1
00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:09,880
Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Future production of I Heart Radio. I'm

2
00:00:09,880 --> 00:00:13,520
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology

3
00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:16,000
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, we're going

4
00:00:16,040 --> 00:00:20,759
Speaker 1: to take a bite out of troglobytes figuratively speaking, what

5
00:00:20,920 --> 00:00:24,720
Speaker 1: happens in the deep, cold, dark depths of caves? How

6
00:00:24,760 --> 00:00:28,280
Speaker 1: does anything stay alive down there? What happens when you

7
00:00:28,520 --> 00:00:32,279
Speaker 1: just don't need eyes? What kind of creepy crawleys might

8
00:00:32,440 --> 00:00:35,200
Speaker 1: rush against you in the dark caverns of the world,

9
00:00:35,640 --> 00:00:40,279
Speaker 1: and are there real life cave dragons? Discover this more

10
00:00:40,280 --> 00:00:43,040
Speaker 1: as we answer the angel question, is that a spelio

11
00:00:43,120 --> 00:00:45,400
Speaker 1: them in your pocket? Hord? Are you just you get

12
00:00:45,400 --> 00:00:48,120
Speaker 1: the joke? To get the joke? Joining me today to

13
00:00:48,280 --> 00:00:51,080
Speaker 1: talk cave critters is co host of the Small Beans

14
00:00:51,120 --> 00:00:54,480
Speaker 1: podcast network and video manager for I g N and

15
00:00:54,680 --> 00:01:01,160
Speaker 1: coyote lover Michael Swain. Oh, thank you for having me, Katie.

16
00:01:02,720 --> 00:01:07,560
Speaker 1: He's actually part coyote where coyote, yeah, and a cave

17
00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:11,880
Speaker 1: dwelling mammal. Myself and I've often wondered in this cave

18
00:01:11,920 --> 00:01:15,360
Speaker 1: of quarantine, how can anything live down there? So I'm

19
00:01:15,440 --> 00:01:18,320
Speaker 1: very excited that that's the topic today. Well, you know,

20
00:01:18,400 --> 00:01:23,360
Speaker 1: a cave dwelling human is a troglodyt. I have only

21
00:01:23,400 --> 00:01:30,920
Speaker 1: heard of trilobites and truck weight trilo dit or troglodyt.

22
00:01:31,200 --> 00:01:35,400
Speaker 1: It's troglow byte is the critters. See this is like

23
00:01:35,440 --> 00:01:38,560
Speaker 1: a crazy mash up word. I don't know about this.

24
00:01:39,080 --> 00:01:42,600
Speaker 1: Troglow diet is a human being who lives in a cave,

25
00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:46,679
Speaker 1: whereas troglow byte is any little critter that lives in

26
00:01:46,880 --> 00:01:50,880
Speaker 1: exclusively in caves. Oh, I love learning new words. Okay,

27
00:01:50,920 --> 00:01:52,960
Speaker 1: so the critter that lives in a cave, that's me.

28
00:01:53,240 --> 00:01:57,560
Speaker 1: I'm both that's you, right, as long as you only

29
00:01:57,600 --> 00:02:00,840
Speaker 1: live in caves, you never emerge from your cave, which

30
00:02:02,440 --> 00:02:06,280
Speaker 1: and that's basically true right now, I don't need We're

31
00:02:06,280 --> 00:02:11,200
Speaker 1: all troglobites to a certain extent, and trilobites. So what

32
00:02:11,440 --> 00:02:15,000
Speaker 1: is a troglo bite. It is an animal species who

33
00:02:15,040 --> 00:02:19,720
Speaker 1: lives exclusively in caves or underground, and they can go

34
00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:23,280
Speaker 1: through very very strange adaptations. Now, this is why I'm

35
00:02:23,320 --> 00:02:25,639
Speaker 1: having you on, Michael for this one, because you mentioned

36
00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:28,799
Speaker 1: to me you're really interested in animals that like kind

37
00:02:28,840 --> 00:02:32,600
Speaker 1: of these weird almost aliens on Earth that don't have

38
00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:36,799
Speaker 1: eyes or just very strange adaptations. Oh yeah, tired of

39
00:02:36,880 --> 00:02:40,560
Speaker 1: graves or anything that you go so far down in

40
00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:43,160
Speaker 1: the ocean that it's just you and James Cameron and

41
00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:46,280
Speaker 1: the pressure is so intense. Nothing should be there. That's

42
00:02:46,320 --> 00:02:50,519
Speaker 1: what I astound me about life. Katie's like, there doesn't

43
00:02:50,760 --> 00:02:55,000
Speaker 1: need to be life everywhere, does that? But for some reason,

44
00:02:55,280 --> 00:02:58,920
Speaker 1: you're like in this uh, spacelike void at the bottom

45
00:02:58,919 --> 00:03:02,200
Speaker 1: of the sea by this volcanic eruption. There's these little

46
00:03:02,240 --> 00:03:05,679
Speaker 1: critters that live down there, and you're like freaking why.

47
00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:09,919
Speaker 1: But yeah, anything that's shaped weird because it just shouldn't

48
00:03:09,960 --> 00:03:13,320
Speaker 1: be here right. Well, and you mentioned the deep sea,

49
00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:15,720
Speaker 1: but I kind of wanted to take you into the

50
00:03:15,800 --> 00:03:18,840
Speaker 1: cave systems of the world because I think that's something

51
00:03:18,919 --> 00:03:22,360
Speaker 1: where we don't even really think about life being in caves.

52
00:03:22,440 --> 00:03:24,400
Speaker 1: It's like in the deep sea, we're like, yeah, okay,

53
00:03:24,400 --> 00:03:26,600
Speaker 1: we've got our deep submarine and then we've got some

54
00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:31,400
Speaker 1: kind of ghoulish looking anglerfish and bioluminescence, and we've kind

55
00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:35,040
Speaker 1: of become accustomed to the aliens that live in the

56
00:03:35,080 --> 00:03:38,160
Speaker 1: deep sea. But like, when you go in a cave system,

57
00:03:38,320 --> 00:03:41,480
Speaker 1: it's like well, wait, why is anything in here? Like you,

58
00:03:41,720 --> 00:03:43,920
Speaker 1: you know, in the entrance to the caves, like the

59
00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:46,840
Speaker 1: mouths of caves, you you know, there's bats and and

60
00:03:46,880 --> 00:03:49,040
Speaker 1: so on. But like to get deep in a cave

61
00:03:49,040 --> 00:03:52,560
Speaker 1: where there's no light and it's just perfectly still and

62
00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:55,160
Speaker 1: silent and cold, and you're like, well, why would anything

63
00:03:55,240 --> 00:03:58,000
Speaker 1: be down here? But that's exactly what we're going to

64
00:03:58,120 --> 00:04:03,520
Speaker 1: talk about. So animals that live deep in caves often

65
00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:08,520
Speaker 1: go through very weird adaptations, so depigmentation, the loss of

66
00:04:08,640 --> 00:04:12,800
Speaker 1: skin pigment. There are no evolutionary pressures to have any pigment.

67
00:04:13,160 --> 00:04:16,520
Speaker 1: There's the loss of eyesight or even the eyes themselves,

68
00:04:17,040 --> 00:04:21,120
Speaker 1: and longer antenna and legs to better since their environment.

69
00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:24,719
Speaker 1: So you get some very very creepy like centipedes with

70
00:04:24,800 --> 00:04:31,080
Speaker 1: really long legs and long antenna, the trifecta of nightmare fuel. Essentially. Well,

71
00:04:31,080 --> 00:04:34,520
Speaker 1: it's interesting because fear in in our experience is so

72
00:04:34,560 --> 00:04:38,800
Speaker 1: tied up with things the other, the unknown, things that

73
00:04:38,880 --> 00:04:42,720
Speaker 1: seem alien, and so things that are shaped by forces

74
00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:45,400
Speaker 1: that we don't have to deal with, and vice versa.

75
00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:47,440
Speaker 1: They are not affected by forces, you know, on the

76
00:04:47,440 --> 00:04:51,279
Speaker 1: evolutionary time scale. It's like they've they've had such a

77
00:04:51,279 --> 00:04:55,080
Speaker 1: different experience that they're so different than me that they

78
00:04:55,080 --> 00:04:59,480
Speaker 1: freaked me out. I think there's also something like because

79
00:04:59,520 --> 00:05:02,200
Speaker 1: as he Men's, we do have an evolutionary history where

80
00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:05,880
Speaker 1: we probably did live in caves at some point. I mean,

81
00:05:05,920 --> 00:05:10,039
Speaker 1: we have evidence of humans dwelling in caves, but we

82
00:05:10,160 --> 00:05:13,479
Speaker 1: probably had a fear of going too deep into the cave,

83
00:05:13,839 --> 00:05:16,800
Speaker 1: you know, where there's no light. I think that to me,

84
00:05:16,880 --> 00:05:19,400
Speaker 1: at least, there's this uncanny fear as as you go

85
00:05:19,520 --> 00:05:21,440
Speaker 1: deeper into a cave. And I've been to, you know,

86
00:05:21,480 --> 00:05:24,159
Speaker 1: the tourist caves where you don't really have to worry

87
00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:26,919
Speaker 1: too much, like they're a guided tour you're not like

88
00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:29,440
Speaker 1: spelunking on your own, which can be actually very dangerous.

89
00:05:29,480 --> 00:05:32,960
Speaker 1: But uh, when there are sections where they're like guiding

90
00:05:33,000 --> 00:05:35,280
Speaker 1: you and there's like not that much light around because

91
00:05:35,279 --> 00:05:37,200
Speaker 1: they don't want to light up the whole cave system.

92
00:05:37,240 --> 00:05:40,000
Speaker 1: They want the lights in just a few particular areas.

93
00:05:40,080 --> 00:05:42,120
Speaker 1: And there's actually a good reason for that. But in

94
00:05:42,160 --> 00:05:44,120
Speaker 1: these areas where it's just like really dark and you're

95
00:05:44,520 --> 00:05:48,560
Speaker 1: sliding along these narrow passage boys, it's just something so

96
00:05:48,680 --> 00:05:53,040
Speaker 1: claustrophobic and creepy about it. I went caving in Belize

97
00:05:53,520 --> 00:05:59,720
Speaker 1: in real life, which seems so distant now, but yeah,

98
00:06:00,080 --> 00:06:04,359
Speaker 1: we went swimming through a pass where it was literally

99
00:06:04,520 --> 00:06:07,560
Speaker 1: pitch black, you know, like deep beneath the earth, the

100
00:06:07,600 --> 00:06:10,520
Speaker 1: guts of the earth, in a way that I've never

101
00:06:10,560 --> 00:06:17,320
Speaker 1: experienced anywhere else, completely silent, really really existentially terrifying and horrible.

102
00:06:17,880 --> 00:06:22,279
Speaker 1: And now you're gonna tell me there's stuff alive down there,

103
00:06:22,320 --> 00:06:24,800
Speaker 1: and I don't want to know. Yeah, swimming in complete

104
00:06:24,880 --> 00:06:28,640
Speaker 1: darkness and silence is so creepy to me. It's like

105
00:06:28,839 --> 00:06:33,400
Speaker 1: it's like um sensory deprivation tank, but you never know

106
00:06:33,440 --> 00:06:36,440
Speaker 1: when something's going to brush against your foot, and I come, well,

107
00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:39,640
Speaker 1: I comforted myself by thinking, this is like the moon,

108
00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:43,000
Speaker 1: though just filled with water. Nothing lives down here, And

109
00:06:43,040 --> 00:06:45,720
Speaker 1: now all you're about to shatter all those illusions and

110
00:06:45,800 --> 00:06:49,679
Speaker 1: ruin my va, ruin the best vacation of my life. Retroactively,

111
00:06:49,720 --> 00:06:55,400
Speaker 1: thank you. So there are cave dwellers that were familiar

112
00:06:55,440 --> 00:06:58,560
Speaker 1: with like bats or rats or you know, a little

113
00:06:58,720 --> 00:07:01,880
Speaker 1: mammals that like to sleep in caves, and these are

114
00:07:01,960 --> 00:07:06,840
Speaker 1: called troglo zines. So they are just occasional visitors to caves.

115
00:07:06,839 --> 00:07:09,960
Speaker 1: So even bats that live like in the mouths of caves,

116
00:07:09,960 --> 00:07:12,560
Speaker 1: they only live part time in the caves. They will

117
00:07:12,600 --> 00:07:17,080
Speaker 1: come out to eat insects or fruit uh and and

118
00:07:17,160 --> 00:07:18,920
Speaker 1: fly around, and they come back in the cave to

119
00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:23,200
Speaker 1: sleep uh. So they are not true trogloe bites because

120
00:07:23,200 --> 00:07:26,560
Speaker 1: they don't spend their whole life in the cave, whereas

121
00:07:26,640 --> 00:07:29,760
Speaker 1: trogloe bites spend their entire time in the caves and

122
00:07:29,800 --> 00:07:32,880
Speaker 1: often deep in the caves. So there are actually three

123
00:07:33,040 --> 00:07:37,040
Speaker 1: main zones in the caves. There's the entrance zone, with

124
00:07:37,200 --> 00:07:39,840
Speaker 1: lots of life, lots of vegetation. You can even have

125
00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:44,880
Speaker 1: flowering plants there um often really beautiful. Actually, there's the

126
00:07:45,000 --> 00:07:50,440
Speaker 1: twilight zone yea, where there's just a little bit of

127
00:07:50,520 --> 00:07:54,280
Speaker 1: light can reach into the cave. It's cool and moist.

128
00:07:54,520 --> 00:07:59,040
Speaker 1: There are some vegetation that can thrive there, like ferns

129
00:07:59,080 --> 00:08:04,800
Speaker 1: and mosses, so they're getting just enough light to photosynthesize um.

130
00:08:04,840 --> 00:08:09,480
Speaker 1: But then there's the dark zone where no light reaches uh.

131
00:08:09,480 --> 00:08:13,560
Speaker 1: And yet plants can still grow here. Vegetation can still

132
00:08:13,640 --> 00:08:17,240
Speaker 1: grow here um, not not just plants, but also fung

133
00:08:17,320 --> 00:08:21,840
Speaker 1: gis so algae, fungi and slime mold can grow here. Uh.

134
00:08:21,880 --> 00:08:26,680
Speaker 1: They can't photosynthesize, so they have to use different metabolic pathways.

135
00:08:26,720 --> 00:08:30,240
Speaker 1: So fungi can live off of bat guano, which is

136
00:08:30,320 --> 00:08:34,120
Speaker 1: full of nutrients delicious, Uh, alge, you don't have to

137
00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:38,000
Speaker 1: tell me about the nutritious delicious properties of bad water.

138
00:08:39,400 --> 00:08:45,520
Speaker 1: Algae can grow without photosynthesis through other versions of metabolism,

139
00:08:46,040 --> 00:08:49,000
Speaker 1: such as breaking down sugar found in their environment, probably

140
00:08:49,080 --> 00:08:55,000
Speaker 1: from waste organic material um and in the zone life

141
00:08:55,040 --> 00:08:57,880
Speaker 1: can also thrive. Now it seems like weird that you

142
00:08:57,920 --> 00:09:00,679
Speaker 1: could still have life except for may be little like

143
00:09:01,080 --> 00:09:04,640
Speaker 1: bacteria or something living here. But as you have support

144
00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:08,120
Speaker 1: for some algae and funga, you can also have other

145
00:09:08,200 --> 00:09:11,079
Speaker 1: forms of life and it supports a whole ecosystem. One

146
00:09:11,160 --> 00:09:15,000
Speaker 1: honorable mention for life that exists in caves not naturally

147
00:09:15,320 --> 00:09:19,400
Speaker 1: is lamp and flora. So this is sneaky algae that

148
00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:23,600
Speaker 1: comes into cave systems through water flows or introduced by

149
00:09:23,679 --> 00:09:29,560
Speaker 1: animals or humans, that grow exclusively in lamplight. Introduced by humans.

150
00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:35,119
Speaker 1: What I mean, We put lights in caves, so algae

151
00:09:35,280 --> 00:09:38,600
Speaker 1: comes into caves. Normally it would just die off, but

152
00:09:38,640 --> 00:09:41,080
Speaker 1: then it's like, hey, well there's a light in here.

153
00:09:41,160 --> 00:09:45,680
Speaker 1: That's cool, and it hangs around and it lives, okay,

154
00:09:45,679 --> 00:09:51,360
Speaker 1: But is it genetically or evolutionarily branched from other algae

155
00:09:51,440 --> 00:09:53,200
Speaker 1: or is that just the word that defines algae that

156
00:09:53,240 --> 00:09:57,960
Speaker 1: figured this system out. It's just so a cave gets

157
00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:01,679
Speaker 1: a lot of input from the outside world. Animals like

158
00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:04,320
Speaker 1: bats will come in and out, humans will come in

159
00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:07,559
Speaker 1: and out. Water flows. That's probably where a lot of

160
00:10:07,600 --> 00:10:10,360
Speaker 1: the algae is coming in from water flows from the surface.

161
00:10:10,400 --> 00:10:12,840
Speaker 1: So if this algae comes from the surface, you have

162
00:10:13,200 --> 00:10:16,160
Speaker 1: these little, you know, little bits of algae that come

163
00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:19,800
Speaker 1: in and then they are really good at colonizing places

164
00:10:19,800 --> 00:10:22,199
Speaker 1: wherever they can. If you've ever had a fish tank,

165
00:10:22,640 --> 00:10:26,719
Speaker 1: you know how even the smallest amount of algae can

166
00:10:26,760 --> 00:10:29,120
Speaker 1: get in there and just coat the entire tank in

167
00:10:29,200 --> 00:10:32,840
Speaker 1: like a week. So it's very very hardy. So if

168
00:10:32,840 --> 00:10:36,200
Speaker 1: a little bit gets in on an animal's fur through

169
00:10:36,240 --> 00:10:38,640
Speaker 1: the water and then it finds the spot of light,

170
00:10:38,720 --> 00:10:41,800
Speaker 1: it's going to flourish. So yeah, it's actually a problem

171
00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:44,880
Speaker 1: because it's not supposed to be there. It normally would

172
00:10:44,920 --> 00:10:46,920
Speaker 1: just kind of die off because it doesn't have access

173
00:10:46,960 --> 00:10:51,520
Speaker 1: to light and only it's especially evolved algae cousins that

174
00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:54,240
Speaker 1: live in the cave system should be able to survive,

175
00:10:54,320 --> 00:10:57,559
Speaker 1: so it's actually an invasive species. It's not really necessarily

176
00:10:57,559 --> 00:11:00,600
Speaker 1: good for the cave ecosystem to have that ace of algae,

177
00:11:00,640 --> 00:11:05,800
Speaker 1: and it's also not necessarily good for um anthropologists because

178
00:11:05,840 --> 00:11:08,920
Speaker 1: like if cave algae starts to grow over like say

179
00:11:08,960 --> 00:11:12,640
Speaker 1: old cave paintings, that's really destructive in that so bad

180
00:11:12,760 --> 00:11:16,680
Speaker 1: lamp and flora naty. We kind of bread it on

181
00:11:16,720 --> 00:11:22,440
Speaker 1: ourselves though it's true, it's true. Um So, I think

182
00:11:22,480 --> 00:11:25,680
Speaker 1: there's this concept that like in caves, like deep in caves,

183
00:11:25,679 --> 00:11:29,000
Speaker 1: it shouldn't be livable. Some people have the idea that

184
00:11:29,040 --> 00:11:32,520
Speaker 1: there's not oxygen in caves, that there couldn't be water

185
00:11:32,640 --> 00:11:35,160
Speaker 1: flow in caves, or that it would get like way

186
00:11:35,160 --> 00:11:40,000
Speaker 1: too cold. And it's interesting because there are many caves

187
00:11:40,040 --> 00:11:42,400
Speaker 1: that are totally fine in terms of being able to

188
00:11:42,480 --> 00:11:46,199
Speaker 1: live in them because there's constant airflow. There may be

189
00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:50,320
Speaker 1: multiple openings to a cave, and due to the difference

190
00:11:50,400 --> 00:11:53,120
Speaker 1: in temperature between the cave and outside, you actually have

191
00:11:53,280 --> 00:11:57,600
Speaker 1: a pressure differential that causes airflow. That doesn't mean all

192
00:11:57,679 --> 00:12:01,880
Speaker 1: caves are oxygenated, so there are some caves that have

193
00:12:02,080 --> 00:12:06,200
Speaker 1: high levels of carbon dioxide or methane. So CEO two

194
00:12:06,240 --> 00:12:09,280
Speaker 1: can get into a cave system through water flows and

195
00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:15,720
Speaker 1: gas change, gas exchange through vegetation or organic decay flora

196
00:12:15,800 --> 00:12:20,400
Speaker 1: or fauna respiration and metabolism, or it may actually sink

197
00:12:20,480 --> 00:12:23,880
Speaker 1: to the bottom of really deep caves. It's heavier than

198
00:12:24,120 --> 00:12:27,000
Speaker 1: than the surrounding air, and then the air flow doesn't

199
00:12:27,040 --> 00:12:31,040
Speaker 1: reach down to the bottom of the cave and it

200
00:12:31,160 --> 00:12:33,600
Speaker 1: can't like lift it out and ventilate it. So like

201
00:12:33,760 --> 00:12:36,360
Speaker 1: there are some caves if you get really down deep,

202
00:12:36,400 --> 00:12:39,080
Speaker 1: down low and there's not enough air flow, Uh, it's

203
00:12:39,080 --> 00:12:41,959
Speaker 1: actually quite dangerous because there can be pockets of c

204
00:12:42,160 --> 00:12:45,520
Speaker 1: O two down there. These are called foul air caves,

205
00:12:45,559 --> 00:12:49,160
Speaker 1: and they can be deadly, so be careful, don't That's

206
00:12:49,160 --> 00:12:52,920
Speaker 1: why we bring canaries into coal mines, right, yeah, yes,

207
00:12:53,040 --> 00:12:55,960
Speaker 1: for that exact I don't think it canary could warn

208
00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:58,120
Speaker 1: you of a collapse. It was just for gas pockets.

209
00:12:58,160 --> 00:13:01,120
Speaker 1: I think, for gas pockets for CEO to methane for

210
00:13:01,240 --> 00:13:06,160
Speaker 1: carbon monoxide. Yes, my smarty, dumb question is what about

211
00:13:06,320 --> 00:13:09,680
Speaker 1: vitamin D. You're talking about getting so little sun that

212
00:13:09,760 --> 00:13:11,880
Speaker 1: they have no like pigment in their skin. I thought

213
00:13:11,880 --> 00:13:13,720
Speaker 1: that's where we got vitamin D and you needed that

214
00:13:13,760 --> 00:13:16,880
Speaker 1: to live. That's why I always thought there wasn't life

215
00:13:16,920 --> 00:13:19,800
Speaker 1: in case. That's interesting. Yeah, I mean you you do

216
00:13:19,920 --> 00:13:22,960
Speaker 1: get vitamin D through sunlight, but you can also get

217
00:13:23,080 --> 00:13:25,480
Speaker 1: nutrients through other ways. So like you look at like

218
00:13:25,520 --> 00:13:29,760
Speaker 1: the algae right, normally it only can to metabolize through photosynthesis,

219
00:13:29,960 --> 00:13:34,760
Speaker 1: and it gets it's nutrients through sugars instead with getting

220
00:13:34,800 --> 00:13:38,120
Speaker 1: things like vitamin D. I would suspect like they get

221
00:13:38,200 --> 00:13:41,200
Speaker 1: some of it from their diet, and there's probably their

222
00:13:41,240 --> 00:13:45,160
Speaker 1: bodies are just better able to survive without higher levels

223
00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:54,160
Speaker 1: of vitamin D. Awesome, It's yeah, it's just again seems

224
00:13:54,200 --> 00:13:57,079
Speaker 1: like everywhere else in the whole universe, as far as

225
00:13:57,080 --> 00:14:01,240
Speaker 1: we can tell, the norm is you can't have life here.

226
00:14:01,440 --> 00:14:05,320
Speaker 1: There's no it's raining acid or whatever that there's no life,

227
00:14:05,679 --> 00:14:09,360
Speaker 1: or of the time it's just avoid there's nothing there,

228
00:14:09,400 --> 00:14:12,959
Speaker 1: there's no resources for anything to live. And yet on Earth,

229
00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:15,360
Speaker 1: in this tiny pocket where we do have life, it's

230
00:14:15,360 --> 00:14:17,640
Speaker 1: like it's trying extra hard to make up for their

231
00:14:17,679 --> 00:14:22,200
Speaker 1: not being life elsewhere. It's just everywhere. I mean, if

232
00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:24,640
Speaker 1: there is a pocket for it to fill, it will

233
00:14:24,680 --> 00:14:28,440
Speaker 1: fill it. Nature abhors a vacuum probably also abhors room

234
00:14:28,440 --> 00:14:30,720
Speaker 1: bas I mean my dog abhors room bas so I

235
00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:34,640
Speaker 1: imagine nature would as well. But yeah, no, it's any

236
00:14:34,680 --> 00:14:38,240
Speaker 1: time there is any pocket for life to fill basically,

237
00:14:38,400 --> 00:14:40,200
Speaker 1: if it can, if it can reach there and it

238
00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:43,600
Speaker 1: can physically actually do it, it'll fill it. It's just

239
00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:46,920
Speaker 1: it's kind of inevitable. Caves can be cold. They can

240
00:14:46,960 --> 00:14:49,680
Speaker 1: be sort of They're usually on the cool side. They

241
00:14:49,680 --> 00:14:53,160
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to be freezing um. In fact, like

242
00:14:53,320 --> 00:14:56,800
Speaker 1: cave temperatures are often very stable throughout the year. They

243
00:14:56,840 --> 00:14:59,960
Speaker 1: can Some caves are like fifty degrees fair and high

244
00:15:00,160 --> 00:15:03,520
Speaker 1: throughout the entire year and barely changes a single degree

245
00:15:04,240 --> 00:15:07,840
Speaker 1: um because it's sheltered from weather in the sun, so

246
00:15:08,280 --> 00:15:11,200
Speaker 1: most caves stay at a pretty constant temperature. They can

247
00:15:11,240 --> 00:15:13,920
Speaker 1: be quite cold. They can be uh, you know, sort

248
00:15:13,920 --> 00:15:18,800
Speaker 1: of moderately temperature. Actually, deep caves can be warmer because

249
00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:22,920
Speaker 1: they're closer to geothermal activity. The temperature in the cave

250
00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:25,880
Speaker 1: depends on where the cave is in the world, how

251
00:15:25,920 --> 00:15:28,240
Speaker 1: deep it is, you know, what the weather is on

252
00:15:28,280 --> 00:15:30,480
Speaker 1: the outside, because like if you're in a really sunny

253
00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:33,040
Speaker 1: area and it heats everything on the outside you will

254
00:15:33,040 --> 00:15:35,080
Speaker 1: get in and it's a shallow cave. You will get

255
00:15:35,120 --> 00:15:38,440
Speaker 1: some of that through the cave, but it's they're generally

256
00:15:38,520 --> 00:15:43,400
Speaker 1: like a stable kind of cool temperature. UM. And there's

257
00:15:43,720 --> 00:15:47,640
Speaker 1: often water flow in cave systems, so like streams and

258
00:15:47,760 --> 00:15:50,760
Speaker 1: rivers on the surface will sometimes like just whoop, fall

259
00:15:50,880 --> 00:15:53,160
Speaker 1: right down a hole and enter a cave and you'll

260
00:15:53,360 --> 00:15:59,080
Speaker 1: get an underground cave river stream. Um. What you're describing

261
00:15:59,200 --> 00:16:02,680
Speaker 1: is nicer than my home that I have in as

262
00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:07,560
Speaker 1: a human supposedly master of this earth. Is It's got

263
00:16:07,560 --> 00:16:11,440
Speaker 1: a water feature, it's a steady fifty degrees at all times,

264
00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:14,520
Speaker 1: no heating bill, it's a standing caves. Sound amazing. I'm

265
00:16:14,520 --> 00:16:16,600
Speaker 1: going to live in a cave, I know, no joke.

266
00:16:16,720 --> 00:16:19,800
Speaker 1: Like when I visited my first cave, I really thought, Man,

267
00:16:19,840 --> 00:16:21,840
Speaker 1: this would actually be nice to live in if I

268
00:16:21,880 --> 00:16:24,360
Speaker 1: had internet, If you could get internet down there, if

269
00:16:24,520 --> 00:16:30,760
Speaker 1: lack of sunshine didn't affect us emotionally so much. That's

270
00:16:30,800 --> 00:16:35,160
Speaker 1: all that I wonder if the troglo zines are like depressed,

271
00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:40,280
Speaker 1: do they ever feel actually visit the surface frequently? So

272
00:16:40,320 --> 00:16:48,000
Speaker 1: those are like I don't think so, how's the pattern

273
00:16:48,040 --> 00:16:54,240
Speaker 1: recognition does troglow mean cave. Yes, boom, score one for

274
00:16:54,360 --> 00:17:00,320
Speaker 1: Michael's all right, Uh okay, awesome. It can so just

275
00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:04,600
Speaker 1: mean recluse though in addition to like caves. Oh that

276
00:17:04,720 --> 00:17:09,960
Speaker 1: was a google it pause. Ha, that's now I see.

277
00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:13,200
Speaker 1: That's an extra sweet point as if you force Katie

278
00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:15,959
Speaker 1: to google something, I think that's a wham creature feature.

279
00:17:16,440 --> 00:17:19,520
Speaker 1: Oh that's my secret though, is I'm actually just kind

280
00:17:19,560 --> 00:17:22,439
Speaker 1: of a dumb dumb who knows how to use Google

281
00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:25,400
Speaker 1: very good. That's such bowl because our video feeds are

282
00:17:25,440 --> 00:17:28,760
Speaker 1: on and I'm watching you with this information off the

283
00:17:28,760 --> 00:17:31,240
Speaker 1: top of your head, like it ain't I wrote notes.

284
00:17:31,720 --> 00:17:37,439
Speaker 1: It's all notes and Googling shattered the reality podcast, the

285
00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:40,320
Speaker 1: fantasy that I'm that I'm not just a dum dumb

286
00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:44,120
Speaker 1: with Google. Well, I'll just at the beginning of this,

287
00:17:44,400 --> 00:17:47,120
Speaker 1: I thought the more I learned, the more I would

288
00:17:47,160 --> 00:17:49,480
Speaker 1: be creeped out by the things are that are in

289
00:17:49,640 --> 00:17:52,280
Speaker 1: caves and never want to visit a cave. And indeed,

290
00:17:52,320 --> 00:17:55,280
Speaker 1: that portion probably still is coming scrolling through some of

291
00:17:55,280 --> 00:17:59,320
Speaker 1: the images on the dock. But uh, so far, you're

292
00:17:59,320 --> 00:18:02,080
Speaker 1: making me want live in a cave and it's a

293
00:18:02,160 --> 00:18:06,280
Speaker 1: safe cave. You can visit it it's it's actually really

294
00:18:06,320 --> 00:18:09,480
Speaker 1: cool to visit a cave. Visit a a cave that

295
00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:13,000
Speaker 1: has been deemed safe for humans to visit, preferably do

296
00:18:13,160 --> 00:18:16,439
Speaker 1: one of the ones that has tour guides and such

297
00:18:16,440 --> 00:18:18,879
Speaker 1: in it, because like remember, as I mentioned before, there

298
00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:21,960
Speaker 1: can be foul air caves that can just silently kill you.

299
00:18:21,960 --> 00:18:24,119
Speaker 1: You can get stuck in little areas of caves, so

300
00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:28,000
Speaker 1: they can actually be very dangerous. But normally the caves

301
00:18:28,040 --> 00:18:30,840
Speaker 1: that you can go to as a tourist on guided

302
00:18:30,880 --> 00:18:34,840
Speaker 1: tours are very safe. So one of the coolest things

303
00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:40,119
Speaker 1: about caves just architecturally is of course the beautiful interior

304
00:18:40,240 --> 00:18:43,760
Speaker 1: with chandeliers and columns, and it looks like it was

305
00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:47,400
Speaker 1: created by some kind of like Phantom of the Opera

306
00:18:47,600 --> 00:18:54,000
Speaker 1: who lives underground. So this These formations are typically caused

307
00:18:54,080 --> 00:18:57,800
Speaker 1: from groundwater that seeps down into the earth and drips

308
00:18:57,840 --> 00:19:02,040
Speaker 1: down into caves like underground rain, and this results in

309
00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:05,840
Speaker 1: mineral deposit on the cave's roof or floor and creates

310
00:19:05,960 --> 00:19:09,720
Speaker 1: stillag tights on the roof and stillag mites on the

311
00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:14,240
Speaker 1: floor and other cave formations. All cave formations are known

312
00:19:14,359 --> 00:19:18,119
Speaker 1: as spelio thembs. They can be things like straws. So

313
00:19:18,160 --> 00:19:20,880
Speaker 1: these are like hollow tubes that hang from the ceiling.

314
00:19:21,359 --> 00:19:25,520
Speaker 1: Draperies that are mineral deposits that look like curtains. Uh.

315
00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:30,840
Speaker 1: There are columns that look like columns, yes, uh. And

316
00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:34,320
Speaker 1: they're also flow stone flow stones that look like these

317
00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:37,560
Speaker 1: big mounds. They almost look like they're fluid, but if

318
00:19:37,600 --> 00:19:39,960
Speaker 1: you touch them, they're solid. They kind of look like

319
00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:42,919
Speaker 1: a big melted ice cream scoop essentially, but they're actually solid.

320
00:19:43,160 --> 00:19:45,560
Speaker 1: Also in the in the twilight zone of that cave

321
00:19:45,640 --> 00:19:49,119
Speaker 1: and Belize, which is my only real cave experience, Uh,

322
00:19:49,160 --> 00:19:51,160
Speaker 1: maybe this is flow stone. But there was a room

323
00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:53,959
Speaker 1: that looked like the surface of a brain. Like the

324
00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:56,800
Speaker 1: wall on the floors. It looks like you're on a

325
00:19:56,920 --> 00:19:59,200
Speaker 1: giant brain, you know what I mean. That's sort of wobbly.

326
00:20:00,080 --> 00:20:03,959
Speaker 1: That's so cool. Pattern. Yeah, there are all sorts of

327
00:20:04,160 --> 00:20:07,160
Speaker 1: different cave formations. I can't name them all because I'm

328
00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:09,359
Speaker 1: not an expert. But there are things that are called

329
00:20:09,400 --> 00:20:13,119
Speaker 1: like bacon because they have striations. They're like things that

330
00:20:13,160 --> 00:20:16,280
Speaker 1: look like egg yolks. It all depends on the type

331
00:20:16,320 --> 00:20:19,080
Speaker 1: of mineral deposits and the way that it was formed.

332
00:20:19,240 --> 00:20:21,959
Speaker 1: That forms these different Oh you'll see I've seen pictures

333
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:25,119
Speaker 1: online of um it's like they discovered this in Peru

334
00:20:25,280 --> 00:20:28,280
Speaker 1: and there's people standing on crystals that are so huge

335
00:20:28,400 --> 00:20:32,639
Speaker 1: that it looks like cg from Harry Potter movies. Caves

336
00:20:32,680 --> 00:20:35,480
Speaker 1: are way more varietous than I think we think. Yes,

337
00:20:35,920 --> 00:20:38,240
Speaker 1: I think of them as like a smooth rock hole,

338
00:20:38,440 --> 00:20:40,399
Speaker 1: but it's way more than half. Yeah, I mean there

339
00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:44,320
Speaker 1: are things from from ice caves to lava caves. Caves

340
00:20:44,359 --> 00:20:48,200
Speaker 1: made of ice and caves made of cool lava. So yeah,

341
00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:51,320
Speaker 1: and so all these cave formations are going to depend

342
00:20:51,320 --> 00:20:54,040
Speaker 1: on the type of mineral deposit. Most are made out

343
00:20:54,080 --> 00:20:58,560
Speaker 1: of calcium carbonate, which is actually the minerals that are

344
00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:02,120
Speaker 1: also found in sea shells and egg shells and pearls.

345
00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:05,720
Speaker 1: So you know, this sort of like pallid, ghostly cave

346
00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:08,600
Speaker 1: color sometimes sort of like I don't know what, it's

347
00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:14,520
Speaker 1: almost like semi translucent translution, semi translution. Jesus Christ, what

348
00:21:14,600 --> 00:21:20,840
Speaker 1: the hell semi translucent failed it And they are really beautiful.

349
00:21:21,119 --> 00:21:24,560
Speaker 1: We also see those in like in seashells and pearls. Uh,

350
00:21:24,600 --> 00:21:29,320
Speaker 1: and so yeah, material it's not Yeah, I don't often

351
00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:33,800
Speaker 1: see like an actual pearl leescent cave um structure, but

352
00:21:33,800 --> 00:21:35,960
Speaker 1: they're all they do have like a sort of like

353
00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:39,040
Speaker 1: shimmer or sheen, and and that those are often the

354
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:45,040
Speaker 1: calcium carbonate um structures, but there are many types of

355
00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:50,480
Speaker 1: minerals that form different types of speliotombs. Uh. And you know, actually,

356
00:21:50,520 --> 00:21:54,040
Speaker 1: one cool thing is that there is an interesting psychological

357
00:21:54,080 --> 00:21:56,520
Speaker 1: phenomenon that you can experience if you go down in

358
00:21:56,520 --> 00:22:00,800
Speaker 1: a cave called paara idolia, which is where you see

359
00:22:00,840 --> 00:22:05,280
Speaker 1: faces or shapes or figures in ambiguous patterns and you

360
00:22:05,320 --> 00:22:08,840
Speaker 1: interpret that as like a face or a person. So

361
00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:10,480
Speaker 1: there are a lot of caves where they're like, oh,

362
00:22:10,520 --> 00:22:12,840
Speaker 1: look this is these are these figures in a cave

363
00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:14,760
Speaker 1: that's like it looks like a human or it looks

364
00:22:14,800 --> 00:22:17,320
Speaker 1: like spirits or a ghost, and it looks like a

365
00:22:17,359 --> 00:22:21,040
Speaker 1: ghostly figure haunting the cave. And it's really because we

366
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:25,399
Speaker 1: are really good at interpreting ambiguous patterns as faces in

367
00:22:25,520 --> 00:22:29,040
Speaker 1: humanoid shapes. So that's a fun creepy thing you can

368
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:31,000
Speaker 1: experience when you go down in the cave and you

369
00:22:31,040 --> 00:22:33,200
Speaker 1: see a column and it kind of looks like a

370
00:22:33,280 --> 00:22:37,760
Speaker 1: human being. My understanding is that's because it's it's historically

371
00:22:37,800 --> 00:22:40,440
Speaker 1: been so important to recognize one another, right, like I

372
00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:43,200
Speaker 1: I've met that other human before, I know who they are.

373
00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:46,399
Speaker 1: Oh that's Katie. Katie doesn't try and kill me with rocks,

374
00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:50,040
Speaker 1: said Katie in the past, So that pattern will probably persist.

375
00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:54,159
Speaker 1: So like, yeah, we've become so key to recognize faces.

376
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:56,960
Speaker 1: That's why two dots in a line looks like a

377
00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:01,280
Speaker 1: face to it's not. But you know, a random cross

378
00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:03,920
Speaker 1: hatch pattern doesn't look like anything. It's just such that

379
00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:08,400
Speaker 1: as a primal pattern, right. Why you see it everywhere? Yeah,

380
00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:12,400
Speaker 1: you say, see shapes and people and clouds and tree leaves. Yeah,

381
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:15,639
Speaker 1: I mean it's we devote so much of our brain

382
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:20,720
Speaker 1: to pattern recognition, especially social pattern recognition, because we are

383
00:23:21,119 --> 00:23:24,240
Speaker 1: our whole survival as a species husband because of our

384
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:27,960
Speaker 1: ability to socialize with one another, so we have it's

385
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:30,640
Speaker 1: just so much brain power devoted to that that when

386
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:34,600
Speaker 1: you toss something in the brain, it's gonna run run

387
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:38,160
Speaker 1: that algorithm. I love that characterization of it, that you're

388
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 1: handing the brain like a bunch of random stimulus and

389
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:44,480
Speaker 1: it's like, I don't know a face face, It couldn't

390
00:23:44,480 --> 00:23:48,960
Speaker 1: be a guy's face. Imagine your eyes is just funnels

391
00:23:49,000 --> 00:23:51,959
Speaker 1: that you're tossing information and it's got to get sorted

392
00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:56,439
Speaker 1: out by your brain. Is like a sweaty middle manager. Jeez,

393
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:59,240
Speaker 1: what is this? I don't know, human whatever. I don't

394
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:02,720
Speaker 1: got time for this slagtites coming at me. I don't

395
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:05,480
Speaker 1: know what all this craft is. It's cave people, I

396
00:24:05,520 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: don't know. It's a run. Sometimes these structures like stillagtites, stalagmites,

397
00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:20,080
Speaker 1: or other spelio thimbs are formed by microbes. So microbes

398
00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:25,680
Speaker 1: like cyanobacteria can deposit minerals and form structures, and diatoms,

399
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:31,240
Speaker 1: which are unicellular algae, can also create mineral deposits. When

400
00:24:31,280 --> 00:24:34,879
Speaker 1: they die, they actually leave behind their hard shells made

401
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:41,639
Speaker 1: of silica. Have you ever purchased dietomaceous earth? Yes? It

402
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:45,399
Speaker 1: keeps bugs off of some of our flowers. Yes, yes,

403
00:24:45,640 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 1: I think when they crawl through it, it like shreds

404
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 1: their insides or something. It's my understands. It desiccates them.

405
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:55,080
Speaker 1: It sucks all the moisture out of them, like like

406
00:24:55,119 --> 00:25:00,480
Speaker 1: a millions of little terrible finally killing he man or

407
00:25:00,520 --> 00:25:04,119
Speaker 1: some ship. Right, it sucks out the moisture and kills them.

408
00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 1: Because these are they're extremely dry, and that dietemaceous earth

409
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 1: is made out of millions, millions of skeletons of dead dietons,

410
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:18,760
Speaker 1: these little unicellular algae. So we're using in like a

411
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:25,440
Speaker 1: nearly infinite, relatively infinite number of corpses to murder more animals.

412
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:31,919
Speaker 1: Corpses exactly. Yes, So life doesn't just come in the

413
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:36,159
Speaker 1: form of microbes or dietoms. There are actual things you

414
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 1: can see with the naked human eye that can actually

415
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 1: be surprisingly big, that live in caves. I just imagine

416
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:45,320
Speaker 1: you're like that wall is made of a bunch of

417
00:25:45,359 --> 00:25:50,400
Speaker 1: catshells piled up their husks harden when they die. I'm

418
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 1: talking about living animals living a live crawling animals that

419
00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: you go down in the cave and it can brush

420
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: up against you in the darkness, in the cold darkness

421
00:26:00,880 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 1: and utter silence, and suddenly you feel something slimy or

422
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:10,240
Speaker 1: fuzzy crawling against your hand. And slagmite is three dogs

423
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:13,640
Speaker 1: in a trench coat. We'll talk more about that when

424
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 1: we return. So let's talk some trocolobites. So in the

425
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:35,560
Speaker 1: dark zone of the caves, no light is getting in,

426
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: so you don't really need eyes, do you, I guess

427
00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:43,360
Speaker 1: you don't need them, but you can't want them for face.

428
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:50,879
Speaker 1: It's just like it's just a common courtesy to have eyes.

429
00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:53,920
Speaker 1: Who cares? Who would even see them? There's no light

430
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,480
Speaker 1: that comes down. Why is it a guess? If you

431
00:26:56,600 --> 00:26:58,919
Speaker 1: don't have eyes, then I don't need eyes. If we

432
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 1: both don't have nobody has eyes. I guess like if

433
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 1: you're trying to wink at someone, then you would just

434
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 1: like say, wink, which makes it harder to be subtle

435
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 1: about it because you're like, you know, but I would

436
00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:14,400
Speaker 1: I would assume I would want some other strategy for

437
00:27:14,600 --> 00:27:18,280
Speaker 1: navigation and traversal. Then M yeah, no, you would you

438
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 1: definitely want to have down, Yes you do. Well, let's

439
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 1: talk about the Mexican blind cave fish. When you don't

440
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:31,440
Speaker 1: need eyes, why don't you just keep them just for fun?

441
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 1: If you don't need them in a cave like, it

442
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:35,320
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like they would do any harm, So why

443
00:27:35,320 --> 00:27:38,159
Speaker 1: not keep the mania? I wonder if it reshapes your

444
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:40,520
Speaker 1: whole head, because in some ways it feels like the

445
00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: head is has is shaped the way it is to

446
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:50,479
Speaker 1: have a place for Yeah, so does the skull close up?

447
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:54,719
Speaker 1: Did you never have eyes to begin with? Well? The

448
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 1: Mexican blind cave fish has answers to your questions. So

449
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: technically this is the same species as the Mexican tetra,

450
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:07,439
Speaker 1: which is a normal looking little fish that lives on

451
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 1: the surface in streams and it has perlescent pink scales

452
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 1: and only grows to be about the length of a finger.

453
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:17,959
Speaker 1: It just looks like kind of typical aquarium fish. Uh,

454
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: And they have eyeballs. They normal looking little fish, but

455
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:25,840
Speaker 1: the blind cave variant is a pale, ghostly white and

456
00:28:26,040 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: has no eyes. They just have this featureless, smooth face.

457
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:36,920
Speaker 1: So it's not just that they don't have eyes, it's

458
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 1: actually the part of the brain responsible for vision is

459
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: smaller than that of their surface dwelling relatives, so it

460
00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:47,640
Speaker 1: seems like they've ditched everything they can that has to

461
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: do with vision. So technically there's still this like immature

462
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:56,800
Speaker 1: eye structure underneath the skin, but the lack of blood

463
00:28:56,840 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 1: flow to the eyes during development causes them to remain

464
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:06,400
Speaker 1: underdeveloped vestigial structures. So basically, like the skin grows over it,

465
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like they have eyes, so at some

466
00:29:09,200 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 1: point in their fetal development, they just don't receive the

467
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: nutrients to the eyes that they need, so they don't

468
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 1: develop them, and when they hatched here they are eyeless fish.

469
00:29:20,680 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 1: And what's so interesting about this is that there this

470
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: uh surface Mexican tetra. It's not even a different species,

471
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: although some uh some people to argue like they're different

472
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:35,000
Speaker 1: enough physically that would make them different species, but in

473
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:38,840
Speaker 1: terms of genetics they're actually extremely similar. So it seems

474
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 1: like there is something that happens in development, possibly environmentally,

475
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:48,720
Speaker 1: like in terms of gene expression, that causes them such

476
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:53,080
Speaker 1: a dramatic change in terms of their development in the

477
00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: underground species, and in terms of what the benefit is

478
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:03,720
Speaker 1: to not having the it's that vision is actually really costly.

479
00:30:04,320 --> 00:30:07,400
Speaker 1: It's a very complicated thing to be able to see

480
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 1: stuff and process it. I mean, like you know, you

481
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:11,800
Speaker 1: got your computer. You know how much energy your graphics

482
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: card uses, right, not even considering the processing, like the

483
00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:17,600
Speaker 1: fact that your brain decodes and makes sense of it

484
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 1: and try and turns it into an idea of what's

485
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 1: going on around you, right, that must be very exhausting

486
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: from that brain anthropomorphized brains point, you need a you

487
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: need a real hardcore GPU, and you need a hardcore CPU.

488
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:33,720
Speaker 1: I mean I've learned about this in terms of computers,

489
00:30:33,760 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: trying to run cyberpunk on my dang old computer. But

490
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 1: and it exploded. It did the most punk thing of all,

491
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:47,480
Speaker 1: took my money and ran away. But the but with animals,

492
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:51,520
Speaker 1: you know, including us, it takes a lot of processing

493
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:55,479
Speaker 1: to be able to use vision. So photoreceptive cells and

494
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:58,840
Speaker 1: neurons require a lot of energy. In fact, in a

495
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 1: study on the Mexican tetra's both the surface dwelling sided

496
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 1: variety and the cave dwelling blind variety, they found a

497
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: fifteen percent reduction in energy consumption in the blind cave variants,

498
00:31:13,920 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: So they're saving a lot of energy. Moneies a lot

499
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 1: of those a TP dollars a TP coin. They can't

500
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:26,240
Speaker 1: watch wond division. Yeah, no, I will say. It also

501
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 1: takes away my greatest aversion to that dish where you

502
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: eat a whole fish and it's like the head is

503
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 1: still on. Oh yeah, the eyes staring at you accusingly.

504
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 1: I don't mean to come into a podcast about animals

505
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:42,480
Speaker 1: and just talk about eating them so clearly, but this

506
00:31:42,760 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 1: blind cave fish that I'm looking at, it looks like

507
00:31:45,200 --> 00:31:48,760
Speaker 1: it's all good tasty meat because you don't have to

508
00:31:48,800 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 1: feel guilty. It can't look at you. There's nothing. It's

509
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: the head. Meat could frown, It can crown judgmentally, Like,

510
00:31:56,800 --> 00:32:00,720
Speaker 1: come on, guy, I went deep into a cave and

511
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: you're still gonna dig me up and eat me. It's

512
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: your it's a you problem. But this energy saving purpose

513
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:12,680
Speaker 1: that they found in these fish seems like a pretty

514
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: good blueprint for why other animals basically ditch their eyes

515
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 1: when they're they're under under caves. Now, you know, obviously

516
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 1: it's it's not been established that this causes them to

517
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:27,560
Speaker 1: lose their eyes or if there's some environmental thing in

518
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 1: the cave where they're not you know, like basically they

519
00:32:30,880 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: are not getting enough nutrients, so they are putting it

520
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:38,040
Speaker 1: all towards the systems that are most important to function.

521
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 1: Something like that. But yeah, it's like, if you don't

522
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 1: need eyes in an environment where getting nutrients is actually

523
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:48,320
Speaker 1: quite difficult, it makes sense to get rid of them.

524
00:32:48,360 --> 00:32:53,000
Speaker 1: You just don't need them. Yeah, But uh, I bet

525
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 1: you're wondering, well, hey, gosh, what are some of these

526
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 1: other animals that don't have eyeballs? Well, I'm glad you asked.

527
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 1: I didn't, But if we must go for it, if

528
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:08,880
Speaker 1: that's where we are, I will live in it with you. Katie. Well,

529
00:33:09,320 --> 00:33:13,960
Speaker 1: do you like wolves? Do you like wolves with no eyeballs? Really?

530
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:16,640
Speaker 1: I can't believe you're about to tell me about some

531
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: cave wolf with no eyeballs. It's actually a cave wolf spider.

532
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:27,480
Speaker 1: I just thought you scared. I thought I would. It's

533
00:33:27,480 --> 00:33:29,680
Speaker 1: sort of like, you know, like I start with wolf

534
00:33:29,840 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: and then you're scared, like a wolf annihilist demon wolf,

535
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:36,479
Speaker 1: and now we've kind of like gone to spider and

536
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 1: you're actually calmed down, which is great because normally people like, oh, no, spider,

537
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:44,200
Speaker 1: but I want you to love this spider. Spiders don't

538
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 1: bother me as much as most. That's good. That's good

539
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 1: path here. So this is the eyelis pale cave wolf spider,

540
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 1: which actually, now that they think about it, it goes

541
00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 1: with a teenage mutant ninja turtle cadence. I list something

542
00:33:59,000 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: cave will spider, eyeless pale cave with spider. So this

543
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:09,360
Speaker 1: is the Kawaie cave wolf spider, which is found in

544
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 1: caves formed by lava flows in Kawaite, so their surface

545
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 1: dwelling relatives. The wolf spiders have large eyes and the

546
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 1: cave wolf spiders. Just they don't have any eyes, you know.

547
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:27,120
Speaker 1: So it's a similar situation with the Mexican tetrup So

548
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:30,960
Speaker 1: in terms of visuals, their abdomen is kind of a

549
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:34,479
Speaker 1: silvery pale white, and their legs are light reddish brown.

550
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 1: It's actually quite a nice look, you know. It's it's

551
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 1: a it's sort of a fall to winter, which I like. Um.

552
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: They grow to be about an inch in diameter, which

553
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:48,280
Speaker 1: you know, it's about the size of a silver dollar coin.

554
00:34:48,480 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 1: You know, it's not so bad. They're also totally harmless

555
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 1: to humans, just some little cute cave spiders that maybe

556
00:34:55,160 --> 00:35:00,759
Speaker 1: lands on your hands and give you a little kiss. Uh.

557
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:05,280
Speaker 1: And they come from the lava lands. Yeah, that's good,

558
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 1: that's auspicious. They feed on teeny tiny cave crustaceans that

559
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:15,120
Speaker 1: looks sort of like a cross between a shrimp and

560
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: a pillbug, but transparent. They're they're really tiny, they're under

561
00:35:18,680 --> 00:35:23,200
Speaker 1: ten millimeters long. Uh. And because they don't have eyes,

562
00:35:23,560 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 1: they actually have in enhanced spidy senses of touch, taste,

563
00:35:28,960 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 1: and smell. Now, but you're wondering, like, well, wait, how

564
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 1: does the spider smell? They don't got a nose, you

565
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: know what the heck, although it'd be cute, imagine a

566
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: spire was just like a little little nose, you know,

567
00:35:41,400 --> 00:35:45,360
Speaker 1: like a little red red nose there. Well, I figured

568
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,160
Speaker 1: the caboose, the big you know that, what is it

569
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:51,719
Speaker 1: called a thorax, the big ball. Yeah, the abdomen, the

570
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:53,759
Speaker 1: big ball on the end of a spider that doesn't

571
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 1: seem to have any function. Is there some kind of

572
00:35:55,719 --> 00:35:57,919
Speaker 1: nose hidden in there? You crack that open and there's

573
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:04,760
Speaker 1: a nose in there. There's no nose hidden in the abdomen. Well,

574
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 1: they have sensory organs all over their body, on their

575
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:13,800
Speaker 1: legs and in terms of hairs covering their entire body,

576
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:17,319
Speaker 1: including their abdomens, so in terms of a nose, really

577
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 1: could think of their legs and their petal palps, those

578
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 1: little armlike things near their face as a bunch of

579
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:29,239
Speaker 1: noses because they have uh, chemosensory organs on that and

580
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:33,240
Speaker 1: chemosensory receptors that allow them basically to taste what they're touching.

581
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:36,919
Speaker 1: And the little hairs all over their bodies are very

582
00:36:36,960 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 1: sensitive to vibration and is how they hear. So basically

583
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 1: they're covered in noses and ears. Doesn't that make spiders

584
00:36:44,440 --> 00:36:48,360
Speaker 1: seem more friendly and it It kind of gives me

585
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:52,279
Speaker 1: a whole new appreciation for spider sense. It's yeah, they

586
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 1: do kind of have. They're just like a walking mass

587
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:58,759
Speaker 1: of general awareness all around them at all times. That's

588
00:36:58,760 --> 00:37:02,759
Speaker 1: the comforting spiders. It's not like there's eyes in the

589
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:05,239
Speaker 1: back of your head. It's like, no, all around my

590
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 1: whole my skin is looking at you. Well, their hair

591
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: is technically yeah. Also, the caveable spider is a really

592
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 1: good mommy. She will carry her egg sack protectively in

593
00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:22,920
Speaker 1: her mouth parts until they hatch. It's cute. She's just

594
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 1: failing to eat her children. She's both a failure and

595
00:37:27,400 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 1: proponent of infanticide. We're missing you know, she's a bad gourmand.

596
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 1: But mom, so you know, there's almost a pun in there.

597
00:37:37,280 --> 00:37:42,439
Speaker 1: It's a trade off. This also has me wondering, so

598
00:37:42,520 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 1: does it It presumably must save resources then too by

599
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:51,400
Speaker 1: foregoing the site pathway, right, it seems like yeah. Based

600
00:37:51,440 --> 00:37:54,360
Speaker 1: on this study with the tutra, it seems that either

601
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: it's an evolutionary trait where by basically these spiders that

602
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:03,680
Speaker 1: ditched the eyes had a leg up eight legs up

603
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:07,960
Speaker 1: on the other spiders. I don't apologize for that, but uh,

604
00:38:08,040 --> 00:38:10,880
Speaker 1: you know, so by by reducing their energy costs by

605
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:14,720
Speaker 1: ditching the eyes, maybe they have an evolutionary advantage or

606
00:38:15,200 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 1: because nutrients are so sparse somehow, like in development, it's

607
00:38:19,719 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: like the eyes end up not developing because that does

608
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:27,280
Speaker 1: take a lot of energy during development, and because there's

609
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 1: like sort of a paucity of energy, those just like

610
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:33,920
Speaker 1: getting neglected. But then they end up not needing them anyways.

611
00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:36,600
Speaker 1: So either way, I'm not really sure that we quite

612
00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:41,319
Speaker 1: know which way that that works yet, but uh, but yeah,

613
00:38:41,360 --> 00:38:44,640
Speaker 1: either way, it's an energy saving mechanism. You know. It's

614
00:38:44,680 --> 00:38:47,399
Speaker 1: making me I'm going the other way in my mind.

615
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:49,880
Speaker 1: And like, because humans, by all accounts, we have access

616
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:52,800
Speaker 1: to extra resources more than we strictly need to survive,

617
00:38:52,880 --> 00:38:56,400
Speaker 1: well now we do, we didn't used to. But I'm

618
00:38:56,440 --> 00:38:59,240
Speaker 1: wondering when we can start converting that into like six

619
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:03,799
Speaker 1: seven extra eyes. I want a cone in the middle

620
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,879
Speaker 1: of my back that senses electromagnetic waves or something like that.

621
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, no, I mean like a basically a

622
00:39:11,560 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 1: lot of animals do have that extra eyes. Just hit me,

623
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want extra eyes electro reception like sharks.

624
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 1: Do you have that um just like we will. But

625
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: I want, like, I want that to be the new

626
00:39:28,160 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 1: like wealth status symbol, where the more resources you have,

627
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:38,759
Speaker 1: just the more eyes you have. Bezos Bezos covered in eyeballs. Yeah,

628
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: he's the richest man. And just look at him. He's

629
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:47,879
Speaker 1: covered in eyeballs. Clearly, if he was served to me

630
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:51,839
Speaker 1: like fully cooked, I would not eat him. He's all eyeballs. Yeah,

631
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,680
Speaker 1: he's all eyeballs looking up at you accusingly. I don't know.

632
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: I feel like when I'm eating a fish, or I

633
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,320
Speaker 1: guess eating Jeff Bezos like I like it's my duty

634
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 1: to be able to look them in the eye and

635
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 1: eat them like the fish. I was going to say,

636
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 1: who my kid, I would devour Jeff Bezos for the

637
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 1: good of the world. Take that hit. Sorry, man, you're

638
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: you're holding too many resources. You've got to get slowly eaten.

639
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 1: I can't speak to Jeff Bezos eyeballs, But for fish,

640
00:40:19,160 --> 00:40:21,920
Speaker 1: eyeballs are actually quite tasty. They taste a little bit

641
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 1: like row. That's what everyone always says when they're trying

642
00:40:26,040 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 1: to get you to eat a fish. Eyeball coincidence, I

643
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:33,399
Speaker 1: think not. You never hear anyone casually mentioning delicious fish

644
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:38,399
Speaker 1: eyeballs when it's right there staring at you. Good fish

645
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 1: cheek is good too. Anyways, I but you're wondering, well, hey,

646
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 1: this is all great and good and everything, but are

647
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:48,040
Speaker 1: there dragons that live in caves? Like I've been told

648
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:51,560
Speaker 1: by fantasy? I was wondering that. It's surprising that you

649
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:53,560
Speaker 1: picked that off the top of my brain since we

650
00:40:53,600 --> 00:40:56,880
Speaker 1: haven't talked about anything even adjacent to that. But yes, Katie,

651
00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 1: I was. I can see it in your eyeballs, accusingly

652
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: looking at me. Little dragons. Well, yes, indeed you can

653
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:08,879
Speaker 1: if you slightly change the definition of dragon. But there

654
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:13,279
Speaker 1: are little animals that to me look like cave dragons.

655
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:15,799
Speaker 1: And they may not be what you would expect in

656
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:18,279
Speaker 1: like a like a Lord of the Rings book, but

657
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 1: I think they're really cool. So let's start out with

658
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:28,040
Speaker 1: the Texas blind salamander. So these are aquatic, cave dwelling

659
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:34,960
Speaker 1: neontinous salamanders, which sounds complicated, I will explain it. So

660
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:37,680
Speaker 1: they live in Texas, so you know they've got little

661
00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:42,840
Speaker 1: cowboy hats and cowboy boots uh in cave systems found

662
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: in San Marcos Hayes County. They are eyeless. Now they

663
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 1: do have sort of underdeveloped eyes in there, but it's

664
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:57,480
Speaker 1: covered in skin and they aren't functional. And uh, Michael,

665
00:41:57,640 --> 00:42:01,799
Speaker 1: do you know about axlotls? I do, and they look

666
00:42:01,840 --> 00:42:07,360
Speaker 1: a lot like axlts. They do because axelattles are also

667
00:42:08,080 --> 00:42:11,960
Speaker 1: uh Neotonus salamanders. So what do I mean by that?

668
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:17,880
Speaker 1: So neatony means that an animal retains juvenile traits throughout

669
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 1: their adult life. So salamanders are amphibians that are similar

670
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 1: to frogs. They have a larval form, so you know

671
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:29,799
Speaker 1: how frogs have tadpoles. Salamanders have a juvenile form that

672
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:34,160
Speaker 1: is aquatic. They have long paddle like tails and branching

673
00:42:34,280 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 1: external gills that kind of look like sideburns. So if

674
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 1: you've ever seen an axilattle, they usually have those pink

675
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:44,399
Speaker 1: or reddish like sideburns. Those are the their external gills.

676
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:49,439
Speaker 1: So axilattles and this Texas blind salamander never grow out

677
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:52,400
Speaker 1: of their larval form. They just get bigger. They're like

678
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:56,359
Speaker 1: if a human being, like a baby, instead of like

679
00:42:56,480 --> 00:43:00,440
Speaker 1: developing adult characteristics, just got larger like a giant. I

680
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:03,479
Speaker 1: was gonna say, it's like the average white American male.

681
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:07,200
Speaker 1: They never sure and they grow sideburns. They just grow

682
00:43:07,239 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 1: sideburns and say they're matured big man babies with sideburns.

683
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:16,960
Speaker 1: I'm a drag. You know. It's like like, Honey, I

684
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 1: blew up the kid. There was the Honey, I shrunk

685
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 1: the kid, which a classic, and then Honey, I blew

686
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 1: up the kid, which not so much. But I did

687
00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 1: see it and I remember it. Yeah, but not as classic,

688
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 1: not as classic as Honey, I shrunk the kids. That

689
00:43:29,200 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 1: was genuine classic, Honey, I blew up the kids, like

690
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:34,080
Speaker 1: genuinely upset me when I watched as a kid, because

691
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:36,400
Speaker 1: like there's a scene where the baby almost eats his

692
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:40,720
Speaker 1: big sister or something. I'm like, ah, that's no disturbing imagery.

693
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:43,360
Speaker 1: That's by giant baby is not something I want to

694
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 1: think about anyways. Uh, that is the living reality with

695
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: these salamanders. They are giant babies acxlottles and the Texas

696
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: blind salamanders. So even a better level of like a

697
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:59,360
Speaker 1: giant baby with no eyes, you know, imagine it. Let

698
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:01,719
Speaker 1: that sink in a little bit. If this was like

699
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:05,120
Speaker 1: a newborn baby and it just got bigger but it

700
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 1: didn't mature. Yeah, and it had no eyeballs. Yeah, as

701
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:15,960
Speaker 1: long as I'm sporting those cool ass sideburns signature burns,

702
00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be like, this baby's all right, and it

703
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:23,840
Speaker 1: can breathe underwater. So unlike excel attles, the Texas blind

704
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:27,200
Speaker 1: salamander is adapted to cave life, so that's why it

705
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: has ditched his eyes, and it's also very little pigmentation.

706
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:35,799
Speaker 1: Excelttles sometimes are sort of a pale color, but their

707
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 1: gills are often like a little more vibrant, and they're

708
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:42,360
Speaker 1: also um, darker colors that x flotteles come and whereas

709
00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:46,600
Speaker 1: the blind cave salamander is typically that sort of ghostly,

710
00:44:46,920 --> 00:44:51,400
Speaker 1: ghostly white that most things are in caves. Um. But

711
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:57,320
Speaker 1: even stranger still is the um. So the um is

712
00:44:57,360 --> 00:45:01,640
Speaker 1: also called the human fish by vocals. Oh my goodness,

713
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 1: that's just immediately scary. I know the name somehow, the

714
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:09,880
Speaker 1: name the home, and that it's called the human fish.

715
00:45:09,480 --> 00:45:12,080
Speaker 1: It's just it makes you think it's creepier than it

716
00:45:12,120 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: even is. Because I'm looking at a picture of it,

717
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:18,319
Speaker 1: I'm like, it doesn't deserve a name that foreboding. It's

718
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:20,840
Speaker 1: got all sorts of just that, that sort of baba

719
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 1: yaga creepy energy, so they are found only in the

720
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:30,080
Speaker 1: underground rivers that flow through limestone bedrock in central and

721
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 1: southeastern Europe. It's eyes are underdeveloped, and just like the

722
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:40,239
Speaker 1: Texas blind salamander, it is neatonick um. What makes the

723
00:45:40,320 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 1: home even spookier is how long it is. It looks

724
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 1: very snake like. It has these tiny legs that are

725
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:51,919
Speaker 1: actually really funny because like it's got this pretty long,

726
00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:54,920
Speaker 1: impressive body and just these like little tiny legs that

727
00:45:54,960 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 1: don't look like they can function very well well. It's

728
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 1: front legs only have three toes and sort of the

729
00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: typical four, and its hind legs only have two toes.

730
00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:06,960
Speaker 1: So they're just they don't need eyes. They don't need toes.

731
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:11,319
Speaker 1: Their legs are tiny, little like just like little. They

732
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:15,879
Speaker 1: don't really do much the way towards becoming a snake. Like,

733
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:18,680
Speaker 1: let's let's drop the crap. You're a snake. Just become

734
00:46:18,719 --> 00:46:23,080
Speaker 1: a snake. Just become a little sea noodle. So they

735
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:25,799
Speaker 1: can actually grow to be quite long. They can grow

736
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:30,320
Speaker 1: to be over a foot or thirty centimeters long. Uh.

737
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:34,560
Speaker 1: And they because they don't have eyes, uh, in order

738
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:39,400
Speaker 1: to hunt for their prey. They are very sensitive to taste, smell,

739
00:46:39,560 --> 00:46:43,360
Speaker 1: and sound, allowing them to catch little critters like little

740
00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 1: little cave other cave dwelling insects, and underwater critters without sight,

741
00:46:49,040 --> 00:46:52,759
Speaker 1: So their inner ears allow them to sense vibrations and

742
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:57,759
Speaker 1: to pinpoint the location using the orientation of these sensory

743
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:00,799
Speaker 1: cells to calculate where the sound source is coming from.

744
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:04,160
Speaker 1: So you've got kind of like these surround sound sensory

745
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:07,239
Speaker 1: cells inside the ear, and then by knowing which cell

746
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,080
Speaker 1: is picking up the sound the loudest, they can basically

747
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:12,840
Speaker 1: calculate in their brain like where the sound is coming

748
00:47:12,840 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 1: from and find find that unfortunate little creature that it's

749
00:47:15,960 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: going to eat. Also, they could love to be up

750
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:25,600
Speaker 1: to about sixty years old. Yeah, their maximum lifespan has

751
00:47:25,640 --> 00:47:29,879
Speaker 1: been calculated to be over a hundred years old. It's

752
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:32,880
Speaker 1: always interesting when a little tiny guy lives very long.

753
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 1: It just seems counterintuitive for some reason. But I mean,

754
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 1: this is the closest thing we get to ancient wise

755
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 1: cave dragons. I mean, admittedly they're sort of like baby dragons.

756
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:47,399
Speaker 1: They're only about a foot long, but still, I mean,

757
00:47:47,520 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 1: you know, like the one the picture that you included

758
00:47:51,440 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 1: in the dock almost looks exactly like a silhouette of

759
00:47:56,280 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 1: Musho from Alan. Yeah it does. Or or the or

760
00:48:01,080 --> 00:48:06,839
Speaker 1: the Dragon and spirited away. Yeah, definitely without the sideburns

761
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:09,640
Speaker 1: instead of antlers. If I had a pet one of these, though,

762
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 1: I think I would need to paint it or find

763
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:18,520
Speaker 1: a non cruel way to brighten it up. That's the

764
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:22,759
Speaker 1: only way Google eyes online. It could use eyes and

765
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 1: then it could yes, tape a pair of Google Eyes

766
00:48:25,760 --> 00:48:30,520
Speaker 1: on the get a little a little more personable. I mean,

767
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:33,319
Speaker 1: I think it works for everything. Put eyes all over

768
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 1: its body. It doesn't. I have some. I have some

769
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:38,439
Speaker 1: adhesive Google eyes that I just put on things around

770
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:41,600
Speaker 1: the house. It's fun. You mean, you give you give

771
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:45,560
Speaker 1: this home a wicked paint job, and you're gonna be cruising. Dude. Look,

772
00:48:45,600 --> 00:48:48,240
Speaker 1: you slept some races and stripes on it, you slept

773
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:53,279
Speaker 1: eyes on it, and bang, you're the Calisi of the

774
00:48:53,320 --> 00:49:04,359
Speaker 1: cave system. You got a cave dragon, my friend. M So,

775
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: now I want to talk about some very rare cave

776
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:11,239
Speaker 1: finds that you will only find in a few caves,

777
00:49:11,520 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: and it is hard to access them. These are limited

778
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:22,719
Speaker 1: access cave critters. So what comes to mind when I

779
00:49:22,880 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 1: say cave leeches, Like, how does that make you feel?

780
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 1: Where are you at with cave leeches? Well, i'll tell you, Katie,

781
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:37,440
Speaker 1: not great. I thought of leeches as something that I

782
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:40,640
Speaker 1: had to be on the cusp of manhood with my

783
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:44,360
Speaker 1: friends in the woods and submerging myself in a filthy

784
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:48,000
Speaker 1: puddle to get attacked by. And when you mentioned cave leeches,

785
00:49:48,040 --> 00:49:51,080
Speaker 1: it makes it sound like they could be elsewhere, like

786
00:49:51,200 --> 00:49:54,840
Speaker 1: not in the water, not in stagnant water. I'm hoping

787
00:49:54,840 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: to find out that these still are only in water.

788
00:49:57,239 --> 00:50:00,840
Speaker 1: Are they limited to water? They are, Oh thank god.

789
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:03,400
Speaker 1: Although I do like the idea of them sort of

790
00:50:03,400 --> 00:50:07,200
Speaker 1: hanging from the ceiling of thin bat like yeah, like

791
00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:09,279
Speaker 1: hanging I from the ceiling then it drops down on

792
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: you and out. Yeah yeah, yeah, not quite now they

793
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:18,279
Speaker 1: are still They are actually aquatic leeches, so that is

794
00:50:18,880 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 1: a comforting thing. They are called Croata branchus MS. Tro vi,

795
00:50:24,160 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 1: a k a arpo badella MS. Trovi. I'm just gonna

796
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:32,319
Speaker 1: split the different call them little cavy leeches. That's I've

797
00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:36,879
Speaker 1: got think going to be easier for everyone. They are

798
00:50:37,000 --> 00:50:40,720
Speaker 1: found in one of the deepest caves in the world,

799
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:44,480
Speaker 1: They are endemic, meaning they are only found in the

800
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 1: northern vil Bit cave systems in Croatia. They were discovered

801
00:50:50,239 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 1: in the deepest cave in Croatia, Lucina Jama. I'm sorry

802
00:50:54,719 --> 00:51:00,360
Speaker 1: if I mispronounced that, which is fourteen hundreds, which is

803
00:51:00,440 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 1: one thousand, four hundred and thirty meters or four thousand,

804
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:12,120
Speaker 1: six hundred and ninety four feet deep. Pretty it's deep

805
00:51:12,200 --> 00:51:17,799
Speaker 1: enough that I have no conception. It's right. If you've

806
00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 1: seen the Empire State Building there, you go google Empire

807
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:31,799
Speaker 1: State Building? How big? How big? Computers? Say very big? Big?

808
00:51:32,480 --> 00:51:37,879
Speaker 1: Say computer? It is uh one thousand, four hundred and

809
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:42,360
Speaker 1: fifty four ft tall, So that's like three points something

810
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:47,440
Speaker 1: for this is almost Yeah, so this is like four thousand,

811
00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:52,200
Speaker 1: six hundred ninety four divided by one thousand, four hundred

812
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:59,600
Speaker 1: fifty four doing it in my head, I'm kidding three close. No,

813
00:51:59,680 --> 00:52:02,719
Speaker 1: it's a it's about like three and a half times

814
00:52:02,960 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 1: the tallness of the Empire State Building according to Google math. Yeah,

815
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:14,919
Speaker 1: that's again seemingly unnecessary. Yeah, it doesn't seems a little

816
00:52:15,120 --> 00:52:18,439
Speaker 1: showing off. Showing off, But I also like that that's

817
00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:23,719
Speaker 1: how far this cave. Leach is, right, now right. So

818
00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:27,400
Speaker 1: part of the cave is a five hundred and thirteen

819
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:30,800
Speaker 1: meter or one thousand, six d and eighty three ft

820
00:52:30,800 --> 00:52:35,680
Speaker 1: free fall hole, so taller than the Empire State building.

821
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:39,280
Speaker 1: Just a hole, just basically the lobby of the cave

822
00:52:39,400 --> 00:52:43,320
Speaker 1: where the leach, just a free fall hole. You know. Yeah,

823
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:46,600
Speaker 1: this is the deepest hole in the world. So the

824
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:50,240
Speaker 1: legion doesn't fall from the ceiling on you. You follow

825
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 1: from the ceiling onto the leach. Technically yes, technically yes,

826
00:52:55,000 --> 00:52:57,920
Speaker 1: So this is They're found in the deepest hole in

827
00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 1: the world, also known as my heart. Anyways, um, imagine

828
00:53:03,840 --> 00:53:09,440
Speaker 1: being one of the researchers who descended into this pitch black,

829
00:53:09,760 --> 00:53:15,239
Speaker 1: cold hole with nothing but a rope between you and oblivion.

830
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:18,360
Speaker 1: Imagine if you fell and you're, oh, my god, I

831
00:53:18,360 --> 00:53:25,600
Speaker 1: can't believe we survived. What broke our fall? Leeches? It's okay,

832
00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:31,520
Speaker 1: these cave leeches broke my fall. Thank god. These man

833
00:53:31,560 --> 00:53:35,080
Speaker 1: eating leeches broken my fault from the tallest hole in

834
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:41,160
Speaker 1: the world. Speaking of unnecessary, it's unnecessary that there's life

835
00:53:41,160 --> 00:53:43,879
Speaker 1: there and that we ever knew about it. There's no

836
00:53:43,920 --> 00:53:46,439
Speaker 1: reason for human to go out down there and find

837
00:53:46,520 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 1: out that these are there, These are down there. Okay,

838
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:52,680
Speaker 1: but isn't that like the most human thing there is. Like,

839
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:57,240
Speaker 1: that's a big hole. I'm gonna go down in that hole, yeah,

840
00:53:57,360 --> 00:53:59,200
Speaker 1: and get to the very bottom and find out what

841
00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:01,560
Speaker 1: freaking bug lives there. I know what's in that hole.

842
00:54:02,160 --> 00:54:04,319
Speaker 1: There's screams of the damned in there. Well, I'm gonna

843
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:07,839
Speaker 1: go and check that out. Something with no eyes is

844
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:10,759
Speaker 1: calling to me from that hole. Something is calling to

845
00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:14,080
Speaker 1: me saying I will devour you, and then the screams

846
00:54:14,120 --> 00:54:20,160
Speaker 1: of the damned. I'm gonna go down in there. Uh.

847
00:54:20,680 --> 00:54:24,720
Speaker 1: It makes my butt like invert on itself to think about.

848
00:54:25,600 --> 00:54:30,320
Speaker 1: So these cave leeches live in streams in the depths

849
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:34,720
Speaker 1: of these caves, and pretty cool, pretty frigid streams there

850
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:38,720
Speaker 1: at water temperatures of about four degrees celsius or forty

851
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:43,000
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit, so chilly, you know, pretty chilly. They have

852
00:54:43,239 --> 00:54:46,800
Speaker 1: no eyes, which is not super surprising. I mean, leeches

853
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:50,840
Speaker 1: only have eye spots. They don't have like big cute

854
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:55,879
Speaker 1: puppy eyed normally, so it's not that different. A leech

855
00:54:55,960 --> 00:54:58,359
Speaker 1: is already just like a living lump of slime. As

856
00:54:58,360 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 1: far as I there are living lumps of slime like slime.

857
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:06,600
Speaker 1: Leeches are more like a a goon noodle with a

858
00:55:06,680 --> 00:55:15,040
Speaker 1: sucky part and classic suck face Google classic. They're the

859
00:55:15,120 --> 00:55:19,560
Speaker 1: sucker mouth of the cave. Leach is actually not used

860
00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:23,600
Speaker 1: to suck blood. Researchers don't think they survive on blood

861
00:55:23,680 --> 00:55:27,680
Speaker 1: sucking because there are simply not enough animals with enough

862
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:32,719
Speaker 1: blood down there too for them to suck on. There

863
00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:36,719
Speaker 1: aren't normally, there aren't tasty humans that just like decided

864
00:55:36,760 --> 00:55:40,640
Speaker 1: to descend down on a rope for these leeches to

865
00:55:40,719 --> 00:55:45,080
Speaker 1: feed on. So, uh, they don't really know what they

866
00:55:45,160 --> 00:55:48,560
Speaker 1: feed on. Um, maybe there's just like a race of

867
00:55:48,760 --> 00:55:51,360
Speaker 1: yettis that live down there that they feed on. But

868
00:55:51,640 --> 00:55:55,719
Speaker 1: they eat all the discarded vestigial eyeballs that now you

869
00:55:55,760 --> 00:56:00,279
Speaker 1: guys going to use these eyeballs now, all right where

870
00:56:00,320 --> 00:56:03,560
Speaker 1: Bezos chucks all his extra eyes every year his yearly

871
00:56:03,760 --> 00:56:08,440
Speaker 1: eye purge to get rid of all those eyeballs. So

872
00:56:08,840 --> 00:56:13,600
Speaker 1: the mouth, the sucker mouth, is actually ringed in tentacles.

873
00:56:13,640 --> 00:56:16,839
Speaker 1: This just gets better and better, doesn't it. And the

874
00:56:16,880 --> 00:56:20,400
Speaker 1: function of these tentacles and the mouth is unclear, but

875
00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:23,120
Speaker 1: the powerful sucker seems to be able to help it.

876
00:56:23,239 --> 00:56:28,600
Speaker 1: Cling to rock surfaces underwater and to actually crawl along. Uh.

877
00:56:28,680 --> 00:56:32,560
Speaker 1: They have what looks like legs on each of their sides,

878
00:56:32,640 --> 00:56:37,239
Speaker 1: but these are actually just little flesh projections that researchers

879
00:56:37,280 --> 00:56:41,680
Speaker 1: think serves some sort of respiratory function, So gas exchange

880
00:56:41,719 --> 00:56:44,600
Speaker 1: may occur along the surface area of these projections. Like

881
00:56:44,760 --> 00:56:49,840
Speaker 1: they're just external gills and they're kind of flat and

882
00:56:50,080 --> 00:56:53,799
Speaker 1: they move by undulating like caterpillars. So basically it has

883
00:56:53,840 --> 00:56:57,080
Speaker 1: an oral sucker, uh it's mouth, and it's got a

884
00:56:57,239 --> 00:57:01,120
Speaker 1: posterior sucker on its butt, and it like uses each

885
00:57:01,160 --> 00:57:04,840
Speaker 1: of the suckers to like move along a rock underwater.

886
00:57:04,920 --> 00:57:09,120
Speaker 1: So it's like just but it's like the mouth but

887
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 1: mouth but mouth. But yeah, it's butt sucks and its

888
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:16,760
Speaker 1: mouth sucks. Yeah, but it's but suckings way funnier than

889
00:57:16,760 --> 00:57:20,920
Speaker 1: it's mouth. It sucks at moving, but sucks at moving.

890
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:24,160
Speaker 1: And it has these things that should be legs if

891
00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:26,760
Speaker 1: you're looking at it, but they're not legs. But that's

892
00:57:26,800 --> 00:57:30,840
Speaker 1: inherently hilarious. Um. But I will say that the scariest

893
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:33,120
Speaker 1: thing about this, I think is that you don't know

894
00:57:33,160 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 1: what stuff is for. I don't like that here. It's

895
00:57:36,040 --> 00:57:40,400
Speaker 1: one thing to have a tentacle ring, right, but then

896
00:57:40,520 --> 00:57:43,760
Speaker 1: to go what is it for? Oh, don't worry about it,

897
00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:47,440
Speaker 1: it's just yet. It's the mysteries that are you know,

898
00:57:47,520 --> 00:57:50,280
Speaker 1: really the zest of life, Like what are those mouth

899
00:57:50,360 --> 00:57:53,240
Speaker 1: tentacles for? We don't know. Life would be boring and

900
00:57:53,280 --> 00:57:55,880
Speaker 1: bland if we didn't if we knew what that leach was. Second,

901
00:57:56,280 --> 00:58:00,120
Speaker 1: if we knew like what every mouth tentacle did, that

902
00:58:00,160 --> 00:58:03,160
Speaker 1: would like, what would life be? Then life would be

903
00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:06,840
Speaker 1: without the mysteries of mouth tentacles. That would be sad

904
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:11,160
Speaker 1: to me. Tentacle mas are the spice of life, as

905
00:58:11,200 --> 00:58:17,439
Speaker 1: they said, really is carpet d M tentacles mouth tentacles? Yeah,

906
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:19,800
Speaker 1: but yeah, they don't know what they feed on. Maybe

907
00:58:20,000 --> 00:58:25,600
Speaker 1: you spooky, but I'm gonna guess something tiny that's on

908
00:58:25,640 --> 00:58:29,720
Speaker 1: the rocks. Probably probably, Yeah, they may like even feed

909
00:58:29,760 --> 00:58:36,800
Speaker 1: on algae, who knows, who knows. So the last cave

910
00:58:36,960 --> 00:58:39,720
Speaker 1: cutie that we're going to talk about is the white

911
00:58:39,880 --> 00:58:44,320
Speaker 1: cave velvet worm. So if you've been listening to the

912
00:58:44,360 --> 00:58:46,800
Speaker 1: podcast for a while, you know I've got a soft

913
00:58:46,800 --> 00:58:49,680
Speaker 1: spot for velvet worms. They are one of the cutest

914
00:58:49,720 --> 00:58:53,800
Speaker 1: little booties in the world. Um My Twitter banner is

915
00:58:53,840 --> 00:58:56,520
Speaker 1: made up of velvet worms. They are just there's something

916
00:58:56,600 --> 00:59:00,400
Speaker 1: so cute about them, and so velvet warm ORMs just

917
00:59:00,440 --> 00:59:04,080
Speaker 1: as a refresher. They are a phylum of species of small,

918
00:59:04,280 --> 00:59:10,320
Speaker 1: pinky size normally sometimes even smaller adorable like velvety worm

919
00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:14,400
Speaker 1: like critters. So they are actually not technically worms. They

920
00:59:14,440 --> 00:59:18,400
Speaker 1: are a branch off of pan arthur poda. Uh so

921
00:59:18,840 --> 00:59:23,000
Speaker 1: they are a sort of distinct branch from like uh,

922
00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:27,160
Speaker 1: insects and stuff. They're their own phylum, their own their

923
00:59:27,160 --> 00:59:30,240
Speaker 1: own brand. You know, it's all about brand integrity for

924
00:59:30,280 --> 00:59:33,440
Speaker 1: these guys. And they have a bunch of cute little

925
00:59:33,520 --> 00:59:37,360
Speaker 1: chubby legs, these chubby little antenna and they like to

926
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:43,400
Speaker 1: squirt sticky sticky spray from glands near their mouth that

927
00:59:43,520 --> 00:59:46,320
Speaker 1: they used to stick on to prey so that they

928
00:59:46,320 --> 00:59:49,400
Speaker 1: can eat it. Oh so they do eat prey. So

929
00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:52,680
Speaker 1: you love them anyway, even though they take life. I mean,

930
00:59:52,960 --> 00:59:56,320
Speaker 1: cats do that. Well. I know, I'm not judging you

931
00:59:56,360 --> 00:59:59,000
Speaker 1: for that, I'm just establishing it. They look like they

932
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:02,800
Speaker 1: have httle leg warmers on each and every one legs.

933
01:00:02,840 --> 01:00:05,800
Speaker 1: They're pretty cute. For some reason, I thought they would

934
01:00:05,840 --> 01:00:09,680
Speaker 1: be herbiferous based on that fact, Yeah, they do look

935
01:00:09,720 --> 01:00:17,760
Speaker 1: like they would like delicately by its legs. Well. Non

936
01:00:17,960 --> 01:00:21,800
Speaker 1: cave dwelling velvet worms come in a variety of beautiful colors,

937
01:00:21,880 --> 01:00:25,240
Speaker 1: like purples or blues. Sometimes they have like yellow racing

938
01:00:25,320 --> 01:00:28,240
Speaker 1: stripes there. I think, really beautiful, and they do look

939
01:00:28,280 --> 01:00:31,240
Speaker 1: like they're made out of velvet. They have this incredible

940
01:00:31,320 --> 01:00:35,600
Speaker 1: skin texture that allows them to retain moisture because they

941
01:00:35,640 --> 01:00:38,080
Speaker 1: like to live in moist environments, and they're they're apparently

942
01:00:38,080 --> 01:00:40,960
Speaker 1: actually also very soft. So you know, do I want

943
01:00:41,000 --> 01:00:44,720
Speaker 1: to pet one? Yeah? Oh man, okay, yeah, I'm googling

944
01:00:44,760 --> 01:00:49,000
Speaker 1: images of the ones that live on land. Are very cute,

945
01:00:49,400 --> 01:00:52,360
Speaker 1: very cute, just a little, just a little like little

946
01:00:52,440 --> 01:00:58,280
Speaker 1: chunksters Pixar. They do. Yes, they're very cute. They look

947
01:00:58,360 --> 01:01:01,560
Speaker 1: like some kind of like toy worm, like a little

948
01:01:01,840 --> 01:01:04,000
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I had a glow warm

949
01:01:04,080 --> 01:01:06,840
Speaker 1: toy that you squeezed it and it would glow and

950
01:01:06,880 --> 01:01:09,240
Speaker 1: it had this like soft, chunky body that I would

951
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:12,080
Speaker 1: hug um and it had a human face, and that

952
01:01:12,120 --> 01:01:15,600
Speaker 1: part I didn't much care for, but the other aspects

953
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:19,680
Speaker 1: of the glow worm it was very fun and cute. Um.

954
01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:24,600
Speaker 1: But cave velvet worms are a ghostly white and they

955
01:01:25,080 --> 01:01:29,560
Speaker 1: are that. Actually, there's not that much known about them.

956
01:01:29,600 --> 01:01:31,520
Speaker 1: They don't know like if they don't have eyes at

957
01:01:31,560 --> 01:01:33,760
Speaker 1: least I couldn't find any research on whether or not

958
01:01:33,800 --> 01:01:36,360
Speaker 1: they have eyes. My suspicion probably not. Why would they

959
01:01:36,360 --> 01:01:39,720
Speaker 1: need them? Uh? And they they have this ability to

960
01:01:39,800 --> 01:01:43,320
Speaker 1: squeeze their jiggling little bodies in the cracks and crevices,

961
01:01:43,400 --> 01:01:46,520
Speaker 1: which makes them very well adapted to cave life. They're

962
01:01:46,560 --> 01:01:48,960
Speaker 1: like cave kitties, you know how like cats can just

963
01:01:49,040 --> 01:01:53,160
Speaker 1: like squeeze underdoors. They're just like that, except they've got

964
01:01:53,200 --> 01:01:58,360
Speaker 1: lots of little legs and the cat has some legs

965
01:01:59,480 --> 01:02:05,440
Speaker 1: for the you yea, I have been owned. I just

966
01:02:05,520 --> 01:02:08,920
Speaker 1: got owned by the cat. So they are found only

967
01:02:09,040 --> 01:02:13,280
Speaker 1: in two cave systems in table mountains South Africa. Due

968
01:02:13,320 --> 01:02:17,160
Speaker 1: to the limited area and how few specimens have been found,

969
01:02:17,200 --> 01:02:21,880
Speaker 1: they are considered vulnerable. So you know, these little little ghosts,

970
01:02:21,920 --> 01:02:24,480
Speaker 1: they look like some kind of ghost pokemon, you know

971
01:02:24,520 --> 01:02:27,360
Speaker 1: what I mean, ghost type or they could all be

972
01:02:27,440 --> 01:02:30,440
Speaker 1: hiding in cracks and would we even know that's true?

973
01:02:30,560 --> 01:02:33,240
Speaker 1: That's true. It's actually a very good better. We better

974
01:02:33,280 --> 01:02:37,600
Speaker 1: go to the world's deepest hole to find out get

975
01:02:37,600 --> 01:02:41,800
Speaker 1: in that whole scientific these mad, mad people who figure

976
01:02:41,840 --> 01:02:44,160
Speaker 1: this stuff out jump in a hole, I mean, like

977
01:02:45,280 --> 01:02:48,160
Speaker 1: the world's deepest hole to look for some worms. If

978
01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:51,800
Speaker 1: I wasn't so scared of the effects that gravity has

979
01:02:51,840 --> 01:02:56,640
Speaker 1: on my body when it meets the floor in you know,

980
01:02:56,960 --> 01:02:59,960
Speaker 1: like the potential energy that would go into my body

981
01:03:00,160 --> 01:03:03,160
Speaker 1: after jumping off of a thing, and then you know

982
01:03:03,520 --> 01:03:06,200
Speaker 1: what happens at the end of that, I definitely want

983
01:03:06,200 --> 01:03:09,920
Speaker 1: to jump in all who would? You would? Wouldn't you? Weirdo?

984
01:03:10,400 --> 01:03:13,080
Speaker 1: Aren't what's wrong with the seven or eight kinds of

985
01:03:13,120 --> 01:03:15,960
Speaker 1: animals that I know we have around those here in

986
01:03:16,000 --> 01:03:20,880
Speaker 1: the surface world. It's enough animals be satisfied that don't

987
01:03:20,920 --> 01:03:24,919
Speaker 1: need to define these eyeliss velvet worms that live deep

988
01:03:24,920 --> 01:03:26,480
Speaker 1: in the bowels the I guess you do, or you

989
01:03:26,480 --> 01:03:29,880
Speaker 1: wouldn't have a podcast. Are some people that do like

990
01:03:30,080 --> 01:03:33,680
Speaker 1: jump into basically like these big holes, and I think

991
01:03:33,680 --> 01:03:36,400
Speaker 1: they either like have a parachute or a bungee cord.

992
01:03:36,960 --> 01:03:39,920
Speaker 1: I think it's a parachute. It's like basically base jumping,

993
01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:47,680
Speaker 1: except seemingly extremely dangerous because like you can't see the bottom. Oh,

994
01:03:47,840 --> 01:03:52,360
Speaker 1: just basse jumping into a hole that's deep enough that Yeah,

995
01:03:52,480 --> 01:03:54,760
Speaker 1: I hate it. I don't like it. I don't like

996
01:03:54,840 --> 01:03:58,360
Speaker 1: to think about it. It makes makes my but like

997
01:03:58,560 --> 01:04:03,160
Speaker 1: crawl up my mouth. The white cave velvet worm is

998
01:04:03,360 --> 01:04:05,960
Speaker 1: down there looking up at us, like, these guys are crazy.

999
01:04:08,840 --> 01:04:11,360
Speaker 1: What are all those eyes for? Oh god? They have

1000
01:04:11,560 --> 01:04:15,400
Speaker 1: so many eyes, have these big jelly balls. Actually, if

1001
01:04:15,400 --> 01:04:19,320
Speaker 1: you didn't have eyes, eyes would be gross. They would,

1002
01:04:19,400 --> 01:04:23,120
Speaker 1: wouldn't they. It's like their head is mostly solid, but

1003
01:04:23,200 --> 01:04:28,760
Speaker 1: they have these like weird jelly balls move around. I mean,

1004
01:04:28,760 --> 01:04:30,880
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have the visual of it, right, So you

1005
01:04:30,880 --> 01:04:33,680
Speaker 1: don't have sights, so you don't have the visual of eyeballs.

1006
01:04:33,800 --> 01:04:36,480
Speaker 1: If you don't have eyes like that, well you don't

1007
01:04:36,480 --> 01:04:38,560
Speaker 1: know what they look like, but you can feel them

1008
01:04:38,880 --> 01:04:43,320
Speaker 1: and like how glucy they are. Like imagine you're feeling something.

1009
01:04:43,360 --> 01:04:46,240
Speaker 1: You're like, okay, like the human, like I feel that,

1010
01:04:46,440 --> 01:04:49,640
Speaker 1: what the hell are these things? And you're honking at them?

1011
01:04:49,640 --> 01:04:53,680
Speaker 1: And they're like goopy and squishy? Your eyes smell weird? Human?

1012
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:59,760
Speaker 1: You got stink eyes. Well, I think that is going

1013
01:04:59,800 --> 01:05:02,360
Speaker 1: to do it for all of the cave animals. But

1014
01:05:02,480 --> 01:05:05,600
Speaker 1: before we go, I do want to answer a listener

1015
01:05:05,680 --> 01:05:09,000
Speaker 1: question now, This has to do with actually topic we

1016
01:05:09,080 --> 01:05:13,920
Speaker 1: talked about a couple episodes ago about dinosaars. So here

1017
01:05:14,000 --> 01:05:17,440
Speaker 1: is the question. Since the vast majority of what we

1018
01:05:17,480 --> 01:05:20,959
Speaker 1: know about dinosaur appearances based off of bones, what about

1019
01:05:21,000 --> 01:05:23,479
Speaker 1: the possibility of things that wouldn't be preserved that would

1020
01:05:23,480 --> 01:05:26,040
Speaker 1: affect their appearance. Like if we only had the bones

1021
01:05:26,080 --> 01:05:28,680
Speaker 1: of a penguin, we probably wouldn't be able to recreate

1022
01:05:28,720 --> 01:05:32,080
Speaker 1: their unique appearance with their tuxedo coloring or secret knees

1023
01:05:32,600 --> 01:05:36,760
Speaker 1: or peacock tail feathers, or hippos incredibly thick skin or

1024
01:05:36,800 --> 01:05:40,200
Speaker 1: elephant trunks and ears. I've got to assume there's tons

1025
01:05:40,200 --> 01:05:43,480
Speaker 1: of examples of defining but non obvious traits of modern

1026
01:05:43,520 --> 01:05:46,760
Speaker 1: animals that wouldn't be preserved through a future fossil record.

1027
01:05:47,680 --> 01:05:50,520
Speaker 1: Do you think we're not being creative enough with what

1028
01:05:50,640 --> 01:05:53,520
Speaker 1: dinosaurs could have looked like? And this is from Stephen.

1029
01:05:54,000 --> 01:05:57,400
Speaker 1: This is a great question and one that has kind

1030
01:05:57,440 --> 01:06:01,240
Speaker 1: of caused a revolution in ter terms of paleo art

1031
01:06:01,800 --> 01:06:07,560
Speaker 1: and paleontologists understanding of dinosaurs. So it is true that

1032
01:06:07,880 --> 01:06:12,360
Speaker 1: are classic view of sort of like the Jurassic Park, like, uh,

1033
01:06:12,520 --> 01:06:16,480
Speaker 1: dinosaur that has like green or brown and like scaly,

1034
01:06:16,560 --> 01:06:21,160
Speaker 1: just like giant lizards essentially is probably way too limited.

1035
01:06:21,440 --> 01:06:24,560
Speaker 1: So what you're describing in terms of like not knowing

1036
01:06:24,840 --> 01:06:30,200
Speaker 1: what animals look like and and actually um sometimes, like

1037
01:06:30,240 --> 01:06:33,400
Speaker 1: with dinosaurs and other fossils, we imagine them being much

1038
01:06:33,440 --> 01:06:37,000
Speaker 1: more skeletal and bony than they may have been. This

1039
01:06:37,080 --> 01:06:41,840
Speaker 1: is called shrink wrapping. It's basically when a an extinct

1040
01:06:41,880 --> 01:06:44,800
Speaker 1: animal that we only have fossil records of we're trying

1041
01:06:44,840 --> 01:06:48,200
Speaker 1: to recreate them. We don't give them enough flesh. We're like, okay,

1042
01:06:48,240 --> 01:06:51,640
Speaker 1: here's their bones. They probably had some muscles, and so

1043
01:06:51,840 --> 01:06:53,600
Speaker 1: when we try to imagine them, they kind of look

1044
01:06:53,800 --> 01:06:59,080
Speaker 1: bony and skeletal. There is this amazing book called All

1045
01:06:59,200 --> 01:07:04,000
Speaker 1: Yesterday's Unique and Speculative Views of Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Animals.

1046
01:07:04,000 --> 01:07:07,800
Speaker 1: It's an illustrated book that critiques the way that we've

1047
01:07:07,800 --> 01:07:12,200
Speaker 1: classically envisioned dinosaurs, and there are these great illustrations in

1048
01:07:12,240 --> 01:07:17,120
Speaker 1: it that shows like how we might envision living animals

1049
01:07:17,160 --> 01:07:23,120
Speaker 1: like baboons and swans and hippos and zebras just based

1050
01:07:23,200 --> 01:07:29,560
Speaker 1: on their fossils, and they look horrible. They look like monsters. Yeah,

1051
01:07:29,560 --> 01:07:34,280
Speaker 1: they all look like like Jurassic Park creatures. The baboon

1052
01:07:34,600 --> 01:07:38,240
Speaker 1: looks the most. The baboon looks like a velociraptor essentially

1053
01:07:38,320 --> 01:07:43,200
Speaker 1: from Jurassic Park, with just different mandibles basically, and the

1054
01:07:43,280 --> 01:07:47,360
Speaker 1: swan has like these sides. It's like the wing bones, right,

1055
01:07:47,480 --> 01:07:52,520
Speaker 1: and it's like they've imagined it without feathers. I imagine

1056
01:07:52,520 --> 01:07:55,280
Speaker 1: if you just found a bone that was just a

1057
01:07:55,400 --> 01:07:58,760
Speaker 1: V shape and you were like, I'm pretty confident they

1058
01:07:58,840 --> 01:08:00,720
Speaker 1: flew with this and it was all filled in with

1059
01:08:00,760 --> 01:08:04,240
Speaker 1: all these feathers. Even though you were right, people would

1060
01:08:04,280 --> 01:08:06,160
Speaker 1: be like, that's kind of a stretch. So you can

1061
01:08:06,200 --> 01:08:13,240
Speaker 1: see how this happens. It totally makes sense, right eapy too, Right,

1062
01:08:13,360 --> 01:08:17,439
Speaker 1: So fossils are often incomplete, even when it comes to bones,

1063
01:08:17,880 --> 01:08:21,719
Speaker 1: but they also don't often record things like feathers, color,

1064
01:08:21,880 --> 01:08:26,639
Speaker 1: skin texture. Uh, It's true. We can get some sense

1065
01:08:26,760 --> 01:08:30,080
Speaker 1: of fat and muscle based on bone density and structure.

1066
01:08:30,160 --> 01:08:33,479
Speaker 1: I think like there's some probably advancement in terms of

1067
01:08:33,520 --> 01:08:36,559
Speaker 1: like understanding how muscle fits to bone and using sort

1068
01:08:36,560 --> 01:08:39,960
Speaker 1: of the structure of bone and bone density to like

1069
01:08:40,000 --> 01:08:42,559
Speaker 1: be like, okay, this probably supported more weight, so we

1070
01:08:42,600 --> 01:08:45,639
Speaker 1: could like reconstruct some of the tissue and fat um.

1071
01:08:46,400 --> 01:08:50,440
Speaker 1: And but unless there's a cast of skin, tissue or feathers.

1072
01:08:51,040 --> 01:08:54,320
Speaker 1: It's really hard to know what's going on the outside

1073
01:08:54,360 --> 01:08:56,880
Speaker 1: of the animals. So like you know how turkeys have

1074
01:08:57,000 --> 01:08:59,960
Speaker 1: those like dangly things under their chins and over their beak.

1075
01:09:00,080 --> 01:09:03,960
Speaker 1: The water, the water and the snood. We wouldn't know

1076
01:09:04,040 --> 01:09:06,720
Speaker 1: if like t rex had like a wattle, like a

1077
01:09:06,760 --> 01:09:11,320
Speaker 1: big gin wattle. What if we finally clone, you know,

1078
01:09:11,360 --> 01:09:14,040
Speaker 1: like we clone a wooly mammoth and it just looks

1079
01:09:14,120 --> 01:09:17,519
Speaker 1: like two big birds staple together, and we're like, that

1080
01:09:17,680 --> 01:09:21,400
Speaker 1: is not what it was gonna look like. Well, look

1081
01:09:21,479 --> 01:09:24,920
Speaker 1: at that thing. It's crazy. I mean, I think like

1082
01:09:25,080 --> 01:09:28,080
Speaker 1: with the wooly mammoth, we have a better understanding of

1083
01:09:28,120 --> 01:09:31,240
Speaker 1: what they probably look like because of their living relatives.

1084
01:09:31,240 --> 01:09:34,080
Speaker 1: They're close living relatives, and also some of them, all

1085
01:09:34,760 --> 01:09:38,400
Speaker 1: their flesh was actually frozen because they have a lot

1086
01:09:38,400 --> 01:09:41,719
Speaker 1: of uh you know, they lived in these very cold

1087
01:09:41,760 --> 01:09:45,519
Speaker 1: and so we do have flesh samples. We have limited, yeah,

1088
01:09:45,600 --> 01:09:48,200
Speaker 1: of of mammoth's. Yeah, I think there was even like

1089
01:09:48,280 --> 01:09:52,360
Speaker 1: a whole or partial baby mammoth that was frozen that

1090
01:09:52,439 --> 01:09:56,400
Speaker 1: we have. Um doesn't mean we have complete DNA, but

1091
01:09:56,439 --> 01:09:58,240
Speaker 1: we actually we do have like an idea of what

1092
01:09:58,280 --> 01:10:01,920
Speaker 1: they look like. Um, but dinosaurs we don't have that.

1093
01:10:02,400 --> 01:10:07,480
Speaker 1: But we very occasionally will have things like feather imprints

1094
01:10:07,760 --> 01:10:12,799
Speaker 1: or or skin fossilized skin. Very rarely does that happen

1095
01:10:12,840 --> 01:10:18,000
Speaker 1: because organic material typically would decay or be eaten or

1096
01:10:18,120 --> 01:10:23,560
Speaker 1: you know, basically um become too ruin or just completely

1097
01:10:23,600 --> 01:10:26,800
Speaker 1: decayed before it would have a chance to fossilize. The

1098
01:10:26,840 --> 01:10:32,400
Speaker 1: only time that organic material like skin could survive and

1099
01:10:32,479 --> 01:10:36,080
Speaker 1: be fossilized if it was like almost immediately buried. And

1100
01:10:36,120 --> 01:10:40,280
Speaker 1: then this, this mineralization happened where basically all the bits

1101
01:10:40,360 --> 01:10:44,599
Speaker 1: of organic material is replaced by a mineral and uh

1102
01:10:44,880 --> 01:10:48,080
Speaker 1: preserves the look of the tissue. And it does happen,

1103
01:10:48,280 --> 01:10:53,240
Speaker 1: it's very rare. UM and even then, like you don't

1104
01:10:53,320 --> 01:10:57,519
Speaker 1: have a necessarily an understanding of pigmentation, like you don't

1105
01:10:57,520 --> 01:11:00,600
Speaker 1: know like what it would look like. And we're but

1106
01:11:00,720 --> 01:11:02,400
Speaker 1: even in that, we're starting to get a little better

1107
01:11:02,400 --> 01:11:06,320
Speaker 1: at that. There are sometimes melanosomes that are fossilized. So

1108
01:11:06,600 --> 01:11:11,400
Speaker 1: milanosomes are an organelle that will determine pigment. UH. So

1109
01:11:12,200 --> 01:11:15,200
Speaker 1: paleontologists can see a milanisome and like, hey, this one

1110
01:11:15,280 --> 01:11:17,760
Speaker 1: looks like this is a milannisome that would create a

1111
01:11:17,800 --> 01:11:21,800
Speaker 1: black pigment and be able to make some determination of like, hey,

1112
01:11:21,840 --> 01:11:25,400
Speaker 1: we think that maybe this this skin might have been black,

1113
01:11:25,520 --> 01:11:27,599
Speaker 1: or like this feather might have been black. So we're

1114
01:11:27,720 --> 01:11:30,040
Speaker 1: getting a little better at at those kinds of things.

1115
01:11:30,280 --> 01:11:34,920
Speaker 1: We're taking the pale out of paleontology. I should I'm

1116
01:11:34,960 --> 01:11:47,639
Speaker 1: sorry if if remembersomes need a tagline, there you go. Ye. So,

1117
01:11:48,400 --> 01:11:52,800
Speaker 1: most likely the image of just like brown all of colored, green,

1118
01:11:52,960 --> 01:11:57,320
Speaker 1: scaly lizard dinosaurs is outdated. I mean, there probably were

1119
01:11:57,400 --> 01:12:00,200
Speaker 1: dinosaurs that looked like that. I don't. I mean, you know,

1120
01:12:00,240 --> 01:12:03,559
Speaker 1: it's like they aren't. You know, they did share a

1121
01:12:03,600 --> 01:12:10,000
Speaker 1: common ancestor with modern day reptiles. Um they were, but

1122
01:12:10,120 --> 01:12:12,639
Speaker 1: they we do know that some of them have feathers,

1123
01:12:12,720 --> 01:12:16,000
Speaker 1: and maybe they had fleshy ornaments, like imagine like you

1124
01:12:16,000 --> 01:12:19,000
Speaker 1: know a lot of birds have these eye ornaments. This

1125
01:12:19,160 --> 01:12:23,400
Speaker 1: oscillated turkey has these big blue basically it looks like

1126
01:12:23,439 --> 01:12:26,320
Speaker 1: these blue dots all around its eyes blue eyeline or

1127
01:12:26,360 --> 01:12:29,960
Speaker 1: a lot of seabirds have these magnificent little like fleshy

1128
01:12:29,960 --> 01:12:33,680
Speaker 1: eyeliner and dinosaurs may have had that. So maybe uh,

1129
01:12:33,800 --> 01:12:36,240
Speaker 1: maybe it's t rex. Maybe it's mable line. We don't know,

1130
01:12:38,600 --> 01:12:41,960
Speaker 1: we're not sure what they sounded like, too, Is that right?

1131
01:12:42,120 --> 01:12:44,519
Speaker 1: I mean, I got to imagine the roar of the

1132
01:12:44,560 --> 01:12:46,639
Speaker 1: t rex we hear in the Jurassic Park is just

1133
01:12:46,680 --> 01:12:51,639
Speaker 1: as speculative, right, there's some I think there's like some

1134
01:12:51,800 --> 01:12:56,840
Speaker 1: research about that. And I think that based on like

1135
01:12:57,000 --> 01:13:01,839
Speaker 1: some like they're they're trying to basically reconstruct dinosaurs and uh,

1136
01:13:02,160 --> 01:13:05,040
Speaker 1: using like something like what we know about vocalization of

1137
01:13:05,120 --> 01:13:09,200
Speaker 1: living animals like birds, the living dinosaurs of today, and

1138
01:13:09,439 --> 01:13:12,200
Speaker 1: using that to try to figure out, like what another

1139
01:13:12,240 --> 01:13:14,840
Speaker 1: dinosaur would sound like. And I think I read something

1140
01:13:14,920 --> 01:13:18,880
Speaker 1: that seemed to indicate that they may have had very

1141
01:13:18,960 --> 01:13:22,960
Speaker 1: bird like sounds based on some of their like vocal structures,

1142
01:13:23,000 --> 01:13:26,800
Speaker 1: Like but just imagine like a very deep throated bird

1143
01:13:26,880 --> 01:13:29,479
Speaker 1: like sound for some of these like bigger dinosaurs, which

1144
01:13:29,520 --> 01:13:33,680
Speaker 1: is actually a little scary, pretty intimidating. Yeah, a velociy

1145
01:13:33,680 --> 01:13:42,160
Speaker 1: after went gobble gobble, but really deep mother, before you

1146
01:13:42,200 --> 01:13:47,160
Speaker 1: get eviscerated. Yeah, but this is a great question. Thank

1147
01:13:47,200 --> 01:13:49,599
Speaker 1: you so much for it, And definitely check out that

1148
01:13:49,760 --> 01:13:53,160
Speaker 1: all Yesterday's book or at least like google it and

1149
01:13:53,200 --> 01:13:56,000
Speaker 1: look at the illustrations because those are They're incredible. I

1150
01:13:56,040 --> 01:13:58,840
Speaker 1: love them so much. The shrink raft modern animals are great.

1151
01:13:59,080 --> 01:14:02,120
Speaker 1: It's great. It's really gives you a perspective, like how

1152
01:14:02,200 --> 01:14:05,000
Speaker 1: much information we lose and like what you know future

1153
01:14:05,479 --> 01:14:08,599
Speaker 1: generations or like future aliens. I guess who come and

1154
01:14:08,680 --> 01:14:12,240
Speaker 1: visit our ravaged earth. We'll find it like reconstruct us.

1155
01:14:12,240 --> 01:14:14,880
Speaker 1: I wonder, like what a shrink wrapped human would look like,

1156
01:14:15,479 --> 01:14:22,519
Speaker 1: just like skeletor, like we're all, yeah, skeletor, Yeah, that's hey,

1157
01:14:22,640 --> 01:14:30,560
Speaker 1: send him some fan art shrink rapped humans. God, horrifying

1158
01:14:30,640 --> 01:14:35,840
Speaker 1: fan art. Slender Man came, oh god, oh man, you're right? Yeah, no,

1159
01:14:36,000 --> 01:14:38,720
Speaker 1: that that Oh I love I like that. I like

1160
01:14:38,760 --> 01:14:42,280
Speaker 1: that head fanne. He doesn't needy, he doesn't need eyes.

1161
01:14:42,400 --> 01:14:44,479
Speaker 1: Why would he need eyes. He's got all of those,

1162
01:14:44,520 --> 01:14:49,120
Speaker 1: like those receptors on his long arms, just like a spider. Hey,

1163
01:14:49,240 --> 01:14:52,960
Speaker 1: we brought a full circle. Well, thank you so much

1164
01:14:53,000 --> 01:14:55,880
Speaker 1: for joining me today, Michael. Where can people find you?

1165
01:14:56,000 --> 01:14:59,639
Speaker 1: Where can the cave leeches find you? Oh? Hi, cave

1166
01:14:59,720 --> 01:15:03,479
Speaker 1: leech is I'm over at patreon dot com slash small beans,

1167
01:15:03,600 --> 01:15:06,960
Speaker 1: and if you're on Twitter, I'm at symbol. Then the

1168
01:15:07,040 --> 01:15:11,240
Speaker 1: name Swain. Then the underscore symbol than Corp c O

1169
01:15:11,400 --> 01:15:15,080
Speaker 1: r P Rich. I I'm more and more ashamed of

1170
01:15:15,160 --> 01:15:19,679
Speaker 1: as corporations ravage and destroy everything you hold. Dear, it's you.

1171
01:15:19,680 --> 01:15:23,599
Speaker 1: You're the corporate big cat that I'm I'm complaining about.

1172
01:15:24,240 --> 01:15:27,120
Speaker 1: I'm the one hoarding eyes all over my body. It's

1173
01:15:27,160 --> 01:15:31,080
Speaker 1: me and you can find us on the internet at

1174
01:15:31,120 --> 01:15:34,040
Speaker 1: Creature feature Pot on Instagram, at Creature feet pot on

1175
01:15:34,040 --> 01:15:37,839
Speaker 1: Twitter that's f f et and something like a creature.

1176
01:15:38,720 --> 01:15:42,160
Speaker 1: You can also email me your horrifying fan art of

1177
01:15:42,560 --> 01:15:47,320
Speaker 1: human beings, shrink wrapt or your questions or cute animal pictures.

1178
01:15:47,680 --> 01:15:51,479
Speaker 1: I'm good with cute animal pictures to uh Creature feature

1179
01:15:51,520 --> 01:15:54,960
Speaker 1: Pod at gmail dot com. I'm also you know, I'm

1180
01:15:55,080 --> 01:15:57,719
Speaker 1: Katie Golden. You can find me on Twitter just search

1181
01:15:57,880 --> 01:16:02,280
Speaker 1: searching searching on Twitter and pro bird writes. I do

1182
01:16:02,400 --> 01:16:06,160
Speaker 1: that one too, where I'm a bird. Surprise, I'm a bird.

1183
01:16:07,600 --> 01:16:12,920
Speaker 1: I thank you guys so much for listening. Oh also, hey,

1184
01:16:13,040 --> 01:16:15,560
Speaker 1: if you review the podcast, I will read it and

1185
01:16:15,720 --> 01:16:18,640
Speaker 1: it will warm my little little bird heart and I

1186
01:16:18,720 --> 01:16:20,639
Speaker 1: really appreciate it. I really do read all of them,

1187
01:16:20,680 --> 01:16:22,320
Speaker 1: and they really do mean a lot to me. It

1188
01:16:22,400 --> 01:16:24,880
Speaker 1: makes me happy. Thank you. So much for everyone who

1189
01:16:25,040 --> 01:16:28,880
Speaker 1: leaves a review. I super appreciate that creat Your feature

1190
01:16:29,000 --> 01:16:31,840
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts

1191
01:16:31,880 --> 01:16:33,360
Speaker 1: like the one you just heard, visit me I Heard

1192
01:16:33,400 --> 01:16:35,280
Speaker 1: Radio app Apple podcasts, or hey guess what? Why have

1193
01:16:35,360 --> 01:16:38,320
Speaker 1: you listen to your deem dang shows? And thanks to

1194
01:16:38,400 --> 01:16:41,920
Speaker 1: the Space Classics for their super awesome song ex Alumina

1195
01:16:43,040 --> 01:16:46,599
Speaker 1: See you next Wednesday. I kind of inverse the order

1196
01:16:46,680 --> 01:16:48,240
Speaker 1: of the outro. I wonder if people are going to

1197
01:16:48,280 --> 01:16:51,519
Speaker 1: be upset about that. I don't know, Viva la deference,

1198
01:16:52,160 --> 01:16:56,519
Speaker 1: vivla extra eyes or lack of eyes. Everything's great teach

1199
01:16:56,560 --> 01:16:57,479
Speaker 1: there on. Bye guys,