Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and my name is Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And we're back with part two of the Feast of Crabs.
Speaker 1: If you haven't heard part one, you should probably go
Speaker 1: back and listen to that one first. But I'm ready
Speaker 1: to jump right in. Yeah, we're gonna We're gonna continue
Speaker 1: with our exploration of various uh accounts of crabs eating
Speaker 1: curious things, eating things in curious ways, and so forth.
Speaker 1: This is kind of our big kome of tradition during
Speaker 1: the holidays towards the end of the year to dive
Speaker 1: into a crab related topic and see what it has
Speaker 1: for us. Now, we haven't talked a lot about mythology
Speaker 1: and folklore in in our crab journey thus far. And
Speaker 1: you know, part of it is when you look around,
Speaker 1: crabs often don't have central roles in um in myth cycles.
Speaker 1: I mean there, I think there's some exceptions to the rule,
Speaker 1: but a lot of times it's stuff like like Hercules
Speaker 1: is fighting the hydra and then a crab shows up
Speaker 1: and tries to to to nip at his heels and
Speaker 1: he dispatches it and goes back to fighting the hydra
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Oh yeah, that sounds it was.
Speaker 1: So that's the crab cancer, right that we can the
Speaker 1: constellation name from, or that has the same name as
Speaker 1: the constellation. I mean, he still gets a constellation out
Speaker 1: of the whole affair. But it's you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: it can feel a little bit disappointing if you're really
Speaker 1: into crab anatomy and into crab monster movies. Um, it
Speaker 1: can be a little a little bit of a letdown, like,
Speaker 1: come on, you can't Hercules have more of a battle.
Speaker 1: Can't he just battle the crab? That sounds fun to me.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, I just had to look this up because
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure if I was remembering it right. But yeah,
Speaker 1: he he gets the constellation basically because Hara hates Heracles
Speaker 1: and the crab like bites him on the foot, and
Speaker 1: then Heracles kills the crab, and Hera is like, well,
Speaker 1: good job biting him on the foot. I'll put you
Speaker 1: in the sky forever. The Greek gods. Well, I do
Speaker 1: have a fun one that I found though, that I
Speaker 1: want to share with everybody. This one I discovered in
Speaker 1: the book Japanese Mythology A to Z by Jeremy Roberts.
Speaker 1: I looked around to try and find in some other
Speaker 1: places as well and didn't off hand. Um, I'm sure
Speaker 1: it can be found other places, but this is the
Speaker 1: only place I was able to find find it. I'm
Speaker 1: going to retell it for you here, but I'll stress
Speaker 1: that Jeremy roberts telling of it is is going to
Speaker 1: be more dramatic than mine, So definitely go to that
Speaker 1: source if you want to see it for yourself. So
Speaker 1: that is how it goes down. A young girl, uh
Speaker 1: buys a crab from a fisherman in order to save
Speaker 1: the crabs life. She's doing you know, that basic thing
Speaker 1: that a lot of little kids will do, where they suddenly,
Speaker 1: you know, they'll feel sorry for a captive animal or
Speaker 1: a food animal and they want to to save it.
Speaker 1: And so that's what this girl does. She buys the crab,
Speaker 1: lets it go. Meanwhile, her father is in a similar scenario.
Speaker 1: He's trying to save a frog from a snake. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure why, but he's trying to do this. He's like, no, snake,
Speaker 1: you do not get to eat this frog. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna let you do it, and the snake finally is like, okay, look,
Speaker 1: I'll spare the frog's life, but you have to let
Speaker 1: me marry your daughter, and Dad agrees. So we we
Speaker 1: don't know anything about this frog. It's not special, like
Speaker 1: it wasn't his brother who got turned into a frog
Speaker 1: or something. There has to be more to this story. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been reading a lot about various yokai recently,
Speaker 1: and you know, with with those Chinese ghost stories, there's
Speaker 1: often some hidden meaning. You know, maybe it comes down
Speaker 1: to a turn of phrase, you know, something that's not
Speaker 1: going to be obvious in a pure English translation, or
Speaker 1: it's something metaphorical, etcetera. So I don't know exactly what
Speaker 1: is going on here, but I think it can't just
Speaker 1: be the fact that Dad just loves frogs and loves
Speaker 1: frogs more than he loves his daughter. Um. But at
Speaker 1: any rate, this is the scenario we find ourselves in. Okay,
Speaker 1: So what happens? Well, that night, the snake arrives, but
Speaker 1: arrives in human form and tries to claim his bride.
Speaker 1: And so Dad at this point has not even warned
Speaker 1: his daughter about what he agreed to. Uh, so he's
Speaker 1: he's able to buy a little time. He's like, look, look,
Speaker 1: just come back in a few days, and the snake agrees.
Speaker 1: So Dad has a little opportunity here to talk with
Speaker 1: his daughter. He tells her what has happened, and she
Speaker 1: is rightfully horrified. She hides away in her room and
Speaker 1: she prays to the gods for delivery from this, uh,
Speaker 1: this snaky fate, and the gods do not answer her
Speaker 1: prayers because they're too busy putting crabs in the sky. Perhaps, yeah,
Speaker 1: it doesn't say that the gods are are listening to her.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile, you know the the the two days pass
Speaker 1: and here comes the snake again, only this time the
Speaker 1: snake has come in its serpentine for warm. It's an
Speaker 1: animal form. It enters her room, and just when it
Speaker 1: seems that she is completely abandoned to this fate, a
Speaker 1: thousand crabs burst through the door and consume the snake,
Speaker 1: just you know, completely deflesh it. A thousand crabs. And
Speaker 1: so I guess the idea is like this is that
Speaker 1: that she spared the crab earlier, and so she had
Speaker 1: she had a friend in the crabs, And or you
Speaker 1: could also look at it like the gods did actually
Speaker 1: reward her. They were listening and they allowed all these
Speaker 1: crab saviors to come and yeah and yeah, save her
Speaker 1: from this snake and she marries the swarm of crabs.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe, but but I love this because
Speaker 1: it's also like, oh man, this is something you could have,
Speaker 1: like a swarm of crabs tearing tearing an enemy apart
Speaker 1: like that that should be in a film somewhere somehow,
Speaker 1: this whole thing could be adapted into some sort of
Speaker 1: like a weird horror tale. Yeah, crabs are not usually
Speaker 1: the hero of a story. M Yeah, this this is
Speaker 1: maybe the only one I've really been able to find
Speaker 1: so far. But hey, if you know some good crab
Speaker 1: hero stories out there, right in, because we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you, because yeah, generally it seems like crabs
Speaker 1: are going to be a minor character. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: let's think of Disney's a Little Mermaid, right. The crab
Speaker 1: is just there to be a friend to arial the Mermaid. Uh.
Speaker 1: I guess maybe he comes through a time or two,
Speaker 1: but he's he's not the focus. He's not the he's
Speaker 1: not the big central hero. But you know, I think
Speaker 1: it's a kind of mechanically intuitive pairing to have snakes
Speaker 1: and crabs together in a tale like this. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: does seem like it's something that storytellers around the world
Speaker 1: have come back to a few times. Um For instance,
Speaker 1: there's this crab snake duology in the Aesop fable The
Speaker 1: Snake and the Crab. Also, speaking of Disney movies, it
Speaker 1: factors into Disney's The Sword in the Stone, which is
Speaker 1: a King Arthur movie that I imagine a number of
Speaker 1: you have seen and they're familiar with. It's an otherwise,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, it's it's kind of a boring film.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have a lot going on, except it has
Speaker 1: this fabulous wizard battle between Merlin and this this evil
Speaker 1: witch who I think was created for the Like, it's
Speaker 1: not Morgana or anything. It's just it's just this witch
Speaker 1: that he battles, Mab I think her name is Mim Mim. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you think you're right. So anyway, it's a
Speaker 1: battle between between two magic users and the whole The
Speaker 1: rules of the battle are that they have to fight
Speaker 1: each other. Uh. No one can turn invisible. You can
Speaker 1: only transform into real world animals, not in to fantasy
Speaker 1: animals and we're going to see who who winds up
Speaker 1: on top. So it's a fabulous sequence where they jump
Speaker 1: in and out of various animal forms and there, and
Speaker 1: you know, generally trying to counter each other. And in
Speaker 1: this it actually reminds me a lot of of of
Speaker 1: another of a Japanese story about foxes that are engaging
Speaker 1: in a similar competition, magical foxes who are transforming themselves
Speaker 1: into different forms, and like one transforms into this and
Speaker 1: the other transforms into something to sort of uh counter that,
Speaker 1: and it just keeps going. And in this case, one
Speaker 1: of them transforms into a snake and the other transforms
Speaker 1: into a crab in order to of course clip that
Speaker 1: snake in half if it can. Yeah, this comes back
Speaker 1: to that mechanically intuitive pairing I was talking about where
Speaker 1: I think people just have a natural tendency that goes
Speaker 1: like this. So first step you see a thing that
Speaker 1: is longer than it is wide, and then the second
Speaker 1: step you automatically think about cutting or snipping it cross wise.
Speaker 1: So snakes are naturally long and crabs have biological scissors
Speaker 1: on their legs. Yes, um I also, yeah, Ni Nim
Speaker 1: is great in this, but also I have to say
Speaker 1: that Merlin has a wonderful animated mustache as long as
Speaker 1: we're we're focusing on November mustaches here, And it makes sense,
Speaker 1: right because we think of the like the mouth parts
Speaker 1: of a crab, it's easy to to imply some sort
Speaker 1: of a mustache going on there as well. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it fits right in there. Now I want to say
Speaker 1: something else here. I thought that this is worth noting
Speaker 1: about the crab, the crab form, and about how the
Speaker 1: crab is just ultimately this winning design. In fact, it's
Speaker 1: such a winning design that, according to a two thousand
Speaker 1: twenty one Harvard University study, the crab like body plan
Speaker 1: evolved at least five times independently in both true crabs
Speaker 1: and false crabs. So that's at least five cases of carcinization. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a term that was coined by evolutionary biologist l. A.
Speaker 1: Bora Dale in nineteen sixteen. And on top of this,
Speaker 1: the Harvard study points out that the crab body has
Speaker 1: been lost at least seven times, so this would be
Speaker 1: a process that they refer to as d carcinization. So, um,
Speaker 1: I love this idea. I mean this kind of falls
Speaker 1: into I think a popular meme about everything becoming crabs,
Speaker 1: about how, given enough time, the crab form will be
Speaker 1: the form of everything because it just works so exceedingly well. Now,
Speaker 1: I do enjoy that meme. I guess technically, if we
Speaker 1: want to be pedantic, it's about certain types of arthropods,
Speaker 1: like you've already got certain a certain body plan to
Speaker 1: start with, and if you're starting their things that are like,
Speaker 1: you know, lobster ish or something in one way or
Speaker 1: another often are shaped by their environment to become more
Speaker 1: crab like. But yeah, yeah, thumbs up to the meme.
Speaker 1: So the first crab I thought we might talk about
Speaker 1: here today, uh sometimes referred to as the Yeti crab
Speaker 1: or the hof crab. It's it's actual name is perhaps
Speaker 1: a better suited for this interesting creature. Now, there are
Speaker 1: a few different varieties, but the one of the first
Speaker 1: that was really discovered that really set the trend is
Speaker 1: Kiwa Hersuta. Kiwa is the name of the Maori sea god,
Speaker 1: and then Hersuita is Latin for Harry. So Kiwa Hersuta
Speaker 1: was discovered by a team from the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Speaker 1: in two thousands six along the Pacific Antarctic Ridge south
Speaker 1: of Easter island and it is a is a wonderful
Speaker 1: looking creature, this pale, hairy looking crab, kind of elongated looking.
Speaker 1: I would say, it looks a little bit like, you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of a lobster perhaps, but it has no
Speaker 1: eyes and it lives on hydrothermal vents. So this discovery
Speaker 1: gave us not only a new species, but a new genus,
Speaker 1: that Keywa genus. And there are other Cua crabs that
Speaker 1: have popped up, including Kiwa ty lerry found off the
Speaker 1: Southern found in the Southern Ocean off of Antarctica. And
Speaker 1: this species is probably my favorite, as in my opinion,
Speaker 1: it's a little more cute looking, it's less elongated, and
Speaker 1: it's more it's more plump. It looks I don't know,
Speaker 1: it just looks like like like it it belongs in
Speaker 1: a cartoon, you know, yes, And it's a great example
Speaker 1: of the kinds of things we were just talking about,
Speaker 1: with these sort of converging forms of different types of
Speaker 1: of marine arthropods. Because technically the Kywa genus are not
Speaker 1: true crabs. I think they are a type of lobster
Speaker 1: or lobster related organism. But they're they're super cool. I
Speaker 1: mean they're also focusing just on Tylery here it has
Speaker 1: a tiny habitat, a mere thermal envelope of a few
Speaker 1: square meters deep along the East Scotia Ridge. Um, it's
Speaker 1: here that they live by these black smokers. These are vents,
Speaker 1: These a chimney like vents that spew dark water that
Speaker 1: reaches temperatures of roughly seven degrees fahrenheit or three degrees celsius.
Speaker 1: They live in heaps here, sometimes like six thousand crabs
Speaker 1: per square meter, and they're cramped in here because outside
Speaker 1: of this narrow proximity to the Black Smokers, the ocean
Speaker 1: is extremely cold. Uh. So they're they're this fascinating example
Speaker 1: of extremophile life suspended between boiling eruptions and chilling darkness.
Speaker 1: Like this is the niche that they've carved out for themselves.
Speaker 1: It's also interesting to imagine how they would spread between
Speaker 1: one vent to another. You know that you almost have
Speaker 1: to imagine their lifestyle is like a uh you know,
Speaker 1: living on these tiny islands in a way. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, so they're on these little little islands and
Speaker 1: uh and they're they're jocking position here. So you tend
Speaker 1: to find like the older bigger crabs are are are
Speaker 1: towards the center, towards the heat, and the adolescents are
Speaker 1: having to to scramble for position on the outside. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the hot, sulfur rich zone is is likely too much
Speaker 1: for their eggs, so the females seem to have to
Speaker 1: crawl off into the colder, darker waters to brood and
Speaker 1: they likely die there. They likely just don't have the energy.
Speaker 1: They spend all their energy going out to do that
Speaker 1: and they can't make it back. But the females. Then
Speaker 1: this releases a vast quantity of larvae into the water
Speaker 1: column and some of these end up finding distant vents,
Speaker 1: others returning to their own vent um. So you have
Speaker 1: this is how we end up with with with with
Speaker 1: the larvae from from a particular hydrothermal vent location potentially
Speaker 1: ending up at other vents. Yeah, like a lot of
Speaker 1: organisms in the ocean, they've got this sort of broadcasting
Speaker 1: method of reproduction that allows allows uh the organisms to
Speaker 1: spread in their in their larval forms. Yeah. I was
Speaker 1: reading a great article about this in on the BBC
Speaker 1: website by Jonathan Amos wrote about them in two thousand
Speaker 1: eighteen and points out the first of all the last
Speaker 1: common ancestor of all these various YETI crabs, probably live
Speaker 1: thirty to forty million years ago in the Eastern Pacific.
Speaker 1: And so what we have here are these different far
Speaker 1: flung ancestors due to the successful colonization of hydrothermal vents
Speaker 1: by dispersed larvae UM and so the other. Then the
Speaker 1: crazy thing about all this too is once they have
Speaker 1: found of a place to thrive, that doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: this is a forever home um. In Amos's words, these
Speaker 1: various events quote switch on and off through time. So
Speaker 1: event that has this thriving population of of of Yetti
Speaker 1: crabs around it may just suddenly turn off, and then
Speaker 1: everything around that just eyes in the cold um. And
Speaker 1: then it may turn back on later uh, and then
Speaker 1: it's a place that the larvae can can can can
Speaker 1: arrive at and life can sort of begin again until
Speaker 1: such time as it just turns off. Returning to the
Speaker 1: island analogy, you have to imagine like a small island
Speaker 1: that has a thriving ecosystem on it, and then suddenly
Speaker 1: it just gets like a dome clamped over it that
Speaker 1: turns it into a sub zero freezer. And then at
Speaker 1: some point, maybe the dome is suddenly lifted and it's
Speaker 1: exposed to the sun again. Yeah. Yeah, and so this
Speaker 1: is why any given species of yeti crab has to
Speaker 1: ultimately maintain multiple footholds at different events to survive. But
Speaker 1: it also drives home the delicate how just how delicate
Speaker 1: these event environments are, because um, if human activity wipes out,
Speaker 1: you know, potentially, just like it seems like just one
Speaker 1: or two of these vent habitats, they could potentially limit
Speaker 1: a given species holdings to an unsustainable level. Um. I
Speaker 1: don't know that researchers have really worked out. I mean
Speaker 1: we we I don't think we know enough about like
Speaker 1: you know, all the different places that they live. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it. Basically, the idea is we we we don't
Speaker 1: know just how delicate the situation is. If they're depending
Speaker 1: on vents that may again turn off and back on
Speaker 1: again at any given moment, they have to have a
Speaker 1: foothole in a certain number, And if you start digging
Speaker 1: into that number through deep sea mining or some other
Speaker 1: human venture, then yeah, you potentially put them in in
Speaker 1: an unsustainable place. Won't someone think of the dear crustaceans,
Speaker 1: I mean, they are so cute. I mean it is uh,
Speaker 1: probably easier than than with a lot of Arthur pods
Speaker 1: in the ocean. Degenerate sympathy for them because they look
Speaker 1: kind of like, yeah, these pale, fuzzy ticks. Uh, that
Speaker 1: doesn't really folks sympathy, does it. But they yeah, they're
Speaker 1: they're like plump and cute and I don't know they're good. Well. Also, Tyleria,
Speaker 1: especially if you look at a picture of them from
Speaker 1: a from above, it also kind of looked with the
Speaker 1: pale colorization, it looks like a human skull from above
Speaker 1: there's a human skull with skull cover colored legs and
Speaker 1: claws coming out of it, which again doesn't sound very cute,
Speaker 1: I guess, but um, but but it makes it makes
Speaker 1: it a very interesting creature to look at. Now, I
Speaker 1: should again stressed that we have different varieties and they
Speaker 1: have some different um different features. For instance, tileery have
Speaker 1: special spikes for scaling up those chimneys of the black smokers. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: there's a species found near Costa Rica which is Kiwa
Speaker 1: pura vita, which doesn't have claws at all. Um. So
Speaker 1: you have the have the different varieties, but what they
Speaker 1: seem to all have in common is their namesake hair,
Speaker 1: which is in here at all but set which they
Speaker 1: use to collect bacteria growing around the hydrothermal vents and
Speaker 1: also to grow it within these uh what if it's
Speaker 1: sometimes referred to as gardens on their bodies, and then
Speaker 1: they use their delicate mouthparts to scoop up and consume
Speaker 1: the bacteria. So they are you know, they're they're walking
Speaker 1: around growing their own food, collecting their own food and
Speaker 1: then growing it on their own body. It's pretty great.
Speaker 1: Thank thank thank well. This actually connects directly to a
Speaker 1: couple more examples I wanted to talk about. So the
Speaker 1: first one is connected by the idea of these deep
Speaker 1: sea dwelling uh crustaceans that can be found around hydrothermal vents.
Speaker 1: So I came across another report of interesting crab feeding behavior.
Speaker 1: This this was from a short article and New Scientists
Speaker 1: by Sam Wong, and the subject of this uh this
Speaker 1: right up was video footage that had been captured by
Speaker 1: a robotic deep submersible that was based off of the
Speaker 1: Schmidt Ocean Institute's ship, the foul Core, and it had
Speaker 1: been exploring life around deep hydrothermal vents in the Pacific
Speaker 1: at a depth of thirty meters so way way down.
Speaker 1: This was in the Mariana region. Well, I have to
Speaker 1: slow down there. That it was called the foul Core.
Speaker 1: So it was named for the Wish Dragon and the
Speaker 1: Never Ending Story. I don't know what's awesome it so well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know this fal Core in the Never Earning
Speaker 1: Story named after something else or is that original to
Speaker 1: the book? I don't know offhand, so I cannot answer
Speaker 1: your question. But that is its name, all right? Or
Speaker 1: are you gonna apply to set sail on the Falcore? Now? No,
Speaker 1: probably not, but I but I applaud the naming, uh
Speaker 1: either way. So anyway, the submersible based off of this
Speaker 1: ship was um capturing footage of crabs that were that
Speaker 1: were around these hydrothermal hotspots, and this particular species was
Speaker 1: known as austin O Greya Williams c. Apparently, not a
Speaker 1: whole lot is known about them, but they inhabit these hotspots,
Speaker 1: and like many other deep sea creatures, they tend to
Speaker 1: be pale and lacking eyes and so as to the
Speaker 1: diet of these crabs, they have been observed eating some
Speaker 1: regular things like snails and algae, but they have also
Speaker 1: been observed engaging in brew rutle cannibalism. You can find
Speaker 1: some video footage of this. Uh. It's it's of a
Speaker 1: particularly frenzied quality. It's just sort of like a big
Speaker 1: murder puddle of pale crabs ripping legs and claws off
Speaker 1: and and running away with them. Uh and and and
Speaker 1: of course in addition to eating other things in their environment.
Speaker 1: But on this expedition, footage was captured of these crabs
Speaker 1: doing something a little gentler. They were appearing to groom
Speaker 1: one another, eating bacteria off of the shells of con specifics.
Speaker 1: So for example, you can see one crab going up
Speaker 1: to another crab's leg and just sort of picking at it,
Speaker 1: just picking it, not pulling the leg off and running
Speaker 1: away with it, as they might be wont to do
Speaker 1: in another situation, but just sort of like grazing along
Speaker 1: the outside of the leg, getting some of this, uh,
Speaker 1: this bacterial matting off of the surface of the of
Speaker 1: the exoskeleton. And this is really interesting behavior. It makes
Speaker 1: me wonder, like, what does this indicate about the nature
Speaker 1: of the crab? Is it possible this could have some
Speaker 1: kind of social role within crab society? Like the social
Speaker 1: grooming behaviors of primates. I mean, on one hand, that
Speaker 1: seems kind of unlikely because these are you know, these
Speaker 1: are crabs. They're not they're not social mammals, um, you know.
Speaker 1: So it could just be that bacteria is delicious and
Speaker 1: here are some right now on on my on this
Speaker 1: neighbor's leg. But I guess we don't know that this
Speaker 1: kind of thing. I'd be interested to see more research about,
Speaker 1: like could there be a role for some type of
Speaker 1: social grooming within these within these deep see Arthur pod communities. Interesting. Interesting,
Speaker 1: Now I had in the background here, Joe, I had
Speaker 1: to do some quick research. And first of all, I
Speaker 1: can confirm that the RV Falcore is in fact named
Speaker 1: after the Wish dragon in The never Ending Story. Um.
Speaker 1: It was. It was originally called the Cea Falcon, but
Speaker 1: then it was retrofitted um later um and I believe
Speaker 1: two thousand nine or so, and then it was renamed
Speaker 1: the foul Core. Now the name Foulcore. Incidentally, Falcore is
Speaker 1: the English uh name for the Wish dragon in the
Speaker 1: English translation of Michael Linda's The Never Ending Story. In
Speaker 1: the German the name is fukor fuc Hu. Are derived
Speaker 1: from the Japanese term for lucky dragon fukur you uh
Speaker 1: if I'm saying that correctly, And apparently it was changed
Speaker 1: in the English translation because, um, the name future sounds
Speaker 1: too much like an English language swear word. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I I feel very educated now. Um the way, did
Speaker 1: they change the name of the type of dragon in
Speaker 1: the movie because I remembered it from the movie as
Speaker 1: being a luck dragon? Is it a wish dragon? In
Speaker 1: the book? I might have accidentally said wish dragon just now,
Speaker 1: but he is. He is a luck dragon. Wish dragon
Speaker 1: is is a is a different film that I've also
Speaker 1: watched recently. We watched all the dragon films. Okay, we'll
Speaker 1: steady sailing to the falcore. But let's get back to
Speaker 1: the world of crabs. What else do crabs eat? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: so we talked about them growing bacteria on themselves and
Speaker 1: eating it off of themselves, and then in some cases
Speaker 1: performing grooming like behaviors where they graze bacteria off of
Speaker 1: each other. But I want to move on to another
Speaker 1: parallel finding. So okay, if you are even the slightest
Speaker 1: bit crab curious, you probably know a bit about the
Speaker 1: type of crabs known as spider crabs. This involves many
Speaker 1: different species, all belonging to the super family known as
Speaker 1: Majoi data. They're called spider crabs I think because their
Speaker 1: legs can get very long and spind lee, so in
Speaker 1: some cases they actually do look like spiders. One of
Speaker 1: these animals, maybe the most remarkable spider crab is the
Speaker 1: Japanese spider crab or macro chira camp Ferry, which is
Speaker 1: the largest extant arthropod in the world. So this is
Speaker 1: an ocean dwelling crab that still exists today. It's not
Speaker 1: some you know, devonian, your yptorid, giant sea scorpion or something.
Speaker 1: You can find these out in the ocean still, and
Speaker 1: the largest one on record had a leg span of
Speaker 1: around three point eight meters or more than twelve feet,
Speaker 1: and it weighed something like forty something pounds. So these
Speaker 1: things are enormous. They're mostly legs, so you know, they're
Speaker 1: not like a solid mass that big, but if they
Speaker 1: spread their legs out, it is it is bigger than
Speaker 1: human body. Yeah, you can often find spider crabs at
Speaker 1: at aquariums, and they always need to look at I mean,
Speaker 1: they don't do much they're they're they're they're not really
Speaker 1: action packed, but they're very impressive specimens. But there's actually
Speaker 1: another interesting thing about this superfamily, the Majoidea. About three
Speaker 1: quarters of the species in the superfamily are examples of
Speaker 1: what is known as decorator crabs. Decorator crabs are animals
Speaker 1: that live in symbiotic relationships with many different kinds of
Speaker 1: sessile organis sums by attaching those organisms to their exoskeletons. Rob,
Speaker 1: I've got some images for you to look at. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are many different kinds that live in relationships with
Speaker 1: many different kinds of other species, but generally a decorator
Speaker 1: crab wears other plants or animals as clothing on the
Speaker 1: outside of its shell as a form of camouflage to
Speaker 1: blend into its surroundings. And it does this by hooking
Speaker 1: these other organisms onto little bristles on its exoskeleton called
Speaker 1: ct S E T A E, which I've seen compared
Speaker 1: to velcrow, So this might be a sort of natural
Speaker 1: precedent for for velcrow technology. There are lots of different
Speaker 1: kinds of other creatures that get roped into this. Some
Speaker 1: particular species of decorator crabs, uh, prefer algae, some prefer sponges,
Speaker 1: some look for certain bryozoans, and some like anemonies that
Speaker 1: can sting. Oh yeah, I think. Yeah. There's been some
Speaker 1: some interesting studies we've probably talked about in the show
Speaker 1: before about these uh, these anemone wielding crabs. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then what what? They usually have one on each claw
Speaker 1: and then if one gets taken away, they can care
Speaker 1: one in half to have two again that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Were these the boxer crabs? Yeah, I think so. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: so that example in particular of anemon ees that can
Speaker 1: give you a hint that sometimes these decorations on the
Speaker 1: outside of the shell do more than simply camouflage the
Speaker 1: animal as it hides among the rocks and the other
Speaker 1: flora and fauna populating the sea floor. Some of these
Speaker 1: decorator crabs select organisms that play a specific defensive role.
Speaker 1: So I was looking at a table of findings of
Speaker 1: this sword published in a book called Animal Camouflage, Mechanisms
Speaker 1: and Function edited by Martin Stevens and Semi Mirlita. And
Speaker 1: this was from Cambridge University Press in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: and it lists a bunch of different examples of different
Speaker 1: types of majoid crabs along with research identifying their preferred
Speaker 1: decorations and possible reasons for that preference. So, for example,
Speaker 1: there is a type of crab known as the innocous
Speaker 1: Philangium or the leeches spider crab. It appears to prefer
Speaker 1: a type of brown algae known as Dictyota dick atoma
Speaker 1: for the parts of its body most exposed to predators.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that this species of algae is
Speaker 1: not only good camouflage, it is chemically noxious, So it
Speaker 1: hides that this crab hides the vulnerable parts of its
Speaker 1: body behind something that predators would probably find disgusting or
Speaker 1: even poisonous. Uh. Maybe, like if you were trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, protect yourself from tigers by covering your back
Speaker 1: in bottles of bleach. You know, a tiger gets in
Speaker 1: there and starts biting it's it's not gonna want any
Speaker 1: of that. Also along these lines, there's an Atlantic spider
Speaker 1: crab called Stino c o ops for cot Us that
Speaker 1: preferentially attaches a species of stinging anemony to its carapace.
Speaker 1: And in both cases, these decorations would appear to provide
Speaker 1: additional defenses. Beyond just masking the body in the environment.
Speaker 1: But the crab from this list that I wanted to
Speaker 1: focus on has a different relationship with its preferred decoration organism.
Speaker 1: It likes to eat its own camouflage. So the animal
Speaker 1: in question is known as noo Mithrax ursus, or the
Speaker 1: hairy seaweed crab. I think the Latin name of its
Speaker 1: of its species ursus, implies that it's also known as
Speaker 1: the bear seaweed crab or sign bear. And folks, I
Speaker 1: just want to say, off the bat, this is a
Speaker 1: beautiful crab. In some cases it looks like a cartoon
Speaker 1: animation of a crab being electrocuted. It's got like animated
Speaker 1: electricity lines all around it. Also sometimes it looks like
Speaker 1: a burst of fireworks from hell. It is just a
Speaker 1: gorgeous Arthur pod. And I can definitely see where the
Speaker 1: name comes in because it it is it looks like
Speaker 1: it's furry like the bear. You know, yeah, totally um So,
Speaker 1: it has some natural hairs that that stick out from
Speaker 1: its exo skeleton. But it's also generally well actually not
Speaker 1: in all environments, but in some environments it covers itself
Speaker 1: in uh in. In these decorations that give it this
Speaker 1: additionally hairy look. So according to an entry, I was
Speaker 1: reading about it from the Museum's Victoria database the Australian
Speaker 1: Um Natural History Museums. UH. These are found in rocky
Speaker 1: shores and reefs around New Zealand and Southeastern Australia. And
Speaker 1: I was further reading about this this species in a
Speaker 1: in a research paper published in the New Zealand Journal
Speaker 1: of Marine and Freshwater Research in nineteen ninety four by
Speaker 1: Chris Woods and Colin McClay called masking and Ingestion Preferences
Speaker 1: of the spider crab not a mythrax Ursus. And what
Speaker 1: the researchers here say is that in laboratory tests, specimens
Speaker 1: of this crab not a mithrax Ursus were found to
Speaker 1: have preferences when it came to which organisms they would
Speaker 1: mask with. So it wasn't just any algae. There are
Speaker 1: certain kinds of algae they like to put on their shells,
Speaker 1: and specifically it was types of branched algae like hallop
Speaker 1: terrorists specific era and Corallina office analis. And I actually
Speaker 1: just want to read in full a part from the
Speaker 1: introductory section of this paper that describes the process of
Speaker 1: attaching pieces of algae to the body because I found
Speaker 1: it really fascinating to picture this routine as the crab
Speaker 1: does it. Uh and so too. As a note to
Speaker 1: help understand what I'm about to read here, the words
Speaker 1: chili and chella pads refer to the claws. The chili
Speaker 1: are the claws and the chili pads are the claw legs.
Speaker 1: Pad isn't foot, so the authors write quote. The masking
Speaker 1: behavior of in Ursus begins with the selection of a
Speaker 1: clump of algae. The crab then selects a single piece
Speaker 1: of alga, using the chili in a cella over cella
Speaker 1: technique to correctly measure the piece of algae to the
Speaker 1: required size, So the measuring it out using their claws
Speaker 1: as a as a as a ruler. Basically, this piece
Speaker 1: of alga is then snipped off using the cheli and
Speaker 1: transferred to the mouth parts, where the cut end is
Speaker 1: roughened and trimmed of any projections, while the uncut end
Speaker 1: is held by both chelipeds. Okay, so holding it in
Speaker 1: the claws and then chewing on the snipped end, putting
Speaker 1: it in the mouth parts to chew on it. Then
Speaker 1: once you've chewed up the cut end good uh quote.
Speaker 1: One cheli pad is then used to transfer the piece
Speaker 1: to a part of the body. Attachment is accomplished by
Speaker 1: rubbing it against the hooked set so that the cut
Speaker 1: end becomes entrapped by the set. If the algal piece
Speaker 1: does not attach, it first is transferred back to the
Speaker 1: mouth parts to be manipulated, and then taken back to
Speaker 1: the side of attachment and rubbed against the hook set
Speaker 1: until it attaches. If the piece of alga fails to
Speaker 1: attach after a number of attempts, it is discarded and
Speaker 1: a new piece is selected. I don't know why, but
Speaker 1: I found this kind of surprising. Something seemed kind of
Speaker 1: comple x and and and crafty about this process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it. It's it's a process that may seem,
Speaker 1: you know, out of beyond the abilities of what we
Speaker 1: might might generally attribute to a crab. But then again,
Speaker 1: we think about the way they eat, which we discussed
Speaker 1: in the first episode, and it does sound like a
Speaker 1: natural extension of that, Like this is an animal that
Speaker 1: is very that excels at taking things apart um uh
Speaker 1: you know I usually so it can fit those things
Speaker 1: in its mouth, uh, and can consume it but this
Speaker 1: is kind of a specialized version of the same thing,
Speaker 1: manipulating living things um and then using the pieces of
Speaker 1: that thing that you have manipulated. It ends up being
Speaker 1: this kind of kind of like biomancy that the crab practices. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I just love that detail about it chewing the snipped
Speaker 1: end of the alga in order to roughen it so
Speaker 1: that it attaches to the vel crow on its back. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: another interesting fact this paper mentions is that there is
Speaker 1: a lot of turnover in the crabs algae mask. Apparently
Speaker 1: not a Mithrax ursus replaces a good ten to twenty
Speaker 1: of its algae cover every twenty four hours. That would mean,
Speaker 1: you know, every roughly five to ten days, it's got
Speaker 1: a new coat of algae on it. And apparently decorator
Speaker 1: crabs that use algae in particular can be very strategic
Speaker 1: about its benefits as camouflage. For example, previous research, so
Speaker 1: not this study, but other studies they cite, had found
Speaker 1: in some decorator species that when you put a crab
Speaker 1: in a tank where it is surrounded by algae that
Speaker 1: doesn't match the color of the algae on its current mask,
Speaker 1: it will basically strip itself of the old algae and
Speaker 1: redecorate itself with the new algae to match its environment.
Speaker 1: And also research has shown that when given the option,
Speaker 1: crabs will tend to stay hidden within masses of algae
Speaker 1: that match the color of their existing mask. So these
Speaker 1: crabs can distinguish between different types of masking materials and
Speaker 1: they can make calls about masking and hiding behaviors to
Speaker 1: maximize the camouflage effects. Wow, that's really it's really impressive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it. It goes beyond just this near sort of
Speaker 1: automatic behavior that's taking place with anything that it happens
Speaker 1: to come across, right, So, yeah, it's not just sort
Speaker 1: of like rubbing up against a bunch of algae and
Speaker 1: getting it stuck on there. It's picking the algae that
Speaker 1: will that will do the best job of camouflage. But
Speaker 1: the researchers in this study found a different kind of
Speaker 1: discrimination in the selection of the masking material when it
Speaker 1: came to Noto Mithrax ursus. They found that the algae
Speaker 1: species the crabs preferred to mask with were the same
Speaker 1: ones they preferred to eat. So if you make like
Speaker 1: a ranked list of all of the algae that the
Speaker 1: crab will go to first to eat which ones doesn't
Speaker 1: like to consume the most That is going to be
Speaker 1: the same as the list that it will choose to
Speaker 1: put on its carapace and down its legs. So in
Speaker 1: a way, here it looks like the camouflage is doubling
Speaker 1: as food storage. This crab is hiding behind a mask
Speaker 1: of its own lunch, so the algae on its back
Speaker 1: will help it blend in with its environment, make it
Speaker 1: look like a bunch of seaweed rather than a crab,
Speaker 1: so predators are you know, are less likely to spot it.
Speaker 1: But then also it can eat that seaweed. It can
Speaker 1: eat that algae if it gets hungry. It's like if
Speaker 1: we were to imagine a like an army sniper in
Speaker 1: one of those gilly suits, but they insisted on only
Speaker 1: camouflaging themselves with their favorite leafy greens so that they
Speaker 1: could snack on it whilst while stalking, you know, and
Speaker 1: and and waiting on their their target to appear. This
Speaker 1: gilly suit is a super food kale only kale gilly suit.
Speaker 1: I love it, though I guess it does make me
Speaker 1: wonder maybe there is an answer to this. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but it makes me wonder which way the adaptation goes, Like,
Speaker 1: how how did it end up matching the food preferences
Speaker 1: and the masking preferences? Um? So, like, was it because
Speaker 1: a certain type of algae was the best, you know,
Speaker 1: provided the best camouflage cover, the animal evolved to prefer
Speaker 1: eating that kind or was it the kind that's most
Speaker 1: delicious and nutritious it evolves to prefer for masking. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. Yeah, the crabs are silent on
Speaker 1: the matter than all Right, up next we have this
Speaker 1: will be a shorter little section here, but this is
Speaker 1: something you you you pinpointed and then I followed up
Speaker 1: by by looking at a source on it. But this
Speaker 1: is the idea of crabs eating. This is so much
Speaker 1: crabs eating something remarkably different, but crabs doing it in
Speaker 1: a way we didn't expect. And that's crabs eating quote
Speaker 1: unquote eating through their gills. Yeah, this is interesting, so
Speaker 1: circumventing the look at mouth parts that you don't even
Speaker 1: have to raise a jaw leg for this meal. Right,
Speaker 1: So this concerns the invasive or at least invasive in
Speaker 1: um uh North America and I believe in Africa as well. Uh.
Speaker 1: The the invasive green shore crab, which we've discussed on
Speaker 1: the show before. I believe in their native European waters
Speaker 1: they are sometimes harvested for food, and there have been
Speaker 1: efforts in North America, where it is certainly invasive, to
Speaker 1: encourage its use in cooking. You know, what are some
Speaker 1: culinary uses for this, and I think there have been
Speaker 1: some some ideas of using it as like a uh
Speaker 1: you know, like like a soup base and so forth. Um,
Speaker 1: that's the same tactic you see with like invasive lion fish,
Speaker 1: hinging on the fact that if you really want humans
Speaker 1: to make a species disappear, make them desire that species
Speaker 1: for some reason or another, such as making it an
Speaker 1: ideal main course at a dinner. Sure. I think we've
Speaker 1: actually covered the green shore crabs in a different capacity
Speaker 1: on the show before. I don't remember what it was, though,
Speaker 1: so as point it out in a two thousand seventeen
Speaker 1: study from the University of Alberta, the green crabs are
Speaker 1: pretty snazzy consumers in their own right because they can
Speaker 1: again quote unquote eat by absorbing nutrients, specifically the amino
Speaker 1: acid um loose sign across their gills. And this was
Speaker 1: the first demonstration of crustaceans being able to do this.
Speaker 1: Now that the crabs are notoriously hardy, as you often
Speaker 1: see with an invasive species, um, so their bility disability
Speaker 1: might enable them to survive long periods between meals. So
Speaker 1: I don't have anything to eat, but I can absorb
Speaker 1: some some necessary amino acids, or it might help them
Speaker 1: cope with changes in salinity. So offsetting salinity changes via
Speaker 1: the amino acids that they can absorb just straight through
Speaker 1: their gills. Okay, so they would not be fully like
Speaker 1: sucking in chunks of food through their gills and eating
Speaker 1: like that. It's it's specifically getting these particular amino acids,
Speaker 1: these particular nutrients out of the water around them as
Speaker 1: they breathe. Yeah, so you know that's again whine we
Speaker 1: put eat in quotation marks here. I guess it's kind
Speaker 1: of like our humans eating when we absorb vitamin D
Speaker 1: via sunlight, that sort of thing. Are we are we
Speaker 1: eating when we get a you know, some sort of
Speaker 1: a vitamin injection or something. Yes, Okay, I've got something
Speaker 1: I was wondering about. Rob You may have seen it's
Speaker 1: a very popular genre of internet video, uh feeding crabs
Speaker 1: human food you know, I don't really think I've seen
Speaker 1: any of these. What kind of foods are they feeding
Speaker 1: them in these videos? Oh? Everything I've seen. I think
Speaker 1: I've seen crabs eating pizza. I've seen crabs eating you know,
Speaker 1: fruits and vegetables and chips and all the giving crab
Speaker 1: derito is probably I don't remember all the specifics, but
Speaker 1: you know, I've seen a good bit of this in
Speaker 1: my day. Clearly, it's funny to look at, you know, crabs,
Speaker 1: the kind of it thinks it's people sort of thing,
Speaker 1: right exactly, A crab eating a rito is inherently comedic.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's good for the crab though,
Speaker 1: then again, lots of crabs or scavengers, you know, they'll
Speaker 1: eat what what they can get. Um. So, so I
Speaker 1: guess I'm not too worried about the crabs. But but
Speaker 1: but I just wondered, is there anything interesting to cover
Speaker 1: about the phenomenon of crabs eating human food? All right,
Speaker 1: so we cannot speak for all crabs. We will not
Speaker 1: speak for all crabs. But one fun place, uh to
Speaker 1: look for some answers that I thought would be to
Speaker 1: look to the realm of hermit crabs as pets. Joe,
Speaker 1: did you ever have a hermit crab as a pet?
Speaker 1: I did not, did you. I've always wanted one, but um,
Speaker 1: it's never been permitted. I'm always like that looks that
Speaker 1: could be a great pet, and and and whoever is
Speaker 1: in my life is always like, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you need that, and they're they're probably correct. So you
Speaker 1: mean your family now is preventing you from getting hermit crabs, right?
Speaker 1: I think it's the Yeah. I think the argument is
Speaker 1: a hermit crab is either too much pet or not
Speaker 1: enough pet. So it's either a situation where like, uh,
Speaker 1: you really, you know, ask yourself, do we have space
Speaker 1: and time for this creature to live in our life
Speaker 1: as well? Or it's a question of is there something
Speaker 1: more exciting we could have, like a lizard, And that's like,
Speaker 1: that's where we are now. We have a we have
Speaker 1: a leopard gecko. We skipped over hermit crab and went
Speaker 1: straight to leopard gecko. This is a vertebrate household, so
Speaker 1: to be clear, there are more than one thousand hermit
Speaker 1: crab species and you can roughly divide them all up
Speaker 1: into marine hermit crabs and terrestrial hermit crabs. Uh, so
Speaker 1: you're you know, you're your sea dwellers and then your
Speaker 1: land dwellers. And there are a few different species that
Speaker 1: are popular pets from either category, but the ones most
Speaker 1: likely to encounter human food are of course those terrestrial crabs.
Speaker 1: So I thought I might look at some terrestrial hermit
Speaker 1: crab feeding guides for some ideas. Okay, so I went
Speaker 1: to the spruce pets. This is I think it's from
Speaker 1: the same people who like the sprucey heats, uh, And
Speaker 1: they point out that commerce hermit crab diets are probably
Speaker 1: the best way to go if you're feeding a hermit crab,
Speaker 1: because these are balanced and they contain everything that they
Speaker 1: might need because in general, you know, matching up with
Speaker 1: pretty much everything we've been talking about here, they're going
Speaker 1: to have a very diet their opportunistic land roving omnivore,
Speaker 1: so they're gonna eat a little bit of this, a
Speaker 1: little bit of that in the natural world, and you
Speaker 1: need a food source that reflects that they're on the
Speaker 1: seafood diet. I seafood, I eats it pretty much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So they recommend I'm going to roll through a lot
Speaker 1: of foods here. They recommend such fresh foods as mango, papaya,
Speaker 1: coconut fresh or dried. And I have to add that
Speaker 1: I can certainly back up the coconut suggestion because um,
Speaker 1: I got to watch a whole bunch of hermit crabs
Speaker 1: go absolutely crazy over a busted open coconut once, and
Speaker 1: it was it was amazing. It was a feeding frenzy.
Speaker 1: Where were you seeing the wild hermit crabs? I believe
Speaker 1: this was in Belize if memory serves. Oh, okay, all right,
Speaker 1: But in addition to this, apples, apple sauce, bananas, grapes, pineapple, strawberries, melons, carrots, spinach, watercress,
Speaker 1: leafy green lettuces, but not iceberg lettuce because you know
Speaker 1: the the nutrient issue there. Uh, Broccoli, grass leaves, strips
Speaker 1: of deciduous tree bark, unsalted nuts, occasional peanut, butter, raisins,
Speaker 1: dried seaweed, crackers, unsweetened cereals, plain rice cakes, plain popcorn
Speaker 1: on occasion, freeze, dried shrimp, freeze dried plankton, brian shrimp, fish,
Speaker 1: food flakes, and much more. Okay, so it looks to
Speaker 1: me like this, Uh, this list of suggestions from this
Speaker 1: website is suggesting a wide range of different kinds of foods,
Speaker 1: but seems to be avoiding things that have added sugar
Speaker 1: or salt. Yeah. They point out that the crabs may
Speaker 1: seem very interested in salty and sweet snacks like chips
Speaker 1: and sweet breakfast cereals, but these are to be avoided.
Speaker 1: They say also stay away from dairy products, which makes
Speaker 1: sense when when when would have a crab get a
Speaker 1: dairy product in the natural world. Um. And they say
Speaker 1: that the hermes are generally gonna be game for fresh
Speaker 1: or dried fruits of any kind, but some experts advise
Speaker 1: against highly acidic or citrus foods, so like maybe don't
Speaker 1: give them a limon or a tomato. Also, starch veggies
Speaker 1: like potatoes are to be avoided um as well as
Speaker 1: again low nutrient iceberg lettuce. What I all this hating
Speaker 1: on iceberg lettuce? I love iceberg lettuce. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: out on a limb right here. I'm gonna say iceberg
Speaker 1: lettuce is awesome. I mean it, iceberg lettuce can be awesome,
Speaker 1: But the question is what are you getting out of it? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're getting out of it nutrient wise,
Speaker 1: but it's delicious, crunchy crunchy goodness. Alright, fair, fair enough,
Speaker 1: just keep it away from the hermit crabs. Um. Now, also,
Speaker 1: hermit crabs require calcium, So remember that bone gnawing we
Speaker 1: mentioned from the last episode involving other crabs kind of
Speaker 1: plays into into this scenario. Uh, calcium edition probably not
Speaker 1: gonna come as a surprise to many pet owners out there.
Speaker 1: I know. With our leopard gecko, we have to we
Speaker 1: have to shake its crickets up in a bag with
Speaker 1: a calcium powder to ensure there's getting enough calcium, and
Speaker 1: then also leave some calcium out for it in a
Speaker 1: little tiny dish. Um. But with crabs you can end
Speaker 1: up using reptile ready calcium supplements like this. But also
Speaker 1: you might end up using something like crushed oyster shells
Speaker 1: or cuttle bone as something that they can use to
Speaker 1: get their their calcium. Oh yeah, okay, So tying it
Speaker 1: back to the last episode, I was just remembering the
Speaker 1: suggestion this was not proven, but it was it was
Speaker 1: hypothesized that maybe one reason duck built dinosaurs had been
Speaker 1: eating a bunch of crustaceans that might have been crabs
Speaker 1: or some of their you know, related crustaceans that have
Speaker 1: these these hard shells. Was that they were looking for
Speaker 1: certain nutrients types of protein or specifically calcium as part
Speaker 1: of their breeding and reproduction cycle. Yeah. Now one more,
Speaker 1: one more note from this spruce article because it's just
Speaker 1: it's so crab. I love it. They say, quote hermit
Speaker 1: crabs are able to find their food in two ways,
Speaker 1: by smelling the food and by seeing other hermit crabs
Speaker 1: eating hermit crab dietary peer pressure. Yeah, so they might
Speaker 1: be like I detect food over there, or it's like
Speaker 1: that hermit crabs eating something I'm in, I'm gonna go.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go try and steal some of that. All
Speaker 1: the hermit crabs like Billy gets to eat iceberg lettus
Speaker 1: Billy gets to eat pizza. Yeah. But obviously, I, like
Speaker 1: I said, I do not have a hermit of a
Speaker 1: pet hermit crab. I've never had one. I've just gotten
Speaker 1: to observe some in the wild and you know, look
Speaker 1: at them in pet stores. So, if there are any
Speaker 1: hermit crab enthusiasts out there and you have particular thoughts
Speaker 1: on this, if you can tell us, uh, you know
Speaker 1: what foods your hermit crab prefers the most, which ones
Speaker 1: you you like to give them definitely right in and
Speaker 1: let us know, I'd I'd love to hear from that. Really,
Speaker 1: anybody out there with with crab expertise or crabs pertise,
Speaker 1: uh you know, right in? Have you ever had part
Speaker 1: of your body eaten by hermit crabs? What was that? Like?
Speaker 1: Hermit crabs do they just have a lot of character?
Speaker 1: I love I love watching them. Yeah. Actually I recall
Speaker 1: one Nature documentary segment I honestly don't remember what it
Speaker 1: was from, but I think it was something narrated by
Speaker 1: by Attenborough. Um. But it was a segment that was
Speaker 1: showing hermit crabs forming a chain of shell trading, so
Speaker 1: like they were all trying to trade shells to get
Speaker 1: a bigger shell, and they formed up in a line
Speaker 1: essentially to each switch into the next one's shell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there have been essentially like biology economics articles that have
Speaker 1: looked at this, like how do they go about, um,
Speaker 1: you know, trading up on their their shell size? And
Speaker 1: then you know, because if one leaves its shell for
Speaker 1: a bigger shell, then that opens up a shell for
Speaker 1: another growing hermit crab to take advantage of it. It's
Speaker 1: it's really fun. So the adaptation there I guess would
Speaker 1: have to involve the hermit crab observing when a bigger
Speaker 1: hermit crab is likely to be leaving its shell for
Speaker 1: for a bigger one. So I yeah, that would take
Speaker 1: some kind of social observance, kind of like what you're
Speaker 1: talking about with the hermit crabs watching other hermit crabs eat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think also they're they're all about stealing
Speaker 1: as well. If so, it's it's a it's a crab
Speaker 1: kind of a crabby crab world. But who comes up
Speaker 1: with these rules? You can steal somebody else's shell, but
Speaker 1: you can't eat iceberg let us. Now, they will eat
Speaker 1: the iceberg. It's not that they don't want it, I think.
Speaker 1: I think the idea is like, they will eat it,
Speaker 1: but it's just they deserve better. Okay, coming up soon,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do a whole episode on iceberg let us.
Speaker 1: It'll be about how iceberg let us is the king
Speaker 1: of foods. It's amazing. I know that what iceberg let
Speaker 1: us must not occur in nature. Whoever created the strain
Speaker 1: of vegetable is really deserves great credit. All right, Well
Speaker 1: we're gonna go ahead and close it out there. But yeah,
Speaker 1: again right in. We'd love to hear from you. Let
Speaker 1: us know if there are other examples of curious crab
Speaker 1: cuisines that that we were not familiar with. It didn't
Speaker 1: have time to cover here. We will mention it in
Speaker 1: an upcoming listener mail episode. Also, yes, hermit crab owners,
Speaker 1: right in and tell us all about your babies. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, if you would like to listen to other
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you can find
Speaker 1: us in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed
Speaker 1: that it gets found anywhere you get your podcasts. Just
Speaker 1: you know, make sure you subscribe and you can get everything,
Speaker 1: including our core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, our listener
Speaker 1: mail episodes on Mondays are artifact short form episodes on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and then on Friday you get Weird How Cinema. That's
Speaker 1: our time to just talk about a strange film of
Speaker 1: one sort or another. Huge thanks as always to our
Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at Stuff to Blow Your mind dot com. Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind is production of I heart Radio.
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