WEBVTT - What Kind of Animal Is Godzilla? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.400 Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey 0:00:06.440 --> 0:00:11.720 brain Stuff. Lauren Bogabam here. Godzilla has remarkable staying power. 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.120 Movies about giant monsters were a dime a dozen back 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.720 in the nineteen fifties. Yet while atomic aged classics like 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:22.119 The Giant Claw or The Beast from twenty Thousand Fathoms 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:26.960 never garnered any sequels, Godzilla forged on. The Kaiju made 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:30.400 his cinematic debut in nineteen fifty four, and since then 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.199 he starred in more than thirty films spanning six and 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:35.960 a half decades, with his newest debuting in March of 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:42.480 The character's origin story keeps getting rewritten. He's usually said 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.120 to be an irradiated beast of prehistoric origins, but the 0:00:46.159 --> 0:00:51.159 specifics vary from movie to movie. One thing that's remained consistent, however, 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:57.040 is Godzilla's physical toughness. On screen, the Behemoth is practically invincible, 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.600 But have you ever wondered how or if a beast 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.640 with Godzilla's dimensions would function in real life? And what 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:10.360 kind of animal would Godzilla be? Anyway? Before the article 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:12.679 this episode is based on How Stuff Works, spoke with 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.720 Kenneth Carpenter, now a retired paleontologist who was director of 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.200 the Utah State University Eastern Prehistoric Museum when how Stuff 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:24.040 Works spoke with him via email in and he took 0:01:24.040 --> 0:01:27.920 a stab at that second question in essay that he 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:32.720 wrote for the official Godzilla compendium. Traditionally, the monster has 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:37.160 been identified as a therapod dinosaur. All carnivorous dinos like, 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:43.959 for example, Tyrannosaurus rex are classified as therapods sore birds. Now, 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:48.040 Godzilla's skull looks short and blunt for a theopod. He 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:51.000 also tends to be depicted with four fingers per hand, 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:55.120 and he's got multiple rows of bony vertically oriented plates 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:59.320 running down his back and tail. Using these features, Carpenter 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:04.880 tentatively assigned Godzilla to Saratosauria, a primitive theropods subgroup. A 0:02:04.920 --> 0:02:09.920 few Saradasaurians had backs like Godzilla's studied with osteoderms, that is, 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.840 bony deposits embedded in the skin, and certain species had 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:18.120 shortened skulls to boot. And there was another key feature 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.960 that helped the Saratosaurians stand out. A Carpenter explained that 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.720 while some therapods had three, two or even one fingered, 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.760 four limbs. The more primitive subgroups, like the Saratosaurians, had 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:35.320 four or more digits per hand. Hostaff Works also spoke 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:39.360 by email with Victoria Arbor, an armored dinosaur expert who's 0:02:39.400 --> 0:02:43.760 the curator of Paleontology at the Royal British Columbia Museum. 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:47.160 In blog post, Arbor made the case that the King 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:49.440 of the Monsters might not be a dinosaur at all. 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:55.120 Maybe he's got more in common with crocodiles. Crocs, alligators 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:59.480 and their prehistoric kin form a reptilian clade called the 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:04.680 studists suchian. Arbor noted that osteoderms and four fingered hands 0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:07.960 are more commonly seen in pseudosoukians than they are in 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.800 theory pods, so perhaps Godzilla belongs to the former group. 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:16.920 Speaking of digits, let's check out Godzilla's feet. In most 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.680 of the original Japanese movies, the big guy has a 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.680 plant a grade stance that means he walks flat on 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:27.640 his feet like humans. Conversely, digitigrade animals such as dogs 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.560 will walk on their toes while keeping their heels off 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:35.200 the ground. No known dinosaur, theopod or otherwise was similarly 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:41.080 flat footed, Barbora said, living crocodilomorphs are PLANTI grade, but 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:43.360 the jury is still out on whether or not all 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:49.440 pseudosuchians were plant A grade, especially those that were bipeedle. However, 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:54.560 for the American made movie Godzilla's feet underwent a dramatic redesign. 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:58.240 Barbora said, I think you could make the argument that 0:03:58.280 --> 0:04:03.120 Godzilla has hortiselike feet, and many tortoises are also digital 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:05.840 grade in a manner similar to elephants, with a large 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:10.920 heel pad supporting upright toes. She also pointed out that 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:15.200 while quote almost all bipedal dinosaurs only had three weight 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:19.120 bearing digits per foot, this version of Godzilla keeps quote 0:04:19.160 --> 0:04:24.680 at least four toes on the ground. Truly huge land 0:04:24.720 --> 0:04:28.520 animals such as the long necked dinosaurs, have column shaped 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.920 digital grade feet. Those limbs are really efficient. It's supporting 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:36.560 massive body weights, and so if Godzilla was a real creature, 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.920 would probably expect him to have Digital grade hind limbs, 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:44.240 even though study claimed plant to grade animals can swing 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:48.160 their arms more forcefully in combat, and Godzilla sure loves combat. 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:53.000 But it's doubtful that Godzilla could physically walk on dry 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:57.280 land no matter what his feet looked like Hastaff Works, 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:01.479 also spoke via email with paleontologist Donald Anderson. He said 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.000 getting Godzilla to stand upright and still would be a 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.239 complete nonstarter. Its bones would not be able to support 0:05:08.279 --> 0:05:10.520 its body weight, and its heart would be unable to 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:14.440 pump blood to the head. This is mostly due to 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:17.880 what's called the square cube law. But when you scale 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:21.080 an object up, its mass increases more sharply than its 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:24.280 surface area. Double the height, weight and length of a 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:27.080 wooden cube, and you'll also have made the thing eight 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:31.800 times heavier than it was before. But how would Godzilla 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:36.680 fare underwater? Henderson works at Canada's Royal Terrell Museum and 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:42.280 tackles physics related questions about extinct animals. In he used 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:46.160 computer modeling to test the hypothesis that Spinosaurus, a therapod 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.799 with a large sail on its back, was built for swimming. 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:52.599 He found that the deep overall body shape of this 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.800 fin backed animal would have made the dinosaur prone to 0:05:55.839 --> 0:06:00.840 tipping over as it swam. So would Godzilla's osteoderms put 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:04.640 him at the same risk. Henderson doesn't think so, by 0:06:04.680 --> 0:06:09.080 his calculations. The back plates on Stegosaurus Jurassic herbivore who 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:14.320 influenced Godzilla's design, only represented sevent of that dinosaurs overall 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:18.800 body mass. Meanwhile, Godzilla's plates appear to make up an 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.640 even smaller fraction of the kaiju's total mass, and so 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:27.200 Henderson suspects they wouldn't cause him to tip over during swimming. Still, 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:31.360 as a marine animal, Godzilla would face plenty of other problems. 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:35.599 The seagoing creatures tend to be streamlined. With his jagged 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:40.880 osteoderms and chunky legs, Godzilla is anything but Therefore, he 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.560 had need to expend lots of extra energy in order 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:48.280 to propel himself through the water. Henderson explained the best 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:51.159 option for Godzilla to swim would be to undulate its 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:54.760 body and tail to produce waves that travel down the body. 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.440 To think of how crocodiles and salamanders swim. When they 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:00.400 want to move quickly, they fold their arms and legs 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.360 close to the body and use sideways motions to push 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:07.680 back against the water and get a forward thrust. And 0:07:07.800 --> 0:07:10.760 by the way, the semi aquatic behavior was and still 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:15.480 is widespread among the Pseudosyukians. On the other hand, there's 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:19.520 no proof that any non bird therapod was habitually amphibious, 0:07:20.200 --> 0:07:22.600 and yet some of them did take the occasional dip. 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.960 In Utah, there's a series of a hundred ninety million 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:29.600 year old tracks made by therapods whose toes barely scraped 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:34.400 the ground as they swam along. For his part, Carpenter 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:40.320 disagrees with the pseudosuchian identity argument, since therapods could clearly swim. 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:43.600 He thinks godzillas see going ways don't preclude the monster 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.880 from being a bona fide dinosaur. Furthermore, as we've seen 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.240 the Kaiju does share a lot of traits with the seratosaurians. 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:53.920 If he's not a member of that group, then his 0:07:54.000 --> 0:07:58.680 ancestors probably evolved all of those features independently. This scenario 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:03.560 is certainly plausible's a phenomenon called convergent evolution. But Carpenter 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.600 thinks the similarities between Godzilla and therapod dinos are probably 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:12.320 too numerous to be coincidental. The Carpenter said, we already 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.560 know that doctor Yamine, a character from the movie, declared 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:20.240 the original Godzilla a dinosaur, and since he was on site, 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:28.160 I'll take his word. Today's episode is based on the 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.000 article is Godzilla a Dinosaur? On how stuff works dot 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.079 Com written by Mark Mancini. Brain Stuff is production of 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:36.360 I Heart Radio and partnership with how stuff works dot Com, 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.280 and it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts my 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.320 heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:44.200 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.