WEBVTT - Listener Questions #27 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:12.560 One mom gives birth to two species. Hit the news today, Evolution, 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:16.040 You're crazy. That's all I have to say. 0:00:16.640 --> 0:00:20.720 Do physicists see the universe in their mind's eye or 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.760 is it easier to understand it if they're mentally blind. 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:27.600 Might's live on your face and make there at night? 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:31.000 Why would evolution do that? It's just not right. 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.080 Whatever questions keep you up at night, Daniel and Kelly's 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:37.680 answers will make it all right. 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:40.720 Or it'll creepy out even more. Welcome to Daniel and 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:42.400 Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:58.400 Hi. I'm Daniel, I'm a particle physicist, and I think 0:00:58.440 --> 0:01:00.959 the universe is beautiful and creepy. 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:04.360 Hi. I'm Kelly Winnersmith. I study parasites and space, and 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:07.360 I think the universe is also beautiful and creepy. And 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:10.600 sometimes creepy is beautiful and it's all complicated. 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:16.080 Have you met a parasite, Kelly where you're like, hmm, 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:19.399 that's too gross. I wish this didn't exist in the universe. 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:24.280 Or can you find some beauty in every single riggly, crawling, 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:25.400 disgusting thing. 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:29.679 I can find some beauty in everything, but I would 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:33.640 rather not be in the room with ascris lumbricoids. It's 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:38.920 a really long, really thick nematod. It really grosses me out. 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.319 And when we talked about screwworm a couple of weeks back, 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:43.840 maybe come a month's back now. 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:45.319 I'm still scarred from that conversation. 0:01:45.400 --> 0:01:48.200 Yes, well, I looked at the photos and that. 0:01:48.280 --> 0:01:50.240 Was don't do that, people, no nobody else do that. 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:52.480 We actually had a listener writers to say they did that, 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:54.480 and they were like, I should have listened to you 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:55.480 when you told me not to. 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.600 I have not googled screwworm, and I think I've protected 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:00.880 my men health for that reason. 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:05.040 Yes, yeah, do not google screwworm. It is super gross. So, yeah, 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:06.640 there's some parasites that I don't want to be in 0:02:06.680 --> 0:02:09.400 the room with. I once watched a presentation. I was 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:12.640 studying a parasite that lives on the brains of California, killyfish, 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:15.680 and so I spent like literally all day working with brains. 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:18.160 But then I was watching an anthropology talk and they 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:20.920 went to a country that was like selling monkey brains, 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:24.000 and there was a table filled with monkey brains and 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:26.120 I was looking at just the picture and the room 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:28.840 started to spin. WHOA, and I was like, I'm gonna 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:31.080 throw up, and I was like, but I can't have 0:02:31.160 --> 0:02:34.600 everybody see me throwing up over brains. I work on brains, 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:38.040 and anyway, I like just kind of looked down and 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:40.799 hoped nobody could see me, and I managed to get 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:43.239 through it. But it's weird the things that set us off. 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:46.000 The universe certainly sets us off, and I have the 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:49.360 same kind of reaction to, you know, astrophysical stuff. On 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.079 one hand, a supernova is amazing. On the other hand, 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.320 it could like sterilize a whole portion of the galaxy 0:02:55.520 --> 0:03:00.480 with incredible radiation. Right, it's terrifying. The universe is beautiful 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:05.760 and incredible, but also violent and destructive and crazy. So 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:08.600 it is an extraordinary universe we live in, isn't it. 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.720 It is? And it's also, i gotta say, a confusing 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.120 universe we live in. And that kind of brings us 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:18.600 to our first question, which was really hard to unpack. 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.560 This question was an amazing question from a listener, Jamie, 0:03:22.600 --> 0:03:24.880 who often writes us and sends us articles to be 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:30.680 like does this make any sense? And it's always fun 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:34.400 to dig in and this paper was particularly fun. So 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:40.680 the headline is one mother for two species via obligate 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:43.080 cross species cloning in ants. 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:46.920 Well, one mom keeping birth to two different species. Thought 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:50.880 that was impossible. Anyway, let's hear Jamie's question and then 0:03:51.000 --> 0:03:51.480 dig in. 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:55.400 Hello, professors, this is Jamie Feffer from Westfield, New Jersey. 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:58.800 I would be grateful for your help understanding an article 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:01.880 that I read in the New York Time. It reports 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.520 on a study in Nature where scientists said that queens 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:09.360 from one species of ant produced male offspring of a 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:10.360 different species. 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:14.400 The scientist then said that it's like a human having chimp. 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:17.839 Babies and then using the babies as a source of sperm, 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.360 for giving birth to human chimp hybrids as a source 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:21.880 of labor. 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.359 What on earth is going on here? Please? It sounds 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:28.520 like a chapter from one of professor Kelly's books. Thank 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:29.280 you very much. 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:33.040 All right, Kelly, so set us up for why this 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:37.040 is a fascinating question. My understanding of what a species 0:04:37.160 --> 0:04:39.839 means is that individuals can mate and give birth to 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.800 like live offspring that isn't sterile. And so how can 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:46.560 you give birth to two different species? How's that possible? 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:49.120 Yeah? It's crazy, right, So okay, so you can get 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:51.880 like a donkey and a horse, they can mate together 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:55.360 and make a mule, and the mule is sterile. And 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.800 so you can get like pretty distantly related species that 0:04:58.920 --> 0:05:01.920 mate and produce something different, like for. 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:06.520 Example, my dog has Chihuahua and German shepherd ancestry, and 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.680 nobody knows how that happened. And I also won't suggest 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.520 googling that, but you know it did happen and he exists. 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:14.599 Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, don't think too hard about it. 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:19.240 But so those are different breeds, not different species, and 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:21.479 so that the equivalent here would be like you know, 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.720 so I gave birth to two human children, it would 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.240 be like I gave birth to one human children and 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:31.960 then the next one was a chimpanzee. And and that's 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:33.880 confusing and unexpected. 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:36.200 I mean, you always expect every child is going to 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:37.920 be different, but not that different, that's. 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:41.159 Right, that's right, that's pretty different. And the species, so 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.600 we're talking about ants in this example, and species one, 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:47.440 this is the species that gives birth to two species. 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:51.880 She the queens not only give birth to their own species, 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.600 as you would expect, but they're also able to give 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:59.480 birth to males of a different species that they've been 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.000 separated from for five million years. 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.520 Wow. All right, so this is like dogs give birth 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:07.200 to dogs and occasionally a cat. 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.320 Yes, right, I mean I don't know how long dogs 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:12.600 and cats diverge. That's probably more than five million years. 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.680 But yes, your point stands, and so okay, so here's 0:06:15.720 --> 0:06:20.760 what's happening. So first, aunt mating systems are crazy, right, 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:23.240 and we're not going to go into loads of detail 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.160 because it's super complicated. But what you need to know 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.400 is that females are diploids. So what that means is 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.200 that they have two sets of chromosomes, just like humans. 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:37.080 We have two sets of chromosomes, right, But to make males, 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:42.120 they only have one set of chromosomes. So a female 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:44.360 doesn't have to mate with another male. If she wants 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:47.720 to lay dude eggs, she just takes one set of 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.880 her chromosomes, sticks them in the egg, and now you've 0:06:50.880 --> 0:06:53.360 got males. So she doesn't have to mate. She can 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:54.240 make males on her own. 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:56.599 But to make a female she needs a contribution from 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:57.880 another member of her species. 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.320 That's right, So to make a female worker, she needs 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:02.440 to mate with another male. 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:05.760 But having these complicated relationships between the parents and the kids, 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:09.400 doesn't that mean that like the siblings relationships are complicated, 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:13.760 and like your evolutionary interests are intermingled in complicated ways. 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.960 If I remember, like aunts have really complicated sibling math. 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:19.960 Yeah they do, Okay, So the bottom line is that 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.560 the sisters share about seventy five percent of their genetic 0:07:23.560 --> 0:07:27.040 material with each other, whereas usually sisters share about fifty percent. 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:29.800 So like human sisters share fifty percent, you're saying. 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:32.760 That's right, yeah, and aunt sisters share seventy five percent. 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.400 And we think that this plays a role and why 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:39.120 ant colonies work so well together. So you can think 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.080 of aunt colonies as like a super organism. You've got 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:44.760 the queen who's laying a bunch of eggs, and then 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:48.600 all of the females work to support the queen, and 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:53.640 you would maybe not expect such selfless behavior unless individuals 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:56.480 were super closely related to each other, which means that 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.280 when the queen is making a lot more babies, they're 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.200 essentially making individuals who are very genetically similar to you. 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.600 And so from a genetic standpoint and from an evolutionary standpoint, 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:07.880 this is great news. So maybe you're willing to not 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:11.040 mate because your mom is making so many super genetically 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:13.360 related sisters and it's awesome. Does that kind of make sense? 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.679 Mm hmmm, that makes sense. Yeah, Okay, so that explains 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:18.640 like how the siblings are related to each other. Why 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:20.440 don't we need to understand that to understand how you 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:22.640 can give birth to another kind of species? 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.000 Okay, So the thing that you want to know is 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:27.800 that this ant that was all over the news recently, 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:32.000 when she's giving birth to a new species, she's giving 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:37.000 birth to sons in particular. Okay, And so here's what happened. 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:40.160 If you're in Europe and in Asia, you will find 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.280 these two species of ants. One of them is called 0:08:43.600 --> 0:08:48.000 Mezsor ibericus, and one is Mesor structor. But we're never 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:49.480 going to keep those straight, so I'm going to call 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:54.559 them species one that's Ibericus and species two structor. All right, 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:58.640 In part of their range they overlap, and in part 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.400 of their range they don't. So there's some areas where 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:04.040 you just find species one, some areas where you just 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.360 find species two, and some areas where you find colonies 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.640 of species one and species two. In addition to all 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:15.720 of the ant reproductive weirdness with the females being diploid 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:20.840 and the males being haploid, this system has another weird trait, 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:26.679 which is called sperm parasitism. So here's what happens. The 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:32.520 workers in the nest are females, but instead of mom 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:36.520 mating with a male of her species, mom mates with 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.679 a male of a different species. Right, so they're closely 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:42.880 related enough that they can still mate with each other, 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:47.680 but they produce I believe, infertile offspring that become workers. 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:50.559 And so why would that evolve. The reason we think 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.560 that that evolved is because, yes, it's nice that all 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.120 the sisters are seventy five percent related to each other. 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:58.920 But every once in a while, one of the workers 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:00.840 will get it in their head and I'm being super 0:10:00.920 --> 0:10:03.200 anthromorphic here, but they'll get it in their heads that 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:05.440 maybe it would be better if they just laid their 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.920 own eggs. And now you've got a competitor with the queen. 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.640 But if all of your workers are these hybrids that 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:17.560 are sterile, they can't make their own eggs anymore. And 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:21.599 so the queen essentially has this extra layer of control 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:25.280 over her colony because none of her workers are even 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:29.320 able to compete with her. It's just not even a question. Yeah, 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:31.640 And so there are you know, a handful of different 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.360 ant species we know of that do this thing called 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:38.480 sperm parasitism, where they make these hybrid sterile workers by 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:40.439 mating with males of a different species. 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:42.720 And why exactly is it called parasitism? 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:46.400 I think the idea is that so for species two, 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:51.360 the males that are impregnating the queen, they're essentially wasting 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:55.480 their sperm, so they impregnate the queen of species one, 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:58.560 and all of those offspring are sterile, so they don't 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.640 go anywhere. So the males of species two have made 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.360 this sperm, paid the cost to make it, and it's 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:08.000 genetically evolutionarily not going to end up, you know, contributing 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:09.200 to more offspring for them. 0:11:09.360 --> 0:11:11.319 And when Jamie asked you this question, do you think 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:13.400 he knew there was a parasite angle on it or 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:15.319 is that just like a happy bonus for everybody. 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:17.600 I don't know. It might have just been a happy bonus, 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.959 but I'm excited either way. Jamie knows us pretty well, 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:22.400 so maybe this was a gift for me. 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:25.600 I didn't realize that even sperms can be parasites. That's incredible. 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:30.560 Oh no, no, no, the sperm is being parasitized. Oh right, yeah, yeah, 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:34.080 So the queen is essentially like extracting the sperm for 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.079 her own purposes. Wow, but not benefiting species too? 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:39.080 Is there an evil cackle that happens along the way? 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:39.600 You think. 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:45.360 I won't, but there's little ants, So it's gotta be 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.040 a little high pitched voice. Try that, Daniel. 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:53.120 I can't do that. I can't do that. 0:11:53.559 --> 0:11:57.360 Okay, Well, all right, so that was amazing. That's already weird. Okay. 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:01.040 But so for species one, it has now actually become 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.720 a requirement that the queen mates with another species. She 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:10.280 can't produce these workers anymore unless she finds species two males. 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:13.080 The thing you thought you were going to do just 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.040 once turns out to be a habit, and then now 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:16.079 you can't live without it. 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:19.240 I know that's right. We've all been there, and so 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:20.679 for me it's coffee, But. 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:24.599 So for other people it's sperm paraticism. 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:29.120 That's right. That's right to each their own right. So okay, 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:30.880 so you might remember that I told you that there 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.880 are areas where you only find species one or you 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:38.760 only find species two. Right, So if species one has 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:42.320 to mate with species two, how does species one manage 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:46.160 to persist far away from species two? And there's one 0:12:46.200 --> 0:12:49.600 spot where it's known that there's one thousand kilometers between 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.880 the nearest Species one and Species two nests. All right, 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:56.240 so there's no queens of species two in the area. 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.199 But if you find a Species one nest and you 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:04.040 dig it up, you'll find that there are still hybrid 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:07.199 individuals in there. So there's still the hybrid workers. And 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:10.760 so the question is how the heck is she managing 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.440 to produce these hybrids when there's no males of species 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.280 two around. Yeah, the answer is going to be that 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:21.000 she makes species two males, which is crazy. Right, So 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:23.680 let's go through the process that the scientists went through 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:25.800 to sort of study this. So first they opened up 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:29.319 species one nests and they looked very carefully at everybody 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:31.880 who was in there in an area where you shouldn't 0:13:31.920 --> 0:13:36.280 find any Species two, and they did find some Species 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:40.360 two males in the nest, and they were like, okay, 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:43.440 that's really weird. And so then they looked at the 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:47.800 genetic information inside of species two and they found that 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:53.360 Species two had mitochondria from species one. And if you 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.800 know anything about mitochondria, you might remember that mitochondria are 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:01.640 only inherited from mom. So that means that these species 0:14:01.720 --> 0:14:05.600 two males must have come from a mom of species 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:10.360 one because they've got her mitochondria. And they went over 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:13.280 to areas where you find species two normally like in 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:16.679 their own sort of colony, and they confirmed species two 0:14:16.760 --> 0:14:22.240 males usually have mitochondria from species two moms. And so 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:23.000 this was weird. 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.520 So you can tell the difference between species two males 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.000 that come from species one or species two by their mitochondria. 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:33.400 Yes, wow, yeah, very cool. But they wanted to make 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.560 one hundred percent sure that the queens were the ones 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:38.520 who were laying the eggs that had the males, and 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:42.160 so they took queens and workers and they brought them 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:44.920 into the lab, and some of the workers that they 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:47.080 brought into the lab these were from species one. They 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.440 went ahead and they did lay some of their own eggs, 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:52.400 and what they found was that nine percent of the 0:14:52.440 --> 0:14:57.200 eggs made by queens of species one produced males of 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:01.520 species two. Amazing, right, were weird. And when the workers 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:04.560 of species one made some eggs, none of them were 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:07.920 species two. It's just the queen who's doing this, Okay. 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.840 So then they monitored a colony that they brought into 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:15.040 the lab for a year and a half, and they 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:19.440 found that the mom produced Species one and Species two males. 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.760 They both survived to reproductive age, and they looked genetically 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:27.600 and they confirmed, Okay, one queen is definitely making species 0:15:27.640 --> 0:15:31.720 one and Species two males. How is she doing that? 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.440 So one possibility here is that a lot of invertebrates 0:15:35.760 --> 0:15:39.840 are able to store sperm, so you can mate with 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:42.880 a male, and a couple months later you can be like, oh, 0:15:42.920 --> 0:15:45.400 I'm gonna take that sperm that I was storing, and 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:47.840 now I'm gonna fertilize my eggs, and even though there's 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:50.560 no males around, I can go ahead and have some 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:51.280 extra babies. 0:15:51.400 --> 0:15:53.000 I didn't know it lasted that long. I thought I 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:55.520 had a short life span, like twenty four hours or 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:56.680 forty eight hours or something. 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:58.320 I don't know exactly how long it is, but it's 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:00.840 more than twenty four or forty eight hours. But by 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.800 having them in the lab for eighteen months, they were 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.000 able to, like pretty conclusively say, Okay, the females probably 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:10.720 aren't like flying one thousand kilometers to go find a 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.520 Species two male, mating with him and then coming back 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:15.080 like she's been in the lab the whole. 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.920 Time, or maybe they're like actually aliens and have wormhole 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.080 technology and they're like teleporting over there. That's right, not 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:22.400 a hypothesis they considered. 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.600 No, you know, they didn't have a physicist on the team, probably, 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:26.040 and I. 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:29.800 Know that you always need a physicist, right, maybe maybe 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.000 maybe Are you not even going to agree with me 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:32.480 on that one? 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:33.200 Yeah? 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:34.880 Heads your bed on that one, all right? 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:36.840 Probably almost certainly. 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:40.320 At least we should consider having a physicist on every project. 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:41.640 Sure, right, And are you going to consider having a 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:44.040 biologist on every project to make sure you all stay 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:44.560 down to Earth? 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:48.160 I already do? Oh, I already do, of course, okay, okay, 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:52.680 all right. So they saw this essentially happened in the 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.440 lab and controlled conditions, so they knew that she was 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:57.320 actually generating species to herself. 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:00.480 Yes, right. They also looked at like genetic diverse of 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:04.399 species two males in their native range and in these 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:08.000 species one nests, and they were very low diversity, which 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.880 you would expect, you know, if there was something weird happening, 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.240 and the males were just like a very small subset 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.720 of their genes were being passed through species one over time. 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:22.400 So here is what they think is happening. Females are 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:27.240 somehow cloning males and all cloning means. And you might 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.399 remember this from a past conversation where we talked about cloning, 0:17:30.480 --> 0:17:33.439 like in our episode about the dire wolf that was 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:35.560 made by Colossal. So essentially, what you do is you 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:40.520 take an egg and you like extract the genetic information 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:42.760 from the egg, except you can leave the mitochondria in there, 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.879 and then you put new genetic information into that egg, 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.639 and then what hatches is the species or the individual 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.440 associated with the new genetic information. Does that make sense? 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:58.280 So somehow the females seem to be taking genetic information 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:01.040 from species two, plopping it into their own eggs, and 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:05.720 producing species two males. They don't know exactly how that's happening, 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:08.679 but the way that it could work in theory is 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:10.960 that you've got a queen from species one in an 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:14.160 area where the species overlap, She mates with the male 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:20.000 from species two and stores that sperm. She migrates away 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:22.399 from the area where the species overlap and goes and 0:18:22.440 --> 0:18:26.639 starts her new colonies somewhere completely different. She uses that 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:29.960 sperm to make males, and then she mates with those 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:31.520 males to get her hybrid workers. 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:35.479 That's pretty ikey though, she's like meeting with her own sons. 0:18:35.960 --> 0:18:38.760 Yeah, no, I mean nature. Yeah, has a lot of 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:40.000 uncomfortable stuff happening. 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:42.080 I'm sure we can find some beauty in that. Also. 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:47.840 Nope, and so moving on and so hard. No so 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:50.560 uh okay. So she's got she can mate with these 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.320 males that she made, and now she's got her hybrid workers. 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:56.520 But when it's time to make a queen a new queen, 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:01.320 she can mate with the other male that are of 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.920 her species, and then those queens can mate with the 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.720 males of species two that are already in the colony 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:12.240 with them. They can acquire that sperm, and then they 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:16.040 can bring that sperm with them even farther away from 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:18.600 the initial area that they live, so even farther away 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:20.480 from where you usually find species two. 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:23.959 So this is a mechanism for extending your colonies beyond 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:26.720 the boundaries of species too. They like need species too, 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:30.719 but it's not always available, so they evolve this mechanism 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:32.959 to basically cut them out of the loop and make 0:19:33.000 --> 0:19:34.040 them themselves right. 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:38.480 Yes, and then they also have this amazing ability to like, 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.960 instead of combining genetic information, they just take the male's 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:45.680 genetic information and like and clone them, which is totally crazy. 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:48.399 And to be honest, the authors were very clear, we 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:51.280 do not know the mechanism to explain what's happening here, 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:53.640 and so this is just like a hypothetical. But they 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:57.120 compared it to domestication. It's kind of like domesticating species 0:19:57.160 --> 0:19:59.359 two and sort of taking it with you for your 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:01.600 own purposes. And I'm not quite sure that I buy 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:03.679 the comparison, but it's an interesting way to think about it. 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:05.560 Yeah, that is fascinating. They're sort of raising it and 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:08.720 co opting it for their own purposes in that sense. 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:13.200 But when we domesticate cats, there's no like interbreeding. Yeah, 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:15.439 I mean not usually that I'm aware of. 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:18.199 Oh oh more, absolutely not. 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:20.520 Okay, I mean when people say cat lady, I don't 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:21.400 think that's what they mean. 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:26.120 Right, Oh goshh not safe for work. So the authors 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.680 propose a new word, changing the subject. The new word 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:33.399 is xenoparis, meaning they quote need to produce individuals of 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:35.879 another species as part of their life cycle. 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:36.400 Wow. 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:39.760 Zeno means like strange or different, and parody means like 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:42.399 to give birth, so anyway giving birth to something different. 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:45.880 So does this mean we should again broaden our concept 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:48.200 of what a species is. That the lines are even 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:51.680 fuzzier than we thought before. The biology is amazing us 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:53.080 and how messy it is again. 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.879 So you let's hold that answer because I am working 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.560 on a whole episode on how do you define species? 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:03.280 And all of the weird things evolution does that makes 0:21:03.359 --> 0:21:06.000 our job really difficult. It's going to be like a 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.680 philosophical discussion, which I think will be right up your alley. Yep, yeah, yes, 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.320 So tune in for the answer in a future episode, 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:17.439 and let's see if Jamie feels like I managed to 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:18.600 figure this paper out. 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.639