Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas,
Speaker 1: and monsters. In time, the Inuit people of the Bearing
Speaker 1: Sea tell tales of Aklut, a folkloric monster that takes
Speaker 1: the form of a giant orca while in the water,
Speaker 1: but can also venture out onto the ice flows, where
Speaker 1: it assumes the form of a giant wolf and hunts
Speaker 1: the flesh of human beings. Whenever one encounters wolf prints
Speaker 1: that terminate at the edge of an ice flow, then
Speaker 1: one has found signs of the monster re entering the
Speaker 1: water to assume its orca form. The Oclut folk tale
Speaker 1: is exciting and enthralling on its own, but it also
Speaker 1: brings to mind the terrestrial ancestry of the orca or
Speaker 1: killer whale. The leading hypothesis on whale evolution holds that
Speaker 1: the creatures evolved from four legged land dwellers that increasingly
Speaker 1: took to the sea beginning some fifty million years ago.
Speaker 1: While not wolves per se, these suspected whale ancestors are
Speaker 1: sometimes described or illustrated as vaguely lupine in appearance. Orca
Speaker 1: are sometimes described as the wolves of the sea, but
Speaker 1: in scientists at the University of Copenhagen used genomic data
Speaker 1: to determine that while walrus is shared more in common
Speaker 1: with dogs and wolves, orcas had more in common with cows.
Speaker 1: In prior research, mijard at All, writing for the journal
Speaker 1: Mammalian Biology, hypothesized that the orca's ancestors might have been
Speaker 1: something like a deer, perhaps similar to the modern water
Speaker 1: loving mouse deer, which may jump into the water and
Speaker 1: hide when threatened. Whatever the secrets of their origin, orcas
Speaker 1: now exist in two to five subspecies or races, which
Speaker 1: differ from each other in diet and appearance. Andrew Foot
Speaker 1: at the University of Burne, Switzerland has argued that their
Speaker 1: genomic differences are, as with humans, partially driven by culture
Speaker 1: learned behaviors in ways of surviving that are passed down
Speaker 1: within a given group. Aklut stands apart from genomics and
Speaker 1: scientific scrutiny, but in some ways it nicely embodies the
Speaker 1: evolutionary connection between land and ocean. Tune in for additional
Speaker 1: episodes of The Monster Fact each week. As always, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my
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