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

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Speaker 1: another vault episode for you. This is going to be

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Speaker 1: part four of four in our Hunters of the Dark

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Speaker 1: Ocean series. This one originally published four one, twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: Let's get deep, Let's get weird one last time.

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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. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert.

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Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with

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Speaker 3: part four in our series on predators in the deep

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Speaker 3: and dark parts of the Ocean. Now, if you're new

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Speaker 3: to the show or new to the series as usual,

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Speaker 3: we would recommend you go back and start with part

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Speaker 3: one of the series called Hunters of the Dark Ocean

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Speaker 3: Part one and listen through to catch back up and

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Speaker 3: then return to meet us here once again. But also

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Speaker 3: if you just want to start here, that's fine. This

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Speaker 3: isn't one of those where it's absolutely crucial to take

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Speaker 3: them in order. But for a brief recap of previous episodes,

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Speaker 3: we talked about how the ocean can be thought of

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Speaker 3: as having different environments or zones stacked vertically on one another, which,

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Speaker 3: according to their depth, have different conditions. Closer to the surface,

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Speaker 3: of course, there's more warmth, less pressure, more access to

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Speaker 3: sunlight for phytoplankton to feast on, and thus more access

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Speaker 3: to food all the way up the chain. And then

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Speaker 3: as you go deeper, the waters get colder, darker, pressure

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Speaker 3: goes up, food resources become more scarce or at least

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Speaker 3: less dense. And what this means is that much like

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Speaker 3: how terrestrial animals are evolved to live in one type

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Speaker 3: of environment and not another, marine organisms are usually adapted

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Speaker 3: not just to the ocean or sea water, but to

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Speaker 3: a specific zone of the ocean. So kind of like

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Speaker 3: how you're not going to find jaguars living in the

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Speaker 3: middle of the se era. You don't find the frosted

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Speaker 3: flatwood salamander in the Midwest prairie. You also don't find,

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Speaker 3: you know, tuna living in deep ocean trenches like eight

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Speaker 3: thousand meters down. And there are some adventurous boundary crossers,

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Speaker 3: but most ocean fauna are adapted to a fairly specific

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Speaker 3: depth range, and the majority of those animals do live

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Speaker 3: near the surface, where conditions are less extreme and resources

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Speaker 3: are more plentiful. But in this series we are interested

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Speaker 3: in the creatures that can be found farther down in

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Speaker 3: the darker parts of the ocean, from the sort of

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Speaker 3: twilight and midnight midwaters, all the way down to the

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Speaker 3: abyssle plains on the ocean floor, and even further down

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Speaker 3: into deep sea trenches. Specifically, we have been looking at

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Speaker 3: predators in these environments now. In Part one, we talked

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Speaker 3: about a recently discovered species of ghostly predatory crustacean from

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Speaker 3: almost eight thousand meters down in the Atacama Trench of

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Speaker 3: the southeastern Pacific. This new species and genus was announced

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Speaker 3: in a paper in November twenty twenty four, and that

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Speaker 3: example sent us off examining the positively wacky body forms

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Speaker 3: of crustaceans called amphipods the order to which this animal belongs,

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Speaker 3: especially their deep sea varieties, some of which had major

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Speaker 3: toxic jungle charisma. Others were a little more like dead

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Speaker 3: Dreamer in the Nightmare City, the shapes seep down from

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Speaker 3: the stars, that sort of thing. We also talked about

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Speaker 3: giant predatory siphonophores, extremely weird and amazing organisms that really

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Speaker 3: defy our common understanding of what it means for a

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Speaker 3: creature to have or be a body and we discussed

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Speaker 3: probable sightings of an unidentified predatory cephonophore in a deep

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Speaker 3: ocean trench environment. In Part two, we looked at a

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Speaker 3: somewhat obscure abysslefish known as the gridi fish, which was

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Speaker 3: notable to me because of its bizarre neon yellow bean

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Speaker 3: shape eye cups. And then after that we talked about

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Speaker 3: a couple of cephalopods, the strawberry squid, with its interesting

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Speaker 3: midwater camouflage methods and a kind of bifurcated method of sight,

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Speaker 3: one eye specializing in seeing shadows from above and other

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Speaker 3: eye specializing in biological self illumination from below. And we

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Speaker 3: also talked about ooh grimpo toothis the dumbo octopus, durable

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Speaker 3: little octopod who seems to have forsaken many of the

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Speaker 3: biological self defense options evolved by its cephalopod kin in

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Speaker 3: exchange for adapting to deeper waters where it has less

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Speaker 3: pressure from its own predators. And in part three we

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Speaker 3: talked about snail fishes. These are a big player, big

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Speaker 3: deal in the deep ocean family of fishes that can

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Speaker 3: be found in the form of many deep adapted species,

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Speaker 3: including the deepest swimming fish ever convincingly documented by science,

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Speaker 3: at least as of now. The deep dwelling varieties of

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Speaker 3: snailfish often look like fat slide any pale, pink tadpoles

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Speaker 3: with translucent skin and the words of one article we

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Speaker 3: talked about guts wrapped in cellophane. In my observation, kind

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Speaker 3: of often like a wad of sea through chewing gum

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Speaker 3: with a tail, but when the angles were just right.

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Speaker 3: Of course, as you pointed out, rob they can also

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Speaker 3: be surprisingly cute, with kind of placid, unassuming eye spots

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Speaker 3: making them look like a creature of the hundred acre wood. Yes, yes,

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Speaker 3: but one whose skin is dissolving. But despite looking either

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Speaker 3: like a half dissolved a meal from RoboCop or like

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Speaker 3: a cute little piglet fish, it turns out snail fishes

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Speaker 3: are the top predators of many deep ocean trench environments,

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Speaker 3: so they eat amphipod, scavengers and other little animal forms

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Speaker 3: you find down there. They're kind of the kings and

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Speaker 3: queens of the underworld. Oh and also there is good

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Speaker 3: reason for suspecting there's some of the worst smelling fish

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Speaker 3: on Earth. We discussed in that episode why that is

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Speaker 3: like the case.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, with science This is not just a they look

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Speaker 1: smelly discussion. There's actual science to back this up.

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Speaker 3: After talking about snailfish, as we also looked at anglerfish.

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Speaker 3: A beautiful monster of a marine predator actually an anglerfish.

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Speaker 3: It is not just one species, also a very diverse

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Speaker 3: group that has a lot of different varieties, but it

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Speaker 3: has its own deep adapted varieties as well. And there

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Speaker 3: are so many things that make anglerfish interesting, not just

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Speaker 3: how gorgeously cartoon grotesque they look, or at least in

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Speaker 3: some of their forms, you know, with the jail bar

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Speaker 3: teeth and the doom cute prey lure. There are also

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Speaker 3: really interesting questions about their relationship with the bacteria they

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Speaker 3: farm to create their glowing lure, How do they acquire

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Speaker 3: these bacteria, et cetera. And also we talked about their

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Speaker 3: truly amazing mating and reproduction practices, with the tiny male

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Speaker 3: grafting its body onto that of the much larger female

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Speaker 3: to become a kind of carry along sperm dispenser, which

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Speaker 3: itself requires interesting adaptations. For example, in the anglerfish immune system,

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Speaker 3: how does the anglerfish avoid rejecting the grafted male's tissue

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Speaker 3: and could knowledge of this sort be used to improve

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Speaker 3: outcomes for organ transplants and other related issues in human medicine. Anyway,

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Speaker 3: that's all the previous episodes. Today we're back to round

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Speaker 3: out the discussion of dark ocean predators with our fourth

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Speaker 3: and final part.

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Speaker 1: That's right now. Before we jump into a full discussion

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Speaker 1: on our selections here, I do have a quick example

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Speaker 1: I want to point out because it's an extreme example

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Speaker 1: of something we discussed previously, the advantage in the deep

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Speaker 1: waters in the dark ocean of having an oversized stomach

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Speaker 1: that allows you to consume all you can eat when

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Speaker 1: a rare meal presents itself. And this brings us to

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Speaker 1: the black swallower. This is the rare fish that can

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Speaker 1: swallow a fish bigger than itself via a distensable stomach.

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Speaker 1: You might be tempted to imagine like a fish with

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Speaker 1: a like a beer belly that is not severe enough

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Speaker 1: for what can occur here. Joe I included an illustration

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Speaker 1: and a photo here, and and I encourage everyone out

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Speaker 1: there when it's safe to do so, uh, look up,

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Speaker 1: look up some images of the black swallow or fish,

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Speaker 1: and it is. It's pretty amazing. So essentially, it has

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Speaker 1: a stomach the balloons up enough to contain a fish

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Speaker 1: twice its own length and ten times its own mass.

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Speaker 3: It looks like a sardine with like a small mattress

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Speaker 3: folded up on its stomach.

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Speaker 1: If this were not actually real, it would seem grotesque

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Speaker 1: enough that it had to be, you know, something out

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Speaker 1: of the human imagination. It's just it looks bizarre, just

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Speaker 1: this stomach stuffed with an oversized fish, a fish larger

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Speaker 1: than itself. And there there are various discussions in the

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Speaker 1: literature of like how does it actually eat the fish?

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Speaker 1: How does it like walk its jaws up the body

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Speaker 1: of the fish that it has consumed.

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Speaker 3: It is true, it's hard to understand how what you're

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Speaker 3: looking at is real, especially and you shared a couple

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Speaker 3: of images. Rob one is like an illustration, but the

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Speaker 3: other is like a photo of thin I guess one

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Speaker 3: of these ate something a little too big for its

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Speaker 3: own good, and it's like a much larger fish inside

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Speaker 3: the smaller fish's belly. I don't understand how it got

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Speaker 3: that in there.

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Speaker 1: But you are right, it is possible for these fish

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Speaker 1: to eat something that's too big. And here's the crazy

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Speaker 1: detail on all of that. Apparently most of the specimens

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Speaker 1: of black swallower the scientists have studied they've made their

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Speaker 1: way to the surface because the fish in question apparently

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Speaker 1: ate another fish too big for it to digest before

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Speaker 1: decompositions set in on their meal. So in other words,

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Speaker 1: they're two large meals rotted in their giant gut before

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Speaker 1: their stomach could break it down, resulting in all those

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Speaker 1: decomposition gases turning the fish into a surface bound rock balloon,

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Speaker 1: which just takes them out of their deep water habitat

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Speaker 1: or right up to the surface, killing them.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. You don't want that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So I just had to bring this one up

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Speaker 1: because the deep ocean, as we discussed it, is a

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Speaker 1: place sometimes of extremes, and here is an extreme example

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Speaker 1: via deep water evolution of an oversized stomach to allow

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Speaker 1: these individuals to eat all they can when a meal

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Speaker 1: presents itself.

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Speaker 3: Now, I do have a particular deep sea predatory species

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Speaker 3: that I briefly want to talk about later in this episode,

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Speaker 3: but before we get to that, there was something that

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Speaker 3: I found really interesting, a sort of research trail I

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Speaker 3: went down that I'd like to mention, and that is

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Speaker 3: on the question is it just us or do fish

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Speaker 3: actually get measurably weirder in deeper water. And I think

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Speaker 3: the answer is it's not just us if you define

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Speaker 3: weird as possessing more unusual and diverse body shapes. Yes,

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Speaker 3: there is research suggesting that fish in deeper, darker waters

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Speaker 3: tend to have more diverse distributions of body forms. In

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Speaker 3: other words, they're undergoing more wildly experimental evolutionary pathways than

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Speaker 3: the fish in shallower, more abundant waters. Where it's not

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Speaker 3: that there's no diversity. There is diversity in shallower waters,

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Speaker 3: but you'll find a lot more fish there, all doing

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Speaker 3: the same thing with their bodies.

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Speaker 1: Whereas in the deep they're getting weirder, or in the

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Speaker 1: words of David Lynch, they're becoming more pure.

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Speaker 3: So this is according to a paper I was reading

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Speaker 3: published in twenty twenty one in the journal Ecology Letter

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Speaker 3: by Martinez at All, called the deep sea is a

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Speaker 3: hot spot of fish body shape evolution, and in their

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Speaker 3: abstract the authors introduce this idea by writing quote, deep

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Speaker 3: sea fishes have long captured our imagination with striking adaptations

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Speaker 3: to life in the mysterious abyss, raising the possibility that

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Speaker 3: this cold, dark ocean region may be a key hub

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Speaker 3: for physiological and functional diversification. We explore this idea through

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Speaker 3: an analysis of body shape evolution across ocean depth zones

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Speaker 3: in over three thousand species of marine teleoste fishes. So

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Speaker 3: what did the survey yield? Well, yes, the authors found

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Speaker 3: that quote, morphological disparity of marine fish body plants incrementally

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Speaker 3: increases nearly two fold from ocean surface layers to the

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Speaker 3: deep sea. Now, how do you measure morphological disparity that

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Speaker 3: variable they're looking at? There? They looked at all these

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Speaker 3: different species of fish, thousands of different species from different

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Speaker 3: parts of the ocean, and they compared a bunch of

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Speaker 3: different measures, so basic body dimensions, length, depth and width,

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Speaker 3: jaw size, head size, size of what's called the caudal

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Speaker 3: peduncle basically the fleshy tapering part of the fish leading

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Speaker 3: to the tail fin kind of the bridge to the tail.

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Speaker 3: And they used these measurements to create a sort of

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Speaker 3: graph or morpho space for the fish found in each zone.

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Speaker 3: And what they found was that in shallower waters, while

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Speaker 3: there is plenty of diversity, the body forms of different

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Speaker 3: fish species tend on average to be more clustered around

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Speaker 3: a standard kind of optimized design. There's just a lot

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Speaker 3: more sameness. Quote, Fishes in the shallow depth zone had

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Speaker 3: a large overall range in body shapes. Majority of these

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Speaker 3: species were found in high density within a small region

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Speaker 3: of the morphospace. These species were centered on a fusiform

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Speaker 3: or spindle shaped body typified by snappers or lutianity. And

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Speaker 3: Raba included a picture of a snapper for you to

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Speaker 3: look at in the outline here. So this is gonna

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Speaker 3: be the basic body shape of the on average optimized

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Speaker 3: shallow water fish. There's gonna be just a ton of

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Speaker 3: fish that are shaped basically like this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good body shape. I'm not gonna shame

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Speaker 1: this fish. The fish looks good, but it is very

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Speaker 1: identifiable as a fish. This fish photo could be on

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Speaker 1: the Wikipedia page for fish.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's not going to freak anybody out.

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Speaker 3: This is not suggesting deep, strange or again, in Lynch's words, purity. However,

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Speaker 3: in the intermediate depth zone, so you go down below

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Speaker 3: the surface area, while this body shape is still sort

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Speaker 3: of found, this fusiform body shape, there is a good

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Speaker 3: bit more diversity. Body forms are less clustered around this

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Speaker 3: common design and more spread out on the morphospace graph

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Speaker 3: and interestingly, quote, it is at these intermediate depths that

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Speaker 3: a body plan almost nonexistent in shallow waters begins to appear,

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Speaker 3: and that is quote, species with elongated and tapered tails.

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Speaker 3: So it's interesting. We've mentioned a couple of abyssle and

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Speaker 3: Hatel fish fish in the deepest deepest parts of the

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Speaker 3: ocean the abyssal plains and then even deeper than the

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Speaker 3: Hatel zone in the trenches, and both of these fish

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Speaker 3: species tended to have something like this design they're mentioning here,

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Speaker 3: elongated bodies with tapering tails. Kind of interesting. Finally, in

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Speaker 3: the deepest part of the sea, the authors found the

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Speaker 3: greatest diversity of body forms mapped on the morphospace, especially

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Speaker 3: landing in extremes along the axis of body elongation. Quote.

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Speaker 3: At one extreme are the most slender species in our

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Speaker 3: data set, snipe eels, more on that in the second,

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Speaker 3: and at the other are globe shaped species like oceanic

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Speaker 3: angler fishes. Now, the snipe eel, that's also worth a

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Speaker 3: look up if you get a chance. It looks like

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Speaker 3: a gray whip with cartoon duck lips. So at the

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Speaker 3: other end of the axis, you know, we've already talked

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Speaker 3: about like the very blob shaped deep ocean angler fishes,

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Speaker 3: and there are more blob shaped fish you find in

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Speaker 3: the deep deep water. But you also get this other extreme,

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Speaker 3: the fish that are so long and thin they're like

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Speaker 3: a string almost, and yet they are still fish.

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Speaker 1: This is the most pixar already fish I think I've

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Speaker 1: ever seen. You can imagine just an image of this

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Speaker 1: fish going out to casting directors and just saying, find

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Speaker 1: me a voice for this fish. It has a lot

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Speaker 1: of character.

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Speaker 3: Hey, they call me slam, you know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can see that working. I was imagine,

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Speaker 1: like Emo Phillips would be good. He may already play

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Speaker 1: a fish and pixart maybe he's already taken.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So to make these deep evolved fish, often it

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Speaker 3: seems like you could start with a snapper fish and

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Speaker 3: then you either squash it into a wad, you kind

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Speaker 3: of bulldog scullet, or you stretch it out into a noodle,

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Speaker 3: so you've got like whips and blobs. The authors say

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Speaker 3: that also in the deepest zone you tend to find

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Speaker 3: fishes with huge mouths relative to their bodies, big mouths

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Speaker 3: and strangely tapered tails like we saw with the snail fish.

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Speaker 3: So it looks like a tadpole, you know, instead of

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Speaker 3: spreading out like most fishtails you think of, it just

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Speaker 3: kind of tapers off to a little pencil tail. So

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Speaker 3: there is a huge difference here, essentially double the evolution

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Speaker 3: of disparate fish body forms in the deep zone compared

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Speaker 3: to the near surface zone where you just see a

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Speaker 3: lot or species with similar body forms. What explains this well,

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Speaker 3: the authors have some ideas, and those ideas come back

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Speaker 3: to something we've touched on already in earlier parts of

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Speaker 3: this series, the interaction between light conditions and predation. So

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Speaker 3: in the photic zone of the ocean, where sunlight penetrates

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Speaker 3: the water, the authors talk about how there is a

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Speaker 3: lot of hunting by sight. Predators can see prey and

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Speaker 3: vice versa. Pray can see predators at a relatively long distance.

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Speaker 3: So there is predator and prey, you know, awareness of

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Speaker 3: each other with significant distance in between. And it seems

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Speaker 3: like when predators and prey can see each other at

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Speaker 3: a distance, it gives rise to these kind of recurring

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Speaker 3: predation patterns, things like stalking and chasing. Survival often becomes

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Speaker 3: a literal race, where like swimming speed and vability are

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Speaker 3: the key factors that determine whether you live or die.

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Speaker 3: So there's there's an arms race based around swimming speed.

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Speaker 3: And I don't know if this is a good analogy.

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Speaker 3: The authors don't make it themselves, but it also made

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Speaker 3: me think about how it seems to me that there

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Speaker 3: is a lot of evolutionary pressure for like quadrupedal mammals

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Speaker 3: to specialize for speed when they live in very open environment,

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Speaker 3: something of like the savannah right right where you know,

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Speaker 3: sight lines are long. So the snapper form that we

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Speaker 3: talked about that is so common in shallower waters maybe

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Speaker 3: just kind of an optimized evolutionary design for the light

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Speaker 3: drenched environment that leads to this arms race on swimming.

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Speaker 3: And the authors so that's one part of it, the

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Speaker 3: main predation interactions predator prey interactions based on light. Also,

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Speaker 3: though they point out that shallow water fish face physical

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Speaker 3: environmental pressures that deepwater fish usually do not face, and

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Speaker 3: there are actually a lot of different things to consider here.

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Speaker 3: So near the surface, you're going to have like surface

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Speaker 3: weather effects and turbulent waters and more variable current that

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Speaker 3: you might need to fight against fighting against unpredictably flowing water.

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Speaker 3: And also if fish live in coastal environments or along

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Speaker 3: rocky seafloors, they might be needing to have ways of

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Speaker 3: dealing with those environments, so like rocky bottoms or reefs,

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Speaker 3: maybe ways of hiding and getting around in those places.

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Speaker 3: Those just create all different kinds of new evolutionary pressures.

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Speaker 3: The conditions in the deep ocean, on the other hand,

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Speaker 3: are relatively stable. You're not going to be fighting with

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Speaker 3: a lot of weather or current or you know, like

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Speaker 3: there's not a lot of different stuff going on. There's

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Speaker 3: going to be a lot of floating or sitting and

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Speaker 3: scuttling around along the kind of sedimented bottom.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which is we touched briefly this with the siphonophors,

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Speaker 1: mentioning like some of the siphonophores are rather delicate in

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Speaker 1: their body structure, but they're in an area where they're

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Speaker 1: not having to deal with currents and so forth, they

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Speaker 1: can just live free and weird like that exactly.

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Speaker 3: But also coming back to the thing about light allowing

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Speaker 3: predators in prey to see one another at a distance

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Speaker 3: and putting this pressure on chasing and maneuvering. The authors

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Speaker 3: say that you know, in the deepest parts of the ocean,

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Speaker 3: it's kind of like the information horizon of death or

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Speaker 3: of getting a meal is much shorter. Like fish and prey,

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Speaker 3: the predators in prey don't see each other at a distance.

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Speaker 3: They're much more likely to just kind of bump into

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Speaker 3: each other quite suddenly. Predation happens quickly in close quarters.

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Speaker 3: And that's kind of interesting because it seems that this

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Speaker 3: change in light conditions and the relatively short information horizon

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Speaker 3: on which you can detect the press sense of a

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Speaker 3: predator or prey animal, it kind of relieves the otherwise

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Speaker 3: overwhelming evolutionary pressure on swimming power like speed and maneuverability,

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Speaker 3: and it allows deep adapted species to run weird experiments

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Speaker 3: in survival, for example, by favoring body types that swim

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Speaker 3: relatively slowly but can serve metabolic energy or specialize in

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Speaker 3: surviving in extremely high pressure and low temperature environments. And

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Speaker 3: the authors point out that this explanation is supported by

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Speaker 3: the observation that many deep dwelling species of fish have

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Speaker 3: kind of weak muscles. They have like low density or

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Speaker 3: what are called watery muscles, which does probably make them

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Speaker 3: weaker or slower swimmers, but it also helps in other ways.

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Speaker 3: It helps them maintain neutral buoyancy, So that's the ability

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Speaker 3: to neither float up nor sink, just kind of sit

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Speaker 3: right where you are in the water. They also point

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Speaker 3: out that the extreme hydrostatic pressure of the deep ocean

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Speaker 3: may actually make efficient swimming easier. Quote in laboratory settings,

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Speaker 3: European eels experienced approximately sixty percent lower cost of transport

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Speaker 3: under high pressure conditions. Elevated rates of evolution for locomotor

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Speaker 3: traits in the deep ocean may therefore reflect the relaxation

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Speaker 3: of strong selection for some aspects of locomotor performance, such

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Speaker 3: as maneuverability and high speed cruising. So I thought this

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Speaker 3: was interesting because it seems like, ironically, these extreme conditions

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Speaker 3: in the deep ocean allow for more biological diversity and

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Speaker 3: less grouping around these body shapes that get used over

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Speaker 3: and over. It's sort of the opposite of what you

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Speaker 3: would think. You would kind of think that the extreme

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Speaker 3: environments would tend to force a lot of like a

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Speaker 3: much narrower range of what could survive there, and instead

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Speaker 3: it proves to be a kind of experience, kind of

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Speaker 3: free experimentation space for evolution. And so that's interesting. Maybe

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Speaker 3: I want to come back to that in a minute,

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Speaker 3: but there are also it's worth pointing out there are

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Speaker 3: a few things about the deep ocean that might be

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Speaker 3: thought of as analogous to the pressure on swimming speed

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Speaker 3: and maneuverability in the shallow ocean. One thing is the

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Speaker 3: overwhelming pressure to not miss out on a chance to eat,

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Speaker 3: and that leads to one thing that they found a

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Speaker 3: thing that's not variable. Among deep sea fishes, they almost

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Speaker 3: all seem to have big mouths, specifically long jaws. This

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Speaker 3: goes back to your black swallower example. In that example,

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Speaker 3: it was the stomach, though I suspect it probably also

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Speaker 3: has relatively large jaws compared to fish of its size

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Speaker 3: throughout the ocean. But the thinking here is that the

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Speaker 3: big mouths the long jaws is about resource scarcity, kind

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Speaker 3: of like the big stomachs the author's right quote befitting

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Speaker 3: rare encounters with sparsely distributed prey. So it's like when

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Speaker 3: you come across food, you just do not want to

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Speaker 3: miss the chance because you're already full, or because you

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Speaker 3: can't fit the prey in your mouth, or because maybe

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Speaker 3: you bite it but you don't have a good grip

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Speaker 3: and it gets away. You just want to make sure

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Speaker 3: that when you come in contact with the scarce bit

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Speaker 3: of food, you are keeping it and you can digest it.

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Speaker 1: Yes, And this is definitely the case with angler fish

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Speaker 1: that we talked about in the last episode. Yeah, big mouths,

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Speaker 1: big stomachs. You don't want to have to turn down

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Speaker 1: a meal because you don't have room. There's plenty of room.

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Speaker 1: There's room to get in and there's room to digest.

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Speaker 3: One more thing I was looking into is I was

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Speaker 3: trying to check out research on why you find these

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Speaker 3: more elongated body forms and fishes, like, not just why

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Speaker 3: there's more safety to experiment with that kind of body form,

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Speaker 3: but actually like what is the advantage in the deep ocean.

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Speaker 3: And it seems like maybe long slender body forms make

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Speaker 3: swimming more energetically efficient. You can swim while expending less

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Speaker 3: energy when you're kind of elongated like that. And also

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Speaker 3: I did come across one study proposing that elongated or

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Speaker 3: tapering body forms make it easier to swim backwards, which

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Speaker 3: I thought was kind of interesting, saying that if you

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Speaker 3: have an elongated body form like some of these fish,

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Speaker 3: it's easier to suddenly reverse direction and go back in

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Speaker 3: exactly the way you came hmm. Interesting. But anyway, coming

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Speaker 3: back to general thoughts on this idea that these more

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Speaker 3: extreme deep ocean environments allow for more evolutionary diversity, one

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Speaker 3: thing is that this dynamic does seem to be specific

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Speaker 3: to physical facts about the different things about the ocean,

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Speaker 3: Like the light actually does influence influence the predator prey interactions.

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Speaker 3: That worse, the well lit areas to specialize for speed

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Speaker 3: and maneuverability. So that is one thing that's kind of

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Speaker 3: specific to the ocean. But in the more general sense,

433
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:16,640
Speaker 3: it makes me wonder if we have a tendency to

434
00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:23,120
Speaker 3: to think about plentiful, abundant, easy living environments the wrong way,

435
00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 3: you know, Like when an environment has a lot of

436
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 3: food and opportunity and it's easier to live in, it

437
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 3: makes you think that that's where life can thrive more easily,

438
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 3: and thus can you know, can be anything, can it

439
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 3: can experiment evolutionarily. But in fact, it seems that part

440
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 3: of what's going on in the easier to live in

441
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:46,879
Speaker 3: environments is a lot of things want to live there,

442
00:27:46,920 --> 00:27:50,480
Speaker 3: so there's a lot of competition, so it's putting a

443
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 3: lot of pressure on the things that do live there

444
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:56,120
Speaker 3: to you know, make it really count. So they have

445
00:27:56,200 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 3: to optimize and they like, you can't be just a

446
00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 3: little bit slower than the other fish, so you've all

447
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:05,639
Speaker 3: got to be these fast swimming fish. So there's actually

448
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 3: less room for evolutionary diversity.

449
00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 1: There's probably some sort of perfect business world example of this,

450
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:15,280
Speaker 1: But the only thing coming to my mind is like, oh,

451
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:16,879
Speaker 1: if you open a bar in the city, you almost

452
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 1: have to have a television screen to play the sports

453
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: on at some point or another, because that's just what

454
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: everyone expects and that's what all the other bars have. Yeah,

455
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 1: like I said, there's probably a better analogy than that.

456
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:32,000
Speaker 3: I don't think. Yeah, I don't think this to whatever

457
00:28:32,040 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 3: extent this is true about nature, I don't think it

458
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 3: is necessarily a good metaphor for other types of competition.

459
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 3: And you know, evolutionary environments you might think of like

460
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:45,280
Speaker 3: with ideas or businesses or anything like that, but there

461
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 3: might be some ways in which that applies.

462
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,480
Speaker 1: Business headed folks. Get back to let us.

463
00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 3: Know now, Rob, I know today you wanted to talk

464
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 3: about something else having to do with light conditions in

465
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 3: the different zones of the ocean, specifically bioluminescence, and I

466
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 3: want to get to that, but just briefly, before we

467
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 3: do that, I want to mention one more interesting fish

468
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:09,520
Speaker 3: I came across, and that is another predatory abyssal fish

469
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 3: known as Bathipterois gralitour, commonly known as the tripod fish,

470
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 3: though this is a little confusing because the word tripodfish

471
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 3: is also used to refer to more generally a bunch

472
00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 3: of fish in this family, but sometimes this species of

473
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 3: fish in particular is called the tripod fish. These are

474
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:33,760
Speaker 3: also sometimes known as spiderfish or the tripod spiderfish. I

475
00:29:33,880 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 3: actually first came across this because of its taxonomic relation

476
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 3: to the grid eye fish that we talked about in

477
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:44,640
Speaker 3: Part two. The tripod fish is also part of that

478
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 3: fish's family, the family ibnopidy. Now, this fish does not

479
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:54,320
Speaker 3: have neon yellow bean cup eyes, but like the grideye fish,

480
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 3: it is a bottom dwelling predator that can be found

481
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:01,640
Speaker 3: in the abyssle planes of the deep ocean. So not

482
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:04,800
Speaker 3: quite as deep swimming as like the trench snailfish that

483
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 3: we talked about in the last episode, but still one

484
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 3: of the deepest fish species in the world. And the

485
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:15,800
Speaker 3: really amazing adaptation that makes this species sort of famous

486
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 3: is the way that it appears to stand on stilts

487
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 3: off the ocean floor, three of them, two projecting out

488
00:30:24,360 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 3: of the fish's flanks from its lower fins on the side,

489
00:30:28,120 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 3: and the third projecting out behind the fish from the

490
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:35,360
Speaker 3: bottom of its tail fin, making this fish kind of

491
00:30:35,360 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 3: the equivalent of like the Martian tripods in War of

492
00:30:37,960 --> 00:30:41,320
Speaker 3: the Worlds. It's standing up on three legs, towering over

493
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 3: the other things that might crawl along the ocean floor.

494
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:49,600
Speaker 3: The tripod fish is commonly known as a demersal fish,

495
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 3: meaning a fish that lives on or directly above the

496
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 3: bottom substrate of a lake or sea, and there are

497
00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 3: organisms that you'll see gliding directly over the set. But

498
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:03,120
Speaker 3: what I like about the tripod fish is that it

499
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 3: looks like it almost daintily does not want to sully

500
00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:10,560
Speaker 3: its fins in the mud, and it uses these biological

501
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 3: stilts to stand a few of its body links up

502
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 3: above the bottom. For a formal description of the species,

503
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:20,480
Speaker 3: I dug up a report published in the journal Pacific

504
00:31:20,560 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 3: Science from nineteen ninety by a pair of researchers named

505
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:27,280
Speaker 3: Anthony T. Jones and Kenneth J. Sulak. This paper was

506
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 3: describing observations of tripod fish from a submersible dive off

507
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 3: the coast of Hawaii at depths of greater than one

508
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:38,400
Speaker 3: thousand meters and in the author's words quote, the fish

509
00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:42,520
Speaker 3: were photographed on the fine rippled sediment at depths between

510
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,960
Speaker 3: eleven hundred and forty and thirteen hundred and twenty meters

511
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 3: on the southern slope of Maui. The specimens were identified

512
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 3: by the features that characterize the species, very long produced

513
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 3: pelvic and caudal fin rays, a uniformly dark body, an

514
00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:04,680
Speaker 3: unpigmented dorsal fin, an undivided pectoral fin held upright with

515
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 3: the rays extended straight, and lower caudal fin base canted anteriorly.

516
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 3: So tripod fish are predators that sit up on their

517
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:18,040
Speaker 3: stilt legs facing into the current, waiting for prey to

518
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 3: come near them. And there's something very interesting about these

519
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 3: stilts because when you see them standing up on the

520
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:28,920
Speaker 3: stilts and kind of suggests that these stilts are I

521
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 3: don't know that they're stiff, like they look like they

522
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 3: would have to be in order to support your weight

523
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:35,800
Speaker 3: like that, like the legs of a stool. But an

524
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:39,320
Speaker 3: interesting thing that Jones and Sulac note is that while

525
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 3: these rays these things appear stiff when the fish is

526
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 3: standing up off the bottom. Suddenly the fish will, you know,

527
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 3: get disturbed. Maybe it'll get kind of disturbed by like

528
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 3: the arm of the of the remote vehicle, and it'll

529
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:55,720
Speaker 3: suddenly swim away. And then these things like lose their

530
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:58,800
Speaker 3: their rigidity and they become flexible. They just appear to

531
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 3: glide behind the fish. So it's kind of interesting imagining

532
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:06,959
Speaker 3: how they do that. Maybe some sort of internal fluid

533
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:10,200
Speaker 3: pressure mechanism or something, but interesting to wonder how But

534
00:33:11,080 --> 00:33:13,959
Speaker 3: instead of relying on site to catch prey like we

535
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 3: were just talking about, the tripod fish seem to rely

536
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 3: on sensitive elongated pectoral fin rays. So if you look

537
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 3: up pictures of these things, they will be perching on

538
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:26,920
Speaker 3: the bottom on the three legs, and then they'll have

539
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 3: what looks like two little antennae coming up off of

540
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 3: their heads or like devil horns, and you can see

541
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 3: these devil horns poking up into the water like they're

542
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 3: kind of feeling around in the water for something, and

543
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:43,680
Speaker 3: it seems that is what they're doing. They're detecting prey

544
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 3: animals drifting along with mechanical and perhaps gustatory sensations and

545
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 3: then these fins help guide the prey to the mouth.

546
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Yes, I definitely encourage everyone to look up

547
00:33:57,600 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 1: images of these fish because you have those the tripod

548
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:05,000
Speaker 1: configuration on the bottom, but then you have those two

549
00:34:06,240 --> 00:34:13,439
Speaker 1: those two additional elongated quote unquote antennae. Those it almost

550
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:16,479
Speaker 1: looks like it's intended for it to like walk another way,

551
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:19,560
Speaker 1: Like it's like it's kind of got it's reaching up

552
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:21,680
Speaker 1: for a ceiling that isn't there, in the same way

553
00:34:21,680 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 1: that it's reaching down to the floor beneath it. It

554
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:25,279
Speaker 1: also kind of looks like a cow tromp.

555
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:29,759
Speaker 3: Yes. One more thing that makes sense if you think

556
00:34:29,800 --> 00:34:33,440
Speaker 3: about these organisms environment is that the deep sea tripod

557
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:37,560
Speaker 3: fish are hermaphroditic, so they can reproduce with themselves if

558
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 3: they need to. That. They will of course reproduce sexually

559
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 3: with others if they get the opportunity. But you know,

560
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 3: you're down there in the deep sea, ships passing in

561
00:34:46,560 --> 00:34:50,080
Speaker 3: the night or whatever the opposite vertical version of that

562
00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:53,480
Speaker 3: is submarines passing in the night, you might not get

563
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 3: the opportunity.

564
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 1: So be prepared to do everything in house.

565
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:09,120
Speaker 3: Yes, necessarily, all.

566
00:35:09,120 --> 00:35:14,080
Speaker 1: Right, So as we begin to close out this episode. Uh,

567
00:35:14,160 --> 00:35:17,360
Speaker 1: we've discussed several different deep sea organisms thus far that

568
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: make use of bioluminescence in one form or another.

569
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:21,360
Speaker 3: Uh.

570
00:35:22,040 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 1: And and this is just such a fascinating realm of

571
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,320
Speaker 1: consideration for for deep sea fish. We were talking earlier

572
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:31,080
Speaker 1: about you know, what happens when everything is is just

573
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: kind of like you know, a wide open chase, what

574
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 1: happens when you're just bumping into each other and so forth.

575
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 1: The other thing is that bioluminescence in this, in this

576
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:44,799
Speaker 1: realm where light from the surface, uh, either takes on

577
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:48,480
Speaker 1: this this strange, you know, less intense form or is

578
00:35:48,480 --> 00:35:53,759
Speaker 1: going to just gone altogether. Bioluminescence light created in the

579
00:35:53,840 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 1: deep by organisms. Uh, This becomes this whole place of

580
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:04,480
Speaker 1: interaction in weaponization. And I thought it might be fitting

581
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:07,160
Speaker 1: for us to go ahead and roll through all of

582
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:11,360
Speaker 1: the known uses for bioluminescence and fill in some examples

583
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 1: for categorizations that we haven't talked about already. So, the

584
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:18,720
Speaker 1: University of California at Santa Barbara has an excellent website

585
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:23,759
Speaker 1: about bioluminescence called simply the Bioluminescence web Page. I think

586
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 1: it's been been around for a while at this point,

587
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:28,680
Speaker 1: but it's got some discreat It has some great visual

588
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: breakdowns of the different categories of bioluminescence and some examples,

589
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 1: and they break everything down into three broad categories of function, offense, defense,

590
00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:44,360
Speaker 1: and a third category that includes a single function and

591
00:36:44,400 --> 00:36:49,160
Speaker 1: that's made attraction, slash recognition, swarming queue. And so I

592
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 1: thought that would be a good place to start, and

593
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:53,680
Speaker 1: then we'll get into defense and offense, which includes some

594
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:57,640
Speaker 1: categories that we've touched on already. So when it comes

595
00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:01,320
Speaker 1: to made attraction, recognition and swarming queue, they mentioned several

596
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 1: examples and possible examples for this category. Because the thing

597
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:09,359
Speaker 1: about bioluminescence, well, first of all, I should stress that

598
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:12,719
Speaker 1: these categories tend to not be like one hundred percent

599
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:16,239
Speaker 1: distinct like so many examples will we'll check off the

600
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:20,000
Speaker 1: box from multiple categories, I mean, such as the power

601
00:37:20,040 --> 00:37:23,320
Speaker 1: of bioluminescence down there, there's a certain amount of drift

602
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 1: in what it's actually achieving or seems to be achieving

603
00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 1: for any given species. And then, of course the other

604
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:33,400
Speaker 1: factor is we're still figuring out exactly what role bioluminescence

605
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,359
Speaker 1: has in any given species, especially when, of course, when

606
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:39,360
Speaker 1: we get into deeper species and rare species that we

607
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:43,120
Speaker 1: just don't know much about. But I'd say the most

608
00:37:43,120 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 1: interesting example they bring up here and probably you know

609
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: Keto our discussions, are the lantern fish of the family

610
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 1: micto Fia day and they're found in more than two

611
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,360
Speaker 1: hundred and forty different different species. I've seen the species

612
00:37:57,400 --> 00:38:00,320
Speaker 1: count as high as three hundred, and they're found world wild.

613
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 1: They're very abundant. According to the twenty eleven Encyclopedia of

614
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 1: Fish Physiology, they make up sixty percent of all deep

615
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:13,759
Speaker 1: sea fish biomass, so as you might imagine, that means

616
00:38:13,840 --> 00:38:18,480
Speaker 1: they are very much on the menu for anything that

617
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:22,440
Speaker 1: is eating anything that's preying on fish in the deep ocean.

618
00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:26,840
Speaker 1: They themselves, however, feed on zooplankton. Now, most species practice

619
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:31,400
Speaker 1: diurnal vertical migration, in which they stick to the depths

620
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:34,799
Speaker 1: of the bathrooplegic zone during the day and then they'll

621
00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: venture upward into shallower waters at night to feed. And

622
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:43,279
Speaker 1: as their name implies, lantern fish, they boast photophores that

623
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: are certainly thought to help provide camouflage, breaking up their

624
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:51,760
Speaker 1: silhouette against filtered sunlight from above to protect against predators. Beneath,

625
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:55,000
Speaker 1: but some researchers hold that they may use these lights

626
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: to communicate with each other as well. According to the

627
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 1: Woodshole Oceanographic Instant, to quote, the arrangement and flashing pattern

628
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 1: of these running lights are unique to each of the

629
00:39:05,200 --> 00:39:07,960
Speaker 1: two hundred and forty five plus species of lantern fish,

630
00:39:08,280 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 1: which suggests that they're not just used to camouflage the animals,

631
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:16,319
Speaker 1: but also to communicate. However, other sources I've looked at,

632
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:20,279
Speaker 1: such as that twenty eleven Encyclopedia of Fish Physiology, kind

633
00:39:20,280 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 1: of downplay the possibility of a communication role. Okay, Now,

634
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 1: there are other examples of organisms in the ocean that

635
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:29,279
Speaker 1: use their lights or seem to use their lights for communication.

636
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 1: The ostracods, for example, These are tiny crustaceans noted for

637
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:37,879
Speaker 1: their blue or green bioluminescence. This is thought to aid

638
00:39:37,960 --> 00:39:42,440
Speaker 1: and communication and identification as well. So again, that's one

639
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:44,719
Speaker 1: way that bioluminescence can be used to sort of like

640
00:39:44,760 --> 00:39:47,400
Speaker 1: say hey, I'm here, this is what I am, and

641
00:39:47,440 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 1: so forth. But getting more into these like the offensive

642
00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: and defensive array, getting into the drama and conflict of predation. First,

643
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 1: the offensive use of bioluminescence rolling through the different subfunctions

644
00:40:02,600 --> 00:40:07,680
Speaker 1: that are outlined by the Bioluminescence website. First of all,

645
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 1: luring prey. We discussed a prime example of this with

646
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 1: various deep sea anglerfish. Create a light, draw in other

647
00:40:15,800 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 1: fish that are drawn to that light because it might

648
00:40:18,719 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 1: mean a meal, or it might mean a chance to breed,

649
00:40:22,239 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 1: and then you gobble up your prey when they get close.

650
00:40:25,280 --> 00:40:28,960
Speaker 1: Now the next example, this one's really interesting, lure with

651
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:32,120
Speaker 1: external light, and this is one I hadn't thought as

652
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 1: much about, but it should be common sense to us

653
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 1: denizens of the sun and the moonlit world, and also

654
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 1: a world where we've created a lot of external illumination sources.

655
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 1: If you don't create your own deep sea light as

656
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:50,279
Speaker 1: a lure, might you depend on other species for illumination.

657
00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:55,319
Speaker 1: Sperm whales, for example, may possibly seek out communities of

658
00:40:55,360 --> 00:40:59,440
Speaker 1: bi iluminescent plankton not to eat them themselves, but to

659
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 1: what for the plankton's defensive displays of bi illuminescence, which

660
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:07,760
Speaker 1: signals the presence of a predator, and this in turn

661
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:11,919
Speaker 1: would invoke the whales attack and Megamouth sharks may also

662
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:14,880
Speaker 1: employ this tactic. But I'm to understand that in either case,

663
00:41:15,080 --> 00:41:17,759
Speaker 1: we don't know for sure. I think this is this

664
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:20,760
Speaker 1: is still very much in the realm of a hypothesis.

665
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 1: Now here's the next categorization, stun or confuse prey. It's

666
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,360
Speaker 1: thought that some squid may use bioluminescence to stun or

667
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:33,960
Speaker 1: confuse the prey species that they're after, in addition to communication.

668
00:41:34,800 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 1: In a two thousand and seven paper published in the

669
00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:40,960
Speaker 1: Proceedings of the Royal Society b Observations of Wild Hunting

670
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:45,200
Speaker 1: Behavior and Bioluminescence of a large deep sea eight arm

671
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 1: squid Tenaningia Dana authors Kubodera at all right, that the

672
00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:55,800
Speaker 1: squid's intense light emissions quote may work as a blinding

673
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:58,360
Speaker 1: flash for the prey as well as a means of

674
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:03,400
Speaker 1: illumination and measuring target distance in an otherwise dark environment.

675
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and they may also use their lights to

676
00:42:07,640 --> 00:42:12,479
Speaker 1: deter count competitors and adversaries of the same species. So again,

677
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: once you get into the use of this biolumin essence

678
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: again that often it's multiple things. There may be multiple

679
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: purposes in play here. But these are big squid, by

680
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: the way, reaching lengths of one point seven meters or

681
00:42:25,200 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 1: five point six feet, and their photophores. They're light emitting

682
00:42:30,280 --> 00:42:34,719
Speaker 1: parts here are enormous, often compared to fists or lemons.

683
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 1: They're positioned at the ends of special arms, and they

684
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:43,920
Speaker 1: have what's described as like an eyelid like membrane, like

685
00:42:43,960 --> 00:42:46,800
Speaker 1: a black membrane that closes over it. I included a

686
00:42:46,840 --> 00:42:49,319
Speaker 1: photo here for your Joe. It does indeed look like

687
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:53,520
Speaker 1: a great pale pupilis eye at the end of a squid.

688
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 3: Arm, deeply unsettling, this sort of large almond shaped chunk

689
00:42:58,480 --> 00:43:04,359
Speaker 3: of white chocolate behind them, behind the flesh. Yeah, but

690
00:43:04,880 --> 00:43:08,160
Speaker 3: this is funny because it's like I'm thinking about the

691
00:43:08,160 --> 00:43:10,600
Speaker 3: second half of the thing you mentioned here. The first

692
00:43:10,960 --> 00:43:13,680
Speaker 3: item you mentioned is it's possible that the squid are

693
00:43:13,760 --> 00:43:16,640
Speaker 3: using it to like a flash bang. It's there to

694
00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:19,920
Speaker 3: stun or confuse the prey. But the other thing is,

695
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 3: why didn't I think of this before perhaps using it

696
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:27,720
Speaker 3: as illumination or way of measuring target distance, so essentially

697
00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 3: using it like a flashlight to illuminate prey so that

698
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:35,279
Speaker 3: it can better be located, the same way that if

699
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:37,759
Speaker 3: you were trying to catch a chicken running around at night,

700
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 3: you would need like to shine a flashlight at it

701
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:40,600
Speaker 3: to chase.

702
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, this is this is an interesting example,

703
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:47,520
Speaker 1: and the full body. I found a great photo here

704
00:43:47,560 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 1: of this particular species and it looks kind of like

705
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:52,520
Speaker 1: a like a fighter plane too, Like you can really

706
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: I have an easy time imagining this thing like zooming

707
00:43:55,640 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 1: in on its target and then flashing them and then

708
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 1: moving in for the kill, and then doing more flashing

709
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:07,399
Speaker 1: to say, hey, I'm at work here, everybody else, stay away,

710
00:44:07,680 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 1: I've got yeah, all right. And that leads into the

711
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:14,759
Speaker 1: fourth example here of offensive bioluminescence usage, and that's to

712
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:22,399
Speaker 1: illuminate prey. So this particular species, Tananingia dana may cover

713
00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:26,720
Speaker 1: this example as well, but flashlightfish and dragonfish are also

714
00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:31,920
Speaker 1: really good examples. So dragonfish of the Stomidae family, especially

715
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:36,720
Speaker 1: barbled dragonfish, are deep sea apex predators of the bathtvile

716
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:42,239
Speaker 1: edgic zone absolute icon horror shows with needle teeth that

717
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:45,560
Speaker 1: look super intimidating on a poster. I actually had a

718
00:44:45,600 --> 00:44:48,160
Speaker 1: listener write in, I think on Discord saying yes, I

719
00:44:48,200 --> 00:44:50,279
Speaker 1: had the same poster, and I think maybe it was

720
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:53,920
Speaker 1: like a national geographic poster that had all these fish

721
00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:57,040
Speaker 1: on it, a lot of deep sea fish. But this

722
00:44:57,080 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 1: particular listener also as a kid, didn't know how big

723
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:03,239
Speaker 1: these were. These guys tend to be like fifteen to

724
00:45:03,239 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 1: twenty six centimeters in length, but they're still apex predators

725
00:45:07,239 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 1: in their deep environment. They use their bioluminescent barbles to

726
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:16,239
Speaker 1: attract prey as well as communication. It seems, but the

727
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:20,919
Speaker 1: species of loose jaw dragonfishes can produce red light via

728
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 1: far red emitting photophores to illuminate prey as well as

729
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:28,680
Speaker 1: help detect the red lights of their kin. According to Woodshole,

730
00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:33,480
Speaker 1: they gain their red light abilities via their diet of copopods,

731
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:37,319
Speaker 1: and this is the only family of fish that can,

732
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:40,799
Speaker 1: via this method, produce red light. They're kind of like,

733
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:44,160
Speaker 1: it's like they're wizards of the deep that have a

734
00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:47,359
Speaker 1: school of magic that most other fish do not have.

735
00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:50,400
Speaker 1: But they're also, of course competing with each other, so

736
00:45:51,000 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 1: they want to know what the other wizards are up to.

737
00:45:54,040 --> 00:45:57,879
Speaker 1: Included a photo here of Specimen Joe. Everyone else should

738
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:00,960
Speaker 1: look these up as well. Dragonfishes because they're jaws are crazy.

739
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:04,279
Speaker 1: They have these like big hinge jaws that you know,

740
00:46:04,280 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 1: it looks like some sort of mechanical device that might

741
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:08,880
Speaker 1: be employed here.

742
00:46:09,000 --> 00:46:11,560
Speaker 3: It's a hr gig or mouse trap.

743
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:16,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, all right. Now, moving into the defensive sphere

744
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 1: of bioluminescence, there are multiple subfunctions here. So first there's

745
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:26,359
Speaker 1: the categorization of startling. Some squid use this, but also

746
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:30,640
Speaker 1: various dinoflagelet marine plankt in use this technique. So when

747
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:34,600
Speaker 1: a predator moves in towards them, they begin flashing their bioluminescence,

748
00:46:34,920 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 1: which in general has a twofold purpose. First of all, indeed,

749
00:46:38,520 --> 00:46:41,560
Speaker 1: it startles the attacker. It's like, WHOA, what's happening? It started?

750
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 1: It's flashing throws them off at least makes them hesitate.

751
00:46:45,640 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 1: But also this bleeds into another defensive categorization, and that

752
00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 1: is what is generally called the burglar alarm. So when

753
00:46:56,960 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 1: these particular marine plankton or other organisms such as jellies

754
00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:06,560
Speaker 1: flash defensively against predators, it also illuminates them and raises

755
00:47:06,600 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 1: the profile of the attacker. So it raises the stakes.

756
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 1: They're essentially saying, yes, you can continue to attack me,

757
00:47:12,880 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 1: slash us, but you will do so in the spotlight

758
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 1: where other predators can see you.

759
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:22,120
Speaker 3: Okay, So in a way, it's almost kind of like

760
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 3: a small prey animal getting attacked by a medium sized

761
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:30,399
Speaker 3: predator screaming in the forest, and one thing might be, well,

762
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 3: does that make the medium sized predator worry that a

763
00:47:33,640 --> 00:47:35,200
Speaker 3: larger predator will come running?

764
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 1: Exactly?

765
00:47:36,200 --> 00:47:37,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right.

766
00:47:37,480 --> 00:47:41,880
Speaker 1: Another category is misdirection, also referred to as the smokescreen technique.

767
00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:45,520
Speaker 1: The vampire squid is a great example of this. These

768
00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 1: are smallcephalopods, actually neither squid nor octopod, but closer to

769
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 1: octopods of the dark ocean. We have but one known

770
00:47:54,680 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 1: species of the family vamporo Morophidia, and it is the

771
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:07,120
Speaker 1: vamp Rotuthus infernalis, so it is the infernal vampire squid.

772
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 1: When threatened, they'll eject not a pseudomorph of ink, so

773
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:14,480
Speaker 1: not like a cloud of ink shaped like their body,

774
00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:18,720
Speaker 1: but rather a cloud of bioluminescent mucus.

775
00:48:18,800 --> 00:48:19,360
Speaker 3: Beautiful.

776
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:23,400
Speaker 1: So, not only is this cloud of bioluminescent mucus distracting,

777
00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:27,120
Speaker 1: drawing away a predator while the vamp makes its escape,

778
00:48:27,360 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 1: but it's also sticky and glowing, So it also checks

779
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 1: off the box for the burglar alarm, because if you

780
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:38,080
Speaker 1: get this stuff stuck on you, now you're glowing, and

781
00:48:38,320 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 1: this is going to raise your own glowing profile in

782
00:48:42,520 --> 00:48:46,960
Speaker 1: a most undesirable way, potentially drawing in predators that will

783
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:47,359
Speaker 1: eat you.

784
00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:52,040
Speaker 3: Smart. Yeah, I mean, not like they thought of it themselves, but.

785
00:48:52,480 --> 00:48:57,000
Speaker 1: Right right, all right. The next category distractive body parts

786
00:48:57,440 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 1: a related concept here, but if you don't have glowing

787
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:03,960
Speaker 1: mucus to eject, you can always just jettison a glowing

788
00:49:04,000 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 1: part of your body. The deep sea squid octopitoothis deleotron

789
00:49:09,040 --> 00:49:11,360
Speaker 1: may eject portions of its arm to serve as a

790
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:15,560
Speaker 1: glowing distraction while it makes its escape. And the interesting

791
00:49:15,560 --> 00:49:17,760
Speaker 1: thing is here when you read about how it pulls

792
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:20,920
Speaker 1: this off. Apparently first they grasp their predator like they

793
00:49:20,960 --> 00:49:23,399
Speaker 1: sort of like go to their predator, but then they

794
00:49:23,480 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 1: release part of the arm that is in contact with

795
00:49:26,680 --> 00:49:29,560
Speaker 1: the predator it's glowing, and then they make their escape.

796
00:49:29,800 --> 00:49:33,360
Speaker 1: It's kind of like jump in there, grapple your attacker,

797
00:49:33,480 --> 00:49:36,080
Speaker 1: but then leave them your arm and make it make

798
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:37,640
Speaker 1: a break for it.

799
00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:40,439
Speaker 3: Proactive glowing autotomy.

800
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 1: Yes, sacrificial tag is the next one. There's a lot

801
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 1: of overlapped overlap here with the distractive body part example

802
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:51,759
Speaker 1: we just rolled through, but the emphasis here seems to

803
00:49:51,760 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 1: be on more of a burglar alarm type feature. So

804
00:49:55,520 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 1: it's like, basically they're saying, here, eat this discarded glowing

805
00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:01,520
Speaker 1: part of me, but you will probably glow as well.

806
00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 1: Now because you have to remember, first of all, these

807
00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:08,520
Speaker 1: sorts of tissues may continue to glow for hours, and

808
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 1: many of these creatures are largely translucent, so eating a

809
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:18,080
Speaker 1: glowing meal could mean everyone will know you're there, they

810
00:50:18,160 --> 00:50:22,800
Speaker 1: see the glowing meat inside you, and predators may take notice.

811
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:25,799
Speaker 3: Ah yeah, so if your gut stuffed in cellophane and

812
00:50:25,880 --> 00:50:28,160
Speaker 3: then you eat a glow stick, that that does make

813
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:29,960
Speaker 3: you vulnerable, right.

814
00:50:30,400 --> 00:50:34,080
Speaker 1: And this defense seems to have also caused the counter

815
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:39,400
Speaker 1: revolution of black line stomachs in many predator organisms to

816
00:50:39,520 --> 00:50:44,359
Speaker 1: prevent the glow of bioluminescent meals from escaping, because obviously, yeah,

817
00:50:44,400 --> 00:50:46,560
Speaker 1: if the more the more your stomach is like a

818
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:50,799
Speaker 1: dark room, there's going to be an obvious survival advantage

819
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:55,240
Speaker 1: if you're going around eating glowing food. And then, finally,

820
00:50:55,280 --> 00:51:00,560
Speaker 1: the last categorization for defensive bioluminescence that the bio Luminescence

821
00:51:00,560 --> 00:51:04,440
Speaker 1: website outlines is just warning colorization. This one overlaps with

822
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:07,680
Speaker 1: several examples. The glow is a warning of all the

823
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:11,279
Speaker 1: bad things that could potentially happen to the predator if

824
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:14,120
Speaker 1: they eat or try to eat the prey. And it

825
00:51:14,160 --> 00:51:17,759
Speaker 1: also can communicate the old standby that we're familiar here

826
00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:21,239
Speaker 1: on the surface world as well, and that is the warning, Hey,

827
00:51:21,480 --> 00:51:24,719
Speaker 1: I'm not tasty or maybe I'm toxic. I'm not good

828
00:51:24,719 --> 00:51:26,720
Speaker 1: to eat, so stay away from me. Look how bright

829
00:51:26,760 --> 00:51:27,200
Speaker 1: I am?

830
00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 3: Nice.

831
00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:32,920
Speaker 1: So hopefully all of that helps to sort of flesh

832
00:51:32,960 --> 00:51:35,200
Speaker 1: out what we've been talking about here in terms of

833
00:51:35,239 --> 00:51:40,319
Speaker 1: bioluminescence in these various species that there's just there's kind

834
00:51:40,360 --> 00:51:43,200
Speaker 1: of like a war of light going on in the dark,

835
00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:47,840
Speaker 1: and it's fascinating how these different spells and counter spells

836
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:51,279
Speaker 1: interact with each other. Well said, and there's so many

837
00:51:51,320 --> 00:51:54,359
Speaker 1: more examples, and there, of course again there's so much

838
00:51:54,400 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 1: more that we're continuing to learn about these bioluminescent creatures

839
00:51:58,200 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 1: in the team.

840
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:00,799
Speaker 3: That's right. So maybe we'll have to return to this

841
00:52:00,880 --> 00:52:03,319
Speaker 3: topic in the future, but I think for now that

842
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:03,719
Speaker 3: does it.

843
00:52:04,000 --> 00:52:05,640
Speaker 1: That's right. So we're gonna go ahead and close out

844
00:52:05,640 --> 00:52:07,319
Speaker 1: this episode of stuff to blow your mind. But we'd

845
00:52:07,320 --> 00:52:09,240
Speaker 1: love to hear from everyone out there. What's your favorite

846
00:52:09,280 --> 00:52:11,959
Speaker 1: deep sea organism. What are some favorites that we didn't

847
00:52:12,000 --> 00:52:14,439
Speaker 1: cover on the show here today write in We would

848
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:17,040
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Will remind you that Stuff

849
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:19,520
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,

850
00:52:19,560 --> 00:52:22,799
Speaker 1: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we

851
00:52:22,840 --> 00:52:25,759
Speaker 1: air a short form episode, and on Fridays we have

852
00:52:25,840 --> 00:52:28,560
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema. That's our time to set aside most

853
00:52:28,600 --> 00:52:31,440
Speaker 1: serious concerns and just talk about a weird film.

854
00:52:31,880 --> 00:52:35,960
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

855
00:52:36,280 --> 00:52:37,880
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

856
00:52:37,920 --> 00:52:40,520
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

857
00:52:40,520 --> 00:52:42,960
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

858
00:52:43,160 --> 00:52:45,959
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to blow

859
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:55,080
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

860
00:52:55,200 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 2: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 2: or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows,