Speaker 1: Welcome to brain stuff from how stuff works, Hey, brain stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb here textured like scrumptious tempora and a
Speaker 1: little over half an inch wide, that's about two centimeters.
Speaker 1: The Libya boxer crab would seem rather ill suited for survival,
Speaker 1: and that's why they wheeled a pair of sea anonomy cudgels.
Speaker 1: But where do they snag these fancy bio weapons? A
Speaker 1: bar Alon University graduate students Israel Schneitzer, Yaniv Gamon and
Speaker 1: two other colleagues had the same question and investigated the
Speaker 1: matter for a study published in the journal Pierre j.
Speaker 1: The researchers collected boxer crabs from the south shore of
Speaker 1: the Red Sea in Elot, Israel, and identified the weaponized
Speaker 1: an enemies as belonging to the genus Alicia, likely a
Speaker 1: newly recorded species. But when they looked around for wild
Speaker 1: examples of the Alicia sea an enemy, nothing turned up.
Speaker 1: If unclaimed weapons are scarce, then how's a boxer crab
Speaker 1: supposed to arm up? Theft? Of course, just as an
Speaker 1: unarmed Bruce Lee might swipe a pair of nun chucks
Speaker 1: from an adversary, so two does an unarmed boxer crab
Speaker 1: wrestle an antemy away from one of its fellow tool users, and,
Speaker 1: as one of my house to Fork's colleagues would say,
Speaker 1: here's where it gets crazy. As the researchers discovered in
Speaker 1: a pair of experiments, a one weaponed boxer crab will
Speaker 1: split its remaining an enemy into two fragments. The resulting
Speaker 1: fragments then regenerate over the course of several days into
Speaker 1: two distinct antemy clones. Let's see, Bruce Lee do that.
Speaker 1: Schneitzer in Gamen are no strangers to the mystery of
Speaker 1: crab boxing. They previously worked on a study published in
Speaker 1: the Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, which revealed
Speaker 1: the boxer crabs bonsai like treatment of their claw clutched bioweapons.
Speaker 1: They use them to catch food and defend themselves, but
Speaker 1: they also starve the an enemies enough to regulate their size.
Speaker 1: The researcher's current study reveals that the crabs manipulation goes
Speaker 1: beyond symbiote tool use. Molecular finger printing of the anenomy
Speaker 1: pairs taken from wild crabs revealed more identical clone weapons,
Speaker 1: suggesting that the practice is widespread. Given the apparent absence
Speaker 1: of wild Alicia an enemies and the boxer crabs talent
Speaker 1: for inducing clonal reproduction were left with a tantalizing question.
Speaker 1: Are there any free living Alicia left or does the
Speaker 1: species continue as a purely cultivated weapons species. The situation
Speaker 1: would not be unlike the domesticated fungi of leaf cutter ants.
Speaker 1: Schneitzer said that the cultivation explanation is possible. The Alicia
Speaker 1: se an enemy could now be extinct in the wild
Speaker 1: or might live elsewhere a remote species brought into the
Speaker 1: a lot area by a founding father crab, Schneitzer said
Speaker 1: via email. Bottom line, my guess is they exist, but
Speaker 1: are probably very rare. Regardless, the researchers findings provide us
Speaker 1: with a seemingly unique example of one animal inducing the
Speaker 1: asexual reproduction of another and for tool use. Humans may
Speaker 1: claim the honors to bioweapons premise you for the moment,
Speaker 1: but the boxer crabs are ready to claim the prize
Speaker 1: should we wipe ourselves out with a mishandled plague virus
Speaker 1: or two. Today's episode was written by Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots
Speaker 1: of other completely unique topics, visit our home planet, how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com