WEBVTT - Crab Content is King 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.400 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:15.080 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:18.160 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.479 we're back from the break. We thought the best way 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:23.120 to jump right back in would be to do more crabs. 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:26.360 That's right. We had we'd just recently done a couple 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:30.440 of episodes about crabs eating strange things, and we had 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:34.720 some We had some crab run over anyway, so we thought, well, 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:36.720 what what's what better than to go ahead and just 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:40.800 jump right back in two more crabs. Crab overflow. Did 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:43.200 you happen to eat any crab over the break? Rub? 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.040 I went crabbing with my son and my and my 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.879 brother in law, um, and they did catch crabs, and 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:53.640 they were excited about them. I ended up not eating 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:56.480 any of the crabs just because I don't know, I 0:00:56.480 --> 0:00:58.760 just wasn't feeling it. It's a lot of work, Uh, 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.720 you gotta be you gotta want it so um. So 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:05.440 I abstained from the consumption of crabs, but I did 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:08.080 get to observe some crabs. In my experience, I feel 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.479 like it's always kind of embarrassing to eat a crab 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:12.760 you're just sitting there working on it, you know. I 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.520 guess it's all of the the intense concentration it takes 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:18.240 to crack the pieces and stuff. You're not really following 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.920 the conversation at the table very well. It's you're in 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.000 your own world. Yeah, I mean, it definitely is one 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.640 of those activities that that puts you in the It 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:30.920 feels like you put you in an archaic mindset. You know, 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:35.119 you can imagine yourself, you know, you know, picking apart 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:39.200 a carcass on some sort of primordial shore, uh sort 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:41.600 of a situation. And and therefore you do get in 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.800 the zone. You get in the crab zone, right. Um, 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:46.840 But I don't know that. This this year, I wasn't 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:49.240 feeling it, So I did not have any crab, but 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:51.360 I was. I was in New Orleans, uh, and I 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.480 did enjoy some some very nice food, uh, some very 0:01:54.520 --> 0:01:57.840 nice drinks. I made it over to Latitude once more 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:01.080 and had some some drinks that beach pump berries. Oh 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:04.040 do they do anything with tiki turkey puns for for 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:06.480 this time of year? Well, no, it's they're getting into 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:08.840 the sip in the Santa things. So there were some 0:02:08.960 --> 0:02:11.760 Christmas ones I had a Christmas Eve of destruction, which 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:16.000 was very nice. Okay, okay, but we gotta talk crabs. 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:19.400 That people want crabs. Yeah, let's get into crabs. So um, 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:21.480 you know, in our in our most recent episodes on Crabs, 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:23.680 I did dish out a little bit of crab mythology, 0:02:23.680 --> 0:02:26.480 and I mentioned how crabs don't often seem to have 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:31.400 central rolls and myths and folklores for various reasons. But 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.040 but that doesn't mean they don't have some very fun cameos. 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.399 And of course I do hold out hope that there 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:39.320 are some some other crab myths and legends out there 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:41.760 that I just don't know about. And so, as always, 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:45.200 if I'm missing something right in and let us know now. 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:49.239 In The Eight Immortals Cross the Sea, an important Chinese 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.640 work of the Ming dynasty, you basically have the story 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.880 of these eight powerful humanoid beings using their various powers 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.639 to cross the ocean and kind of show off as 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:03.240 their doing it. Okay, I'm trying to is this something 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:05.840 we've talked about on the show before or similar to it, 0:03:05.960 --> 0:03:09.200 or or a lot of these beings sort of overlapping 0:03:09.240 --> 0:03:12.520 with the animals of the Chinese zodiac. I believe we've 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:14.880 talked about the immortals before, but I don't think we've 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.600 really looked at this particular work. Okay uh. And you 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:22.880 might be thinking of the Chinese zodiac origin story about 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.840 the the animal race where they have to cross a 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:30.119 great river, so so this is different than that. But basically, 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.320 these are these are super beings. They have superpowers, and 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:35.640 so they're showing off as they crossed the ocean, and 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:40.480 crossing the ocean also entails outsmarting and overpowering the Dragon King, 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:43.800 as this is his domain. And we have mentioned the 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:46.920 Dragon King on the show before, but it's said that 0:03:46.920 --> 0:03:50.520 the dragon King is served by quote, shrimp soldiers and 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:55.400 crab generals, as this is the sea after all. And 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:58.440 and I believe these these these sort of shrimp soldiers 0:03:58.440 --> 0:04:00.720 and crab generals also show up in tales of the 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:04.760 Monkey King when when he encounters the Dragon King or 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.720 the Dragon king soldiers. What is it about crabs that 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:11.920 puts them in commander rolls? Don't I mean, you're gonna 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:13.480 put the shrimp in the commander roll? I mean it 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.760 seems like a no brainer, right, But the thing is 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:20.479 that in these stories, the shrimp and the crabs are 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.240 generally seen as ineffectual. So you have this saying that 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:28.080 emerges from these tales. Any you have references to shrimp 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:31.159 soldiers and crab generals. This has just become become a 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:36.040 way of referring to ineffective soldiers. Uh so I kind 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.480 of like that phrase. Okay, So would this be kind 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.480 of similar to when people say tin soldiers like t 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.040 I N I think so, yeah, I think this would 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.440 be this would be a version of that in Mandarin. Now, 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.839 there's another Chinese crab myth that I was reading about 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.080 that that was really fascinating me, and I wasn't really 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:55.359 able to get quite to the bottom of it, but 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.719 it pops up in yang and and Turner's Handbook of 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:02.479 Chinese Mythology. It concerns the Yellow Emperor, and there are 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:04.640 a lot of stories about the Yellow Emper and this 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.560 one just happens to involve crabs. A lot of these 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:11.920 emerge from from xin Jung in a non province, and 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.440 this one seems to have as well. And in this 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:18.400 particular tale, the Yellow Emperor's attendants find a nice cave 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:20.159 for him to visit in the summer. So this is 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:22.919 just just a really nice cave. It's cool. Uh, you 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:26.960 know some water there. You can rest very comfortable. Except 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.880 they're way too many mosquitoes and other unwanted vermin living 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.960 in the cave. So the Yellow Emperor just kind of 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:37.080 casually mentions like, geez, I wish someone would drive these 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.359 creatures away. Wish somebody would wipe these creatures out so 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:41.479 I could enjoy this cave, because otherwise it's a great 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:45.000 place to spend the summer. So what happens when an 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:49.480 individual of great power casually mentions the desire, Well, oftentimes 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:52.760 u uh, somebody will see an opportunity, and that's what 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.440 the crabs living in the cave do. They hear this 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.719 and they decide, well, let's do it, so they drive 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:01.640 all the unwanted creature year is out of this wondrous cave. 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:04.960 And as a reward, the Yellow Emperor is said to 0:06:05.400 --> 0:06:10.560 have given these crabs an extra set of legs. Quote. Thereafter, 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:15.080 only the crabs in the local pond have tin legs. Wait, 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:19.279 I'm confused. Okay, so do you know anything about how 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.599 this connects to to biology, because so crabs are decapods 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.720 that should have ten legs, right right right, Yeah, this 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.679 is where I really started scratching my head a bit because, yeah, 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.560 that decapod crabs are quite literally tin legged crabs, So 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:36.240 what would these other crabs have been? Well, I guess 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:39.200 it seems to get complicated because technically decapods can have 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:44.039 as many as thirty eight appendages and generally the peiopods 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:46.919 or walking appendages or what we very loosely refer to 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:51.120 as legs, and there are five pairs of those. But 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:54.200 at the same time, many common crabs, such as ghost grabs, 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:57.520 they do run around on four pairs of legs and 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:01.560 sometimes actually only employ three pairs and running and the 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.680 fifth pair of legs are the claws, which we humans 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.520 often go ahead and at least think of his hands, right, 0:07:07.520 --> 0:07:09.479 because we can make we can make a little crab 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:11.760 claws with our hands, and so we kind of feel 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:14.200 like those are the crabs hands, right, Yeah, And if 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:16.200 you want to get really technical, I mean, crabs have 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:20.880 all kinds of bilaterally symmetrical appendages that you could imagine 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:23.600 our legs or have evolved from legs at some point, 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:26.280 so you know, crabs have jaw legs in their mouths, 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:30.120 the uh, the maxilla pads that help them eat and 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.760 uh and yeah, so so, yeah, it's true. Even though 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:36.720 they will typically have ten legs or leg like appendages, 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:39.400 some of those could be seen as other things. Like 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.440 you're saying, you know, a person looking at a crab's 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:44.840 claws as well, those aren't legs, those are hands, or 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:47.840 looking at maybe the swimmer legs says those aren't legs, 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:51.200 those are fins. Yeah. Yeah, because some crabs have paddles 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:54.680 for their their hindmost pair of legs, so you can 0:07:54.920 --> 0:07:57.480 at least imagine a scenario in which someone might not 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:01.720 count those as being part of the leg count. But um, 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.160 but yeah, I'm not really sure how to exactly interpret 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:07.880 this story that maybe there's something missing in translation. Um, 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:11.200 you know, I looked around at a few papers about 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:15.080 extra leg genetic abnormalities in some crabs, so maybe that's 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.840 not out of the question either. Uh, maybe there was 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:22.320 just something particular about the crabs in this cave environment 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.200 or or even you know, is it sometimes the case 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:27.440 in accounts like this and legends, Maybe it's not even 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:30.920 describing a crab, it's something else. And the legend comes 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:33.120 down to, you know, describing, why does this thing look 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:35.920 a little different than what we're used to well, because 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:40.080 it did something wonderful and therefore was gifted extra appendages. Okay, 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.520 what number of appendages? Does it become not that useful 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:45.760 to have more of them? You know, if you've got 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.160 if you've got two arms, having two more arms, that 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.800 seems like a real upgrade, right, like goro has got 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:54.880 a real advantage over regular human. But once let's say 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:58.960 you already have uh ten bilaterally symmetrical appendages, if you 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:01.920 get two more, is I mean, is that really an 0:09:02.000 --> 0:09:03.600 upgrade or do they just get in the way at 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:06.320 that point? Yeah, I guess this is usually a question 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:09.960 that that evolution natural selection solves over time. Right if 0:09:10.160 --> 0:09:13.160 if appendages are not needed while then they're just a 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:16.559 drain on the the economy of the body, and therefore 0:09:16.600 --> 0:09:19.640 there's a there's a a possibility they're going to disappear 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:21.959 over time, that they're gonna atrophy. So I don't know. 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:24.920 But anyway, coming back to the story you were telling, 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.840 I love that detail about the Yellow Emperor, just sort 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:32.360 of idly saying, oh, I wish someone would get rid 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:34.400 of all these mosquitoes because it kind of reminds me 0:09:34.440 --> 0:09:38.160 of the Actually don't know if this is historically solid 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:41.840 but the at least the at least legendary tale of 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.520 the death of Thomas Beckett, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:48.840 when Henry the second supposedly said he was like mad 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:50.800 at him, I guess and said, you know, won't someone 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:54.560 rid me of this meddlesome priest? And uh, it wasn't 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.600 given as an order. He was just kind of musing 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:00.439 about how mad he was. But some nights happened overhear 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:02.080 him and they're like, well, okay, I guess we gotta 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.640 go kill this guy, and they did. Yeah, it basically 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:08.640 seems to be the same situation here. Now I'm out 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.000 of my depth on this, but I also can't help 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:13.080 but wonder maybe part of the idea of the story 0:10:13.280 --> 0:10:16.800 is the crab has so many legs anyway, and therefore 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.439 it's not much of a reward. Um. I don't know. 0:10:20.960 --> 0:10:24.280 It makes me wonder, but I couldn't find out. I 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.280 looked around. I couldn't find any other strong sources, you know, 0:10:27.360 --> 0:10:30.400 in in English on this. But if anyone out there 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:34.679 has any details about strange crabs in a non province, 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:38.360 crabs from the caves, and crabs with extra limbs right in, 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:40.600 I would love to love to have more clarity on this. 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.080 While you were telling the story, I was hit with 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:45.800 a with a tremendously bad pun. Should I say it? 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:47.440 Should I not say it? I don't know. It was 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:55.240 little pinchers have big ears. That's good now, Yeah, it's good. Now. 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.080 There are there are other crab tales to be found 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:01.000 in Chinese mythology. For instance, they're fair the old myths 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.000 to be found throughout various myth cycles of China among 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:07.600 different ethnic groups about the separation of heaven and Earth. Uh. 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:09.320 This is of course something you see in in other 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:13.560 myth cycles as well. Uh. And in Chinese traditions sometimes 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:17.200 there is a sky tower or sky pillar connecting the two, 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:21.440 and sometimes an animal is to blame for severing this 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:24.720 tower or pillar. And apparently in some tellings it is 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.440 a crab that does the snippet. Ah, well, that would 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:29.760 make sense. Yet again, when there's something to be snipped 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.600 in a myth, sometimes the crab will fill that gap. Yeah. 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.760 Now another one that I was reading about this one. 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:41.000 This is another you know, you know, very old mythological tale, 0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:44.440 and it's the story of of woman cho of whom 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:48.000 there are I think three narratives in the Classic of Mountain, 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:52.160 Mountains and Seas, and as Zan Barrel explains in Chinese 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.920 Mythology and an Introduction, the written versions of these tales 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:58.800 UH date from the first century b c. E. And 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.320 the first century SEE and they tell of a time 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.280 during which quote, there are two people in the sea, 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.480 but we only meet one woman, Chow, who is strongly 0:12:08.559 --> 0:12:11.080 linked with the crab. And it seems like she may 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:13.120 either take on the form of a crab or she 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.280 has a crab that is her attendant. And it seems 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.920 like this might be a crab of unusual size. And 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:23.160 the reasons for this seemed to include the idea that, okay, 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:25.280 you've got the land and the and you've got the sea, 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:27.679 and you have the crab, which kind of has a 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:31.439 dual nature. Like the crab lives on both. It can 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.200 scamper on the beach, but then it can scamper beneath 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.160 the waves, it can swim in the water, and so forth. Yeah, 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:39.200 the dual nature is right there in its body. It's 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:41.840 it lives in the ocean, but it walks on its legs. 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:46.120 But then the crab also does another interesting thing. It molts, 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:49.280 it sheds it's it's old shell and grows a new one, 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:52.320 and this was seen as a kind of regeneration that 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.200 might allow the crab to live forever. And it was 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.440 also associated with cycles of the moon, and of course 0:12:58.480 --> 0:13:01.280 the moon has strong can actions to the idea of 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:05.840 immortality in Chinese mythology as well. Oh, that's very interesting 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:10.000 and it makes me wonder why we have commonly adopted 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:13.719 the metaphor of the butterfly as the you know, the 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:17.080 the important image from nature of something going through a 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:20.840 transformation and then uh and then coming coming out something new. 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:22.560 I mean, I guess the difference there is that a 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:26.680 butterfly looks very different than the than the larval stage 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:29.599 that went into the pupa. But uh, but when a 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:33.240 crab comes out is just bigger. So maybe that is 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:35.880 a better metaphor. I don't know. Now. Woman Chow is 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:40.880 also known as Woman Chow corpse corpse deity and uh. 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.840 This is connected to drought and the time of the 0:13:43.880 --> 0:13:46.439 Ten Sons, the time in Chinese mythology we've mentioned in 0:13:46.480 --> 0:13:49.560 the show before, Uh when there are tens sons in 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:52.360 the sky and they are burning up the earth, as 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:56.559 related in the Shanghai Shehan quote Woman Chow corpse was born, 0:13:56.640 --> 0:13:59.560 but the tin son scorched her to death. That was 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.520 north of the land of Men. She screened her face 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:05.600 with her right hand where the tin suns are up above. 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.280 Woman cho lived there on top of the mountain, so 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:13.440 she's she's scorched and burned by the surplus suns, perhaps 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:16.560 seemingly especially her hand because she's shielding her eyes with 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:20.440 that hand. But then she is later reborn in brilliant green, 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:24.440 so she has renewal. She is drought survival. But she 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:27.360 has also connected to these observations of the crab and 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:31.160 the idea that the crab experiences this sort of periodic 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:40.920 renewal as well. Now, another area concerning crabs that I 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:43.320 was looking at kind of comes back to stuff we've 0:14:43.320 --> 0:14:45.360 talked about already about the you know, the idea that 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.520 the crab design is a winning design, that it's emerged 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:53.720 independently multiple times, and that according to some eventually everything 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.800 will become a crab, Right, that's kind of the meme. Yeah, 0:14:56.840 --> 0:14:59.880 I think the more modest phrasing is that other crustace 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:04.120 ends that are not necessarily crablike in form have repeatedly 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:08.080 evolved into crab like forms multiple times in the history 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:12.360 of life. Yeah. So earlier this year, Doug Johnson wrote 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:15.480 a fun article for Ours Technica titled on Earth things 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:20.000 evolve into crabs. Could the same be true in space? Uh? 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.880 And so that part of this article is the author's 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:25.880 generally summing up some of these ideas we've we've discussed already, 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:28.680 but then he gets into this this issue of alien 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.600 life because if we follow the logic that aliens might 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:34.040 be humanoid, because that's what we see emerge as a 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.680 dominant intelligent life form on our own world, then we 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:40.800 might go as far as to wonder, well, if crabs 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:43.560 are a popular form on this planet, wouldn't it make 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:48.200 sense to see crab or crab like bodies crab morphs 0:15:48.200 --> 0:15:51.520 if you will on alien worlds as well. I want 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:55.680 to believe so. Um Johnson reached out to one of 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.680 the authors of the paper I referenced in our previous 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:02.920 crab episode, Joe Woolf, for researcher at Harvard University's Department 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:07.880 of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. The article was how does 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.520 a crab become a crustacean? And I have to say 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:13.720 absolutely love this quote from her. This is something she 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:17.040 told to ours technical and in the the the interview 0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:20.240 quote there is no clear cut reason why being a 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:24.480 crab is better than not being a crab. But if 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:26.560 you say that too loud, the crabs in the cable 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:30.560 here you and then they'll turn into something else. True. 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:33.640 But I love this this quote because there's an absurdity 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.520 to it, obviously, but it also does ring absolutely true 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:39.400 and betrays a deeper understanding. You know, we don't have 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:43.040 an answer in human reason and human language to the 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:46.120 question here, but evolution provides its own answer, and the 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:50.000 answer seems to be the crab form itself um in 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:55.240 various examples. However, Johnson talks to Charles Marshall, director of 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:59.880 the University of California Museum of Paleontology, and Marshall points out, 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.440 at all in all, it's a fairly narrow group of 0:17:03.480 --> 0:17:07.680 species that have become crab morphs on our planet. Um 0:17:07.720 --> 0:17:09.480 that you know that we shouldn't we shouldn't get too 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:11.560 excited about this kind this idea. It's like, well, crabs 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:15.119 are everywhere, so they must be in space. Like there's like, 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:18.760 ultimately it's still a situation where the crab form has 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:23.439 evolved as an answer to specific questions posed by our 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.960 natural environment and not say universal questions, right, And I 0:17:28.000 --> 0:17:30.560 think the other half of that, uh, the other important 0:17:30.560 --> 0:17:34.600 point highlighted by by Marshall's observation here is that it's 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:38.280 not just that the natural environment creates some pressure that 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:42.520 encourages crab like forms, but that it's also certain morphological 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:46.959 starting places that if you're starting with a genome that 0:17:47.000 --> 0:17:50.040 codes for a certain kind of body plan, it's easy 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:53.320 to get from there into a crab like form. And 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:56.800 that body plan is like other certain types of especially 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.719 marine arthropods, you know, certain crustacean types. I mean like, 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:03.480 for example, you can you can look at that the 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.840 hands of various organisms, right, Like to get something like 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:11.119 an extra finger or an extra thumb, it has to 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:12.960 come from somewhere. You know, there has to be a 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:15.760 starting point. It's not just you know, suddenly thumb sort 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.639 of a situation exactly so, and maybe you know, another 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.480 billion years, we could find that all kinds of mammals 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:24.280 on Earth have evolved thumbs, because it turns out it's 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:26.760 really useful for all kinds of animals. But you're not 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:29.920 going to really find uh, say, crabs, with thumbs, right, 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.040 because they don't really have the morphological building blocks to 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.399 start with to make thumbs right. But I mean they do. 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:39.199 They do sometimes have access to thumbs, because we do 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:42.880 mention that they will show down on a cadaver. Yeah. Um, 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:45.440 then again I want just to doubt what I just said. 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:48.119 I mean, I guess, depending on how expansive your definition 0:18:48.119 --> 0:18:50.800 of thumb is, you could say that the crabs claws 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:55.080 the pinching motion provides some of what a thumb is 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.119 good for. Right, That a thumb can help you, you know, 0:18:57.240 --> 0:19:00.080 close your hand over an object in order to manipulate it, 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.440 obviously with much more dexterity than usually a crab can. 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:05.639 But I can see why we might look at the 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.960 crab body and think, well, this might be good in 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.840 in space, because we look at the way the crab 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:15.840 moves on land and through water, and it's easy to 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:22.960 extrapolate that toum like a microgravity situation. Right. So, in 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:24.880 the same way that you have some crabs on Earth 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.080 who's whose rear most pair of legs has turned into 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:30.120 swimmer legs, a little paddle legs to help them move 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.200 through the water, you could imagine a crab whose final 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:37.680 pair of legs has turned into ion thrusters. Well, I 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:41.119 wouldn't go that far, but um, I will say that 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:44.840 add that. I think another aspect of all of this 0:19:45.040 --> 0:19:48.679 is that, you know, we we tend to think of 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:51.320 like crab more popping up everywhere and imagine them in 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:53.919 the future and another planets, because we do take a 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.280 lot of delight in these organisms. I mean, they're weird, 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:00.239 they're stealthy, they're efficient, they're kind of funny to look at. Uh, 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.560 they're amusing to watch in the wild, and of course 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:05.320 we like to eat some of them. Uh, So we 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.280 have a vested interest in their existence, and that's always 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:10.080 a great way to wind up as a noted animal 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:13.040 for humans. Is it something that we eat or is 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:16.080 it something that can eat us? And uh, you know 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.600 that the crab kind of checks off both boxes with 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:23.000 some caveats on the consumption of humans. That's a very 0:20:23.000 --> 0:20:26.440 well observed But I want to come back to crabs 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:30.520 eating strange things, or being attracted to eat strange things 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:33.480 at least, uh, And I wanted to do that by 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:36.320 looking at a study I came across from just this 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:40.359 year looking at hermit crabs. Now we've mentioned hermit crabs 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:43.920 a number of times in this series. Now, hermit crabs 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:47.920 are decapod crustaceans. They're not considered to quote true crabs. 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:50.560 I can't remember if we've said that already, but they 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:53.920 belong to the group and Amura meaning the false crabs, 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:58.200 rather than bracky era, which are supposedly true crabs. But hey, 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:01.000 you know, they're they're close enough. They're crab abs. And 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:03.159 so the study that I was reading about that I 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.040 wanted to talk about was actually just published earlier this year, 0:21:06.119 --> 0:21:11.440 so in and it was by Jack green Shields, Paula Schrmocker, 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:17.199 and your Hartigie in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin. The 0:21:17.280 --> 0:21:20.600 authors here start by noting that a bunch of research 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:25.080 has identified a problem of marine life being in one 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:30.320 way or another, attracted to plastic waste. So we've talked 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.040 before about some of the problems with plastic trash in 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:35.879 the ocean. We discussed this somewhat in our interview with 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:39.280 Christine Figner as it regards um, you know, the interactions 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:43.320 between plastic waste and sea turtles. But plastic trash in 0:21:43.359 --> 0:21:49.080 the ocean is not just a sort of accidental collision problem, right, 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:52.479 It's not just that a turtle happens to randomly swim 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:54.760 into a bunch of plastic six pack rings that are 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:57.959 floating along on the surface of the water. In many cases, 0:21:58.000 --> 0:22:00.520 it appears that animals that live in the ocean are 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:05.199