 Dulcibella kim and Chaka was discovered at a depth of 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:20.400 almost eight thousand meters in a place called the Atacama Trench. 0:03:20.639 --> 0:03:24.720 This is a deep ocean trench basically following the contour 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:28.760 off the coast of South America from perud Icile and 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.760 it's roughly one hundred and sixty kilometers or about one 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.320 hundred miles off shore for most of its length. And 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:38.200 as we will probably continue to come back to in 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:42.480 this series, there are a lot of interesting things about 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.680 this sort of environment. Deep ocean trenches, sometimes called the 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:53.120 Hadle zone, can function kind of like islands do in biogeography. 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:58.720 They create a pocket of environmental conditions surrounded on all 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.600 sides by much different conditions where the ocean is less 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.160 deep all around them. Unless the pressure is different, the 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:09.840 temperature is different. And thus in these in these deep 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:13.760 deep zones surrounded by the less deep deep zones, they 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:20.120 can evolve unique isolated organisms and biological relationships. So ocean 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:24.640 trenches are in many ways like islands inverted, but with 0:04:24.920 --> 0:04:29.440 unique features. For example, the kind of ecosystem that's possible 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:32.479 in a deep ocean trench is based in part on 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.159 what happens in the ocean above it, like what kind 0:04:36.200 --> 0:04:40.560 of biological productivity takes place up there, and by consequence, 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:45.080 what kind and quantities of goodies rain down into the 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.240 trench from above. I was thinking about it, and you 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:52.599 could almost kind of compare that environmental factor to something 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:57.640 like soil quality or water conditions on a terrestrial island environment. 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:02.320 Yeah. Yeah, often refer to does the marine snow? I 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:05.600 think of it as kind of like the gray rainfall 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:10.560 of little pieces of flesh. 0:05:09.320 --> 0:05:13.320 The blessed rot that sustains us all. And in addition 0:05:13.360 --> 0:05:17.920 to these interesting general qualities that the Autocoma Trench itself 0:05:18.000 --> 0:05:21.640 is especially interesting and unique because of its relative isolation 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:25.960 from other deep ocean trenches. So to read from the 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.040 paper here, the authors say, quote the Hatel zone, or 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:32.040 the deepest forty five percent of the ocean from six 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:37.480 thousand to eleven thousand meters, has high levels of undiscovered biodiversity. 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:41.919 Most Hatel features are trenches formed at the subduction zone 0:05:41.960 --> 0:05:45.800 between tectonic plates and shaped by a unique suite of 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:50.640 extrinsic and intrinsic factors. The Autocoma Trench, the southern sector 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.560 of the Peru Chile Trench, is one of the most 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:59.080 geographically isolated Hatel features and is situated below eutrophic surface 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:03.360 waters and cara rised by high sediment loads. The Atakoma 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.760 Trench is known to host a highly distinctive faunel community 0:06:07.080 --> 0:06:12.080 driven by a combination of these isolating factors. So it's 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.039 not just the things that are true of these these 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:19.159 deep trench environments, the Hatel zones around the world, but 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.000 also that there's something kind of special about this one, 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:26.320 that it's especially isolated, that it's got these productive waters 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:29.279 above it, and so it gives rise to a lot 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:32.280 of unique and fascinating biology. 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:36.479 Kind of a Galapagos of the deep, perhaps to play 0:06:36.480 --> 0:06:37.840 with that island comparison. 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:40.520 Now, just a side note here because it connected to 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:43.640 something we've talked about before. The authors give a nod 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:47.599 to important early work done in characterizing hadel fauna in 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:52.120 the nineteen sixties by expeditions of the First of all, 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:55.640 they mentioned the RV academic Corchetov, but then they also 0:06:55.760 --> 0:07:00.640 mentioned the r V el Tanan. Yeah, we talked about 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:05.599 some deep otion surveys by the Eltannan in a series 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:09.920 we did about sort of anomalous imagery taken underwater that 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:12.880 people ended up saying had to be UFOs or some 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.040 kind of technology from the future or Atlantis or anything 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:18.920 like that. In this case, the thing was the el 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:22.080 tannin quote antenna. Many people have said, oh, yeah, this 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:24.800 has to be a piece of alien technology because it 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.480 looks like a radar array with these aerials coming up. 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:31.480 In fact, it is almost definitely a carnivorous sponge. 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:35.640 Yeah, deep sea carnivorous sponge. Yeah. So that's a fun 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:37.160 episode to go back and listen to if you want 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:41.840 to lean more into this weird world of misinterpretation of 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:43.600 confusing visual data. 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:46.880 So coming back to this newly discovered species, the new 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:52.440 species is an amphipod now amphipods are animals belonging to 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:57.040 the order Amphipida, which are crustaceans found in both marine 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:02.840 and freshwater environments, usually described as having laterally compressed bodies, 0:08:02.920 --> 0:08:05.120 so you can think of them as taller than they 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.000 are wide, maybe like somebody put them in a vice 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:11.520 and squeeze their sides in. I've seen a number of 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:15.920 sources describe amphipods as looking shrimp like, and that does 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.880 describe some of them. Confusingly, shrimp are not amphipods, but 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.600 a lot of apipods do look shrimp like, though not 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.240 all of them. Some of them look more like weird 0:08:25.360 --> 0:08:29.640 fantasy insects. For example, just one I found that I 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:32.000 thought was very visually striking. If you want a good 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:36.800 little freak out, look up the amphipod genus Epimeria epi 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.800 me r Ia with a few of the guys in 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.720 this genus. I get strong notes of the toxic jungle 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:44.160 from NAUSICAA. 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.640 Absolutely, and this one image that you shared in our 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:52.440 outline here, in particular, I found extra grotesque because if 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.320 I didn't know better, I would dismiss this image as 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:59.560 that sort of horrifying AI generated monster imagery that you 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.000 see where are these days? You know, the sort of 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:05.480 thing that is in and of itself unnerving and disturbing. 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:09.920 But I've also swiftly conditioned myself to abhor them all 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:11.920 the more because I know they're not the product of 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:14.920 a human mind or a human imagination. So just looking 0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:18.559 at this image makes my stomach churn in weird ways, 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:21.199 and I end up not really knowing how I feel 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.600 about it. But of course this is not an AI 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:28.240 generated monstrosity. This isn't an actual denizen of the natural world. 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:31.400 I wonder if everybody has the same experience I do, 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.680 so I don't. Of course, I don't personally use Facebook 0:09:34.720 --> 0:09:38.360 these days, but I still have an account specifically to 0:09:38.440 --> 0:09:42.480 check our work, you know, our work page every now 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:45.040 and then, and every time I log in there, literally 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:48.920 my entire news feed on there is just like AI 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:52.559 generated fake images of things and saying like new beasts 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.200 discovered in whatever, And you know, it's almost like they're 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:58.000 like they're trying to trick us into doing an episode 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:01.800 on this new beast discovered as so AI garbage. That's 0:10:01.920 --> 0:10:04.679 like a fake image of some monster in a jungle. 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:07.840 Yeah, yeah, I don't like it. 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:11.640 I mean, in a way. I appreciate it because it's 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:15.320 so distasteful. I'm not even tempted to scroll the news 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:18.640 feed for a few seconds. I just immediately navigate away. 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:21.760 But yeah, there's currently a sameness to so much of it, 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:24.880 and I guess I should appreciate that sameness. Swile it's 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:27.240 still there. If it gets harder to tell them, even 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:31.040 harder to classify them and categorize them as AI generated things, 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.720 then we're even We're in even more troubling waters. 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:38.320 Yeah, but back to real troubling waters, right. 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:38.520 So. 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:42.719 Amphipods can be found in all over the place, many habitats. 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:46.120 They take many different forms. It seems the majority of 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:51.360 amphipods are scavengers. They eat decomposing organisms or whatever little 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:55.800 bits of organic detritis they come across. The new species 0:10:55.840 --> 0:11:00.439 described in this paper, however, is an active predator. According 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:04.120 to the authors, it is the first large active predator 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.880 ever found this deep in the Atacoma Trench. Again, it 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:11.880 was the individuals collected here. We're at like seventy nine 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:16.480 hundred meters down. All the other amphipods previously identified in 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:20.920 this area have been scavengers. Though predatory amphipods have been 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.840 found in other ocean trenches on Earth. So the specimens 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.800 here were collected by a deep sea vehicle operated by 0:11:27.920 --> 0:11:32.440 Chile's Integrated Deep Ocean Observing System in twenty twenty three, 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:35.160 there was like a they call it like a lander vehicle. 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:36.800 So it's like a thing that can go down and 0:11:36.880 --> 0:11:40.839 collect collect specimens, collect baited traps and things like that. 0:11:41.640 --> 0:11:46.040 And according to morphological and genetic analysis, this new predator 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:48.880 is not only a newly discovered species, but a newly 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.439 discovered genus. And here's where I wanted to get back 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.880 to both the etymology of the genus and species name, 0:11:56.240 --> 0:12:00.120 but to a kind of interesting side note on taxonomic frustration. 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.160 So the authors originally tried to give this animal the 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:08.520 genus name Dulcinea, which is spelled d u l c 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.680 i n e A Dulcinea, after the name of a 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:13.560 character from don Quixote. 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:18.640 Yes, yes, Robert Doolay would have loved this, this choice 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:22.880 in genus name because the lyrics to don Quixote the 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:27.199 man a Lamacha musical. Rather, it goes like, you know, Dulcinea, dulcinea, 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.040 I see heaven when I see the Dulcinea. 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:33.320 Okay, I don't know that one. It's a great musical, Okay, 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:36.280 I'll look it up. I've heard of it before, obviously, 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:38.480 but yeah, never, I've never seen it or listen. But 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:42.760 this this apparently, and so like trying to name this 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:47.640 genus after don Quixote was apparently following a pre existing 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:52.400 convention by which several other genera of deep sea amphipods 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:56.680 were named after characters from Servantes. So I've never read 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.920 don Quixote myself, so I didn't know who this character was, 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.360 and I was curious to look it up. The character 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:07.520 is called Dulcinea del Toboso and is a character that 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:12.040 is fictional or maybe better to say, imaginary, within the 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:16.040 narrative of the novel. So, the character don Quixote is, 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:18.480 you know, like a knight errant, and he thinks he 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:22.040 must have a lady to serve. So the way I 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.480 read it summarized is that he looks at a peasant 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:26.960 girl and then he kind of imagines a version of 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:31.000 her as this high born princess who is impossibly perfect 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.800 and worthy of his lance in every way, and so 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:38.599 he thinks of her as the ultimate all time milady. 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:43.680 And this character in his head he names Dulcinea del toboso. 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.600 Dulcinea derived from like dulce, the Latin word for sweet, 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:52.800 So this name would mean a superlative sweetness. And so, 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:55.520 together with what I already mentioned about the species name 0:13:55.600 --> 0:14:00.680 cumunchaka meaning darkness, darkness in several indigenous and in languages, 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:05.800 this predatory amphipod's name basically means sweet darkness. It's like 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:09.640 the name of a necromancer's pet. And so this is 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:13.080 just even the name Dulcinea darkness. That sounds pretty great. 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:17.080 That's got some great noir vibes to it. Oh yeah, 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:20.360 it's like that saccharin goth thing. There's a lot of that, 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:23.520 a lot of that going on. And so this is 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:25.960 still basically what the animal is named. But remember I 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.440 was gonna mention taxonomic frustrations. So they were trying to 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.560 name the genus Dulcinea, but it turned out that name 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:36.480 had already been assigned to a genus of Coleoptera, I 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.960 mean beatles, a genus of beetles a long time ago, 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:42.760 I think over one hundred years ago. I don't even 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:44.960 know if that genus name is even used anymore, but 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:47.440 it had been assigned sometime in the past, and according 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:52.080 to the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, you cannot reuse names, 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:54.840 so they had to change the name. They changed it 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:59.360 to Dulcibella, also a nickname derived from the word for 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:04.080 sweet or weakness, also basically meaning milady. And so now 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.520 we end up with dulcibella common chaka. Still, I think 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:09.400 you can still say sweet darkness. 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:12.120 By the way, some of you might have noticed that 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:16.400 I said dulcinea earlier and not dulcinea. In the musical, 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:22.120 they say dulcinea, so I believe dulcinea is correct. So 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.520 I don't know. This is not a show that is 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:27.960 exclusively about musicals, though, so those are you more familiar 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:30.600 with Mana la mancha, perhaps you can write it about it. 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.600 I think we also are bound to be forgiving of 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:35.600 pronunciation differences. 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:39.440 I think Peter O'Toole sings it dulcinea in the nineteen 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:43.280 seventy two adaptation of the musical. But we're not talking 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:45.880 about Peter o'tool We're talking about the deep ocean. 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:48.440 Right, So I think it's finally time to talk about 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:53.680 the physical form of this creature. So Rob, I've attached 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:56.880 a photo for you to look at in the outline here. Again, 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.080 folks at home, if you want to look it up yourselves, 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:04.600 you can google Dulcabella kamon Chaka. The first thing I 0:16:04.680 --> 0:16:07.920 have to acknowledge is what many other articles have already 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:12.280 pointed out. There is some significant overlap with the appearance 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:14.760 of the face hugger from Alien. Not so much in 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:17.960 body form, it's not shaped like a face hugger, but 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:23.200 in color and texture. I think we're almost perfectly there. 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:28.800 The pale white and off white, slimy, bumpy surface in 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.680 some places looks kind of like a shrimp covered in 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:36.080 white goo. In other places looks like a translucent white 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.880 skin stretched over a bumpy landscape of I got some 0:16:40.000 --> 0:16:43.120 things in there that look like vertebrae, little leg joints 0:16:43.120 --> 0:16:46.240 and knobs that were just made to wriggle and writhe. 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:51.840 It is monstrously face huggery in multiple ways, not in 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:53.960 body shape, but otherwise. Yes. 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:59.000 The texture, the apparent texture here reminds me of various 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.520 images I've seen of like three D printed scaffolding for 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:06.359 like vatgrown organs, and like you know, it has that 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:08.360 kind of appear. It's kind of like if you three 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:10.320 D printed a shrimp and you really didn't want to 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:14.159 eat it. It also kind of has a zoidberg ye 0:17:14.200 --> 0:17:16.560 look to it, with its various mouth parts. It looks 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:22.159 almost like it has like cuthulhuoid tentacles or something, So 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.040 it has a real kind of sinister vibe. 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:28.080 I have to say. Now, there's another thing that is 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:30.560 both creepy and funny about it, which is not so 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:34.720 much about the organism itself, but about how I misunderstood 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.600 it when I was first looking at this picture. Because 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.920 one way I would have initially described this is it's 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:45.120 like a cavefish xenomor of shrimp dog with a broom 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:49.439 for a face. Because there is what I first interpreted 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:53.720 to be like a huge, long, bristly white beard shooting 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:57.080 straight out of the animal's head. But here's the thing 0:17:57.600 --> 0:17:59.560 on the right side of the image. There, rob that 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:03.840 is not the animal's head. I was looking at it backwards. 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:07.439 The head is on the left. So an expert, you know, 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:11.040 somebody who knows amphipod biology, probably would not have made 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:13.639 this mistake. But just to add to the list of 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:17.600 weird things about it for the lay observer, the backside 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.160 doubles as a kind of ghostly veiled face and again 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:23.679 a little, you said, Cathu Lewy. I can see that 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:26.800 because the way you know, mind flavors are rendered with 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.600 like all the tentacles coming out of the face. When 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.439 you look at its backside as its head, which really 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:36.360 I think many observers would be strongly inclined to do, 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.639 it's got all this stuff coming out of the front 0:18:39.680 --> 0:18:41.080 and that that's actually the back. 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:42.160 Oh wow. 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:42.520 Yeah. 0:18:42.560 --> 0:18:44.960 So it's even weirder when you look at it the 0:18:45.000 --> 0:18:48.359 right way around because its head is up here, not 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:49.399 down there. Wow. 0:18:50.040 --> 0:18:52.359 So this specimen we're looking at here is a little 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:56.040 less than four centimeters long. And remember this does qualify 0:18:56.040 --> 0:19:00.199 as a large predator for its environment. There was a 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:02.359 part of the paper I want to read where the 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:06.240 authors describe its characteristic body features, because it ends up 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:09.320 that it's like this list of weird anatomical terms that 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:13.280 flow together like a kind of horrible poetry. So they 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:18.920 describe it as follows, a smooth dorsal body, twelve spines 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:23.200 on the outer maxilla, one plate, subsimilar and strongly subcelate 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:27.760 nathopods with broad carpus lobes. The periopods three and four 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.800 Dactyli are zero point forty five x of the respective 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:36.760 propodus and periopods five to seven dactili are zero point 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:40.919 six x, a distal spiniform process on the peduncle of 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:47.719 Europod one and an elongated but weakly cleft telson and 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.280 that al It's like, I don't know, sexy or something. 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:56.560 It is sexy or something. Yes, the peduncle of europod one. 0:19:56.960 --> 0:19:59.480 I love it, but again you might not guess by 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:01.920 looking at it. One of the things that distinguishes this 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:05.960 is that for its environment, this is a fast moving animal, 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:08.920 a fast moving predator of the deep ocean, not an 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:14.359 ambling seafloor scrubber, but an active predator that chases down prey. 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.840 Typically it's prey being other amphipods. You might remember from 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.800 the poetry passage the nathopods that spelled g n A 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:28.320 t h opods. These are raptorial front appendages that the 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:30.840 animals used to hunt. So they'll dart through the water 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:35.240 and snatch the smaller cousins with these fore claws that 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.240 looks you can kind of imagine like the clause of 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.000 a praying mantis. You know, these folding fore claws that 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:44.399 can grab and then feed prey toward the mouth. 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.320 Strong elements of JABBERWOCKI I want to say to all 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:52.679 of the language involved in this description, Yeah, yeah, I 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:57.480 feel like the nathopods surely Outgrabe at one point or another. 0:20:58.040 --> 0:20:59.960 Yes, yes, I just had to look up the poem. 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:02.560 I couldn't remember the exact phrasing, but I see this 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:15.960 and I see sly the toes. But anyway, I just 0:21:15.960 --> 0:21:19.280 thought this was so interesting looking at animals like this 0:21:19.400 --> 0:21:22.760 and that we're still discovering these types of these animals, 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:27.600 these predators, because it reminds us how relatively little we 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.760 know about these extremely deep environments, especially super deep like 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:36.320 the Hadel Zone the deep ocean trenches. And one thing 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.760 that some authors writing about this discovery mentioned is that 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:44.119 there's actually a lot that studying the fauna of the 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.119 Hadel Zone could teach us about how to look for 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:50.760 life elsewhere in the Solar System, like on subsurface oceans, 0:21:50.800 --> 0:21:52.240 on moons like Europa. 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:59.159 Yeah, yeah, exactly, the idea of looking into dark, lightless oceans. 0:21:59.480 --> 0:22:03.600 We have dark, lightless regions of our own ocean. And indeed, 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.720 one thing that becomes clear when you start reading more 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:11.840 about specific organisms is that we know more than we 0:22:11.920 --> 0:22:16.760 ever have regarding these depths but there is still so 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:19.520 much mystery, and you know, it's just there are these 0:22:19.520 --> 0:22:22.879 are places that are hard to get to, hard to 0:22:22.920 --> 0:22:26.800 get eyes down there, you know, be they organic or mechanical. 0:22:27.280 --> 0:22:31.639 And we've discussed in the past the complications that are 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:34.760 involved in bringing any kind of physical specimens up from 0:22:34.840 --> 0:22:38.200 the deep. They may you know, explode and be damaged 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:43.119 in ways that don't apply as much to other organisms 0:22:43.119 --> 0:22:45.600 you might collect. Many of these are very delicate as well. 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:48.800 Yeah, absolutely true. So there are a lot of challenges 0:22:48.880 --> 0:22:52.080 to studying the biology and ecology of the deep ocean, 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:54.199 but there is a lot of interesting stuff we know, 0:22:54.320 --> 0:22:56.080 and that's what we want to look at in the series, 0:22:56.119 --> 0:23:00.760 specifically again focused on predators. What are preor is doing 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:04.080 down there, What challenges to predators in the deep deep 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:06.840 ocean face, and how do they make a living? 0:23:07.680 --> 0:23:11.240 Yeah? Yeah, so first and foremost we have to talk 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:13.840 just briefly, I think about temperature and pressure. We've discussed 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:16.240 the challenges of temperature and pressure and the deep ocean 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:18.879 before and stuff to blow your mind. But we're talking 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:23.160 about depths where sunlight does not reach and so too, 0:23:23.240 --> 0:23:26.959 the sun's heat does not quite reach it. Geothermal sources 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:30.200 of heat acide. It's a realm of pretty chilling waters, 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:33.359 and to be on the ocean floor is to feel 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:36.080 the pressure of the water column on your back and 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:39.160 upon all sides of you at once. Actually, the pressure 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:43.000 at the bottom of the Mariana Trench is more than 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:45.760 a thousand times that of the pressure at sea level. 0:23:46.040 --> 0:23:48.639 And meanwhile, the temperature down there is I've read on 0:23:48.680 --> 0:23:51.280 the order of like one to four degrees celsius or 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:53.160 thirty four to thirty nine degrees fahrenheit. 0:23:53.720 --> 0:23:57.520 So an extreme environment, and organisms that want to adapt 0:23:57.720 --> 0:24:00.760 or evolve to survive there need to you need to 0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:02.800 make some pretty radical investments. 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:06.600 That's right now. One thing that's interesting about the deep 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:10.640 ocean is that it may at times seem like a contradiction. 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:14.080 You know, it may seem like a contradictory realm because, 0:24:14.119 --> 0:24:16.679 on one hand, is pointed out by for example, the 0:24:16.680 --> 0:24:20.679 Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, it is a biologically diverse realm 0:24:21.240 --> 0:24:25.520 and one that ultimately constitutes ninety five percent of the 0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:29.560 Earth's living environment. If you consider the hard surface of 0:24:29.600 --> 0:24:33.040 a planet to be its core environment, so you know, 0:24:33.080 --> 0:24:35.480 not just talking about the surface that we know, but 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:39.920