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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you wasn't the stuff to blow

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Speaker 1: your mind? My name is Robert Lamb and um Julie Douglas. Julie,

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Speaker 1: do you remember Fraggle Rock? Didn't you care? Away? Were

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Speaker 1: reball another day? Let the music play down and rock

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Speaker 1: that's the one that rock. Hopefully we can't get to

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Speaker 1: hear for that. I don't know. Wouldn't that be cruel

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Speaker 1: to sue, you know, a bunch of fraggles suing us. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that seemed like sort of anti fraggle I don't know.

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Speaker 1: We have what kind of legislation. It's just that the

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Speaker 1: governors copyright issues is in the sub world's versus the

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Speaker 1: surface world. So did you grow up with the show

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Speaker 1: or are you you didn't? I knew of it, and

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Speaker 1: I think that I was maybe uh too in too

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Speaker 1: at that point, like hypnotizing myself on the weekends rather

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Speaker 1: than watching Fraggle Rock. Well, it was also an HBO

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Speaker 1: thing in the States, I believe, so, so there would

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Speaker 1: have been that limitation as well. That would have been

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Speaker 1: high fluting back in the day. Yeah, I think I

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Speaker 1: probably saw episodes of it on CBC because my family

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Speaker 1: was living in Canada at the time, so I think

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Speaker 1: that's where I have my main Fraggle connection. Because of course,

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Speaker 1: the series ran from eight three to eighty seven. Um.

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Speaker 1: It was carried on on HBO, on CBC in Canada

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Speaker 1: and on u Q and on the UK's television South.

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Speaker 1: And it's um, it's a silly show, UM about creatures

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Speaker 1: living in a cave. And uh, they're various adventures, they're

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Speaker 1: various songs, their various uh comments on daily life for

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Speaker 1: us humans. All right, let me just read this little

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Speaker 1: bit from the Muppet Wiki. It says the vision of

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Speaker 1: Fraggle Rock, articular did by Jim Henson, was to depict

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Speaker 1: a colorful and fun world, but also a world with

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Speaker 1: a relatively complex system of symbiotic relationships between races of

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Speaker 1: creatures and allegory to the human world, where each group

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Speaker 1: was somewhat unaware of how interconnected and important they were

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Speaker 1: to one another. This allegorical world allowed the program to

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Speaker 1: entertain and amused by seriously exploring complex issues of prejudiced spirituality,

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Speaker 1: personal identity, environment, and social conflict. Heavy right, Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think that's one of the amazing things about the show

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Speaker 1: is that there is this very silly level to it,

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Speaker 1: the surface level of fraggle Rock. But yeah, you can

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Speaker 1: start analyzing it and analyzing it, and there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of rich complexity there because you're getting into into into

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Speaker 1: these themes of of global relationships, of the ecology of

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Speaker 1: how interconnected we all are. I mean, it's ultimately that's

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Speaker 1: the message that Henson was trying to convey in the series,

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Speaker 1: to make it educational, almost in a sort of moral

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Speaker 1: sense as opposed to uh, strictly numbers and letters. So

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Speaker 1: you're right, because there's lots of things to explore, like

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Speaker 1: individuality versus like the common good and community and on

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Speaker 1: and on. So it's kind of fascinating. There's even like

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Speaker 1: an aspect of asexuality that you could go into, and

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Speaker 1: maybe one day we will, but for today's purposes, we

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Speaker 1: really wanted to introduce the Fragle rocks um because we

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Speaker 1: thought this was a great lens into cave living, cavernous

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Speaker 1: underground living and what it's like. And when we talk

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Speaker 1: about the Fraggles, by the way, we were talking about

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Speaker 1: these creatures that are about twenty two inches tall and

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Speaker 1: they really do sort of dominate the landscape of Fraggle Rock,

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Speaker 1: and of course Fraggle Rock is named after them. Um.

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Speaker 1: As you have mentioned, they live in the system of

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Speaker 1: natural caves. And what's interesting about these caves is that

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Speaker 1: they connect to other worlds too, Yes, to our world,

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Speaker 1: but also to this other world where there are these

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Speaker 1: giant creatures, right that grow radishes. And we'll talk about

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Speaker 1: the right economy in a moment and how important that is. Uh.

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Speaker 1: But you know, they kind of remind me of pack rats,

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Speaker 1: which we've talked about before, Yes, because they're also bringing

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Speaker 1: back little curios from these other worlds and the incorporating

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Speaker 1: and incorporating them into their their their little environment, into

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Speaker 1: their dens. Even um. Yeah, we did a whole episode

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Speaker 1: on the pack rat Um. Go back and listen to

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Speaker 1: that if you like. UM. I do want to note

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Speaker 1: that in part we're drawing from an essay by Justin

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Speaker 1: Werfel titled the Ecollege of Fraggle Rock, and this was

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Speaker 1: This is one of four serious essays on Fraggles in

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Speaker 1: the book The Wider Worlds of Jim Hinson, Essays on

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Speaker 1: his work and legacy Beyond the Muppet Joan Sesame Street.

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Speaker 1: This was edited by Jennifer C. Garland and and this

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Speaker 1: a Graham and this is just a really good book.

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Speaker 1: You can find it on on Amazon. It's published by

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Speaker 1: McFarland and it is. It's pretty terrific. If you're a

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Speaker 1: if you're a big hints and fan, a big Fraggle fan,

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Speaker 1: a big Labyrinth Dark Crystal or what have you fan,

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Speaker 1: even far Escape, check this book out because there's a

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Speaker 1: lot for your brain to you on it. Yeah, this

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Speaker 1: will be your seminal summer read. Now, before we talk

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Speaker 1: more about Fraggles and uh some of their relationships with

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Speaker 1: one another, let's talk about caves, because they really are

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Speaker 1: these worlds of darkness and um. In some ways, they

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Speaker 1: are very much hidden worlds. So according to National Geographic Worldwide,

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Speaker 1: caves have no visible entrance and they remain undiscovered since

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Speaker 1: their underground, hidden from the vision of satellites and inaccessible

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Speaker 1: to GPS signals. So it would make sense that these

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Speaker 1: things are hidden because you really have to go off

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Speaker 1: and try to explore them and map them and order

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Speaker 1: to really understand them. And the scientific study of caves

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Speaker 1: and their environments is called speleology, and the formation and

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Speaker 1: development of caves is called spaleogenesis. And that's when we

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Speaker 1: get into those ideas of stalagtites and stalagmites, um and

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Speaker 1: all these amazing uh formations that create this other world. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's just the idea that so many of these cave

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Speaker 1: environments are literally sealed off from the rest of the

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Speaker 1: world is is pretty mind blowing because we're all familiar

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Speaker 1: with sort of the basic cave environment where there's an

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Speaker 1: entrance and they're like, say, bats are living in there

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Speaker 1: and coming in and out, or there's a bear living

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Speaker 1: in a cave and coming in and out, or even

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Speaker 1: humans supposedly living in caves and coming in and out.

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Speaker 1: But the idea of sealed environments that have been sealed

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Speaker 1: away for millions of years, that's where it really starts

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Speaker 1: getting amazing. Yeah. It's like a basement to your house

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Speaker 1: that you never even knew about. Yeah, or a time

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Speaker 1: cat like a living time capsules where instead of of

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Speaker 1: course everything is staying stationary, it's changed, but it's changed

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Speaker 1: according to itself, almost its own rules, uninfluenced by the

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Speaker 1: world outside. Indeed, and you can find them all over

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Speaker 1: the place. You can find them cliffs at the edge

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Speaker 1: of a coastline being chipped away about, pounding waves um.

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Speaker 1: Some have been created from lava flows, which create a

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Speaker 1: kind of tube that hardens. And then you even have

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Speaker 1: caves that form and glaciers where meltwater carves tunnels at

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Speaker 1: the beginning of that water's journey to the sea. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and in many cases we're dealing with situations where at

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Speaker 1: some point in the distant past, um, you had life

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Speaker 1: forms that ventured into the cave, right, because what is

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Speaker 1: life going to do? Life is going to seep in.

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Speaker 1: It's gonna find its niche wherever it can find it, right,

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Speaker 1: and so it ventures into the cave. It adapts to

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Speaker 1: sort of the twilight zone of the cave, and then

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Speaker 1: over time those forms take to the deeper, darker portions

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Speaker 1: of the cave. And then circumstances occur that cut those

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Speaker 1: environments off from the outside world. Uh. The life forms

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Speaker 1: themselves may already be evolutionarily cut off from their previous

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Speaker 1: forms and thus the outside world, and then they just

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Speaker 1: remain cut off until millions of years later. Uh, somebody

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Speaker 1: happens to be digging with a bacco or or or

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Speaker 1: strategically checking or strategically exploring for some sort of a

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Speaker 1: cave environment. Yeah, it's amazing to imagine all these caves

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Speaker 1: um existing because if you think about it in this way,

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Speaker 1: it takes about a hundred thousand years for a cave

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Speaker 1: to widen large enough to actually fit a human inside

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Speaker 1: of it. So all of this sort of deep history

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Speaker 1: has been happening unbeknownst to us and undiscovered largely by us,

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Speaker 1: and yet it is hosting just this this rich ecosystem

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Speaker 1: of all these different insects and animals and sometimes humans

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Speaker 1: with their bars of gold. Yeah, it's it's interesting that

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Speaker 1: imagtion how long it takes for for a cave to

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Speaker 1: even be large enough for human fit in it, because

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Speaker 1: I I love the idea of subterranean humanoids, and like

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Speaker 1: we have we have so many versions of that in

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Speaker 1: our myth and our fiction making, you know, ranging from uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, the more locks and goblins and ghoules and

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Speaker 1: uh on up to more modern versions like uh like that,

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Speaker 1: like the like the HUDs or the monsters in the

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Speaker 1: Descent and uh. But when you when you look at

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Speaker 1: cave biology as we're looking at in this this episode,

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Speaker 1: you see more and more that it exists in a

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Speaker 1: much smaller scale, and when you start pulling apart the

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Speaker 1: resources required for a continued existence in a in a

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Speaker 1: cave environment. Uh. The idea of of goblins and uh

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Speaker 1: and and and creepers in the cave just don't really

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Speaker 1: hold up. Yeah. Again, you're talking about species that survive

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Speaker 1: on a smaller scale, and the reason for that is

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Speaker 1: because there are limited resources. Right, So if you're in

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Speaker 1: a cave, there's not that much to eat, and there's

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Speaker 1: also a lot more predators than there are resources or prey.

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Speaker 1: I should guess, you should say. According to the National

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Speaker 1: Geographic article Discoveries in the Dark, at least a dozen

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Speaker 1: known caves from Romania to Wyoming have no ecological net

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Speaker 1: connection to the surface, means they run purely UH on

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Speaker 1: geologic substance such as sulfur compounds, methane, iron, and hydrogen

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Speaker 1: and eaten by specialized microbes, which in turn feed higher organisms.

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Speaker 1: And one of the examples they point out in this article,

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Speaker 1: there's Israel's Alien Cave, which was uncovered accidentally in May

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Speaker 1: two d and six by excavation, and it was probably

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Speaker 1: sealed they think for a million years. All right, this

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Speaker 1: was it. So there's this tiny little ecosystem and they're

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Speaker 1: fueled by warm groundwater laced with sulfur that in turn

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Speaker 1: fed microbes and at least ten previously unknown crustaceans and

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Speaker 1: other creatures. And one of the crazy things about this

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Speaker 1: too is that the area where around this cave had

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Speaker 1: been inhabited for just ages and ages and no one

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Speaker 1: had uncovered it until then. So it really drives home

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Speaker 1: the question how many little ecosystems are buried away just

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Speaker 1: in our immediate vicinity that we've just that we've never

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Speaker 1: happened upon, that are just thriving on their own, or

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Speaker 1: if not thriving, at least barely getting by. Because we

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Speaker 1: we'll discuss these are often very fragile environments. But but

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Speaker 1: but how many such worlds are out there just hidden

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Speaker 1: from us? Well? And also we've we've touched on this before.

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Speaker 1: Caves could be a rich source of possible antibiotics for

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Speaker 1: us because, as we know from microbiologists Hazel Barton, who

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Speaker 1: also splunks you know, looking for um for for for

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Speaker 1: a possible bacteria that could be used particularly against superbugs,

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Speaker 1: which is pretty much wiping out our current arsenal of antibiotics.

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Speaker 1: Um She is saying that, you know, an antibiotic is

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Speaker 1: really a very complex chemical compound. It's not something that

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Speaker 1: can be synthesized in a meaningful way or an easy way.

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Speaker 1: And she's saying that caves that they're kind of biodiversity

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Speaker 1: and these special circumstances could be growing the next sort

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Speaker 1: of antibiotic that can help us to battle with these superbugs.

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Speaker 1: All right, So let's talk about some of these creatures

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Speaker 1: that live in caves, the trogla fauna if you will. Yes, Now,

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Speaker 1: we have basically three different types of trog fun are

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Speaker 1: we we divide them up into three different categories. And

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Speaker 1: these three categories really depend on how attached to the

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Speaker 1: cave they really are, how dependent they are in the

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Speaker 1: cave versus the outside world versus the surface world. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because if you have an insect spider, let's say, hanging

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Speaker 1: out near the cave's entrance, it's going to be vastly

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Speaker 1: different from its counterpart deep deep inside. And in fact,

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Speaker 1: you could say that this, uh, this spider hanging out

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Speaker 1: is just really a tourist. You could call this insect

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Speaker 1: a troglazin. Yeah. This comes from the Greek words troglos

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Speaker 1: meaning cave and zenos meaning guests. And these are animals

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Speaker 1: that use the cave for shelter but don't complete their

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Speaker 1: life cycle there. So bats are actually the best example

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Speaker 1: of this, all right, And they live in the caves.

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Speaker 1: They they you know, they reproduce their raise, they're young,

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Speaker 1: but they also leave and they have to leave, uh,

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Speaker 1: every night in order to to to obtain that that

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Speaker 1: precious food. Other examples that are less a snazzy. You

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Speaker 1: have bears, which which may live in the cave, may

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Speaker 1: hibernate in the cave, but obviously they have to leave

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Speaker 1: the cave. They are essentially creatures of the surface world. Um,

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Speaker 1: raccoons and uh and yeah, so these are guests of

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Speaker 1: the cave as the as the name implies, spirits of

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Speaker 1: dead pirates. Well, okay, you could you could throw that

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Speaker 1: in as well gold bars. Yeah, yeah, So any creature

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Speaker 1: unnatural and natural that is living in the cave, living

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Speaker 1: some portion of its life cycle in the cave, but

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Speaker 1: is not there all the time. But then you have

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Speaker 1: another category called trouble files, which is cave lovers, right file,

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Speaker 1: And we're talking about worms, crickets, crayfish, and salamander. Also

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Speaker 1: beatles who live off the dung piles produced by bats.

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Speaker 1: And here you see them completing their life cycles in

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Speaker 1: a cave. But they can also survive above ground, and

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Speaker 1: they get I kind of think about it as Persephone

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Speaker 1: right in her deal with Hades. Oh, yes, she was

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Speaker 1: stolen away to the to the the underworld by Hades.

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Speaker 1: But since he's stole her and due to some sort

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Speaker 1: of and they worked it out with these sort of

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Speaker 1: contract like she only ate like three pomegranate seeds, therefore

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Speaker 1: she could go up for the following seasons of the year.

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Speaker 1: And so I think that that's why we have spring, right,

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Speaker 1: She's allowed to come back. And the Trocoal files are similar,

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Speaker 1: you know, they've got a little bit of a pact

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Speaker 1: with the cave in that way. Yeah. I like to

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Speaker 1: think of it in terms of, say someone listens to

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Speaker 1: the doors or what's what's a more hardcore example. Let's

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Speaker 1: say Fish. Let's say someone who listens to the band Fish,

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Speaker 1: take the trogo Zanes again their guests of the cave.

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Speaker 1: They can come, they can come and go, but they're

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Speaker 1: they're not They're not there all the time. So as

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Speaker 1: a Fish listener, the trogo Zane listens to Fish, but

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Speaker 1: also listens to to other bands and other musical options

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Speaker 1: fairly frequently. And then with the Trogolo Files, uh, This

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Speaker 1: is a fish listener who listens to fish most of

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Speaker 1: the time, but they can branch out, they can listen

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Speaker 1: to other types of music. But the next group we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about talk about the trogolo byte. These

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Speaker 1: are obligate cave denizens. They live exclusively in the cave.

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Speaker 1: And this would be the fish fan who can only

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Speaker 1: listen to fish, who cannot listen to anything outside of

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Speaker 1: of their their their personal listening niche. Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: about that spider who maybe started out at the cave entrance,

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Speaker 1: went in a little bit more. Let's say that it's uh,

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Speaker 1: it's progeny then began to adapt itself, and then progeny

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Speaker 1: said it's offspring said hey, I'm gonna go way back there.

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Speaker 1: That looks awesome back there. And then another generation of

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Speaker 1: those spiders adapted even more, and all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: they are completely wetted to this space because they have

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Speaker 1: changed so much to adapt to it that they could

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Speaker 1: no longer go out to the entrance of that cave. Right.

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Speaker 1: Not only are they adapting more and more to survive

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Speaker 1: on the resources provided to them exclusively in the deeper

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Speaker 1: portions of the cave, but they've given up the adaptations

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Speaker 1: they need to survive in the sunlit world. Chief among these,

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Speaker 1: of course pigmentation, which is more than just uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: colorful decorations on our skin. It's it helps, but its

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Speaker 1: protects us against a UV rays from the sun. So

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Speaker 1: without the sun, there's no need for for our bodies

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Speaker 1: to invest in that kind of protect protection. You also

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Speaker 1: don't need that sort of camouflage or that level of it,

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Speaker 1: because most of the creatures that deep in the cave

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Speaker 1: they are without sight. Yeah, so it doesn't matter if

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Speaker 1: you're essentially just pale gas fly wide or even translucent,

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Speaker 1: because the site isn't really an issue anymore. But you

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Speaker 1: get these other great adaptations, like you get longer limbs

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Speaker 1: or longer antennae, which really allow you to have a

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Speaker 1: more exquisite system to ferret out sensations around you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because you need to touch more of the area around you,

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Speaker 1: so you have more um appendages with which to touch it,

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Speaker 1: longer appendages with which to touch your surroundings. You're more

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Speaker 1: dependent upon sound or even just slight two sensations across

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Speaker 1: the skin. Changes in air quality, for instance. And this

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Speaker 1: is where it gets really freaky diki though, because the

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Speaker 1: sort of creatures that we know and love are vastly

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Speaker 1: different deep within the cave. And I'm talking about a

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Speaker 1: pseudo scorpion, for instance, that doesn't have a stinging tail

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Speaker 1: instead injects venom with its claws. Wow. Yeah, so it's

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Speaker 1: got this adaptation of like, well, let me, let me

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Speaker 1: just throw this venom out here in the claw area,

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Speaker 1: because it's a lot easier for me to get to

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Speaker 1: my prey because I have more as as I had

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Speaker 1: said earlier, exquisitely attuned um senses. Now now other trogobytes

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Speaker 1: include um and and just to to back up on that,

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Speaker 1: trogless again means cave and bios means life. So this

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Speaker 1: is cave life and it's purest sense really. And among

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Speaker 1: the troglobytes we find various types of crayfish and shrimp, cavefish, salamanders,

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Speaker 1: various insects, arachnis. As we've discussed. Another crucial thing about

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Speaker 1: adapting to that ecology, adapting to that environment in the

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Speaker 1: cave is that this is not a in the same

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Speaker 1: way we discussed the vampire bat in the past, where

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Speaker 1: the vampire bat is adapting to a diet that is

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Speaker 1: not a rich diet. Uh. These these creatures have adapted

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Speaker 1: to thrive in a world that is not rich in resources,

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Speaker 1: so they have to survive on less and they have

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Speaker 1: to have a metabolism that can allow for long periods

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Speaker 1: of famine. Yes, so they have a much lower metabolism.

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Speaker 1: And in a sense, these are sort of extrem a files, right,

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Speaker 1: because they're living in extreme conditions and as a result,

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Speaker 1: this kind of changes their lifespan. Um, you had mentioned

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Speaker 1: the crayfish. There's the crayfish of Shelta Cape, Alabama, which

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Speaker 1: mates around its hundredth year and can live over one

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Speaker 1: and fifty years. Yeah, that is that is pretty amazing.

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Speaker 1: Here it is it's a century old, and it's it's

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Speaker 1: still breeding or steven just getting around the break reaching

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Speaker 1: maturity of sexual maturity and then and then it has

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Speaker 1: another half century or even Uh. I've seen even estimates

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Speaker 1: of up to a hundred and seventy five year lifespans

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Speaker 1: for these creatures. It's crazy. Yeah, it's nuts. And then

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Speaker 1: you just have some creatures that are visibly strange, they

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Speaker 1: are otherworldly to us, like the Proteus anguinus, which is

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Speaker 1: an ulm or a salamander, and it has a serpentine body,

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Speaker 1: and it's of course it's translucent looking. It's covered by

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Speaker 1: that that whitest translucent skin, and it has too freely

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Speaker 1: pink gills at the back of its head. And what

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Speaker 1: I love about this is at the first written account

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Speaker 1: of it eats back to nine, in which finally the

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Speaker 1: scholar Jennez Aicard Vossavor disputed the belief that these alms

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Speaker 1: were baby dragons. That's how strange they are. People were like, oh,

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Speaker 1: that must be a baby dragon. Yeah, this, this is

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Speaker 1: something so fantastic. It must be making our more fantastic

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Speaker 1: ideas a reality. Um yeah. Some of the other creatures

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Speaker 1: that we ran across, um there of course rimipedes, and

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Speaker 1: these are pretty amazing. You've probably seen them before. They

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Speaker 1: look kind of like centipedes from another planet. Really, um

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Speaker 1: and these are Earth's most primitive living crustacean. They dwell

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Speaker 1: in saltwater coastal caves across the globe, and it's believed

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Speaker 1: that they may have started out over a hundred million

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Speaker 1: years ago when the supercontinent Pangaea was first breaking up.

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Speaker 1: And so now you find them, you find them all

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Speaker 1: over in these these these these aquifier environments, these underground

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Speaker 1: the layers of water bearing permeable rock. And that's what

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Speaker 1: must be so exciting for biologists is to to find

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Speaker 1: these new species just you know, crack over one of

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Speaker 1: these caves and all of a sudden say, oh, I

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Speaker 1: actually at the adaptations and and just look at the

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Speaker 1: biodiversity present here that we have no idea even existed. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like backing up the clock and saying, well,

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Speaker 1: what if what if we had gone this direction instead

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Speaker 1: of this direction and seeing that alternate timeline of evolution uh, innocence. Uh,

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Speaker 1: That's kind of what it's like when when we're peering

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Speaker 1: into these these these environments. You're right, it is like

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Speaker 1: a time capsule in that sense. And we continue to

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Speaker 1: find all these new creatures and we give them some

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Speaker 1: pretty amazing names. I was reading about some of these

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Speaker 1: that have been named after Japanese movie monsters. For instance,

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Speaker 1: there's the swimming Mathra or Pleo Mathra. There's the strong

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Speaker 1: Godzilla or Godzillius rob robust Us, and then there's the

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Speaker 1: nome Godzilla, the god Godzillo Noomus, which which are withdraw

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Speaker 1: all these fantastic names for wagnism. All right, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: take a quick break, and when we get back, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna get into some serious discussion about the Fraggles. All right,

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Speaker 1: we're back. I think that really is that John Goodman

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Speaker 1: was in shud Yeah, it's a it's a bit part

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Speaker 1: that he's in there. All right, even better? All right,

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Speaker 1: so let's get back to these fraggles and because then

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Speaker 1: we have a sort of the baseline idea of kve

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Speaker 1: ecology and what dwells within it can't help but just

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Speaker 1: kind of looking at these guys and saying, all right,

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Speaker 1: what's going on there? Yeah, And that is indeed what

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Speaker 1: Justin Verfel did in his his essay in the in

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Speaker 1: the Hinton book that we mentioned earlier, looking at Fraggle

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Speaker 1: Rock as not not just the TV show, but the

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Speaker 1: environment portrayed there, looking at the various creatures, especially the

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Speaker 1: three primary creatures that we're going to discussed, and trying

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Speaker 1: to make sense of them in terms of real world ecology,

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Speaker 1: real world science, which this is an area I love

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Speaker 1: to explore in my own work, you know, comparing something

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Speaker 1: unnatural with something natural and seeing how they line up,

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Speaker 1: and often it's surprising how well they do. And uh

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Speaker 1: and yeah, certainly we see that there with the fraggle.

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Speaker 1: So let's let's start with the title organism the frackle. Yes,

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Speaker 1: they are a very carefree lot. They spend most of

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Speaker 1: their time playing, exploring, and generally enjoying themselves. Are all

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Speaker 1: about individualism, and they live on a diet of vegetables, now, radishes.

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Speaker 1: That is pretty much like if they had a food pyramid,

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Speaker 1: it would be like radish would would occupy probably about

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Speaker 1: that space. And um. Now, radishes are also used in

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Speaker 1: construction of something called deuser sticks, and we'll get to

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Speaker 1: that in a second. But they munch on that quite

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Speaker 1: a bit. Uh. Fraggles have the unique ability to share dreams.

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Speaker 1: I love this. Whoa, yeah, I forgot about this, this

407
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Speaker 1: particular their power. Yeah. If they touch their heads together

408
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Speaker 1: before falling asleep, they can enter the dream of the

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Speaker 1: other fraggle. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so they do the

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Speaker 1: sort of like drift thing. Wow, that is that is impressive.

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Speaker 1: I can't. That just makes my imagination run wild with

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Speaker 1: like with possibility. What would the human culture be like

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Speaker 1: if we could do that? I mean, in a sense

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Speaker 1: we find ways to do that, but not an organic level.

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Speaker 1: That's on the books. Oh, man, Well, they should call

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Speaker 1: it like fraggialization or dream fragglization. That should be the process.

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Speaker 1: Frackle drift, ye, fraggle drift. Alright, So these guys are

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Speaker 1: the fraggles. Um they share this cave or this environment,

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Speaker 1: I should say, with the users, who are starkly different

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Speaker 1: from them. Yeah, while the fraggles kind of strike me

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Speaker 1: as if I was to connect them to real world biology,

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Speaker 1: I would say that maybe they evolved from some form

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Speaker 1: of lemur. They seem like a kind of a cave

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Speaker 1: lemur type of a creature, whereas the dousers are a

425
00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:58,680
Speaker 1: little they're smaller friends for starters and marriages six inches,

426
00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:02,560
Speaker 1: and they're a little more uh insect like they have

427
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 1: antenna and they build constantly. They're kind of you can

428
00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:09,919
Speaker 1: almost think of them in terms of social insects, like

429
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:14,200
Speaker 1: social builders, like like wasps and bees, except they're living

430
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: in caves and be their building things that look like

431
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:21,680
Speaker 1: bridges and little towers and just the stuff that looks

432
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:26,119
Speaker 1: like human construction projects. And their primary construction material is

433
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:31,440
Speaker 1: composed of or made from rash, so it remains edible

434
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:35,480
Speaker 1: to anybody who's into eating radishes, namely the fraggles Yeah,

435
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:37,200
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about that and why this is really

436
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:41,440
Speaker 1: important and there are parallels in ecology with that. But yeah,

437
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 1: the deusers are absolutely dedicated to their work and nothing

438
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:48,080
Speaker 1: but their work, and they're not about the individual, they

439
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:52,199
Speaker 1: are about the community. But then you have something called ditzes.

440
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 1: There are tiny little creatures that give off light. They

441
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 1: are bioluminescent. Yeah, they're kind of kind of like fairies

442
00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:02,800
Speaker 1: almost to just float around lighting up this cave environment.

443
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:05,840
Speaker 1: And that's and that's also crucial. We'll discuss that. So

444
00:26:05,880 --> 00:26:08,880
Speaker 1: these are the three main species. Now, just to run

445
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:11,160
Speaker 1: through them real quick, Well, this is we could almost

446
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:13,600
Speaker 1: think this is a game show. Um trogo phon a

447
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:16,159
Speaker 1: game show. Uh, I'm gonna name each one and you

448
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:18,720
Speaker 1: tell me if you think that this creature would be

449
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 1: a trogo trocolateazine, a trocolo file, or a chocolate bite

450
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:28,439
Speaker 1: fraggle fraggle. I think would be a troglo bite. No,

451
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,480
Speaker 1: excuse me, trogolo file because they obviously they go outside

452
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 1: to forage for radishes. Yes, yeah, I would say they

453
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:36,960
Speaker 1: would be a trago file or you could almost make

454
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,440
Speaker 1: the argument of their trogolo they're trogo zines since they

455
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:42,400
Speaker 1: have to go out to get those radishes. Well, yeah,

456
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 1: I guess you could. But but then that brings up

457
00:26:44,280 --> 00:26:46,639
Speaker 1: the question if the radish Well, that's a question they

458
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 1: end up answering. Right, if the radishes on the surface

459
00:26:48,840 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 1: are not available, then there are disastrous Now how about

460
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:59,200
Speaker 1: the how about the users, the dousers I'm a little

461
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 1: sketchier on because they also are dependent on the radishes.

462
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 1: But that's just their their industry, right, not necessarily the

463
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 1: basis of their diet. But if they're they're so tied

464
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 1: to their work that they would they would die and

465
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: they actually there's even one instance where they might have

466
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: to relocate. So I'm going to say they're trogle zine

467
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 1: as well. I mean, you could make the argument that,

468
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:25,200
Speaker 1: I mean, do they bring the radishes down. I'm under

469
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:28,640
Speaker 1: the working assumption here that the fraggles bring the radishes

470
00:27:28,680 --> 00:27:32,960
Speaker 1: down and then the users use that radish material. So

471
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:35,760
Speaker 1: if they're not, actually, if they're dependent upon another organism

472
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:40,000
Speaker 1: that is a troglo file or Trocola zine, they could

473
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 1: potentially themselves be trocolo bytes. I don't know, I feel

474
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 1: like I feel like this is this is up for debate,

475
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 1: but this is a game our listeners can play as

476
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:55,000
Speaker 1: well vote on the user issue. Uh troco zine, trocol file,

477
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: trocolo bite. Uh. Likewise, the Dizzies are a little hard

478
00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: to nail down as well, but they they seem a

479
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 1: little more on the trogolo bytes scale. I would say

480
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:05,400
Speaker 1: the truggle byte because they seem to have their counterparts

481
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:08,399
Speaker 1: and glow worms, which we know exists in caves in

482
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:11,600
Speaker 1: New Zealand and Australian and they also give off light,

483
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 1: so uh, there's a possibility that they could be true

484
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:17,600
Speaker 1: trocole bytes. So why are we talking about all these guys, Well,

485
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:21,640
Speaker 1: because of course they are exhibiting something called mutualism, which

486
00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:26,159
Speaker 1: is really important in ecosystems. Yes, um, in this in

487
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:28,280
Speaker 1: this instance, we've touched a little of this already. But

488
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 1: the fraggle eats a host of pilfer vegetables, the radishes

489
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: key among these. They forge this from the surface, they

490
00:28:35,040 --> 00:28:36,959
Speaker 1: bring it home where it plays a pivotal role in

491
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 1: the in their ecology and the overall ecology of Fraggle Rock.

492
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:44,479
Speaker 1: So again, it basically goes down like this, Fraggles eat

493
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: the radishes. Users uh themselves seem to eat some sort

494
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 1: of custard based food pellet perhaps uh, perhaps something they

495
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:54,320
Speaker 1: get from a fungus. I don't know, we never really

496
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,040
Speaker 1: there are a lot of questions about that. But they

497
00:28:57,120 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 1: use the radishes and they're building materials and and fraggles

498
00:29:00,720 --> 00:29:04,800
Speaker 1: in turn eat the douzer building constructions. There will walk

499
00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:06,520
Speaker 1: through and they'll destroy part of it, kind of like

500
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: Godzilla's and uh and and Munchett down because it's edible.

501
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: And in doing this, they're kind of rolling, they're kind

502
00:29:12,840 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: of playing the role of the decomposer because they're instead

503
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:19,920
Speaker 1: of like an insect may eat dead animal parts, you know,

504
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: just that keeps dead animals and from piling up all

505
00:29:22,800 --> 00:29:25,920
Speaker 1: around us breaking down those materials. Uh. The fraggle is

506
00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: breaking down the douser materials, which in turn makes room

507
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: for more douzer construction. And we actually see what happens

508
00:29:33,800 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: when the Fraggles stopped eating the these uh crazy constructions

509
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 1: by the deusers. And in fact, his episode one or six,

510
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 1: and it is called the Preachification of Convincing John. This

511
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 1: is the one that Jonathan Strickland was telling us, this

512
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:52,080
Speaker 1: is the one you gotta watch it. It's not the

513
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: one that made him cry as a child that's a

514
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:56,360
Speaker 1: different one, which one made him cry. Oh, I can't mean.

515
00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 1: There's some sort of circumstance where there are a couple

516
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 1: of the Fraggles were stuck in the case and they

517
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 1: thought they were going to die. He said that it

518
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: was interesting because they were so explicit in there about

519
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 1: like the actual they might die, which was a concept

520
00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 1: you know as a child that you're trying to figure

521
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:14,120
Speaker 1: out and the actual threat of it um being experienced.

522
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:20,280
Speaker 1: But anyway back to the pretification of convincing John. Convincing

523
00:30:20,360 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 1: John is one of the fraggles, and he has a

524
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 1: lot of influence over the other fraggles, and so Mochi

525
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: is one of the fraggles, and she decides, you know what,

526
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 1: the decers they love building so much, and in these

527
00:30:32,160 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: are such intricate structures that they're building. We just come

528
00:30:35,080 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 1: along and chomped them. Perhaps we should respect their building,

529
00:30:37,840 --> 00:30:40,360
Speaker 1: and so she gets already stop eating them. What happens

530
00:30:41,560 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 1: absolute chaos, Absolute chaos. I mean you see like construction

531
00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 1: of these Radish temples everywhere, and in fact there's so

532
00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: much so that they're taking up space that everybody actually

533
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 1: occupies in their regular day to day lives and uh,

534
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 1: and then the dealers think, well, let's get out of here,

535
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:02,120
Speaker 1: because these guys aren't eating it, we have no space

536
00:31:02,160 --> 00:31:05,480
Speaker 1: to build anymore. Sohow so they actually start planning to

537
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,920
Speaker 1: launch out of there and explore new regions of the cave. Yeah,

538
00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 1: it's and it's really sad. I think, like there's even

539
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: the seam between the user baby and her mom, and

540
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: the baby's going, why do we have to leave just

541
00:31:17,440 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 1: like because things just happen like this, life is hard

542
00:31:21,080 --> 00:31:24,040
Speaker 1: or something like that. And then of course we have

543
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 1: the ditseease that again are producing light for the in

544
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 1: the cave, and in turn they depend on the sound

545
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 1: of fraggles in order to survive. Now that's relationships. It's

546
00:31:34,640 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 1: a little harder to line up with anything in the

547
00:31:36,600 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 1: natural world. Um, but I'm also not discounting the possibility

548
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 1: that maybe it's a little more complex than that. I

549
00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:46,000
Speaker 1: don't know, Um, maybe they somehow us the sound of

550
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: the fraggles vibrations, vibrations to know where they are, or

551
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:53,719
Speaker 1: it vibrates organism. I think it's somehow contributes to their

552
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:58,080
Speaker 1: ability to be bioluminescent organisms, and that's somehow that spark

553
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 1: of energy is needed by the vibrations from sound. And

554
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 1: what happens if the did s lights go out, Well,

555
00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:09,080
Speaker 1: they just they go comatose. Really, yeah, fraggles go comatose.

556
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 1: Other forms of life in the cave become commatose. So

557
00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:16,360
Speaker 1: light in Fraggle Rock is not nearly a nice bonus, uh,

558
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:18,400
Speaker 1: and something that allows us to see the characters on

559
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 1: the TV show. It is an essential part of their ecology.

560
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:24,760
Speaker 1: So you see, if one part of this triangle is effect,

561
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 1: it ends up affecting all of them. And that's again

562
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 1: part and partial to the ecological message and the global

563
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:34,080
Speaker 1: community message of Fraggle Rock. Yeah, and we don't know

564
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: if glow worms were to cease glowing, if they would

565
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 1: really seriously affect other species ability to live in the

566
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:43,800
Speaker 1: caves that they dwell in. But we do know, as

567
00:32:43,840 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: you say, all of that is very fragile, and all

568
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 1: of it works in tandem. Yeah. I mean we see

569
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:51,880
Speaker 1: many examples of this, But one example I grew up

570
00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 1: with was, you know, growing up in a sort of

571
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:56,200
Speaker 1: a rural Tennessee environment or a lot of people are

572
00:32:56,240 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 1: hunting deer and then having to ask them a questionable

573
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 1: why are they shooting? Year? What if they stopped shooting deer.

574
00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:03,720
Speaker 1: And then someone explains, well, if they stopped shooting the deer,

575
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 1: then there are too many deer. Why would that be, Well,

576
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 1: that's because there's nothing there are no natural predators around

577
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:10,720
Speaker 1: to eat the deer anymore. Why are they gone as well?

578
00:33:10,960 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 1: Because we messed that up as well. And you get

579
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 1: into these uh you know all of these uh, these

580
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 1: butterfly effects in our in our environment where we change

581
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 1: one little thing or one big thing, and the ramifications

582
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 1: can be pretty intense. Well, I mean the honeybees or

583
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: an excellent example of this, the pesticides we now know

584
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: are responsible for the collapse of the honeybee colonies. And

585
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,720
Speaker 1: so so again we see this interesting fragile system of

586
00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:40,680
Speaker 1: mutualism here. Now in the natural world, we see plenty

587
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: of symbiotic relationships in caves. But but as for mutualism itself,

588
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:46,720
Speaker 1: you have to kind of go to a to a

589
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:49,000
Speaker 1: much smaller scale in the caves to really see this

590
00:33:49,120 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 1: going on. Um, given the given the rarity of resources

591
00:33:54,640 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 1: in a cave of environment, there's an overwhelming sense of

592
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:01,720
Speaker 1: selfish competition among ca fauna, as discussed in the article

593
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: What's Up down There? Microbial Diversity in Caves by Hazel

594
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 1: Aid Barton and Valm Gerado, published in a two thousand

595
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 1: and seven edition of micro Magazine. Quote. Because limited but

596
00:34:12,960 --> 00:34:16,799
Speaker 1: chemically complex nutrients enter the cave system, very few microbial

597
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:20,719
Speaker 1: species are capable of encoding all the necessary uptake and

598
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 1: catabolic reactions to support growth. To overcome this limitation, selfish

599
00:34:24,960 --> 00:34:29,839
Speaker 1: competition for resources is replaced by cooperative and mutualistic associations

600
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:33,359
Speaker 1: such as have been seen in biofilm communities. End quote.

601
00:34:33,400 --> 00:34:37,439
Speaker 1: So there's just a um, a little insight into into

602
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 1: the reality of mutualism in caves. It even though this

603
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 1: is a very resource sparse environment and there is a

604
00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:47,759
Speaker 1: lot of intense competition and lots of lots of appendages

605
00:34:47,800 --> 00:34:50,279
Speaker 1: that may grab you and push you towards some sort

606
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:55,440
Speaker 1: of translucent mouth there, there still is something some mutualism

607
00:34:55,520 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 1: to be found. But let's talk about some of these

608
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: appendages because that's kind of fun. Ah, yes, predators. Well, um,

609
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:04,800
Speaker 1: you know it's should should come as no surprise to

610
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:08,200
Speaker 1: any casual fraggle observer or or even someone who's never

611
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:10,760
Speaker 1: seen the show. Since we just mentioned how an episode

612
00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:12,680
Speaker 1: dealt with death, that there would be an episode that

613
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:16,840
Speaker 1: also deals with predation, at least to some degree, and

614
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: there is indeeded an episode where we learn about the

615
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 1: glob an amieble like creature which apparently praise on dousers,

616
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,399
Speaker 1: but it's apparently a pretty rare creature. Um. It's only

617
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 1: really mentioned this once. A lot of the users don't

618
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:31,799
Speaker 1: seem to know about it. So this suggests that it

619
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:36,240
Speaker 1: might reside outside the cave and simply venture inside to hunt,

620
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:39,839
Speaker 1: which is reminiscent of a certain real life organisms such

621
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,720
Speaker 1: as skunks, which if you've ever watched UM I believe

622
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:46,759
Speaker 1: it was the Life of Mammals from David Attenborough. There's

623
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 1: a whole scene where they show this this cave the

624
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:51,719
Speaker 1: cave environment, and you have, of course a colony of

625
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 1: bats and baby bats will sometimes fall down and they

626
00:35:56,640 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 1: have they have a chance to make it back up,

627
00:35:58,600 --> 00:35:59,800
Speaker 1: but they have to make it all the way across

628
00:35:59,800 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 1: the floor and then back up the wall and u

629
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:06,279
Speaker 1: during that time on the floor they make a very

630
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:09,920
Speaker 1: tempting snack, so tempting that you have skunks that are

631
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:14,239
Speaker 1: venturing in from the surface world in order to to

632
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:18,080
Speaker 1: pot them to to sort of paw them out, slap

633
00:36:18,080 --> 00:36:20,000
Speaker 1: them around and then eat them. Yeah, I mean skunks

634
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:21,400
Speaker 1: don't know. They're probably like I'm gonna go to the

635
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 1: baby bat store. Now. They go into a cave and

636
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:27,839
Speaker 1: have any fallen yep, okay, nice snack, thank you. You

637
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:32,040
Speaker 1: also have something called the giant centipede, and this will

638
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:34,839
Speaker 1: hide out on the underside of a rock and then

639
00:36:34,920 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 1: attack bats and they use their oversized legs to overpower

640
00:36:39,360 --> 00:36:44,799
Speaker 1: their prey. Yes, uh, Scalopendra gigantine. Just to drive this home,

641
00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:47,759
Speaker 1: this is a centipede that can overpower a bat, that

642
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 1: praise praise on mammals, which which just kind of strikes

643
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 1: a very uncomfortable cord with me, because it feels like

644
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:58,920
Speaker 1: some sort of natural order has been perverted here. Centipedes

645
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: should not be praying on mammals. Those those should be

646
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:05,359
Speaker 1: off the menu for you, invertebrates, unless it's unless you're

647
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 1: decomposing something. I think it also underscores how much the

648
00:37:09,600 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 1: centipede has adapted to that environment to have limbs that

649
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: long enough and that's strong enough to pin down a bat.

650
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 1: And if you want to learn more about that particular synapede,

651
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: there's a two thousand five study predation by giant centipedes

652
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 1: Scolopendro gigante on three species of bats in a Venezuelan cave. Uh.

653
00:37:28,280 --> 00:37:30,800
Speaker 1: Put out those connected by the University of Puerto Rico.

654
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: It's a pretty interesting read with some very terrifying images

655
00:37:34,760 --> 00:37:37,640
Speaker 1: of cinipedes latch to the ceiling of the cave and

656
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:41,800
Speaker 1: kind of arching their back and grabbing at Dat's Yeah,

657
00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:43,840
Speaker 1: you know, I found myself. Is that the one that

658
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 1: has a slide show? Yes, yeah, I found myself sketching

659
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:48,359
Speaker 1: a lot of those because you were so much fun.

660
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:51,239
Speaker 1: For the most part. However, with in Fraggle Rock, we uh,

661
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:55,080
Speaker 1: we don't see a lot of predators, we don't. We

662
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:57,560
Speaker 1: We hear about various creatures that may or may not

663
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:01,399
Speaker 1: pose a danger to Fraggles, but they seem to live

664
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:04,399
Speaker 1: a pretty comfortable life for the most part. And there

665
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:06,279
Speaker 1: and they're you know, certainly they're able to fret about

666
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:10,439
Speaker 1: things that are that are a little less of substantial

667
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 1: given their their comfort zone. Yeah, they don't have a

668
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,920
Speaker 1: lot of experience outside of their own environments, so they

669
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:19,399
Speaker 1: kind of have to rely on different information to get through.

670
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 1: And that's where Uncle Matt comes into it, because he

671
00:38:22,080 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: enters the human world, which is called average space, and

672
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:28,799
Speaker 1: he sends that postcards about what these crazy humans are doing,

673
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 1: like the fact that theraps these hard hatted people building things,

674
00:38:33,120 --> 00:38:37,520
Speaker 1: but their buildings taste awful. They do, They really do

675
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 1: taste awful compared to the wonderful radish. You know, I

676
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 1: remember watching the show as a kid and kind of

677
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:47,160
Speaker 1: trying to imagine what the Douzer materials tasted like, And

678
00:38:47,960 --> 00:38:50,239
Speaker 1: now I can sort of imagine that, kind of like

679
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: kind of a sugary radish, that's what I think kind

680
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:55,920
Speaker 1: of taste. Yeah, yeah, But although they're kind of crystalline

681
00:38:55,960 --> 00:39:00,480
Speaker 1: looking like it's almost radish sugar that they've had, which

682
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:03,600
Speaker 1: is why they would be so delicious. They would have

683
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:06,920
Speaker 1: to be a super normal stimuli. All right. So there

684
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:12,200
Speaker 1: you have it, Fraggles, fraggle Rock, dousers, ditsis, the globe,

685
00:39:13,520 --> 00:39:16,239
Speaker 1: giant centipede, the whole nine yards. That's right, life in

686
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 1: a cave and what it might be like from a

687
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 1: true frigal rock experience perspective. Yes, now we know that

688
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 1: we have listeners out there who have um a lot

689
00:39:26,600 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: more hardcore experience with the Fraggles, who can who have

690
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 1: seen all the episodes and have gone back again and

691
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:35,960
Speaker 1: again to feed the nostalgia. Uh. And I know that

692
00:39:36,040 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 1: you guys and gals probably have some additional information you

693
00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:42,320
Speaker 1: would like to bring to the table regarding fraggles and

694
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 1: how they might get into our natural world. Likewise, if

695
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:48,240
Speaker 1: you have some tidbits about about cave college and cave biology,

696
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:50,800
Speaker 1: we would like to share with us, be it grounded

697
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:53,520
Speaker 1: in the real world or the world of fiction. Uh,

698
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 1: you can certainly get in touch with us, and we

699
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:58,400
Speaker 1: love to discuss that with you. Yeah, let us know

700
00:39:58,440 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 1: about your your thoughts on the fraggle verse, all right,

701
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:04,239
Speaker 1: So if you want to do that, you want to

702
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, reach out to us. You'll

703
00:40:06,040 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: find us at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

704
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:10,319
Speaker 1: That is the mothership. That's where you will find all

705
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:13,439
Speaker 1: of our podcast episodes are blog post our videos links

706
00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:17,920
Speaker 1: out to our various social media accounts, which include Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, YouTube,

707
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 1: where we are mind stuff show, um and uh what

708
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:22,600
Speaker 1: Google Plus, who knows what? Else? Who knows what the

709
00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:24,239
Speaker 1: future will bring? Yeah, and if you'd like to get

710
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:25,919
Speaker 1: in touch with us, you can do so by sending

711
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:27,960
Speaker 1: us an email at blow the Mind at how stuff

712
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:34,279
Speaker 1: works dot com for more on this and thousands of

713
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:42,720
Speaker 1: other topics. Does it, how stuff works, dot com