WEBVTT - Was Leaving the Ocean a Mistake? 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:10.240 Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host 0:00:10.240 --> 0:00:14.920 of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:16.640 and today on the show, we're going to talk about 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:21.600 some weird, wet, and sometimes mucusy sea creatures. No matter 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:25.000 how strange they seem, their behavior isn't always so different 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:28.920 from us terrestrial animals, and maybe we can learn how 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.880 to live a little from them. From the sunlight to 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:34.199 the abyssle zone. We're going to go over some of 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:37.680 the weirdest citizens of the sea. Because joining me today 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:40.120 is science writer for The New York Times and author 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:42.760 of the new book Leaving the Ocean Was a Mistake. 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.280 Life Lessons from Sixty Sea Creatures. Kara Jaimo. 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:49.000 Welcome, Hi, Katie. It's great to be back. 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:51.120 Yeah, I got a. 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:51.880 Copy of the book. 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:56.400 It's very enchanting. I love all of it. The illustrations 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:02.840 by Vlad Sinkovic areautiful. And then you have coupled with 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:09.399 it these amazing nuggets of knowledge wisdom about each of 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:11.720 these sea creatures, and I feel like it gives you 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:18.039 a really beautiful, charming sense of how wildly diverse the 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:23.400 ocean is. And all these really weird things that are 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:28.160 so like, they're so unusual, and it goes beyond sort 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:30.920 of just like kind of the sea creatures we know, 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:36.080 like sharks, jellyfish, et cetera. I mean that there are 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.440 there are definitely ones that you will know in this 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:42.160 book and really interesting facts about them as well. But yeah, 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.840 I love it because it really gives a nice sense 0:01:45.920 --> 0:01:51.240 of how weird these animals can be and nonsensical they 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:54.840 can be. Yeah, I mean, I want to talk about 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.279 the subjects of your book a little bit, but first, 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:00.960 of these sixty sea creatures you wrote about, are there 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:04.960 any that really were kind of your favorites or close 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:08.560 to your favorite or the weirdest one that you were 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:10.040 most surprised to write about? 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:11.720 Yeah, totally. 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.200 I mean I found the research and writing process for 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:19.160 this book actually maybe surprisingly surprising, considering that I do 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:20.440 write a lot about. 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:21.240 Weird little critters. 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:25.200 But the ocean was a little bit of a zone 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.960 for me that I had not thoroughly explored, So I 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.520 kept being excited at surprise to like run into a 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.360 weird guy. I think one of my favorites. Let me 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:38.680 just flip and find it in my own book. There's 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:43.160 like a special interspecies friendship which I always love between 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:48.920 this really huge, kind of scary looking jellyfish and this 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.960 really tiny fish. So it's the giant Phantom jelly which 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:57.080 is like a really very big jellyfish. It's bell so like, 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.600 you know, the top part is the size of like 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:02.240 your rige bean bag chair, and then it has these 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:05.720 really long arms that I wrote are like haunted drapes, 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:07.920 so it's sort of like a haunted looking jellyfish. And 0:03:07.919 --> 0:03:11.480 then it has this tiny friend, this little white fish 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:15.160 called the pelagic brachela, and they just like are always 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:15.840 found together. 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.639 Like the funny thing about doing research. 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:19.680 For this book is also that a lot of these 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:22.480 creatures have only been seen three or four times total 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:25.720 in the history of like recorded anything. But every time 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.040 scientists and researchers have seen this big jellyfish, it's had 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:30.960 a little fish friend. 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:32.919 So I think that's kind of nice. 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:37.200 And do they have any ideas as to why these 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:38.120 guys are buddies? 0:03:38.600 --> 0:03:39.720 No, they don't. 0:03:39.920 --> 0:03:42.040 I don't think anyone has really looked into it. Like 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:44.720 deep sea research is hilarious because they're just kind of like, 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:47.680 I mean, not to you know, sell anyone short. But 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:50.200 all they can really do is be like, hey, look 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:52.960 at that guy. Oh he's gone. I hope I see 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:53.360 him again. 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:58.000 Sometimes we check out this weirdo we found. Yeah, anyway, 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:03.960 never seen him again. Yeah, that's this is something that happens. 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:07.400 Like where I'm researching for the show things about deep 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:09.880 sea creatures, I find one that's like, oh, this looks 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:14.560 incredibly gnarly. It must have so much interesting research done 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.560 on it. And no, not for a lack of wanting, 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:24.360 but it is very difficult to observe them and the 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:28.279 wild and often, like when you actually get specimens to 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.279 the surface, they just are not at all like what 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.640 they are in the ocean. You can't observe their behaviors 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:39.480 physically they might explode because when they're deep enough they don't. 0:04:39.520 --> 0:04:42.960 They aren't actually designed to be able to survive totally. 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:48.360 And are you know PSI's up here, which is relatively 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.200 light compared to the crushing depths, so there's sort of 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:57.960 an explosion rather than an implosion. Yes, So they're really 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.680 hard to study. So so when we do find these 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.040 weird things, sometimes all we can do is speculate, right, 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:08.520 like look at behaviors of other animals, we say, there's 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:13.719 a lot of like symbiotic behaviors where you know, I 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:16.320 mean like one could imagine like maybe this little fish 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:20.760 is able to get some protection from the jellyfish. Maybe 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:24.799 it's eating some of the crumbs that the jellyfish is collected, 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:31.320 and maybe that helps with the jellyfish's hygiene, maybe it 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:33.840 helps attract other prey, the. 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:34.880 Movement of the fish. 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:37.360 All of this is I pulled all of this out 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:39.919 of my butt, Like this is not these are not 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:44.359 real facts. This is just there's so many potential possibilities 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:48.720 for this friendship that we have between them, because they're 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:52.479 like some this happens also with like terrestrial animals where 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:56.760 you'll just have like this very odd like almost it's 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:00.000 a buddy comedy because they don't seem like they would 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:06.080 work together. These tarantulas and micro highlight frogs where they're 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:10.520 just like heaty tiny little guys, little frogs, and then 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:13.320 these giant spiders and you think like, oh, the spider's 0:06:13.320 --> 0:06:16.359 gonna eat that little guy. They don't, and they have 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:22.120 this like great relationship like Timone and Pumba. But yeah, 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:25.200 I love that. I have picked out some of my 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.440 favorites from the book and I've gone sort of in 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.479 order of descent, so like from the top of the 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:33.880 ocean to the bottom, which I also like in the 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:38.880 book that because I always get confused about ocean depths. 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:43.479 I'm like, yeah, pleagic zone, benthic zone, and then I 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:45.040 kind of like, I don't know, and then it gets 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:51.880 really dark yep, and I get confused. So I really 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:55.200 appreciate the structure of the zone of the book where 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:58.200 we go from the sunlight zone all the way down 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:02.040 to be a bus zone to the very bottom. 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.440 And you'll see like, oh, I'm sorry, no, go ahead, 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.960 you'll see like we my editor and I kind of 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:13.480 made this plot where as the creatures get deeper. Not 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.040 only did the illustrations get darker, because that's just what 0:07:16.120 --> 0:07:18.960 makes sense, but the advice goes from being like maybe 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:22.320 a little bit cheesy to being like super surreal and weird, 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:24.960 because the idea is that these deep sea creatures like 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:27.760 are going to be even more out of touch with 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:30.000 our lives than the ones that are closer to us. 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.040 But there's still something to take from even the. 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:33.080 Most strange advice. 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:37.160 Yeah, and I hope it made uh to be clear, 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:39.720 like these like as you learn about each of these animals. 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:41.840 They are also giving you some life advice, which I 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:46.240 appreciate and I do need. So I do you appreciate 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.680 their their advice, but particularly actually this first one is 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:52.760 great advice for me. I like to be a nice person, 0:07:54.280 --> 0:07:58.960 but when when you are like a friendly person, it's 0:07:59.000 --> 0:08:03.760 also really important establish firm boundaries, which is the gloomy 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:09.560 octopus's specialty. I love octopuses. I can't talk about it 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:12.960 the enough. They're so they're so intro like, they're so 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:17.760 intelligent and kind of mystical, but then they're also surprisingly 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:22.160 spunky sometimes, which I love. So talk about a little 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:26.280 bit this this gloomy octopus who does not have a 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:28.320 backbone but has a backbone. 0:08:28.840 --> 0:08:29.760 Yeah, exactly. 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:33.240 So I really like this advice too, And I think 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:35.520 one of my sisters said that this is her favorite 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.840 piece of advice in the book. So the advice that 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.440 the gloomy octopus is giving to us is never be 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:45.000 afraid to set and enforce your boundaries. And the behavioral 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.840 observation that this advice comes from is that gloomy octopuses 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:51.000 are mostly solitary, like they spend a lot of their 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.520 time alone, like many octopuses, do, and if their neighbors 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:57.080 get too close to them, they will throw stuff at 0:08:57.120 --> 0:09:01.280 them like shells, dirt and algae based whatever's around, in 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.199 order to kind of keep that boundary literally sort of like, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.640 don't come any closer to me. I'm chilling by myself. 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:09.800 I don't need your intrusion here. I don't care how 0:09:09.840 --> 0:09:12.000 curious you are. I don't care what you need. Like 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.480 this is my alone time almost all the time, so 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:18.160 that is that is kind of funny. I think this 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:22.199 gloomy octopus research came from one of my favorite research sites, 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:28.160 which is the two group octopus living sites Octopolus and Octlantis, 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.880 which are both off the coast of Australia, and we're 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:36.360 discovered by Australian scuba divers and snorkelers, and these are 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:39.200 places where octopuses actually do live together, which again is 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:41.600 as far as we know, kind of rare because they 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:43.959 like to be on their own. But these places are 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:48.400 so filled with it's like the undersea topography attracted so 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:52.040 many shellfish that the octopus has just started hanging out 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.280 and eating all the shellfish and then throwing the shells away. 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:55.800 And then when they see the shells away, they would 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.400 make beautiful sort of like structures that could be used 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:00.960 at octopus houses. So they're all like, okay, let's just 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.600 stay here. And then they ended up living in almost 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:05.640 like a little octopus city. And then they're like, oh no, 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.120 I hate living in a city. 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:11.719 I want to be on my own. And so at 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:13.600 that point they started throwing stuff at each other. 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:15.119 Yeah. 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:18.160 I love that. I think this happens probably with a 0:10:18.200 --> 0:10:21.679 lot of introverts, where you find like a hobby that 0:10:22.440 --> 0:10:27.960 introverts enjoy, from magic, the gathering to crocheting, whatever it is, 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:32.160 and then you're like, well, it's really convenient to share 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:35.600 the hobby with other people. And then you join a 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:38.520 bunch of groups. Ah, here's like a croche group, and 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:40.800 then and it's great because we can share yarn. And 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:46.320 then you're like, oh right, but I'm also very shy. Yes, 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.880 I forgot I forgot that detail. I love octopuses are 0:10:50.880 --> 0:10:54.400 so relatable. This behavior reminds me a little bit of 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.640 the day octopus, which is another unique one in that 0:10:57.720 --> 0:11:02.040 it does seem to have a relationship with other animals, 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.720 not necessarily other octopuses, but it seems to hunt with 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:08.960 other fish. They'll have sort of like the large groups 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.800 of these smaller predatory fish that kind of hang out 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.040 with the octopus. It's a little bit of a question 0:11:15.080 --> 0:11:17.520 of like they are the fish just hanging out because 0:11:17.520 --> 0:11:20.760 the octopus will act like a lawnmower and churn up 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:23.600 all this stuff and then the fish can benefit or 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:28.520 is it more of a mutualistic relationship. I think researchers 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.479 are kind of on the side of it being mutualistic 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:34.680 because the octopus seems to be able to benefit from 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.600 following the fish, like finding where the fish the fish 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:40.440 may be better at finding like prey, but then the 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:43.079 fish can't get to it because you have these coral 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:46.360 reefs that have a lot of nooks and crannies maybe 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.840 even like sand or rocks in the way that the 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:53.280 fish can't get at because the prey has learned how 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:55.760 to hide really well. So then the octopus can get 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:59.840 in there and flush it out. But sometimes the octopus 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.600 will give one of these little fish that it tolerates 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:07.440 really well a smack get smack with a tenticle, and 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:11.200 so researchers think maybe it's something where one of the 0:12:11.240 --> 0:12:16.760 fish crosses a line isn't really cooperating in the hunt well, enough, 0:12:17.160 --> 0:12:19.360 but it's it's just like it. It makes me think 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:22.400 of sort of those old tapestries you see with like 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:25.840 hunters with all their hunting dogs with these like but 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:28.800 it's these octopuses with a bunch of me going around. 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.200 I don't, I don't. I do not suggest that anyone 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.920 smacks their hunting dogs. I think that this is only 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.040 acceptable when it's done by an octopus because they're their 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:41.240 legs are so squishy. 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.720 Yes, yeah, okay, it's just more of like a it's 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:46.640 more of a communication than a violence. 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:50.160 Maybe, yes, yeah, exactly. That's what's so interesting to me, 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.360 because like the octopus could turn around, Like if a 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.240 fish is annoying it, why isn't the octopus just turning around, 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:57.400 grabbing it and eating it? 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:57.680 Right? 0:12:57.800 --> 0:13:02.400 Like there's something I mean, it's probably a pretty careful 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.319 calculation where it's like, if it's a larger fish that 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:07.480 is going to be more of a struggle, that's probably 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:10.200 not worth it to the octopus. But also there's probably 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.680 some recognition of like, hey, we're working together pretty well 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:19.440 in general. Killing something that is helping me doesn't do 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:21.680 any good for me, But teaching it a lesson with 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:25.560 a little sort of limp noodled whack is you know, 0:13:26.760 --> 0:13:30.720 constructive only in this circumstance. I'm usually very much a pacifist, 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:34.360 but you know, when you're literally don't have a spine, 0:13:35.000 --> 0:13:38.040 I don't know what else you can do to enforce 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.400 your boundaries with You might have to throw some stuff. 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:42.000 Yeah. 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:44.000 The way they throw this stuff is cool too, Just 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.840 before we move on, they'll like scoop it up with 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:49.640 their arms, and then they'll sometimes use their little siphons 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:51.880 that they have to like blow it. 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:56.240 Oh amazing, like leaf flowers. Yeah, exactly, that's incredible. We 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.440 see that in like captive octopuses too, where they'll either 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:02.760 use their own siphons so like push things around, or 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:06.000 they learn to use the the pumps in their tanks, 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:10.160 and they'll like take maybe like something that's floating. Like 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:14.680 sometimes researchals will kind of leave little toys for them, 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:17.560 not they're not real toys, but it's like I've heard, 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:21.160 like empty plastic bottles or something, and then the octopus 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.160 likes to play fetch with themselves by like throwing it 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:27.080 in the current. Yeah. So they're very clever and also 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:30.640 sometimes a little bit cranky, which I love. Yeah. So 0:14:30.720 --> 0:14:33.920 another this is kind of like going in the wildly 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:37.840 opposite direction. But hump back whales like one of the 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:42.760 largest vertebrates in the world that lives in the ocean. 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:46.000 It's it's always interesting to me because they're so whales 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:49.120 are so huge. The assumption I think is that we 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:51.520 should know pretty much everything about them because they're the 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:58.479 biggest animal in the world. They're mammals like us, they're vertebrates. 0:14:59.000 --> 0:15:02.920 They're so present in our popular culture. But then when 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.840 you get to these like relatively large whales, the research 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.680 is a lot thinner than you would think because it's 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:15.240 just so hard to like observe them and kind of 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.680 station yourself, Like, yes, we see them when they're migrating, 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:20.440 but then when they're like deep in the ocean in 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:23.800 their element, there's a lot of behaviors that we kind 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:26.160 of miss. So I really love it when we do 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:31.160 find something really interesting about them, because they're really really complicated. 0:15:31.200 --> 0:15:35.680 So I love you talk about like people I think 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.840 are generally aware of whale song that they sing. They 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:44.320 have unique songs, and they're socially intelligent. But what you 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:46.640 talk about, I think is a pretty interesting fact that 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:49.120 I don't think people would be as familiar with in 0:15:49.200 --> 0:15:53.240 terms of their their song repertoires. 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.080 Yeah, so this is super fun and something I've had 0:15:57.120 --> 0:15:59.560 in my mind since I first wrote about it, maybe 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:03.360 like six years ago, just because of the new study 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:05.960 came out and I happened to see it. But like 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:08.960 you said, yeah, humpback whales are known for singing. Their 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:13.640 songs are quite famous. There are like recordings of them 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.360 that you can buy in cool New age stores to 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:20.720 this day. And then everybody knows what their songs sound like. 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:28.080 They're very like haunting and beautiful and exactly and basically 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.120 like songs are a cultural thing for them, and different 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:35.560 populations of these whales who meet at particular breeding grounds 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.560 all around the world will have like certain songs, and 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:40.560 those songs will change from year to year, but they'll 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:42.880 all kind of like have their their favorite songs that 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:48.400 they all sing together. But researchers notice that different populations 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.440 were sort of like borrowing from each other's songs and 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.360 like remixing little bits into their own songs. 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:56.560 And they were like, how is this happening? When are 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.440 they hanging out? And they figured out that there is 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:04.520 like this place in the South Pacific specifically where whales. 0:17:04.160 --> 0:17:06.800 In the area all come and hang out and sing 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.960 together and like kind of teach each other maybe or 0:17:10.000 --> 0:17:12.240 like listen to each other's songs. And then when they 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.280 depart again, that's when this like remixing happens. When they're 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:16.760 sort of like, I heard this really cool thing that 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:19.119 this guy from way far away was doing, and now 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:21.240 I'm going to try to do it. And so yeah, 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:25.159 it's this very cool cultural spot off the coast of 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:28.000 New Zealand that I like to call a humpback whale 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.160 karaoke zone where. 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:34.680 Everybody comes and tries out each other's music. And so 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:35.560 that's amazing. 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.679 The advice that we kind of took from that for 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:40.600 the book is share your art with friends and don't 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:41.840 be weird about copyright. 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.479 Yeah, I completely agree with that. 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:46.280 Fair use. 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:52.879 Whales understand fair use exactly. Why why doesn't YouTube? Yeah, 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:55.199 I love that. I mean it is really interesting, like 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:59.600 it is. I think we when it comes to animals 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:04.440 that have songs, even animals that are arguably less complicated 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:09.840 and intelligent versus wales, like songbirds, you do see a 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:15.000 lot of evidence of local dialects and then cultural shifts, 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:20.040 generational shifts in song choice. Birds are also influenced by 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:23.919 when they like migrate and they encounter maybe birds that 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:26.520 have like a different dialect from them, they then start 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:28.800 to kind of shift their songs a little bit. So 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:33.760 there's a lot of this like kind of I think, 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:38.280 you know, when you have an animal who learns their 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:40.439 songs and their calls, like, because there are plenty of 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:44.880 like say songbirds or animals that make a certain kind 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:49.160 of call, who are just born basically with a pre 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:53.480 programmed thing that they do. Usually it's very simple because 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.800 you don't have a lot of sort of space to 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:02.200 write really complicated programming in an in a newborn animal's brain. 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.920 But for the ones that have really complicated repertoires, that's 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:10.880 almost always through learning, which is the case for whales, 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.440 which is the case for songbirds. And when you have that, 0:19:14.280 --> 0:19:17.440 then you almost it seems almost inevitable that you're gonna 0:19:17.480 --> 0:19:21.880 have like cultural changes in cultural influence because it's since 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:24.120 it's a learning process, since they have to learn from 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:30.359 those around them, there's there's like really interesting evolution of 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:34.159 songs of groups of like and then you see the 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:38.320 influence of other groups. So it's much more I think 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:43.600 similar to like you'll find in animals who are learners 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.399 that kind of they when you whenever you have different 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:51.480 populations of them, you inevitably have kind of different cultural 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.560 habits and then those influencing each other, which I find 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:56.440 really really interesting. 0:19:57.520 --> 0:19:57.960 And like. 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:02.639 When and I first wrote about this, one of the 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:04.760 commenters on the article was like, why do we call 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:08.200 these songs, which, like, I don't know, that's a whole 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:11.840 question in itself. But then this person said, like, maybe 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:14.439 these whales are exchanging information, Like maybe this is a 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.760 form of oral storytelling or like passing along stuff from 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:20.639 like this is what it's like in my part of 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:23.320 the ocean right now, Like if you come through, look 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:29.360 out for that octopus who's throwing shit or whatever. And yeah, 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:31.240 I thought that was really interesting too, because I know 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:33.639 there are more and more attempts to kind of decode 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.639 whale language, and I have a lot of thoughts about that, 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.480 but this could be, yeah, a way of them not 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:45.800 only like having fun, but like telling each other important stuff, 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:47.880 the same way that humans do in songs and other 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:48.840 species as well. 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:53.560 I definitely think there could be something too whales communicating 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.879 information through their song. I would my guess would be 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:01.480 it's probably not like the same kind of like grammatical 0:21:01.520 --> 0:21:05.439 structure as human language has. But maybe there's something some 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:11.400 other way that they're communicating that just does not not 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:13.760 how we use language, But that doesn't mean it's not 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:15.840 a form of language or communication. 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:19.240 It's so funny to think about, because like, I don't 0:21:19.280 --> 0:21:23.680 know humans. We have this spoken language that we use 0:21:23.720 --> 0:21:25.520 for so so many things, and then we have a 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:29.600 written equivalent, and like to an outside observer, I don't 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:31.240 I think it would be pretty hard to figure out 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:34.280 that those things were connected, or that this thing we're 0:21:34.280 --> 0:21:37.399 doing with our mouths is necessarily communicating, because we do 0:21:37.440 --> 0:21:39.639 so many other things. So sometimes I think about, like 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:42.800 when we were watching whales and listening to them, we're 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:45.919 like sort of like aliens trying to figure out like 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:48.159 what they're doing. And if aliens were watching us, they 0:21:48.240 --> 0:21:50.960 might be like, oh, humans communicate through the length of 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:54.000 their hair, or like humans communicate through like the weird 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.160 things they do with their hands, like as they're moving 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:59.480 their mouths, like they wouldn't necessarily. 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:02.640 Italians do, for sure, and I should know I live 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:04.560 in Italy. That part's true. 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:06.560 Yeah, but like we have to. 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:09.600 Yeah, it's so easy to like map map our own 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:12.280 stuff onto other creatures, and to some extent that's helpful 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:15.919 because we all do share needs and drives and a 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:17.240 certain evolutionary history. 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:19.120 But it only can go so far. 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:24.280 Yeah, exactly, we can overdo it with putting sort of 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:29.080 human feelings onto animals, but we can also underdo it 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:31.000 where we just like, of course, we're going to share 0:22:31.000 --> 0:22:33.720 a lot of characteristics with animals. We're all we've all 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:39.639 evolved on the same sort of stuff as they have 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:44.119 in general, so there's going to be some similarities. I 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:47.639 do want to talk about the sarcastic French head before 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:51.680 that break. I love these guys so much. They're this 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:54.760 sort of like when they're just kind of in their 0:22:54.800 --> 0:22:58.840 normal state, they're kind of this awkwardly shaped brown fish 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:01.359 with this huge head and kind of a slim body. 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:05.000 They just look a little bit funky. There's nothing to 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:08.359 me they like. They're not intimidating at all. They're just 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:12.400 kind of like a weirdly shaped little fish. But then 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:18.080 when they're competing with each other, they have this really 0:23:18.160 --> 0:23:22.320 like it's both kind of It can be viewed as 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:27.000 scary or funny, I think, depending on your perspective. But yeah, 0:23:27.080 --> 0:23:28.919 you want to talk a little bit about their the 0:23:29.000 --> 0:23:31.120 special party trick that they have. 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:35.480 Yes, it's totally worth looking up a video of this 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:39.280 when anyone has the time. If this was like a 0:23:39.320 --> 0:23:42.280 sort of magical book, I would have put a moving 0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:45.680 image on this page because these French heads, which, like 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:49.400 Katie said, are sort of like cute, droopy mouthed little 0:23:49.400 --> 0:23:52.200 fish that kind of like bop along underwater when they 0:23:52.240 --> 0:23:56.560 are feeling you know, it's hard to say if they're 0:23:56.560 --> 0:23:59.359 feeling aggressive, if they're feeling flirty, like why they do this, 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:03.720 but they open their mouths and their mouth opens like 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:05.520 like a horror movie monster. 0:24:05.320 --> 0:24:08.440 Mouth or like yeah, like Predator from Predator, you know, yeah, 0:24:08.520 --> 0:24:12.080 that has a little like weird sort of I don't know. 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:15.920 Yeah, it's like a like yeah, like a pop up tent. 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:17.960 It's sort of like pop yeah, and it's suddenly like 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:20.600 so much bigger and like so much sort of more 0:24:20.720 --> 0:24:26.480 like scarily angled. And uh So they do this and 0:24:26.560 --> 0:24:28.560 one will go like wow at the other one, and 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:30.320 then the other one will go like waw back, and 0:24:30.359 --> 0:24:32.520 then they sort of just like make out, like they 0:24:32.560 --> 0:24:37.240 squish their mouths together and they like around yeah. Yeah, 0:24:37.280 --> 0:24:41.000 and nobody is totally sure, like what this is about 0:24:41.040 --> 0:24:41.760 or why they do it? 0:24:41.800 --> 0:24:42.720 And the top. 0:24:42.480 --> 0:24:45.280 Theory is like, okay, it's like an aggressive contest almost 0:24:45.320 --> 0:24:48.199 like you know, deer with antlers, and the winner is 0:24:48.280 --> 0:24:51.719 going to get like the best house, which is right, 0:24:51.840 --> 0:24:54.199 It's like if you think about it as like a 0:24:54.280 --> 0:24:58.040 human reality competition show that's on, like you know, the 0:24:59.119 --> 0:25:02.800 HGTV or what ever, it's like yeah, fringe head house 0:25:02.880 --> 0:25:03.920 makeout competition. 0:25:05.640 --> 0:25:08.800 Honestly, the housing market is so messed up, like if 0:25:08.840 --> 0:25:11.800 we just had a new system where it's like whoever 0:25:11.920 --> 0:25:17.000 has the most unfoldable mouth gets the biggest house, I'm 0:25:17.040 --> 0:25:17.639 fine with that. 0:25:17.800 --> 0:25:18.800 I don't know, like. 0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:22.000 It's I think it's it's already it's already a pretty 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:25.040 messed up market. Yeah, yeah, I do think that the 0:25:25.040 --> 0:25:29.920 theory that this is like a form of like I 0:25:29.960 --> 0:25:33.280 because it's this kind of competition happens a lot between 0:25:33.280 --> 0:25:37.159 males with a lot of other species where yes, you 0:25:37.200 --> 0:25:40.760 could fight each other, but both the victor and the 0:25:40.840 --> 0:25:46.160 loser uh suffers some cost from that, right, could be energy, 0:25:47.119 --> 0:25:51.160 it could be injury, it could even be killing one another. Right, 0:25:51.280 --> 0:25:55.600 so there's a big cost involved to physically fighting with arrival. 0:25:55.600 --> 0:26:00.560 If you're fighting over resources, over territory, over access to emails. 0:26:01.040 --> 0:26:06.520 There's a motivation to fight, but actually fighting is really costly. 0:26:07.240 --> 0:26:10.159 So a lot of animals have developed kind of a 0:26:10.200 --> 0:26:14.640 system where they either sort of like measure each others up, 0:26:14.720 --> 0:26:16.919 like their bodies, Like they look at their bodies and 0:26:16.920 --> 0:26:19.400 they're like, you know, you might have two elephant seals 0:26:19.520 --> 0:26:22.160 kind of waddle up to each other and like kind 0:26:22.160 --> 0:26:25.320 of size each other up, like, Okay, who's actually gonna 0:26:25.320 --> 0:26:29.160 win this, like before they start slamming their necks into 0:26:29.200 --> 0:26:34.119 each other, right, because neither of them necessarily wants to fight, 0:26:34.640 --> 0:26:38.800 because they would much rather it just be like, oh, yeah, 0:26:38.800 --> 0:26:41.320 I know you're way bigger, like I'll be gone bye, 0:26:41.320 --> 0:26:43.320 I'll see you. Because that's better for the one that 0:26:43.359 --> 0:26:46.000 would lose, certainly, but also for the one that would win, 0:26:46.080 --> 0:26:48.680 because the one that would win might still get injured 0:26:48.840 --> 0:26:50.719 or at least have to waste a bunch of effort 0:26:51.200 --> 0:26:52.720 fending off all these little guys. 0:26:53.280 --> 0:26:55.120 So you they. 0:26:54.960 --> 0:26:57.359 Want to generally be able to find out like, Okay, 0:26:57.359 --> 0:27:01.200 who's tougher, who's bigger? The only the problem is when 0:27:01.240 --> 0:27:03.920 you have a situation where it's less clear right where 0:27:03.920 --> 0:27:06.000 it's like, ah, we don't know who's actually gonna win. 0:27:06.040 --> 0:27:08.160 We're kind of the same size. And then they actually 0:27:08.200 --> 0:27:11.400 have to fight, and it can be pretty pretty grizzly 0:27:11.480 --> 0:27:15.520 with all sorts of animals, like from from deer to 0:27:16.240 --> 0:27:19.520 elf and seals to lions. But then with these French heads, 0:27:19.560 --> 0:27:21.520 which I find really interesting. Of course we don't know, 0:27:21.560 --> 0:27:24.359 and so this is a little bit it's out of 0:27:24.400 --> 0:27:27.560 my butte university, but kind of like an educated butt, 0:27:27.720 --> 0:27:31.119 so you know, take from it what you will. It 0:27:31.280 --> 0:27:34.160 seems like they have kind of come up with maybe 0:27:34.200 --> 0:27:38.760 a like a symbolic display of fitness, right with like 0:27:38.920 --> 0:27:41.880 jaw size, right, because jaw size is a that would 0:27:41.880 --> 0:27:44.679 be like a fairly honest signal of fitness in a 0:27:44.680 --> 0:27:47.920 lot of ways. But their jaws are very like ornamental 0:27:48.200 --> 0:27:50.399 and weird in a way that it makes it seem 0:27:50.480 --> 0:27:53.680 like they're kind of trying to send a strong signal 0:27:53.720 --> 0:27:57.919 to each other of like, hey, I'm really tough, to 0:27:57.960 --> 0:28:01.320 the point where it's become very much like a ritualistic 0:28:01.440 --> 0:28:05.280 dance where they almost have it seems like they've almost 0:28:05.280 --> 0:28:09.000 completely done away with the any kind of realistic fighting 0:28:10.280 --> 0:28:13.359 and it's more like a sports game, right, and then 0:28:13.400 --> 0:28:17.360 the loser of this like weird kissing sport goes off, 0:28:17.400 --> 0:28:19.880 and then the winner gets the nice house. So it's 0:28:20.119 --> 0:28:23.800 I think it's really interesting. There's definitely some kind of 0:28:24.160 --> 0:28:27.680 communication going on here where they have sort of traded 0:28:27.720 --> 0:28:33.359 in actual weaponry for kind of a more symbolic like hey, 0:28:33.480 --> 0:28:36.080 like the flag I'm waving is bigger than yours, so 0:28:36.280 --> 0:28:37.879 like that's how we're gonna settle this. 0:28:38.040 --> 0:28:40.200 I've just been watching this video of them on loop. 0:28:41.320 --> 0:28:43.680 It's in the New York Times rite up of this paper, 0:28:44.000 --> 0:28:46.280 which I didn't write. It's by Jason din But the 0:28:46.360 --> 0:28:48.160 video is just like they're in a little tank, the 0:28:48.200 --> 0:28:51.600 two fringe heads. They are like approximately the same size, 0:28:52.520 --> 0:28:55.160 and one of them is in this like really sweet 0:28:55.200 --> 0:28:58.280 looking house, which is a shell, and the other one 0:28:58.320 --> 0:29:00.480 doesn't seem to have a house, and so the one 0:29:00.480 --> 0:29:02.360 without a house is like, ugh, fine, I guess I 0:29:02.480 --> 0:29:04.920 better try to go get a house. He goes up 0:29:04.920 --> 0:29:07.360 to the shell, and the one in the shell just 0:29:07.440 --> 0:29:10.680 kind of like rises out of the shell and it's 0:29:10.720 --> 0:29:12.920 like it is time for me, like you said, to 0:29:13.000 --> 0:29:15.840 perform the ritual and just like opens his mouth like waw, 0:29:16.360 --> 0:29:18.440 and the other one's like fine, and it's like wah, 0:29:18.920 --> 0:29:20.920 and they just press their mouths together. And then the one, 0:29:21.000 --> 0:29:23.720 the loser who doesn't live in the shell, it doesn't 0:29:23.760 --> 0:29:25.680 take that long for him to be like okay, like 0:29:25.720 --> 0:29:28.480 I had to try, you know, like you said, it's 0:29:28.480 --> 0:29:31.760 not really like a It doesn't seem that high stakes. 0:29:32.440 --> 0:29:35.760 It seems a little bit more like there's two guys 0:29:35.760 --> 0:29:37.840 in the weight room and one of them isn't done 0:29:37.840 --> 0:29:40.080 with his reps yet, and the other one's trying to 0:29:40.120 --> 0:29:42.440 get on the bench, and they have a little like 0:29:42.640 --> 0:29:45.880 right yeh, and then order is restored. 0:29:46.840 --> 0:29:48.720 It's like a little dance you do when you're on 0:29:48.760 --> 0:29:51.200 the sidewalk and you're both kind of like figuring out 0:29:51.240 --> 0:29:53.800 who shouldn't do exactly left versus the right. I'm really 0:29:53.800 --> 0:29:56.400 bad at that. I do that all the time. But yeah, 0:29:56.440 --> 0:29:59.320 it's it's really it is really funny to me how 0:29:59.360 --> 0:30:03.120 they've you know, like again, we like Kara was saying, 0:30:03.120 --> 0:30:05.440 we don't exactly know why they do this, but it 0:30:05.480 --> 0:30:10.840 definitely seems like some kind of ritualistic, symbolic placeholder for 0:30:11.120 --> 0:30:18.880 actual aggression, actual fighting, some form of communication that is 0:30:19.160 --> 0:30:24.520 helping them to resolve conflict, which is I think really nice. Yeah, 0:30:24.560 --> 0:30:27.480 a nice, nice lesson. We can learn from them totally. 0:30:28.320 --> 0:30:30.520 And the advice that we have for them is, if 0:30:30.560 --> 0:30:32.840 you can solve it with fighting, you can probably solve 0:30:32.840 --> 0:30:34.960 it with smooching exactly. 0:30:35.920 --> 0:30:37.520 I agree with that. 0:30:37.640 --> 0:30:42.680 I think the world needs more giant tint flap smooching 0:30:43.000 --> 0:30:46.280 versus fighting. We're going to take a quick break and 0:30:46.320 --> 0:30:48.960 then when we come back, we're gonna head deeper down 0:30:49.640 --> 0:30:53.600 into the Twilight Zone, which is not just the rod 0:30:53.680 --> 0:30:56.760 Sterling Show, but an actual part of the ocean, and 0:30:56.800 --> 0:31:01.200 then even deeper as we discuss some of the amazing animals. 0:31:00.840 --> 0:31:01.600 From Kara's book. 0:31:03.400 --> 0:31:06.400 All Right, so now we're in the twilight Zone, just 0:31:06.440 --> 0:31:10.880 a little darker. There's still light there, but it's definitely 0:31:10.920 --> 0:31:14.120 getting a little dimmer. But the one I want to 0:31:14.120 --> 0:31:17.840 talk about is the sea elephant, which not to be 0:31:17.880 --> 0:31:24.520 confused with like elephant seals or elephant nose fish. These 0:31:24.560 --> 0:31:30.040 are snails and they're really I found one photo of 0:31:30.080 --> 0:31:32.560 it being held by I guess like a fisherman who 0:31:32.560 --> 0:31:35.520 found it, and it's got the doofiest little face like 0:31:35.640 --> 0:31:38.120 in the water. Like when they're in the water, they 0:31:38.720 --> 0:31:41.360 are kind of hard to see because they're very transparent, 0:31:42.200 --> 0:31:44.280 and they're kind of they looked sort of like this 0:31:44.320 --> 0:31:48.000 ghostly outline. They they don't even look three dimensional really. 0:31:48.040 --> 0:31:51.200 They look like a weird light pencil sketch of some 0:31:51.280 --> 0:31:56.480 kind of weird globby snail shaped critter. And they don't 0:31:56.480 --> 0:32:00.360 have shells, so they're just like all blobular. But then 0:32:00.400 --> 0:32:02.400 when this guy has them in his hand, it's like 0:32:02.840 --> 0:32:05.280 looking directly into the camera and you can see a 0:32:05.320 --> 0:32:09.040 little face and they've got these long proboscises that look 0:32:09.160 --> 0:32:12.320 like elephant noses. But it just looks like this weird 0:32:12.320 --> 0:32:17.200 little elephant cartoon. Yeah, just the stupidest looking animal I've 0:32:17.240 --> 0:32:19.800 seen in a while. So, uh, do you want to 0:32:19.840 --> 0:32:22.440 talk a little bit about the elephant snail? 0:32:22.960 --> 0:32:24.880 Yeah, I mean sorry, the sea elephant. 0:32:24.960 --> 0:32:25.920 Yeah, the sea elephant. 0:32:26.080 --> 0:32:29.080 Something truly amazing about doing research for this book was 0:32:29.080 --> 0:32:33.240 like I had no idea like how many different sort 0:32:33.240 --> 0:32:37.200 of tiny, little translucent guys are just like floating around 0:32:37.400 --> 0:32:38.080 like hoping. 0:32:37.840 --> 0:32:39.200 For the best in there. 0:32:41.920 --> 0:32:44.040 Kind of just like okay, like I can move in 0:32:44.080 --> 0:32:46.000 three dimensions, I being tossed about. 0:32:46.400 --> 0:32:49.120 I have few defenses, and I'm just gonna try to 0:32:49.120 --> 0:32:52.560 make this work. Yeah, and the sea elephant is one 0:32:52.560 --> 0:32:53.280 of them. 0:32:53.640 --> 0:32:58.680 And so yes, long time back and evolutionary history, these 0:32:58.720 --> 0:33:03.560 guys had shells and presumably they lived, you know, on 0:33:03.680 --> 0:33:06.120 the bottom or somewhere else where gravity would pull them 0:33:06.160 --> 0:33:09.000 down and they had the protection of their shell, but 0:33:09.280 --> 0:33:13.040 they evolved to live in the open water instead, totally shellless. 0:33:13.920 --> 0:33:15.800 They have this really funky long nose. 0:33:15.600 --> 0:33:19.560 Like you said, which is super cute, and they kind 0:33:19.560 --> 0:33:23.040 of just like tumble around in the water column and 0:33:23.400 --> 0:33:25.200 even though they don't have a shell to curl up inside, 0:33:25.200 --> 0:33:27.920 they still curl, which I think is really cute. They're 0:33:27.920 --> 0:33:30.120 in sort of like a summersault shape most of the time. 0:33:30.680 --> 0:33:32.719 And so the advice that they are giving is remember 0:33:32.760 --> 0:33:36.040 your roots, remember the snail times, even if you're in 0:33:36.080 --> 0:33:39.520 a evolutionary stage that is maybe a bit more scary 0:33:40.160 --> 0:33:41.160 and free falling. 0:33:41.520 --> 0:33:44.560 I'm always trying to be humble and remember the snail time. 0:33:44.800 --> 0:33:46.480 Yeah, but yeah, I. 0:33:46.400 --> 0:33:51.120 Mean, they're interesting because they're movements. They even if they 0:33:51.160 --> 0:33:55.080 don't like ambulate really fast in one direction, their movements 0:33:55.120 --> 0:33:59.640 can be surprisingly like they're they're moving around quite a bit, 0:33:59.720 --> 0:34:02.680 like if you compare it to say terrestrial snails movement 0:34:02.760 --> 0:34:05.920 or even like a c snail's movement, Like they can 0:34:05.960 --> 0:34:08.759 move around quite a bit, it just doesn't seem to 0:34:08.800 --> 0:34:12.719 like propel them much in one direction. There's a lot 0:34:12.719 --> 0:34:16.919 of like floundering, which I think is really cute. But yeah, 0:34:16.920 --> 0:34:20.560 that the the the sort of like, well, why would 0:34:20.600 --> 0:34:22.840 they like shells seem really helpful? 0:34:22.840 --> 0:34:24.240 Why did they lose their shells? 0:34:24.760 --> 0:34:27.040 That actually happens quite a bit in the ocean, where 0:34:27.040 --> 0:34:30.160 you'll have something that starts out with a shell and 0:34:30.200 --> 0:34:33.719 then loses it, like with a lot of molluscs. So 0:34:33.800 --> 0:34:38.359 like cephalopods, like squid and octopuses, they used to have 0:34:38.640 --> 0:34:42.400 like their common ancestor had like a shell that was 0:34:42.480 --> 0:34:45.120 pretty weird like for some of them, like some of these, 0:34:45.160 --> 0:34:49.600 like squid ancestors had like a giant conical shell that 0:34:49.640 --> 0:34:52.800 looks like this like sort of giant unicorn horn type 0:34:52.840 --> 0:34:55.520 thing that when you look at it, it's like all right, 0:34:55.560 --> 0:34:58.000 I mean I get it, but it's a little much. 0:34:59.560 --> 0:35:01.640 And so thought is that. I mean, you still have 0:35:01.719 --> 0:35:06.279 nautiluses that have their shells, but for them, you know, 0:35:06.320 --> 0:35:09.160 like for squid and octopuses, they don't have them and 0:35:09.200 --> 0:35:14.680 they just probably like they got out competed by predators 0:35:14.760 --> 0:35:17.799 that came along that had better defenses, and so they 0:35:17.840 --> 0:35:20.640 went into the niche of being squishy, being to fit 0:35:20.719 --> 0:35:23.480 into things and being able to hide under stuff, and 0:35:23.520 --> 0:35:27.680 then as predators being to squished themselves into narrow passages that. 0:35:27.640 --> 0:35:28.840 They can get stuff out of. 0:35:28.920 --> 0:35:35.480 So I could not I found scant information on the clephant. 0:35:35.520 --> 0:35:38.200 It seems like these are one of the ones where 0:35:39.160 --> 0:35:43.640 we basically know they exist, that they're weird, and they 0:35:43.640 --> 0:35:49.560 have eyes, we know that, but otherwise what exactly they're 0:35:49.640 --> 0:35:51.800 up to is a little bit of a mystery. They're 0:35:51.840 --> 0:35:55.400 one of these one of these weird guys that we 0:35:55.560 --> 0:35:58.080 kind of know that what they look like, we know 0:35:58.160 --> 0:36:03.920 they have eyeballs, uh, and that they used to have shells. 0:36:04.640 --> 0:36:07.919 But then otherwise we're like, what do you doing, little guy? 0:36:07.960 --> 0:36:10.680 And it's like, I don't know, just being being a 0:36:10.680 --> 0:36:13.640 little guy, being a transparent little guy, trying not to 0:36:13.640 --> 0:36:14.120 get eaten. 0:36:15.200 --> 0:36:16.799 A lot of these, I mean, you mentioned this, a 0:36:16.800 --> 0:36:19.920 lot of these snails and these shellless snails are also 0:36:20.040 --> 0:36:24.440 like very ferocious predators. Like supposedly this c elephant is 0:36:24.440 --> 0:36:26.839 a ferocious predator. It's just kind of hard to imagine. Yeah, 0:36:26.840 --> 0:36:29.359 there's always going to be a smaller, more translucent guy 0:36:29.400 --> 0:36:30.960 than you around to eat in. 0:36:30.920 --> 0:36:34.640 These Yeah, there, schnalls is a little bit vacuum like, 0:36:34.680 --> 0:36:37.520 so I can because they've got mouth parts at. 0:36:37.360 --> 0:36:40.440 The very tip. So if you're if you're. 0:36:40.440 --> 0:36:45.000 Like a little planktonic creature, I could see this being intimidating. 0:36:45.080 --> 0:36:48.520 But to me, it is a premium goofass, So it's 0:36:48.560 --> 0:36:53.879 really hard to imagine them as predators. Before we move 0:36:53.920 --> 0:36:56.920 on to the deeper zones of the ocean, I want 0:36:56.960 --> 0:37:00.080 to talk about the fire breathing shrimp. Yes, honestly, it 0:37:00.080 --> 0:37:03.840 looks more like they're barfing up sort of like supernatural ecdoplasm. 0:37:03.960 --> 0:37:07.160 But let's talk a little bit about their very very 0:37:07.239 --> 0:37:11.240 unique defense mechanism totally. 0:37:11.480 --> 0:37:15.680 So one cool thing about the ocean is that some 0:37:15.760 --> 0:37:20.000 creatures can like either create or use bioluminescence, which is 0:37:20.120 --> 0:37:25.759 like biologically produced light because they're especially when you get 0:37:25.760 --> 0:37:27.320 deeper in the ocean, there's not a lot of natural 0:37:27.360 --> 0:37:29.600 light that makes its way down there. So if you 0:37:29.640 --> 0:37:32.120 can make your own light, or you can get like 0:37:32.200 --> 0:37:35.000 a bacteria to make light that you can use. 0:37:35.360 --> 0:37:38.520 That's my preferred method. Get the bacteria to do the 0:37:38.560 --> 0:37:39.120 work for me. 0:37:40.960 --> 0:37:44.239 You can kind of have this cool signaling like goo 0:37:44.680 --> 0:37:47.120 that you can use however you want. And you know, 0:37:47.160 --> 0:37:51.359 the anglerfish famously sometimes use it to like lure other 0:37:51.440 --> 0:37:53.640 fish by just having like a little beacon and the 0:37:53.640 --> 0:37:58.240 fish come over. But the fire everything shrimp, who I agree, 0:37:58.239 --> 0:38:01.120 they gave him a very dignified name, but he's really 0:38:01.160 --> 0:38:06.279 just barfing. He stores up this bioluminescent blue colored goo 0:38:07.200 --> 0:38:11.480 in an organ called the hippato pancreas, which I don't 0:38:11.480 --> 0:38:13.920 believe that humans have, but I guess I'm not sure. 0:38:14.480 --> 0:38:16.279 And then when for. 0:38:16.239 --> 0:38:17.560 Sure we do, I don't know if we have a 0:38:17.640 --> 0:38:19.000 hippado pancreas. 0:38:19.640 --> 0:38:22.239 If we do, maybe it's filled with glowing goo, so 0:38:22.320 --> 0:38:24.160 that could be a cool thing to discover at some point. 0:38:25.280 --> 0:38:28.520 But this guy, he stores this, uh, this goo in 0:38:28.640 --> 0:38:32.960 hishippato pancreas, and he if he gets scared or threatened, 0:38:33.480 --> 0:38:35.040 he's just like blah. 0:38:35.080 --> 0:38:37.439 And then the blue gooo comes out. When it hits 0:38:37.480 --> 0:38:38.680 the water, it lights up. 0:38:38.760 --> 0:38:41.600 It's almost like if you crack a glow stick right 0:38:41.880 --> 0:38:44.799 that triggers the light. And then the predator is like, WHOA, 0:38:44.800 --> 0:38:47.480 where the bluegoo come from? Gets freaked out, and this 0:38:47.560 --> 0:38:48.760 scrimp shrimp can escape. 0:38:48.800 --> 0:38:51.480 So it's a really good Yeah, yeah, it's a it's 0:38:51.480 --> 0:38:54.520 a similar like you do see that with Like so 0:38:54.840 --> 0:38:57.959 squid have the the ink that they can release, which 0:38:58.000 --> 0:39:01.920 is a similarly defensive like, ah, you're threatening me, Like 0:39:02.080 --> 0:39:05.600 here's a distruction, you know, like if anyone watches King 0:39:05.640 --> 0:39:08.040 of the Hill, it's the dale Gripple's pocket sand that 0:39:08.080 --> 0:39:10.880 he throws at you, like pocket sand you know, gets away. 0:39:11.360 --> 0:39:11.480 Uh. 0:39:11.760 --> 0:39:15.359 Terrestrial animals there are forgot what they're named. They're there 0:39:15.520 --> 0:39:19.320 the there's a few baby birds actually who use either 0:39:19.520 --> 0:39:24.960 projectile vomiting or pooping to ward off predators where it's like, ah, 0:39:25.160 --> 0:39:27.480 you know, like you're coming at me, here's like some 0:39:27.640 --> 0:39:28.480 startling vomit. 0:39:29.040 --> 0:39:29.400 Uh. 0:39:29.600 --> 0:39:30.640 So it is. 0:39:30.760 --> 0:39:33.719 It is a technique, but I don't think I know 0:39:33.840 --> 0:39:38.719 of any other defensive vomitters who bio use bioluminescence. Like 0:39:39.080 --> 0:39:45.080 certainly you can use bioluminescence as sort of defensive distracting posturing. 0:39:45.120 --> 0:39:47.280 That usually have seen that in animals that have actual 0:39:47.320 --> 0:39:55.000 structures on their body that contain the bioluminescent gel. Whereas 0:39:55.080 --> 0:39:58.359 these guys just like they have it you know, in 0:39:58.400 --> 0:40:01.759 their in their patto pang grease and then vomit it up, 0:40:01.800 --> 0:40:08.439 which is a very unique method of distracting predators. It's 0:40:08.680 --> 0:40:11.440 it's very it's pretty. It's the prettiest vomit I think 0:40:11.480 --> 0:40:11.919 I've seen. 0:40:12.400 --> 0:40:13.480 Yeah, it's very pretty. 0:40:14.960 --> 0:40:18.920 So now let's move down to the midnight zone. Just 0:40:18.960 --> 0:40:22.799 to briefly mention the Ping Pong tree sponge seems like 0:40:22.880 --> 0:40:28.200 it might have almost accidentally caused an international incident because 0:40:28.200 --> 0:40:31.200 it is this is one of those things where it's like, 0:40:32.120 --> 0:40:34.879 it looks like it comes from one of those sort 0:40:34.920 --> 0:40:39.440 of pulp sci fi books where they imagine an alien landscape, 0:40:39.440 --> 0:40:42.160 and this is like the alien tree you'd find on 0:40:42.640 --> 0:40:45.319 an alien planet, which also, for some reason, also has 0:40:45.400 --> 0:40:49.000 beautiful women on it, and that's never explained. But this 0:40:49.200 --> 0:40:53.279 is like, this is a really weird looking thing that 0:40:53.320 --> 0:40:57.240 does not look it neither looks like a living creature. 0:40:57.280 --> 0:41:00.320 It looks artificial, nor does it look like an animal, 0:41:00.480 --> 0:41:01.040 which it is. 0:41:02.400 --> 0:41:05.360 It has a wonderful name, the Ping Pong tree sponge, 0:41:05.760 --> 0:41:09.719 because that's what it looks like. Yes, so what you 0:41:09.800 --> 0:41:13.320 hinted at is that I read that when US Navy 0:41:13.320 --> 0:41:16.920 officers first saw the Ping Pong tree sponge in underwater 0:41:17.000 --> 0:41:20.400 surveillance photos, they thought that it was like a Russian 0:41:20.440 --> 0:41:25.680 device that was spying on the ocean. Granted I saw 0:41:25.719 --> 0:41:27.799 this only in one source, but I felt like I 0:41:27.840 --> 0:41:29.759 had to include it because I really want to know more. 0:41:29.800 --> 0:41:31.800 I looked so hard for more information. I might have 0:41:31.880 --> 0:41:34.200 to do like a Foyer request or something. So if 0:41:34.200 --> 0:41:38.840 anybody knows about the near international incident caused by the 0:41:38.880 --> 0:41:40.920 Ping Pong tree sponge, please get in touch with me, 0:41:41.280 --> 0:41:44.399 because there's nothing I want to know about more. But 0:41:44.440 --> 0:41:47.000 the website I found it on is like a government website, 0:41:47.040 --> 0:41:47.840 so I do believe it. 0:41:47.880 --> 0:41:49.759 But I just couldn't find anything. 0:41:49.440 --> 0:41:51.160 Else, you know. 0:41:51.480 --> 0:41:53.480 I mean, I just assume there's a lot of like 0:41:53.760 --> 0:41:57.959 things during the Cold War where we almost almost blew 0:41:57.960 --> 0:42:01.440 each other up and pass because of some kind of 0:42:01.480 --> 0:42:05.000 weird sea creature where we're like, it's a Russian, a 0:42:05.080 --> 0:42:07.600 Russian weapon, but it just turns out to be a 0:42:07.600 --> 0:42:11.160 weird little sea sponge. It also, to me, it looks 0:42:11.239 --> 0:42:13.799 kind of like a lamp you might buy in the seventies. 0:42:13.880 --> 0:42:18.440 It's very it's very cool looking. But yeah, the the 0:42:19.440 --> 0:42:21.960 you're mentioned in the book, like the structure of it 0:42:22.000 --> 0:42:27.839 is actually not just like decorative obviously, but it's to 0:42:27.880 --> 0:42:34.600 capture tiny crustaceans, tiny animals on these actual balls which 0:42:34.680 --> 0:42:37.239 have like a bunch of little you can't really see 0:42:37.280 --> 0:42:40.960 them from far away, but they have a bunch of 0:42:41.000 --> 0:42:45.680 tiny little like hooks to catch little guys onto these balls. 0:42:45.680 --> 0:42:49.400 So it's a it's functional, even though it looks like 0:42:49.480 --> 0:42:52.680 something some kind of ikea lamp that would be called 0:42:52.719 --> 0:42:54.320 like a bog or something. 0:42:57.200 --> 0:42:59.839 Yeah, it's got they're like little birds, I think, right. 0:43:00.040 --> 0:43:03.560 Imagine, sponges are so cool because they are also predators. 0:43:03.600 --> 0:43:05.799 They have to eat other stuff, but they can't move 0:43:06.600 --> 0:43:08.360 when they're adults, so they need to come up with 0:43:08.400 --> 0:43:12.279 all these weird strategies like being covered in hooky ping 0:43:12.320 --> 0:43:12.920 pong balls. 0:43:13.239 --> 0:43:17.600 Yeah, no, it's amazing. They're sessile usually meaning that they 0:43:17.880 --> 0:43:20.640 stick in one spot. But yeah, they still got to eat, 0:43:20.800 --> 0:43:23.560 and so they've got all sorts of like weird weird 0:43:23.880 --> 0:43:29.400 uh food gathering techniques that so now we're going to 0:43:29.480 --> 0:43:32.520 go down to the abyssele zone. Talk about another weird 0:43:32.560 --> 0:43:37.000 food gathering technique, the tripod fish. I love these guys 0:43:37.280 --> 0:43:40.400 so much. They're very weird to see on a deep 0:43:40.440 --> 0:43:44.800 sea camera. They look like lawn ornaments because it looks 0:43:44.800 --> 0:43:48.800 like someone took something that's a pretty normal fish shape, 0:43:48.840 --> 0:43:51.839 maybe a little longer. They do also have a pair 0:43:51.880 --> 0:43:55.279 of fins that kind of look like rabbit ears, ghostly 0:43:55.960 --> 0:43:58.040 rabbit ears, but otherwise it just kind of looks like 0:43:58.680 --> 0:44:02.320 a fish. It's not that weird. But it also looks 0:44:02.360 --> 0:44:06.279 like someone stuck them on like three rods, like two 0:44:06.440 --> 0:44:09.200 coming from the front, one coming from near its table, 0:44:09.640 --> 0:44:12.640 from from its tail, and then stuck them on the 0:44:12.680 --> 0:44:17.320 ocean floor like ornamentation. Like they look like something weird 0:44:17.400 --> 0:44:23.600 you could pick up at a discount like a home 0:44:23.680 --> 0:44:26.399 supply store, where it's like these aren't selling well because 0:44:26.440 --> 0:44:30.120 nobody wants a decorative fish, but it's these are alive. 0:44:30.280 --> 0:44:30.760 They aren't. 0:44:31.400 --> 0:44:34.760 They are real fish, and they are doing this on purpose. 0:44:36.000 --> 0:44:38.440 So these fish are very crafty. 0:44:39.440 --> 0:44:41.080 They also have to eat, but they don't want to 0:44:41.080 --> 0:44:43.839 have to swim around and hunt for stuff. So presumably 0:44:44.239 --> 0:44:48.319 evolutionarily they started out without these weird long feet, but 0:44:48.400 --> 0:44:52.479 eventually they evolved because like if you sort of are 0:44:52.520 --> 0:44:54.480 in the ocean sort of hanging out and you just 0:44:54.520 --> 0:44:57.640 open your mouth, like the current will bring some food 0:44:57.640 --> 0:45:01.600 to you, and what these guys eventually figured out on 0:45:01.640 --> 0:45:04.719 an evolutionary timescale is like if they're about three feet 0:45:04.800 --> 0:45:07.799 off the sand and they're opening their mouth, there's more 0:45:07.800 --> 0:45:10.680 food because the current is like stronger up there. It's 0:45:10.719 --> 0:45:13.319 like a sweet spot, so it's gonna bring more food 0:45:13.320 --> 0:45:16.239 into your mouth. So they just yeah, they have developed 0:45:16.280 --> 0:45:18.960 these tripods that allow them to kind of just like 0:45:19.360 --> 0:45:20.880 stand three feet above the sand. 0:45:21.360 --> 0:45:22.800 And yeah, when you see these. 0:45:22.880 --> 0:45:25.640 Deep sea videos or photos of them, they're so funny 0:45:26.080 --> 0:45:28.000 because they're just like weird. It's like you said, it's 0:45:28.040 --> 0:45:30.439 like someone just stuck them in the sand and they're 0:45:30.440 --> 0:45:33.320 like hanging out with their mouths open, just eating. 0:45:34.040 --> 0:45:36.600 It looks like a prank. It doesn't look like something 0:45:36.640 --> 0:45:40.040 that does naturally occur, right, It looks like someone, as 0:45:40.080 --> 0:45:42.480 a prank, stuck a bunch of fish on like weird 0:45:42.560 --> 0:45:46.840 tripods on the seafloor just to like give researchers with 0:45:46.920 --> 0:45:49.560 their deep sea cameras kind of a scare. But no, 0:45:49.640 --> 0:45:53.040 they're real. Uh it's uh yeah, it's in like those 0:45:53.120 --> 0:45:56.520 legs are like kind of fin extensions that are that 0:45:56.840 --> 0:46:00.000 somehow managed to be like these kind of like tough 0:46:00.280 --> 0:46:06.240 protrusions that keep them stuck up there. Just like I love, yeah, 0:46:06.320 --> 0:46:08.839 I love the I love the like they say that 0:46:09.360 --> 0:46:12.239 necessity is the mother of invention. I think laziness is 0:46:12.280 --> 0:46:17.359 a huge contributor to invention and I really appreciate it. 0:46:19.160 --> 0:46:22.600 The advice that is in your book is that you 0:46:22.600 --> 0:46:26.280 should stretch yourself as much as possible, especially when reaching 0:46:26.360 --> 0:46:31.680 for snacks. Yes, as as the as the wife of 0:46:31.760 --> 0:46:36.919 a very tall person, I have developed my own evolutionary 0:46:36.920 --> 0:46:40.520 technique to reach snacks that have been placed high up, 0:46:41.360 --> 0:46:46.120 which is tongs like arm extensions. So when my husband, 0:46:46.280 --> 0:46:49.320 like he's not trying to keep the food away from me, 0:46:49.480 --> 0:46:52.799 he just like puts things up high because that's like 0:46:53.040 --> 0:46:56.399 where he like, that's where he's at, you know, that's 0:46:56.440 --> 0:46:59.439 his that's his zone. And then I'm like down here 0:46:59.480 --> 0:47:03.360 in the abyss zone going up. But so use I 0:47:03.480 --> 0:47:07.800 use tongs. So I feel like me and this fish, 0:47:07.800 --> 0:47:10.640 I mean, this tripod fish can relate to each other 0:47:11.360 --> 0:47:11.919 really well. 0:47:13.400 --> 0:47:15.960 I just wanted to mention I learned about the tripodfish 0:47:16.440 --> 0:47:20.960 because I was writing about Costa Rican Deep Sea Expedition. 0:47:21.160 --> 0:47:25.600 And on this expedition and a lot of expeditions that 0:47:25.640 --> 0:47:27.200 go through the Schmidt Ocean. 0:47:26.920 --> 0:47:27.960 Institute do this. 0:47:28.040 --> 0:47:31.160 They brought artists on board to kind of like be 0:47:31.320 --> 0:47:33.560 part of it and create work that would help people 0:47:33.600 --> 0:47:36.160 see what everybody was seeing on board. And there was 0:47:36.200 --> 0:47:39.960 this painter, Carlos Hiller, who was painting all the stuff 0:47:39.960 --> 0:47:43.080 they found, and he has really beautiful, sort of like 0:47:43.160 --> 0:47:46.560 funny but also very moving tripod fish paintings. 0:47:46.080 --> 0:47:48.080 That I really love. So that's what got me into 0:47:48.160 --> 0:47:50.560 this fish and I recommend looking him up. 0:47:51.160 --> 0:47:53.160 All right, Yeah, I got I gotta do that because 0:47:53.200 --> 0:47:55.520 I love I mean, I love the art in the book. 0:47:56.000 --> 0:47:58.600 It's also because like I would when I was looking 0:47:58.640 --> 0:48:01.680 at these animals, uh, I would also like look at 0:48:01.680 --> 0:48:04.160 photos of them. It's like no, like they they because 0:48:04.160 --> 0:48:07.200 I was like, maybe, like this artist is interpreting that 0:48:07.280 --> 0:48:10.879 dumb little look on this fish's face, like his kind 0:48:10.880 --> 0:48:13.759 of creative interpretation. Like I was like, no, he got it. 0:48:14.000 --> 0:48:17.920 He got the the stupid little look of this tripod 0:48:17.960 --> 0:48:21.720 fish just waiting for food. It's very funny. 0:48:22.000 --> 0:48:22.359 I do. 0:48:22.520 --> 0:48:25.839 I do very much recommend this book. It's a it's 0:48:26.040 --> 0:48:29.319 really a beautiful book that you can flip through and 0:48:29.360 --> 0:48:31.000 then learn all these amazing facts. 0:48:31.120 --> 0:48:32.440 So I love it. 0:48:32.600 --> 0:48:35.280 But before we go, we got to play a little 0:48:35.280 --> 0:48:38.640 game called Guess Who's squawking the Mystery Animal sound game. 0:48:39.840 --> 0:48:43.840 Last week's Mister Animal sound hint was this, This poisonous 0:48:43.840 --> 0:48:47.719 animal is a fantastic survivor, which is bad news for 0:48:47.840 --> 0:49:03.000 anything in its path. So that should strike fear into 0:49:03.040 --> 0:49:08.600 the hearts of many a invertebrate or small mammal carea. 0:49:08.600 --> 0:49:10.600 Do you have any any guesses? 0:49:11.200 --> 0:49:13.960 Oh man, is this some kind of Is it like 0:49:14.000 --> 0:49:15.160 a poison frog. 0:49:16.160 --> 0:49:19.880 That is very close? You're so warm, You're so warm? 0:49:20.800 --> 0:49:24.320 Is it like a venomous toad? 0:49:26.440 --> 0:49:29.719 Yes, it is, so this is the cane toad. This 0:49:29.920 --> 0:49:33.480 is the beautiful call of the cane toad. It is 0:49:33.560 --> 0:49:37.080 well known for being invasive in Australia. I think it's 0:49:37.120 --> 0:49:40.319 often viewed as kind of a villain because it does 0:49:40.440 --> 0:49:44.960 destroy so many innocent marsupial lives. But it doesn't. It's 0:49:45.000 --> 0:49:49.680 not its fault. It's from South and Central America. There 0:49:49.920 --> 0:49:51.400 was no way this guy was going to get to 0:49:51.480 --> 0:49:52.840 Australia without our help. 0:49:53.040 --> 0:49:54.600 So yeah, it is. 0:49:55.760 --> 0:49:58.960 It's it had no intention of being a menace until 0:49:59.000 --> 0:50:03.279 we intervened. They are both poisonous and toxic. They're quite 0:50:03.400 --> 0:50:06.360 large for a toad. They can grow to be around 0:50:06.440 --> 0:50:10.600 half a foot to up to two feet in length. 0:50:10.680 --> 0:50:13.640 I mean like usually they are somewhere between there. They're 0:50:13.640 --> 0:50:17.919 not usually two feet long and that huge, but they 0:50:17.960 --> 0:50:20.680 can get to be that big, and they have just 0:50:21.280 --> 0:50:25.520 the most voracious appetites. You can look up There must 0:50:25.560 --> 0:50:27.680 be videos of this with cane toads as well, but 0:50:28.200 --> 0:50:30.560 you can look up videos of frogs and toads where 0:50:30.560 --> 0:50:33.239 you put like an iPhone or an iPad game in 0:50:33.239 --> 0:50:35.040 front of them, where like little things come up on 0:50:35.160 --> 0:50:37.800 screen and they will try to eat stuff off of 0:50:37.840 --> 0:50:41.959 the screen, like they never seem to learn that that's 0:50:42.000 --> 0:50:46.040 not food. So they are really just like mouths with 0:50:46.120 --> 0:50:49.000 a brain that can like operate the mouth, and not 0:50:49.120 --> 0:50:52.359 a whole lot else going on, So that makes them 0:50:52.360 --> 0:50:56.000 a big problem. They were introduced to Australia because they 0:50:56.000 --> 0:51:01.560 had been previously introduced to islands like Pco to control 0:51:01.840 --> 0:51:06.520 cane beetle populations. And although I still think it's not 0:51:06.719 --> 0:51:09.880 good that they introduced them to these other islands, it 0:51:09.960 --> 0:51:12.480 was more of a quote unquote success story because they 0:51:12.480 --> 0:51:17.120 were able to control the beetle population that was ravaging 0:51:17.480 --> 0:51:20.680 the sugar cane field. So in terms of you know, 0:51:20.800 --> 0:51:24.799 human industry, it worked. In terms of the local wildlife. 0:51:24.840 --> 0:51:27.360 Not a great idea, but in Australia it was a 0:51:27.480 --> 0:51:33.000 double whammy because not only did you just introduce this venomous, 0:51:33.320 --> 0:51:38.600 toxic toad that's giant and hungry to an island where 0:51:38.760 --> 0:51:41.399 the animals have never seen this thing before in their 0:51:41.520 --> 0:51:44.840 entire revolutionary history. It also didn't work to control the 0:51:44.920 --> 0:51:50.600 dang beetles because the cane beetles in Australia lived on 0:51:50.640 --> 0:51:53.960 the very tops of the sugar cane where the cane 0:51:54.000 --> 0:51:56.839 toad just like, I don't know, doesn't think to look 0:51:56.920 --> 0:52:00.560 up there. Like these cane toads are very simple. If 0:52:00.600 --> 0:52:02.400 they see something, they eat it. They're a little like 0:52:02.480 --> 0:52:05.640 pac men. But if they're not seeing the beetles and 0:52:05.719 --> 0:52:08.080 it's not like, you know, directly in front of them, 0:52:08.360 --> 0:52:10.440 they're not going to do anything about it. So the 0:52:10.800 --> 0:52:14.439 beatles were fine, and then the cane toads had to eat, 0:52:14.520 --> 0:52:18.120 so they went off and start eating everything in their path, 0:52:18.760 --> 0:52:22.160 and so huge nightmare. But you know, also because like 0:52:22.239 --> 0:52:25.640 predators would try to eat them, and they're toxic and poisonous, 0:52:25.680 --> 0:52:27.600 and they hadn't co evolved with them, so they had 0:52:27.640 --> 0:52:31.280 no defenses. They did not know, you know, they hadn't 0:52:31.360 --> 0:52:37.400 learned that these toads are toxic. So just awful, an 0:52:37.440 --> 0:52:40.839 awful nightmare. Not the toad's fault, though, The toad's just 0:52:41.360 --> 0:52:44.120 the toad is just doing what it was born to do, 0:52:44.160 --> 0:52:47.760 which is to eat and not be eaten. It's they're innocent, 0:52:48.360 --> 0:52:50.080 sweet little creatures. 0:52:49.560 --> 0:52:51.640 That are destroying Australia. 0:52:52.480 --> 0:52:55.480 So onto this week's mystery sound. The hint is this. 0:52:55.840 --> 0:53:00.160 You could find this animal in Karajaimo's book. It's not 0:53:00.239 --> 0:53:04.719 a bird and it is not a superhero sidekick. 0:53:10.960 --> 0:53:12.839 All right, I hope you guys could hear that. It's 0:53:12.880 --> 0:53:13.399 that little like. 0:53:15.080 --> 0:53:20.080 Sound. So, Kara, this maybe this is maybe this is 0:53:20.239 --> 0:53:23.799 unfair or too much pressure on you, but uh, do 0:53:23.840 --> 0:53:24.560 you have any. 0:53:24.400 --> 0:53:25.839 Guesses as to what this is? 0:53:25.920 --> 0:53:27.520 I know this one all right. 0:53:27.880 --> 0:53:28.320 Uh. 0:53:28.360 --> 0:53:30.120 I'll bleep you out if you get it right, so 0:53:30.200 --> 0:53:32.680 everyone will know that you've won, but they won't know 0:53:32.760 --> 0:53:33.520 how you've won. 0:53:35.680 --> 0:53:36.160 This is this? 0:53:37.600 --> 0:53:39.120 Yes, absolutely correct? 0:53:40.239 --> 0:53:43.879 I found there's there are like what you can hear. 0:53:43.920 --> 0:53:46.479 This is a video of one. 0:53:46.719 --> 0:53:50.400 It's not. Here's another hint. It's really not happy to 0:53:50.440 --> 0:53:53.319 be where it is right now in this video. So 0:53:53.400 --> 0:53:56.600 it's making this sound more out of a protest. But yeah, 0:53:56.640 --> 0:54:01.120 you can find this animal in Kara Jaimo's book, Carol, 0:54:01.280 --> 0:54:03.440 Why don't you tell them where they can get the book. 0:54:04.560 --> 0:54:07.960 Yeah, you can get this book pretty much anywhere. I 0:54:08.000 --> 0:54:10.360 think you can buy it online. Hopefully they'll have it 0:54:10.400 --> 0:54:15.040 at your local bookstore. I'm imagining or hoping also that 0:54:15.120 --> 0:54:17.319 it will be in like some aquariums and stuff like that. 0:54:18.719 --> 0:54:20.719 But yeah, just wherever you tend to find books, take 0:54:20.760 --> 0:54:23.799 a look, and I hope you enjoy it if you grab. 0:54:23.520 --> 0:54:29.200 One, absolutely, I know I did, and I found mine 0:54:29.719 --> 0:54:34.880 in the ocean. That's not true unless you unless you 0:54:34.920 --> 0:54:40.400 define the Internet as the ocean of information. Thank you 0:54:40.400 --> 0:54:42.960 guys so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show 0:54:43.000 --> 0:54:45.319 and you leave a rating or review, those really do 0:54:45.480 --> 0:54:49.680 help me and I read all the reviews. And thanks 0:54:49.719 --> 0:54:53.000 to the Space Classics for their super awesome song. Exolumina 0:54:53.080 --> 0:54:56.840 Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like 0:54:56.880 --> 0:54:59.439 the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple 0:54:59.480 --> 0:55:01.719 podcasts are Hey, guess what wherever you listen to your 0:55:01.719 --> 0:55:04.600 favorite shows. I'm not your mother. I can't tell you 0:55:04.680 --> 0:55:08.200 what to do. I can tell you that if you 0:55:08.320 --> 0:55:12.239 see something weird in the ocean. Probably don't pick it up. 0:55:12.719 --> 0:55:17.719 It could vomit, glowing stuff at you, or cover your 0:55:17.719 --> 0:55:20.680 hand in mucus, or poison you. Any of those things 0:55:20.680 --> 0:55:24.240 could happen. You don't know, but do admire it because 0:55:24.400 --> 0:55:30.160 the ocean is beautiful. I'll see you next Wednesday.