Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show, it's a quick little listener's
Speaker 1: Questions episode. Now, do not worry. I have a bunch
Speaker 1: of really cool guests lined up that I am scheduling.
Speaker 1: So it is happening, folks, and I'm super excited. But today, yes,
Speaker 1: a little listener questions episode. You guys wrote to me
Speaker 1: some pretty amazing questions and I would like to answer them.
Speaker 1: So let's take a moment to dive into a think
Speaker 1: hoole and answer some questions. Hi, Katie, I was recently
Speaker 1: re listening to the lemon and grapefruit episodes of Secretly
Speaker 1: Incredibly Fascinating, and in those episodes, Alex springs up that
Speaker 1: citrus can cross breed and mutate easily with each other.
Speaker 1: I would like to know if there are any other
Speaker 1: genuses of organisms that can cross breed and mutate as
Speaker 1: well or better than citrus. Also, are there any specific
Speaker 1: genes or structures in organisms that facilitate mutations? Overall? I
Speaker 1: was thinking and wondering if an organism's ability to more
Speaker 1: easily mutate would be an evolutionary advantage. Thank you for
Speaker 1: the great podcast, Daniel. Thank you so much, Daniel. This
Speaker 1: is really a fantastic question. Also, thanks for the secretly
Speaker 1: incredibly fascinating shout out. That is a show that I
Speaker 1: do with Alex Schmidt where he teaches me about wild
Speaker 1: stuff every week. So let's tackle this question one part
Speaker 1: at a time. So can animals cross breed and facilitate evolution?
Speaker 1: So can there be a hybrid animal that progresses evolution? Yes,
Speaker 1: this can happen as long as the animals are closely related.
Speaker 1: So this is called hybrid speciation when you have two
Speaker 1: different species who create a hybrid, and then that hybrid
Speaker 1: goes on to propagate and create its own species. So
Speaker 1: in plants it is far more common than in animals,
Speaker 1: likely because hybridization is less likely to make them infertile.
Speaker 1: You also have more rapid reproductive cycles in a lot
Speaker 1: of plants. In animals, the reason hybridization often causes the
Speaker 1: offspring to be sterile is when the number of chromosomes
Speaker 1: don't line up. Say one animal has twenty chromosomes and
Speaker 1: the other has twenty one, and then when you add
Speaker 1: those together, the hybrid is going to have an uneven
Speaker 1: number of chromosomes, say forty one, and when it tries
Speaker 1: to split that in half and create its own gameats,
Speaker 1: this odd number of chromosomes means that it doesn't have
Speaker 1: pairs that can recombine properly, like not missing the other
Speaker 1: half of a zipper, so that when it goes through
Speaker 1: myosis in the creation of its gam meats, it can't
Speaker 1: create viable gameats even though it was able to be
Speaker 1: created by its parents. Sometimes hybrids can be created have
Speaker 1: an even number of chromosomes because the two species ended
Speaker 1: up having matching sets of chromosomes the matching numbers, and
Speaker 1: then they can reproduce and then so this hybrid, which
Speaker 1: is viable and not sterile, could become a new species.
Speaker 1: Doesn't always, so this is the case for Koi wolves.
Speaker 1: So coyotes hybridized with red wolves, who are becoming very
Speaker 1: quickly more common in eastern North America, potentially displacing red wolves,
Speaker 1: and so this could be a case of hybrid speciation.
Speaker 1: But in order to become a new species, the hybrid
Speaker 1: has a pretty difficult task. It has to both be
Speaker 1: fertile and more fit in order to become its own
Speaker 1: viable species, particularly one that takes over the evolutionary niche
Speaker 1: left thereby its predecessors. So, in terms of what kinds
Speaker 1: of animals are really good at creating hybrid speciation, insects
Speaker 1: seem to be the best at it in terms of
Speaker 1: creating new hybrid species that then becomes their own species.
Speaker 1: So this is probably due to just the sheer quantity
Speaker 1: and diversity of insects, making viable and successful combinations much
Speaker 1: more likely. So one example is fruitflies. Fruitflies are a
Speaker 1: family that seems to hybridize and specie pretty well. So
Speaker 1: onto the next part of your question, So are there
Speaker 1: specific genes or structures in organisms that facilitate mutations? And
Speaker 1: would an organism's ability to more easily mutate be an
Speaker 1: evolutionary advantage? So let's talk about the second part of
Speaker 1: the question. First, is more easily mutating a good thing
Speaker 1: for a species because it makes you more likely to
Speaker 1: evolve faster. So mutation is a bit like genetic gambling
Speaker 1: or maybe an investment portfolio, where there's, you know, the
Speaker 1: bigger the risk, perhaps the bigger the reward, but also
Speaker 1: the bigger the downfall that you might have. So most
Speaker 1: mutations that occur are actually either neutral or actively harmful
Speaker 1: to an animal. Only rarely is a mutation actually beneficial.
Speaker 1: So the more dramatic the mutation, say a mutation that
Speaker 1: makes you just not have a head right, the more
Speaker 1: dramatic the problem. So if you're if you have a mutation,
Speaker 1: like there's a very low chance that it's going to
Speaker 1: be helpful, there's some chance that it's going to be neutral,
Speaker 1: and it could get passed on, and then there's a
Speaker 1: pretty good chance that that mutation is actually going to
Speaker 1: negatively impact your survival. So it's very very rare that
Speaker 1: like a dramatic mutation would be beneficial and then lead
Speaker 1: to a sudden jump in evolution. It can happen, but
Speaker 1: it's very very rare. So if you're an animal, do
Speaker 1: you want there to be a higher chance of genetic errors?
Speaker 1: And I would say probably not. So, in addition to
Speaker 1: many mutations being harmful to offspring, greater risks for genetic
Speaker 1: errors would potentially increase the risk of cancer because cancer
Speaker 1: is a result of genetic mishaps genetic errors that causes
Speaker 1: the cells to reproduce uncontrollably and not go through cell death,
Speaker 1: which is called apoptosis, So having a genetic error that
Speaker 1: creates these like bad immortal cells is not good. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, it would not necessarily be advantageous to have
Speaker 1: a greater rate of mutations in order to facilitate evolution.
Speaker 1: You want some chance of mutation without it being too
Speaker 1: much of a risk, like having a you know, kind
Speaker 1: of diversified investment portfolio instead of something that's very very
Speaker 1: you know, wild and chaotic and volatile. I don't actually
Speaker 1: know much about investment. I can't give you advice, probably
Speaker 1: both legally and also just I'm not good at it,
Speaker 1: so don't listen to me. So there are some ways
Speaker 1: to increase your chance of positive genetic mutations. One is
Speaker 1: a greater genetic library. So the more genes and the
Speaker 1: more diverse genes that a species has had, the more
Speaker 1: it has to kind of randomly pull upon in response
Speaker 1: to environmental pressures, and more stuff to kind of play with,
Speaker 1: like more legos in a giant bin that could be
Speaker 1: used to create new mutations or new characteristics. So like
Speaker 1: kind of think of your genetic code as an archive
Speaker 1: full of like blueprints, only some of which are actually
Speaker 1: used and copied over to build things. Actually a lot
Speaker 1: of it is not generally used. But say like there's
Speaker 1: like an earthquake or something and a blueprint falls next
Speaker 1: to another blueprint and changes the design. The more blueprints
Speaker 1: you have, the more chances you have to find something
Speaker 1: that might actually address a certain issue. Like, say an
Speaker 1: earthquake happened, all your bridges got damaged, and this blueprint
Speaker 1: that kind of fell off the shelves next to this
Speaker 1: other one gives you an idea for more flexible bridge,
Speaker 1: which maybe it's a little weaker, but in this situation,
Speaker 1: in this type of environment, with a lot of earthquakes,
Speaker 1: having the more flexible bridge is actually better. So so
Speaker 1: for an animal, what this means, right, is if you
Speaker 1: have a large sort of genome, a large genetic lot
Speaker 1: of genetic diversity, a big genetic library, and then also
Speaker 1: other members of your species who have their own sort
Speaker 1: of large genetic library, there's a good chance that, say
Speaker 1: there's an environmental pressure, right, some change in your environment,
Speaker 1: maybe a disease or a new predator, there's a greater
Speaker 1: chance that you're going to randomly Again, none of this
Speaker 1: can be planned, right, It's all a random mutation that
Speaker 1: happens to be able to address some environmental pressure. Even
Speaker 1: though most mutations are either neutral or bad, once in
Speaker 1: a while you might happen upon a mutation that's actually good.
Speaker 1: And it's those rare cases that advanced evolution. And that's
Speaker 1: why evolution is so so so slow. Millions and millions
Speaker 1: of years to get to where we are at the
Speaker 1: very least, you know, like like a thousand years on
Speaker 1: the evolutionary timescale is very short, so hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of years. It might take like hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: years to address a certain evolutionary problem, right, So it's
Speaker 1: very very very slow. It's hard to have really rapid evolution.
Speaker 1: It can happen, like there are cases in which animals
Speaker 1: adapt to situations quite quickly, it's just that's not super common, right,
Speaker 1: Especially the more dramatic the change has to be, the
Speaker 1: less likely it is to be happening really rapid, because
Speaker 1: the more dramatic the change, the more likely it's going
Speaker 1: to mess up that organism in a way it can't survive.
Speaker 1: So like, hey, if there's a lot of flooding around us,
Speaker 1: why can't we evolve gills in a few generations, Well,
Speaker 1: you mess with our ability to breathe. The most likely
Speaker 1: outcome is our offspring is just gonna die and not
Speaker 1: be able to function. So going from something really dramatic
Speaker 1: whereas like say having more of a say more say
Speaker 1: the sun gets really bright, right, and then we end
Speaker 1: up having more brown eyed people because they end up
Speaker 1: being a lot more well suited to a lot of
Speaker 1: harsh light or something. This is just an example. I
Speaker 1: have nothing against blue eyed people. I have blue eyes myself,
Speaker 1: but in that case, perhaps brown eyes might become more common,
Speaker 1: right Like if somehow having really in a situation. Now
Speaker 1: we live in a society right where we have sunglasses,
Speaker 1: so this would not happen. I want to be clear,
Speaker 1: but say, you know, we're an antle that really relies
Speaker 1: on our site, and then say, if you have blue eyes,
Speaker 1: you're a lot more sensitive to light. Then maybe blue
Speaker 1: eyes might start to phase out a little bit more quickly,
Speaker 1: right because eye color is something is a trait that
Speaker 1: could say mutate or change really quickly without it being
Speaker 1: devastating to the whole body. Right Like, like certain there's
Speaker 1: certain sort of more superficial or minor changes to the
Speaker 1: body that could be could happen more rapidly, like hair loss, right,
Speaker 1: hair gain, or hair loss that's not necessarily going to
Speaker 1: doom an animal. Right, So you might have changes in coat,
Speaker 1: changes in coat color changes, you know, slight changes in size,
Speaker 1: things like that can happen much more quickly over an
Speaker 1: evolutionary timeline than say, whether you have lungs or gills,
Speaker 1: whether you have legs or tentacles. Right. So, yeah, so
Speaker 1: evolution just happens really really slow because mutations are definitely
Speaker 1: not something you typically want. You typically don't want a
Speaker 1: mutation typically that would be bad news or at the
Speaker 1: very least neutral. It's super super rare for there to
Speaker 1: be a mutation that's actually beneficial, that's actually going to
Speaker 1: make the offspring more viable than its parents. But it
Speaker 1: does happen, and that's the whole reason that evolution works.
Speaker 1: So that's why it's really slow. Now onto the next
Speaker 1: part of the question. Are there certain genes and structures
Speaker 1: more prone to mutations? Absolutely, there's structures and genes more
Speaker 1: prone to mutations, both in bad ways and potentially very
Speaker 1: rarely in good ways. So these are genetic hotspots that
Speaker 1: are more prone to mutation. Usually well, especially this happens
Speaker 1: in DNA strands with many repeating sequences which can cause
Speaker 1: that little enzyme that runs along your DNA to copy
Speaker 1: it called a polymerase, to kind of like when it
Speaker 1: like decouples from the DNA and then reattaches and it
Speaker 1: can actually sort of like lose its spot more easily
Speaker 1: if you have repetitions of certain sequences. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like if you're trying to memorize a really long
Speaker 1: sequence of numbers or letters, say, like you know, you're
Speaker 1: memorizing a pin or a telephone number, and then like
Speaker 1: there's like a bunch of fives, and it's like, I
Speaker 1: can't remember how many fives there were? Were there four
Speaker 1: fives or five fives? That's sort of not on an
Speaker 1: intellectual level, right, a polimeraise can't think. But on a
Speaker 1: physical level, the reattachment is more likely to happen erroneously
Speaker 1: in slip when you have repeating sequences, So this is
Speaker 1: more likely to result in a mutation. This is actually
Speaker 1: something that could be you know, like in terms of practicality, right,
Speaker 1: like you may have DNA hotspots that are prone to mutation,
Speaker 1: and that can be a bad thing, like be more
Speaker 1: likely to result in say certain types of cancers. But
Speaker 1: you know you also have say like if you have
Speaker 1: cells that are certain characteristics of somatic cells, that means
Speaker 1: like cells that are not involved in creating offspring. Somatic
Speaker 1: cells in generally are more likely to mutate, right, because
Speaker 1: they only affect really that cell and then that cells offspring.
Speaker 1: It doesn't affect an entire like new organism and new offspring.
Speaker 1: So like you know, skin cells or muscle cells, right,
Speaker 1: are much more likely to have some kind of like
Speaker 1: mutation than germline cells. So germline cells meaning cells involved
Speaker 1: in creating gam meets, and those gam meats are what
Speaker 1: then create offspring, right, sperm and eggs. So it's much
Speaker 1: more likely you have mutations in cells that are happening
Speaker 1: like happening in your body, then you are to have
Speaker 1: mutations that affect your offspring. And in general that's a
Speaker 1: good thing because if you have a mutation of of
Speaker 1: something important for your offspring, most likely that's going to
Speaker 1: result in say like a spontaneous abortion, right, a miscarriage,
Speaker 1: which is very natural, happens very often, and or you know,
Speaker 1: in some some severe cases, right, the offspring has some
Speaker 1: severe issue that makes it harder for it to survive.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's it's a really it's a really
Speaker 1: interesting thing. Evolution has to be really slow. If it
Speaker 1: were too fast, basically, our cells would be mutating at
Speaker 1: such a rate that we would have so many potential problems, cancer,
Speaker 1: debilitating mutations that say, like, you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: the example is like a mutation that like lops your
Speaker 1: whole head off, right, Like you're born without a head.
Speaker 1: You can't really do much. So mutations have to be
Speaker 1: countered counterbalanced by, you know, some some slowness. Otherwise, things
Speaker 1: that mutate too quickly are not going to last very
Speaker 1: long because they're taking too many genetic risks. But like
Speaker 1: I said, you know, having a lot of genetic diversity,
Speaker 1: a huge genetical library is one way that animals can
Speaker 1: instead of going for speed of mutations, going for a
Speaker 1: higher probability of different types of diverse mutations and then
Speaker 1: increasing the chance that one of those mutations might end
Speaker 1: up being something good. All right, on to the next
Speaker 1: listener question. Hi, Katie, our three year old German shepherd Betty.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we'll kick up the grass behind her after going
Speaker 1: to the bathroom, both number one and number two. The
Speaker 1: last time we saw this. My daughters Eleanor and Penelope
Speaker 1: seven and ten almost tune and I try to figure
Speaker 1: out why dogs do this. Their guesses were to either
Speaker 1: spread the smell or conversely cover the smell. I suggested
Speaker 1: maybe it is like doggy toilet paper, kicking up grass
Speaker 1: and leaves and such to knock shake loose any hangers on.
Speaker 1: I further suggested, maybe Betty evolved to have a higher
Speaker 1: likelihood of kicking dirt at me while I bent over
Speaker 1: to pick up her poop. Any actual research on this topic,
Speaker 1: what are your thoughts? Thank you? Patrick? Hi? Patrick, Yes,
Speaker 1: there is actually some research on this topic. It is
Speaker 1: a very common behavior among dogs. My dog does it too,
Speaker 1: which is especially funny when she poops on cobblestone and
Speaker 1: she tries to scratch at that nothing really happens. Also,
Speaker 1: don't worry, I pick up every single dog turn she
Speaker 1: leaves on the cobblestones because I am not a filthy degenerate.
Speaker 1: I very much believe in picking up dog doodoes, to
Speaker 1: the point where my dog probably thinks I'm obsessed with
Speaker 1: collecting her poop. Okay, so you may notice that your
Speaker 1: dog is more likely to do it when another dog
Speaker 1: is around, right like after she's pooped or peed and
Speaker 1: she sees another dog, maybe she's more likely to scratch
Speaker 1: at the ground, or even when you stoop down to
Speaker 1: pick up the poop, that's when your dog suddenly decides
Speaker 1: it's scratch and time, tend to kick up some turf
Speaker 1: and possibly peepee or poopoo in your face. So this
Speaker 1: seems to be an instinctive territory marking response. So rather
Speaker 1: than covering up the smell, which is a very good theory,
Speaker 1: they seem to actually be trying to enhance it. So
Speaker 1: they're likely using scent glands on their paws to make
Speaker 1: some smell markings. There might be visual cues like scratch marks,
Speaker 1: and given that it's more likely to be done actively
Speaker 1: in the presence of other dogs, according to studies, it
Speaker 1: might be a form of visual communication too, so like hey,
Speaker 1: look at me, I'm marking my territory. I'm doing it
Speaker 1: in front of you, just so you know what's going on.
Speaker 1: So my theory is that dogs feel pretty vulnerable when
Speaker 1: they poop and pee, so I suspect that scratching, even
Speaker 1: growling after they use the toilet may be a way
Speaker 1: of defensively marking their territory. But also not just in
Speaker 1: terms of saying like, this is my spot, but a
Speaker 1: warning to other dogs who any dogs that might have
Speaker 1: an idea about messing with them while they're in such
Speaker 1: a vulnerable potty position, just like, hey, I'm alert and
Speaker 1: I'm aware and I see you and back off. This
Speaker 1: is my toilet, like don't mess with me, essentially while
Speaker 1: I'm doing my potties, which I can totally you know,
Speaker 1: but I get it, like when someone's pounding on the
Speaker 1: door when I'm trying to do my potties, I get
Speaker 1: very upset. So an anecdotal example is that my dog
Speaker 1: primarily does the ground scratching behavior after she goes to
Speaker 1: the bathroom when she notices another dog approaching. So I
Speaker 1: think that for her, she's feeling sort of insecure, and
Speaker 1: so it's not necessarily that she really wants this to
Speaker 1: be part of her territory as much as it's saying like, hey,
Speaker 1: I see you there, this is my toilet. Don't bother
Speaker 1: me while I'm doing my potties and don't try to
Speaker 1: take advantage of me when I'm in this vulnerable position
Speaker 1: like I'm on it and I want you to know.
Speaker 1: And other dogs that might pass by here know that like,
Speaker 1: I'm aware, I'm on it, and I'm not going to
Speaker 1: tolerate anyone messing with me when I do my potties.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think that if a dog is feeling
Speaker 1: territorial defensive, insecure, or simply wants to communicate this is
Speaker 1: my toilet, the kicking behavior helps them spread their scent
Speaker 1: and visually communicate that they're not going to tolerate interlopers
Speaker 1: or look at loose. So interestingly, there was a study
Speaker 1: that found that older shelter dogs were more likely to
Speaker 1: do the ground scratching behavior, which does lend a bit
Speaker 1: of credence to my theory that dogs who are more insecure,
Speaker 1: perhaps feeling that they don't have a stable established territory
Speaker 1: or that they're in an area that may be frequented
Speaker 1: by other dogs, that they might be more likely to
Speaker 1: do the ground scratching behavior in general. Now, I don't
Speaker 1: want anyone to like freak out and think, oh, no,
Speaker 1: I have an insecure dog. That's not necessarily what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like this might be more of a general rule, like
Speaker 1: if your dog may have no problems or not be
Speaker 1: insecure at all, they may like have the sort of
Speaker 1: instinct to do it and then just kind of really
Speaker 1: enjoy the feeling of it, like the feeling of scratching,
Speaker 1: the feeling of security of like kind of securing their toilet.
Speaker 1: For instance, my dog really enjoys doing sort of scratching,
Speaker 1: digging and real behavior in her bed and on the
Speaker 1: couch when she's really relaxed, So that is not a
Speaker 1: stress behavior. That's her relaxing and kind of settling and
Speaker 1: sort of like tucking herself in and feeling secure. So
Speaker 1: I don't think it's always a stress response, but for
Speaker 1: a lot of dogs it might be like when they
Speaker 1: are feeling a little vulnerable or a little insecure. It's
Speaker 1: not a problem though, Like it's it's not a problem
Speaker 1: behavior unless for some reason they it seems to really
Speaker 1: stress them out. Like it's very very common, So I
Speaker 1: wouldn't worry about it other than the fact that your
Speaker 1: dog it does seem to be kicking turf into your face,
Speaker 1: which you know is a little disrespectful, but hey, what
Speaker 1: are you gonna do about it? I think that she's
Speaker 1: made her point, which is you should, you know, give
Speaker 1: her maybe some reading materials while she's going to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: My newspaper think about it all right, onto the next
Speaker 1: listener question. Hi Katie. Every day in my seventh grade
Speaker 1: Life Science Clubs clssroom, I highlight some organism. Sometimes they're
Speaker 1: just living things I find cool or interesting. Other times
Speaker 1: the creatures related to the day's topic. Tomorrow we begin
Speaker 1: that middle school rite of passage, the cell model project.
Speaker 1: I remember that tomorrow's creature is going to be the
Speaker 1: Portuguese man o war. I'm highlighting this creature because it
Speaker 1: is a complex colonial organism with several zooids, which are
Speaker 1: multicellular little things that are specialized in work together. But wait,
Speaker 1: doesn't that mean the whole organism is multi cellular? Some
Speaker 1: internet person wrote it is colonial from the morphological, developmental,
Speaker 1: and evolutionary points of view. I have an idea of
Speaker 1: what that means, but don't have time right now to
Speaker 1: research the details of it. This is what made me
Speaker 1: think of you, because that's literally your job as the
Speaker 1: host of my favorite podcast. I would love to hear
Speaker 1: a show about this distinction and other examples of organisms
Speaker 1: that blur the lines between unicellular, colonial and multicellular. As always,
Speaker 1: I love the show and wish you the best. And
Speaker 1: this is from Amanda m Hi Amanda, this is a
Speaker 1: fantastic question, and I love the Portuguese Man of War.
Speaker 1: They are beautiful, They're amazing. They look like aliens, sort
Speaker 1: of like a cross between a jellyfish and a discarded
Speaker 1: shopping bag floating in the ocean. Definitely not something you
Speaker 1: said should touch, given their venomous stingers. And that's a
Speaker 1: great idea for a whole episode to do a show
Speaker 1: about colonial and multicellular organisms. I will probably do that,
Speaker 1: but for now let me answer your questions. So the
Speaker 1: difference between a unicellular and multicellular organism is straightforward, right,
Speaker 1: A single cell like a protozoan versus multiple cells. But
Speaker 1: what is a colonial organism and how does it distinguish
Speaker 1: itself from a multi cellular organism? So why is a
Speaker 1: man of war considered a colonial organism whereas a jellyfish
Speaker 1: is considered multicellular. So technically, a colonial organism is one
Speaker 1: made up of individual organisms that could, in theory, be
Speaker 1: separated from the collective organism and survive. And these are
Speaker 1: called zooids. So a human skin cell can't survive on
Speaker 1: its own, whereas like a zooid such as a part
Speaker 1: of a piece of coral like a coral polyp could
Speaker 1: in theory or in general, survive on its own. The
Speaker 1: reason the man o war is confusing is that it
Speaker 1: has progressed so far into being a colonial organism that
Speaker 1: the individual zooids now act more like little organelles, and
Speaker 1: it couldn't really survive on their own. So the distinction
Speaker 1: between a man of war and a multicellular organism is
Speaker 1: partially semantic, but also it's in terms of how it
Speaker 1: develops and its evolutionary history. So I think the best way,
Speaker 1: perhaps most horrifying way, but the best way to imagine
Speaker 1: it is it's as if a human embryo, like a
Speaker 1: human fetus, cloned itself in utero, differentiated a bunch of
Speaker 1: other fetuses that were good at different jobs, and formed
Speaker 1: a giant monster made out of hundreds of babies, and
Speaker 1: then evolved to the point where all these babies were
Speaker 1: connected by tissue and there were helpless and would die
Speaker 1: on their own if you separated them from the giant,
Speaker 1: horrifying megatron baby. So one could argue that functionally this
Speaker 1: is the same as a multicellular organism, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: on its way to being a multicellular organism, but the
Speaker 1: way it evolved right in the way that it developed,
Speaker 1: right as like basically making a bunch of clones of
Speaker 1: itself and then each like sort of clone organism, differentiating
Speaker 1: sort of starting out as a collection of zoids and
Speaker 1: then becoming more of a cohesive, interdependent organism. The way
Speaker 1: things are classified now, this would be considered a colonial organism.
Speaker 1: But it's a really good question because there is it's
Speaker 1: there's a lot of gray areas in evolutionary biology, and
Speaker 1: this is one of them. At one point, does something
Speaker 1: that's like a colonial organism just become a multicellular organism
Speaker 1: and a lot of it's a lot of it's a
Speaker 1: semantic difference, but it's it's a semantic difference that's based
Speaker 1: on its evolutionary history and the way that it develops, right,
Speaker 1: the reproductive cycle, the way it develops. So that is
Speaker 1: the answer to your question, I hope, and definitely stay
Speaker 1: tuned in the future because I will. It's a great
Speaker 1: idea for an episode to do one on colonial organisms
Speaker 1: and why they're so weird, what's going on with those guys? Well,
Speaker 1: thank you guys again so much for your questions. If
Speaker 1: you have a question, please write to me at Creature
Speaker 1: featurepod at gmail dot com. I do love doing these
Speaker 1: listener questions episodes. Let me know so if you enjoy
Speaker 1: hearing them, if you want me to do less more
Speaker 1: of them, but I am definitely. I have a really
Speaker 1: great lineup of guests coming up on the show, so
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have some fowlength episodes with a guest so
Speaker 1: that I'm not just staring at my dog talking to
Speaker 1: her as I'm podcasting, right, Cookie, Is that better? Yep? Yep,
Speaker 1: She's leaving. She doesn't want me to do this anymore anyways,
Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for listening, and thanks to
Speaker 1: the Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Lumina.
Speaker 1: Creature features a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like
Speaker 1: the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or Hey guess what where you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: I can't judge you, and I'm not your mother, so
Speaker 1: I can't tell you what to do. But don't touch
Speaker 1: a man o war. It's outchi kaboobers. It'll hurt you,
Speaker 1: even though it does look kind of like a pretty
Speaker 1: grocery bag floating in the ocean. See you next Wednesday.
Speaker 1: M