WEBVTT - NEW EPISODE! Deep Sea Legs 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:10.320 Welcome to Creature, feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:15.000 of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:19.400 and today on the show, we're talking about deep sea legs, 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:23.919 some of the weirdest appendages in the deep sea, from 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:27.760 the legs that do everything from walking to breathing to 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:31.600 three D printed worms. Discover this and more as we 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.600 answer the angel question, do those legs go all the 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:38.920 way up? Yes, yes they do. Joining me is friend 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:42.120 of the show, producer host of the podcast Rough Stuff 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:45.440 as well as shooting threes, Bridget Greenberg. 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:49.199 Welcome, Hey, thank you, thank you for having me. 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:54.840 So good to have you back where I'm back from 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:59.800 summer summer break and we're going right directly into the 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.240 yourdest parts of the ocean, back into the sea from 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.560 whence we came back from whence we came into that 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.920 soup of life. Yeah, find out what we've been swimming 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:15.040 in all summer. Yeah, so it's it's definitely a weird one. 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:20.920 We start out with deep sea spiders, are you, oh boy, 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:24.440 have you ever seen these little critters? They're not I 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:27.440 would not say they're cute exactly. 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:34.919 I don't oh, God, Yeah, they look like aliens. 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:38.319 From Aliens, they do look. 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:41.759 Like face huggers. They got that nice sort of jointed 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:45.800 legs that seemed like they would attach well onto your face. 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:51.800 Yeah, yeah, I can't say I've seen these guys. I 0:01:51.800 --> 0:01:54.680 I knew we were going to get some creepy guys 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.000 in this one. Well, it's that's That's kind of the point. 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:04.240 Deep sea it gets pretty weird. Most of the ocean 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:09.080 is weird, but like the deeper get usually weirder. You 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:13.840 get so. Sea spiders are not arachnids, so they're not 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.120 splant the same land spider. They're not spiders, but they 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:22.280 are related to spiders. They're related to spiders, scorpions, mites, 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.720 and actually horseshoe crabs as well. They're all members of 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.840 the subphylum Chilliserata, which you know. 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:31.640 I love that band. 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:39.320 Yeah, cellis Serata, what a wonderful phrase. The strangest thing 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:43.200 about them is that they are all legs. They do 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:48.119 not really have a true abdomen. Oh, they just kind 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:51.520 of have a simple juncture point at which all the 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:56.880 legs connect. They they do typically have like a proboscis 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:02.600 maybe some chillisserra, those like little mouth parts. But yeah, 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:07.040 in terms of an actual like abdomen with room in 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.960 it for there to be organs, there's not a lot 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:10.919 going on there. 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:14.119 Yeah, they are just legs. I yeah, I just saw 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:17.400 a picture of its center and it's just like all 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:19.720 the joints mashed together at some point. 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:26.680 Pretty much. It's it's it's it's very strange. And there's 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:30.640 a wide variety of the many, many mini species of 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:34.480 sea spiders. The smallest species are just a few millimeters 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:41.000 in diameter, whereas the largest, uh Colasendais colossalia, has a 0:03:41.080 --> 0:03:43.680 leg span over two feet long. So you know, it 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:48.280 could could wrap around your head. It probably won't, Yeah, 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:51.040 it probably won't, but it could. So that's fun to 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:51.600 think about. 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:52.800 How Yeah, I. 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:56.760 Feel like, well, how how how deep down are these guys? 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:03.120 I mean they're found it's still they're all yeah, probably not. 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.520 I mean, I don't think they are generally interested in 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.720 human beings. They don't attack humans or any large animals there. 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.440 They are carnivored, but all their prey is soft bodied 0:04:14.520 --> 0:04:20.240 sea animals like sea and enemies. They're actually not considered 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:26.040 predators because they rarely kill their victims. They generally stick 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:29.839 their proboscis in suck out some of the juices from 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:32.320 say like a cea an enemy and then move on. 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:37.240 And the cea an enemy rarely ever dies from the attacks, 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:41.520 so they're actually considered parasites more than they're considered predators. 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.000 But like friendly little guys, they're not trying to hurt. 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:46.359 Yeah, they just need they need to get that bag 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:48.799 of an enemy soup. 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:52.960 Yum mmmm, that's yeah. 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:57.600 The so there's just like a whole somewhere where all 0:04:57.640 --> 0:04:59.440 the business is done and the rest. 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:03.160 Is leg Yeah. So yeah, they have like a proboscis 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:09.000 that can suck stuff in, but where like the problem is, 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.160 they don't really have much of an abdomen. So where 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:13.440 do all the organs go? 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.200 Because you got where's the spider? 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:22.320 They gotta have organs? Well, uh, let's uh, let's talk 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:22.880 about it. 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:23.440 Uh. 0:05:23.520 --> 0:05:29.480 It turns out that basically their legs do everything. They 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:31.800 house their organs. They do a bunch of stuff in 0:05:31.839 --> 0:05:37.159 addition to you know, walking. Uh, they are responsible for 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:40.640 all the other things that the spider, the sea spider 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:40.960 can do. 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:41.960 Uh. 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:47.080 Let's talk about the Nati sea spider, which it's naughty 0:05:47.200 --> 0:05:52.640 as in knotted like a like a Sailorman's. 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:54.680 Not naughty sea spider. 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.640 Naughty not naughty as in like not on Santa's list, 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:01.640 sea spider, the spiders, and bad These are Nazi sea 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:07.680 spiders as Yeah. They're also known as uh pic no 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:14.240 ganem literally so uh as the name suggests. Uh. It's 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.320 limbs look kind of like you took some sort of 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:21.400 off white rope and just tied a bunch of outs 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:24.640 in it. Uh. But yeah, they they have they have 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:29.880 those legs they got they got eight of them. They 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.120 kind of look like an alien spider made out of 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:40.680 white bindie straws. So uh. They are the tail tail 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:43.880 of a rat king, but it's just tail. That's yeah, 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:49.599 that's probably like they're they're kind of preboscous area. Actually 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:52.679 it might not be. That might be there, and I'm 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:55.240 get a little turned around with these guys. 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:56.279 It's hard to tell. 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.160 It's a little hard to tell, but yeah. 0:06:59.000 --> 0:06:59.799 Mostly legs. 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:06.800 It's mostly legs. They're very confusing looking. But researchers at 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.960 the University of Wisconsin Madison, in conjunction with the University 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:14.720 of Vienna, looked into the naughty sea spider to explore 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.160 a question, why do see spiders keep all their organs 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:22.480 in their legs rather than in an abdomen. So the 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:26.000 researchers found that the sea spiders are missing a key 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:29.960 hawks gene. So hawks genes are a group of genes 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:34.920 that control body development, and so this missing gene is 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.480 one that would normally control abdominal growth. And they just 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:44.080 don't have it, don't need it. They simply don't do it, 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:46.280 don't it, don't need it, don't want to donat it. 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:50.040 For some reason, it seems that the gene controlling abdominal 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:53.720 development was deleted in an ancestor of the sea spiders, 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.800 and they ended up compensating by storing all their organs 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:03.120 in their legs. And they truly use their legs for everything. 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:07.000 They walk with them. They breathe through their legs. 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:09.200 I don't know why that got me. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:13.480 Well, it gets worse. Females eject eggs out of their 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:18.480 legs ah, and males will fertilize the eggs and then 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:23.360 attach them to special baskets on his legs until they hatch. 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:25.080 Oh, which is nice. 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.720 Yeah you got the men spiders have pockets. 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:31.320 Too, Yeah, exactly, I mean the man sea spiders do 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.080 a lot of the child care there by carrying around 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:38.360 the fertilized eggs, so you know, stay at home dads. 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:41.920 And they're convenient pants pockets exactly. 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:50.720 It's like cargo shorts, but eight legs of those and yeah, 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.800 and you breathe an excrete out of them. So it's nice, 0:08:56.000 --> 0:09:00.640 an elegant solution to not having Yeah. The funny thing 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.680 is that even though they have found sort of the 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:09.520 genetic uh blueplant print for why they don't have an abdomen, 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:13.679 they don't really know why this happened. It just seemed 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.160 to potentially have been a little bit of an oopsy 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:21.360 goofa mups and then the sea spiders just rolled with it. 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.679 It's like, actually, we don't really need this. Everything fits 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:29.640 all good in our legs and we're still we're still along, 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:36.240 it's still hugging along. Don't don't need all this abdominal stuff. Yeah, 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:40.840 and they made it, yeah yeah, uh yeah, because it's 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.160 it's thought that they were they had a common ancestor 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:47.600 who did have an abdomen and we're more like land 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.800 spiders at some point and then they're just like, ah, 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.720 I want to do something different, more unique. 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:57.280 Keep it all in the legs. 0:09:57.520 --> 0:10:00.160 Yeah, I don't need anything else just these legs and 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:02.000 this weird tongue stra. 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:07.760 Yeah, that's right, the proboscis. The uh. It's really interesting 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:11.640 because the hardest part of the study was apparently being 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:18.200 able to get sea spider samples, because it's really hard 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:22.480 to raise them in captivity. They apparently do not like 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:26.120 it much. They're very strange and very finicky about their food. 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:32.560 But the University of Vienna painstakingly found the specific types 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:36.960 of sea and enemies that they like. They kind of 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.120 like offer them this buffet of sea and enemies and 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:44.160 then they like make sure that they're allowing the individual 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:46.880 sea spiders to like pick out sea and enemies that 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.320 they like, and they're like, great, we're gonna house you 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:55.360 with these now so you can like eat them. And yeah, 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:59.160 it was apparently not easy, but the University of Vienna 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:01.600 has figured it out, so they have a lab where 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.400 they breed these things. 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:07.840 Wow yeah yeakie. 0:11:08.200 --> 0:11:10.360 Yeah. Well, you know, when you don't have a stomach, 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:11.920 you're going to be picky about what you eat. 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:18.840 They do have, but yeah, it's it's in their legs. 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:20.400 Yeah that is. 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:26.120 Oh, I don't know why, Like I'm not uh, I'm 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:28.400 not a big spider person. I'm not freaked out by 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:33.160 spiders at all, but the idea of breathing through your 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.320 legs really is creepy. 0:11:35.600 --> 0:11:37.280 Yeah, you didn't like that. I could. 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:41.240 I don't know why. I don't know why that reaction, 0:11:41.360 --> 0:11:43.679 but breathing through your legs. Don't like it? 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.679 It's different. It's different for people. I mean we sometimes 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.920 till it's like you gotta let your feet breathe. Yeah, 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.239 let your dogs, your dogs are barking, take up your shoes, 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:57.400 let your feet breathe. But yeah, it's very literal with 0:11:57.440 --> 0:11:58.719 these guys. 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:02.920 Yeah, uh, that is. And they're weird. 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:05.080 They're very particular about their I kind of like that. 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:06.800 They're they're culinary expert. 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:08.000 Yeah. 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:10.440 Yeah, they're piggy little guys. 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:14.360 I highly encourage you all listening to just look at 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:19.800 the various species of sea spiders because they're very strange looking. 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:24.920 They're very uncanny. You really do see, Like I think 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:28.280 for things like alien. 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:30.720 It's a bit of a roar shock. 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.320 Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it's there's a lot of 0:12:33.760 --> 0:12:35.880 there's a lot of cool designs. If you're like a 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:39.520 sci fi artist or writer or whatever, oh for sure, 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:44.360 look up these guys. They're great inspiration. They look very Yeah, 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:49.120 they look very upsetting in a cool kind of deep 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:50.559 sea way. 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:56.120 So yeah, and it looks like these like the Naughty spiders. 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:58.720 I'm sure there are joints, but look a little more 0:12:58.840 --> 0:13:03.480 fluid than some of the big prickly face hugger looking guys. 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:06.000 They kind of looked like those. Yeah, they look like 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.679 those jelly like hands that you used to get that 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:10.480 used to slap on car windows. 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:14.400 Yeah, they're a little meteor like. They're a little softer looking, 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:16.599 but yeah, some of the spindly ones do kind of 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:24.320 look like they're made out of weird toothpicks. Apparently. There 0:13:24.559 --> 0:13:29.000 was a movie that came out in twenty twenty called 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:37.800 h Abissel Spider, which is about a giant sea spider. Yeah, 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:41.040 I think it's designed seems to be more based on 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:45.400 land spiders because it does have like a body. I 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:47.480 think it would have been creepier if they had gone 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:52.800 with the sort of classic sea spider layout. 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:56.400 Yeah, no, that would have been because, Yeah, the center 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:00.200 of it is so unsettling. It's just like when you 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:01.800 put knuckles together. 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:05.240 Yeah, exactly, which is really it's really more of the 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:09.199 face hugger design from Alien but Yeah, it looks like 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:13.160 uh abyssal spider is just just looks like a giant 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.120 tarantula that's like floating in the water, which to me 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:18.839 is just kind of funny because if you've ever seen 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:23.240 an actual spiders reaction, like a land a terrestrial, true 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.520 spiders reaction to water, it's never dignified. 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:29.120 No, No, it's very floppy. 0:14:29.280 --> 0:14:33.680 There's always a a there's always a sort of like 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:39.200 Scooby Doo trying to escape a ghost skidaddle or whatever. 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:44.240 A spider yeah running water, Yeah, like like you know 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:46.000 they're going nowhere. 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:49.400 Yeah, exactly. This is just a big old tarantula. 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:55.720 Yeah, I don't know, missed opportunity. Yeah, so that's my advice. 0:14:56.200 --> 0:15:02.640 Next next uh cool movie. Uh. I was gonna say villain, 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.640 but can we really say? I guess monster is. 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:09.800 Yeah, I guess it's whose side you're taking. 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.000 Is it alien from Aliens, A villain or a monster? 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.800 Yeah, who's to say. It depends on the movie too, 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:19.440 it depends on the franchise. 0:15:19.560 --> 0:15:24.200 It's just doing what it was born to do. Yeah. Anyways, 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.600 we're gonna take a quick break and when we get back, 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:31.200 we're gonna talk about more. Abystle horrors. Uh that have 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:38.680 cool technology. All right, so, uh bread jet, We're gonna 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:43.280 talk about bristle worms, also known as Paula keats, which 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:46.360 is a much cuter name than what they look like. 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:49.840 I feel like I know these guys. 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:58.800 Yeah, gross, they're pretty strange. 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:01.520 There were oh god, and they got. 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.880 Weird heads, right, And it's so a lot of things 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:08.320 are called worms, but they're not like at all related 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:13.359 to actual worms like earthworms. These are actually related to earthworms. 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:21.160 They are extremely diverse. There's many, many, many species of them. 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:27.160 There's other over ten thousand of these little little nightmare 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:34.840 fuel guys, and they're all very different. They have Some 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:40.320 of them look more like say, the sandworms from Dune. 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:46.880 Some of them look sort of like weird mop heads. 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:49.920 It's just there's so many, and they're so varied, and 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:54.400 they're so strange. I do love them. Some are actually 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:56.960 a bit pretty, I would say, in a weird way. 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.680 Still a little bit disquieting, but you know, like they're 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.320 coming like bright red. Some of them are sort of 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:09.840 iridescent or gold, yeah, yeah, like feathery ones. It's they 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:15.119 come in all sizes and shapes and they're they're truly 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:21.000 very interesting U're We're going back to the University of Vienna, 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.080 which is apparently just. 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:26.520 Doing some weird They're finding all the weird guys and 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:27.760 bringing them there. 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:29.959 They have a lab where they are just bringing all 0:17:30.000 --> 0:17:32.280 the Eldrich horrors of the world. 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.800 Ye, so to watch out for them. Yeah. 0:17:35.840 --> 0:17:40.760 So they have been studying bristle worms, and bristleworms have 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:45.440 this amazing ability, which is that they are really good 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:50.480 at regenerating lost body parts. Uh, they're actually better than 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:54.720 terrestrial earthworms at like if you cut them and half 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:58.600 at regenerating because like sometimes with an earthworm you can 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.960 do that, you can cut it and it'll but most 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:05.480 of the time when you bisect an earthworm, it just dies. 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:10.120 Yeah, no, that makes sense. They have sensitive parts. 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:13.120 Yeah, but these guys are actually quite good at it. 0:18:13.560 --> 0:18:16.960 They are also really good at regenerating their limbs. At 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:24.040 this University of Vienna, they are studying Platinarus dumorellly no 0:18:24.440 --> 0:18:30.680 dumer really doo marelli doroom rill eye Platinarus dou marilli, 0:18:30.840 --> 0:18:35.080 which is a species of bristleworm that lives in coastal waters. 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:38.480 It's pretty small, it only grows about three centimeters. It's 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:41.399 amber and color, and it has a bunch of bristle 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.280 like protrusions on the side of its body. Most bristle 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.960 worms do that. It's in the name. They are very bristly, 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:52.680 like you could put them on as a fake mustache 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:56.840 if you know, like you know how like in Davy 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:03.919 the Pirates of the Caribbean. Oh yeah, octopus man with 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.280 the tentacles for like a beard. I could also imagine 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:10.360 some other guy like, yeah, you know. 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:12.720 But just a mustache. That is a bristleworm. 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:17.600 Brother Reginald Jones, and he's got a mustache and it's 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:21.159 a bristle worm. So yeah, they have a bunch of 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:26.560 bristle like protrusions from the sides of their bodies. And bristleworms. Uh, 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.080 these guys are really really good at regenerating it. When 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:32.040 they lose their bristles, they just build them right back. 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:37.679 So at the University of Vienna, researchers looked at this 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:45.000 p Dummerlli uh in an amazing study called dynamic Microvilli 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:50.600 sculpt the bristles at nanometric scale. Uh yeah, it's a 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:54.960 it's a catchy title. So they found evidence that these 0:19:55.240 --> 0:20:02.440 bristleworms have specialized cells called ketoblast in each of its bristles. 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:05.760 And so what these cells do is they actually extend 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:10.560 like an arm from the cell that deposits a little 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:15.280 bit of kitan, which is a sort of tough building 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:21.720 block used for a lot of invertebrates. And the study 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:24.240 authors said that the process is a lot like three 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:26.640 D printing in the way that three D printers work, 0:20:26.640 --> 0:20:29.359 where they move an arm around and then deposit a 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:35.360 little little beat of that that. Oh that's super postic. Yeah, 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:39.879 that's convenient. Yeah, And it's interesting because these bristles, like 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.240 when you get down to the very small microscopic level, 0:20:43.640 --> 0:20:46.600 they have things structures on the bristles. They're not just 0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:50.720 all smooth sort of like yeah, they have like little 0:20:51.000 --> 0:20:54.879 tooth like projections, and so they create it's like this 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:57.520 kind of conveyor belt of it starts to create the 0:20:57.520 --> 0:21:00.240 bristle and then it's like, ah, here's the part where 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:02.680 we build a little tooth and then they just like 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:07.680 kind of pop that out and it's yeah, they're they 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:10.960 are working from sort of It works very very much 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:13.679 like a three D printer, where they have the model 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:19.679 which comes from the bristleworms genes, no doubt, and then 0:21:19.680 --> 0:21:23.480 they just sort of are able to reconstruct this limb 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:27.800 in a way that is not it's like how it's 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:30.360 supposed to be. It's not sort of like scar tissue 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:33.480 or kind of weird or wonky. It's just like exactly 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:35.280 what the original design is. 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:39.120 Wow, that's so no, Like because like when we break 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:41.960 an elbow and it grows back, it's a little cracky, there's. 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:42.760 Scars, weird. 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:46.080 Yeah, No, it's a lot. It's a lot smoother of 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:50.919 a process, which is really interesting. Apparently some of these tissues, 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:53.840 like some of this the functioning of these keto blasts 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:58.399 is sort of similar to our inner ear cells and 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:02.159 our inner ears, at least the skin of our inner ears. 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:08.680 It's really good at you know, sort of rebuilding itself. 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:11.960 We have it's basically a conveyor belt of skin in 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:16.280 our inner ears. It's a little gross, but one way 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:20.320 that like earwax as it's produced like exits your ears, 0:22:20.359 --> 0:22:22.639 that the skin in your ear is kind of constantly 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:26.280 growing and pushing stuff out like a conveyor belt as 0:22:26.320 --> 0:22:29.119 the new skin is growing, and so there's kind of 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:32.520 a similarity there. So they're hoping that given that there's 0:22:32.560 --> 0:22:36.880 some similarities with that, that maybe understanding these cells could 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:42.480 also help us understand say, like because there's some structures 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:46.560 of the inner ears that don't don't repair themselves quite 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:50.200 as well, right, And so the hope is that, hey, 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:54.239 maybe we could find out how these bristleworms do it, 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:59.560 Like we could find out how to potentially create cells 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:02.840 in human in our ears that will like repair the 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:07.600 very delicate little organs inside our ears. 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:10.240 You know, it seems with a lot of these animals, 0:23:10.240 --> 0:23:12.960 it's like don't have delicate organs, so you can't replace it. 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:15.920 Just feels like they're all legs. They're all one thing. Right, 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:17.160 Keep it simple, human. 0:23:17.080 --> 0:23:23.920 Keep it simple. I don't think the future therapies will 0:23:23.960 --> 0:23:27.840 be us sticking bristleworms inside of our ears for them 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:29.840 to rebuild ourselves. 0:23:29.920 --> 0:23:31.360 But that sounds horrible. 0:23:31.720 --> 0:23:35.680 You know what if we like create a human bristleworm 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:37.880 hybrid and you just kind of stick it in your 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:40.240 ear and it works like a little three D printer. 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:43.000 I'm opting out at that point. I am not sticking 0:23:43.080 --> 0:23:44.560 worms in my ear, not doing it. 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:47.480 You just don't have the constitution for the future. 0:23:47.840 --> 0:23:50.760 I don't have for things. 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:57.280 Any story about things crawling into people's ears, don't. 0:23:57.080 --> 0:23:58.240 Like it I have. 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:02.520 Yeah, I actually share your opinion on that. I don't. 0:24:02.880 --> 0:24:03.280 I don't. 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:07.520 I have red a lot of I can't stop myself. 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:13.359 It sounds like the worst thing I've read stories of, 0:24:13.440 --> 0:24:16.880 like like a little bugs or something crawling in your Oh. 0:24:16.960 --> 0:24:20.000 Yeah, spiders like laying eggs in people's ears. I don't 0:24:20.000 --> 0:24:20.760 know how true that is. 0:24:20.920 --> 0:24:24.600 That so spiders generally don't want to do that. Spiders 0:24:24.640 --> 0:24:26.960 don't like that whole thing of like you eat. I 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:29.639 don't know one hundred spiders a year because they're always 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:32.879 crawling in your mouth. If spiders were that stupid, they 0:24:32.880 --> 0:24:39.800 would not be very successful. Yeah, animals, so they don't much. No, 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:43.359 so they they generally don't want to crawl in your mouth. 0:24:43.880 --> 0:24:48.800 It's a probably too moist and damp for them, probably 0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:52.240 smells weird. It's not something they want to do. It's 0:24:52.240 --> 0:24:55.240 pretty difficult for a spider to mistake your mouth for 0:24:55.440 --> 0:24:59.840 a good place to hide. It doesn't happen. Ears stuff, though. 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:05.000 I think that while it really is extremely rare, it 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:07.760 might actually be more likely to happen than the spider 0:25:07.800 --> 0:25:11.680 crawling in your mouth. I don't. I think the cases 0:25:11.680 --> 0:25:14.360 in which like a spider or any kind of insect 0:25:14.440 --> 0:25:19.600 crawls in your ear and lays eggs is just astronomically small, 0:25:20.280 --> 0:25:23.199 don't You don't have to worry about it happening. It 0:25:23.280 --> 0:25:27.880 will not happen to you. It's like good to take 0:25:27.920 --> 0:25:30.360 that off the list of things, right, like you can, 0:25:30.560 --> 0:25:33.400 like it's the same thing as like winning the lottery, 0:25:34.160 --> 0:25:39.680 except for in one case. In either case you won't 0:25:39.720 --> 0:25:44.160 be happy because of tax. But yeah, I mean they're 0:25:44.359 --> 0:25:46.480 like I have red leg. Like, if you do have 0:25:46.560 --> 0:25:51.280 something like a bug in your ear, do not chase 0:25:51.320 --> 0:25:56.560 after it with a que tip because apparently this simply 0:25:56.600 --> 0:26:00.800 scares the bug and we'll drive it deeper deeper into 0:26:00.880 --> 0:26:03.879