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

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb. Merry Christmas. Today is Christmas, so

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Speaker 1: we are running a vault episode. This is going to

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Speaker 1: be our holiday episode from last year, originally published twelve twelve,

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, and it is Christmas Trees beneath the Sea,

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Speaker 1: So don't worry. We're not talking about the dumping of

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Speaker 1: old Christmas trees, certainly not artificial ones. We're going to

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Speaker 1: be talking about natural organisms in the watery depths of Earth,

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Speaker 1: so otions that in varying ways bring to mind a

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Speaker 1: holiday decorated tree. Let's jump right in.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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

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

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Speaker 1: We have a special holiday episode here for you today.

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Speaker 1: It does concern Christmas trees of a sort. We have,

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Speaker 1: of course talked about Christmas trees plenty of times on

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind in the past. I think

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Speaker 1: the most recent installment being an episode we did a

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Speaker 1: couple of years back. Holiday inventions, Christmas tree lights, tinsel

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Speaker 1: and angels. We've talked about Christmas trees and connection to

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Speaker 1: sacred trees in the past. But today we're going to

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Speaker 1: find our Christmas trees in an all new location. We

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Speaker 1: are going to venture beneath the sea.

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Speaker 3: That's right, it's Yule tied in the deep today.

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Speaker 1: Yes, deep down in the ocean. In some cases, deep

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Speaker 1: in the ocean where it's said that Cuthulhu waits dreaming.

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Speaker 1: But just maybe maybe he's dreaming of a white Christmas.

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Speaker 3: He's dreaming of that red writer be begun.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so that'd we come around to Christmas trees under

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Speaker 1: the sea? Well, credit where credits due. We had a

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Speaker 1: couple of lead ends to this. One of the organisms

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Speaker 1: we're going to cover here is one that was already

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Speaker 1: on your radar and is also something that I've observed

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Speaker 1: in the wild before. And then another source of inspiration

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Speaker 1: was a twenty twenty one Jay Store Daily article by

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Speaker 1: Sierra Garcia titled Meet the Christmas Tree Doppelgangers of the Sea. Now,

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Speaker 1: obviously with a title like that, you know I'm going

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Speaker 1: to give the post a second look. You know. Doppelganger

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Speaker 1: of course, being the German double walker, the uncanny, sinister

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Speaker 1: and perhaps doom harboragering duplication of self. Christmas, with its

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Speaker 1: hidden depths of darkness, seems a great place for such

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Speaker 1: creatures to wander around. But of course it's not about

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Speaker 1: actual doppelgangers. It's about things in the ocean that may

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Speaker 1: or may not resemble Christmas trees, depending on how much

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Speaker 1: you want to see Christmas in them.

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Speaker 3: You know, my daughter is two years old now, and

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Speaker 3: so this is going to be her first, her first

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Speaker 3: really conscious Christmas, the one that I think she's really

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Speaker 3: going to be very aware of. And of course at

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Speaker 3: her age, I'm constantly thinking about, like the recognition of objects,

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Speaker 3: because she likes to point to things and either ask

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Speaker 3: what's that or to say what the thing she's pointing

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Speaker 3: at is, And a lot of times it's not the

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Speaker 3: thing she says it is, but you can see the resemblance.

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Speaker 3: And so I'm constantly thinking about the minimum visual criteria

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Speaker 3: to associate a shape or some kind of sight with

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Speaker 3: an object or a concept that she already has. And

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Speaker 3: one of them now is Christmas trees, and so like

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Speaker 3: I'm wondering what kind of triangular thing this week? You know,

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Speaker 3: she'll point out is that Christmas tree? And we're sort

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Speaker 3: of playing the same game now, aren't we.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean you've got to call these organisms something, right,

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Speaker 1: We've encountered examples of this before. You know, everything is

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Speaker 1: an apple, according to Western explorers, some version of an apple,

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Speaker 1: be it pine or otherwise. But you know, on another level,

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Speaker 1: all of this kind of connects with the ancient notion

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Speaker 1: that we've discussed in the show before, the idea that

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Speaker 1: if if you look into the water, if you gaze

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Speaker 1: deep into it, you're going to inevitably fine twins of

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Speaker 1: things that exist above the water. You're going to find

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Speaker 1: lions of the sea, cows of the sea, and so

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Speaker 1: much more so. Maybe it's not all that off the

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Speaker 1: mark anyway, that there are doppelgangers Christmas tree doppelgangers in

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Speaker 1: the deep, because we have Christmas trees up here, so

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Speaker 1: they must exist in the mirror realm beneath the waves.

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Speaker 3: That's right. Well, are you ready to kick things off

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Speaker 3: with my example here?

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Speaker 1: Yes? Yes, this is a fun one. This is probably

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Speaker 1: the one that's instantly coming to some folks mind out there,

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Speaker 1: especially folks who have done a little snorkeling and scuba diving.

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Speaker 3: Well, we're going to start in the place you might

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Speaker 3: expect for undersea Christmas Trees, and that is James Cameron's

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Speaker 3: Avatar from two thousand and nine. I know, I was

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Speaker 3: actually so reading an article about this that was LinkedIn

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Speaker 3: that Jastore Daily you mentioned earlier. But this was a

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Speaker 3: short article that was mainly just promoting a conference presentation,

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Speaker 3: but it had some interesting behind the scenes details about the

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Speaker 3: making of Avatar. It was called of Plants in Film

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Speaker 3: by Tanya Marion and the Botanical Artist twenty fifteen, and

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Speaker 3: so it was talking about when Cameron was setting out

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Speaker 3: to design the world of Avatar, he wanted to achieve

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Speaker 3: some degree of biological plausibility, and the movie is set

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Speaker 3: on a planet. Actually, I think it's supposed to be

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Speaker 3: a moon called Pandora, which he was originally imagining as

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Speaker 3: a place with low light conditions and a toxic atmosphere,

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Speaker 3: so it would have kind of different different material pressures

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Speaker 3: applying to the biosphere, maybe leading to different forms of

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Speaker 3: life than we have here on Earth. And so in

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Speaker 3: trying to dream up these life forms, he consulted with

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Speaker 3: a plant physiologist from UC Riverside named Jody Holt to

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Speaker 3: help imagine the botany of the alien biosphere. It's kind

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Speaker 3: of interesting how the plants they dreamed up in some

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Speaker 3: way resemble life forms that are found not on the

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Speaker 3: surface of Earth but underneath Earth's oceans. So the movie

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Speaker 3: features in some scenes a type of large ground flora,

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Speaker 3: I think within the sort of in universe lore. It's

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Speaker 3: they call it like a zoo botanical or something like that.

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Speaker 3: It's sort of like an animal plant combination. But whatever

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Speaker 3: it is, it basically seems plant formed. It's a piece

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Speaker 3: of large ground flora with spiral shaped foliage, and in

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Speaker 3: the universe of the movie it's called helicoradium spirally. And

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Speaker 3: in the movie we see that this plant has an

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Speaker 3: unusual reaction to activity in its environment. When it is

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Speaker 3: physically disturbed, these fanned out, corkscrew shaped leaves rapidly recoil

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Speaker 3: and fold up into almost nothingness. So you can be

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Speaker 3: standing in the middle of a little grove of these

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Speaker 3: things and suddenly they all fold up and you can

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Speaker 3: see everything around you. It's a touch me not reflex.

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Speaker 1: Very impressive effects in play here, particularly nice on the

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Speaker 1: big screen and in three D. You know, say what

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Speaker 1: you will about the Avatar films, but there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of fantastic biological world building going on in them, And yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is a great example of one of the organisms

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Speaker 1: that Cameron unleashes us.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And so it turns out this was one of

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Speaker 3: the biological elements of the movie that was inspired by

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Speaker 3: organisms that actually exist in nature, not so much a plant,

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Speaker 3: but by an animal, the real animal called Spirobranchus gigantius,

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Speaker 3: or the Christmas tree worm. And that's the animal that

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Speaker 3: I want to talk about for a minute here. So

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Speaker 3: first of all, your mind, if it works like mine,

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Speaker 3: might be looking in the wrong direction here, because when

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Speaker 3: I hear Christmas tree worm, for some reason, to me,

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Speaker 3: it sounds like the name of a pest animal that

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Speaker 3: is named after the crop that it is most notorious

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Speaker 3: for infesting and consuming. So like the tobacco hornworm or

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Speaker 3: the tato tuber worm. These are in reality both moth

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Speaker 3: species that in their larval stages feed on night shade

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Speaker 3: plants like the ones in their names, and other night

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Speaker 3: shade plants as well. But you know, humans kind of

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Speaker 3: have a sometimes a kind of economic agricultural mindset in

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Speaker 3: interfacing with wildlife, so they can sort of name animals

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Speaker 3: after the crop that that animal is causing them problems with.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like Christmas tree worms have ravaged the harvest

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Speaker 1: again is going to be a tough winner exactly.

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Speaker 3: But the Christmas tree worm is not a caterpillar that

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Speaker 3: infests Christmas tree farms. Instead, it is a marine tubeworm

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Speaker 3: that lives on the surface of coral reefs. And so

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Speaker 3: what's the association. Well, these animals are named after Christmas

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Speaker 3: trees because they look like Christmas trees. And yet sometimes

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Speaker 3: these naming conventions are a bit of a stretch, But

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Speaker 3: for my part, I think it's close enough. I think

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Speaker 3: these worms really do kind of remind me of Christmas trees,

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Speaker 3: though I will qualify that, and my qualification is that

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Speaker 3: it's not so much that they resemble the actual species

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Speaker 3: of evergreens, which are usually fir trees that we use

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Speaker 3: as Christmas decorations. The only way in which I'd say

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Speaker 3: they actually evoke the trees themselves is in general shape.

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Speaker 3: So like Christmas trees, the part of these worms you

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Speaker 3: can see is a cone which is widest at the

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Speaker 3: base and the narrows towards the top, and it does

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Speaker 3: sort of have branches, branches radiating from a central trunk

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Speaker 3: or spine. They're also sort of needly needly branches, which

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Speaker 3: you could compare to evergreen pine needle texture, but it's

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Speaker 3: not exactly a perfect match when you look at it. Instead,

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Speaker 3: I think the main way that they remind me and

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Speaker 3: remind other people of Christmas trees is that they mimic

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Speaker 3: a popular style of Christmas tree decoration, especially from years past,

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Speaker 3: which is that you would have a string of lights

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Speaker 3: or a brightly colored garland wrapped around the tree in

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Speaker 3: a spiral pattern. I've got a couple of examples for

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Speaker 3: you to look at here, Rob. I don't really know

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Speaker 3: that much about historical patterns of Christmas tree decoration, but

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Speaker 3: this reads to me as a more old style way

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Speaker 3: of decorating a Christmas tree. I associate it with like

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Speaker 3: the nineteen thirties or forties.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I guess maybe some of this survived.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm looking at this. I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: when this style of tree decoration dies out or then

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Speaker 1: again resurges again. For that matter, I'm not sure where

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Speaker 1: we are now. We don't put a tremendous amount of

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Speaker 1: thought into it. We just throw up the tree and

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Speaker 1: we put our favorite decorations up and call it a day.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, my family never had a spiral garland on

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Speaker 3: our tree, so it's not something I remember from personal experience.

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Speaker 3: I feel like I've seen it in older media, which

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Speaker 3: is maybe why I think of it as something that's older.

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Speaker 1: We might have had a spiral garland, or maybe my

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Speaker 1: grandmother did. I don't remember, but it feels like something

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Speaker 1: I've seen in my lifetimee somewhere. Hard to get excited

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Speaker 1: about the garland, though, especially as a kid, because it's

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Speaker 1: the individual ornaments and the lights that have all of

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Speaker 1: the personality.

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Speaker 3: I think, especially for people with brains like yours in mind.

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Speaker 3: I think you and I were both like the Illustrated

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Speaker 3: Dictionary kind of kids. We like things with lots of

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Speaker 3: little individual in trees, with the little illustration and explanation,

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Speaker 3: and that's kind of what the individual ornaments feel like

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Speaker 3: to me. I like individual ornaments with personality.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good way of puting it.

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Speaker 3: But coming back to the Christmas tree worm, So if

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Speaker 3: you do a search for pictures of this worm, you

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Speaker 3: will find plenty of stunning underwater photos of coral reef

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Speaker 3: surfaces speckled with multicolored pairs of spiral Christmas trees. Each

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Speaker 3: pair branching in a fork. So what you'll see are

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Speaker 3: two little Christmas trees right beside one another, with the

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Speaker 3: same coloration. Now, each pair has a different coloration from

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Speaker 3: the other ones around, but within the pair, the two

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Speaker 3: little trees next to each other that are growing in

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Speaker 3: a V shape split at the base, those will be

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Speaker 3: the same color usually. And one important thing to emphasize

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Speaker 3: is that the Christmas trees that you're seeing are not

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Speaker 3: the whole of the organism. Each pair of Christmas trees

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Speaker 3: represents the two crowns, or feeding and breathing appendages of

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Speaker 3: a worm, the main cylindrical body of which is hidden

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Speaker 3: in a tube in the coral right beneath where the

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Speaker 3: trees emerge. And whether or not you think they look

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Speaker 3: like Christmas trees, these things are beautiful. I know they're

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Speaker 3: especially popular as a site for like scuba divers and snorkelers.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I've gotten to observe these in the wild before,

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Speaker 1: snorkeling in Breeze and in Rowatan. They're one of the

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Speaker 1: smaller pleasures of snorkeling in the shallows, and honestly, that's

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Speaker 1: what I'm all about when it comes to snorkeling. I

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Speaker 1: don't really I don't really want to see anything big,

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Speaker 1: you know, unless it's like a big coral format. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I see a bigger fish, it's neat. But I often

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Speaker 1: spend my time with looking around for those little details

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Speaker 1: things that are you know, curling about inside the reefs

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Speaker 1: and the rocks and and and you know, I think

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Speaker 1: that's one of the things that makes something like a

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Speaker 1: Christmas tree worm special. Now, in terms of whether they

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Speaker 1: look like Christmas trees, I don't know. Obviously, It's one

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Speaker 1: of those things where I knew what they were called,

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Speaker 1: but as they were pointed out to me, so I

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Speaker 1: couldn't help but bring Christmas tree into the scenario. But

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Speaker 1: the ones I remember looking at I tended to think

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Speaker 1: more of like bristle cleaner for straws and tubes, you know.

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Speaker 3: But gorgeously decorated.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, I don't remember them being the ones I saw,

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Speaker 1: mind you, as colorful as the ones I see in

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Speaker 1: some of these photos. But on the other hand, underwater

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Speaker 1: photography is very much a lighting game. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: guess all photography is a lighting game, and you know,

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Speaker 1: what you actually see with your own eyes, and maybe

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Speaker 1: less than optimal lighting conditions the water. You know, they're

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Speaker 1: not going to necessarily match up with what you see,

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Speaker 1: you know, in somebody's showcase of underwater photography. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: they still they do have a lot of character. You know,

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Speaker 1: there's something sneaky and whimsical about them. A lot of

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Speaker 1: the things in the water don't want to be seen

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Speaker 1: and will do what they can passively or actively to

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Speaker 1: avoid a clumsy human and a mask and a snorkel

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Speaker 1: from seeing them. But Christmas tree worms tend to feel

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Speaker 1: just a little extra cheeky in the way they hide from.

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Speaker 3: Us, Like they're not just hiding from you, they're almost

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Speaker 3: kind of playing peekaboo, maybe playing yeah hard to get.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, there is like a peekaboo feel to them, you.

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Speaker 3: Know, yeah, yeah, you know. I was reading some guides

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Speaker 3: to marine life and coral reef life that we're talking

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Speaker 3: about people who try to get photos of these things,

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Speaker 3: and apparently they's somewhat They're sensitive to multiple things, including

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Speaker 3: changes in light conditions. So maybe if a shadow falls

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Speaker 3: under them, they could retract, or if the flash of

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Speaker 3: a camera goes off, they could retract, and then slowly

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Speaker 3: over time after they retract, they'll so re emerge, and

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Speaker 3: so I think there might be some patience involved in

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Speaker 3: trying to get up close and see them or to

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Speaker 3: take a good photo of them, to kind of wait

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Speaker 3: for them to come back out after you have spooked

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Speaker 3: them the first time. But then another thing I saw

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Speaker 3: in one of the sources I was reading was that

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Speaker 3: how skittish they are might well depend on their surroundings.

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Speaker 3: Like the ones that are in shallower, more turbulent waters,

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Speaker 3: I think, tend to be a little less skittish than

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Speaker 3: the ones that are in deeper, more calm and stable waters,

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Speaker 3: which sort of makes sense. Yeah, but anyway, Okay, so

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Speaker 3: what's the biological rundown on the Christmas tree worm. It

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Speaker 3: is a relatively small polychet worm that lives the entirety

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Speaker 3: of its adult life with the majority of its body

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Speaker 3: hidden inside a calcareous tube that it makes initially on

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Speaker 3: the surface of a rock or more often a coral reef,

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Speaker 3: and then the tube can kind of become subsumed within

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Speaker 3: the coral as the coral grows, and then the worm

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Speaker 3: and its tube grows up along with the coral. So

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Speaker 3: it begins life in a short planktonic larval phase, floating

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Speaker 3: around after which it lands somewhere on the reef, secretes

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Speaker 3: a tube made of mucus, which it lives in for

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Speaker 3: a bit, and over time that mucous tube becomes cemented

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Speaker 3: with solid minerals, and then within that tube, the Christmas

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Speaker 3: tree worm metamorphoses and grows into its adult form, where

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Speaker 3: it will live the rest of its life, growing with

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Speaker 3: the structure of the reef, safe and secure, and covered

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Speaker 3: inside its tube by a nice lubricating blanket of mucus.

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Speaker 3: I've seen different estimates on size range. According to a

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Speaker 3: post by the NOAA, on average, these worms are less

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Speaker 3: than four centimeters long, but according to marine biologist Eugene

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Speaker 3: Kaplan in his book A Field Guide Coral Reefs from

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Speaker 3: nineteen ninety nine, their body length can reach up to

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Speaker 3: twelve centimeters or about five inches either way. They are small,

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Speaker 3: but they're easy to spot because they're very colorful, and

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Speaker 3: in some cases because of rapid changes that you can

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Speaker 3: observe with them, most often them disappearing suddenly, so the

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Speaker 3: exposed parts the two Christmas trees are two tentacles or crowns,

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Speaker 3: and I've also seen them called gill plumes arranged in

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Speaker 3: a spiral or whirl pattern, which themselves contain what's called

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Speaker 3: a bipinnate arrangement of hair like or needle like protrusions

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Speaker 3: called radioles. And then those little needle protrusions are themselves

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Speaker 3: perpendicularly covered in other smaller protrusions called pinules or ccilia.

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Speaker 3: So you can imagine a kind of fern shape. You know,

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Speaker 3: you have the main stalk going out, and then you

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Speaker 3: have branches going out from that stalk, and then out

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Speaker 3: from the branches you got the little leaves projecting at

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Speaker 3: a ninety gre angle. So these radioles covered in the cilia,

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Speaker 3: the worm fans them out in this spiral pattern and

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Speaker 3: then beats them in the water to catch floating phytoplankton

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Speaker 3: and other bits of biological particle matter that will become

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Speaker 3: the worm's food. The little pins sort of they catch

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Speaker 3: hold of bits of organic stuff suspended in the water,

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Speaker 3: and then they sort of transport those particles in a

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Speaker 3: stream in little ridges along the surface of the worlds

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Speaker 3: down to the worm's mouth. Delicious. So imagine kind of

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Speaker 3: a spiral Christmas tree that gradually sucks in all of

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Speaker 3: its ornaments, sucks the ornaments down the branches and then

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Speaker 3: down the trunk and eats them.

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Speaker 1: I mean it sometimes works like that if you have

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Speaker 1: a cat and Christmas tree.

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Speaker 3: Now, these structures are not only for filter feeding, they're

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Speaker 3: also for breathing. They are the worm's gills, and so

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Speaker 3: the worm uses these radioles to extract dissolved oxygen from

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Speaker 3: the water. Now, the activity that makes the Christmas tree

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Speaker 3: worm notable as an inspiration for the plants in Avatar

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Speaker 3: is the touch me not reflex. When it senses danger

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Speaker 3: through multiple types of stimuli, it can rapidly retract its

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Speaker 3: two Christmas trees into the hole where it lives, and

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Speaker 3: on top of that, it can also shut the door

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Speaker 3: behind it. It has a flat body structure, sometimes capped

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Speaker 3: with some sort of horny surface called an operculum, which

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Speaker 3: it can slam shut over the opening of its tube.

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Speaker 3: And we've talked about this adaptation the operculum in other species,

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Speaker 3: such as snails. Snails sometimes have an operculum that they

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Speaker 3: can use to cover the opening of their shell. Serves

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Speaker 3: the same purpose, but of course, in the case of

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Speaker 3: a snail, the shell is mobile. Here we'd be talking

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Speaker 3: about a stationary tube on a substrate for a sedentary organism.

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Speaker 3: We also talked about it in our episodes on hermit crabs,

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Speaker 3: because in some cases the hermit crab will have one

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Speaker 3: one claw that is so made that it functions as

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Speaker 3: an operculum at the opening of the shell.

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Speaker 1: That's right. It's perfect little lid for their shell.

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Speaker 3: That's right. So the operculum is a biological adaptation for

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Speaker 3: slamming the door shut. Now, I wanted to shout out

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Speaker 3: an interesting sort of ecological fact that I became aware

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Speaker 3: of because I saw it in a PBS Nova segment,

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Speaker 3: So thank you Nova. But the interesting thing is that

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Speaker 3: there is some evidence that the relationship between the Christmas

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Speaker 3: tree worm and the coral reef on which it lives

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Speaker 3: goes both ways. Now, of course you can see how

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Speaker 3: the worm benefits. The worm benefits from the coral skeletal structure,

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Speaker 3: which of course provides it, you know, rigid protection against

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Speaker 3: predators and you know, the tube it can live in.

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Speaker 3: But also as it grows, it lifts it up into

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Speaker 3: the water where it can have access to better waters

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Speaker 3: for filter feeding. But the coral itself may also benefit

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Speaker 3: from having Christmas tree worms all over it, because apparently

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Speaker 3: the Christmas tree worms can provide a kind of protection

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Speaker 3: for the coral against one of the coral's major predators,

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Speaker 3: and that predator is the crown of thorns starfish aka acinthaster,

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Speaker 3: plantcy or plunky p l A n c I. But

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Speaker 3: I'll just say crown of thorns starfish because boy, is

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Speaker 3: the epicness of that name appropriate. So imagine kind of

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Speaker 3: a cross between a giant sunflower and an iron maiden

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Speaker 3: turned inside out. These things are absolutely from the hell

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Speaker 3: razor universe, extremely wicked. They might do. They're large, they

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Speaker 3: might be roughly a foot and a half in diameter

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Speaker 3: on average, coated in spikes, and what they do is

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Speaker 3: they crawl over the surface of the coral reef just mowing.

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Speaker 3: There's just mowing the lawn, eating everything they can. According

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Speaker 3: to that NOVA segment, these giant starfish are in part

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Speaker 3: responsible for the major decline of living coral within the

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Speaker 3: Great Barrier Reef. There are other factors at work as well,

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Speaker 3: but when these things get going, a sort of explosion

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Speaker 3: in the population of these coral predators can clean out

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Speaker 3: a reef of living corals, and so the whole ventral surface,

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Speaker 3: the underside of the starfish, you can kind of think

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Speaker 3: of as a vast digestive organ complex containing tube feet

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Speaker 3: and this inverted stomach inside out stomach system, so it's

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Speaker 3: just the underside of it is foreeat. It is just

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Speaker 3: going to devour the coral underneath. And it turns out

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Speaker 3: there's some evidence that if it comes to a part

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Speaker 3: of a coral reef where there are Christmas tree worms,

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Speaker 3: the Christmas tree worms can protect the corals directly underneath

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Speaker 3: them because they get in the way of the starfish

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Speaker 3: feeding and in fact they irritate the starfish's feeding organs.

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Speaker 3: I've looked up a pa so I was trying to

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Speaker 3: find the paper that was the source of this observation,

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Speaker 3: and I found one published in the Marine Ecology Progress

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Speaker 3: Series from nineteen eighty six by Devantier at All called

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Speaker 3: does spiro Bronchus gigantius protect host porities from predation by

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Speaker 3: acanthaster planky predator pressure as a mechanism of coevolution? And

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Speaker 3: I was looking for the part of the paper that

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00:23:24,480 --> 00:23:27,480
Speaker 3: describes exactly how this works. I found it in their

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Speaker 3: results section where they say, quote, preliminary field experiments indicate

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Speaker 3: that for certain worms, contact by Acinhaster planky induces retraction,

404
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:43,000
Speaker 3: followed by almost immediate reappearance with the operculum and bronchial

405
00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:47,360
Speaker 3: crowns pushing against the tube feet and arms of the starfish.

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Speaker 3: This caused the predator to move quickly away. So something

407
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,919
Speaker 3: about what these worms like poking it at their tube

408
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:58,439
Speaker 3: feed and the averted stomach. The starfish do not like

409
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Speaker 3: the worms messing with them, and so this can have

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00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:05,240
Speaker 3: the effect of protecting the corals that are situated right

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00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:08,880
Speaker 3: around where the worms are, And so it's not going

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Speaker 3: to protect the reef totally from being mowed by the starfish,

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Speaker 3: but what it can do is make sure that some

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00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:20,840
Speaker 3: corals are left alive on the reef, and that those

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00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:24,520
Speaker 3: corals left alive around the worms protected by the worms,

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00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 3: can reseed the rest of the reef structure with living

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Speaker 3: coral once again.

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Speaker 1: Fascinating. So they're holding down their turf, which could allow

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00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:40,840
Speaker 1: the overall reef to then grow and heal later. Yes, fascinating.

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Speaker 3: So I don't know. We've been thinking about trees a

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00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:46,520
Speaker 3: lot lately as apotropaic magic. Is there something here protective

422
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:49,920
Speaker 3: kind of the coral reef's got its own protective amulet,

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Speaker 3: Except I guess it's not magic. It's just like literally

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Speaker 3: keeping the starfish from absolutely devouring every inch of its life.

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Speaker 1: It would be like if your Christmas tree protected your

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00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 1: else by coming alive in the night, yeah, and fighting

427
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:09,359
Speaker 1: you know, weird alpine demons that might venture into your home.

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00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:11,959
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like if aliens wanted to come over your

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Speaker 3: house and suck all of the people out of it.

430
00:25:13,880 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 3: If the Christmas tree that you had like poked the

431
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 3: alien ship and irritated it and made it go away.

432
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:28,160
Speaker 1: There you go.

433
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:32,239
Speaker 3: So that does it for Christmas tree worms. But I

434
00:25:32,280 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 3: know we had some other organisms we were going to

435
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 3: talk about.

436
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: That's right. This next one is one that I learned

437
00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:40,920
Speaker 1: about in that Jaystore Daily post that I referenced earlier,

438
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 1: and it's very much still in the world of coral.

439
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 1: Christmas tree coral, a cold water black coral discovered apparently

440
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:50,920
Speaker 1: in the mid two thousands. Some of you may be wondering,

441
00:25:51,080 --> 00:25:54,120
Speaker 1: what is a black coral? Like, what does this even mean? Okay, Well,

442
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:56,640
Speaker 1: you know a reminder that generally, you know, corals, of course,

443
00:25:56,720 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 1: are animals, like we've been discussing, and if you've gotten

444
00:26:01,800 --> 00:26:04,080
Speaker 1: out into the water, you're probably mostly familiar with the

445
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:07,119
Speaker 1: vibrant corals and you know sometimes the bleached corals and

446
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: shallow coastal environments, but what are black corals well? As

447
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 1: the NAA article Black Corals of Hawaii by Anthony Montgomery

448
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 1: points out, black corals or thorn corals, which are officially

449
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:24,440
Speaker 1: known as antipatharia, are found all over the world and

450
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:26,760
Speaker 1: at varying depths, so you don't have to go into

451
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:29,879
Speaker 1: the deep waters to find them, but they're often noted

452
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:34,120
Speaker 1: for their presence in deep sea environments. Despite their name,

453
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:38,720
Speaker 1: they are rarely actually black. I'll get to why we

454
00:26:38,760 --> 00:26:43,280
Speaker 1: still call them black corals in spite of this, but

455
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 1: they can be various even bright colors, and their shapes

456
00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:51,880
Speaker 1: also vary wildly. A key difference, however, between black corals

457
00:26:51,880 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 1: and the stony corals that I think more people are

458
00:26:55,840 --> 00:26:59,680
Speaker 1: familiar with, is that black corals have a skeleton made

459
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:04,640
Speaker 1: of protein and kitan. This skeleton is black, no matter

460
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: what color the outer layers are, and that's the reason

461
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 1: they end up with this name. So they have black skeletons,

462
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:13,120
Speaker 1: but they may have any number of colors on top

463
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:18,159
Speaker 1: of that skeleton. I see now Montgomery and that na

464
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 1: article stresses that black corals do not have symbiotic algae

465
00:27:24,600 --> 00:27:28,640
Speaker 1: associated with them, and they don't require light, thus their

466
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:32,400
Speaker 1: ability to survive at greater depths. And there are apparently

467
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 1: something like two hundred known species of black coral. Now

468
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: the Christmas tree black coral in question. Here is a

469
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:46,359
Speaker 1: particular species Antipathos Dindo christos in nomine patre. That's not

470
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:48,719
Speaker 1: part of it, but it sounds very Catholic, doesn't it.

471
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 3: Dendro cristos. That's gotta literally mean Christmas tree.

472
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:55,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is one. I'm gonna get to another

473
00:27:55,280 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: organism later where not everybody seems to be associated with

474
00:27:58,119 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: Christmas as far as I can understand, but this one,

475
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: it's right there in the official name.

476
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 3: Okay.

477
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:06,919
Speaker 1: According to environmental factors that influence the distribution, size, and

478
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:12,160
Speaker 1: biotic relationships of the Christmas tree coral, Antipathis dindol krystos

479
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 1: in the southern California bite by huff at All. This

480
00:28:15,040 --> 00:28:18,680
Speaker 1: is in Marine Ecology Progress Series twenty thirteen. The Christmas

481
00:28:18,720 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 1: tree coral is an uncommon, long lived colonial coral that

482
00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: typically supports a diverse population of marine life forms. This,

483
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: of course, is one of the reasons that there are

484
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:33,359
Speaker 1: a number of studies looking at it because there's a

485
00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:35,399
Speaker 1: lot more to learn about them and a lot of

486
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: organisms depend on them. But why do we call it

487
00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: a Christmas tree coral? What is even remotely christmas y

488
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:45,600
Speaker 1: about it? Well, while your mind may easily turn to

489
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 1: an image of a green tree, you know, draped in

490
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: silver tassels and multicolored lights, the Christmas tree, its name for,

491
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:55,600
Speaker 1: is actually one of those artificially frosted, you know, white

492
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:58,720
Speaker 1: flocked Christmas trees. You know what I'm talking about. These

493
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: are the ones where the idea is the tree is

494
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:06,200
Speaker 1: supposed to look like a frost covered tree in the forest,

495
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:10,719
Speaker 1: very much in keeping with the movie Jack Frost that

496
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:13,520
Speaker 1: we watched for Weird House Cinema, in which Jack Frost

497
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 1: essentially like flocks the trees in the forest, covering them

498
00:29:17,840 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 1: with ice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that is what they're

499
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 1: going for here, Joe, I included a photograph for you here.

500
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:27,760
Speaker 1: This This is an image I believe from the huff

501
00:29:27,800 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: at All Paper.

502
00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 3: Oh, I absolutely see the comparison. It looks very much

503
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 3: like fur tree branches covered in snow.

504
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:36,520
Speaker 1: Yeah it's not now, it's not tree shaped, it's not

505
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 1: really conical, but yeah, it looks like like fur tree

506
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 1: branches that are completely covered in some through a white frost. Now,

507
00:29:44,200 --> 00:29:46,479
Speaker 1: as the huff at All Paper points out, Christmas tree

508
00:29:46,520 --> 00:29:51,400
Speaker 1: corals also occur in red. But my first thought was like, well,

509
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 1: it doesn't always look like a Christmas tree. But that

510
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: shows how little I know about the history of flocking

511
00:29:56,320 --> 00:30:00,800
Speaker 1: Christmas trees or creating you know, plastic a official trees,

512
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: because I easily found an image of like a flocked

513
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 1: red Christmas tree where it just is like a bright

514
00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 1: red imitation fur tree I'm assuming here, And yeah, I

515
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 1: mean it does not look unlike an actual photograph of

516
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:17,760
Speaker 1: a red Christmas tree, black coral.

517
00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:20,239
Speaker 3: I'd see that. For some reason, this one made me

518
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 3: think alveoli just like you know, a little uh red

519
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 3: broccoli in the lungs.

520
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's another solid comparison. Yeah. I

521
00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 1: also have to point out this one picture from the

522
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:36,440
Speaker 1: huff at All paper that has the red There's a

523
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:39,400
Speaker 1: red one and then there's a white one right behind it.

524
00:30:39,440 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: And on the red one you see two different crustaceans

525
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: climbing about, And to me it looks like one of

526
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:50,000
Speaker 1: those sometimes you see like a really wacky themed holiday tree,

527
00:30:50,040 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 1: you know where there's very much a particular theme in mind.

528
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:56,800
Speaker 1: It's not about just getting all of your favorite ornaments

529
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: on there, but like making something that is very fashionable.

530
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: And so I can imagine a tree where it's like

531
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 1: your only two ornaments are two enormous crustaceans crawling about

532
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 1: on the tree.

533
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:08,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ho ho LV four twenty six.

534
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sort of thing. So full grown colonies of

535
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 1: this particular form of black coral apparently reach heights of

536
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 1: eight feet in eight feet tall, and they can live

537
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 1: more than a century of conditions are favorable. A two

538
00:31:24,120 --> 00:31:27,320
Speaker 1: thousand and seven bulletin of marine science paper from Love

539
00:31:27,360 --> 00:31:31,560
Speaker 1: at All found that basically in this paper they've discussed

540
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 1: how they found a dead two point one meter or

541
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 1: six point eight feet tall Christmas tree black coral collected

542
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 1: from one hundred and six meter depth or three hundred

543
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: and forty eight feet depth off off the coast of

544
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:46,040
Speaker 1: southern California, and this one they found it would be

545
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:48,240
Speaker 1: to have been about one hundred and forty years old

546
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: when it died, and its skeleton was heavily colonized by invertebrates.

547
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 1: According to this paper and this particular specimen two five

548
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty four species living there.

549
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 3: Wow, somebody counted all those species.

550
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so it's a lot now that you know

551
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,239
Speaker 1: this is a dead one. But you know, basically the

552
00:32:08,280 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 1: idea here is that you know, alive, we're dead. They

553
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 1: have an important place in the ecosystem, you know, providing

554
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:19,920
Speaker 1: you know, substrate and so forth for various other organisms

555
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 1: to thrive. And of course black corals, like like other corals,

556
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 1: are you know, generally threatened by a climate change and

557
00:32:28,120 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 1: related human industrial level activities, so you know, it's any

558
00:32:32,840 --> 00:32:34,560
Speaker 1: threat to them is of course not only a threat

559
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:38,360
Speaker 1: to this particular species, but then there's also all these

560
00:32:38,400 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 1: cascading effects that can occur with all the species that

561
00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 1: are then dependent upon it. I was also reading about

562
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 1: how the black in general, not with this particular species,

563
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 1: the Christmas tree black coral, but black corals in general.

564
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:57,400
Speaker 1: They have at times been prize for medicinal uses and

565
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:02,520
Speaker 1: then also for jewelry making, and I believe in Hawaii

566
00:33:02,560 --> 00:33:06,840
Speaker 1: there's still a certain amount of black coral harvesting that

567
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:11,600
Speaker 1: is allowed, and I think largely for jewelry making, though

568
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: perhaps there's some medicinal usage in there as well. In

569
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 1: other areas, though black corals, along with other forms of coral,

570
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 1: are completely protected. And to be clear, there is some

571
00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: level of protection in Hawaii based on what I was reading.

572
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:27,120
Speaker 1: It's just I think there is some allowance for harvesting.

573
00:33:27,840 --> 00:33:33,200
Speaker 1: So again, Christmas tree black corals named named for the

574
00:33:33,280 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 1: Christmas tree, and you know, I think it's not unreasonable

575
00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 1: to say, yes, they do kind of look like Christmas trees.

576
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:42,400
Speaker 3: I was going to say, if you tried to make

577
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:47,880
Speaker 3: a Christmas tree like harvests, assuming you could and ecological

578
00:33:47,920 --> 00:33:50,680
Speaker 3: concerns aside, harvest some and make it the Christmas tree

579
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 3: in your house, would it still look like a Christmas

580
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 3: tree out of the water.

581
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:57,280
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I think well, I mean one of

582
00:33:57,320 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: the things, once you with the black corals, it's like

583
00:34:00,080 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: people were harvest was doing it and doing stuff with

584
00:34:01,920 --> 00:34:04,479
Speaker 1: the black skeleton. So I don't know, you might end

585
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:07,000
Speaker 1: up with some sort of like you know, goth black

586
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:10,719
Speaker 1: Christmas tree, which you know, I'm also totally on board

587
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 1: for do what you want with your Christmas trees. Make

588
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:14,920
Speaker 1: them a statement of your identity.

589
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 3: Okay, what's our third underwater Christmas tree? Okay?

590
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:21,320
Speaker 1: I I did to do a little bit more digging

591
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:22,840
Speaker 1: for this one, because I was like, all right, we

592
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:26,480
Speaker 1: really need something else for the episode. You've got to

593
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:29,960
Speaker 1: round it out with a third, right, And for a

594
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:31,720
Speaker 1: little bit there I was like, I think the third

595
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:33,360
Speaker 1: is going to be the Christmas Tree of the desert.

596
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 1: And then I had to remind myself in the way,

597
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:37,000
Speaker 1: I can't do that. That's that's not deep sea. That's

598
00:34:37,000 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: the opposite of deep sea. That's the desert. So I

599
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 1: was beginning to think there wasn't going to be something,

600
00:34:41,560 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: but then I started finding some references from the Monterey

601
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:50,239
Speaker 1: Bay Aquarium and that led me to a particular genus

602
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: of Sciphonophore that we're going to talk about here, and

603
00:34:54,560 --> 00:35:00,600
Speaker 1: that genus is a forced Kalia. And this genus I

604
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 1: believe is unofficially referred to as containing at least one

605
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 1: variety of Christmas tree Siphonophor. Okay, so what is a

606
00:35:09,960 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 1: siphonophor or Sciphonophora is an order of colonial free swimming

607
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:21,960
Speaker 1: or floating marine hydra zooins, such as the Portuguese Man

608
00:35:22,000 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 1: of War that's probably the most well known member of

609
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:32,280
Speaker 1: this group. And they're mostly delicate, transparent, various colors in play,

610
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 1: and they are composed of zooids, zooids that possess special

611
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:43,440
Speaker 1: functions such as feeding or locomotion. They're very strange. The

612
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: Good Wizard recently discussed Man of Wars on Automa alias Stupendium,

613
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:52,360
Speaker 1: an occasional Wednesday episode that we do, and in that

614
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:56,360
Speaker 1: we went into some of the details of what a

615
00:35:56,360 --> 00:35:59,680
Speaker 1: sephonophor actually is. It is a colonial organism made up

616
00:35:59,680 --> 00:36:04,880
Speaker 1: of getically identical but highly specialized polyps. So what you

617
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 1: might mistake for a single organism's reproductive system or a

618
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:14,880
Speaker 1: digestive system, grasping arms, or the flotation bladder are in

619
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:18,799
Speaker 1: fact individual zooids. And I have a way that I

620
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 1: make sense of all this, and I'm going to adapt

621
00:36:21,239 --> 00:36:24,239
Speaker 1: what is in that Animalius to Pendium episode for the

622
00:36:24,239 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 1: holiday theme here. Okay, so imagine your Santa Claus and

623
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:31,560
Speaker 1: you need a reindeer to pull your sleigh this year.

624
00:36:31,600 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 1: It's a common problem. Unfortunately, all but one of your

625
00:36:35,960 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 1: reindeer were killed last year by the bear spirit Tombach.

626
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:41,480
Speaker 1: So what are you going to do? You just got

627
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 1: one one can't pull the sleigh right. Fortunately, your Santa Claus,

628
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:49,799
Speaker 1: you have access to advanced cloning technology, So what can

629
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:51,960
Speaker 1: you do? Well? You could simply clone blitz In a

630
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: dozen times to produce a host of genetically identical reindeer

631
00:36:56,040 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 1: to pull your sleigh. That would work, But your Santa Claus,

632
00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 1: what if you aimed higher? What have you instead? Formed

633
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 1: each Blitzen clone into a giant organ or organ system

634
00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:11,160
Speaker 1: or you know, or tissue or part of some sort

635
00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 1: of a greater organism. You know, one Blitzen becomes the

636
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:18,880
Speaker 1: digestive system, another they're reproductive system, another the skeletal and

637
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:22,040
Speaker 1: so forth, until you have a single uber Blitzen, a

638
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:28,319
Speaker 1: colonial super deer organism composed of genetically identical individuals. Those

639
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:30,440
Speaker 1: individuals do not look like a deer. They look like

640
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:33,799
Speaker 1: parts of the greater thing that you associate as a

641
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 1: single entity.

642
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 3: Kind of Blitzen.

643
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: Biovultron, Yeah, vultron is another way of thinking. Like when

644
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 1: you look at a Portuguese man of war, and when

645
00:37:42,680 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 1: you look at any of these siphonophores, you are looking

646
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:50,919
Speaker 1: at vultrons. But unlike vultron, vultron of course can come

647
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 1: back apart into lions and fly about. That doesn't happen here,

648
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:56,960
Speaker 1: like they're all part of the whole. They there is

649
00:37:57,080 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: no decoupling from the whole here interesting. There may be

650
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:02,920
Speaker 1: a better way of thinking about it, but yeah, I

651
00:38:03,000 --> 00:38:04,319
Speaker 1: tend to think of it in this way. I think

652
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 1: the vultrone way of understanding them is also pretty solid.

653
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:13,280
Speaker 1: So the Forscalia genus was first described in the eighteen hundreds,

654
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 1: and the species in question here is Forskalia formosa, first

655
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:24,960
Speaker 1: recorded by Keverstein and Elers in eighteen sixty. Now, I

656
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:28,440
Speaker 1: am personally not certain if anyone other than the Monterey

657
00:38:28,440 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 1: Bay Aquarium and perhaps their web team are calling this

658
00:38:32,080 --> 00:38:35,719
Speaker 1: species the Christmas tree siphonopour. But even if they're the

659
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:38,680
Speaker 1: only ones, that's good enough for me, because A they're

660
00:38:38,680 --> 00:38:41,799
Speaker 1: a world class institution and B we needed one more

661
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 1: Christmas tree to round out podcasts.

662
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:46,239
Speaker 3: I mean, I see it. Looking at a picture of

663
00:38:46,239 --> 00:38:50,799
Speaker 3: this thing, it looks the most festively decorated I mean

664
00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 3: talk about garlands.

665
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there are some pictures of this on the

666
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:58,440
Speaker 1: Monterey Bay Aquariums website. There's also some really nice video

667
00:38:58,480 --> 00:39:04,240
Speaker 1: footage on the Bay Aquarium Research Institutes YouTube page. Especially

668
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:07,480
Speaker 1: that video. I find you look at it and you're like, yes,

669
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:09,680
Speaker 1: it looks like a Christmas tree. It's upside down, but

670
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:13,520
Speaker 1: it looks like a you know, roughly Christmas tree shaped

671
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:16,759
Speaker 1: array of branches with illumination.

672
00:39:17,600 --> 00:39:21,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. So it's kind of actually, I think like

673
00:39:21,160 --> 00:39:23,879
Speaker 3: the Christmas tree worm, where it's not so much that

674
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:27,160
Speaker 3: the crowns of the worm look really a lot like

675
00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 3: you know, evergreen trees. They're sort of cone shaped, they're

676
00:39:31,040 --> 00:39:33,879
Speaker 3: generally shaped like a tree. But then the real thing

677
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:37,359
Speaker 3: is that that decorating convention, the garland that you wrap

678
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:40,560
Speaker 3: around a tree like a spiral that resembles the the

679
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 3: you know, the color tips of the spiral, the radioals

680
00:39:44,120 --> 00:39:47,680
Speaker 3: going up around the tentacles of the worm in a

681
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:49,920
Speaker 3: similar fashion. Here, I would say that it's not so

682
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 3: much that this looks like a Christmas tree, is that

683
00:39:52,760 --> 00:39:56,880
Speaker 3: it's roughly tree shaped, and then it has these little white,

684
00:39:57,000 --> 00:39:59,759
Speaker 3: shining or glowing bits in the video you've seen, which

685
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:02,680
Speaker 3: makes me think of like the lights that we put

686
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:04,400
Speaker 3: on a Christmas tree. So again, it's kind of a

687
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 3: decorating convention that I think really seals the esthetic comparison.

688
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:12,280
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, these organisms

689
00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:15,879
Speaker 1: live in the deep ocean, ranging from the surface down

690
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:19,640
Speaker 1: to six six hundred feet or two hundred meters deep

691
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,920
Speaker 1: in the North Pacific and Atlantic oceans. They reach sizes

692
00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 1: of up to ten feet or three meters in length

693
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 1: or height, depending on how you want to view it

694
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:32,240
Speaker 1: as a Christmas tree. I guess, subsisting on various small

695
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:35,200
Speaker 1: sea animals in those environments, and it moves through the

696
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:38,239
Speaker 1: water via a system of floats and swimming bells.

697
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 3: Whether or not it looks like a Christmas tree to you,

698
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:41,480
Speaker 3: it is beautiful.

699
00:40:42,640 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 1: That's right. Well, then you know you could maybe again

700
00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 1: use this as inspiration for your own Christmas tree instead

701
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 1: of ornaments this year, you know, decorate your tree with zooids.

702
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:56,960
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, no, no, In truth, I think

703
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:00,319
Speaker 1: you could technically do a theme tree based on all

704
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:03,960
Speaker 1: three of these organisms. It would be an impressive feat,

705
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:06,240
Speaker 1: and I guess it would be for a limited audience.

706
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 1: But I don't know. Maybe there's some marine biologists out

707
00:41:09,080 --> 00:41:11,480
Speaker 1: there who really get into it. If you have ever

708
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:15,640
Speaker 1: decorated your Christmas tree to align with actual marine organisms

709
00:41:15,719 --> 00:41:19,560
Speaker 1: name for Christmas trees or associated with Christmas trees, obviously

710
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:22,160
Speaker 1: we want to know about it. Oh, yes, I mean

711
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 1: it's not impossible. It's not impossible, but I guess it's

712
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 1: more likely there may be people with Christmas trees out

713
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 1: there that have some sort of a science theme or

714
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 1: even a marine biology or underwater oceanic theme. I would

715
00:41:34,080 --> 00:41:36,800
Speaker 1: settle for that. I'm always game to look at the

716
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:40,040
Speaker 1: pictures of somebody's Christmas tree, So by all means, send

717
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:43,359
Speaker 1: them in, please do all right, I think we're going

718
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:47,840
Speaker 1: to go ahead and wrap this episode up, but hopefully

719
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:52,279
Speaker 1: this was a fun and surprisingly different holiday episode from

720
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:54,399
Speaker 1: us here. You know, in the past we've done again,

721
00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:58,760
Speaker 1: you know, Christmas inventions, things that tie into like psychological

722
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:02,680
Speaker 1: or even philosophical ideas that are associated with the holidays.

723
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:07,240
Speaker 1: This time we went a little deeper in the oceanic sense.

724
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:09,840
Speaker 3: All I want for Christmas is to have my body

725
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:12,319
Speaker 3: exfoliated by a crown of thorn starfish.

726
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, those look pretty rough, kind of like a

727
00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:19,360
Speaker 1: like a whoope cushion from hell. I guess, you know.

728
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 1: C stars in general have like a do not touch vibe,

729
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:24,880
Speaker 1: but these really have it do not touch vibe.

730
00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 3: Maybe we have to come back in the future and

731
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:28,279
Speaker 3: give them, give them their own episode.

732
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 1: I think yeah, we could easily do an episode on

733
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 1: I mean on starfish in general, you know, calling out

734
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:37,839
Speaker 1: various particular species of note. But yeah, maybe these guys too.

735
00:42:38,480 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna wrap it up here then, But

736
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:42,759
Speaker 1: just a reminder to everyone out there that Stuff to

737
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:45,080
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,

738
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:49,200
Speaker 1: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episode

739
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:51,680
Speaker 1: on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside most serious

740
00:42:51,719 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 1: concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird

741
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:57,239
Speaker 1: House Cinema. If you want to follow us on Instagram,

742
00:42:57,320 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 1: that's probably the best place to follow us these days.

743
00:43:00,880 --> 00:43:04,000
Speaker 1: You can find us at st b y M Podcast

744
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 1: And let's see what else do we want to mention here?

745
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:10,319
Speaker 1: We should have a call out that we do have

746
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:12,839
Speaker 1: a merch store. If you want to check that out.

747
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:14,880
Speaker 1: There should be a link on the Instagram. You can

748
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: also find a link at stuff to Blow your Mind

749
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: dot com.

750
00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:21,120
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.

751
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

752
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

753
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 3: to topic for the future, or just to say hello,

754
00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:30,279
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

755
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:38,799
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

756
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:41,840
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

757
00:43:41,920 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

758
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:47,600
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759
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:04,400
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