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

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

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and we are back with

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Speaker 3: the fourth and I think for now final part in

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Speaker 3: our crab Bag series. We've been doing episodes on all

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Speaker 3: things crab. No real organizing principle except I guess the

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Speaker 3: decapod crustacean body plan. In the previous three episodes of

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Speaker 3: this series, we have talked about a bunch of stuff.

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Speaker 3: We got into the legend of a miracle crab connected

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Speaker 3: with the Catholic missionary Saint Francis Xavier and how that

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Speaker 3: story connects loosely to a real species known as the

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Speaker 3: Crucifix crab, and we got into a bit about questions

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Speaker 3: of object carrying behavior in crabs. We talked about the

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Speaker 3: family of crabs known as Raninity or FROs, and they's

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Speaker 3: somewhat uncrab like. Elongated body shape crabs have a very

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Speaker 3: side to side kind of orientation. The Raninity have instead

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Speaker 3: specialized for backwards burrowing by somewhat elongating their body front

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Speaker 3: to back. We talked about a legendary type of monster

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Speaker 3: crab from the traditions of the Lunda people of Zambia.

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Speaker 3: A crab with two heads that attacks by eating your

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Speaker 3: shadow had some interesting hippopotamus properties as well. We talked

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Speaker 3: about the idea of seeing faces in the shells of crabs,

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Speaker 3: and in the last episode we read a bizarre and

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Speaker 3: interesting eighteen sixty four letter to Scientific American which argued

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Speaker 3: that the US Navy should construct a giant biomimetic attack

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Speaker 3: submarine based on the model of the Atlantic horseshoe crab.

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Speaker 3: The letter writer called this the King Crab Warship, and

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Speaker 3: this led into a general discussion about the sort of

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Speaker 3: patent fever surrounding the US Civil War and Abraham Lincoln's

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Speaker 3: surprising relationship with very eager inventors of every kind, and

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Speaker 3: this ran the whole gamut from scammers and cranks to

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Speaker 3: real innovators. And in that episode we also talked about

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Speaker 3: the cultural significance of crabs in China, including getting into

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Speaker 3: a short older report from Fujian of crabs being involved

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Speaker 3: in exorcism and protective magic. And then we also talked

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Speaker 3: about the more common association in China between crabs and

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Speaker 3: good fortune, wealth and luck, and got into a few

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Speaker 3: other stories there, like the story of Bajied, the first

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Speaker 3: man to eat a crab, which is a great distinction.

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Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, So a lot of discussion of

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Speaker 2: crab iconography, with crabs clutching coins or setting on big

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Speaker 2: piles of coins, almost like a Western dragon. So was

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Speaker 2: really into that. One thing I wanted to mention You

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Speaker 2: were talking about the proposal that the United States needed

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Speaker 2: a large crab mech to do its bidding. This reminded

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Speaker 2: me of something. I was like, what is it reminding

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Speaker 2: me of? And it is the mobile Oppression Palace from Futurama.

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Speaker 2: This is an episode in which titled a Taste of Freedom,

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Speaker 2: one of my favorites, in which Zoidberg's people end up

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Speaker 2: temporarily conquering the earth and they have this giant crab

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Speaker 2: mech that also has a sand castle on top of

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Speaker 2: it and these big claws for tearing things apart, and

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Speaker 2: it is the mobile oppression Palace.

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Speaker 3: Does it crawl front to back or side to side.

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Speaker 2: A definite side to side movement as I recall, because

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Speaker 2: of course Zoidberg does a lot of side to side

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Speaker 2: movement from time to time, and the little crab dance. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: so yeah, I'm excited to get into more crab topic.

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Speaker 2: I was showing you this before him, but I even

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Speaker 2: brought out my little crab mini here that I painted

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Speaker 2: a while back. Crab folk from Dungeons and Dragons.

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Speaker 3: Is this a playable people? Can you make crab folk characters?

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Speaker 2: It's it's not one of like the given species that

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Speaker 2: you can play, But I think ultimately you can play

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Speaker 2: any species you want. There are rules for adapting it,

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Speaker 2: and I think really we should all of all of

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Speaker 2: all of my fellow Dungeons and Dragons players out there,

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Speaker 2: go ahead and mix it up, and in your very

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Speaker 2: next session insist that your dungeon master let you play

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Speaker 2: a crab folk and insist on lateral movement only when

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Speaker 2: you're on the battle map.

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Speaker 3: Oh that's yeah, that's good. Uh okay, So are you

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Speaker 3: good if I kick things off today with a discussion

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Speaker 3: of claw fraud.

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Speaker 2: Claw fraud sounds perfect for our crab bag series. Yes,

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Speaker 2: let's do it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, okay. So this is a bit of funny biological

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Speaker 3: research that I turned up when I was reading about

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Speaker 3: our old friends, the Fiddler Crabs. So the term Fiddler

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Speaker 3: crabs refers to any one of roughly one hundred species

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Speaker 3: in the Brachiurin family, Occipoddy brachurins are the true crabs.

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Speaker 3: So unlike some of the other examples we've been talking about,

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Speaker 3: like you know, horseshoe crabs are not true crabs. In fact,

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Speaker 3: they're not really crabs at all. They're just sort of

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Speaker 3: crabs by common naming convention. These are true crabs. They're brachurins.

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Speaker 3: The family again, is ossipodidy. Not all occipodity are fiddler crabs,

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Speaker 3: but all fiddler crabs are occipodity, and they are known

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Speaker 3: for their sexually dimorphic trait of extreme claw asymmetry. So

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Speaker 3: even if you've never read much about fiddler crabs before,

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Speaker 3: you've probably seen a picture of one of these at

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Speaker 3: some point. Among male fiddler crabs, one claw is way

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Speaker 3: bigger than the other. It's not just bigger, it is

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Speaker 3: often absurdly comically bigger than the other. In extreme cases,

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Speaker 3: the bigger claw is up to half of the male's

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Speaker 3: total body weight. So for a rough analogy, imagine you

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Speaker 3: know an average adult human male and one of his

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Speaker 3: hands is normal, but the other hand is about four

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Speaker 3: feet wide and weighs like eighty to one hundred pounds.

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Speaker 2: Right right oversized and as we'll get into expensive.

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Speaker 3: Yes, we explored the biology of the fiddler crab in

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Speaker 3: a good bit of detail in a series we did

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Speaker 3: a few years back called The Lesser of Two Crab Claws.

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Speaker 3: I think that was the title we went with. Those

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Speaker 3: episodes were generally about asymmetry in nature, but the male

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Speaker 3: fiddler crab is one of the most amazing and bizarre

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Speaker 3: examples in the animal kingdom, so it had a kind

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Speaker 3: of central place in that series. I guess I'll start

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Speaker 3: off by mentioning a few general observations about fiddler crabs

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Speaker 3: before we get into the main claw research I wanted

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Speaker 3: to talk about today. As I already mentioned, this huge

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Speaker 3: asymmetrical claw is a sexually dimorphic trait, so you only

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Speaker 3: see it in males. Female fiddler crabs have two smaller,

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Speaker 3: matched regular size claws. Fiddler crabs are burrowing crabs, so

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Speaker 3: they nest in these little tunnels that they dig in

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Speaker 3: the mudflats or in the sandy intertidal areas where they live.

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Speaker 3: And exactly how the burrows are used varies between species,

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Speaker 3: but usually they're involved in say brooding, you know, laying

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Speaker 3: eggs or reproduction in some way, and the quality of

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Speaker 3: the burrow defended by a male contributes to the male's

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Speaker 3: success in mating. Fiddler crabs have a very interesting way

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Speaker 3: of eating. They use their front claws to shovel lumps

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Speaker 3: of sand or mud into their mouthparts, and then their

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Speaker 3: mouthparts rapidly dig around in this glob of sand or

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Speaker 3: mud to find clean and extract any edible material like

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Speaker 3: algae or bacteria or bits of dead other detrit us.

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Speaker 3: This feeding process creates a very cute waste product. Actually,

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Speaker 3: in a couple of sources I was seeing refer to

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Speaker 3: this as pseudo feces. I don't know if this technically

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Speaker 3: counts as pseudo feces to a zoologist or not, but

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Speaker 3: they're little leftover pellets of mud or sand that pile

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Speaker 3: up around the fiddler crab's burrow. These are the pellets

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Speaker 3: the crab has spit out after extracting food from them,

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Speaker 3: to the extent that they are called pseudo feces there.

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Speaker 3: This would be because they're not real feces that you know,

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Speaker 3: they haven't passed through the animal's whole digestive system. They're

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Speaker 3: sort of what gets rejected by the bouncer at the

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Speaker 3: entrance of the digestive system rather than what comes out

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Speaker 3: at the end, though they do look like and are

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Speaker 3: often mistaken for droppings, Hence they would be kind of

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Speaker 3: false feces. Rob I've got a picture for you to

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Speaker 3: look at in the outline here. I don't know why

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Speaker 3: these these little diesel balls are cute to me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And it really speaks to the metics nature

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Speaker 2: of crab consumption in general, and we as humans we

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Speaker 2: might think, oh, gross, you're producing pseudo feces. I think

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Speaker 2: the crabs, if they were capable of judging us back,

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Speaker 2: would say, it is disgusting that you are not producing

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Speaker 2: pseudo feces. You're just saying let it all in, we'll

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Speaker 2: work it all out in the truth feces at the end.

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Speaker 2: They would probably say disgusting. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I love thinking about their feeding method and trying to

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Speaker 3: imagine the human analogy. So it would be like if

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Speaker 3: you ate by running around in the yard and scooping

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Speaker 3: up handfuls of dirt from the ground, and then you

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Speaker 3: put the clod of dirt in your mouth and you

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Speaker 3: swish it around until you extract and swallow any earthworms,

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Speaker 3: edible roots termite larva like old dorrito as somebody dropped.

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Speaker 3: You get all that out of there, you swallow it,

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Speaker 3: and then you spit out a tidy little clod of

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Speaker 3: soil that is left over, and then you just keep

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Speaker 3: doing this over and over all day until you have

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Speaker 3: a little mountain of spherical dirt clods piled up around

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Speaker 3: your front door.

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Speaker 2: I love it. I celebrate it.

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Speaker 3: So this actually, this feeding method actually brings us back

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Speaker 3: to some interesting things about the claw asymmetry in male

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Speaker 3: fiddler crabs. As you might imagine, sifting balls of sand

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Speaker 3: and mud through your mouthparts is not the most efficient

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Speaker 3: way to find high quality nutrition, so you have to

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Speaker 3: do a lot of it. So eating mud is kind

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Speaker 3: of a It's a job that requires long hours, it

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Speaker 3: takes persistence, and for males it is even worse because

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Speaker 3: it turns out that one giant monster claw is pretty

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Speaker 3: much completely useless for feeding. So if you watch female

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Speaker 3: fiddler crabs eat, they will rapidly shovel mud and sand

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Speaker 3: into their mouthparts with both claws in a continuous back

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Speaker 3: and forth cycling motion. But because males only have the

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Speaker 3: one normal sized claw, their ability to feed themselves is

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Speaker 3: basically cut in half. It's like I've just got my

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Speaker 3: one good eaten hand and then I've got this big hand,

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Speaker 3: but I can't really use it.

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Speaker 2: It's like if you went to an Ethiopian restaurant with

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Speaker 2: Freddy Krueger, Like, what's he gonna do? The claws just

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Speaker 2: got a set there.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so yeah with the with the knives, you can't

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Speaker 3: really scoop up with, you know, the delicious food. You've

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Speaker 3: only got the one hand to use. So, because they

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Speaker 3: only have the one claw that is useful for feeding,

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Speaker 3: male fiddler crabs have much lower foraging efficiency than females.

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Speaker 3: They might need to spend nearly twice as much time

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Speaker 3: eating to extract the same number of calories, so that

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Speaker 3: in itself is interesting. You might look at a male

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Speaker 3: fiddler crab with this one giant superclaw and you think

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Speaker 3: this is a mighty weapon. You know, it makes the

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Speaker 3: male that wields it incredibly hardy and healthy and fit.

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Speaker 3: And while a big claw might often be a sign

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Speaker 3: of underlying fitness, is not the cause of underlying fitness.

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Speaker 3: It mainly comes with downsides to the crab's ability to

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Speaker 3: survive the daily struggle for food. So not only does

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Speaker 3: the claw greatly hamper the mail crab's ability to eat.

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Speaker 3: It hugely increases the mail crab's food energy needs. So

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Speaker 3: you've got this big old claw. It's a heavy piece

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Speaker 3: of tissue, so it increases the crab's based metabolism, and

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Speaker 3: it also makes it more energetically expensive for the crab

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Speaker 3: to move, to run around and move because it's carrying

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Speaker 3: this thing. So you imagine if you had to live

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Speaker 3: your life with an eighty pound suitcase surgically attached to

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Speaker 3: your hand, that would kind of you would need to

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Speaker 3: eat more food. It would just you know, cause a

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Speaker 3: lot of trouble for everything else you needed to do well.

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Speaker 2: It makes me think too of examples of humans who cultivate,

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Speaker 2: say an extreme bodybuilder physique that then comes with its

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Speaker 2: own drawbacks, including perhaps having to eat like multiple boiled

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Speaker 2: chickens per day.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, good thing. This is a funny thing. Actually, if

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Speaker 3: you read about like serious bodybuilders, we're trying to maintain

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Speaker 3: huge amounts of muscle mass. A hilarious problem they talk

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Speaker 3: about is like difficulty eating as much as they need

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Speaker 3: to eat. Is like, ah, I got to eat you know,

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Speaker 3: fourteen chicken breasts today. I can't eat that much.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. You hear stories about like pro wrestlers on

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Speaker 2: the road and trying to keep up with that kind

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Speaker 2: of thing, and it's like, oh, I'm in you know,

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Speaker 2: small town Minnesota, and I need to acquire this many

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Speaker 2: boiled chickens at the local waffle house.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. So anyway, you might think, well, okay, so this

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Speaker 3: big crab claw, it comes at a metabolic cost. I

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Speaker 3: understand that it's heavy, it's hard to move around, it

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Speaker 3: increases your metabolism, but at least it's a big weapon

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Speaker 3: and it provides a defense against predators. So you know,

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Speaker 3: like something comes to eat you and you can use

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Speaker 3: the big claw to fight back. That is not necessarily true.

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Speaker 3: It might deter some predators, but research has found that

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Speaker 3: birds like grackles, which prey on fiddler crabs, are actually

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Speaker 3: more likely to target and attack males with big claws

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Speaker 3: than they are to attack females or males with smaller claws.

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Speaker 3: So a big claw means you're number one, easier for

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Speaker 3: the predators to see, and also you are a more

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Speaker 3: valuable prize because there's more meat inside you.

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Speaker 2: Hmm yeah. Yeah, So the birds recognize the claw meat

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Speaker 2: is good and the claw meat is big in these specimens.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and you're just you're easier to pick out. You know,

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Speaker 3: the birds flying above hunting for crabs. You like it

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Speaker 3: sees the one with waving the big claw around. So

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Speaker 3: if one giant claw comes with all of these tremendous

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Speaker 3: downsides to fitness, what is it for? It seems to

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Speaker 3: serve a major purpose related to reproduction, and then possibly

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Speaker 3: a couple of minor practical purposes. To start with the

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Speaker 3: minor practical purposes, I've read that males sometimes use the

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Speaker 3: large claw to kind of cover and shield the entrances

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Speaker 3: of their burrows, so a large claw may provide extra

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Speaker 3: defense in some situations there but by far the most

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Speaker 3: widely recognized purpose of the large claw is in sexual

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Speaker 3: competition and sexual signaling to appeal to female fiddler crabs

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Speaker 3: and to intimidate and fight off rival males, especially in

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Speaker 3: competition for access to burrows and the quality of burrows

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Speaker 3: is in part what appeals to females who are looking

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Speaker 3: to mate. So when it comes time for mating, male

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Speaker 3: fiddler crabs engage in a ritualized behavior known as waving,

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Speaker 3: where they stake out territory in front of their burrows

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Speaker 3: and they wave their big claw up in the air

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Speaker 3: for all to see. Each fiddler species has its own

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Speaker 3: specific waving pattern, and this waving behavior serves to intimidate

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Speaker 3: rival males and drive them away from the area of

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Speaker 3: the crabs borough. A big claw so helps with this

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Speaker 3: as well, you got a big claw, so it's like,

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Speaker 3: oh wow, you know, don't want to mess with that guy.

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Speaker 3: And as for appealing to females, the results are in

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Speaker 3: and it turns out female fiddler crabs do like big claws,

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Speaker 3: that's what they're into. Big claws are often taken as

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Speaker 3: an honest signal of genetic fitness, for one thing, because

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Speaker 3: they take a lot of energy to grow and sustain,

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Speaker 3: so they are evidence that this crab must be eating well,

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Speaker 3: it's doing well, it's probably a good mate. And then

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Speaker 3: also crabs continue to grow throughout their lives, so that

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Speaker 3: means that bigger crabs tend to be older crabs. So

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Speaker 3: a bigger claw usually functions as a somewhat honest indication

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Speaker 3: that a particular crab is a survivor across many seasons.

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Speaker 2: All right, so some good genes there.

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Speaker 3: But there is an exception to this honest signaling principle,

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Speaker 3: and that's what got me interested in coming back to

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Speaker 3: the fiddler crab today. So, as I said earlier, I

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Speaker 3: want to talk about claw fraud, and this has to

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Speaker 3: do with regenerated limbs, an interesting topic unto itself. My

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Speaker 3: main source here is a Royal Society Biological Sciences paper

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Speaker 3: from the year two thousand by Patricia Backwell and co

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Speaker 3: authors called Dishonest Signaling in a Fiddler Crab. The authors

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Speaker 3: of this paper start off by talking about how when

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Speaker 3: animals exchange information with one another in situations in all

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Speaker 3: kinds of situations like predator prey interactions, make choice and

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Speaker 3: competition for resources, you would naturally expect to find some

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Speaker 3: evolutionary attempts at dishonest communication. So like, if we're always

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Speaker 3: going to compare shoe sizes to decide who gets to

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Speaker 3: eat this animal carcass, we both found it would pay

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Speaker 3: biologically for me to find a way to make my

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Speaker 3: feet seem bigger than they actually are. On the other hand,

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Speaker 3: there are some theories in biology that say, you know,

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Speaker 3: you can't have too much cheating or dishonesty in information

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Speaker 3: exchanges in nature, or the information exchange becomes unstable and

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Speaker 3: it just like doesn't really work for this, Like if

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Speaker 3: everybody's lying, then the signal just becomes unreliable and it's

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Speaker 3: it's no longer useful biologically.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense.

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Speaker 3: So the authors say, even though you would expect to

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Speaker 3: find some animals trying to cheat at trying to lie

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Speaker 3: at information exchange, they say that at the time of

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Speaker 3: this study in the year two thousand, empirical research had

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Speaker 3: not found many examples of cheating in sexually selected signals

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Speaker 3: in nature. The author is right quote this is not

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Speaker 3: so prizing since there are logistic and conceptual problems in

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Speaker 3: demonstrating cheating. Cheats are designed to go unnoticed. Even if

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Speaker 3: you identify an individual with a disproportionately large signal for

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Speaker 3: its underlying quality, it is unclear how you can differentiate

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Speaker 3: this from natural variation in the relationship between signal size

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Speaker 3: and male quality. However, in the fiddler crab species that

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Speaker 3: they call Uca and ulypis now known as Ostrica and Ulypus,

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Speaker 3: they argue that it is possible to identify a clear

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Speaker 3: example of a dishonest sexually selected signal, and it goes

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Speaker 3: like this. When crabs lose a limb, they can often

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Speaker 3: grow it back. You know, this is one of the

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Speaker 3: advantages of being something like a crab. Mammals or not

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Speaker 3: like this. We can regenerate some types of tissue, but

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Speaker 3: if we lose a whole limb, it's gone. You know,

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Speaker 3: it's not growing back. But crabs frequently lose limp due

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Speaker 3: to attacks by predators or fights with rival males, and

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Speaker 3: grow new limbs in their place. So, according to the authors,

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Speaker 3: when most filler crab species lose a claw, they regenerate

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Speaker 3: one that is pretty similar to the original in form,

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Speaker 3: But in a few species, including Ostrica and Alypus quote,

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Speaker 3: males instead regenerate claws that are lighter, more slender, and

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Speaker 3: less robust, which they call leptokilus than the original claus,

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Speaker 3: which are called brachikilus. So again, Brachychelus means it's the

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Speaker 3: strong claw that the crab had originally. The leptokilis claw

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Speaker 3: is the weaker, less muscled regenerated claw, they continue quote.

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Speaker 3: For a given claw length, leptokilis claws have a smaller

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Speaker 3: muscle mass than do brachykilis claws, and they may thus

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Speaker 3: be weaker and less effective weapons. So these regenera did

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Speaker 3: leptokilis clause match the original big claw in some ways.

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Speaker 3: For example, they sometimes match it in length, but are

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Speaker 3: reduced in terms of strength and internal muscle mass. So

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Speaker 3: they regrow a claw that looks big, but it is

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Speaker 3: literally partially hollow, like, it does have muscles inside, but

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Speaker 3: it's got less muscle mass inside than the original claw did.

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Speaker 3: So if it actually came down to a real fight,

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Speaker 3: this regenerated claw would usually lose. And the authors did

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Speaker 3: test this out. They staged some fiddler crab fights to

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Speaker 3: make sure, and they indeed found that the Leptokilis males

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Speaker 3: were significantly worse at fighting and lost in battle against

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Speaker 3: Brackykilis males.

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Speaker 2: So it's kind of like imagine a bodybuilder who has

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Speaker 2: not maintained the same physique that they previously had, but

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Speaker 2: then for their dating profile photo they use some alchemy

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Speaker 2: of dishonest photoshoppery or generative AI to make their current

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Speaker 2: physique look like their previous physique. So on one level,

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Speaker 2: they're saying this is accurate because this is what I

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Speaker 2: once had, but in reality it is not packed the

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Speaker 2: same strength and it is there is a dishonesty to

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Speaker 2: the signal.

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Speaker 3: Right, yeah, maybe they're like stuffing fake muscles under their

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Speaker 3: shirt or something so like, look, I look pretty big,

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Speaker 3: but I don't I can't actually lift as much weight

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Speaker 3: as I as I once could.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: However, crab competition often does not come down to real fighting,

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Speaker 3: and intimidation displays can drive away rivals before a fight begins.

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Speaker 3: We've talked about this a lot on the show before.

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Speaker 3: This is the case with tons of animal species that

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Speaker 3: have aggressive competition for mates. It is in everybody's interest

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Speaker 3: to avoid a fight whenever possible, because even if you

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Speaker 3: win the fight, actually fighting cost energy, it is risky

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Speaker 3: and could lead to injuries which reduce fitness and could

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Speaker 3: later kill you. So fighting is just something you want

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Speaker 3: to avoid, even if you're probably going to win. So

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Speaker 3: it's better for everybody involved if the competing males have

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Speaker 3: a way of sizing each other up and deciding who

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Speaker 3: would probably win the fight, allowing them to skip the

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Speaker 3: fight altogether, so you know the likely loser, they have

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Speaker 3: some kind of piece of evidence, you know, maybe horn

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Speaker 3: size or in the case of crabs, probably claw size,

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Speaker 3: They see the evidence of the likely winner's fitness, and

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Speaker 3: the likely loser just retreats before combat starts. Previous research

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Speaker 3: in fiddler crabs has found that the main criterion that

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Speaker 3: males use to assess each other's fighting ability is big

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Speaker 3: claw length, which is not necessarily reduced to the same

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Speaker 3: degree in the regenerated claw. The way that other measures

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Speaker 3: like strength and internal muscle mass are also appeal to

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Speaker 3: females seems related to assessments of claw length. Females of

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Speaker 3: this fiddler crab species are looking for males with a

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Speaker 3: long claw, so how does this relate to regeneration. The

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Speaker 3: authors of the paper set out to investigate whether in

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Speaker 3: this species the weaker, partially hollow regenerated clause would serve

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Speaker 3: as a dishonest but effective signal to win mating opportunities.

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Speaker 3: Could males with these weaker claws bluff their way into

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Speaker 3: competitive victory, control of burrows and into sects And the

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Speaker 3: answer is basically yes, the bluffing works. So one way

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Speaker 3: of assessing the question is if males with strong original

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Speaker 3: clause usually win fights against males with the regenerated clause,

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Speaker 3: do the males with strong original clause seek out males

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Speaker 3: with regenerated clause to dominate in bully or are they

401
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Speaker 3: more likely to aggressively escalate to real fighting against males

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Speaker 3: with regenerated claus. In this study, the answer was no.

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Speaker 3: It really just doesn't affect choices about whether to fight

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Speaker 3: or who to fight.

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Speaker 2: Quote.

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Speaker 3: Males with original clause do not differentially fight males with

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Speaker 3: regenerated claws, even though they're likely to win. Regenerated clause

408
00:25:15,600 --> 00:25:20,160
Speaker 3: effectively bluff fighting ability and deter potential opponents before they fight.

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Speaker 3: So the partially hollow claws, the weaker, less muscled claus

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Speaker 3: are an effective bluff against rival males, and again, do

411
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Speaker 3: they convince females Yes? Quote During mate searching, females do

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Speaker 3: not discriminate against males with low mass regenerated claws, indicating

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Speaker 3: that they are deceived as to the true cost males

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Speaker 3: pay to produce sexual signals. So it really seems like

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Speaker 3: the the you know, the weaker claw is a very

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Speaker 3: smart gamble. It is true, it's not as good at fighting,

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Speaker 3: but at least within the species, it gets the important

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Speaker 3: jobs of bluffing rival males and impressing females done quite well.

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Speaker 2: And this is the primary These are the primary spaces

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Speaker 2: where the crab claw is useful.

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Speaker 3: Anyway, Yeah, I mean, sometimes it does come down to

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Speaker 3: a fight. But you want to avoid fighting anywhere, right,

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Speaker 3: So sometimes you'll have to fight and you're kind of

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Speaker 3: out of luck there, but most of the time you're

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Speaker 3: just trying to get by without fighting. So the authors

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Speaker 3: note that in natural populations of this species, up to

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Speaker 3: forty four percent of males are leptokuilas they have the

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Speaker 3: regenerated weaker claw, and it's kind of like, why not

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Speaker 3: the author's right quote. Since Leptokilis claws have a lower

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Speaker 3: mass than brachikilis clauseleptekilis males use less energy to wave

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00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:44,680
Speaker 3: at a given rate. Remember, the sexual display is waving

432
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 3: the big claw in the air, so if you've got

433
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:49,600
Speaker 3: a claw with less muscle mass in it, it's easier

434
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 3: to wave around, so you can actually show off more

435
00:26:52,840 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 3: with a weaker claw. Quote. Thus, even when in relatively

436
00:26:57,880 --> 00:27:02,439
Speaker 3: poor condition compared with Brakikilas males, Leptokulis males can wave

437
00:27:02,520 --> 00:27:07,520
Speaker 3: at the same rate. In biological terms, it's cheaper to

438
00:27:07,680 --> 00:27:11,440
Speaker 3: make and maintain, and it's easier to use for their

439
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 3: primary purpose, and it works just as well for most things,

440
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 3: it seems like, so the real question kind of turns

441
00:27:19,520 --> 00:27:24,119
Speaker 3: into why do the male fiddler crabs produce the original

442
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:27,160
Speaker 3: stronger claw in the first place, Like, why hasn't evolution

443
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:31,000
Speaker 3: just completely gotten rid of the strong claw and you know,

444
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,879
Speaker 3: just started making these weaker, more hollow claws because the

445
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:37,480
Speaker 3: strong claw is very costly. It's a great burden to

446
00:27:37,520 --> 00:27:41,000
Speaker 3: the crab. One thing that again is worth noting, is

447
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,440
Speaker 3: that if there is too much cheating or dishonest signaling

448
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:48,160
Speaker 3: within a population of animals, of course the signal loses

449
00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 3: its value, right, So that can be you know that

450
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:56,000
Speaker 3: the whole system can be destabilized by excessive deception or cheating.

451
00:27:56,640 --> 00:28:00,360
Speaker 3: But that doesn't necessarily explain like why the individual will

452
00:28:00,800 --> 00:28:03,640
Speaker 3: you know, what would be against the individual crab evolving

453
00:28:03,640 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 3: in that direction to just have the weaker hollow clause

454
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:11,439
Speaker 3: from the beginning. And so the authors do explore this

455
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:14,240
Speaker 3: a little bit. They say one difference is that since

456
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 3: the leptokilis males are worse at actually fighting, they are

457
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:23,119
Speaker 3: somewhat more likely to lose their burrows in fights to

458
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:26,959
Speaker 3: be driven away by stronger males. The authors tracked this

459
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:29,439
Speaker 3: behavior as well. They were like, what happens after this?

460
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:34,360
Speaker 3: What happens to both leptokilis and Brachikilus crabs after they're

461
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 3: driven from their burrows and have to find a new one.

462
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 3: The authors discovered that there was no major difference in

463
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 3: how long it took them to find new boroughs, nor

464
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:47,040
Speaker 3: in the distance they had to travel, nor in the

465
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 3: number of fights initiated in competition for burroughs. There was

466
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 3: a difference in how the crabs got new burroughs. So

467
00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 3: Brachikilus males more often got their new borough by fighting

468
00:29:01,280 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 3: and driving out an occupant. Leptochilus males more often found

469
00:29:05,760 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 3: empty burrows and moved in. But then again, does this

470
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 3: really make a difference. The authors looked into it, and

471
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:16,880
Speaker 3: they found that the empty burrows that were occupied by

472
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 3: the lighter clawed males were just as attractive to females

473
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:24,080
Speaker 3: and thus were no lower in quality than the occupied

474
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 3: burrows that were seized by fighting. Quote Hence, neither the

475
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,959
Speaker 3: process nor the outcome of searching for new burroughs seems

476
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 3: to be more costly for Leptokilis than Brachykilus males. A

477
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:40,920
Speaker 3: higher frequency of borrow loss for Leptochilus males is the

478
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:44,400
Speaker 3: only cost that seems to favor the Brachykilis claw form,

479
00:29:44,440 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 3: So the only difference they're finding is that when you

480
00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 3: have the weaker claw, you're more likely to lose your

481
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 3: burrow to be driven out. They say. Quote, small males

482
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:57,000
Speaker 3: are on average more often involved in fights since there

483
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 3: are more males in the population that are slightly large

484
00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:04,400
Speaker 3: than them. The increased benefits of having a brachykili's claw

485
00:30:04,680 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 3: when small may therefore select for the initial production of

486
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:14,240
Speaker 3: this robust claw form. As males grow, the relative frequency

487
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 3: of fighting decreases, and brachikille may be less advantageous. Moreover,

488
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 3: larger males spend more time waving. Something feels almost metaphorically

489
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:29,720
Speaker 3: interesting about this, So like, when you're young, you are

490
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 3: more likely to have to fight for what you get

491
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:35,640
Speaker 3: or have to fight to defend what you've got, so

492
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 3: it pays to have the actual muscle inside. Because you're smaller,

493
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:42,760
Speaker 3: you look like a softer target, so you're to be

494
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 3: you're going to be escalating to actual fights more often

495
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 3: when you're younger, But as you get older and bigger

496
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:53,960
Speaker 3: and scarier, you can more often bluff your way out

497
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 3: of fights. Thus the advantage of having a real fighting

498
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 3: claw is reduced and starts to pay more and more

499
00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 3: to bluff and cheat with with with this weaker claw

500
00:31:05,240 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 3: that is easy to wave around in the air.

501
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is fascinating, And yeah, we can think of

502
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 2: various various human analogies for that. I'm sure you know

503
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:19,880
Speaker 2: in you know, in the fighting base, but also you know,

504
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 2: in other aspects of life as well. Well.

505
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is not a perfect analogy, but it kind

506
00:31:26,360 --> 00:31:29,080
Speaker 3: of reminds me of adages, like, you know, give someone

507
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 3: a reputation as an early riser and they can sleep

508
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 3: till noon. There's there's sort of a principle that once

509
00:31:35,160 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 3: you your reputation is already established, or you have some

510
00:31:38,760 --> 00:31:42,360
Speaker 3: kind of you have some kind of appearance of prestige

511
00:31:42,520 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 3: or having been established, you have to do less actual

512
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 3: work or it will less often come down to you

513
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 3: really proving your ability, and more often you can kind

514
00:31:53,000 --> 00:31:56,360
Speaker 3: of bluff and cheat your way through situations because people

515
00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 3: are you know, you seem to be established, you are

516
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 3: more intimidating, andeople are less likely to question you, and

517
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 3: so real ability to compete at whatever, real ability to

518
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 3: do the thing tends to be much more important when

519
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 3: you have less of a reputation already. Yeah, but it's

520
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 3: also really interesting to come back to the idea of

521
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 3: how of course, you know, systems of information exchange are

522
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:26,440
Speaker 3: always destabilized and eventually destroyed if there is enough lying

523
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 3: within the system, Like information exchange doesn't work if everybody's lying.

524
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:36,120
Speaker 3: So it is kind of surprising to me that there

525
00:32:36,560 --> 00:32:42,840
Speaker 3: could still remain this type of sexual signaling, this type

526
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 3: of information exchange based on claw size in populations that

527
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:51,520
Speaker 3: have rates this high of deception in them. That might

528
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 3: you know, in some cases up to forty you know,

529
00:32:53,520 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 3: nearly half of males are using a claw that misrepresents

530
00:32:57,760 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 3: their ability to fight.

531
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:02,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is fascinating, Like the signal has somehow not

532
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:06,959
Speaker 2: become completely useless, and it hasn't begin to unravel as

533
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 2: far as we can tell.

534
00:33:08,040 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't look into the like the math of

535
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 3: what are thought to be the limits on you know,

536
00:33:12,200 --> 00:33:16,280
Speaker 3: the theoretical limits of ratios within a population of deception,

537
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 3: But that would just intuitively seem to me to be

538
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:22,920
Speaker 3: near the edge, Like that's goin to be about as

539
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 3: high as you can get. I don't know, yeah, especially,

540
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 3: I mean you can. I guess it's a bit more

541
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:33,520
Speaker 3: complicated in human scenarios because human cultures involve so many

542
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:37,160
Speaker 3: other factors and there's so many different ways we're communicating

543
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:39,520
Speaker 3: to each other. We're not just waving our claw around

544
00:33:39,520 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 3: in the air and so forth. That's certainly true, though

545
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 3: I would say I'm I'm always cautious on the show

546
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 3: to draw too many direct analogies from animal behavior to

547
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 3: lessons in human life, because not just any animals. Yeah,

548
00:33:55,880 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 3: but I think it's absolutely true that that our lives

549
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:06,960
Speaker 3: are sustained by tons of systems that rely on honest communication,

550
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:10,600
Speaker 3: and that when you reach certain thresholds of lying within

551
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:13,879
Speaker 3: those systems, the systems do break down, and that can

552
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:18,880
Speaker 3: have devastating consequences. Like our lives are sustained by webs

553
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:22,520
Speaker 3: of trust, and you know, enough violations of that trust

554
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:25,960
Speaker 3: pile up, and like there are devastating consequences for the species.

555
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:40,000
Speaker 2: Absolutely all right, For the remainder of the episode, here,

556
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 2: we're going to turn back to the world of Yes,

557
00:34:42,200 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 2: there's going to be more crab demons and more crab spirits,

558
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:51,359
Speaker 2: mostly diving into more really back into the world of

559
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:54,480
Speaker 2: crabs from Japanese folklore and in a little bit from

560
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:55,760
Speaker 2: pop culture as well.

561
00:34:56,360 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 3: I'm very excited for this.

562
00:34:58,320 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 2: So we've already covered the samurai crabs of Haika, and

563
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:04,879
Speaker 2: of course, as we mentioned, this was something we talked

564
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:06,560
Speaker 2: about in a much older episode of Stuff to Blow

565
00:35:06,640 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 2: Your Mind you can find in our audio archives wherever

566
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:13,680
Speaker 2: you get your podcasts. But Japanese culture is much amused

567
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:17,839
Speaker 2: by crabs, which makes sense. Crabs are endlessly amusing, and

568
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:20,360
Speaker 2: so there are so many other examples to draw from.

569
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 2: We briefly mention the late Japanese pro wrestler of Grand

570
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 2: Naniwa and the two thousand and six comedy crab Goalkeeper,

571
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 2: but there are of course numerous other monster crabs and

572
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 2: kaiju crabs to reference. There's one in the nineteen seventy

573
00:35:35,239 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 2: Toho film Space Amiba, and then there is of course

574
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:42,080
Speaker 2: Ibira Horror of the Deep from the nineteen sixty six

575
00:35:42,160 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 2: Godzilla movie of the same name. I think the US

576
00:35:45,320 --> 00:35:47,480
Speaker 2: name for this is what Godzilla versus the crab monster.

577
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:50,839
Speaker 3: Oh okay, are these crabs? I don't know. I feel

578
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 3: like both of them are a little more lobstery. Don't

579
00:35:52,960 --> 00:35:55,840
Speaker 3: they feel kind of elongated? Am I wrong about that? Well?

580
00:35:55,880 --> 00:35:58,640
Speaker 2: You know, if a horseshoe crab is a crab, and

581
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:02,320
Speaker 2: these crab monsters can be crabs, nobody's calling it Godzilla

582
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:08,040
Speaker 2: versus the lobster. So I'm giving them crabdom status.

583
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:09,320
Speaker 3: God Zilla versus the shrimp.

584
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:15,320
Speaker 2: It could be yeah, yeah, Prong Kaiju giant mantis shrimp.

585
00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:19,319
Speaker 2: Yeah that'd be yeah, yeah, absolutely quite a punch. Let's

586
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:21,719
Speaker 2: see another. Really, I was looking around for Okay, what

587
00:36:21,719 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 2: are some that I'm not familiar with, some that I've

588
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 2: never seen. And there's a really fun sounding example in

589
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:30,640
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixty nine anime film Flying Phantom Ship, which

590
00:36:30,640 --> 00:36:34,400
Speaker 2: features some early Miyazaki designs and animation. This is a

591
00:36:34,440 --> 00:36:37,719
Speaker 2: movie that has some sort of a pirate ship, a

592
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:41,279
Speaker 2: flying pirate ship sort of. There's a giant robot, and

593
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:44,280
Speaker 2: then there is also a giant crab. And I included

594
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 2: images of this crab for you here, Joe.

595
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 3: And this is weird. I thought I had tracked down

596
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 3: all giant crab movies before, but I didn't know about

597
00:36:52,200 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 3: this one.

598
00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:55,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one is new to me as well, you know,

599
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:59,360
Speaker 2: certainly familiar with some of the the the Western examples

600
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 2: of giant crab movies. Yeah, let's see, there's a these

601
00:37:03,719 --> 00:37:07,520
Speaker 2: are not giant crabs. But I found a tantalizing example

602
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:10,480
Speaker 2: in the nineteen eighty two American Japanese horror film The

603
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:13,880
Speaker 2: House where Evil Dwells. This is a ghost movie, but

604
00:37:13,920 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 2: there's a scene where the ghosts either take the form

605
00:37:17,920 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 2: of a swarm of spider crabs or they kind of

606
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:23,480
Speaker 2: like dredge up a swarm of spider crabs and they

607
00:37:23,520 --> 00:37:28,399
Speaker 2: attack one of the human characters. Okay, There of course

608
00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 2: plenty more recent examples of crab related beings in Japanese

609
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 2: pop culture. There is, I believe if I'm pronouncing this correctly,

610
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:39,799
Speaker 2: there is crab Lante from One punch Man. This is

611
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:42,160
Speaker 2: not a show. I'm really familiar with it all. It's

612
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:47,080
Speaker 2: based on Amonga. A twenty sixteen episode featured this crab

613
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:50,000
Speaker 2: based human who kind of looks like a muscly man

614
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 2: in a pair of tidy whitey underwear, but his torso

615
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:57,200
Speaker 2: and head they're all like crab based.

616
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:01,200
Speaker 3: Yeah. So he's got, you know, based, a human shaped

617
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:04,680
Speaker 3: arm with a bend at the elbow. But then the forearm,

618
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 3: instead of a human forearm, is a big crab claw.

619
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:11,600
Speaker 3: In that respect, he resembles Popeye with the big forearms

620
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:12,719
Speaker 3: except their claws.

621
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 2: Yeah. And if I'm to trust the subtitles on the screencap,

622
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 2: I grabbed here he was transformed into a crab because

623
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:22,840
Speaker 2: he ate too much crab, which that checks.

624
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:23,800
Speaker 3: Out, that does happen.

625
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I decided to dig more into some crab

626
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 2: folklore and sort of like the folkloric types you can

627
00:38:31,960 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 2: find in Japanese folklore. And I was looking at a book.

628
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 2: This is from nineteen sixty six by Kego Seki, and

629
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:44,040
Speaker 2: it is types of Japanese folk tales. And some of

630
00:38:44,040 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 2: these are very simple, like some of them are basically

631
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:49,920
Speaker 2: like a crab saves a girl from a snake, a

632
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 2: man punishes his wife for killing and eating his favorite crab.

633
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 2: And as general types, these are going to be more

634
00:38:56,320 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 2: embellished in the actual telling, you know.

635
00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 3: So there's kind of a skeleton of the story that

636
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,719
Speaker 3: remains the same and people add their own embellishments and

637
00:39:03,760 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 3: details to it.

638
00:39:04,880 --> 00:39:06,960
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, If any any of you out there have

639
00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:12,080
Speaker 2: dug around too much in folklore academic work, you'll know

640
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:14,280
Speaker 2: that you have the different numbers as well, the numbering

641
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:17,240
Speaker 2: system of the tail types and so forth, and people

642
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:19,799
Speaker 2: can be like, ah, this is a sixty six. It's

643
00:39:19,800 --> 00:39:24,400
Speaker 2: a good one right there. But yeah, so I do

644
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:26,399
Speaker 2: want to point out though, the basic one here about

645
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 2: a crab saving a girl from a snake. This one,

646
00:39:30,719 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 2: this particular trope of a crab protector factors into a

647
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:39,440
Speaker 2: key early Japanese animated film, nineteen twenty five's Crab Temple

648
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 2: omen and in fact, future big time Japanese director Tamu

649
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:48,800
Speaker 2: Ocheedah worked on this one. He's a guy who's really

650
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:52,880
Speaker 2: not otherwise known for animation, most famous for such Japanese

651
00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:56,360
Speaker 2: films as fifty five's Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji. Sixty

652
00:39:56,360 --> 00:39:58,239
Speaker 2: two is the Mad Fox and sixty five is the

653
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 2: Fugitive from the past, but he was involved in this

654
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 2: bit of animation, and the style is that of silhouette animation.

655
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 2: Joe quoted screenshot here. I think this will remind you

656
00:40:09,239 --> 00:40:09,920
Speaker 2: of something.

657
00:40:10,040 --> 00:40:12,440
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, like Ashen Puddle, which we talked about on

658
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 3: Weird House Cinema by the German animator Alata Reininger.

659
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:21,640
Speaker 2: Correct. Yeah, they were active during the same decade, and

660
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 2: it was a little uncertain. Based on some of the sources,

661
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 2: it sounds like there was some amount of inspiration going

662
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 2: back and forth between these two. So I think I

663
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,319
Speaker 2: think maybe the Japanese animators were inspired by her work,

664
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:36,600
Speaker 2: but could have gone both ways, as creative inspiration all

665
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:37,319
Speaker 2: often does.

666
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:43,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, ashen Puddle was silhouette animated adaptation of the Cinderella story,

667
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:47,160
Speaker 3: which actually had some hilarious animations in it and the

668
00:40:47,280 --> 00:40:49,720
Speaker 3: art where like the sisters keep trying to cut parts

669
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 3: off of their feet to fit them in the shoe.

670
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:56,080
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, recommend going back and listening to

671
00:40:56,080 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 2: that Weird House episode. We did a couple of silent

672
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:01,520
Speaker 2: films and that was one of them. Call correctly, but

673
00:41:01,600 --> 00:41:03,800
Speaker 2: this film too, Crab Temple Omen. You can find this

674
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:07,719
Speaker 2: online in various places of streaming. I don't know that

675
00:41:07,800 --> 00:41:14,560
Speaker 2: it's the title cards have actually been translated into English.

676
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:16,480
Speaker 2: I think you have to find like a separate translation

677
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:19,040
Speaker 2: for them. But this is not a story that depends

678
00:41:19,120 --> 00:41:20,959
Speaker 2: too much on that sort of thing. You can enjoy

679
00:41:21,000 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 2: it without being able to read Japanese or know the

680
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:27,479
Speaker 2: translation of the text. But yeah, you have these great

681
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 2: scenes where a woman saves a crab and is later

682
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:32,400
Speaker 2: saved from a snake by swarming crabs.

683
00:41:32,800 --> 00:41:34,160
Speaker 3: M beautiful.

684
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 2: Yeah. So moving on to a few other tale types

685
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:42,399
Speaker 2: that Sika points out in this book, I think they're

686
00:41:42,440 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 2: pretty amusing and they nicely demonstrate the sort of attributed

687
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:49,719
Speaker 2: crab personality that we're often dealing with, and then they

688
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 2: also factor in some other examples. I'm going to bring

689
00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:55,879
Speaker 2: up Crab, Yo Kai and the like. So a couple

690
00:41:55,880 --> 00:41:58,360
Speaker 2: of stories here for you. First, I'm going to read

691
00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:01,759
Speaker 2: quotes from the text here. The first is going to

692
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 2: be the story of the Toad and the Crab. Bearing

693
00:42:05,640 --> 00:42:09,600
Speaker 2: in mind again, this is a tail type summary and

694
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:12,720
Speaker 2: it is in translation, so if it feels a little choppy,

695
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:15,720
Speaker 2: that's why. Okay, all right, So this is the first story.

696
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:19,280
Speaker 2: Toad and Crab were friends. Once Toad does not listen

697
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:22,400
Speaker 2: to Crab's advice, and in consequence, Toad is trodden on

698
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 2: by a horse, his tongue is pressed out or his

699
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:30,360
Speaker 2: eyes stick out. Crab mocks Toad. Toad says that a

700
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 2: his tongue is out because he is pretending to eat mochi,

701
00:42:34,840 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 2: or his eyes stick out because he is staring. So okay,

702
00:42:40,680 --> 00:42:43,440
Speaker 2: I love what we're beginning to learn here about certainly

703
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 2: about Toad, but also about Crab. Crab is not going

704
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:49,320
Speaker 2: to suffer foolishness and let it go unrecognized, and Toad

705
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 2: is going to lie his face off to save face,

706
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 2: even after being stepped on by a horse.

707
00:42:56,120 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I wanted to look like this.

708
00:42:58,400 --> 00:43:02,280
Speaker 2: Yes, my tongue is out because I'm pretending to eat mochi.

709
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:03,359
Speaker 2: I love that.

710
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. This just connects to a book that we

711
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:09,400
Speaker 3: read in our house for our daughter, the Frog and

712
00:43:09,480 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 3: Toad books. Oh yes, yes, Frog and Toad our friends.

713
00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 3: But those are much sweeter than this. There's no face

714
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 3: mashing out in.

715
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 2: The All right, well there's here's another one. And this

716
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:23,719
Speaker 2: one also concerns concerns mochi, not just pretend mochi, but

717
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 2: actual mochi. So this is the monkey and the crab

718
00:43:28,239 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 2: make mochi together. All right, So this is how it's

719
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 2: summarized in the text. Monkey and crab make mochi together.

720
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:39,239
Speaker 2: Monkey climbs up a tree, taking all the mochi and

721
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:42,360
Speaker 2: does not share it with crab. Crab says to Monkey

722
00:43:42,360 --> 00:43:44,759
Speaker 2: that mochi will taste better if he puts it on

723
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 2: a dead branch and shakes the branch. Monkey does so,

724
00:43:48,480 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 2: The branch breaks and mochi falls to the ground. Crab

725
00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:55,800
Speaker 2: carries it into his hole. Crab does not give mochi

726
00:43:55,880 --> 00:43:59,480
Speaker 2: to Monkey, who in return drops dung into the mouth

727
00:43:59,480 --> 00:44:02,839
Speaker 2: of crab hole. Wow, I'm to assume this means like,

728
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:06,160
Speaker 2: the monkey goes up to the crab hole, positions butt

729
00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 2: over the crab hole, and begins to defecate. But I

730
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:13,440
Speaker 2: think you can all see where this is going. His

731
00:44:13,520 --> 00:44:17,799
Speaker 2: bottom is pinched by crab. Monkey gets himself released from

732
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:21,200
Speaker 2: the pinch in exchange for giving his hair to crab.

733
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:25,200
Speaker 2: For this reason, Monkey's face is red and crab has

734
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:27,520
Speaker 2: hair on his legs. Wow.

735
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:30,600
Speaker 3: So just so, I didn't expect it to become like

736
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:34,239
Speaker 3: a natural ideological tale, but this is one of these

737
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 3: tales that explains how animals got their characteristics. Yeah.

738
00:44:38,160 --> 00:44:42,279
Speaker 2: Yeah. It also reminds basically an animal duel. That makes

739
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:46,240
Speaker 2: me think of the wizarding duel from Disney's The Sword

740
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:46,840
Speaker 2: in the Stone.

741
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 3: One of them turns into a crab at some point.

742
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:51,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, the wizard does. He turns into a crab. It's

743
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 2: like crab versus snake or worm, and then it's crab

744
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:56,400
Speaker 2: versus rhinoceros and so forth.

745
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,839
Speaker 3: So let's see, I'm trying to assess in the first tail,

746
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:02,919
Speaker 3: the crab was the wise one. The crab had good

747
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:06,000
Speaker 3: advice and was not heated by toad. In this case,

748
00:45:06,320 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 3: it seems kind of balanced, like they both are kind

749
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 3: of selfish and greedy, and they get revenge on each other.

750
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the crab is provoked. Yeah, crab does not

751
00:45:14,600 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 2: initiate this, this battle between the two and ultimately gets

752
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:32,439
Speaker 2: the upper hand. Yeah, all right, and then there here's

753
00:45:32,480 --> 00:45:35,320
Speaker 2: another one that he mentions. This one I'm going to

754
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 2: be able to expand on more. Traveler stops at a

755
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:41,879
Speaker 2: hut in the wood. A ghost appears and says, eight

756
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:46,440
Speaker 2: little legs, two big legs, both eyes sparkling toward Heaven,

757
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:51,759
Speaker 2: walks sideways. Traveler answers crab. Then the ghost disappears.

758
00:45:53,680 --> 00:45:56,480
Speaker 3: So it's a riddle. It's a riddle, but that doesn't

759
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 3: seem like a very hard riddle. That's like a very

760
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:00,120
Speaker 3: straightforward description.

761
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:03,239
Speaker 2: Of a Yeah, this one does make me wonder if

762
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:06,280
Speaker 2: in the original Japanese this is a little more clever,

763
00:46:07,480 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 2: because I mean, but then again, we're in a podcast

764
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:12,840
Speaker 2: talking all about crabs, and we know what the answer is.

765
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:15,520
Speaker 3: Going to be, right exactly. Yeah, So I'm wondering if

766
00:46:16,080 --> 00:46:18,920
Speaker 3: there's something about the original framing that just wouldn't make

767
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:20,799
Speaker 3: you think of sea animals.

768
00:46:21,239 --> 00:46:24,479
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I also love the idea that both eyes

769
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:28,200
Speaker 2: are sparkling toward heaven. There's a divine aspect to the crab.

770
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:32,880
Speaker 2: So yeah, so this is all very spooky anytime a

771
00:46:32,920 --> 00:46:35,239
Speaker 2: ghost as you a riddle, But it leads to the

772
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:38,640
Speaker 2: next example. I want to discuss a crab spirit or

773
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:43,360
Speaker 2: yokai known as Connie Bozu the Crab Priest, and I

774
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:46,120
Speaker 2: was reading about this one. This one's not referenced in

775
00:46:46,160 --> 00:46:48,480
Speaker 2: one of the main yochai books that I often turned to,

776
00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:53,640
Speaker 2: but it is in Zach Davison's Ultimate Guides Japanese Yokai,

777
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:57,560
Speaker 2: and it's also listed on Matthew Meyer's yokai dot com website.

778
00:46:58,120 --> 00:47:02,440
Speaker 2: It involves crabs and riddles and does seem directly connected

779
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 2: to the aforementioned tale type. So the creature here, I'm

780
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 2: going to and spoil what the yokai is. It is

781
00:47:09,120 --> 00:47:11,640
Speaker 2: a giant crab that takes on the disguise of a

782
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 2: wandering priest who apparently asks riddles of people he runs into,

783
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:21,200
Speaker 2: or it runs into, and the main story seemingly becomes

784
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:25,920
Speaker 2: popular is part of a Caujun comedic play. According to Meyer,

785
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:29,240
Speaker 2: and then Davison references an eighteen eighty five written record.

786
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:32,160
Speaker 2: It seems to be a recording of a story that

787
00:47:32,239 --> 00:47:35,040
Speaker 2: was told at some point after seventeen twenty six, given

788
00:47:35,400 --> 00:47:39,719
Speaker 2: a reference to a renamed mountain in the work. So

789
00:47:40,040 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 2: in the version that Meyer relates and Davison also essentially

790
00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:47,520
Speaker 2: relates the same story, so I think they're in agreeance

791
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:50,360
Speaker 2: for the most part. Here you have a wandering priest

792
00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:54,319
Speaker 2: and he arrives at a temple that seems cursed to

793
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:57,560
Speaker 2: lose a new head priest anytime one is assigned to it.

794
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,759
Speaker 2: So there's a rural temple every time I'm a new

795
00:48:00,880 --> 00:48:03,160
Speaker 2: priest is sent out there to take care of it.

796
00:48:03,440 --> 00:48:06,759
Speaker 2: They disappear after a single night, and the local villagers

797
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 2: just assume the place is haunted. There's some sort of

798
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:13,680
Speaker 2: vengeful ghost here killing every priest that shows up. The

799
00:48:13,719 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 2: wandering priest that has arrived in our story, however, doesn't

800
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:19,719
Speaker 2: know anything about this. He's going door to door in

801
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:21,440
Speaker 2: the village looking for a place to sleep, and the

802
00:48:21,520 --> 00:48:23,279
Speaker 2: villagers are like, hey, why don't you go check out

803
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:28,719
Speaker 2: that ruined temple? Wow? Cold, Yeah, I mean I don't

804
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:31,200
Speaker 2: know how we're supposed to I was supposed to take that,

805
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:34,440
Speaker 2: but yeah, He's like, okay, sounds good to me. He

806
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 2: goes there, goes inside, falls asleep, and then when he

807
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 2: wakes up, there's a priest standing or squatting beside him,

808
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:47,080
Speaker 2: kind of hovering over him, and this stranger priest asks

809
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:50,400
Speaker 2: him that very crab riddle, what has eight small legs

810
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 2: two large legs, walk sideways and his eyes pointing straight

811
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 2: upwards towards heaven. And the wandering priest not only solves

812
00:48:57,640 --> 00:49:00,719
Speaker 2: the riddle, but in solving it, sees through the disguise

813
00:49:01,160 --> 00:49:03,400
Speaker 2: and he declared he either says you were a crab

814
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 2: or says the answer is crab, that's what you are,

815
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:09,799
Speaker 2: something to that effect, and then he picks up his

816
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:13,240
Speaker 2: priest's staff. He strikes the crab and this causes the

817
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:16,760
Speaker 2: disguise to fall away from the monster crab the crab

818
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 2: since the gig is up, the monster crab scuttles sideways

819
00:49:21,719 --> 00:49:23,839
Speaker 2: out of the way. The priest throws his staff at

820
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:26,840
Speaker 2: the monster and it cracks the creature's shell, but the

821
00:49:26,880 --> 00:49:30,360
Speaker 2: crab still escapes. The villagers show up shortly after this,

822
00:49:30,480 --> 00:49:34,200
Speaker 2: and they're like, hey, what's going on. We heard some ruckus.

823
00:49:34,760 --> 00:49:37,560
Speaker 2: We can see you're not dead. That's good, And the

824
00:49:37,560 --> 00:49:39,440
Speaker 2: priest says, all right, everybody, we're going to drain the

825
00:49:39,480 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 2: pond behind the temple. They do so, and they uncovered

826
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:46,480
Speaker 2: the numerous skeletons of all the dead priests that had

827
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:49,239
Speaker 2: been assigned to the ruined temple over the years, the

828
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:52,040
Speaker 2: ones that had never survived a single night. And they

829
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:55,640
Speaker 2: also find the body of a giant dead crab with

830
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:57,399
Speaker 2: a cracked shell.

831
00:49:57,560 --> 00:50:01,160
Speaker 3: So the implication is all of the previous priests did

832
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 3: not answer the riddle correctly and were killed by the crab.

833
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:08,400
Speaker 2: I assume, So yeah, yeah, And so the wandering priest

834
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:11,359
Speaker 2: then becomes the new head priest. He gets to take

835
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:13,880
Speaker 2: over this temple and nothing bad happens afterwards.

836
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:15,839
Speaker 3: They all lived happily ever after.

837
00:50:16,320 --> 00:50:20,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the Davison version is very very similar, with

838
00:50:20,480 --> 00:50:22,760
Speaker 2: the key difference being that the hero's name is given

839
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 2: as Honan, and the crab priest asked the riddle of

840
00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 2: every priest he encounters and beats them to death with

841
00:50:27,719 --> 00:50:32,640
Speaker 2: a staff if they can't answer. So yeah, it's it's

842
00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:34,880
Speaker 2: a fun little story and I think has some legitimate

843
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:38,920
Speaker 2: creepiness to it. It made me wonder if, presumably it

844
00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:41,440
Speaker 2: has been reproduced on the stage in some of these

845
00:50:41,480 --> 00:50:44,799
Speaker 2: comedic plays, but it seems like this one would be

846
00:50:44,800 --> 00:50:48,479
Speaker 2: a great one for adaptation into animation or even live action.

847
00:50:48,880 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 3: I feel like you would have to spin it out

848
00:50:50,480 --> 00:50:52,400
Speaker 3: a little bit more. You'd need to show some earlier

849
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:53,800
Speaker 3: encounters or something.

850
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:56,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, or you know, if it was an anthology format,

851
00:50:56,160 --> 00:50:58,279
Speaker 2: you might be able to get by its very quick

852
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:02,040
Speaker 2: and an easy adup take of it. But anything to

853
00:51:02,080 --> 00:51:06,160
Speaker 2: get this monster crab on the screen, let's see. Davison

854
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 2: also alludes to other crab tales. He mentions this this

855
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:14,320
Speaker 2: comedic play from the sixteenth century, that it also involves,

856
00:51:14,640 --> 00:51:16,279
Speaker 2: you know, a priest and acolyte in a crab, and

857
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:19,680
Speaker 2: I think this would be the popularizing prey play that

858
00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:24,560
Speaker 2: Maya refers to. Davison also mentions that the travel guide

859
00:51:24,840 --> 00:51:30,560
Speaker 2: Hiram may Show junra Zua from eighteen oh four has

860
00:51:30,600 --> 00:51:34,000
Speaker 2: grant giant crabs in it the torment people, and he

861
00:51:34,080 --> 00:51:37,400
Speaker 2: also writes quote the great monk Kobo Dashi banished the

862
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 2: crab and the slope where it lived is called Kanakazaka,

863
00:51:41,120 --> 00:51:43,960
Speaker 2: a crab slope to this day. So there are some

864
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:49,399
Speaker 2: other tales out there floating around of monks holy men

865
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:51,360
Speaker 2: engaging in battles against the crab.

866
00:51:51,800 --> 00:51:54,640
Speaker 3: So if it's mentioned in a travel guide. The idea

867
00:51:54,719 --> 00:51:57,959
Speaker 3: is like that this was a local hazard in a place.

868
00:51:58,320 --> 00:52:00,440
Speaker 2: I guess so, or you know this is this place

869
00:52:00,480 --> 00:52:02,480
Speaker 2: is called such and such. This is good. You know

870
00:52:02,920 --> 00:52:05,160
Speaker 2: it's named after a crab because of this story.

871
00:52:05,200 --> 00:52:07,759
Speaker 3: That's sort of Yeah, was once a hazard, now is

872
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:08,640
Speaker 3: just the namesake.

873
00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 2: Yeah now. Meyer also lists a creature called Connie one

874
00:52:15,400 --> 00:52:18,680
Speaker 2: or demon crab, and this one is featured in the

875
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:23,800
Speaker 2: famous monster scroll Bakumono zukushi Imaki from the eighteenth and

876
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:26,839
Speaker 2: nineteenth centuries. You can look up an image of this,

877
00:52:26,920 --> 00:52:28,520
Speaker 2: you might have to. I had to poke around a

878
00:52:28,520 --> 00:52:32,279
Speaker 2: little bit before I could find the picture from this

879
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:35,839
Speaker 2: scroll all this demon crab, but I have it here

880
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:36,440
Speaker 2: for you, Joe.

881
00:52:38,400 --> 00:52:40,239
Speaker 3: Googly eyes and human.

882
00:52:40,000 --> 00:52:45,400
Speaker 2: Teeth, yes, and they are stained black. Apparently this is

883
00:52:45,560 --> 00:52:50,920
Speaker 2: in reference to Oha guru, the aristocratic and sometimes samurai

884
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 2: practice of staining one's teeth black cee tooth staining traditions

885
00:52:57,640 --> 00:53:02,640
Speaker 2: in various cultures. But yeah, any else that has whiskers

886
00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:07,839
Speaker 2: the googly eyes very much an one's kind of demonic expression. Yeah,

887
00:53:08,560 --> 00:53:11,280
Speaker 2: so I loved this guy. This guy's got great demon

888
00:53:11,360 --> 00:53:17,440
Speaker 2: crab energy. And Meyer presents the possible connection to a

889
00:53:17,800 --> 00:53:21,600
Speaker 2: Kim ingani or demon mass crab. I think the the

890
00:53:21,640 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 2: species on this is is drippy Senika. I included some

891
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:28,719
Speaker 2: images of this particular crab for you, Joe, and yeah,

892
00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:30,480
Speaker 2: I mean looks like a demon face. This is a

893
00:53:30,560 --> 00:53:33,480
Speaker 2: very very similar situation to the samurai crabs that we

894
00:53:33,480 --> 00:53:34,560
Speaker 2: were discussing earlier.

895
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:36,560
Speaker 3: Coming back to I guess we got into this in

896
00:53:36,600 --> 00:53:39,839
Speaker 3: part two about the how easy it is to see

897
00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:45,000
Speaker 3: faces in the shells of crabs just for anatomical reasons

898
00:53:45,040 --> 00:53:48,080
Speaker 3: related to bilateral symmetry and our natural paradolia.

899
00:53:48,600 --> 00:53:51,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there you have it. It's clearly the face

900
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:53,560
Speaker 2: of an one on the back of this crab.

901
00:53:54,160 --> 00:53:57,560
Speaker 3: I guess the level of threat implied hinges on? Does

902
00:53:57,600 --> 00:53:59,920
Speaker 3: it ask a riddle? And how hard is the riddle?

903
00:54:00,440 --> 00:54:02,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know that this guy has a riddle.

904
00:54:02,440 --> 00:54:04,200
Speaker 2: I don't know. He looks he's up to some business,

905
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:10,120
Speaker 2: but I don't think it's riddle related, but that he's

906
00:54:11,040 --> 00:54:12,800
Speaker 2: he's not to be trusted, that's to be sure.

907
00:54:13,120 --> 00:54:16,719
Speaker 3: I wonder if there is a demon crab behind this

908
00:54:17,400 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 3: new variety of I think actually this is often AI

909
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:25,960
Speaker 3: behind this variety variety of posts on social media that

910
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:28,640
Speaker 3: that offer a riddle that doesn't actually have an answer

911
00:54:28,680 --> 00:54:30,640
Speaker 3: and it's just rage engagement farming.

912
00:54:31,040 --> 00:54:32,720
Speaker 2: Oh, I haven't encountered this before.

913
00:54:33,239 --> 00:54:36,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's common on a lot of platforms.

914
00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:39,120
Speaker 3: You know, it will be kind of like a provocative

915
00:54:39,160 --> 00:54:41,600
Speaker 3: post of some kind that seems to be a puzzle,

916
00:54:41,719 --> 00:54:45,279
Speaker 3: Like it's an image that says, like, you know when

917
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:48,360
Speaker 3: you see it, about this image, but there's actually there's nothing,

918
00:54:48,520 --> 00:54:50,799
Speaker 3: So it just gets people arguing in the comments in

919
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:53,640
Speaker 3: order to farm engagement, or a riddle that has no

920
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:56,239
Speaker 3: clear answer, just to get people arguing.

921
00:54:56,239 --> 00:54:59,080
Speaker 2: Like why is a raven like a writing desk? Maybe

922
00:54:59,080 --> 00:55:02,480
Speaker 2: that woe has an answer, but I it's my understand

923
00:55:02,520 --> 00:55:04,840
Speaker 2: I have long believed that one doesn't have an answer,

924
00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:06,200
Speaker 2: and it's kind of infuriating.

925
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:07,840
Speaker 3: I don't know if I've heard of that one. What

926
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:08,200
Speaker 3: does that mean?

927
00:55:08,600 --> 00:55:13,040
Speaker 2: It's a riddle that's asked in Peter Beegle's The Last

928
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:19,520
Speaker 2: Unicorn and also in the adaptation. But yeah, it's my understanding.

929
00:55:19,560 --> 00:55:20,960
Speaker 2: It doesn't have an answer, but maybe it does have

930
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:23,120
Speaker 2: an answer, and if listeners know it, they should write

931
00:55:23,120 --> 00:55:25,719
Speaker 2: in and let me know, and that'll that'll close a

932
00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:29,840
Speaker 2: chapter in my life right there. If I knew why

933
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:31,399
Speaker 2: a raven is like writing desk.

934
00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:35,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, that one's got me stumped to but but to

935
00:55:35,440 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 3: reiterate my point, yes, something does feel like there's a

936
00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:43,400
Speaker 3: very crab like mentality, something like in the decapod predatory behavior,

937
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:46,840
Speaker 3: in the farming of engagement through riddles with no answers.

938
00:55:47,080 --> 00:55:50,000
Speaker 2: Hmmm, yeah, I could see something. I could see monster

939
00:55:50,040 --> 00:55:51,239
Speaker 2: crabs being very into that.

940
00:55:51,760 --> 00:55:54,000
Speaker 3: I think it's really just probably machines doing.

941
00:55:55,320 --> 00:56:01,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again we come back to crab machine comparisons. Right, listeners,

942
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:03,120
Speaker 2: I would love to hear from you if you have

943
00:56:03,239 --> 00:56:08,840
Speaker 2: your own favorite monster or demon crabs, either from folklore

944
00:56:08,840 --> 00:56:12,560
Speaker 2: and legend or from pop culture, certainly from you know,

945
00:56:12,560 --> 00:56:17,879
Speaker 2: any examples from anime, comic books, and b movies right

946
00:56:17,960 --> 00:56:20,200
Speaker 2: in We would love to hear from you. They don't

947
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:22,920
Speaker 2: all necessarily bear mentioning in this podcast because a lot

948
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:24,760
Speaker 2: of times it's just like what if a crab was big?

949
00:56:25,160 --> 00:56:28,520
Speaker 2: What would he do? And you know, it can be

950
00:56:28,640 --> 00:56:33,120
Speaker 2: endlessly amusing in the picture, but it's not necessarily not

951
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:35,160
Speaker 2: necessarily much to talk about regarding it.

952
00:56:35,560 --> 00:56:38,919
Speaker 3: Did you realize that while we have discussed it in

953
00:56:39,040 --> 00:56:42,839
Speaker 3: depth on Core episodes before, we've never done a weird

954
00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:45,520
Speaker 3: House Cinema on Attack of the Crab monsteris Yeah.

955
00:56:45,560 --> 00:56:48,200
Speaker 2: I've thought about that, yeah, quite a bit. It's a

956
00:56:48,200 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 2: film we reference all the time, but we've never specifically

957
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:53,320
Speaker 2: covered it, so we we should probably come back to

958
00:56:53,320 --> 00:56:55,120
Speaker 2: it at some point. It's kind of a foundational text

959
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:56,080
Speaker 2: for us.

960
00:56:56,160 --> 00:56:58,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly for me. It means a lot to me,

961
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:03,279
Speaker 3: coming back to the idea of claw regeneration.

962
00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:03,600
Speaker 2: You know.

963
00:57:03,920 --> 00:57:06,800
Speaker 3: You might recall there's a part in the movie where

964
00:57:07,239 --> 00:57:10,840
Speaker 3: the humans are able to wound the giant psychic crab

965
00:57:10,920 --> 00:57:14,120
Speaker 3: with explosives. I think they blow off its arm, one

966
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:17,000
Speaker 3: of its arms or claws or something, and it speaks

967
00:57:17,040 --> 00:57:19,680
Speaker 3: to them. It says, so you have wounded me, I

968
00:57:19,720 --> 00:57:22,360
Speaker 3: can grow a new one, But will you grow new

969
00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:24,640
Speaker 3: lives when I have taken yours from you?

970
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 2: That makes you think that's some good crab arrogance right there.

971
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 2: All right, we're gonna go ahead and close the crab

972
00:57:32,600 --> 00:57:36,240
Speaker 2: bag at least for now. But there are so many

973
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:39,120
Speaker 2: crabs out there we did not cover them all, and

974
00:57:39,160 --> 00:57:41,240
Speaker 2: they may swarm for us in the night and ask

975
00:57:41,320 --> 00:57:44,360
Speaker 2: us riddles. So we may well come back in the

976
00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:47,640
Speaker 2: future and discuss more crab matters, But for now, we're

977
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:50,480
Speaker 2: going to call it an episode again, write in. We

978
00:57:50,480 --> 00:57:53,080
Speaker 2: would love to hear from everyone out there. Just a

979
00:57:53,120 --> 00:57:55,760
Speaker 2: reminder first of all, yes, Stuff to Blow Your Mind

980
00:57:55,800 --> 00:57:58,280
Speaker 2: has been around as a podcast for quite a while,

981
00:57:58,800 --> 00:58:01,080
Speaker 2: and if you would like to dig into the audio

982
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:03,000
Speaker 2: archives of the show, you can find us wherever you

983
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:05,720
Speaker 2: get your audio podcasts. It goes back years and years.

984
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:09,720
Speaker 2: Let's see. We'll remind you that we're primarily a science

985
00:58:09,720 --> 00:58:12,280
Speaker 2: and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursday,

986
00:58:12,320 --> 00:58:14,680
Speaker 2: short form episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set

987
00:58:14,720 --> 00:58:17,080
Speaker 2: aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird

988
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 2: film on Weird House Cinema. Those sometimes those selections do

989
00:58:20,200 --> 00:58:22,640
Speaker 2: factor in to our discussions on core episodes.

990
00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:26,720
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.

991
00:58:27,120 --> 00:58:29,000
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

992
00:58:29,000 --> 00:58:31,520
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

993
00:58:31,520 --> 00:58:33,520
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

994
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:36,240
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact a, Stuff to Blow

995
00:58:36,240 --> 00:58:43,840
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.

996
00:58:43,960 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

997
00:58:46,960 --> 00:58:49,760
Speaker 1: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

998
00:58:49,920 --> 00:58:52,640
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows

999
00:59:04,280 --> 00:59:04,840
Speaker 2: Ratt