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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to blow your mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Animalia Stupendia. My name is Argomandanes, Wizard to

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Speaker 2: the sleeping Queen of the Four Crowns and the Council

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Speaker 2: of regentsy I swand innovator and tireless creature chronicler. However,

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Speaker 2: these days mere monsters hold no mystery for me. Dragons,

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Speaker 2: our drab unicorns are underwhelming. Instead, I turn my attention

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Speaker 2: once more to the strange fauna of a land called Earth.

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Speaker 2: Travel with me, gentle reader, as we consider the common

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Speaker 2: kingfisher common name Eurasian kingfisher, common kingfisher, or river kingfisher.

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Speaker 2: Scientific classification alcedo athis, frequency and range Europe, Northern Africa,

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Speaker 2: Central and Southern Asia. Size up to six inches or

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Speaker 2: fifteen centimeters long, diet small fish, along with some aquatic insects,

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Speaker 2: treasure horde, bone, littered burrows and eggs challenge rating one.

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Speaker 2: Some ninety two kingfisher species populate the Earth and are

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Speaker 2: found on every continent except for Antarctica. Of these, a

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Speaker 2: good half prey upon lizards and other small land animals,

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Speaker 2: and the akin the bee eaters, as their name suggests,

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Speaker 2: snatch bees and wasps right out of the air, then

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Speaker 2: smack them against a branch to dislodge the venom before

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Speaker 2: gobbling them down. But I digress. A good half of

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Speaker 2: known kingfisher species do what they're most famous for, and

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Speaker 2: that is catch and eat fish. Such is the case

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Speaker 2: of the European kingfisher, a beautiful bird with an almost

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Speaker 2: comically large head, long bill, short legs, and a stubby tail.

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Speaker 2: Its plumage is absolutely resplendent, an orange belly the color

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Speaker 2: of a brilliant sunset, and turquoise wings and head. Such

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Speaker 2: a splendid little avian jim you will find it not

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Speaker 2: in treasure chess, but on branches overhanging, clear, slow moving

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Speaker 2: streams and rivers. Their vision is superb highly adapted to

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Speaker 2: watch for fish under the surface of the water, adjusting

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Speaker 2: for refraction and making out prey a good one hundred

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Speaker 2: yards or ninety meters away perception check success, the kingfisher

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Speaker 2: dives into the water, snatches its prey in its beak,

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Speaker 2: and then flies back to its perch, where it stuns

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Speaker 2: the fish against a branch before swallowing it head first.

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Speaker 3: Bludgeoning damage.

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Speaker 2: Now it's easy to dismiss this hunting spectacle, at least

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Speaker 2: until you try to do it for yourself. No, I

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Speaker 2: don't refer to any of my polymorph duels with various witches,

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Speaker 2: but rather to the kingfisher's place in the human science

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Speaker 2: of biomimicry. This is, of course, the discipline of solving

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Speaker 2: complex human problems by looking at the way nature has

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Speaker 2: solved similar problems over the course of evolutionary time. The

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Speaker 2: human design problem here has nothing to do with catching

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Speaker 2: fish or diving into the water, but rather with maximizing

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Speaker 2: the design of Japanese bullet trains see early in their use,

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Speaker 2: the high speed trains generated a pressure boom when exiting

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Speaker 2: tunnels due to build up and compressed air at the

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Speaker 2: front of the speeding train, an effect that also served

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Speaker 2: to slow the trains down. At least this was the

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Speaker 2: case until engineers studied the head and beak structure of

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Speaker 2: the common kingfisher, which in turn has evolved for maximal

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Speaker 2: streamlined entry into the water. The scientists were able to

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Speaker 2: apply these design principles to the front of the train,

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Speaker 2: and presto, no more boom. Finally, I would like to

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Speaker 2: mention the layer or burrow of the common kingfisher. It

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Speaker 2: is assumed that this species does not collect and use

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Speaker 2: nesting materials, but rather digs nest burrows in the banks

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Speaker 2: of streams or rivers, the entryway sloping to prevent rain

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Speaker 2: and floodwaters from flowing into it. And here inside, certainly

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Speaker 2: you may find the birds and their eggs, but you

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Speaker 2: will also find a great midden of fish bones. See.

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Speaker 2: The common kingfisher will frequently cough up indigestible bits of

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Speaker 2: bone and scale which accumulate in the burrow. Other varieties

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Speaker 2: of fish eating kingfisher, however, may make more active use

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Speaker 2: of the bones in their burrow construction. Ah. We could

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Speaker 2: go on and on about the kingfishers of the world

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Speaker 2: and their relatives, but for now I must retire my

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Speaker 2: wizard's quill and allow my familiars some respite. But I

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Speaker 2: shall return with even more wonders of the natural world.

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Speaker 3: Hi, this is Robert Lamb. Thanks to the Wizard Argomandanese

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Speaker 3: once more for joining us in this episode. Sources for

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Speaker 3: this one included David Bernie's Kingfisher Animal Encyclopedia twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 3: San Diego Zoo dot Org, BBC's Howie Kingfisher helped reshape

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Speaker 3: Japan's Bullet Train, a video produced by Jennifer Green and

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Speaker 3: Anadoble and animated by Jules Bartell twenty nineteen. And Soory vs.

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Speaker 3: Sarah McGarry's BioMedics Applications and Structural Design, published in the

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Speaker 3: International Journal of Innovative Research and Science, Engineering and Technology,

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty one. Thanks as always to the excellent Jjpossway

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Speaker 3: for producing this episode. If you wish to contact Argomandanes

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Speaker 3: with recommendations for future episodes, you can send an email

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Speaker 3: to contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.