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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 2: name is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with part

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Speaker 3: three in our series on the genus mobula, the manta rays,

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Speaker 3: and the devil rays. In part one of the series,

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Speaker 3: we talked about the original inspiration for covering this topic,

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Speaker 3: which was that Rob you and your family got to

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Speaker 3: see reef manta rays in person while snorkeling in Indonesia

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Speaker 3: this summer, which sounds like an amazing experience.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, it almost is too much to describe, but yeah,

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Speaker 2: we jumped out of the boat. This is after an

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Speaker 2: initial snorkeling in another coral rich area, and then they

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Speaker 2: took us out to a manta ray cleaning station, which

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Speaker 2: we're going to get into in this episode. If you

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Speaker 2: don't know what a cleaning station is, you're about you're

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Speaker 2: going to find out. It is not like a service station.

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Speaker 2: It is not an artificial, human made thing. When I

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Speaker 2: don't remember when this was, but the very first time

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Speaker 2: I heard about cleaning stations in the water for organisms,

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Speaker 2: it made me think, oh, well, they installed a big

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Speaker 2: rotating brush in the water and it draws in the

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Speaker 2: fish because cleaning stations. Again, we'll get into all the

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Speaker 2: details of this. It is a place where if you

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Speaker 2: know where the cleaning stations are, then you as divers

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Speaker 2: or snorkelers can go there and you have an increased

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Speaker 2: chance of seeing the various organisms that make use of it.

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Speaker 3: Unfortunately, I had a much bloodier picture in my mind,

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Speaker 3: but I think fish and cleaning station. I think of

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Speaker 3: like a gutting station where the guys there like ripping

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Speaker 3: the guts out of the fishy.

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Speaker 2: Cot Well, you know, there's a little bit of that

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Speaker 2: sprinkled in. We'll get into it, but yeah, basically, we

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Speaker 2: second stop on this snorkeling this morning snorkeling trip that

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Speaker 2: we did, and they took us out to a cleaning

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Speaker 2: station and we jumped in the water and it was,

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Speaker 2: you know, this just reef environment was but it was

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Speaker 2: much deeper than we'd been in, a little darker than

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Speaker 2: we'd been in. And I sometimes get a little nervous

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Speaker 2: when we're talking about like deeper water and bigger things

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Speaker 2: in the water. But seeing these large reef mantis going

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Speaker 2: about their business doing some loops here and there, even

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Speaker 2: it was magical. You just felt absolutely at peace with them.

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Speaker 3: So after that. In the first episode, we also talked

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Speaker 3: a bit about the history of human interactions with manter

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Speaker 3: rays and devil rays. We got into old misconceptions that

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Speaker 3: manter rays are threatening to human boats and divers that's

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Speaker 3: not true, and relatively new misconceptions that their body parts

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Speaker 3: have medicinal value. Of course, both of these false beliefs

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Speaker 3: leading to harm to manta and devil ray populations by humans,

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Speaker 3: and we also talked about ongoing conservation efforts to protect

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Speaker 3: the world's remaining rays. We discussed some basics of manter

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Speaker 3: ray biology, including their body design, feeding habits, and their

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Speaker 3: tendency to breach the water's surface leaping up in the air.

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Speaker 3: In part two of this series, we followed up on

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Speaker 3: stories from an older marine biology article that told of

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Speaker 3: mantas and devil rays taking hold of the anchor lines

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Speaker 3: and mooring lines of a boat and dragging the boats

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Speaker 3: out to sea, and we discussed how it seems this

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Speaker 3: can happen and sometimes does actually happen, but it's clearly

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Speaker 3: not intentional on the part of the manta, and we

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Speaker 3: got into some biological reasons that mobulid rays are prone

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Speaker 3: to getting tangled in loose lines in the water. We

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Speaker 3: also talked about some recommended methods for making mooring lines

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Speaker 3: safer for rays. After that we got into mobulid reproduction,

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Speaker 3: which is really fascinating the way they engage in internal

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Speaker 3: fertilization and viviparity, meaning sort of full body contact, sexual intercourse,

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Speaker 3: and live birth respectively, so making them, as in so

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Speaker 3: many other ways, kind of superficially resembling of mammals, even

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Speaker 3: though they are fish not mammals. And we also got

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Speaker 3: into the elaborate fitness displays that males go through in

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Speaker 3: these sort of mass chain races before the female finally

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Speaker 3: chooses her mate. And today we're here again to talk about.

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Speaker 2: More that's right, and the place I'd like to pick

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Speaker 2: up is discussing manta rays and their parasites, And there's

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Speaker 2: some bleed over here into other mobulate parasite loads as well.

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Speaker 2: Some of the information you know applies to devil rays

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Speaker 2: and so forth, and a lot and as we've been discussing, like,

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Speaker 2: there's a lot more known about the ins and outs

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Speaker 2: of reef manta rays as opposed to the oceanic manta rays,

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Speaker 2: which are the largest. So you might remember back to

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Speaker 2: our episode about the gray whale, and like the basic

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Speaker 2: observation that large marine animals often have to deal with

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Speaker 2: sizeable parasite loads, or if not actual parasites, then creatures

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Speaker 2: engaged in some degree of mutualism either way you slice it,

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Speaker 2: large marine organisms tend to attract a fair number of

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Speaker 2: hangers on and they become mobile environments for these various organisms.

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Speaker 3: In the case of gray whales, am I remembering right,

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Speaker 3: that barnacles would tend to attach to the outside of

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Speaker 3: the gray whale, Like the gray whale becomes a substrate

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Speaker 3: that is useful for the barnacle because they need something

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Speaker 3: solid to attach the bottom of their body to. And

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Speaker 3: then also by moving through the water, the whale you know,

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Speaker 3: brings food to them, essentially allowing water to flow past them.

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Speaker 2: Right, And as we discussed in those episodes like there's

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Speaker 2: there was on one hand a strong case to be

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Speaker 2: made that oh, well, these these the poor whales are

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Speaker 2: just covered with these barnacles, like a ship with barnacles

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Speaker 2: gaining no benefit from it. But then we also explored

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Speaker 2: a hypothesis that proposed that well, actually there are some

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Speaker 2: potential benefits to having these barnacles on your body.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the question was do the barnacles form a kind

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Speaker 3: of armor of sorts That was not known for sure.

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Speaker 3: To be clear, that was like a possibility, but I

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Speaker 3: think it was more likely assumed that it is sort

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Speaker 3: of a net negative to the whale to have all

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Speaker 3: the particles on it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but this similar conversation often occurs around these discussions

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Speaker 2: of symbiosis and mutualism and parasitism, questions about who's getting

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Speaker 2: the most out of this relationship, is it unbalanced? To

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Speaker 2: what degree is it unbalanced? And you see it go

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Speaker 2: various directions where arguments end up being made that what

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Speaker 2: is thought of as a parasite might actually have some benefits,

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Speaker 2: and you and the opposite something that seems like there's

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Speaker 2: a beneficial give and take, and maybe it's a little

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Speaker 2: less beneficial than we used to think it was. At

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Speaker 2: any rate, it's definitely the case with the manta ray

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Speaker 2: that they have a lot of hangers on and they

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Speaker 2: vary greatly. Mantas have to contend, for instance, with tiny

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Speaker 2: copa pod parasites that get literally everywhere on them. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 2: you also have things like harmless juvenile golden travelerfish which

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Speaker 2: just ride the pressure wave and alongside the creature, and

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Speaker 2: in the same way that sometimes dolphins are seen to

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Speaker 2: ride along side ships. But as far as I'm to understand,

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Speaker 2: they don't pose any risk or damage to the manta rays.

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Speaker 2: And then they split when they're old enough to fin

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Speaker 2: for themselves, and then you have these sucker plate headed

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Speaker 2: remorras to continue with. And there's sometimes a little harder to.

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Speaker 3: Figure out sort of gray area here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes, I mean again, this is often the case

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Speaker 2: the deeper you look into any of these relationships. But basically,

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Speaker 2: if you're not familiar with the remorra, ramorra's dorsal fin

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Speaker 2: has evolved into an oval slatted sucker organ, so like

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Speaker 2: by flexing the little slats on there, they can suction

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Speaker 2: onto a surface such as the side of a whale

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Speaker 2: or a shark or you know, a turtle or a

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Speaker 2: ship or a human diver. I think it occurs occasionally.

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Speaker 2: They're free swimming fish, but they like to hitch a ride,

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Speaker 2: and there are many different species, and yeah, they attach

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Speaker 2: to all sorts of organisms, including manta rays, and indeed

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Speaker 2: they've been known to take up more or less permanent residents,

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Speaker 2: sometimes inside a manta's mouth or hide in other body

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Speaker 2: openings such as gills or the cloeca. They typically feed

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Speaker 2: on the ectoparasites and loose skin flakes and other leavings

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Speaker 2: of an organism. And yeah, it seems to be what's

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Speaker 2: happening with manta rays. Not every variety of remora that

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Speaker 2: latches onto a manta can keep up with it, can

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Speaker 2: remain with the host, especially as it ventures into deeper waters.

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Speaker 2: Some get displaced, And in general, it seems like the

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Speaker 2: longer a manta hangs out in a shallow reef environment,

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Speaker 2: the more it's liable to attract ramoras. So that's the

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Speaker 2: case I've read with certainly the reef manta over the

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Speaker 2: oceanic manta. And then it's also the case with mantas

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Speaker 2: hanging out closer to shallow waters due to some particular

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Speaker 2: state of their own life cycle. Now, the book that

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Speaker 2: I keep referring to in these episodes Guide to the

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Speaker 2: Manta and Devil Rays of the World by Stevens, Fernando Dando,

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Speaker 2: and Discaria. In this they point out that scientists often

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Speaker 2: cleanly label this relationship between the remoras and the manta

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Speaker 2: rays as parasitic are arguing there's no real benefit for

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Speaker 2: the mantis here. For instance, the gill activity going in

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Speaker 2: and out of the gills can result in heavy scarring

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Speaker 2: for example, essentially like mutilating the gills over time. Now,

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Speaker 2: others argue, well, the remorras does seem to do some

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Speaker 2: level of cleaning though they're eating up parasites, you know,

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Speaker 2: dead skin flakes, and this, they would point they point out,

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Speaker 2: would be helpful, especially to the oceanic manta, as it

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Speaker 2: frequents cleaning stations far less as we'll be discussing. Cleaning

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Speaker 2: stations tend to be you know, in reef environments, and

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Speaker 2: if you're out there in the middle of it, there

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Speaker 2: are fewer of these around. So perhaps the assistance in

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Speaker 2: these cases would balance out the harm at least to

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Speaker 2: some degree. Maybe it's not. I mean, I don't know

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Speaker 2: how often you really see a fifty to fifty split

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Speaker 2: with these relationships in nature, Like you know, there's there's

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Speaker 2: gonna be you know, all the factors of evolution and

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Speaker 2: behavior or in play here, and it's this is ever

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Speaker 2: the question when we're pondering relationships like this.

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Speaker 3: So for a very rough analogy, It's kind of like

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Speaker 3: if you had a squirrel that lived on your body

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Speaker 3: and it climbed all over you, eating the fleas that

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Speaker 3: you also have eating the fleas and mosquitoes that swarm

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Speaker 3: your skin. So that's good, you don't want the fleas

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Speaker 3: and mosquitos. But also the squirrel's claws are like scratching

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Speaker 3: you up, and it's probably causing problems while you're trying

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Speaker 3: to move around. So you get a plus an a minus.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it always reminds me of the Doctor

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Speaker 2: Seuss book Thidwick the Big Hearted Moose. This is it's

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Speaker 2: not a situation where Fidwick's dealing with parasites and creatures

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Speaker 2: eating the parasites, but he's he has a big heart,

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Speaker 2: and he keeps letting animals ride in his antlers until

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Speaker 2: it gets out of hand.

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Speaker 3: I feel like it's got to be one of the

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Speaker 3: less big hearted Doctor Seuss books.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the message there is maybe a little less less rosy,

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Speaker 2: but I don't know. I do come back to it

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Speaker 2: and think about it from time to time. Though you

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Speaker 2: know that in the Sleep book, I guess really really home.

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Speaker 2: But at any rate, this is the case with large

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Speaker 2: organisms like this, there's just much more space for ectoparasites

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Speaker 2: to get everywhere, and parasites have their own parasites. Filter

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Speaker 2: feeders also swim around with their mouths wide open while feeding.

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Speaker 2: You know, they're bringing organisms into their mouth and that

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Speaker 2: can bring in extra creatures as well, So you know,

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Speaker 2: what is a manta to do. Breaching may help, as

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Speaker 2: we discussed, as it may help with other marine organisms. Again,

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Speaker 2: as we just mentioned, they can shake some of their

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Speaker 2: hangers on via their deeper dives. But at the end

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Speaker 2: of the day, they're going to need some help. They

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Speaker 2: can't turn to each other. They don't really have much

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Speaker 2: in the way of you know, limbs. They can't groom

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Speaker 2: each other in the way that say primates do. So

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Speaker 2: they're going to have to head to the cleaning stations.

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Speaker 3: All right, So we're finally here. Tell me about the

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Speaker 3: cleaning stations, all.

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Speaker 2: Right now, I want to add a caveat I am

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Speaker 2: very likely to accidentally call a cleaning station a feeding station.

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Speaker 2: I've been doing this in casual conversation over and over

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Speaker 2: again over the past several weeks, perhaps in part because

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Speaker 2: for the fish working and some I'm shrimp working at

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Speaker 2: these cleaning stations. It is a feeding station because that's

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Speaker 2: what they're doing. They're feeding, that's what they're getting out

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Speaker 2: of it. Ultimately, were talking about a cleaning symbiosis situation

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Speaker 2: that benefits all of the organisms involved, and it's not

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Speaker 2: unique to mantus. You'll find the scenario throughout the aquatic environment,

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Speaker 2: both in fresh water and saltwater. Fish deal with their

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Speaker 2: individual parasite loads in a variety of ways, but it's

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Speaker 2: often useful to get some help. These relationships have developed

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Speaker 2: over time in which fish will seek out areas populated

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Speaker 2: by various other organisms that generally we're talking and certainly

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Speaker 2: in marine environments about small reef fishes. Also sometimes some

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Speaker 2: shrimp are involved in this, and there are various examples

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Speaker 2: of this outside of the water as well. For instance,

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Speaker 2: on land, examples such as the crocodile and the Egyptian

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Speaker 2: plover or crocodile bird have been observed since ancient times.

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Speaker 2: You can find like Herodotus writing.

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Speaker 3: About this and still cute to see today.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the bird that goes inside the crocodile's mouth,

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Speaker 2: holds the mouth open, goes in there and starts doing

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Speaker 2: some dental cleanup. The Egyptian plover by the way, not

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Speaker 2: to be confused with Egyptian lever. That's a that's a

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Speaker 2: musical artist, a legendary musical artist that I've referenced on

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Speaker 2: the show before. Look it up, kids. The oxpecker is

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Speaker 2: a great example from the surface world as well, a

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Speaker 2: bird that feeds exclusively on the bodies of large mammals,

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Speaker 2: though this one is also much discussed in scientific circles

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Speaker 2: because it's definitely a case where there are strong arguments

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Speaker 2: to be made that the oxpecker might not ultimately help

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Speaker 2: the organism that it's landing on all that much, and

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Speaker 2: might be as much of a nuisance in and of

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Speaker 2: itself in the ocean. To return to the waters, however,

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Speaker 2: you see various fish take advantage of these services, including

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Speaker 2: the parrotfish, which were previously discussed on the show. So

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Speaker 2: you don't have to be a behemoth to benefit from

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Speaker 2: a visit to the various organisms that want to eat

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Speaker 2: your parasites, as well as perhaps some loose, dry skin

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Speaker 2: or rancid flesh around your wounds. In fact, some cleaners

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Speaker 2: are specialized wound cleaners. But naturally, when you're a large

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Speaker 2: fish riddled with parasites, you know you can't scratch those

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Speaker 2: itches again, so manta rays have to head to these stations,

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Speaker 2: and it seems again, it seems to work for everyone.

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Speaker 2: Small Fish and shrimp can't swim as far or do

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Speaker 2: so safely in search of food, so they'll, you know,

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Speaker 2: they set up at a cleaning station. Generally this is

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Speaker 2: like a rocky outcropping the edge of a reef or

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Speaker 2: you know, something like that, and here they can just

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Speaker 2: hang out and their meals will be delivered to them

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Speaker 2: because the customers will show up. They will go where

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Speaker 2: the cleaner organisms.

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Speaker 3: Are right, So by being easy to locate and offering

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Speaker 3: a service, they can have this dependable influx of resources

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Speaker 3: from abroad. It almost makes me think about like the

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Speaker 3: economies of I don't know, freeway exits where there will

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Speaker 3: be you know, gas stations and restaurants built up around

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Speaker 3: a freeway exit, like you know the traffic's coming in.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean that you often see this

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Speaker 2: compared to like a trip to the barber, the dentist,

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Speaker 2: and so forth, all wrapped into one. Because yeah, they'll

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Speaker 2: they'll get inside the mouth to clean out the teeth,

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Speaker 2: they'll clean out gills, they'll eat away algae. Growths, dead

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Speaker 2: and molting skin, bacterial fungal growths, you know, getting food

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Speaker 2: particles out of the mouth. It's really quiet extensive. And

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Speaker 2: then these are generally small organisms that are doing this,

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Speaker 2: so they can target those tiny acto parasites and seek

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Speaker 2: them out all over the host's body in every every

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Speaker 2: crevice yum yum. And so the mantas actually the kind

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Speaker 2: of queue up for this. If one of the bits

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Speaker 2: of advice that the the the Snorkel guides had for

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Speaker 2: us was was, you know, among all the reasons not

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Speaker 2: to get too close is you also don't want to

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Speaker 2: essentially enter the cleaning station, not because the fish are

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Speaker 2: going to clean you, but because the mantas are going

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Speaker 2: to be like, oh, it's occupied, I can't go in there,

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Speaker 2: Like you're taking up room. It's like you've pulled into

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Speaker 2: the car wash ahead of people who want their car cleaned.

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Speaker 2: What would they do?

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Speaker 3: Would they patiently wait their turn?

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Speaker 2: Maybe? Or potentially clear? I mean also the humans being

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Speaker 2: where they need to be. I think they're a number

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Speaker 2: of reasons that they might sort of scare them off.

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Speaker 2: You know, yeah, like you're too loud with your flippers,

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Speaker 2: you're coming out of the water too much. I think

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Speaker 2: in general they might just decide well, another time enough

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Speaker 2: to bring it back to Fidwick, the big hearted moose.

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Speaker 2: I you know, I don't think he ever considered visiting

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Speaker 2: a wolf cleaning station or something for all of those

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Speaker 2: various mammals and birds living on his antlers. Now. As

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Speaker 2: discussed before, again, symbiosis is a spectrum and it can

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Speaker 2: shift with either party reaping more of the benefits and

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Speaker 2: in some cases perhaps taking a bit of advantage, at

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Speaker 2: least from the human perspective. So some cleaner species do

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Speaker 2: seem to agage engage. This is in general in occasional

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Speaker 2: acts that feel more parasitic, like maybe they're you know,

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Speaker 2: they're eating parasites, but maybe they're eating a little body

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Speaker 2: mucus off of the surface of a fish or aquatic

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Speaker 2: creature as well. You know, maybe they're grabbing a little

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Speaker 2: flesh that's less on the rancid side, but you know,

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Speaker 2: just because they can. So, you know, I guess to

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Speaker 2: answerpomorphize the scenario, there are always going to be some

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Speaker 2: bad actors, maybe some folks who take advantage of the

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Speaker 2: trust in a given scenario. But I think still on

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Speaker 2: the whole, even with the cases, cleaning stations seem to

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Speaker 2: benefit everyone, even if sometimes there's a little advantage taken. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Well, and all kinds of organisms have symbiotic relationships that

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Speaker 3: are sort of balanced on a knife's edge like this.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I would say it's true of us with

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Speaker 3: our own microbiota. You know, of course, human beings rely on,

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Speaker 3: for example, our gut flora in order to do all

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Speaker 3: kinds of things you know, to be healthy, to help

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Speaker 3: with digestion. So we're definitely worse off without it. We

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Speaker 3: need it, but at the same time, it can turn

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Speaker 3: opportunistic and it can harm us if you know, there's

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Speaker 3: something wrong with the immune system or other kinds of

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Speaker 3: conditions come online.

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Speaker 2: Now, there are some additional levers that the manta ray

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Speaker 2: can pull and stevens that I'll get into this in

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Speaker 2: the guide book. These are things that the manta will

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Speaker 2: also do it feeding stations, which it makes sense. The

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Speaker 2: manta knows that it is at a location where the

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Speaker 2: local population is heavily invested in in the manta's parasites,

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Speaker 2: its previous meals, and so forth. So first of all,

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Speaker 2: they frequently defecate at these cleaning stations, makes sense, I mean,

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Speaker 2: with all creatures, and stuff that's defecated is going to

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Speaker 2: include things that are still of interest to various scavenging creatures.

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Speaker 2: They will also cough or vomit, blasting particles like food

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Speaker 2: particles out of their mouth, which cleaners are also going

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Speaker 2: to be interested in. And Steven said all right that

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Speaker 2: sometimes they blast out massive clumps of undigested zooplankton exoskeletons.

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Speaker 2: I don't have a photograph to refer to, but I

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Speaker 2: just have like a mental image of what this might

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Speaker 2: look like. And then back to their defication. They'll also

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Speaker 2: invert their intestines up to thirty centimeters or twelve inches

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Speaker 2: out of their cloaca while they're doing it, just to

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Speaker 2: better clean everything out that's feces, but also parasites, presumably

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Speaker 2: indo and ectoparasites, And interestingly enough, their feces i've read

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Speaker 2: is basical dark red due to all the plankton. So

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Speaker 2: when they do this, if you're in the water with them,

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Speaker 2: and you know, they don't care if you're in the

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Speaker 2: water when they when they do this, they're gonna they're

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Speaker 2: they're gonna let loose as needed. This process has often

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Speaker 2: been misinterpreted by divers as like they don't know what

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Speaker 2: they're looking at. It looks like it might be blood

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Speaker 2: or something. Maybe they're injured, or in some cases they

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Speaker 2: might think they're about to view a berth, which makes

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Speaker 2: sense when you look at We talked about this video

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Speaker 2: footage in the last episode from an aquarium in Okinawa, Japan,

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Speaker 2: where we see one of the very few recordings of

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Speaker 2: a manta giving birth, and it does like like this

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Speaker 2: initial discharge of particles in the water. I can see

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Speaker 2: where you might confuse the two acts.

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Speaker 3: A burrito in the middle of a cloud, and then

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Speaker 3: the burida unfolds.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so that might be a case where someone's like, oh,

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Speaker 2: I think it's giving birth, but then you realize, oh,

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Speaker 2: there's no baby. It's it's just a cloud of red

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Speaker 2: manta fecal matter.

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Speaker 3: They're just out part of their own intestines to get

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Speaker 3: it all cleaned out.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, all right, Joe, I believe there's

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Speaker 2: at least one more organ we want to talk about

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Speaker 2: inside the manta's body, right, that's right.

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Speaker 3: We wanted to come back to the subject of manta

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Speaker 3: brains and intelligence, so we already talked in previous parts

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Speaker 3: of this series about how when people have close encounters

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Speaker 3: with manta rays they often report similar feelings. You'll read

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Speaker 3: about this in people describing their dives with them. The

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Speaker 3: manta is a fish, but it does not feel like

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Speaker 3: a fish when you're in its presence. It has a

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Speaker 3: kind of palpable intelligence and emotionality, a sense of curiosity

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Speaker 3: that we generally only associate with social mammals and maybe

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Speaker 3: sometimes with other strange intelligences like that of an octopus,

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Speaker 3: but certainly not with fish. You'll read about this over

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Speaker 3: and over with these manta experiences. Now, of course, that

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Speaker 3: feeling of being in communion with a higher intelligence, it's

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Speaker 3: just a subjective impression people have. Could be an illusion.

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Speaker 3: Maybe it's based in some kind of esthetic charisma, something

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Speaker 3: about the way the manta looks, or something about the

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Speaker 3: way it moves. The question would be, is there any

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Speaker 3: objective scientific reason for thinking there's actually something special about

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Speaker 3: the intelligence of the genus mobula compared to other fish.

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Speaker 3: I think the answer is pretty clearly yes.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's my indication as well, because you know, to

403
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Speaker 2: your point, people have this feeling about their dogs and

404
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Speaker 2: cats all the time. Not to discount the intelligence of

405
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Speaker 2: dogs and cats, which is with each of which are unique.

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Speaker 2: But like we have this of course amazing human ability

407
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Speaker 2: to anthropomorphize, to personify, and imbue just about anything with

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Speaker 2: a remarkable level of intelligence and free will.

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Speaker 3: Well, yes, that is certainly true. I mean I have

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Speaker 3: the beholder quality to this whole thing. But I would

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Speaker 3: also say that, even just somewhat objectively, I think dogs

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Speaker 3: and cats, as somewhat social mammals do have a higher

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Speaker 3: level of cognitive complexity than most fish. You could argue, yes, yeah,

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Speaker 3: absolutely so, there are definitely I of the beholder elements.

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Speaker 3: These are mammals that need to navigate a somewhat socially

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Speaker 3: complex world. That they've got something going on up there.

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Speaker 2: Well, let's dig into the old mantamelon what are they

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Speaker 2: working with up there?

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Speaker 3: Okay, First of all, I think we should address the

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Speaker 3: question of raw hardware. What kind of neural equipment do

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Speaker 3: manta rays and devil rays have to work with? And

422
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Speaker 3: to get into this question, I wanted to look at

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Speaker 3: a paper by a name you'll see popping up a

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00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:45,800
Speaker 3: whole lot in manterray research. This was by a researcher

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Speaker 3: named scilla Ari that's spelled CSI L. L. A and

426
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:53,320
Speaker 3: then the last name is Ari If you want to

427
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 3: look her up. Her research is all over the place.

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Speaker 3: She studies manterray neurobiology and the paper is called in

429
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:06,160
Speaker 3: Cephalization and Brain organization of mobulid rays myleobataforms Elasmo Bronchi

430
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:11,040
Speaker 3: with ecological perspectives. This was published in the Open Anatomy

431
00:24:11,119 --> 00:24:16,639
Speaker 3: Journal in twenty eleven. And so this paper set out

432
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:20,400
Speaker 3: to measure the brain size of three different species in

433
00:24:20,440 --> 00:24:24,280
Speaker 3: the genus Mobula. It looked at Mobula japanica or the

434
00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:27,360
Speaker 3: spinetiale devil ray also known as the Japanese devil ray,

435
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:33,280
Speaker 3: Mobula Thurstoni or the bent fin devil ray, and Mobula birostras,

436
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 3: known at the time this paper was published as Manta birostras.

437
00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 3: Manta was once treated as a separate genus, but now

438
00:24:39,760 --> 00:24:42,520
Speaker 3: the mantas are grouped with the rest of the Mobula genus.

439
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 3: But anyway, this is the giant oceanic manta ray. This

440
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:50,159
Speaker 3: is the big one, the biggest of them all. So

441
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:52,760
Speaker 3: to run through a selection of some of the main findings.

442
00:24:52,760 --> 00:24:57,360
Speaker 3: First of all, the giant oceanic mantray Biostras has the

443
00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:00,600
Speaker 3: largest brain of any known fish species. It's just in

444
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 3: absolute terms, biggest brain of all the fish. Also, mantas

445
00:25:05,320 --> 00:25:09,639
Speaker 3: and devil rays not only have large brains in absolute terms,

446
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 3: but they have very high brain to body mass ratios.

447
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 3: This is known in anatomy as the encephalization quotion. So

448
00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:25,160
Speaker 3: a larger brain is not always a sign of greater intelligence,

449
00:25:25,520 --> 00:25:28,600
Speaker 3: at least when measured along the dimensions of intelligence that

450
00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:32,160
Speaker 3: we find interesting. Often a large brain in an animal

451
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:37,159
Speaker 3: is necessary, especially when the animal is itself large, simply

452
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:41,399
Speaker 3: to control movement and nerve feedback for that massive body.

453
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:43,240
Speaker 3: So if you have a huge body, you need to

454
00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 3: control a lot of big muscles all over the place.

455
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:48,679
Speaker 3: You need to get sensory feedback from all over the body,

456
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 3: so you need a big brain just to handle all that.

457
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 3: It might not necessarily be for the kinds of things

458
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:56,879
Speaker 3: we think of when we say the word intelligence, things

459
00:25:56,920 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 3: like problem solving, memory learning, social cognition, that sort of thing.

460
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,199
Speaker 3: What tends to correlate more often with those kinds of

461
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 3: intelligence is having a bigger brain relative to the size

462
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 3: of your body. And even then, the relationship between in civilization,

463
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:18,680
Speaker 3: quotient and observed intelligence is not completely linear, but it's

464
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,879
Speaker 3: a fairly strong relationship in terms of the structure of

465
00:26:22,920 --> 00:26:26,400
Speaker 3: the brain and the characteristics of the brain tissue. These

466
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 3: rays showed first of all, an enlarged telencephalon. The telencephalon

467
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:34,840
Speaker 3: is the four brain, the front part of the brain

468
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 3: corresponding to the cerebrum in mammals, and also what the

469
00:26:38,880 --> 00:26:43,919
Speaker 3: author calls a highly foliated cerebellum, and this means that

470
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:48,840
Speaker 3: the cerebellum has a more folded texture, which increases the

471
00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 3: surface area of the cerebellum and that in turn increases

472
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 3: the number of neurons and the density of neurons on

473
00:26:55,680 --> 00:27:00,479
Speaker 3: the cerebellum, allowing more connections and thus greater information processing power.

474
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:05,439
Speaker 3: And these anatomical features, the larger teleencephalon and the more

475
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:10,840
Speaker 3: highly foliated cerebellum are correlated with more complex behavior and

476
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:15,120
Speaker 3: cognition in other species. So just looking at their brains

477
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 3: and brain tissue, it definitely does look like something special

478
00:27:19,119 --> 00:27:22,040
Speaker 3: is going on with the mobula rays. Compared to other fish.

479
00:27:22,119 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 3: You're seeing patterns that you see more with smarter animals

480
00:27:27,040 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 3: across different types of lineages.

481
00:27:29,359 --> 00:27:32,120
Speaker 2: There's a great illustration in the Manta and Devil Rays

482
00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 2: of the World book where they show on one hand,

483
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 2: the brain of a spinetailed devil ray mobula mobular, and

484
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:44,520
Speaker 2: then they compare it to the brain of a similarly

485
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:49,840
Speaker 2: sized common skate. You know, so this is a not

486
00:27:50,040 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 2: unrelated creature, similar size, and you can see like drastic

487
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:58,800
Speaker 2: difference between the two. The ray's brain just looks absolutely

488
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:02,240
Speaker 2: bloated and in gorge, you know, and then the skate's

489
00:28:02,280 --> 00:28:07,680
Speaker 2: brain is streamlined and by comparison, so you know, even

490
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 2: not knowing exactly what sorts of neural tissues you're looking at,

491
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 2: you can see like, oh, this thing looks super charge.

492
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 2: This one looks oversized compared to a similarly sized organism. Yeah.

493
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:21,920
Speaker 3: This paper also has some very juicy illustrations and some

494
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 3: fiend without a face kind of stuff.

495
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:25,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely.

496
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 3: But anyway, so the question would be, what is all

497
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:33,119
Speaker 3: of this high powered neural equipment for. What would they

498
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 3: need these powerful and highly foliated brains for. One possible

499
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:43,520
Speaker 3: explanation that Ari gets into in this paper is complex

500
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 3: social behaviors. As we already discussed in the previous episodes,

501
00:28:49,160 --> 00:28:55,960
Speaker 3: mobular rays show these interesting, complicated group behavior patterns. Examples

502
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 3: of this would include forming schools that engage in coordinat

503
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:04,000
Speaker 3: and organized feeding behaviors. So remember that chain feeding where

504
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 3: they'll go in a line feeding together, or cyclone feeding

505
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 3: where they go in a circle. They organize into these

506
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 3: patterns to take better advantage of food sources. Also, another

507
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 3: example of group coordinated group behavior patterns are when they

508
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 3: get into these large mate fitness competitions with potentially dozens

509
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:30,280
Speaker 3: of rays chasing around in these athletic courtship displays. Broadly,

510
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:37,080
Speaker 3: the management of complex social relationships and social behaviors is

511
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 3: thought to be one of the key drivers of brain

512
00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 3: evolution in other species. So when you need to navigate

513
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 3: a complex social landscape full of other members of your

514
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 3: species and you need to maybe work together and manage

515
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 3: relationships like recognizing specific individuals of your species and remembering

516
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 3: interactions with them you've had in the past, that is

517
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 3: often when evolution starts really putting pressure on you to

518
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 3: wise up. That is thought to be a big driver

519
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 3: of brain evolution in other lineages. We've already talked about

520
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:16,960
Speaker 3: evidence of mantas working together and engaging in these complex

521
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 3: group behaviors, but is there any evidence that they do

522
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 3: what I was just saying that they recognize and remember

523
00:30:24,080 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 3: each other as individuals. In effect, do they have time

524
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:33,160
Speaker 3: stable social relationships. I went looking for an answer here

525
00:30:33,160 --> 00:30:35,719
Speaker 3: and I found it seems to be yes, there is

526
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 3: some evidence of that. So I came across a paper

527
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:42,400
Speaker 3: by Perryman at All published in the journal Behavioral Ecology

528
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:47,080
Speaker 3: and Sociobiology in the year twenty nineteen called Social Preferences

529
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 3: and Network Structure and a Population of reef manta rays.

530
00:30:51,120 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 3: Rob very interesting connection for you. In this paper to

531
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 3: study the social networks of mobular rays, the authors here

532
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:02,360
Speaker 3: collected data on more than five hundred groups of reef

533
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:06,720
Speaker 3: manta rays this is the species Mobula alfredi over five

534
00:31:06,800 --> 00:31:10,720
Speaker 3: years in raja Ampat in Indonesia. So this may have

535
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 3: been in some of the same locations or around some

536
00:31:13,040 --> 00:31:14,480
Speaker 3: of the same locations you visited.

537
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at the maps in the

538
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:19,680
Speaker 2: paper now and like, yep, yep, I was in that square.

539
00:31:20,880 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 3: And so in observing the mantas in these locations, the

540
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 3: authors did indeed observe what they call social preferences in

541
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 3: mobular rays, especially between females. And social preferences here would

542
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 3: mean that individual rays seem to show either an increased

543
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:43,320
Speaker 3: tendency to affiliate with or a desire to avoid specific

544
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 3: other individual rays to anthropomorphize a bit, So this might

545
00:31:48,080 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 3: kind of give the wrong idea, but roughly they had

546
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:52,920
Speaker 3: something analogous to friends and enemies.

547
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 2: Room for frenemies in that equation or is that more

548
00:31:58,080 --> 00:31:59,479
Speaker 2: of a human thing unclear.

549
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll see what we think. So the authors found

550
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:07,480
Speaker 3: pretty strong evidence for female mantas having these relationships on

551
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 3: both long and short time scales, so in the scale

552
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:14,800
Speaker 3: of weeks and months, they might have a consistent preference

553
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:19,200
Speaker 3: for or against certain other female individual rays. They also

554
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:23,880
Speaker 3: found pretty strong evidence for mixed sex social preferences kind

555
00:32:23,880 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 3: of friendships or enemy ships between males and females. Between males,

556
00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 3: they only found kind of weak evidence for short term relationships,

557
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 3: so perhaps males are less social with each other on average.

558
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 3: The overall social networks were categorized as what they call

559
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 3: a dynamic fission fusion society, with differentiated relationships linked to

560
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:53,160
Speaker 3: strong fidelity to cleaning station sites. So this idea of

561
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:56,920
Speaker 3: a fission fusion society is one whether it's not like

562
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:00,120
Speaker 3: a fixed group that stays together for you know, the

563
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 3: duration of these animals lives. They're kind of like these

564
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 3: groups that come together for some period of time and

565
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:09,760
Speaker 3: then split apart and then can dissolve, and then different

566
00:33:09,800 --> 00:33:13,760
Speaker 3: groups can kind of reform. It's a more more freeform

567
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 3: kind of social network formation and division. And then in

568
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:20,760
Speaker 3: their discussion section, the authors say, quote, our results show

569
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 3: that stable, differentiated social relationships lasting over several weeks or

570
00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,760
Speaker 3: months are an important driver of group structures in reef

571
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 3: manta rays, which suggests that both familiarity and long term

572
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:38,120
Speaker 3: social relationships are important in structuring their societies. In complex

573
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 3: social systems, such capabilities can be essential too, identify partners

574
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 3: in reciprocal altruism, to maintain social hierarchies, and to avoid inbreeding.

575
00:33:49,400 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 3: So those three things are strong biological reasons why it

576
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:56,479
Speaker 3: might be useful to remember who another individual of your

577
00:33:56,520 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 3: species is and remember past interactions with them, be able

578
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:04,600
Speaker 3: to repay favors back and forth, you know, reciprocal altruism,

579
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,240
Speaker 3: or remember if they did something mean to you in

580
00:34:07,280 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 3: the past. To avoid inbreeding, of course, and to maintain

581
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:26,759
Speaker 3: kind of dominance relationships. So anyway, it seems yes, the

582
00:34:26,800 --> 00:34:30,800
Speaker 3: answer is modular rays do seem to be especially social

583
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:35,280
Speaker 3: relative to most fish, and social cognition pressures are thought

584
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:38,879
Speaker 3: to be a big driver of brain evolution in other

585
00:34:39,040 --> 00:34:41,839
Speaker 3: vertebrate lineages, so that could be a big factor at

586
00:34:41,880 --> 00:34:43,600
Speaker 3: play here. We don't know for sure, but that seems

587
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:46,919
Speaker 3: like a very plausible explanation for why these animals would

588
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 3: need to have more powerful brains. Any other reasons they

589
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:53,400
Speaker 3: might need to have extra brain power, yes, or He

590
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:56,759
Speaker 3: gets into some other ideas as well. One is the

591
00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 3: need to understand their spatial firement. So mobulids are pelagic fish,

592
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 3: and they often inhabit coastal waters, including places like reefs

593
00:35:08,520 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 3: and seamounts and so forth, and Ari says that there

594
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:14,719
Speaker 3: may be an evolutionary pressure for them to learn the

595
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 3: quote complex spatial organization of these habitats, which I think

596
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:23,359
Speaker 3: that would include like creating mental maps of not only

597
00:35:23,400 --> 00:35:26,360
Speaker 3: the underwater topography of like a reef or a seamount,

598
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 3: but I think it would also include dynamic elements across

599
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:32,080
Speaker 3: these maps, like water currents and the presence of other

600
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:36,200
Speaker 3: organisms such as prey or predators or especially cleaning mutualists.

601
00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 3: Another possible explanation for their neurobiology is what Ari calls

602
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:45,880
Speaker 3: their active and maneuverable lifestyles. She points out that in

603
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:50,560
Speaker 3: other species, high cerebellar foliation, which remember that's the folding

604
00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:54,960
Speaker 3: of the cerebellum that allows more neuron density there. That

605
00:35:55,160 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 3: is associated with, among other things, maneuverability and strong locomotor abilities,

606
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 3: which Mobula rays absolutely do possess. You know, they're very acrobatic.

607
00:36:05,200 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 3: They can move around a lot, and so their brain

608
00:36:08,440 --> 00:36:10,640
Speaker 3: structures here could have something to do with their tendency

609
00:36:10,680 --> 00:36:13,840
Speaker 3: toward acrobatics. Another thing, she points out, I thought this

610
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:16,279
Speaker 3: was kind of interesting. It could have something to do

611
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:23,040
Speaker 3: with their wide heads. Some aspects of the large brain

612
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 3: and the powerful telencephalon of the manta ray could be

613
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:29,720
Speaker 3: related to the fact that they have a broad head

614
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 3: similar to the hammerhead shark, which our rites could help

615
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 3: with organizing and integrating different kinds of sensory feedback. Now

616
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 3: I was confused about that at first. I was like,

617
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:43,520
Speaker 3: that doesn't come together for me, Like what's the deal.

618
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 3: So I had to look this up to understand it better.

619
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:49,280
Speaker 3: But the idea is like in hammerhead sharks, the wide

620
00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 3: head and the hammerhead sharks also have an enlarged telencephalon

621
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:56,440
Speaker 3: the wide head and the enlarged telencephalon in the brain

622
00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 3: seem to help give the shark enhanced sensory abilities like

623
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:07,680
Speaker 3: electrosensory abilities, vision, and even maybe a more stereoscopic sense

624
00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 3: of smell, so they can determine the direction that smells

625
00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:15,360
Speaker 3: are coming from more easily. So like by spacing out

626
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:19,520
Speaker 3: the sensory organs across a wider head, you can sort

627
00:37:19,520 --> 00:37:24,560
Speaker 3: of increase the resolution you get across multiple different sensory modalities.

628
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 3: It's again this is a loose analogy, but it's like,

629
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:29,360
Speaker 3: you know, having a bigger camera lens kind of like

630
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:32,360
Speaker 3: you're increasing the resolution you can get on things. And

631
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:36,240
Speaker 3: so the wide spacing there for chemical sensing or electrosensing

632
00:37:36,239 --> 00:37:38,799
Speaker 3: and the hammer heads especially or vision and all that

633
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:41,400
Speaker 3: it can help you in a way. And then the

634
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:44,960
Speaker 3: strong tellencephalon the big four brain can help you gather

635
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:48,439
Speaker 3: and make sense of all that information. That does seem

636
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 3: to be the case in hammerhead sharks, and Broadly already

637
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 3: says it's possible that similar sensory management could be at

638
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:58,839
Speaker 3: play within mobula heads and brains. They also have these big,

639
00:37:58,880 --> 00:38:01,960
Speaker 3: wide heads that are put the different sensors far apart.

640
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 2: That's interesting. That makes me think about some of the

641
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 2: hypotheses concerning breaching in mantas that like the slap of

642
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 2: their bodies hitting the water again, could be a signal

643
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:15,560
Speaker 2: in some cases to other rays to come and start

644
00:38:15,680 --> 00:38:19,760
Speaker 2: engaging in these social feeding configurations with them.

645
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:22,200
Speaker 3: Mmm. Yeah, okay, so you got.

646
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 2: To receive that signal and then know what to do

647
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 2: with it.

648
00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:27,840
Speaker 3: And then finally there was an issue brought up in

649
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 3: this paper that was a lot more interesting than I

650
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:33,719
Speaker 3: first realized once I started looking into it, and that

651
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:37,840
Speaker 3: was a little bit less directly related to intelligence, but

652
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 3: very worth mentioning. And that's the idea of thermal issues.

653
00:38:41,640 --> 00:38:43,000
Speaker 3: So I'm going to start with a quote from the

654
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 3: paper here, Ari Write's quote endothermy as. The elevation of

655
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:51,680
Speaker 3: body temperature by metabolic heat production represents one of the

656
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:55,800
Speaker 3: most significant developments during vertebrate evolution that might be connected

657
00:38:55,840 --> 00:39:01,840
Speaker 3: to enlarged brain size. Sharks in general are poikilothermic, meaning

658
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:06,160
Speaker 3: cold blooded. Their body temperature varies with the environment, but

659
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 3: some shark species like Eshuris and Lamna, are homeothermic, and

660
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 3: that in this case it means regionally warm blooded. They

661
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:18,880
Speaker 3: can keep blood in certain parts of their body elevated

662
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:22,359
Speaker 3: warm as they are able to maintain body temperatures well

663
00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 3: above ambient temperature of the environment by countercurrent flow of

664
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:32,040
Speaker 3: blood at certain places of their body. So countercurrent blood

665
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 3: flow is another interesting phenomenon. It works essentially by positioning

666
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:42,240
Speaker 3: the hot pipes right next to the cold pipes. So generally,

667
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:45,919
Speaker 3: the blood that is returning to an animal's heart from

668
00:39:45,960 --> 00:39:49,120
Speaker 3: its extremities through the veins is going to be cold.

669
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 3: It goes out there to the edges of the body,

670
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:53,799
Speaker 3: it loses heat, and then it has to come back

671
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 3: to the heart, so it gets cold and it's coming

672
00:39:55,719 --> 00:40:00,400
Speaker 3: back cold. Meanwhile, arterial blood leaving the heart and headed

673
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 3: for the extremities is comparatively warm. It just came from

674
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:06,399
Speaker 3: the warmest part of the body right there in the core.

675
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:13,320
Speaker 3: Countercurrent blood flow places long stretches of arteries right next

676
00:40:13,360 --> 00:40:16,920
Speaker 3: to long stretches of veins, so that the warm blood

677
00:40:17,120 --> 00:40:20,840
Speaker 3: coming from the core can warm up the cold blood

678
00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:23,280
Speaker 3: in the veins before it gets back to the core.

679
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 3: And even human bodies actually take advantage of this. In

680
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:30,080
Speaker 3: our arms and legs, the veins and arteries tend to

681
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 3: be close to each other, sort of next to each

682
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:36,400
Speaker 3: other to help warm the cold blood returning from the

683
00:40:36,440 --> 00:40:40,799
Speaker 3: fingers and toes, and this adaptation helps animals maintain higher

684
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:45,960
Speaker 3: body temperatures in cold environments. But sometimes it's not just

685
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 3: positioning major vein and artery pathways next to each other.

686
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:55,239
Speaker 3: Sometimes there are dedicated structures in an animal's body that

687
00:40:55,400 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 3: really maximize this artery to vein heat exchange. And one

688
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:02,960
Speaker 3: example of a structure like this would be what's called

689
00:41:03,120 --> 00:41:08,879
Speaker 3: a red mirabulae chronica, which comes from the reading mirabilae

690
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:12,319
Speaker 3: comes from the Latin for wonderful net, and then the

691
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:14,759
Speaker 3: cranica would be of the skull, the wonderful net of

692
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 3: the skull. This is a sort of dense web of

693
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:23,560
Speaker 3: veins and arteries inside the cranial cavity around the brain,

694
00:41:23,600 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 3: which helps regulate the temperature of blood flow around the brain.

695
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:33,759
Speaker 3: Ari writes quote among mobulid rays in Mobula terrapacina and

696
00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 3: Manta birostras. Again, that's now Mobula birostras, a ret mirabulae

697
00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:43,200
Speaker 3: cranica as a countercurrent heat exchanger has been described around

698
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:47,879
Speaker 3: their brain. Interestingly, the same families are also characterized as

699
00:41:48,040 --> 00:41:52,319
Speaker 3: large brained elasmo bronchs, in which these unique adaptations might

700
00:41:52,400 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 3: serve to enhance their ability to exploit cooler environments, either

701
00:41:56,840 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 3: deeper water or at higher latitudes, with greater efficiency by

702
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:04,719
Speaker 3: slowing the rate of metabolic heat loss to the environment

703
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 3: or allowing them a higher activity level. And I thought

704
00:42:09,080 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 3: this was interesting. So I was reading a little bit

705
00:42:11,480 --> 00:42:14,800
Speaker 3: more about this in a paper called Cranial endothermy in

706
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:19,560
Speaker 3: Mobulid rays Evolutionary and ecological Implications of a thermogenic brain

707
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 3: by mc Arostigui in the Journal of Animal Ecology, twenty

708
00:42:24,760 --> 00:42:28,640
Speaker 3: twenty four. And here the author makes a very interesting

709
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 3: kind of comparison. So Arostigwi writes, quote, whereas early hominids

710
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:39,440
Speaker 3: in hot terrestrial environments may have experienced a thermal constraint

711
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:44,239
Speaker 3: to evolving larger brain size, cetaceans and mobulids, so like

712
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 3: whales and rays here in cold marine waters may have

713
00:42:49,200 --> 00:42:54,240
Speaker 3: experienced a thermal driver for enlargement of a thermogenic brain.

714
00:42:55,040 --> 00:42:58,799
Speaker 3: So does that converse relationship make sense to like for

715
00:42:58,880 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 3: human evolution, we want to have a bigger brain, right,

716
00:43:01,680 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 3: bigger brain's great, you can get real smart. But heat

717
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 3: concerns place among other things. Of course, you know, heat

718
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:12,240
Speaker 3: concerns place upper limits on our ability to grow bigger brains.

719
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:15,200
Speaker 3: Those brains can easily get too hot, which is dangerous

720
00:43:15,239 --> 00:43:18,080
Speaker 3: to us. For mantas and devil rays, there could be

721
00:43:18,120 --> 00:43:23,360
Speaker 3: an opposite direction thermal influence on brain evolution. The cold

722
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:25,879
Speaker 3: waters that you want to live in and dive down

723
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:29,560
Speaker 3: to make it pay thermally to have a bigger brain

724
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:34,440
Speaker 3: with this big mesh of blood vessels and so erostig

725
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 3: Wei writes in the abstract quote the potential for brain

726
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:41,759
Speaker 3: enlargement to yield the dual outcomes of cranial endothermy and

727
00:43:42,000 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 3: enhanced cognition in mobulids suggests one may be an evolutionary

728
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:51,319
Speaker 3: byproduct of selection for the mechanisms underlying the other, and

729
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:55,080
Speaker 3: highlights the need to account for non cognitive functions when

730
00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:59,279
Speaker 3: translating brain size into cognitive capacity. So I thought that

731
00:43:59,360 --> 00:44:02,239
Speaker 3: was a fascinating and this is not proven, but it's

732
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:08,440
Speaker 3: raising the possibility. What if mantas evolved greater intelligence as

733
00:44:08,480 --> 00:44:13,960
Speaker 3: an accidental byproduct of growing bigger brains, which and the

734
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:16,719
Speaker 3: growing of the bigger brains was mainly driven in the

735
00:44:16,719 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 3: first place by thermal pressure. You want to keep the

736
00:44:19,960 --> 00:44:22,840
Speaker 3: brain warm when you're going into these cold waters.

737
00:44:23,800 --> 00:44:28,760
Speaker 2: That's fascinating. So yeah, it would be the environmental reasons

738
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:31,280
Speaker 2: to have a big brain are like the main driving

739
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:34,759
Speaker 2: force here. But then the idea is that if this

740
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 2: were true, they would also then of course use those

741
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 2: cognitive powers to sort of flesh out their behavior as

742
00:44:42,520 --> 00:44:43,239
Speaker 2: well well.

743
00:44:43,320 --> 00:44:46,280
Speaker 3: Right, so, yeah, if you accidentally evolve a more powerful

744
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:48,880
Speaker 3: brain just because you're trying to keep a warmer brain

745
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 3: in cold waters, that brings new capacities online which could

746
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:56,680
Speaker 3: further just arise as a contingency, but then could further

747
00:44:56,760 --> 00:44:58,839
Speaker 3: shape your revolution if you lean into them.

748
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:01,560
Speaker 2: Ah. So it's like think of the There's a Marvel

749
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:05,760
Speaker 2: super villain called the Leader, and he has enlarged brain

750
00:45:06,840 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 2: and he uses that brain power you know, you know

751
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 2: for supervillain things to try and take over the world.

752
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 2: But you could make an argument though the Leader didn't

753
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:17,680
Speaker 2: evolve or developed this massive brain to take over the world.

754
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:20,319
Speaker 2: He did it for thermal reasons. But then of course

755
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:21,719
Speaker 2: he's going to try and take over the world with

756
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 2: it because he's got a big brain. As a result

757
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:26,160
Speaker 2: of these these thermal conditions.

758
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:31,239
Speaker 3: World domination plots an unfortunate side effect of keeping a

759
00:45:31,320 --> 00:45:35,000
Speaker 3: nice and toasty up there. So that's an interesting possibility

760
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:48,120
Speaker 3: fascinating question. I'd never considered anything like that. So that's

761
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:50,200
Speaker 3: all I've got from that original paper by sila Ari

762
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 3: on the neurobiology of the mantas and the devil rays here.

763
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:55,799
Speaker 3: But there was one more thing I wanted to mention

764
00:45:55,840 --> 00:45:59,759
Speaker 3: about mobular ray brains and intelligence, and that is there

765
00:45:59,840 --> 00:46:05,000
Speaker 3: is there's one famous experiment which showed that manta rays may,

766
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:10,400
Speaker 3: depending on your interpretation, pass a well known animal cognition

767
00:46:10,480 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 3: milestone known as the mirror self recognition test. So we've

768
00:46:15,760 --> 00:46:17,640
Speaker 3: talked about this test on the show before, but if

769
00:46:17,640 --> 00:46:19,919
Speaker 3: you never heard of it, the most common version goes

770
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:25,160
Speaker 3: like this. You place a mark somewhere on an animal's body,

771
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 3: somewhere that they wouldn't be able to see it just

772
00:46:27,560 --> 00:46:31,440
Speaker 3: by looking directly at themselves, but somewhere they could see

773
00:46:31,480 --> 00:46:35,200
Speaker 3: with the aid of a mirror. So for a human example,

774
00:46:35,239 --> 00:46:37,880
Speaker 3: you could imagine putting a spot of dye on the skin,

775
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 3: maybe on the front of your throat. So you look

776
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 3: in a mirror, you'll see it, but you can't see

777
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:45,520
Speaker 3: it by looking down. Yeah, then you give that animal

778
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:49,480
Speaker 3: a mirror and you watch what they do. Most animals

779
00:46:49,640 --> 00:46:54,320
Speaker 3: do not seem to recognize their reflections as themselves. A

780
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 3: lot of animals will just kind of ignore a mirror.

781
00:46:57,080 --> 00:47:00,400
Speaker 3: Sometimes they react as if it were another an in

782
00:47:00,440 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 3: their space, So they react, you know, maybe they puff

783
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 3: up and get aggressive, or they try to interact with

784
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:10,040
Speaker 3: it somehow, or they just act confused. A small number

785
00:47:10,080 --> 00:47:13,880
Speaker 3: of animals, including some of the great apes, some marine

786
00:47:13,920 --> 00:47:18,279
Speaker 3: mammals like bottlenosed dolphins, I think, maybe orcas, some corvids,

787
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:22,400
Speaker 3: and know the magpie. I believe elephants may have passed

788
00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:26,600
Speaker 3: the mirror test. They do something different. They will touch

789
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:30,319
Speaker 3: their own bodies on the spot with the mark and

790
00:47:30,400 --> 00:47:33,360
Speaker 3: try to rub it off if they can. Sometimes, because

791
00:47:33,360 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 3: of different animal body plans, you have to organize different

792
00:47:35,640 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 3: sort of equivalents here. But they will see the mark

793
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 3: and they will try to mess with it, indicating that

794
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:46,320
Speaker 3: they understand the animal they're looking at in the mirror

795
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:50,280
Speaker 3: is the self and not another. That's my own body,

796
00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 3: and I react by touching the part of my body

797
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:55,080
Speaker 3: that I see as modified in the mirror.

798
00:47:55,719 --> 00:47:58,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's something we take for granted because we do

799
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:02,399
Speaker 2: it every day, but if calibrated just right, it can

800
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:05,440
Speaker 2: arguably give us some insight into what might be happening.

801
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 2: Inside the brain the mind of a non human.

802
00:48:08,640 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 3: Animal, right, and so this is taken as evidence of

803
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:15,720
Speaker 3: rare self awareness, though we should strongly caveat this because

804
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:18,719
Speaker 3: that phrase can bring a lot of associations or baggage

805
00:48:19,000 --> 00:48:22,360
Speaker 3: that are not necessarily proven by these experiments. There is

806
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 3: debate over exactly what the mirror test shows, but even

807
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 3: with that big asterisk there, I do think the results

808
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:33,360
Speaker 3: of these experiments are fascinating. Like most animals don't recognize

809
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 3: that the mirror reflection is their own body, a few

810
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 3: animals do appear to recognize that. What about mopular rays, well,

811
00:48:42,239 --> 00:48:45,240
Speaker 3: there was a paper published in the Journal of Ethology

812
00:48:45,480 --> 00:48:48,800
Speaker 3: in the year twenty sixteen by same author as before

813
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:54,520
Speaker 3: sila Ari but also Dominic P. Dagostino, called contingency checking

814
00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 3: and self directed behaviors in giant manta rays do elasmo

815
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:03,360
Speaker 3: broncs have self awareness, and so the authors set this

816
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:06,920
Speaker 3: up in their abstract by saying, quote, manta rays have

817
00:49:07,000 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 3: a high encevilization quotion. As we already talked about it,

818
00:49:10,000 --> 00:49:14,080
Speaker 3: Remember large brains compared to their body size, similar to

819
00:49:14,120 --> 00:49:17,240
Speaker 3: those species that have passed the mirror self recognition test

820
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:21,279
Speaker 3: and possessed the largest brain of all fish species. Again,

821
00:49:21,320 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 3: that would be in the mobula of Birostris, the giant

822
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:29,720
Speaker 3: oceanic mantray, biggest fish brain. They write quote in this study,

823
00:49:29,920 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 3: mirror exposure experiments were conducted on two captive giant manta

824
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:39,239
Speaker 3: rays to document their response to their mirror image. So

825
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:44,160
Speaker 3: this test was different from the standard format than that

826
00:49:44,239 --> 00:49:47,080
Speaker 3: I just described a minute ago because the authors were

827
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:51,040
Speaker 3: not able to do the body mark component of the test,

828
00:49:51,520 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 3: And there are some good reasons for thinking about that.

829
00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:56,560
Speaker 3: For one, thing like mantas don't have hands, so they

830
00:49:56,600 --> 00:50:00,200
Speaker 3: can't reach out and tut. There's nothing they have that's

831
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:02,239
Speaker 3: prehensile they can use to reach out and touch a

832
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 3: part of their body to mess with it. So it

833
00:50:05,200 --> 00:50:09,240
Speaker 3: didn't have that important body mark component of the test.

834
00:50:09,640 --> 00:50:12,959
Speaker 3: That places some major limits on how to interpret these

835
00:50:13,040 --> 00:50:16,120
Speaker 3: results when compared to the results of many other mirror

836
00:50:16,160 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 3: test experiments. But the authors did document the manta's behavior

837
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 3: in response to the presence of a mirror, and then

838
00:50:23,680 --> 00:50:26,879
Speaker 3: they controlled for that by just putting in a non

839
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:30,719
Speaker 3: reflective white board of the same size in their tank,

840
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:34,759
Speaker 3: and the results were really interesting. The mantas showed a

841
00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:39,920
Speaker 3: lot of interest in the mirror like a lot of interest.

842
00:50:40,080 --> 00:50:43,520
Speaker 3: They really were attracted to the mirror and they wanted

843
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:45,480
Speaker 3: to hang out around it. They spent a lot of

844
00:50:45,560 --> 00:50:48,160
Speaker 3: time moving around in front of it and messing with it.

845
00:50:49,080 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 3: They did not, on the other hand, attempt to interact

846
00:50:52,320 --> 00:50:55,880
Speaker 3: socially with the mirror image. And the authors could measure

847
00:50:55,920 --> 00:51:00,080
Speaker 3: this because there are certain kinds of physiological responses that

848
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:03,200
Speaker 3: mantas tend to show when in the presence of another

849
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:06,719
Speaker 3: another manta, like they might show like a kind of

850
00:51:06,719 --> 00:51:09,400
Speaker 3: widening of spots, or like something kind of like changes

851
00:51:09,400 --> 00:51:13,520
Speaker 3: on their coloration patterns, and they didn't observe anything like that.

852
00:51:13,560 --> 00:51:15,960
Speaker 3: They did not see the behaviors you would normally see

853
00:51:15,960 --> 00:51:19,640
Speaker 3: when a manta sees another of its species, so there

854
00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:23,240
Speaker 3: were no signs that they thought of this as another animal.

855
00:51:23,719 --> 00:51:28,040
Speaker 3: The author is right quote frequent, unusual and repetitive movements

856
00:51:28,080 --> 00:51:32,160
Speaker 3: in front of the mirror suggested contingency checking. In addition,

857
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:36,200
Speaker 3: unusual self directed behaviors could be identified when the manta

858
00:51:36,280 --> 00:51:39,719
Speaker 3: rays were exposed to the mirror. So what exactly do

859
00:51:39,800 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 3: they mean by contingency checking. This seems to mean testing

860
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:47,560
Speaker 3: to see if the mirror image does the same things

861
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 3: you do so you know, you might think of making

862
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:53,279
Speaker 3: faces in a mirror or like wiggling repetitively in front

863
00:51:53,320 --> 00:51:58,439
Speaker 3: of a mirror, and they the arch yes, yeah, exactly, yeah,

864
00:51:58,440 --> 00:52:01,720
Speaker 3: they were doing that. So exam they observed were things

865
00:52:01,800 --> 00:52:05,719
Speaker 3: like positioning the body to stare into the mirror and

866
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 3: then repeatedly wiggling the cephalic fins, like opening and closing

867
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:12,760
Speaker 3: the cephalic fins over and over, blowing bubbles into the mirror.

868
00:52:13,920 --> 00:52:18,520
Speaker 3: And then also what about these unusual quote self directed behaviors.

869
00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:22,959
Speaker 3: This is what look to the researchers like the manta

870
00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:26,960
Speaker 3: trying to investigate parts of its own body that it

871
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:30,799
Speaker 3: can't normally see, like orienting so that it could look

872
00:52:30,920 --> 00:52:34,560
Speaker 3: at the reflection of its ventral surface of its belly

873
00:52:34,680 --> 00:52:37,279
Speaker 3: or part of its back for example. They note that

874
00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:41,720
Speaker 3: quote body turns into a vertical direction, exposing the ventral

875
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 3: side of the body to the mirror while visually oriented

876
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:48,799
Speaker 3: to it was something that they only ever saw the

877
00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:51,239
Speaker 3: mantas do when the mirror was in the tank. So

878
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:53,120
Speaker 3: they take the mirror out. They don't see the mantas

879
00:52:53,160 --> 00:52:57,040
Speaker 3: doing like orienting vertically like this and look, so it's

880
00:52:57,200 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 3: like it looked to them like they were trying to

881
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:02,320
Speaker 3: see parts of their body that were not ever visible

882
00:53:02,360 --> 00:53:05,120
Speaker 3: to them otherwise. So at the end of their abstract,

883
00:53:05,239 --> 00:53:08,480
Speaker 3: they say, quote, the present study shows evidence for behavioral

884
00:53:08,520 --> 00:53:12,959
Speaker 3: responses to a mirror that are prerequisite for a prerequisite

885
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:15,720
Speaker 3: of self awareness, and which has been used to confirm

886
00:53:15,840 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 3: self recognition in apes. But again the authors do acknowledge

887
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:24,400
Speaker 3: the limitations. You know, this doesn't necessarily prove self awareness

888
00:53:24,480 --> 00:53:26,759
Speaker 3: this version of the test. Of course, it did not

889
00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:31,239
Speaker 3: include the mark checking component, and there are multiple ways

890
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:33,680
Speaker 3: you could interpret their behavior in front of the mirror.

891
00:53:33,719 --> 00:53:37,640
Speaker 3: It's possible they didn't recognize it as themselves and we're

892
00:53:37,680 --> 00:53:42,840
Speaker 3: just reacting with curiosity to something visually unusual. Though, the

893
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:45,280
Speaker 3: behaviors that look like, you know, checking out your belly

894
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:48,319
Speaker 3: flesh only when the mirror is around, that does sound

895
00:53:48,360 --> 00:53:49,320
Speaker 3: pretty interesting to me.

896
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:53,279
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Oh man, Yeah, I have a couple of

897
00:53:53,280 --> 00:53:56,360
Speaker 2: thoughts on all of this. Like, on one level, I

898
00:53:56,400 --> 00:53:59,560
Speaker 2: have to say that, you know, so like the hard

899
00:53:59,600 --> 00:54:02,840
Speaker 2: science side, I do like the idea of leaning into

900
00:54:03,719 --> 00:54:09,080
Speaker 2: interpretations of animals as being more conscious and having you know,

901
00:54:09,239 --> 00:54:11,520
Speaker 2: if there's a case to be made, I'm like, let's

902
00:54:11,560 --> 00:54:14,080
Speaker 2: go ahead and consider it, because if it helps protect

903
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:18,319
Speaker 2: a species like this, then all the better. On the

904
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:20,640
Speaker 2: other hand, like just the idea of let's go ahead

905
00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:23,600
Speaker 2: and assume for the sake of argument that the manta

906
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:27,440
Speaker 2: does recognize the reflection as itself. What is that like

907
00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:29,800
Speaker 2: for a cret Now granted, this is an aquarium scenario,

908
00:54:29,920 --> 00:54:32,640
Speaker 2: so with the glass involved, there may be some other scenarios.

909
00:54:32,640 --> 00:54:37,880
Speaker 2: But imagine a purely wild manta that has, as far

910
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:42,480
Speaker 2: as I'm imagining, it never encountered a reflection of itself,

911
00:54:42,880 --> 00:54:44,960
Speaker 2: and then it is presented with one. What would that

912
00:54:44,960 --> 00:54:47,000
Speaker 2: be like? What would that be like for a human being?

913
00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:49,840
Speaker 2: If we managed to make it to adulthood without ever

914
00:54:50,200 --> 00:54:54,040
Speaker 2: encountering an unnatural mirror, reflection or something like it, say,

915
00:54:54,040 --> 00:54:56,920
Speaker 2: on the surface of water. I mean, I have no

916
00:54:56,920 --> 00:54:58,560
Speaker 2: doubt that we'd be able to pass it. I mean,

917
00:54:58,600 --> 00:55:04,000
Speaker 2: that's certainly part of the human mental capabilities. But but man,

918
00:55:04,040 --> 00:55:06,239
Speaker 2: what would that what would that encounter be like?

919
00:55:06,600 --> 00:55:08,279
Speaker 3: But the human I think, you know, you can see

920
00:55:08,320 --> 00:55:10,640
Speaker 3: a lot of your own body, not the whole thing.

921
00:55:10,719 --> 00:55:12,880
Speaker 3: You know, you got a lot of back, and you

922
00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:14,960
Speaker 3: got a face and head and I guess all that.

923
00:55:15,000 --> 00:55:16,480
Speaker 3: But you can see at least like the front of

924
00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:19,520
Speaker 3: your body. Yeah, the mantas, I don't know, can they

925
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:22,000
Speaker 3: even see that? Again, it seems like they were very

926
00:55:22,000 --> 00:55:25,480
Speaker 3: interested in checking out their their ventral side here, so

927
00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:29,800
Speaker 3: they may have very very little visual awareness of themselves

928
00:55:29,960 --> 00:55:33,520
Speaker 3: within their space ever, maybe all kind of like only

929
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:38,160
Speaker 3: proprioceptive awareness of their own body. Again, I'm not sure

930
00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:40,920
Speaker 3: of that, but that's it seems plausible.

931
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:45,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it's fascinating. Now were we kept

932
00:55:45,080 --> 00:55:47,279
Speaker 2: talking about their their bellies, their ventral side, So I

933
00:55:47,320 --> 00:55:49,760
Speaker 2: want to come back to this as we're we're closing

934
00:55:49,760 --> 00:55:55,120
Speaker 2: out here. As we've mentioned, some mantas have distinct appearances

935
00:55:55,160 --> 00:55:58,680
Speaker 2: because of significant scarring, you know, scarring from mating, scarring

936
00:55:58,719 --> 00:56:03,520
Speaker 2: from predators interactions. And then you have mantas such as

937
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:07,920
Speaker 2: the celebrity manta Baba Ganoosh of the Maldives that apparently

938
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:10,239
Speaker 2: survived a rather horrific boat strike. You can look up

939
00:56:10,239 --> 00:56:14,480
Speaker 2: images of this one. So these individuals you tend to

940
00:56:14,480 --> 00:56:17,759
Speaker 2: stand out. But as we've discussed, their wounds tend to

941
00:56:17,800 --> 00:56:21,000
Speaker 2: heal rapidly, you know, maybe not completely, and certainly in

942
00:56:21,000 --> 00:56:24,120
Speaker 2: the case of severe injuries, not completely, but on the whole,

943
00:56:24,160 --> 00:56:28,239
Speaker 2: these are changing markers. What doesn't change, however, are the

944
00:56:28,360 --> 00:56:32,040
Speaker 2: dark spots on their bellies, on their ventral side. You

945
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:34,000
Speaker 2: can look up, you know, images of this, and if

946
00:56:34,040 --> 00:56:36,240
Speaker 2: you've been in the water you might get to observe

947
00:56:36,440 --> 00:56:39,800
Speaker 2: this as well. But yeah, you look at the ventral

948
00:56:39,840 --> 00:56:43,239
Speaker 2: side of a manta and it is a unique fingerprint,

949
00:56:43,560 --> 00:56:47,040
Speaker 2: the array of spots and blotches on their generally white bellies.

950
00:56:48,080 --> 00:56:49,920
Speaker 2: It is, It is a fingerprint. It can be used

951
00:56:49,920 --> 00:56:54,280
Speaker 2: to i D a particular manta, and scientists are able

952
00:56:54,320 --> 00:56:57,960
Speaker 2: to put these into a database and track individuals without

953
00:56:58,000 --> 00:57:02,759
Speaker 2: the aid of actual physical tracks or tax And it

954
00:57:02,760 --> 00:57:04,840
Speaker 2: gets even cooler because you get into like a citizen

955
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:09,000
Speaker 2: scientist scenario here because you have the global ID the

956
00:57:09,040 --> 00:57:13,720
Speaker 2: Manta Photo database, which via this database, anyone who swims

957
00:57:13,760 --> 00:57:19,800
Speaker 2: in proximity to mantas. Again, I'm assuming by following all

958
00:57:19,840 --> 00:57:22,320
Speaker 2: the rules, but if you manage to get a photos,

959
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:24,959
Speaker 2: particularly of their spots, they can I think other parts

960
00:57:24,960 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 2: of the manta can also prove useful, but especially their spots.

961
00:57:28,720 --> 00:57:31,560
Speaker 2: They can be uploaded into the database and this can

962
00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:33,920
Speaker 2: be used to help study their movements and their behavior.

963
00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:37,880
Speaker 2: And yeah, you can learn more about this at Manta

964
00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:41,160
Speaker 2: Trust dot org. I believe we've referred to the Manta

965
00:57:41,160 --> 00:57:44,160
Speaker 2: Trust already, and I'd say, in general, if you've been

966
00:57:44,240 --> 00:57:46,880
Speaker 2: moved at all by anything we've discussed in these episodes

967
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:49,320
Speaker 2: about the manta, the plight of the manta, or the

968
00:57:49,360 --> 00:57:54,160
Speaker 2: majesty of these creatures, visit Manta Trust dot org. You

969
00:57:54,200 --> 00:57:56,040
Speaker 2: can learn more about them, you can sign up for

970
00:57:56,040 --> 00:57:59,920
Speaker 2: their newsletter. You can support their work via donations and purchases.

971
00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:03,240
Speaker 2: In fact, that book that I've been referring to, Guide

972
00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:04,800
Speaker 2: to the Manta and Devil Rays of the World, is

973
00:58:04,840 --> 00:58:08,400
Speaker 2: available to purchase there, and even if you don't purchase

974
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:12,080
Speaker 2: it directly from them, royalties from that book go to

975
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:15,040
Speaker 2: the Manta Trust. You can even this is this is

976
00:58:15,040 --> 00:58:17,240
Speaker 2: super cool. You can of course adopt a manta. This

977
00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:20,560
Speaker 2: is not uncommon. You can, you know, and but you

978
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:24,880
Speaker 2: can also pay to name a specific Maldives manta in

979
00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:27,560
Speaker 2: their database. I was looking at this on their website.

980
00:58:27,600 --> 00:58:30,120
Speaker 2: I think they had like four up for grabs. So

981
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:32,960
Speaker 2: these are mantas that have you know, like a technical tag,

982
00:58:33,640 --> 00:58:36,160
Speaker 2: like you know, string of numbers and letters, but they

983
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:39,880
Speaker 2: don't have a fun name yet. And for a very

984
00:58:39,920 --> 00:58:43,880
Speaker 2: reasonable donation, you can provide a name for such a

985
00:58:43,920 --> 00:58:44,440
Speaker 2: Manta Ray.

986
00:58:44,560 --> 00:58:46,760
Speaker 3: Do they place any limits on how stupid the name

987
00:58:46,800 --> 00:58:47,080
Speaker 3: can be?

988
00:58:48,080 --> 00:58:50,440
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I mean there may be

989
00:58:50,480 --> 00:58:53,880
Speaker 2: some reasonable limits there. I mean I would place reasonable

990
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:56,760
Speaker 2: limits if I were running this. But but yeah, I

991
00:58:57,240 --> 00:58:58,800
Speaker 2: mean it makes me I kind of want to adopt

992
00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:00,440
Speaker 2: a Manta Ray for the show. Could call it, I

993
00:59:00,480 --> 00:59:04,040
Speaker 2: don't know, Blowfield, Stuffington or something. I wouldn't want it

994
00:59:04,040 --> 00:59:05,040
Speaker 2: to be a complete.

995
00:59:04,680 --> 00:59:08,800
Speaker 3: Advertiser Delia the self Aware.

996
00:59:09,720 --> 00:59:12,920
Speaker 2: There you go at any rate check it out listeners.

997
00:59:12,920 --> 00:59:15,280
Speaker 2: If you happen to adopt a Manta Ray or or

998
00:59:15,440 --> 00:59:18,600
Speaker 2: name a Manta Ray via this website, let us know

999
00:59:18,720 --> 00:59:21,080
Speaker 2: and we will. We will spread the will, spread the word,

1000
00:59:21,160 --> 00:59:23,480
Speaker 2: and we'll also look this Manta Ray up and see

1001
00:59:23,480 --> 00:59:24,040
Speaker 2: what they look like.

1002
00:59:24,320 --> 00:59:27,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

1003
00:59:27,120 --> 00:59:30,080
Speaker 2: Let us know. All right, we're gonna go ahead and

1004
00:59:30,080 --> 00:59:34,000
Speaker 2: close these episodes out. I hope you've enjoyed them. Again,

1005
00:59:34,040 --> 00:59:35,680
Speaker 2: we'd love to hear from everyone out there. You have

1006
00:59:35,680 --> 00:59:39,560
Speaker 2: any experiences with Manta's, other rays, thoughts and anything that's

1007
00:59:39,600 --> 00:59:43,160
Speaker 2: discussed here right in. Yeah, send your photos. We'd love

1008
00:59:43,200 --> 00:59:46,320
Speaker 2: to see photos. We heard from some snorklers already, but

1009
00:59:46,360 --> 00:59:49,360
Speaker 2: not the sort of snorkelers. I was imagining. We'll get

1010
00:59:49,400 --> 00:59:51,440
Speaker 2: to that in a future listener mail episode, but we

1011
00:59:51,520 --> 00:59:54,200
Speaker 2: heard from some bog snortlers. Is that a joke?

1012
00:59:54,240 --> 00:59:54,880
Speaker 3: I couldn't tell.

1013
00:59:55,320 --> 00:59:56,800
Speaker 2: I could not tell. I haven't had a chance to

1014
00:59:56,880 --> 00:59:59,560
Speaker 2: research it yet, but I flagged that one to come

1015
00:59:59,600 --> 01:00:02,240
Speaker 2: back to. If it was a joke, it was elaborate.

1016
01:00:02,560 --> 01:00:04,080
Speaker 2: Those were I think real photos.

1017
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:05,520
Speaker 3: We'll learn more and report.

1018
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:08,200
Speaker 2: Just a reminder to everyone that's Stuff to Blow Your

1019
01:00:08,240 --> 01:00:10,560
Speaker 2: Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core

1020
01:00:10,600 --> 01:00:13,960
Speaker 2: episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes on Wednesdays

1021
01:00:13,960 --> 01:00:16,120
Speaker 2: and on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns to

1022
01:00:16,160 --> 01:00:18,680
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

1023
01:00:19,000 --> 01:00:22,840
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

1024
01:00:23,200 --> 01:00:24,800
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1025
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:27,280
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1026
01:00:27,280 --> 01:00:29,320
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1027
01:00:29,440 --> 01:00:32,240
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact stuff to Blow your

1028
01:00:32,280 --> 01:00:40,280
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.

1029
01:00:40,840 --> 01:00:43,760
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1030
01:00:43,840 --> 01:00:46,640
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1031
01:00:46,800 --> 01:00:58,560
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows

1032
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:01,440
Speaker 2: With red Ratt