WEBVTT - Fine Young (Animal) Cannibals 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.800 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.320 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas And 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:19.520 if all goes according to plan, I will be in 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.079 China with my wife's collecting our son and uh when 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:26.480 this episode airs. So certainly, if you have any positive 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:28.640 energy to spare, send it to me because I'll probably 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:32.800 be on the on the on the edge during this trip. 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.440 I'm sure it'll be a stressful time, but certainly a 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:39.599 worthwhile experience. So during this time, we're going to air 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:42.680 just a couple of reruns, but rewinds that we really 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:46.920 think deserve a second listen, and so in this episode, 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.720 we are going to replay our Cannibals episode. Now, I 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:53.000 think a lot of people ended up passing this one 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:56.320 by because the original title was finding on Cannibals, and 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.360 a lot of people my wife included, skipped over at 0:00:59.360 --> 0:01:00.880 it first because I thought we were going to talk 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:05.920 about human cannibals, about nefarious individuals eating other individuals and 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.120 praying on the week. And certainly that is an interesting topic, 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:11.560 but a much darker topic because in this episode we 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:15.839 focus almost exclusively on insects and arachnets. But I would 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:19.200 say that I think actually the sexual cannibalism that goes 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:22.679 on here, the ripping off of praying manta's head, is 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:25.800 pretty dark stuff. But it's safer because well, we're talking 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:27.959 about insects, right, and it comes down to just pure 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:30.560 economy as we'll discussing this episode. Yeah, yeah, well we're 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:35.399 talking about sibilicide and fantaside and some Dwight shrewdism going on. 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.360 So we hope that you enjoy this. It is rife 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:49.200 with some lovely and awful bits of cannibalism. Robert, I've 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:52.040 got a burning question for you, alright, fire off. I 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:55.639 would like to know if you have ever tasted huge food. 0:01:56.240 --> 0:02:00.440 Huge food. I'm not sure I know what that is. Well, 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:03.080 I hope that you're going to say now, because because 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:07.080 well it's non existent actually, but the first thing, otherwise 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:08.880 I would worry a little bit off you said, yes, 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:13.600 it's it's actually a spoof product. And it was supposedly 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:16.760 supposed to be a soy based food product designed to 0:02:16.800 --> 0:02:21.680 resemble human flesh and taste and texture, and so the 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.800 website was up for about a year. MEB two thousand five, 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:29.000 two thousand and six, and it had all these great 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:31.560 products that you just never could buy. So if you wanted, 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:35.200 you know, if you were really wanting a finger or 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:39.320 an arm or something but didn't necessarily want to cannibalize someone, 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:42.919 you could In theory, do they replicate and they replicated 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:48.359 the taste or the form, the taste and the texture. Yeah. Well, 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.920 I mean, you know, if you really get logical about it, 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:54.320 I'm not sure there's anything that weird about it, not 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:58.240 compared to say, well, okay, you're vegetarian, right, yes, okay. 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:02.680 Do you ever have like soysage or like a soy dog, 0:03:02.880 --> 0:03:06.239 or you know, any kind of fir or whatever. Yeah, 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:08.840 I have like meat simulated products. We'll see. Like that 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:12.600 seems like, I mean, it's not unlike that you don't 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:17.360 want to actually eat meat, but you're okay with something that. Yeah. 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:19.960 And yet there's a disconnect because sometimes when I pull 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.720 out a piece of what's supposed to be bacon and 0:03:23.760 --> 0:03:27.360 I look at it and it's a little disconcerting because 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:29.799 I'm frying up the bacon, and yet I don't eat bacon, 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:33.800 and I don't necessarily want bacon, but I do have 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:35.760 to say, there is that that bacon taste that you 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:38.760 can never really replicate. Yeah, well even if you're but 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:41.040 I guess even if you're frying up some soy bacon, 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:43.560 it is going to look like bacon and not say 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:45.640 like a pig's face. Like you can't get a soy 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:50.240 pig face, right, Maybe you can. Maybe it's it's going 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.480 to be a small market that may actually carry that. 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:58.160 They do some pretty funky stuff with it. So this, 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.320 you know, in discussing like why is this creepy? And 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.280 this not you know, uh with the with the HOOFU. 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.320 I mean that really comes down to the basic question 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:10.080 about cannibalism in in nature as a whole, because it's 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:11.800 it's one of those things when you really look at it, 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:14.920 there's kind of like the animal version and then well 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:19.039 there's really only the animal version. Yes, well, but but 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.320 on top of the animal version, um, and this is like, 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:24.800 you know, as cannibalism relates to just any kind of 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.640 creature you might find might find that practices it, and 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:30.920 a lot of animals practice it. Um. If you layer 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:35.440 human culture and human society and our complex web of 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:38.280 emotions and values on top of that, it just really 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:40.839 complicates the matter and you get into this this area 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:44.520 where cannibalism is really this. I mean, it's just you know, 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:48.719 it's it's an outrageous thing. It's like it raises outrage 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:50.919 from people for us to would like to think that 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:55.120 we have morals and uh, social values and we all 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:57.480 cooperate with each other, we try not to eat each 0:04:57.520 --> 0:05:00.800 other humans. Yeah. Yeah, I found this great quote from 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:05.920 Tom Sorel from the University of Birmingham and he said, quote, 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:10.040 in intellectual history, cannibals stand for alien and exotic human being, 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.960 specimens of our species who realize it's the darkest possibilities, 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:18.599 usually in places far removed from civilization cannibalism. Cannibalism both 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:25.120 expresses natural law and and contravenes it. So right, so 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:28.480 there that there's the rub right, yeah, and it happens 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:32.600 in nature and it's perfectly natural. They're right, and yet 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:34.960 we can't help but WinCE a little bit. Yeah. You 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.240 here that you know, if you start hearing that somebody's 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:40.440 like certain grinding up corpses, you know, to serving the restaurant, 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:42.960 people just get outraged. There's a great money Python skit 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:47.080 where it involves like grinding up corpses and and and 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:49.440 feeding it to people, and it's like the they break 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:51.680 the fourth wall and like the the audience just starts 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:55.880 throwing things. You know. It's it's it's that outrageous a concept, right, right, 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.240 you want to know where your meat pie came from? Yeah, 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:02.719 it's very like say, it's very widespread in the animal kingdom, 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:07.000 and it is a major mortality factor in the biology 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:10.880 of numerous species. So we're going to sort of walk 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:12.880 through the We're not really gonna go with pros and cons, 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:14.279 but first of us, we're gonna look at the case 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.919 for cannibalism in nature and some of the ways that 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:20.600 it's practiced, and then then we're gonna look at the 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:23.960 case against And for the most part, we're gonna avoid 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:30.240 the whole question of cannibalism um within the larger human institution. 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.680 But we do have an excellent article on the website 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.320 by Josh Clark about that, so I highly recommend checking 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:37.719 that out if you want to get more into the 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:42.320 you know, the serial killer cannibal topics, right and no 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:48.400 cannibalism all the different types of cannibalism that exists. All right, So, um, 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:50.320 the big thing for me when I when I was 0:06:50.440 --> 0:06:52.479 researching this is it a lot of it really comes 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:57.880 down to energy, right, because if you're an organism on 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.400 this planet, unless you're a plant that's generating a lot 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.479 of its energy from photo through photo since this um 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:06.840 and even that, you're not not all the energies necessarily 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:09.440 coming from the Sun. But for the rest of us, 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:13.680 we're having to consume other little bundles of energy to 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:16.240 to keep our energy going. So we're having to eat 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:20.320 other organisms. Now we might we might not eat um, 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:22.920 you know, we might only eat plants, or we might 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:26.080 only eat animals, but we're having to eat something. So 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.680 it's this constant. This is huge pyramid you know of 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:35.560 of predators preying on other forms of energy. And even bugs. 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:37.760 Let's not discount bugs. Some people eat bugs and they 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.320 like them quite a bit. Well, they're supposedly quite good. 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:42.000 I've never had one. Have you had a bug? No? No, 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:45.400 But it's I think it's a street food Vietnam. Yeah, 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.920 suppose there was supposedly some in Thailand. I didn't get 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:49.520 to try it when I was there. Ye supposed to 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.760 be incredibly nutritious. Yeah, I tried if I if I 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:55.840 had the chance, But it's never offered on you know, 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:58.920 the local menus. No, you're Nelanta where the palm outa 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:01.680 bug salads? I don't know, you'll have to start a 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:04.360 food truck based on that. So, like we said, the 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:06.920 it all comes down to energy, it comes down to predation, 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:11.160 and cannibalism is basically a pet predator prey interaction within 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:14.440 a species. So it's well a member of this species 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.480 preying on a member of another of the same species. So, 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:19.280 like you know, when you get into the discussions of 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:23.800 odd did you know humans eat the handerthals and deniahnderthals 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:27.320 eat humans. That's not really cannibalism. It's kind of creepy, 0:08:27.320 --> 0:08:29.800 but it's still it's it would be two different species 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:32.800 eating each other or one you know, that's that's a 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.480 whole separate podcast there. Okay, but like me eating you 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:40.360 same species? Right, yeah, don't worry, but let's hope it 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.680 doesn't come to that, right. So there are different types 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:48.280 of cannibalism, right, So there's um something called sibilicide. Yes, 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.000 this is the most commonly seen in the sand tiger 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:55.920 shark um and this is a situation where the animal 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.800 has to uteri and each one produces a number of eggs, 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:04.000 and but each each litteral yields just two pups, one 0:09:04.040 --> 0:09:08.640 for each udreus. Okay, so there's some competitiveness there. Yeah, 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:12.760 these the little embryos have embryonic teeth. So you have 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.440 all these little you know, unborn brothers and sisters in there, 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:17.760 and it's, uh, it's kind of like a It's like 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:20.360 each one is like a battle royale of you know, 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:22.040 who's going to be the toughest. So it's slay just 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:23.880 kind of you know, chopped down on each other. And 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.160 the end of it, you have one shark pup left standing. 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:31.360 Huh okay, and so they're hungry, they've got teeth. Um. 0:09:31.400 --> 0:09:35.440 It actually reminds me of Dwight Shrewt from the Office. Um. 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:38.040 I don't know if you ever watch I do watch it. 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:40.400 I don't remember the quote. Yeah, he said that he 0:09:40.480 --> 0:09:43.640 actually absorbed his own twin brother, so he therefore had 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.000 the strength of a man and a baby. Yeah. So 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:48.640 I guess it would be like the Dwight Shoots of 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:50.520 the animal world. Yeah, yeah, you could. You could think 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:54.040 of this as the shoot factor. So so the so 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:57.680 these two uh stantire sharks end up emerging with the 0:09:57.720 --> 0:10:02.319 strength with it, with a very like veracity to help them, 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:06.280 you know, ensure their survival. Yeah, approximately fourteen species are 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.719 of shark or thought to practice some form of this cannibalism, 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:11.960 but the santiger shark is the It's the one that 0:10:12.000 --> 0:10:16.560 we've studied the most and we have the most down on. Um. Now, 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:20.559 you know, one of the things to keep in mind 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:25.079 about procreation in the animal kingdom is that, especially sexual reproduction, 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:29.920 it's like a huge energy um uh waste, not necessarily waste, 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:33.440 but let's say instant investment, a huge investment because just 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:35.880 look at humans for instance, think of all the energy 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:40.320 that goes into sexual selection, you know, whole products, you know, 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.920 people especially. You know, how much time do teenagers waste 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:46.439 on sexual selection? Enormous amount of time. They don't know 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.440 how they get anything done, and how do they study? 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:53.720 I know, apparently they don't, but I don't know. I 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.680 guess they do. But anyway, energy for the sex act itself, 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.400 then there's then on the mother's part, there's the energy 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.959 to bring the offspring to term, the energy to give birth, 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:05.319 and then the energy to raise the child till it 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.720 can fend for itself. Because the genetic mission is basically 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:13.120 create another, um, you know, another creature, replicate your DNA, 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:16.360 replicate the DNA, keep that strand of DNA going, and 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:19.320 then you know, put this new product on the market 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:21.839 and let it, you know, carry on on its own, right, Right, 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.200 It's all these niceties like playing it um, you know, 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:28.320 mose art in the uterus aren't necessarily their focus, right, 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:30.840 just get it out there, get it going. But you know, 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:32.640 in a way it's like make sure it's like the best, 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:36.240 you know, the best possible. Uh. And instead of eating 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:38.440 of the sharks in the womb, is you know, potentially 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:43.000 listening to Mozar, right yeah? So um, I also like 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:46.280 to think of think of this in terms of of 0:11:46.360 --> 0:11:49.679 like a business, like if if how stuff works, sort 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:52.719 of launch like a like some sort of separate entity 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.840 like I don't know, um, how crabs work or something 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.959 like we're gonna do a site is just about crabs, 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:01.120 and we're like, this is gonna be it's gonna be 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:03.200 like how stuff works, except it's only gonna focus on crabs. 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:05.760 Is we would be kind of like the company's offspring, right, 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:09.679 so be like all crabs all the time, crab fashions, 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.560 crab recipes, crab science, but the but the but the 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.000 existing business has a certain amount of energy already tied 0:12:15.000 --> 0:12:17.680 out into it. That's a number of employees, right, So 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.400 let's say, well, okay, we're gonna have one one employee 0:12:20.400 --> 0:12:22.400 go out to be the editor of this new side, 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:24.440 and another to be the writer, another to be the 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:28.000 marketing guide, another to be the you know, the programmer, etcetera. 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:30.000 All the things that can make it what it is 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:33.720 and it has to and where it's like forming this 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.720 new entity of itself. Right, So it's this this huge 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:40.800 energy and h this huge energy investment, and if that 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:44.360 doesn't work, then one of two things are going to happen. 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.960 Either all those people are gonna lose their jobs or 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:50.280 they're going to be absorbed back into the parent company, 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.440 or at least that's my my understands, they're gonna be shrewded. Yeah, 0:12:53.440 --> 0:12:57.160 they're gonna be shrewded. So that leads us to another 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:01.080 type of cannibalism that's pretty calm, really very common, and 0:13:01.120 --> 0:13:03.840 that's the eating of one's own young, which again is 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:06.040 one of these kind of like terrifying type of things. 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:11.080 There's the classic image, is it Chronus the god? Yeah, 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:14.720 eating his own son, I think so yeah, and then 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.120 like then I'm I'm a little shaky in this particular 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.040 story from mythology, but there's a famous painting of it, 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:23.920 and there's I think Zeus like was able to like 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:26.280 somebody snug Zeus away by putting a rock in there 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.840 so that so that he would eat the rock instead 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:32.200 of baby Zeus, of course, because Zeus was all about 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:38.000 killing the young, his young. Yeah, so um So anyway, 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:40.360 it's it's another sort of terrifying idea. You know that 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:42.440 the oh my goodness, the mother is the lifebringer and 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.000 then you know, and if you've ever had hamsters or 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:48.000 or any other you know, kind of animal like that 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.320 that ends up killing it's young and or eating them, 0:13:50.480 --> 0:13:53.480 it can be kind of a terrifying moment. But it 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.240 makes a lot of sense from an energy standpoint, right, 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.920 from a survival basic Yeah. There, you know, there's energy 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:03.480 has been expanded to create these uh, these new creatures 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:07.880 and their calories wrapped up in them, so you bring 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:10.319 them back into the fold, right right, Okay, Well I'm 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.640 actually thinking too, um sort of related to that, there's 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:18.480 the masked booby, which is air. Yes, I knew it. 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.520 I knew I couldn't just say masked booby, Yeah you've 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:25.160 got you can run these Yeah, I've got to give 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:29.520 you a hint there. But um, okay, So getting that aside, 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:33.560 the masked booby is actually a bird and it's indigenous 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:37.200 to the Galopico silence. And uh, that's a case where 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:40.520 the parents it's a case of stib eating right there. 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.840 There are two siblings, um, but that's a case where 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:46.800 the parents actually step in and they encourage them to 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:51.400 kill one of the other off. Yeah, and they actually 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:54.640 that the odds are stacked, um in favor of their eldest. 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:58.520 So it's sort of like a kid to getting them 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:01.000 into a match and seemed like a can fight and 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.760 seeing who's going to come out best. And the reason 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:06.200 for that is the very same, which is, you know, 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.160 you want to put all your effort into the sibling 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:12.360 that's going to survive and has the best chance of 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:17.560 carrying on. It's I mean, it sounds harsh, but so 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.120 anybody out there that is in kind of a blue 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.760 family type situation where they feel like their mom and 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:27.760 or dad are stirring competition, uh, just be glad that 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:29.800 they're not encouraging you to kill and eat each other. 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:35.400 Be glad that you're not a masked pooby. Yes, um, 0:15:35.440 --> 0:15:37.000 but just to give you an idea of how many 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:40.520 different animals engage in this, and it's also you also 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:45.320 see uh. For instance, sharks will practice um uh the eating. 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:48.320 They'll end up eating eggs that haven't been fertilized. Um. 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:50.960 And sometimes the eggs will be eating that have been fertilized. 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:54.480 But you'll see you'll see this form of catabalism in protozoa, 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:59.280 sly molds, sea slugs, insects, spiders, fish, reptiles. They've they've 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:04.120 observed it in dinosaur fossils, um bats, seals, sea lions, otters, 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:09.280 polar bears, even otters, Yes, the cute little otters. Imagine one, 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:13.360 you know, cannibalizing another. It's we're eating it's young. It happens. 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:17.359 It never shows up in the cute pictures. But tigers, chimpanzees, 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.800 you know, amphibians, at least a hundred species of mammals 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.800 and all, and of course hamsters well yeah, yeah, they're 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:26.560 most known for it. Don't tap on the glass, which 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:29.560 leads us to the some of the reasons. Um, you know, 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:32.720 why would a mother hamster suddenly decide that she needs 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:36.120 to slay all her offspring and eat some of them. 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:38.600 I don't know, maybe she had way too many and 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:42.680 that's too much energy to expand on abroad that big. Yeah, 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.360 it's kind of like, if you, you know, to use 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.680 the sort of clunky business analogy from earlier, it's like, 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:52.080 if you suddenly created this enormous side project with way 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.800 too many employees, You're like, WHOA, this is gonna fail. 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:56.640 This doesn't make it make sense. It's not gonna bring 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:59.000 in enough money on its own to support that, So 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.240 we gotta we gotta bring some, if not all, of 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:03.880 these employees back into the fold. Yeah. Yeah, and some 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:06.399 of them too if they're if they're born with um 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:09.520 a disease or they're not quite up to part Isn't 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:13.120 that another reason that sort of call down the broad 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:15.919 is to take out the ones that are the weakest 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:19.320 and and use them for energy for everybody else. Yeah, 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:22.920 Like a female rattlesnakes, for instance, will consume on average 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:28.679 about of their postpartum math um. Mostly these are going 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:31.720 to be still born or just non viable offspring. So again, 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.880 it's like they have all these offspring, it's all about like, 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:37.960 let's keep the species going, let's keep the DNA going. 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:39.919 You're gonna want to invest in the ones that are 0:17:39.920 --> 0:17:42.439 the best candidates. I mean, you know, it's disgusting to us, 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.359 but it really is practical if you think about it. Yeah, 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:48.640 if you take the anthropomorphic nests out of it, Yeah, 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:50.840 it's like, you know, it's the basics, the basic mission, 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:54.760 the genetic mission, and the the the energy logic tied 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:57.600 to it. And you if you strip away all the 0:17:57.760 --> 0:17:59.639 layers that human culture has put on top of it, 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:02.119 and yeah, it's it makes perfect sense, you know, just 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:05.119 as a as a side observation or question. I was 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:07.160 thinking about this, and I was thinking about mammals who 0:18:07.200 --> 0:18:12.879 eat their placentas after birth, and I'm wondering if they 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:18.119 ever cannibalize they're young, if maybe eating carried well No, 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:21.960 I'm wondering if maybe the eating the placenta actually um 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.680 serves the need of of eating some sort of protein 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.400 and getting some energy source back, and and instead of 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:31.159 eating their young, they eat I think would make it 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:33.480 would make perfect sense. I don't know. I that's a question. 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:35.400 If anybody knows the answer to that that I would 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:40.760 love to know. Um. Another great example of this comes 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:45.919 in innovasive cane toads in Australia. And these are just 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.159 some These are some some crazy animals because you'll have 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.639 a small and medium size but not large cane toads 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:56.880 and they'll wave a long middle toe off their hindslet 0:18:56.960 --> 0:18:59.480 up and down in the water and they're doing this 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:04.240 to to to catch other toads. And then the cane 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:07.199 toad larvae will actively seek out toad eggs of the 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:09.840 same species to eat. So there's just like a lot 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:13.080 of cannibals and going on in cane totes in fact um. 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:16.560 And again they're invasive and they're a huge problem in Australia. 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:20.200 And uh they they found a two thousand tents study 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:24.920 found that this was actually uh encouraging them to spread, 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:28.080 because a mother toad would end up, you know, wanting 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:31.760 to lay her eggs in a virgin um a pond 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:35.560 or or a little stream or whatever just to encourage 0:19:36.240 --> 0:19:39.520 just just to protect it from other cane toads. So 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:41.919 it's like you know, your it just ends up. You know, 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:44.960 we gotta find new water, new water to uh for 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.040 these eggs to developments so they're not eaten by all 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:50.280 the other cane totes. But they think that that they 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:55.679 might be able to to draw the chemical that the 0:19:55.720 --> 0:20:00.240 eggs shed, that that that attracts the other cane toads, 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.680 and use that as some sort of a bait. It's 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.120 like a pheromone or something. Yeah, yeah, it's similar to that. 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:07.800 I just can't get over the image of like all 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:12.960 these toes pointing over the water like super nice swimmers. Yeah, sure, 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:15.439 that's happening. All right, We're gonna take a quick break 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:27.760 and when we come back, more cannibalism. See, we could 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:31.320 keep going and just listing all sorts of weird and 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.800 gross tesque examples of mothers eating their own young, but 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.680 we should probably move on into another fascinating area of cannibalism. 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:43.120 Uh and definitely a sexier area of cannibalism, Sexual cannibalism. 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:45.879 Oh yeah, which sounds like a great, great name for 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:48.600 a band if it is not used already. To drawback 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:50.480 to a to an example that we brought up in 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:54.160 a previous podcast or one about Ladies Night on Planet 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:58.160 Earth about the role that the male has in any 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:02.600 given species, we mentioned the uh, the brown and tecanus, 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:08.040 which is also known as mclahy's marsupial mouse. And this 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:09.760 is the male that mates for twelve hours at a 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.679 time and eventually he hunts himself to death. Uh, and 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:15.800 then he's his mouth. He's not another mouth to feed 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:18.480 through the winter. Like the species can then just focus 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:21.840 on the mother raising the young. All the men are dead, 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:24.480 uh you know until next season. Yeah, I think maybe, 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:26.960 so that he's that's sort of relegated to like being 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:31.080 the pool boy for the female. So that being the case. 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:35.480 Sexual cannibalism occurs when the female eats her mate daring 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:39.200 or immediately after the sex act, which happens a lot. 0:21:39.359 --> 0:21:41.320 Yeah apparently. And and again it's like if you look 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:46.119 at the male as merely a mutation necessary for a 0:21:46.119 --> 0:21:49.760 sexual reproduction, he doesn't necessarily have a lot of use 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:54.000 after that that sexual encounter. So again that's that's energy 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:56.920 has just wasted. So it reminds me of like when 0:21:56.920 --> 0:22:00.199 a company brings on contract workers for a project that 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:02.600 has a like a short term goal. Feel like, we 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:04.880 need to get this project done, but we don't want 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:06.880 to like hire six guys and then have to pay 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:10.520 them or and gals and have to pay them benefits, etcetera. 0:22:10.920 --> 0:22:12.879 So let's just bring them on his contract workers and 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:14.960 then in six months we're done. So it's kind of 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:17.399 like the mail. In these cases, it's a contract worker 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:20.760 and at the when they're not needed anymore, they're let 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:24.240 go and they're they're submitting themselves to this process willingly 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:28.760