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Speaker 1: Hey, folks, we have a treat for you, and you

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Speaker 1: already got an email about this if you are a

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Speaker 1: Maximum Fund member in the latest max Fund drive, you

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Speaker 1: all put so much support into our show, we were

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Speaker 1: able to pay an artist to make commemorative digital art

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Speaker 1: to celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth episode of the show.

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Speaker 1: That art is ready right now. It is in the

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Speaker 1: Boco vault. You should also have an email if you're

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Speaker 1: a member, with a link to go see it. If

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Speaker 1: you're not a member, you can also go ahead and

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Speaker 1: get that art, as well as previous digital art for

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Speaker 1: previous Milestone Siff episodes. There's a special unique character celebrating

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Speaker 1: each and every episode of our entire run. So it's

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Speaker 1: really just a wonderful, cartoony kaleidoscope of everything we've done.

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Speaker 1: Maximum fund dot org slash join is the place to

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Speaker 1: support our show make the entire thing possible. Maximum fund

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Speaker 1: dot org slash join. Thank you. Kidneys known for being

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Speaker 1: animal famous for being hedgehog shaped animals. Nobody thinks much

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Speaker 1: about them, So let's have some fun. Let's find out

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Speaker 1: why echidnas are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey, they're folks. Welcome

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Speaker 1: to a whole new podcast episode of Podcasts all about

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Speaker 1: why being alive is more interesting than people think it is.

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Speaker 1: My name is Alex Schmid, and I'm not alone because

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Speaker 1: I'm joined by my ghost Katie Golden Katie. Yes, what

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Speaker 1: is your relationship to or opinion of Echidna's.

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Speaker 2: I love them, That's how it is. We're in a

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Speaker 2: very loving relationship. I love everything about these frittle guys.

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Speaker 2: They're so funky. They look like something out of a

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Speaker 2: surrealist painting, and they are truly very weird in terms

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Speaker 2: of their anatomy and how they work as animals. You know,

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Speaker 2: thumbs up Australia. You got another you know, got another

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Speaker 2: good one?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. I mean you think about animals more than

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Speaker 1: I do. You have a wonderful podcast creature feature everyone

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Speaker 1: should listen to. But I feel like in my learning

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Speaker 1: about animals, there was a stage where people said, Australia

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Speaker 1: is different. Oh, you learned about the animals. Now we're

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Speaker 1: opening the Australia closet in the back of the story

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Speaker 1: so you can see those and and the kidneys are

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Speaker 1: one of those. It's awesome.

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Speaker 2: They have a lot of marsupials and monotremes, and both

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Speaker 2: of those like to play by slightly different rules than

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Speaker 2: the rest of the mammals.

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Speaker 1: So it's great.

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Speaker 2: So it's a you know, platypus included. It's it's but yeah,

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Speaker 2: I actually find these guys kind of weirder than platypuses.

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Speaker 2: Platypuses actually make more sense to me than these guys,

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Speaker 2: so I'm excited to talk about them.

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Speaker 1: And also two tiny programming notes. One is that when

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Speaker 1: folks bread up this topic, thank you to Da Koop

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Speaker 1: Beer for suggesting it, also ls Gregor and others for

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Speaker 1: supporting it. In the polls. A lot of it. Folks

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Speaker 1: brought up knuckles, the echidna from the Sonic Games. That's

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Speaker 1: our bonus topic, all knuckles.

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Speaker 2: All knuckles.

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Speaker 1: And then I've also found this pronounced more like echidna

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Speaker 1: and more like echidna, and I find I just go

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Speaker 1: back and forth. Please just go with it, folks.

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Speaker 2: It's fine. Yeah, tomato tomato really yeah, they you know,

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Speaker 2: it's another thing this. I don't know if you're going

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Speaker 2: to talk about this so much, but I think people

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Speaker 2: like in terms of their size, they're different species of echidna,

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Speaker 2: but the at least for one of the species, the

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Speaker 2: long beak echidnas. Those are like the size that people

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Speaker 2: think platypuses are. People imagine platypuses to be bigger than

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Speaker 2: they actually are. Platypuses are quite small, like a month

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Speaker 2: old kitten. They're they're pretty small the platypus. When you

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Speaker 2: look at pictures of an adult platypusts, people are usually

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Speaker 2: pretty shocked by how small they actually are, whereas a

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Speaker 2: kidneys are the ones that are actually a big handful,

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Speaker 2: And I think people have it flipped like people think

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Speaker 2: kidneys are the little ones. Platypuses are sort of the

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Speaker 2: bigger ones. But it's actually the opposite of kidneys are

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Speaker 2: like they're they're a nice armful of weird, spiky, snooty

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Speaker 2: little animal.

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Speaker 1: That's exciting. I in my research really focused out of kidneys.

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Speaker 1: That I missed that platypuses are so small. Apparently they're

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Speaker 1: only little more than the foot long as an adult. Great,

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe approaching foot and a half or two feet.

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Speaker 1: That's that's not that big, yeah, because a lot of

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Speaker 1: that length is duck faced or tail, you know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. You can hold them in both of your hands,

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Speaker 2: like if you cut your both your hands you can

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Speaker 2: fit a platypus in there very comfortably for some time.

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Speaker 1: Do I do this? How do I do this right now?

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Speaker 2: And then with with the a kidneys, that's not going

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Speaker 2: to at least for the long beaked to kidneys which

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Speaker 2: are bigger, that's not gonna work. It's too big.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk all about the echidnas and the long

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Speaker 1: beak and the short beak and so on, because on

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Speaker 1: every episode we lead with a quick set of fascinating

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Speaker 1: numbers and statistics. This week that's in a segment called

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Speaker 1: I might read some stats. That's the best idea. Gonna

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Speaker 1: put them on the SIFT podcast.

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Speaker 2: Golf clap, golf clap, golf claps all around.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. Then it was a bit of my action

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Speaker 1: populated on the discord. Thank you. We have a new

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Speaker 1: name for this every week. Please make a Masillian wackem

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Speaker 1: bad as possible. Submit yours through Discord or to sif

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Speaker 1: pot at gmail dot com. The first number four echidnas

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Speaker 1: is two or four. We know how to count how

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Speaker 1: many achidney species there are in the world, but people

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Speaker 1: tend to call it either two or four because in

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Speaker 1: general there are short beaked echidnas and long beaked echidnas,

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Speaker 1: and then also the long beaks break down into three

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Speaker 1: entire species according to taxonomous.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's taxonomy is always a little bit

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Speaker 2: fiddly because you can sometimes have a species and have

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Speaker 2: an argument about whether there's two different species or of

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Speaker 2: ones subspecies. It's not necessarily that they discover an undiscover

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Speaker 2: species of these animals. It's that there's like genetic research

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Speaker 2: or arguments about whether or not they are they count

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Speaker 2: as an entirely different species when they're close enough genetically,

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Speaker 2: or if they're like a subspecies, things like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and the short beaked ekidna is someone I've probably

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Speaker 1: seen the most like pictures of because that species lives

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Speaker 1: all over Australia and nearby islands. There are relatively large

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Speaker 1: numbers of them, and then long beaked echidnas all three

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Speaker 1: species around the island of New Guinea. And so if

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Speaker 1: you think of like quote unquote Australian animal, it's probably

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Speaker 1: a short beak ekidna. Those are a little bit smaller.

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Speaker 1: They tend to be active during the day, long beaked

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Speaker 1: er active at night, and long beaked are in greater

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Speaker 1: danger of extinction. While this number there is twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: three because in the year twenty twenty three people documented

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Speaker 1: a living member of one of the long beaked ekidney

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Speaker 1: species with a camera for the first time. Wow, twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty three.

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Speaker 2: They're pretty I think outside of like natural rescue areas

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Speaker 2: and preserves are very very shy. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and apparently all the achidneys are shy, but especially

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Speaker 1: the long beaked. And then they're in the just parts

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Speaker 1: of New Guinea and in smaller numbers, and so we

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Speaker 1: have surprisingly little observation of some of these because that

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Speaker 1: one that we hadn't documented. It's a species that's called

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Speaker 1: Attenborough's long beaked Echidna in honor of Sir David Attenborough.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, he's a nice guy. He lies in the

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Speaker 2: dirt and talks about a kidness even when the cameras

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Speaker 2: aren't rolling. That's what people don't know is that he's

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Speaker 2: just always doing that where he's like lying in the

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Speaker 2: dirt talking about a kidness, but like when people notice

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Speaker 2: he's doing it, the cameraman come over and try to

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Speaker 2: catch him in the act.

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Speaker 1: Now, I want him to do all sorts of animal

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Speaker 1: behaviors that would be relatively impolite in human society. But

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Speaker 1: because he's describing it in such a nice voice as

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Speaker 1: he does it, we're all like, that's great.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like he's peeing on a chair leg explaining

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Speaker 2: how this helps him mark his territory, and we all

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Speaker 2: accept it.

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Speaker 1: And we're like, oh, yeah, I wonder who he's going

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Speaker 1: to mate with in his territory that he's wallowing. And

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Speaker 1: we're like, look at that little guy wallow. That's how

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Speaker 1: he keeps cool. It's the only way they can keep cool.

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Speaker 2: But then who David Attenborough's David Attenborough documentary. It's sort

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Speaker 2: of a who do we get to narrate the David

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Speaker 2: Attenborough documentary?

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Speaker 1: It's the eternal question of nature? Yeah, yeah, because there's

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Speaker 1: the western lung beak to kidna, the Eastern lung beak

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Speaker 1: to kidna, and then Attenborough's long beak to kidna, and

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty one researchers decided they had discovered the

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Speaker 1: Attenborough's long beak to kidna species. In nineteen sixty one,

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Speaker 1: they found one deceased specimen, they identified it, put it

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Speaker 1: in a museum, said surely we'll see more of this,

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Speaker 1: and then nobody identified more of them until twenty twenty three. Wow,

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Speaker 1: And in the intervening sixty plus years, scientists wondered did

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Speaker 1: these go extinct, Like did we kind of find one

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Speaker 1: when they were on the way out? And apparently not.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're just real reclusive. I mean, they spent a

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Speaker 2: lot of their time just snuffling around in the leaf

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Speaker 2: litter in these forests. So I don't think that it's

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Speaker 2: like super easy to spot them.

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Speaker 1: It does seem really hard. And at also like, if

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Speaker 1: you do see one, how do you tell it apart

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Speaker 1: from the other two.

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Speaker 2: From a different because yeah, they are quite similar looking, Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, we really won't spend any time on the differences

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Speaker 1: between these because it's not that visible or easy to

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Speaker 1: figure out.

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Speaker 2: It's only the long beaked and short beaked are pretty

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Speaker 2: easy to tell apart. And that's about it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah, and yeah, And we only

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Speaker 1: found Attenborough's long beaked to kidna for the second time

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Speaker 1: ever because in twenty twenty three, a research team from

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Speaker 1: Oxford University tried to study the entire ecosystem of what's

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Speaker 1: called the Cyclops Mountains in the Indonesian half of the

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Speaker 1: island of New Guinea. We'll link just the geography of

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Speaker 1: New Guinea as an island that's about half in Indonesia

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Speaker 1: and half its own country of Papula and New Guinea.

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Speaker 1: And they were looking for all sorts of things in

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Speaker 1: these mountains. They found a lot of insects, species, they

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Speaker 1: found amphibians, they found a kind of tiny shrimp that

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Speaker 1: live in wet soil and in trees instead of say

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Speaker 1: an ocean. It's amazing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, man, it's gonna it's gonna be my next sort

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Speaker 2: of food sensation.

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Speaker 1: Ugh, can we get some tree shrimp for the table?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, some tree shrimp poppers? Thank you.

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Speaker 1: They just pop over like they fly out of the kitchen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's pretty great. I love I love it

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Speaker 2: when you find out those like weird crustacean type animals

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Speaker 2: are just like not in the ocean.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And so they're doing this observation with dozens of

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Speaker 1: trail cameras, Like they wire up a bunch of video

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Speaker 1: cameras and they say, wow, we're finding like dozens of species.

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Speaker 1: This is already great. And then toward the end of

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Speaker 1: the project, an echidna shuffles onto camera. Yeah, and they

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Speaker 1: look at the footage and they they say this is amazing.

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Speaker 1: This is the second identified Attenborough's long peaks to kidna ever,

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Speaker 1: and they're not extinct.

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Speaker 2: Turns out, I think that given that it's not like

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Speaker 2: a heavily surveiled area, it's safe to say that, like,

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Speaker 2: just because you don't see doesn't mean they're extinct exactly.

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Speaker 1: And I also just love that some of these Akidney

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Speaker 1: species are basically secret, Like we still need to find

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Speaker 1: out a lot more about these there's a lot to

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Speaker 1: learn about the world.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're just secretly incredibly secret. That's it. That's all

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Speaker 2: we know about them.

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Speaker 1: Sis, yes, yeah, and yeah and pps Nature says that

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Speaker 1: the Eastern long beak to kidna is listed as vulnerable

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Speaker 1: by the IUCN that does these designations of species in trouble,

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Speaker 1: and the other two are critically endangered. Meanwhile, we think

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Speaker 1: there are millions of short beaked to kidnas in Australia

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Speaker 1: and that species is of least concerned. They're not like

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Speaker 1: easy to find or super underfoot, but it's not a

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Speaker 1: species where we're concerned that they're going to go away.

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Speaker 2: Right, Unless you are concerned that they are going to

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Speaker 2: take over, then maybe we should be a little more concerned.

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Speaker 1: I welcome the takeover. Seems great.

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Speaker 2: They're very cool. I don't know how much you're going

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Speaker 2: to talk about like their snoots, but and the superpowers

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Speaker 2: of their snoots, but I trust them to run the government.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this I love that this episode will be very biological,

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Speaker 1: Like there's almost too much ECHIDNA anatomy and biology to

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Speaker 1: talk about, and so we're just going to be all

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Speaker 1: over the place of and then this is amazing, and

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Speaker 1: then this is amazing, and it's amazing that it's like

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Speaker 1: even for an animal episode, this is pretty biological because

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Speaker 1: the kidnap bodies are wild and yeah, and then also

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Speaker 1: those short beaked of kidneas are a target of the

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Speaker 1: pet trade.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not great.

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Speaker 1: We don't think that will like end their numbers, but

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Speaker 1: probably shouldn't keeping a kidney as a pet. And Australian

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Speaker 1: law says that there are some ways to legally sell

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Speaker 1: any kidnap pet if it's been raised in captivity. But

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Speaker 1: the thing is, it's really hard to breed echidnas in captivity.

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Speaker 1: And the number here is twenty nineteen. In twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 1: forensic scientists created a database of ECHIDNA DNA by looking

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Speaker 1: at the DNA and their spines in order to fight

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Speaker 1: the illegal trade of echidnas.

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Speaker 2: Ooh, this is this is exciting. This is like CSI echidna.

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Speaker 2: This is exciting.

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Speaker 1: It's those exact same kind of scientists. Yeah, and echidnas

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Speaker 1: are covered in spines and those are made of caraten.

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Speaker 1: It's like the hair and fingernails of humans. It's like

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Speaker 1: the scales of pangolins, if people remember the pangolin episode.

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Speaker 1: Around twenty nineteen, a team of forensic scientists at the

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Speaker 1: Australian Museum and also working with law enforcement, they found

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Speaker 1: that there were at least seventy echidnas listed for sale

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Speaker 1: as pats in Australia, but all of Australia's zoos had

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Speaker 1: only successfully bred about thirty ekidneys in the previous ten

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Speaker 1: years combined, and so they said, just based on the numbers,

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Speaker 1: it's unlikely animal breeders bread all these. They're probably just

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Speaker 1: catching them in the wild and forging papers to sell them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like like faking baby photos of the echidnas, like

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Speaker 2: where they photoshop on little diapers, like no, we raise

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Speaker 2: this one, see you look.

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Speaker 1: Right, baptism yeah, faith.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The problem with one of the problems with the

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Speaker 2: pet trade is not necessarily that this is like people

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Speaker 2: might think like there's plenty of echidneys, they're not going

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Speaker 2: to make the kidneas go extinct, Like what's the problem

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Speaker 2: with the pet trade. One of the big problems is

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Speaker 2: UH disease. So zoonotic diseases are a huge concern with

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Speaker 2: the pet trades. So when you bring animals that don't

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Speaker 2: normally have a lot of contact with human beings or

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Speaker 2: different animals, right, Like echidnas are not a very social

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Speaker 2: animal with like a huge giant colonies of other kidnas, right,

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Speaker 2: and so you're bringing them and having them no noose

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Speaker 2: snowp to snoop with a lot of different animals, and

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Speaker 2: that's that's not good UH for or diseases jumping from

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Speaker 2: human to a kidner or kidney to human. And the

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Speaker 2: other thing is just like it is really like these

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Speaker 2: are they're not great pets. I wouldn't imagine. I think

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Speaker 2: that they seems like they're going to be happiest just

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Speaker 2: snoofling around in leaf litter in forests, and that's really

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Speaker 2: hard to recreate like a giant snowful zone in your backyard.

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Speaker 2: I think it's probably not going to be adequate exactly.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, a few verses this week they all said that

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Speaker 1: echidnas are both very plentiful in Australia and also not

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Speaker 1: seen that often because they're very shy and don't like

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Speaker 1: bigger at this. And so if you keep it as

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Speaker 1: a pat it has to be aut us all the time.

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Speaker 1: That's not what it wants.

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Speaker 2: Come on, yeah, it's going to stress it out.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, and so Now, as of twenty nineteen, Australian

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Speaker 1: authorities can use a database of a kidney DNA to

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Speaker 1: check out a pet trader's claim, Like they can take

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Speaker 1: DNA from the caroten spine of that echidna and check

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Speaker 1: whether it's parents are probably why old versus the known

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Speaker 1: echidnas and captivity.

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Speaker 2: And then does the kidnat get like a reprieve the

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Speaker 2: ceculic co If it's.

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Speaker 1: That would if they could specifically five the parents, they

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Speaker 1: could like send it back to its family. That would

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Speaker 1: be a basic almost kind of a step back. The

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Speaker 1: next number is two, because platypuses and echidneys are the

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Speaker 1: two broad kinds of monotrems in the modern world. There's

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Speaker 1: really just one platypus species today.

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Speaker 2: It's so weird. It's such a strange troop because like

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Speaker 2: all the other monotremes are extinct, these are the only

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Speaker 2: extant monotremes. It's so funky. They're so unique compared to

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Speaker 2: other mammals, even compared to like marsupials, which are quite weird. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: they you know, they're the only well I don't want

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Speaker 2: I don't want to steal your thunder if you've got

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Speaker 2: if you've got stuff. But yeah, there, it's just just

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Speaker 2: it's super weird. Like they are mammals, but they're just

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Speaker 2: so different from the rest of placental mammals.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I was always kind of loosely told that mammals

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Speaker 1: don't lay eggs, and then monotreams are mammals that lay eggs.

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Speaker 1: So there you go. Yeah, the.

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Speaker 2: Things categories are not black and white in biology. But yeah,

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Speaker 2: they are mammals. They do leggs. They also lactate, but

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Speaker 2: they don't have nipples, and so that means that their

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Speaker 2: milk just kind of like leaks out of their bellies

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Speaker 2: through their pores and just a free for all. They

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Speaker 2: also have a kloaca, which is not something that mammals

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Speaker 2: typically have. Like the kloaca is found in birds, reptiles, amphibians.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's this amazing hole that does a lot

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Speaker 2: of different stuff. But males also have a penis, and

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Speaker 2: it's a really weird one, so it's they're pretty all

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Speaker 2: over the place, these guys.

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Speaker 1: I also assumed monotreams would be named after the egg part,

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Speaker 1: but apparently the word monotrem comes from etymology, meaning one opening.

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Speaker 1: Like you're named after the kloaka, the kloika for urination, defecation, mating.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one thing that's really weird. If I can

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Speaker 2: just make one more note about the penis, which is

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Speaker 2: that the males have this very strange penis, but they

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Speaker 2: don't actually urinate out of the penis. They urinate out

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Speaker 2: of the kloaca. They only use the penis for sperm transfer.

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Speaker 1: That's it, because it is into takeaway number one. A

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Speaker 1: melee kidna has a four front penis, which is sort

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Speaker 1: of like having a double reptile penis, sort of.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, these look look. I normally don't say google these

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Speaker 2: things because it's usually not safe, but if in the

348
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Speaker 2: safest way that you can look up ekidna penises, because

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Speaker 2: they're so yeah, to me, it's funnier than it is

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Speaker 2: gross or lude it just because it looks like a

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Speaker 2: little hand. It's like a little cartoon hand. They have

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Speaker 2: four heads, essentially like four apertures. And again like this

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Speaker 2: is not for your nation, this is only for sperm transfer.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, apparently they like tuck it away except when

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Speaker 1: they're using it, and.

356
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Speaker 2: It's very polite.

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Speaker 1: It is honestly keysors or science writing for The New

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Speaker 1: York Times by Natalie Angier, a twenty twenty one study

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Speaker 1: in the Journal's Sexual Development. And then a mental fluss piece,

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Speaker 1: which is one of many ways you can see pictures

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Speaker 1: because it has four glands, it has four sort of

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Speaker 1: tips on it. And then some observers compare this to

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Speaker 1: the hemipenes of reptiles, because a hemipene is a pair

364
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Speaker 1: of reproductive organs tucked into the reptile's body, usually until

365
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Speaker 1: it's time to mate. That's sort of like a two

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Speaker 1: headed penis. And then a kidness basically have a double

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Speaker 1: two headed penis. It's four heads.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And if you actually, if you do look at

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Speaker 2: heavy pens of of reptiles, they look like medieval weapons

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Speaker 2: often because they're like spiky and weird. It looks like

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Speaker 2: some kind of weird, weird medieval weapon that probably didn't

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Speaker 2: work very well, but yet I believe also for the

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Speaker 2: for snakes and reptiles, they do not urinate out of those.

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Speaker 2: Those are just for looking cool and passing on their DNA.

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Speaker 1: The medieval element. Our recent episode about HS tapes, people

376
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Speaker 1: were very excited about your Phantom of the Robin Hood

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Speaker 1: Disney movie, and so now I'm thinking about Sir Hess

378
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Speaker 1: having some kind of weapon and penis combo and the

379
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Speaker 1: gritty reboot.

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Speaker 2: They never that never made it. They really need to

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Speaker 2: do a live action remake of Robin Hood.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: I know that Disney doesn't have a great track record

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Speaker 2: with live action remakes. They're usually superfluous at best and

385
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Speaker 2: terrible monstrosities at worst. But hear me out, Okay, sir

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Speaker 2: Hey gets a heavy penis, we get the freaking lion

387
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Speaker 2: king treatment where these are realistic gas animals and like

388
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Speaker 2: to the tea and they're just fighting. And you just

389
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Speaker 2: got a fox and a sir his fighting and you

390
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Speaker 2: see sir His is weird mating apparatus. There's uh, you know,

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Speaker 2: do do do do do do?

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Speaker 1: Do?

393
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Speaker 2: Oh my god? Uh you know, I think it'd be cool.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna be like only a quarter of the way

395
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Speaker 1: through the pitch, and Disney has already walked us into

396
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Speaker 1: the parking lot and not validated if they put black.

397
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Speaker 2: Bags over our head and are taking us to the facility.

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Speaker 1: And this penis apparently we've done further continuing study of it,

399
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Speaker 1: because wow, there's so much going on, and we think

400
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Speaker 1: that the male akid is able to ejaculate from just

401
00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:56,359
Speaker 1: two of the four structures at a time. Yeah, and

402
00:22:56,400 --> 00:22:58,760
Speaker 1: so when a male mates with a female, it uses

403
00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:02,480
Speaker 1: essentially half of the penis, so we can use its

404
00:23:02,480 --> 00:23:05,320
Speaker 1: other half on the next female, and then they also

405
00:23:05,400 --> 00:23:08,560
Speaker 1: have a faster fractory time period. So a study in

406
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Speaker 1: twenty twenty one suggested that a male at kid that

407
00:23:11,840 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: could ejaculate ten times before it needed a significant break

408
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Speaker 1: to rechart.

409
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Speaker 2: Golf clap, golf clup, golf clup. Good job, guys. So

410
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:24,760
Speaker 2: it's less it's less a less a garden sprinkler, and

411
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Speaker 2: more of like a machine gun.

412
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Speaker 1: Right, it's like nineteen eighties action movie weapons.

413
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Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right, right, which is really really important for

414
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:39,680
Speaker 2: males when they're trying to get as much spoying out

415
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:43,159
Speaker 2: there as possible. And being able to have like a

416
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 2: like there are there are little mammals that will mate

417
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:52,720
Speaker 2: so frequently until they like collapse and have heart attacks

418
00:23:52,720 --> 00:23:57,120
Speaker 2: and tie. Because the idea is like the more genetic

419
00:23:57,200 --> 00:24:00,800
Speaker 2: material they get out, the more successful they're going to be. Right, Like,

420
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Speaker 2: it's more likely that they're going to have something that

421
00:24:03,640 --> 00:24:07,399
Speaker 2: carries on their genes and for it really depends on

422
00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 2: the species. There's a lot of types of animals where

423
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:13,240
Speaker 2: the males actually do invest more in parental care and

424
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:17,199
Speaker 2: it's less about it's more about quality over quantity. But

425
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Speaker 2: there's plenty of animals where it's about quantity over quality.

426
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Speaker 2: So this is one of them.

427
00:24:22,720 --> 00:24:26,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, especially with the males because because the other

428
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Speaker 1: amazing thing to be about their reproduction is takeaway number two.

429
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Speaker 1: Echidnas are named after a mythological serpent woman m partly

430
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 1: because of how female ekidnas lay and carry eggs.

431
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:46,639
Speaker 2: Now I'm excited because I didn't know this, and I

432
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 2: thought I knew everything about a kidneas, but enomology. Now,

433
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:54,639
Speaker 2: entomology I know a lot about, but etymology gets me.

434
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:55,960
Speaker 2: So I'm excited about this.

435
00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 1: Ooh, and the kidnas eat bugs, so they love entomology

436
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:00,719
Speaker 1: too delicious to them.

437
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:01,640
Speaker 2: They also do.

438
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah that the name at least in like European

439
00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:11,919
Speaker 1: language is like English, This name Echidna comes from Greek mythology.

440
00:25:13,240 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 1: A being named Echidna was the product of monstrous mating

441
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:22,159
Speaker 1: between sea and land beings generated a monster with the

442
00:25:22,200 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 1: head and breasts of a human woman hot and the

443
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:28,720
Speaker 1: lower body and tail of a serpent a.

444
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:30,600
Speaker 2: Little less hot but still hot, I guess.

445
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:34,360
Speaker 1: And so yeah, like Europeans partly re use that name

446
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:37,800
Speaker 1: for this animal because it's like a mammal but does eggs,

447
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:39,959
Speaker 1: and they're like it's a reptile in a mammal all

448
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:43,840
Speaker 1: at once, like the serpent woman monster. Yeah, they just

449
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:45,879
Speaker 1: straight up re used the name. They didn't adapt it

450
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: at all.

451
00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love it when, like when old Europeans were

452
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 2: confused by mammals that didn't play by the rules, like

453
00:25:53,080 --> 00:25:56,000
Speaker 2: when it was with fevers. It's like they're almost seafood,

454
00:25:56,119 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 2: right because they're in the.

455
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 1: Water a lot, all Europeans and also lots of people

456
00:26:03,040 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 1: till today. They're like I only know a couple of things,

457
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:07,200
Speaker 1: So if there's a new thing, I'm naming it after

458
00:26:07,240 --> 00:26:12,360
Speaker 1: the old thing, right, exactly, that's all I got. Yeah,

459
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: and yeah, And then because it's such a Greek mythology

460
00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 1: name first Nations peoples in Australia had totally different names

461
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:24,160
Speaker 1: for it, naming the Gamilla ray language is Biggiebilla and

462
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:27,479
Speaker 1: the name in the world Pierri language is yanar Lingi.

463
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:30,359
Speaker 1: It's all just completely different names because they didn't have

464
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:31,840
Speaker 1: Greek mythology of course.

465
00:26:31,960 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 2: Right right, they weren't like they didn't see this like fuzzy,

466
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:39,479
Speaker 2: spiky animal with absolutely no tits and think what about

467
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 2: the Greek half snake lady with boobies right right.

468
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,320
Speaker 1: And it's also it doesn't attack humans at all. It's

469
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:50,800
Speaker 1: been a useful food source for people. Like it's just

470
00:26:50,840 --> 00:26:52,960
Speaker 1: like a positive animal in your life. So why would

471
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: you name it after a monster.

472
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:57,359
Speaker 2: It's just a cute little snorfloer who goes after like

473
00:26:57,760 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 2: bugs in the leaf litter.

474
00:27:00,119 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all that's all it wants to do. And

475
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:03,919
Speaker 1: so yeah, that's where they get their name. I had

476
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: no idea, and a lot of it is because Europeans

477
00:27:07,280 --> 00:27:10,920
Speaker 1: were like, this mammal lays eggs. I can't handle it, right,

478
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 1: and the egg laying process is amazing semikidness, apparently, especially

479
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: a subspecies on what's called Kangaroo Island south of the

480
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:25,160
Speaker 1: Australian mainland. They'll do something called a love train, which

481
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 1: is where one female akida is followed by a long

482
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:31,480
Speaker 1: line of male ekidness ruffling around and hoping to.

483
00:27:31,480 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 2: Mate the most perverted congo line that is out there.

484
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the strange specifically sexual penis of the

485
00:27:42,680 --> 00:27:46,520
Speaker 1: male plus the female's reproductive anatomy that the goal is

486
00:27:46,560 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 1: to have as many sperm compete for just one egg.

487
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: A female a kidney lays just one egg at a time.

488
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 2: It's wild because she's got some sort of marsupial characteristics

489
00:27:57,600 --> 00:28:01,320
Speaker 2: as well. She's got a pouch and she it's a

490
00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:06,399
Speaker 2: weird kind of step between placental mammals where we give birth,

491
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:09,360
Speaker 2: we don't. We're not we're live bearing, we don't layla eggs.

492
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:12,640
Speaker 2: And then you you look at marsupials and they do

493
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:16,240
Speaker 2: have live births of like teeny tiny little beans that

494
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 2: have to crawl their way up into this pouch where

495
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 2: they continue to develop until they're actual identifiable babies. But

496
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:26,280
Speaker 2: then you've got like this in between step, which is

497
00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 2: the echidnas where they lay the eggs, but they store

498
00:28:29,760 --> 00:28:33,199
Speaker 2: the eggs in a pouch, so the egg continues to

499
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,240
Speaker 2: develop and hatches inside the pouch. So it's kind of

500
00:28:36,280 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 2: this weird in betweeny step between laying eggs and just

501
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:43,719
Speaker 2: like laying an egg, sticking it in a nest and

502
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 2: being like good luck and having a live birth as

503
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 2: a mammal.

504
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:52,360
Speaker 1: Yes, I didn't know any of that before research egg

505
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: because it's so profoundly confused, especially if you have like

506
00:28:56,400 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 1: a loose knowledge of kangaroos. Let's say, yeah that you're like, okay,

507
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:02,959
Speaker 1: so there's humans and kangaroos. Those are the two mammal ways,

508
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 1: and then.

509
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:06,959
Speaker 2: Those are the two animals.

510
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like you said, this echidna baby. Also the

511
00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 1: human nickname for these babies, at least in English is

512
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: a puggle.

513
00:29:17,240 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 2: Puggle great, so cute.

514
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: You can find pictures of that too, We'll link some.

515
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 1: They really cute. But yeah, the echidna, it lays an

516
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 1: egg and then doesn't leave it in a nest or whatever.

517
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: The female forms a somewhat temporary pouch by contracting abdominal

518
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 1: muscles and then incubates the egg against her body for

519
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:38,360
Speaker 1: about ten days.

520
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 2: I mean, we all sometimes clinch to try to look

521
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 2: good in bathing suits. But imagine doing that for a

522
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 2: long time to wait for this egg to hatch. Just

523
00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 2: the control, the core control is impressive.

524
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:54,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it ends up being about two months of

525
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: carrying something because the egg hatches after ten days. And

526
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 1: then the puggle is inside mom's pouch for several weeks.

527
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: Like Katie said, they don't have nipples. They have a

528
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: gland type thing called a milk patch where milk just

529
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 1: comes out of it like a part of their body.

530
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: And it is mammal milk. It's just not exactly the

531
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 1: anatomy for dispensing it we're used to. And yeah, and

532
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 1: then the puggle is in the pouch for about seven

533
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 1: weeks and only sort of gets kicked out because it

534
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 1: starts developing spines. Yeah, and mom says, no spines in

535
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 1: the pouch.

536
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:30,640
Speaker 2: She's like, oh, what the hell, get out?

537
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then the kidnam Mom digs a burrow to

538
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 1: like put this seven week old baby in. And also

539
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 1: apparently they then leave their baby to fend for themselves

540
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 1: at a relatively young age by mammal standards.

541
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, they did do a good

542
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:54,239
Speaker 2: amount of stuff for like a few months and then

543
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 2: they're just like, you know what, Actually, you're good. Now

544
00:30:56,920 --> 00:31:01,920
Speaker 2: you're all spiky. But the it's a good kind of

545
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:05,959
Speaker 2: timeline though, right, because once they develop spines, then they

546
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:10,960
Speaker 2: are somewhat protected from predation, so you are getting at

547
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 2: the stage where they might be able to fin for

548
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 2: themselves without having to give birth to a bald spikes,

549
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 2: which would be really awful.

550
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, they let them go around seven months apparently

551
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: seven months old, so they're not totally an infant.

552
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 2: At seven months. Babies are just that, you know, they're

553
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 2: ready to start working. Send them to the mines.

554
00:31:36,240 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: Let's see you have spines, a tie, a briefcase. Okay,

555
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: you're in ad.

556
00:31:40,080 --> 00:31:42,240
Speaker 2: Sales, Yeah, get out there, Yeah.

557
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 1: All right yeah yeah. Another number to fit in is

558
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: about forty years of age. That's the life span of

559
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,520
Speaker 1: any kidney in the wild. Approximately. They can get closer

560
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 1: to fifty in captivity. So a mom stopping around seven

561
00:31:57,600 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 1: months on that long of a life span is almost

562
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:03,959
Speaker 1: reptilia into our minds, like it's these because animals are

563
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 1: such mammals and such other stuff too.

564
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 2: It really is strange. But it's not like I don't

565
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:11,840
Speaker 2: want to get people to get the impression that these

566
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 2: are the ancestors to all other mammals, right, Like, these

567
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:18,840
Speaker 2: are not. It's not like we all it's not like

568
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 2: they are the in between step between reptiles and then

569
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 2: the rest of mammals and then we all descended from

570
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 2: echidnas and another monitors. That's not the case. They just

571
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 2: represent like we don't necessarily know what the in between

572
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 2: step was for the rest of mammals, like what the

573
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 2: common ancestor was, but we we think that these ones

574
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 2: might have been. They might have shared some qualities.

575
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great segue into the next takeaway too,

576
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:54,000
Speaker 1: because takeaway number three, based on new studies of ancient bones,

577
00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 1: we think echidnas and platypuses evolved from the same aquatic

578
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 1: mammal near anti Arctica.

579
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 2: Ooh, that's that's crazy. That's wild, because yeah, like we

580
00:33:05,800 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 2: don't usually go back up like once we like come

581
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:12,400
Speaker 2: out of the water and then we're like actually no,

582
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 2: the sucks, and we go back into the water. We

583
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 2: don't usually go back out.

584
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a lot of like back and forth

585
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:24,000
Speaker 1: water and land with an animal that led to echidnas

586
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 1: anti platypuses. Nice and platypuses are still semi aquatic. Echidnas

587
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:31,400
Speaker 1: are mostly a land animal that it also turns out

588
00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 1: as excellent its swimming, partly because of this heritage.

589
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 2: Nice never it never forgets. Michael Phelps was once it's ancestor,

590
00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 2: and the.

591
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: Big reason for monotrems seems to be plate tectonics, and

592
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 1: that monotrems were sort of separated from the rest of

593
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:54,080
Speaker 1: animals in a crucial and specific way.

594
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 2: But like whatever God you believe in did their best

595
00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 2: to keep these weird separated from the rest of mammals.

596
00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the scientology god, and so yeah, he

597
00:34:09,040 --> 00:34:15,479
Speaker 1: used the nineteen sixties commercial airliner to separate the bottle trees. Yeah,

598
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: because the long set of movements of what became continents

599
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 1: involves a very large super continent that we've named Gondwana,

600
00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: and about one hundred and eighty million years ago that

601
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:32,040
Speaker 1: split in half. Gondwana ends up forming pretty much all

602
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 1: the Southern Hemisphere lands. So like one half becomes Africa

603
00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:40,479
Speaker 1: and South America. After that's further subdivides, the other half

604
00:34:40,520 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: continues breaking into pieces, creates Madagascar, India, and a lot

605
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:48,239
Speaker 1: of other things. And then about eighty five million years

606
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 1: ago Antarctica and Australia began to split. Yeah, they were

607
00:34:52,680 --> 00:34:55,319
Speaker 1: together toward the last stage of all this.

608
00:34:56,320 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 2: God damn it, yoka Ona, what won't you ruin.

609
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 1: Yo go dated Antarctica? She has big coats on and stuff. Yeah,

610
00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 1: And apparently also the climate was different, and so the

611
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:17,160
Speaker 1: combo Antarctica Australia had like a polar forested region. It's

612
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 1: not all the way at the south pole, but it's

613
00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 1: below what's now the Antarctic Circle. It's very cold and

614
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 1: also a thriving ecosystem. Researchers from the Australian Museum and

615
00:35:27,239 --> 00:35:30,640
Speaker 1: a few universities in twenty twenty two announced that they

616
00:35:30,760 --> 00:35:34,400
Speaker 1: thought they found the first mono dream Wow, which was

617
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: a tiny prehistoric mammal scientific name Taina lofos truslaiai, and

618
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:44,800
Speaker 1: it lived on the combo Australia Antarctica with polar forests.

619
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 2: Is do we have like pictures of these guys?

620
00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:52,920
Speaker 1: No, just like bone fragments that they've sussed out what

621
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:55,120
Speaker 1: it could be. And it was also tiny. It'd only

622
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:58,240
Speaker 1: weighed about forty grams, which is about what one slice

623
00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 1: of bread weys. And it was tiny to be a

624
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:04,719
Speaker 1: tiny insective orient like dove into snow and moss to

625
00:36:04,760 --> 00:36:07,000
Speaker 1: eat bugs, right.

626
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 2: And snow and moss does have a lot of insects,

627
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 2: but they're little, they're tiny insects.

628
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 1: Yeah. And we also think this helps explain the electrosensitive

629
00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 1: parts of platypuses, indi kidness. Ah.

630
00:36:20,239 --> 00:36:26,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is exciting because they, like sharks, have electro receptors.

631
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 2: The way it works is every animal produces small electrical

632
00:36:31,760 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 2: signals because of muscle movement, also brain activity, but mostly

633
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:39,319
Speaker 2: what they would be detecting would be muscle movement, and

634
00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 2: so you have these these very sensitive little glands. When

635
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:48,400
Speaker 2: it detects sort of this change in this electrical balance, right, Like,

636
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 2: it triggers that nerve there, and then they can, like

637
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:53,000
Speaker 2: because they have so many of these glands, they can

638
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:56,440
Speaker 2: determine the direction from where it's coming and then they

639
00:36:56,440 --> 00:36:58,839
Speaker 2: can go in that direction and find the thing. And

640
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:04,359
Speaker 2: both platypuses and kidnas have electroceptors. Platypuses to have them

641
00:37:04,360 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 2: in their billain kidneys have them in their snoots. Yeah.

642
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:11,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a lot of animals we associate with the sea.

643
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:15,360
Speaker 1: The theory is either from living in the sea or

644
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 1: from tracking down bugs in snow. These earliest monotremes develop

645
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:24,600
Speaker 1: that same electrosensitive ability to like feel where prey are

646
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 1: from the electricity in their bodies and helps them eat

647
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 1: and live. That is almost unique with land animals. It's

648
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:33,520
Speaker 1: another amazing anatomy thing.

649
00:37:34,280 --> 00:37:37,719
Speaker 2: And it's really helpful for them because for platypuses, they're

650
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 2: often looked around for worms and other little invertebrates in muddy,

651
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:45,080
Speaker 2: silty water where they can't see very well. And for

652
00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 2: kidnas they're rooting around in the dirt for worms and

653
00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:50,879
Speaker 2: stuff where you know, they can't see very well.

654
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:55,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so cool that the ability has been useful

655
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 1: for at least one hundred and thirty million years. It's yeah,

656
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:01,280
Speaker 1: good to keep that up. I love it.

657
00:38:00,440 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 2: It's like you can feel food with your face, which

658
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 2: we can too, but usually that's when you just sort

659
00:38:07,440 --> 00:38:09,720
Speaker 2: of rub it into your face and by that point

660
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:12,280
Speaker 2: you kind of already have the food and it's fine.

661
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 2: But yeah, being able to sense your food moving around

662
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 2: is very useful.

663
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 1: Thinking of David Edinburgh describing as a disgusting behaviors in

664
00:38:21,680 --> 00:38:22,520
Speaker 1: the coolest voice.

665
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's rubbing a sandwich against his face. It's like,

666
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 2: this is how the kidna finds its food.

667
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:34,760
Speaker 1: The Attenborough acquias the HOGI and like people are, that's amazing.

668
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:41,799
Speaker 1: Nature's so cool, and he's just ruining the restaurant and yeah,

669
00:38:41,840 --> 00:38:45,080
Speaker 1: and then there's tons of debates still with this whole

670
00:38:45,080 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: evolutionary trajectory. There is a study published about it in

671
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:52,759
Speaker 1: April twenty twenty five. They examined one bone from an

672
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:57,799
Speaker 1: extinct animal scientific name Crierictus cad berry eye. It was

673
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:00,759
Speaker 1: found on a coast in southeastern Australia. It's the only

674
00:39:00,840 --> 00:39:04,319
Speaker 1: bone we have from the entire species and based on

675
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 1: its weight and its microscopic features, we think this was

676
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:12,840
Speaker 1: a semi aquatic burrowing monotrem Cryarechtes cadberry eye.

677
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:14,120
Speaker 2: I bet it was cute.

678
00:39:15,080 --> 00:39:18,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just figure it looks monotremy. We'd only have

679
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 1: the one bone, so is.

680
00:39:19,960 --> 00:39:22,880
Speaker 2: It a cute bone though, I bet it's a cute bone.

681
00:39:23,000 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 1: It is. It's the bone called the humorus, so ah, funny.

682
00:39:27,920 --> 00:39:30,759
Speaker 1: Our theory based on that is one of a couple

683
00:39:30,880 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 1: things happened to make platypuses into kidnas separate. Either Cryirectus

684
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 1: continued to live mostly in water and became platypuses, and

685
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 1: then a branch of them moved onto lands and became

686
00:39:43,160 --> 00:39:48,280
Speaker 1: echidnas or cryirectus evolved into platypuses, and then platypuses branched

687
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 1: into echidness and apparently echidna fossils are much newer, right.

688
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 2: So we so basically we don't know. So basically we

689
00:39:57,239 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 2: have no idea. It could be either wine, it could

690
00:40:01,160 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 2: be happened this way or the complete opposite. Those are

691
00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 2: our two theories.

692
00:40:06,560 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. It's the few things we do feel

693
00:40:10,080 --> 00:40:12,960
Speaker 1: like we know are that echidnas have a bunch of

694
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 1: aquatic life features that are surprising. And also the way

695
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 1: continents moved explains why monotreams are only down in the

696
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 1: Australia area there and not across the rest of the world. Theoretically,

697
00:40:26,239 --> 00:40:29,279
Speaker 1: this branch of evolution could be all over, but they

698
00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:32,640
Speaker 1: were initially just living in polar forests of the combo

699
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 1: Antarctica Australia, and by the time they adapted to warmer

700
00:40:36,520 --> 00:40:39,359
Speaker 1: climates and other climates the other continents that moved away.

701
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:42,520
Speaker 2: They're like, ah, I get that thing away from us.

702
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:49,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why they're in the Australia category only yes, yes,

703
00:40:49,640 --> 00:40:52,359
Speaker 1: like I don't have monotreams on my street, reoding through

704
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:52,840
Speaker 1: the trash.

705
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:56,239
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, I mean if only like it is,

706
00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 2: it is still to me it is wild that we

707
00:40:58,280 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 2: even have any marsupials in the Americas, Like we have possums,

708
00:41:04,840 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 2: which is crazy.

709
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:06,839
Speaker 1: A miracle. They're great.

710
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're great. They are rooting in your trash, so

711
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 2: that's fun.

712
00:41:10,840 --> 00:41:11,560
Speaker 1: I want them to have it.

713
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, good for them.

714
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 1: Like when a mom puts a note at a kid's

715
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,719
Speaker 1: school lunch, I put a little note for the opossums.

716
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 2: Like yeah, I love he's have good day, enjoy love

717
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:27,439
Speaker 2: you and and yeah.

718
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 1: Echidnas, they they're amazing at burrowing. They have hind feet

719
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 1: that face backwards. There's a theory that the backward facing

720
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:37,720
Speaker 1: feet might have originated as rudders for paddling through water.

721
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 1: The electro reception, the focus on eating insects, it all

722
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 1: could fit aquatic life or be a reason they moved

723
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:48,919
Speaker 1: on to land because there were more bugs. And then.

724
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 1: Echidnas do not need to swim and love to swim.

725
00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:55,759
Speaker 1: They have the diving reflex where they can tell their

726
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: body to conserve energy when submerged in water to maximize oxygen.

727
00:42:00,200 --> 00:42:03,560
Speaker 1: They move very well through it. And my favorite quote

728
00:42:03,600 --> 00:42:07,960
Speaker 1: about this is Australian geographic. They interviewed Peggy riss Miller,

729
00:42:08,440 --> 00:42:11,320
Speaker 1: who's any kidne expert and works for a wildlife center,

730
00:42:12,239 --> 00:42:16,279
Speaker 1: and she says that people often think they are rescuing

731
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:18,840
Speaker 1: a swimming echidna. They're like, oh, that a kid is

732
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,319
Speaker 1: in the water. It needs help. Yeah, and as soon

733
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:22,839
Speaker 1: as they pull it out of the water, it runs

734
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:24,479
Speaker 1: straight back into the water to be in the water.

735
00:42:25,160 --> 00:42:27,759
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's like someone's chilling out in a like a

736
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 2: kiddie pool and then a rogue lifeguard comes and it's like,

737
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:33,799
Speaker 2: I'll save you and smashes into the kiddie pool and

738
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:34,239
Speaker 2: you're like what.

739
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, especially Americans and like video game fans too,

740
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:45,279
Speaker 1: we think these are sort of a hedgehog looking guy

741
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 1: that just wants to be on land all the time

742
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:51,240
Speaker 1: and they are quietly an Antarctic swimmer sort of. It's amazing.

743
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:56,840
Speaker 2: Yeah. They also the males on those back legs. The

744
00:42:56,880 --> 00:43:00,040
Speaker 2: males do have these spurs, which you probably heard of

745
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:03,439
Speaker 2: in Platypuses are venomous, like they're one of the rare

746
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:09,960
Speaker 2: venomous mammals. Echidneas don't have venom don't mention it to them, like,

747
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 2: don't tell the male a kindas like, I know you

748
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:15,239
Speaker 2: don't have venom It's considered really impolite, but like, yeah,

749
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 2: they're they're they're not venomous, they're not harmful, but still

750
00:43:19,560 --> 00:43:21,640
Speaker 2: don't pick it, like, don't pick them up. I mean,

751
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:24,080
Speaker 2: you know, just leave them alone, let them swim around.

752
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, and apparently they can like they still have the

753
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:30,840
Speaker 1: spurs sort of and they can release a hormone or

754
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 1: a communicative thing through it. But yeah, it's not venomous anymore.

755
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:34,440
Speaker 1: They let it go.

756
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:36,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not it's not dangerous. Yeah.

757
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:39,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, like Katie said, be polite to your local,

758
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 1: didn't it right?

759
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 2: Let them swim? Yeah, remember that nine pm to two

760
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:53,319
Speaker 2: am is a kidnea free swim.

761
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:56,320
Speaker 1: But that's what I want to be at the pool

762
00:43:56,360 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 1: to watch. Uh And folks, that's so many numbers and

763
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 1: takeaways already, We're going to take a quick break and

764
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:08,279
Speaker 1: then do a couple more takeaways about these amazing echidna monodreams.

765
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:09,920
Speaker 2: I'm excited.

766
00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:22,759
Speaker 1: We are back, and we're back with takeaway number four.

767
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:31,279
Speaker 1: Short beaked echidnas air ate until the soil across all

768
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 1: of Australia.

769
00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 2: You know, I've never thought about that, but that makes

770
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:38,640
Speaker 2: complete sense because all the snuffalon We've been talking about,

771
00:44:38,719 --> 00:44:41,640
Speaker 2: all the snufflin, and I've just never thought about the

772
00:44:42,400 --> 00:44:43,920
Speaker 2: consequences of the snuffalin.

773
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 1: A like nickname for ekidnas is the spiny ant eater,

774
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:52,560
Speaker 1: and for reasons we just explored, they're not particularly related

775
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:55,320
Speaker 1: to ant eaters or hedgehogs. They're from this other whole branch.

776
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:59,480
Speaker 1: But they're constantly eating ants and termites and other bugs.

777
00:44:59,520 --> 00:45:02,320
Speaker 1: They love to dig, and in the process they support

778
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:06,480
Speaker 1: the entire ecosystem of all of Australia, from snowy mountains

779
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 1: to the hottest outback.

780
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:10,799
Speaker 2: That's uh, that's fantastic.

781
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:12,440
Speaker 1: Yes, it's amazing.

782
00:45:12,480 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 2: They're also super cute. I mean, like, if you if

783
00:45:17,080 --> 00:45:19,919
Speaker 2: you can do yourself a favor and look for try

784
00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 2: to find photos of short beaked a kinya's with their

785
00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 2: faces directly at the camera. It's the funniest thing I've

786
00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 2: ever seen in my life.

787
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: We were what me, Kittie were you may like, I

788
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:32,279
Speaker 1: said her, the what pic trifiut where it just kind

789
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:35,320
Speaker 1: of looks like the echidna is grinning. It's not really grinning.

790
00:45:35,320 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 1: But I love it. It's I'm gonna post it. It's

791
00:45:37,520 --> 00:45:38,239
Speaker 1: my favorite.

792
00:45:38,719 --> 00:45:41,560
Speaker 2: They're real cute. They're real, real cute.

793
00:45:42,440 --> 00:45:44,759
Speaker 1: You replied with, what it was even snootier, like in

794
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:47,080
Speaker 1: a good way. The snoop was like, hello, not not

795
00:45:47,160 --> 00:45:48,280
Speaker 1: snooty like a rich person.

796
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:51,720
Speaker 2: It's all the cuteness of a hedgehog with an even

797
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:52,920
Speaker 2: bigger snoot.

798
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:57,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great. They also have a snoot with a long,

799
00:45:57,520 --> 00:46:00,200
Speaker 1: sticky tongue, and they don't have teeth. They grind the

800
00:46:00,200 --> 00:46:02,839
Speaker 1: bugs against a hard mouth bone. But they're amazing at

801
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:05,520
Speaker 1: eating bugs with that whole snowden system. And then the

802
00:46:05,560 --> 00:46:07,160
Speaker 1: electro receptors to see them.

803
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 2: Ant eaters are similar. They have a long, sticky tongue.

804
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 2: They grind ants through like sort of a hard throat area.

805
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:18,239
Speaker 2: So it's like a very similar mechanics. But they're not.

806
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:21,040
Speaker 2: They didn't descend from one another or anything like that.

807
00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:25,120
Speaker 2: It's an example of convergent evolution exactly.

808
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, then anteaters would be like what are you?

809
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 1: You're laying an egg? What? They're so different?

810
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:32,360
Speaker 2: Ah, dang, I should try that.

811
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:37,520
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, maybe that's good. Yeah. A key source about

812
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:40,960
Speaker 1: this digging and climate support is a twenty sixteen study

813
00:46:40,960 --> 00:46:44,280
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Also more writing about

814
00:46:44,280 --> 00:46:48,320
Speaker 1: that from Cosmos magazine by Amy Middleton. Because this twenty

815
00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:50,839
Speaker 1: sixteen study, you know, it's just one study, but they

816
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: tagged and tracked the activities of short beaked echidneas, the

817
00:46:54,920 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 1: mainly Australian kidna, and even as recently as twenty sixteen

818
00:46:59,239 --> 00:47:02,760
Speaker 1: researcher we're I think they spend their day eating bugs,

819
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:04,680
Speaker 1: but like, what are the details. We don't really know

820
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 1: because we're not observing it that much and we need

821
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:10,319
Speaker 1: to tag it. And they discovered two amazing things. One

822
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 1: is that he kidness spend about twelve percent of their

823
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:18,160
Speaker 1: day digging, like actively just digging, which is a lot,

824
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 1: Like twelve is a lot. If you think about if

825
00:47:20,520 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 1: you did that in the day, you know, like you

826
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:23,440
Speaker 1: would be a digging animal if you.

827
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 2: Did that, it sounds not bad, you know, like just digging,

828
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 2: you know, when you're not if you're not digging for

829
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:34,279
Speaker 2: the man. If I had to dig for the man,

830
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:36,840
Speaker 2: then I think it would suck. But if I'm digging

831
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 2: for me m E and just digging all day, that

832
00:47:40,120 --> 00:47:42,920
Speaker 2: seems kind of fun. Yeah, hanging out with the worms,

833
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:46,640
Speaker 2: slurping them up when I find them, like spaghetti's.

834
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:50,279
Speaker 1: We should seize the means of digging. We should dig

835
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:51,440
Speaker 1: for ourselves.

836
00:47:51,320 --> 00:47:54,560
Speaker 2: For not for the man. But yeah, their claws are

837
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:57,800
Speaker 2: really weird and shovel like they like, they're very cute,

838
00:47:57,840 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 2: and then you zoom in on their claws and they're

839
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:01,520
Speaker 2: nasty as Yeah.

840
00:48:01,520 --> 00:48:03,920
Speaker 1: The two observations one is how much digging they do,

841
00:48:04,560 --> 00:48:07,760
Speaker 1: like in a concentrated way. The other thing they found

842
00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: is that echidnas walk in a funny way. If you've

843
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:14,000
Speaker 1: seen videos of a kidnas walking, it's a funny little shuffle,

844
00:48:14,040 --> 00:48:17,319
Speaker 1: it's really cute. But the way their feet move when

845
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: they do that disturbs the soil more than an average shuffle,

846
00:48:21,480 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 1: and so it sort of creates a light digging element

847
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:27,719
Speaker 1: to the way they walk ow.

848
00:48:28,480 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 2: So it's sort of like when we talked about buffalo

849
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:38,400
Speaker 2: that they they will make little little trenches with their hooves.

850
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 2: These guys make little tiny trenches with their little claws exactly.

851
00:48:44,360 --> 00:48:46,719
Speaker 1: That's exactly the thrilling feeling I had. I was like,

852
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 1: echidnas are sort of a tiny Australian bison. Great great, great, exciting, exciting,

853
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:56,520
Speaker 1: very heavy and yeah, and one term for what ekidneys

854
00:48:56,560 --> 00:48:58,640
Speaker 1: are doing with that is bioturbation.

855
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 2: Eh oh, that sounds cool.

856
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:06,440
Speaker 1: An animal stirring up and tilling and narrating soil, you know,

857
00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: like when the kidna digs to eat that ant. It's

858
00:49:09,200 --> 00:49:12,040
Speaker 1: not by attribation necessarily, but when I'm just like doing

859
00:49:12,120 --> 00:49:15,880
Speaker 1: stuff that adjusts soil, that's that right. Cool.

860
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:18,719
Speaker 2: I'm gonna like when I'm just walking around in the

861
00:49:18,760 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 2: dirt and someone asks me what I'm doing, saying bioturbating,

862
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 2: You're welcome, yeah.

863
00:49:24,520 --> 00:49:28,600
Speaker 1: And using these two discoveries, these researchers did a possibly

864
00:49:28,640 --> 00:49:30,759
Speaker 1: wrong estimate, but they did like a bunch of calculating,

865
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:34,520
Speaker 1: and they came up with a number of one adultakid

866
00:49:34,520 --> 00:49:38,720
Speaker 1: ina moves two hundred and four cubic meters of dirt

867
00:49:38,800 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 1: per year, h one adulty kid inna two hundred and

868
00:49:43,160 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 1: four cubic meters.

869
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:48,160
Speaker 2: It seems like a lot of dirt. I don't really

870
00:49:48,239 --> 00:49:51,000
Speaker 2: know how much dirt that is. I'm gonna be honest

871
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:53,880
Speaker 2: with you. I'm bad at units. I'm trying trying to

872
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:56,120
Speaker 2: picture the amount of dirt. Is it a lot of dirt?

873
00:49:57,000 --> 00:50:00,120
Speaker 1: They tried to help They did a comparison where they said, Okay,

874
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:03,640
Speaker 1: if twelve ekidnas do that amount, that's enough dirt to

875
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:06,120
Speaker 1: fill an empty Olympic swimming pool.

876
00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:09,040
Speaker 2: That's a lot of dirt. Okay, I get it.

877
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:11,160
Speaker 1: That's a lot of Olympic swimming pool.

878
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:14,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, right by twelve by twelve ekidness.

879
00:50:14,680 --> 00:50:18,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're little like compared to an Olympic swimming pool, you.

880
00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's pretty good stuff. Yeah.

881
00:50:22,080 --> 00:50:28,960
Speaker 2: So they're they're bioturbating the dirt, and so that's does

882
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:33,440
Speaker 2: that have like a pretty profound effect on the on

883
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 2: the ecosystem.

884
00:50:35,600 --> 00:50:38,920
Speaker 1: It does. It helps capture and retain leaf litter and soil.

885
00:50:39,400 --> 00:50:42,280
Speaker 1: It traps organic matter below the surface of the soil,

886
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:45,239
Speaker 1: so then plants rooted in at animals living in it

887
00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:47,680
Speaker 1: can all eat. I like the idea that a kidneys

888
00:50:47,719 --> 00:50:51,600
Speaker 1: are basically making more stuff for the bugs they eat. Yeah,

889
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:55,360
Speaker 1: Like it's a nice situation all around. And then also

890
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:59,879
Speaker 1: ekidnas make foraging pits actively to find bugs they found.

891
00:51:00,120 --> 00:51:02,800
Speaker 1: When any kidney does that, the soil in and around

892
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:07,160
Speaker 1: the pit absorbs double the amount of water afterwards, but

893
00:51:07,239 --> 00:51:09,480
Speaker 1: it would have if it hadn't been disturbed.

894
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:13,000
Speaker 2: So they're kind of raising the water table maybe.

895
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:16,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, and also like helping plants get water from that soil,

896
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:19,759
Speaker 1: so like they're sort of greening their whole world by

897
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:20,239
Speaker 1: doing this.

898
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:24,239
Speaker 2: They're like little gardeners. Did you ever watch or did

899
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:27,239
Speaker 2: you ever read bea Trix Potter books when you.

900
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:29,920
Speaker 1: Were a kid, and not really I'm familiar with that.

901
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:33,600
Speaker 2: Hey, I read them. They were very cute. They had

902
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:38,680
Speaker 2: she had like a little hedgehog lady who is very industrious.

903
00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:41,920
Speaker 2: And I think that there's a lot of love for

904
00:51:42,040 --> 00:51:45,000
Speaker 2: hedgehogs in the UK because of all the good they

905
00:51:45,080 --> 00:51:47,439
Speaker 2: do for gardens. But this is like the same thing

906
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:51,120
Speaker 2: we need, because I think it was Miss tiggy Winkle

907
00:51:51,520 --> 00:51:55,480
Speaker 2: was the hedgehog one, which is you know, definitely what

908
00:51:55,680 --> 00:52:00,680
Speaker 2: female hedgehogs are generally named. And I just I want

909
00:52:00,680 --> 00:52:05,319
Speaker 2: an Australian version of Beatrix Potter with all the beautiful illustrations,

910
00:52:05,320 --> 00:52:08,960
Speaker 2: but with these really weird versions of these animals. That

911
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:09,880
Speaker 2: would be really cool.

912
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:19,560
Speaker 1: Miss echidnasiggy Winkle look out for the love trade, oh boy. Yeah, yeah,

913
00:52:19,640 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 1: Like it's it's just such an astounding animal for every

914
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:27,360
Speaker 1: animal around it. And the other thing with modern Australia

915
00:52:27,400 --> 00:52:31,520
Speaker 1: is that as primarily white colladizers proceeded to build like

916
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:37,640
Speaker 1: European style cities in Australia. That expansion of human habitat

917
00:52:37,760 --> 00:52:42,600
Speaker 1: has impacted a lot of Australian mammals, and apparently echidnas

918
00:52:42,600 --> 00:52:47,759
Speaker 1: are the most common remaining mammal that does bioturbation, because

919
00:52:47,840 --> 00:52:51,960
Speaker 1: other animals like bandicoots and also bilbies are known for

920
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:54,720
Speaker 1: doing bioturbation type stuff too. Is they look for bugs

921
00:52:54,719 --> 00:52:58,960
Speaker 1: and move around, but their habitats and numbers were impacted

922
00:52:59,000 --> 00:53:02,240
Speaker 1: a lot more than a kid numbers. Yeah, so ekidnas

923
00:53:02,280 --> 00:53:05,080
Speaker 1: are like picking up the job in some ways.

924
00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:08,400
Speaker 2: Also by those dang cane toads and also rabbits. I

925
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:13,080
Speaker 2: don't compete with bilbi's and bandicoots, so but yeah, the

926
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 2: kidnas remain snow competition.

927
00:53:17,719 --> 00:53:19,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like going into this, I really would have

928
00:53:19,640 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 1: presumed all the kidneys are endangered because just many cool

929
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:25,799
Speaker 1: animals are. But the short beaked ones in Australia and

930
00:53:25,840 --> 00:53:28,439
Speaker 1: it's adjacent little islands are are doing pretty well. There's

931
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:31,120
Speaker 1: a lot of them, and so it's a surprisingly plentiful

932
00:53:31,160 --> 00:53:33,520
Speaker 1: animal and it makes the whole ecosystem go.

933
00:53:33,840 --> 00:53:36,120
Speaker 2: I mean, they are covered in spikes, they are covered

934
00:53:36,160 --> 00:53:37,040
Speaker 2: in spikes.

935
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:43,600
Speaker 1: Also mentioned they do this in every Australian climate. That

936
00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:50,319
Speaker 1: helps get into our last takeaway number five. Echidnas do

937
00:53:50,800 --> 00:53:54,799
Speaker 1: amazing and silly things to survive in various climates.

938
00:53:55,200 --> 00:53:59,000
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm excited to hear this. They wear do They

939
00:53:59,040 --> 00:54:03,360
Speaker 2: wear a little hat, roll around in scarves.

940
00:54:03,960 --> 00:54:07,440
Speaker 1: They're very good at cold or hot temperatures. And one

941
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:10,120
Speaker 1: of the cold temperature things is that some subspecies just

942
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:13,000
Speaker 1: grow thicker coverings of fur and air. Yeah, so they're

943
00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 1: like fuzzier.

944
00:54:13,920 --> 00:54:15,600
Speaker 2: Reasonable, it's really good.

945
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:19,359
Speaker 1: Subspecies in Tasmania known for that in the mountains. Yeah.

946
00:54:21,640 --> 00:54:21,839
Speaker 2: Yeah.

947
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:24,120
Speaker 1: The main source here is an excerpt from the book

948
00:54:24,200 --> 00:54:28,960
Speaker 1: Platypus Matters, The Extraordinary Story of Australian Mammals by Cambridge

949
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:33,360
Speaker 1: Zoology Museum director Jack Ashby, also writing by a veterinary scientist,

950
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:36,560
Speaker 1: Kate Dutton Register who lectures at the University of Queensland.

951
00:54:37,440 --> 00:54:40,560
Speaker 1: Echidnas with those sharp spines on their body that also

952
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:44,680
Speaker 1: does a lot of temperature control. They mostly release heat

953
00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:48,880
Speaker 1: through their belly, their limbs and other not spiny small areas.

954
00:54:49,560 --> 00:54:53,239
Speaker 1: They're also amazing at forming a ball. Yeah, they will

955
00:54:53,239 --> 00:54:56,120
Speaker 1: at the slightest provocation, apparently as little as a twig

956
00:54:56,280 --> 00:54:58,960
Speaker 1: crunching near them in a way they don't expect. They

957
00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:02,080
Speaker 1: will tuck their limbs and belly under the spines and

958
00:55:02,120 --> 00:55:05,320
Speaker 1: then also fully ball up. They have a layer of

959
00:55:05,400 --> 00:55:09,120
Speaker 1: muscle that, when contracted, works like a draw string to

960
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:11,719
Speaker 1: pull their spines down over their limbs heads.

961
00:55:11,880 --> 00:55:18,320
Speaker 2: Zep, like yeah, whoop, goodbye. Yeah, no there, it's only

962
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:20,839
Speaker 2: it's like only spines. When you look at when they're

963
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:24,840
Speaker 2: all curled up, it's a very impressive ball of spoikes.

964
00:55:26,040 --> 00:55:29,240
Speaker 1: It is the apparently other move they can do besides

965
00:55:29,239 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 1: the ball is Jack Ashby says they can do what

966
00:55:32,560 --> 00:55:37,680
Speaker 1: he compares to jazz hands with all four limbs in

967
00:55:37,800 --> 00:55:41,000
Speaker 1: order to like make their whole body dig down and

968
00:55:41,160 --> 00:55:43,680
Speaker 1: just be a dome of spikes in dirt.

969
00:55:44,960 --> 00:55:51,560
Speaker 2: That's fantastic. Yeah, I think I see why these guys

970
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:53,960
Speaker 2: have survived for so long. Because they can be ball

971
00:55:54,040 --> 00:55:58,359
Speaker 2: of spike or jazz hands. You into submission.

972
00:55:58,920 --> 00:56:01,920
Speaker 1: Almost even more than the spines. They're super tough against

973
00:56:01,920 --> 00:56:06,280
Speaker 1: temperatures and partly because their bodies can go into tor

974
00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:08,239
Speaker 1: poor and fully hibernation.

975
00:56:09,080 --> 00:56:13,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, and tour poor is basically when your body systems

976
00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:17,879
Speaker 2: slow down. It's not quite hibernation, but your metabolism slows down,

977
00:56:17,920 --> 00:56:20,160
Speaker 2: Your body kind of slows down. But it's a lot

978
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:23,279
Speaker 2: it's easier to wake up from than hibernation, Like you

979
00:56:23,320 --> 00:56:25,359
Speaker 2: can do it shorter periods of time.

980
00:56:26,640 --> 00:56:30,960
Speaker 1: That's so cool. Yeah, again, like loose understanding of mammals

981
00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:33,239
Speaker 1: that stuff I associate with like bears, and then hey,

982
00:56:33,280 --> 00:56:35,080
Speaker 1: kidneys are doing it very exciting.

983
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:38,080
Speaker 2: Actually bears are. It's an interesting thing because bears are

984
00:56:38,200 --> 00:56:42,920
Speaker 2: kind of considered like the most famous hibernators, but they don't.

985
00:56:43,320 --> 00:56:47,840
Speaker 2: They're not actually major hibernators when you compare them to

986
00:56:48,640 --> 00:56:51,879
Speaker 2: a lot of other animals, Like bats are really good

987
00:56:51,880 --> 00:56:55,200
Speaker 2: at it. A lot of smaller mammals are actually quite good

988
00:56:55,280 --> 00:56:59,600
Speaker 2: at hibernation. The record takers for hibernations are things that

989
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:03,400
Speaker 2: like bats, I can just hybridate many many, many months

990
00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:08,040
Speaker 2: at a time and just almost completely stop their bodily processes.

991
00:57:09,080 --> 00:57:11,200
Speaker 1: That's bats should be famous for that. That's so cool.

992
00:57:11,440 --> 00:57:13,879
Speaker 1: They should be Yeah, why do we think bears are

993
00:57:13,880 --> 00:57:15,560
Speaker 1: amazing at it? And then bats are some sort of

994
00:57:15,600 --> 00:57:19,040
Speaker 1: dracula like, like, well, bats should be famous for hibernating.

995
00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:22,120
Speaker 2: It's really not fair. I think it's a barrel obbyists

996
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:26,000
Speaker 2: have gotten gotten the message out big bear.

997
00:57:26,200 --> 00:57:29,560
Speaker 1: Oh no. And in political cartoons, bears are the Soviets,

998
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 1: so that's bad. They're in the government. Oh no. But

999
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:38,760
Speaker 1: they're also the markets, so oh yeah, right, do they

1000
00:57:38,800 --> 00:57:41,240
Speaker 1: love capital? Do they hate capital? Come on?

1001
00:57:41,440 --> 00:57:44,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have I've never figured out what a bolish

1002
00:57:45,000 --> 00:57:47,320
Speaker 2: market and a bearish market is because it's like, oh,

1003
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 2: a bearish market is bad, but bulls are good, and

1004
00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:55,680
Speaker 2: it's like why huh.

1005
00:57:54,480 --> 00:58:00,760
Speaker 1: Just both dangerous animals? Yeah? What? And yeah, and kidneys

1006
00:58:00,880 --> 00:58:05,000
Speaker 1: among all mammals have a surprisingly low body temperature. Their

1007
00:58:05,040 --> 00:58:08,840
Speaker 1: body temp sits at around eighty nine point six fahrenheit

1008
00:58:09,200 --> 00:58:12,560
Speaker 1: or thirty two celsius, and then when they go into

1009
00:58:12,600 --> 00:58:15,080
Speaker 1: torpor they can plummet it all the way to fifty

1010
00:58:15,120 --> 00:58:17,400
Speaker 1: fahrenheit or ten celsius.

1011
00:58:17,680 --> 00:58:20,720
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's goin to help slow down their metabolism quite

1012
00:58:20,720 --> 00:58:21,440
Speaker 2: a lot.

1013
00:58:22,120 --> 00:58:26,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so apparently in all climates of Australia they

1014
00:58:26,280 --> 00:58:30,160
Speaker 1: will use that to get through tough winter, tough summer, anything.

1015
00:58:30,560 --> 00:58:32,920
Speaker 1: And then between that and being able to grow more

1016
00:58:32,920 --> 00:58:35,080
Speaker 1: hair and fur, they're very good at cold temperatures if

1017
00:58:35,080 --> 00:58:35,560
Speaker 1: they need to be.

1018
00:58:36,360 --> 00:58:38,680
Speaker 2: It's amazing. What can't they do?

1019
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:42,760
Speaker 1: And then the other thing this might tie into snoot

1020
00:58:42,800 --> 00:58:45,920
Speaker 1: stuff you're thinking about. Apparently in the hottest parts of

1021
00:58:45,960 --> 00:58:49,280
Speaker 1: the outback, they will blow snot bubbles on their snowt

1022
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:50,040
Speaker 1: for cooling.

1023
00:58:50,760 --> 00:58:54,120
Speaker 2: Yes, there we go. That's that's the gross thing that

1024
00:58:54,160 --> 00:58:58,560
Speaker 2: I was looking for. Yeah, snot bubbles. It's you know,

1025
00:58:58,600 --> 00:59:02,120
Speaker 2: when you're trying to stay cool, well, anything goes. Vultures

1026
00:59:02,160 --> 00:59:05,120
Speaker 2: will poop on themselves and that running poop will help

1027
00:59:05,200 --> 00:59:09,080
Speaker 2: cool them down by pooping on their legs snot bubbles.

1028
00:59:09,640 --> 00:59:14,280
Speaker 2: Kangaroos lick their hands, so they use saliva all over

1029
00:59:14,320 --> 00:59:18,400
Speaker 2: their arms to cool themselves down. So, yeah, we got

1030
00:59:18,440 --> 00:59:22,840
Speaker 2: a lot of fluids that we can use. Like when

1031
00:59:23,080 --> 00:59:25,120
Speaker 2: you don't have a water bottle or one of those

1032
00:59:25,160 --> 00:59:30,400
Speaker 2: little handheld fan, you got saliva and poop and snot

1033
00:59:30,440 --> 00:59:32,760
Speaker 2: bubbles and all of those things can help you with

1034
00:59:33,080 --> 00:59:34,160
Speaker 2: evaporative cooling.

1035
00:59:35,360 --> 00:59:39,200
Speaker 1: It turns out, yeah, yeah, the beaked nose of the

1036
00:59:39,200 --> 00:59:42,000
Speaker 1: echidna is covered in blood vessels a lot of potential

1037
00:59:42,000 --> 00:59:44,920
Speaker 1: for releasing heat, and so they've figured out that they

1038
00:59:44,920 --> 00:59:49,200
Speaker 1: can blow snot bubbles onto their own nose. The bubble bursts,

1039
00:59:49,320 --> 00:59:53,840
Speaker 1: then the wet moisture evaporates and that evaporation cools their nose,

1040
00:59:53,880 --> 00:59:58,440
Speaker 1: which then cools their whole body. Nice ekinnas have apparently

1041
00:59:58,480 --> 01:00:02,680
Speaker 1: been seen sheltering and hollow logs of the outback while

1042
01:00:02,720 --> 01:00:05,920
Speaker 1: the temperature is forty celsius, which is one hundred and

1043
01:00:05,920 --> 01:00:09,960
Speaker 1: four fahrenheit. I love that spines protecting kidness so well.

1044
01:00:10,000 --> 01:00:13,120
Speaker 1: But I also love that they're almost even more of

1045
01:00:13,160 --> 01:00:15,440
Speaker 1: a temperature super animal.

1046
01:00:15,920 --> 01:00:16,440
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1047
01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:19,160
Speaker 1: Well link pictures from the Conversation dot Com of them

1048
01:00:19,200 --> 01:00:22,680
Speaker 1: walking through snowy mountains like the north in Game of

1049
01:00:22,720 --> 01:00:25,840
Speaker 1: Thrones character. And then also they hang out in the

1050
01:00:26,200 --> 01:00:27,520
Speaker 1: hottest desert in the content.

1051
01:00:27,640 --> 01:00:30,720
Speaker 2: It's really cool and there, and they're great at fondue

1052
01:00:30,880 --> 01:00:36,360
Speaker 2: parties marshmallow roasts.

1053
01:00:37,120 --> 01:00:38,320
Speaker 1: Yeah they could.

1054
01:00:38,320 --> 01:00:42,760
Speaker 2: They can't carry it all, yeah, Bob's yeah, canapees because.

1055
01:00:42,560 --> 01:00:44,720
Speaker 1: If you bring a porcupine, they're going to eject those quills.

1056
01:00:44,760 --> 01:00:46,320
Speaker 1: You can. The spines do not each other.

1057
01:00:46,400 --> 01:00:49,720
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, so it's better and porcupine. Yeah, it's

1058
01:00:49,720 --> 01:00:50,880
Speaker 2: interesting those real.

1059
01:00:50,800 --> 01:00:52,520
Speaker 1: Animal effect to joke about fondu.

1060
01:00:52,280 --> 01:00:57,240
Speaker 2: Parties, porcupines, they don't shoot them from a distance, but

1061
01:00:57,280 --> 01:01:00,960
Speaker 2: porcupines do. They'll come off. So like if you're curious

1062
01:01:01,000 --> 01:01:04,080
Speaker 2: coyote and you stick your snoop at a porcupine. Their

1063
01:01:04,200 --> 01:01:06,320
Speaker 2: quills can come off and they get stuck with these

1064
01:01:06,360 --> 01:01:09,760
Speaker 2: little tiny barbs in your snout and it's really uncomfortable

1065
01:01:09,800 --> 01:01:13,840
Speaker 2: and unpleasant. Hedgehogs, that does not happen. The kidnas, that

1066
01:01:13,840 --> 01:01:16,000
Speaker 2: doesn't happen. The kidnas are actually much more similar to

1067
01:01:16,040 --> 01:01:19,080
Speaker 2: hedgehogs and the sort of spine stuff like. And also

1068
01:01:19,120 --> 01:01:23,840
Speaker 2: hedgehogs will ball up and porcupines don't ball up. They

1069
01:01:24,800 --> 01:01:27,160
Speaker 2: go on like an offensive like, oh you want some

1070
01:01:27,280 --> 01:01:29,919
Speaker 2: of this, and then they start backing their butt. There's

1071
01:01:30,000 --> 01:01:31,520
Speaker 2: spiny butt into your face.

1072
01:01:32,640 --> 01:01:35,440
Speaker 1: I just love how many elements are so close to

1073
01:01:35,480 --> 01:01:38,880
Speaker 1: another animal. And then I want echidnas to like speed

1074
01:01:38,960 --> 01:01:41,200
Speaker 1: date these animals. They're like and the other animals like,

1075
01:01:41,320 --> 01:01:43,120
Speaker 1: you're so like me. And the kidna is like hold

1076
01:01:43,160 --> 01:01:46,400
Speaker 1: down one sec, like lays a whole egg right there,

1077
01:01:46,440 --> 01:01:47,960
Speaker 1: like oh, okay.

1078
01:01:47,800 --> 01:01:51,400
Speaker 2: Right, I'm sure we're going to talk about this more

1079
01:01:51,440 --> 01:01:53,880
Speaker 2: on the bonus. But just like with Sonic, we've got

1080
01:01:53,920 --> 01:01:58,240
Speaker 2: Sonic the hedgehog, we have Knuckles the echidna, and then

1081
01:01:58,440 --> 01:01:59,760
Speaker 2: tails the fox.

1082
01:02:00,320 --> 01:02:06,040
Speaker 1: Why no porcupine and they details in between Sonic and Knuckles.

1083
01:02:06,280 --> 01:02:09,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what the hell then we don't even we

1084
01:02:09,400 --> 01:02:12,800
Speaker 2: don't get tendricks. There's so many spiky animals to get through,

1085
01:02:13,000 --> 01:02:15,240
Speaker 2: and I can't believe they whiffed it like that.

1086
01:02:16,200 --> 01:02:20,280
Speaker 1: Our next pitch after Disney is Sega, Sega, Hey listen.

1087
01:02:20,000 --> 01:02:24,320
Speaker 2: Hey listen. Why didn't you include weird penises in your

1088
01:02:24,840 --> 01:02:30,280
Speaker 2: game franchise? Why was there no mention of kloacas even once.

1089
01:02:33,080 --> 01:02:49,880
Speaker 1: Perfect bonus transitions? Thanks Bolts. That is the main episode

1090
01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:52,760
Speaker 1: for this week. Welcome to the outro with fun features

1091
01:02:52,800 --> 01:02:55,320
Speaker 1: for you, such as help remembering this episode with a

1092
01:02:55,400 --> 01:03:02,880
Speaker 1: runback through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one. A male

1093
01:03:02,960 --> 01:03:07,120
Speaker 1: echidna has a four front penis, which is sort of

1094
01:03:07,240 --> 01:03:12,880
Speaker 1: like having a double reptile penis. Takeaway number two. Echidnas

1095
01:03:12,880 --> 01:03:18,120
Speaker 1: are named after a mythological reptilian monster, partly because of

1096
01:03:18,160 --> 01:03:23,120
Speaker 1: how female echidnas lay and carry eggs. Takeaway number three.

1097
01:03:23,480 --> 01:03:26,960
Speaker 1: Based on new studies of ancient bones, we think echidnas

1098
01:03:26,960 --> 01:03:32,520
Speaker 1: and platypuses evolved from an aquatic mammal near Antarctica. Take

1099
01:03:32,520 --> 01:03:36,440
Speaker 1: Away number four. Short beaked echidnas air rate until the

1100
01:03:36,520 --> 01:03:41,800
Speaker 1: soil across all of Australia. Takeaway number five Echidnas do

1101
01:03:41,960 --> 01:03:46,800
Speaker 1: amazing and silly things to live in any climate, and

1102
01:03:46,800 --> 01:03:50,520
Speaker 1: then so many stats and numbers about the entire evolutionary

1103
01:03:50,640 --> 01:03:55,520
Speaker 1: history of echidnas, the amazing forensic science protecting Australian echidnas,

1104
01:03:55,720 --> 01:04:02,080
Speaker 1: and more. Those are the takeaways. Also, I said that's

1105
01:04:02,120 --> 01:04:06,080
Speaker 1: the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating

1106
01:04:06,160 --> 01:04:09,480
Speaker 1: stuff available to you right now if you support this

1107
01:04:09,600 --> 01:04:13,440
Speaker 1: show at maximumfund dot org. Members are the reason this

1108
01:04:13,520 --> 01:04:16,920
Speaker 1: podcast exists, so members get a bonus show every week

1109
01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:21,040
Speaker 1: where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to

1110
01:04:21,080 --> 01:04:25,440
Speaker 1: the main episode. This week's bonus topic, as promised, is

1111
01:04:25,480 --> 01:04:29,840
Speaker 1: the entire series of business and technological decisions that led

1112
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:33,680
Speaker 1: to Knuckles the echidna in the Sonic the Hedgehog video games.

1113
01:04:34,280 --> 01:04:37,000
Speaker 1: Visit sifpod dot fund for that bonus show, for a

1114
01:04:37,040 --> 01:04:41,080
Speaker 1: library of almost twenty one dozen other secretly incredibly fastening

1115
01:04:41,080 --> 01:04:43,520
Speaker 1: bonus shows and a catalog of all sorts of max

1116
01:04:43,560 --> 01:04:46,960
Speaker 1: funbonus shows. It's special audio. It's just for members. Thank

1117
01:04:47,040 --> 01:04:51,640
Speaker 1: you to everybody who backs this podcast. Operation additional fun things,

1118
01:04:51,720 --> 01:04:55,040
Speaker 1: check out our research sources on this episode's page at

1119
01:04:55,080 --> 01:04:58,960
Speaker 1: maximum fund dot org. Key sources this week include so

1120
01:04:59,160 --> 01:05:04,040
Speaker 1: much amazing digital science writing. Those outlets include PBS Nature,

1121
01:05:04,240 --> 01:05:08,440
Speaker 1: Australian Geographic, The Guardian, The Sydney Morning Herald, The New

1122
01:05:08,520 --> 01:05:13,280
Speaker 1: York Times. Also a lot of scientific resources online, including

1123
01:05:13,320 --> 01:05:17,960
Speaker 1: the journal PNASS, the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, digital resources

1124
01:05:17,960 --> 01:05:21,680
Speaker 1: from the Australian Antarctic Program, in particular for the plate

1125
01:05:21,720 --> 01:05:26,760
Speaker 1: tectonics that separated Antarctica from Australia. And then one book excerpt.

1126
01:05:26,840 --> 01:05:28,800
Speaker 1: I did not read the entire book because it's mainly

1127
01:05:28,920 --> 01:05:33,000
Speaker 1: about platypuses, but there's an amazing excerpt about echidnas from

1128
01:05:33,080 --> 01:05:37,640
Speaker 1: Platypus Matters, The Extraordinary Story of Australian Mammals that's by

1129
01:05:37,680 --> 01:05:42,840
Speaker 1: Cambridge Zoology Museum director Jack Ashby. That page also features

1130
01:05:42,840 --> 01:05:46,360
Speaker 1: resources such as Native Dashland dot CA. I'm using those

1131
01:05:46,400 --> 01:05:49,240
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that I recorded this in Lenape Hooking, the

1132
01:05:49,320 --> 01:05:52,760
Speaker 1: traditional land of the Muncy Lenape people and the Wappinger people,

1133
01:05:53,120 --> 01:05:56,880
Speaker 1: as well as the Mohican people, Scatagoque people and others. Also,

1134
01:05:56,960 --> 01:05:59,440
Speaker 1: Katie taped this in the country of Italy, and I

1135
01:05:59,480 --> 01:06:02,360
Speaker 1: once we now in my location, in many other locations

1136
01:06:02,360 --> 01:06:05,960
Speaker 1: in the Americas and elsewhere, In particular, the entire range

1137
01:06:05,960 --> 01:06:09,960
Speaker 1: of Echidneys, Australia, New Guinea, other island territories in the

1138
01:06:10,000 --> 01:06:13,840
Speaker 1: Southern Pacific Ocean. Native people are very much still here

1139
01:06:13,880 --> 01:06:17,560
Speaker 1: and there at elsewhere that feels worth doing on each episode,

1140
01:06:17,680 --> 01:06:20,680
Speaker 1: and join the Free Sift discord, where we're sharing stories

1141
01:06:20,720 --> 01:06:23,560
Speaker 1: and resources about Native people and life. There is a

1142
01:06:23,600 --> 01:06:27,720
Speaker 1: link in this episode's description to join the discord. We're

1143
01:06:27,720 --> 01:06:31,200
Speaker 1: also talking about this episode on the discord. And hey,

1144
01:06:31,560 --> 01:06:33,760
Speaker 1: would you like a tip on another episode? Because each

1145
01:06:33,800 --> 01:06:37,840
Speaker 1: week I'm finding is something randomly incredibly fascinating by running

1146
01:06:37,880 --> 01:06:41,320
Speaker 1: all the past episode numbers through a random number generator.

1147
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:44,320
Speaker 1: This week's pick is episode two hundred that's about the

1148
01:06:44,360 --> 01:06:48,760
Speaker 1: topic of helium. Fun fact there, the people who discovered

1149
01:06:48,880 --> 01:06:52,880
Speaker 1: helium as a specific element on the periodic table were

1150
01:06:53,000 --> 01:06:56,480
Speaker 1: widely mocked as being wrong about how the sun works,

1151
01:06:57,360 --> 01:07:00,480
Speaker 1: so I recommend that episode. I also, of course recommend

1152
01:07:00,480 --> 01:07:03,720
Speaker 1: my co host Katie Golden's weekly podcast Creature feature about

1153
01:07:03,760 --> 01:07:06,600
Speaker 1: animals and science and more. Katie is of course a

1154
01:07:06,640 --> 01:07:10,080
Speaker 1: massive source on this episode about an amazing animal and

1155
01:07:10,160 --> 01:07:12,640
Speaker 1: if you enjoyed this at all, you will love Creature Feature.

1156
01:07:12,800 --> 01:07:16,120
Speaker 1: Check it out. Our theme music is Unbroken, Unshaven by

1157
01:07:16,160 --> 01:07:18,880
Speaker 1: the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artists Burton

1158
01:07:18,960 --> 01:07:22,000
Speaker 1: Durand Special thanks to Chris SUSA for audio mastering on

1159
01:07:22,040 --> 01:07:25,520
Speaker 1: this episode. Special thanks to the Beacon Music Factory for

1160
01:07:25,600 --> 01:07:29,280
Speaker 1: taping support. Extra extra special thanks go to our members

1161
01:07:29,480 --> 01:07:32,120
Speaker 1: and thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to

1162
01:07:32,200 --> 01:07:35,800
Speaker 1: say we will be back next week with more secretly

1163
01:07:35,880 --> 01:07:41,160
Speaker 1: incredibly fascinating. So how about that talk to you then.

1164
01:07:58,680 --> 01:08:01,520
Speaker 2: Maximum Fun a worker owned network

1165
01:08:01,680 --> 01:08:06,360
Speaker 1: Of artists owned shows, supported directly by you.