WEBVTT - Tail as Old as Time: Part 1 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:13.720 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:13.720 --> 0:00:16.520 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. So, Robert, 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:18.680 I've got a question for you. Okay, shoot, I know 0:00:18.760 --> 0:00:21.360 you've heard the old would you rather be able to 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.720 fly or be able to turn invisible question? What's your 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:28.120 answer to that? But it's always been invisible? Yeah, that's 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:30.600 the creep's answer. Well, it's the creepy it's you know, 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:32.879 it's the observer's answer. It's this, it's the student of 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:36.440 human behavior's answer. Because if I'm flying around looking at stuff, 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:38.919 I'm going to be scaring wildlife. You know, people are 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.760 gonna be staring up at me, and tripped traffic accidents 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.199 are gonna occur. But if I've invisible, and if I'm 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:46.919 invisible and I play it safe and I you know, 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:50.120 and ethnically, then you know, I get to observe the 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:52.560 world as it goes about its business. You know. Another 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:56.480 advantage there is that flight can easily be achieved with technology, 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:59.600 but there's no way to become invisible technologically, So that's 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:02.280 the really more magical power. But what I was gonna 0:01:02.320 --> 0:01:06.319 ask you is would you rather have wings or a 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.480 prehensile tail. This is interesting because I was I was 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:12.560 actually blogging about this a little bit yesterday. I was 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:16.559 looking into because there's a particular plastic surgeon, Joseph Rosen, 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:20.160 who's a real real trends that are real, real, just 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.800 amazing intellect in the world of plastic surgery, does a 0:01:22.840 --> 0:01:27.000 lot of actual real life work with facial reconstruction and 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.240 wounded warriors. But he's also a trans humanist, so he's 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:32.360 he's written a lot about the not only can we 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:34.360 do all these things, we should do them. We will 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.080 get to the point where we add tails and wings. Well, 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.600 I was coming at this from a somewhat magical perspective 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:43.440 because I don't think humans would necessarily be able to 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:46.520 fly even if they had wings, because we're just too dense, right, 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.279 you would, They're like, our beings are much more dense 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:54.200 than birds. Yes, now, there are theoretical ways to transform 0:01:54.240 --> 0:01:57.360 the human arm into a bird's wing, and it's would 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:01.080 be a lengthy surgical process, and then they still wouldn't 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:02.800 be able to support you and fly. You would have 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:08.040 to have additional uh tissue, perhaps clone tissue or vat 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.280 grown tissue that would be used to to graft on 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.280 and create the size of wings necessary to fly. And 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.079 then of course you still wouldn't have any arms. You 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.160 would just have like the large bat wings. So I mean, 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:23.400 along those lines, I would probably go with the tail 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:27.040 because it would it would change my life less dramatically. 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:30.800 Now would it be more horrifying to not have hands 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.000 at all and just have wings like a bird, or 0:02:33.080 --> 0:02:36.560 to be like a bat and basically have gigantic hands 0:02:36.600 --> 0:02:38.840 that you can't really use as hands but you can 0:02:38.880 --> 0:02:43.680 still see some finger bones in there. Um, well, they're both. 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:46.840 They're both fine choices. But wait a minute. This episode 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.040 isn't about wings. It's about tails. That's right. We're talking 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.280 about tails specifically in this episode, about animal tails, and 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:55.359 then there's gonna be a second episode when we talk 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:58.200 about the absence of tails for the most part in 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.240 human beings. Okay, so did you come down one way 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.800 or another? Wings or tails? Definitely tails. You'd rather have 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:07.680 a prehensile tail than wings, yes, I mean especially it 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:10.919 was a nice functional tale that, you know, the prehensile 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.120 tale that I could utilize in my daily environment. It 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:15.600 wouldn't just be about you know, keeping flies away from me. 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.160 I've always thought a prehensile tail would be most useful 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:22.400 to a musician. Yeah, you know, playing a musical instrument, 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:24.400 that's when you really wish you had more hands. Yeah, 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:26.480 if you're a one man band, you could you could 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.960 really use that extra appendage, right that that's for your 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:34.880 double bass drum pedal. Yeah, so before we got one 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.520 man death metal band? Not but what would it be? 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.840 Speed metal, thrash metal? Who uses the double bass pedal? 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:47.160 It's two technical question for me. But you know, when 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:49.400 when it comes to tales, and you know we're already 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.960 talking about semi fictional accounts. But but I say a 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.200 few examples that come to my mind that make me 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.400 also I want to want to go into the prints 0:03:57.400 --> 0:04:00.480 off to the prehensile tail direction versus the wing direction. Um. 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:06.080 I think of Minos from Dante's Inferno, who has this 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:10.240 enormous serpentine tail, and when you have a new arrival 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:14.560 in Hell, he wraps this tail around you and he 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:17.479 is able to determine which level of the Inferno you're 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:21.360 bound for based on how many coils wrap around your body. 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:24.200 Now I can't remember. Does this also go into sorting 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.320 the virtuous Pagans or is this only once you're definitely 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.080 in the hell part. I think this is more about 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:33.400 like definite hell as opposed to the the the limobile 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:36.039 page Pagans and limbo on the outside. Yeah, this is 0:04:36.120 --> 0:04:38.280 your inhale. Help now we need to get you where 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:41.040 you go. And Minos is in charge of sorting it. Well, 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:44.560 that's a smart tale. Another one that comes to mind 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.800 is u Calabos from Clash of the Titans, the old 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:53.200 Clash of the Titans Harry Hamlin duking it out version. 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:55.960 I assume you've seen this classic film, you know, I 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.920 have to admit I actually have not said this is 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:03.280 this is some ray he Housing claimation. Yeah, fabulous, fabulous claimation. 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:05.840 I love that stuff. And I've never seen this movie. 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:07.880 I think I've seen the scene where the where the 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.359 Titan comes to life is a huge statue of that 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:13.960 from Clash of the Titan. Well, there's the kracking. This 0:05:14.040 --> 0:05:18.440 one has the Kraken, it has Medusa Pegasus, that little 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:23.640 mechanical owl. Of course, Calibus, who's this um, this character 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:26.880 who's twisted by the gods into this sort of caliban 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.760 esque creature with horns and a demonic face. And then 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:33.560 a long swinging tale. That's great. We'll have to watch it. 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:37.200 I love the Harry Housing sin Bad movies. Great creatures, 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:40.000 those are wonderful. Yeah, there's one that has um what's 0:05:40.040 --> 0:05:42.200 his name? That went imp be doctor who or the 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.680 the doctor and Doctor who? Rather um the class. Oh 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.560 I don't know, yeah, Tom Baker, Tom Baker? Yeah, which 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:50.120 one is it? I don't know. I saw it a 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:52.800 like a drive in event once and it was It's 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:55.080 fabulous because you get to see him as a dark sorcerer. 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.920 Oh that's great. Um. One other fictional tale creature that 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.440 I want to mention because it's it's played a role 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.200 in my life a lot recently is the Chippendale mup 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:07.200 from Dr Seus's Sleep Book. I don't know what you're 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:09.600 talking about. Oh, well, this is This is a fabulous 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:12.640 Dr Seuss book in that it just takes the soon 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:17.080 hopefully to be a sleep child through this dreamland. Um 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.080 or so I guess this awaking dreamland and all these 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:23.000 creatures are going to sleep. And the the overall argument is, hey, 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:24.440 look at all these things that are going to sleep. 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:28.240 You should join this crew in slumber. And the Chippendale 0:06:28.560 --> 0:06:31.400 um up is this character who quote, his tail is 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.120 so long, he won't feel any pain till the nip 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:36.880 makes the trip and gets round to his brain. So 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:39.920 what happens is this, Um, this creature bites it's exceedingly 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.000 long tail right before it goes to sleep, so that 0:06:43.040 --> 0:06:45.520 the pain will travel all the way through the tail 0:06:45.600 --> 0:06:48.640 and travel eight hours all the way around and back 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.160 up the spinal column hit his brain, and then he'll 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:54.599 feel the pain and wake up. And I recently crunch 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.920 the numbers on this, and if I'm correct, for this 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:01.040 to work, based on the speed at which pain travels 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:04.400 through a nervous system, uh, the tail would need to 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.960 be about a thousand and eight kilometers or six six 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:10.680 miles long. So that's enough. That's so if the thing 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:13.320 we're laying out straight in the Western United States, it 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.119 could lay with its nose in Seattle, Washington into tail 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:21.120 in Sacramento, California. Wow. Yeah, I have absolutely nothing to 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:26.120 add to that horrifying children's story. Yeah. Um, beyond that, 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.320 I mean, the only other fictional tail that that instantly 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:32.119 comes to mind is, of course the xenomorph tail uh 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:36.440 from Alien and Aliens creature that every every part of 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:38.400 the creature is a is a weapon, and of course 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:41.080 its tail is a rather cinematic weapon as well. Yeah, 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:43.680 it's a it's a barbed spear. If you look at 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:45.760 it, it it looks like it was designed to get stuck 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:48.559 in you. And one thing I have to notice about 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.119 that tail. It never seems like you see the tail coming. 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.200 It's always suddenly poking out of your torso and you're 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:56.760 looking down at it. And why did this happen? Yeah, 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.880 it had whips it around and then right through you. 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.560 But those are fictional tales. We should, uh, we we 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:07.600 should start by just talking about the very basics here, 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.679 the basics of tales. Yeah, for example, what is a tail? 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.880 What is the essence of a tail? It's uh, it's 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.520 a harder question than then you then you, you know, 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:21.360 because when you first think of it, especially from a 0:08:21.440 --> 0:08:24.400 vertebrate standpoint, you think, well, that's just the other end 0:08:24.440 --> 0:08:27.280 of of the vertebrae, right, that's the the tail end 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:29.440 of the verb. It's almost indifficult to think about tails 0:08:29.480 --> 0:08:32.319 outside of our language of tales. Yeah. And an interesting 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:35.840 fact is that even animals that don't have tails as 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.560 an adult often show a tale at some stage of 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:42.320 their development. So a frog might not have a tail, 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.160 but the tadpole that became that frog had a tail. 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:48.600 You might not have a tail, but when you were 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.120 in the womb as an embryo, you had a tail. 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:55.720 That's right. And then it it simply goes away, usually 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.880 before we're born. Usually we'll get to that, I guess 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:02.720 in the next episode. Yeah, it gets reabsorbed by the body, right, Yeah, 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.440 So tales are a huge deal with vertebrates. We just 0:09:06.480 --> 0:09:11.040 happen to belong to rather exclusive club of creatures that 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:13.680 do not have tales. Uh. And likewise, you look at 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:17.160 the invertebrate world and tons of fascinating tales there as well, 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:21.079 that exist without the necessity of underlying vertebrate. Now, if 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.360 you're an invertebrate and you have whatever we would call 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:29.080 a tale, is that technically a tale or not? Yeah, 0:09:29.200 --> 0:09:32.480 it's a It's a more difficult question than than you think, 0:09:32.520 --> 0:09:34.600 you know when you start, especially when you look at 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:37.560 some of the specific examples that we're going to roll through. 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.520 Um uh, you know, particularly with a scorpion, like trying 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:42.840 to forget where this tail came from and how it 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:48.360 uh eventually evolved into this rather curious form. Now, when 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.800 in discussing tales, you basically have two types. There's kind 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:53.440 of and you can sort of think of this as 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:57.760 non functional or barely functional tales versus functional and highly 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:01.240 functional tales. So the first thing I've got to ask 0:10:01.280 --> 0:10:04.280 about before we get into these vertebrate tales is what 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:06.920 is going on with the scorpion? Because I love I 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.880 love aragnids, and I love scorpions. When I was a 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:13.040 little kid, my dad one time took a trip to 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.440 Arizona and when he came back, he had one of 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:18.880 those one of those tourists you know, gifts that that 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.480 is a scorpion inside a piece of glass. Oh yeah, 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.560 And he he gave this to me, and I used 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:26.720 to just stare at it, thinking like, this is the 0:10:26.720 --> 0:10:30.680 coolest thing on planet Earth. Where where does this tail 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:34.880 come from? Why is it so cool? Well, it's a 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:37.200 it's interesting because of course what you what you have 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.280 here when you're looking at a scorpion, you have a segmented, 0:10:40.320 --> 0:10:43.599 curved tail that's tipped in a venomous stinger which he 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:47.400 uses for self defense, but also against prey that's large 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:49.520 or feisty, like if they're if they're coming up against 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.360 something small, they'll often just use their claws and not 0:10:52.440 --> 0:10:57.040 even employ the stinger um. And about twenty five different 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.840 species of scorpion possessed of venoms capable of killing a human, 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:03.800 and the rest have venoms that are not that potent. 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:06.440 But of course, you know, allergies and whatnot can play 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:09.760 into reactions. Uh. Now, the interesting thing about scorpions is 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:12.760 that their body is a very old design. It's changed 0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:15.520 little over the past four hundred million years, and they 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:21.240 probably evolved from the long extinct sea scorpions. Oh, the euryptorids. Yeah, 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:23.800 the eureptroids. Those are the huge ones, right, Like you 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:26.880 see the fossils of those, and it's just astounding. The 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:31.360 biggest people and uh, the sea scorpions. They also featured 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:35.480 a segmented tale that ended in at least a spike. Now, 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.480 it's difficult, perhaps even impossible, to know if these were 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:43.199 venomous or non venomous. It's likely that they used to 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.480 use them for propulsion or balance steering swimming, and that 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:50.000 it just eventually evolved into a venomous weapon over time. 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:53.400 This is one of the interesting stories about evolution because 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:59.360 you see this primeval tale emerging in many older forms 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.120 of life. Where they've got some kind of appendage coming 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.679 out the back of their body. But there are so 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.480 many different evolutionary routes this tail could go down in 0:12:08.480 --> 0:12:11.199 in later development. Uh, And I guess that's what we're 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:13.680 going to be exploring in in this episode of the podcast. 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.920 Today is like eighteen roads diverged in a yellow wood, 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.960 and depending on which one you picked, you might have 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.360 a tail that communicates your emotions, or a tail that 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.199 stabs your prey and injects venom, or a tail that 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:32.200 helps you climb trees, or who knows what I mean. 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.320 There are tons of things you can do with a 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:36.960 part of your body that you don't necessarily have to 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:40.720 use for walking or propulsion, though some animals do continue 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.520 to use it for that. Yeah, so I definitely challenge 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:48.240 everyone to keep our trans human question in mind as 0:12:48.280 --> 0:12:51.079 we move forward. If you were to to have the 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:54.040 chance to gain a tail, might some of these examples 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:56.320 sweeten the deal for you. I think everybody is just 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.880 going to go with the xenomorph tail and yeah, but 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:02.120 you know, I don't see the xenomorpha doing a lot 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:05.080 of practical things outside of murder with that tale, right, 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:09.480 it must not be that fulfilling to be a xenomore. Well, 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:15.520 you know, fulfillment is a very human classification, right, I'm 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.960 just projecting. I guess well, I think we should first 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.480 talk about prehensible tales in the animal kingdom. If you're 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:24.280 not familiar with what they are, I guess you might 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:26.040 have been a little bit lost so far. But a 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:29.640 prehensible tale is a tale that to some degree can 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:33.880 be used for manipulation and grasping. They're usually divided into 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.920 fully prehensible or semi prehensible tales, depending on what the 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:41.400 animal can do with and you you might think it 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.320 would be really great to have a prehensible tail as 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.080 a human because it'd be like having another hand. You know, 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:49.560 you could just do whatever we were talking about it earlier. 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:52.559 You could play more musical instruments or something like that. 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:55.600 But I also want to ask the question of do 0:13:55.640 --> 0:13:59.240 you really need one? Because when you look at all 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.200 the animals that have prehensile or semi prehensile tails, I 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.400 see a common feature. And this might not be the case, 0:14:06.440 --> 0:14:08.920 but at least in my observation, they all tend to 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:13.079 live in environments that are kind of like a jungle gym, 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:18.000 where there are branches or sea grass or coral reefs. 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:21.400 And if you look at pictures of animals using their 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:25.720 prehensile tails, sometimes they're used for free object manipulation, you know, 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:28.760 scooping up a bunch of something. But the majority of 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:31.560 what I see is animals using the prehensile tail is 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.680 an aid in climbing, or an anchor against some force, 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:38.440 such as hanging from a tree limb, so anchoring against gravity. 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.360 Or how a sea horse uses its tail as a 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:45.800 grasping oregan the latch onto things like coral and anchor 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.040 itself against the tide so it can just sit there 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:50.840 and wait and and do its thing with its head. 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.800 I guess the seahorse doesn't really have hands to work with. Yeah, 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.480 the discussion of a jungle gym like environment, it reminds 0:14:56.480 --> 0:15:01.400 me of Dan Simon's Hyperion Cantos, his sci fi series. 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:05.280 There's a kind of a subspecies of humans or a 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:07.960 branch of humanity known as the Alsters, and they live 0:15:08.040 --> 0:15:12.160 in uh in in in low gravity or zero gravity environments, 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:15.200 and so they're their soldiers particularly will often be seen 0:15:16.440 --> 0:15:21.320 with robotic tales added to their suits to to aid 0:15:21.360 --> 0:15:23.120 in this very kind of environment. Because you're in a 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:26.880 wait list, like you know, shiphole environment. You are essentially 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.480 living in this kind of jungle gym. So we would 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.720 be advantageous in that environment to have a tale. Uh, 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.840 even if it's just a robotic one, a robotic tale, 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:39.880 you know. I think I've seen people have already created 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:44.200 robotic tales. Have you read about these? No, I was looking. 0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:47.360 I've looked at a few different studies that have involved 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:50.920 the biomimicry of say, the sea horse tail. Oh yeah, 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:53.320 but I haven't. I didn't notice in any studies where 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:57.120 anyone's actually fixing this thing under the their posterior. Oh, 0:15:57.160 --> 0:15:59.320 not so much studies. There's something I know we've talked 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:02.880 about in for we're thinking that was it wasn't so 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:05.560 much functional as it was decorative, but it was a 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:09.480 tail that would respond to your emotions. Okay, all right, 0:16:09.800 --> 0:16:12.200 so the tail of the communicator. You could, Yeah, you 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:14.200 could wag your tail like a dog, which we will 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:17.280 get to in a bit. But of course, I I 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:19.400 said at the beginning, what you can do with the 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:22.520 tail if you don't have to use your tail for movement. 0:16:22.760 --> 0:16:25.280 Of course, plenty of animals do still have to use 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:28.080 their tails for movement. They're they're a crucial part of 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:32.720 their locomotion method. We birds, for example, Yeah, I mean snakes, 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:38.240 fish birds in particular, you have a highly specialized tailed, 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:40.640 the feathered tail. The flighted bird contributes to lift as 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:45.200 well as stabilization drag reduction, so it's a very fine 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.040 tune part of their anatomy. Yeah, and of course there 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:50.240 are fish. Animals that live in the water often use 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:54.760 tails for propulsion, generating a paddling motion that pushes against 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:57.400 the water in a way that cancels outside to side 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:00.160 motion but generates net thrust in the forward direct And 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:02.520 in fact, if you've never seen it, you should look 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:07.359 up simulations of fish swimming motions and fluent in fluid 0:17:07.440 --> 0:17:10.040 dynamics simulators. There. I found a couple of videos of 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:15.360 this on YouTube, and it's really interesting seeing the waves 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:18.119 that are generated by the side to side motion of 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.000 a fish's body and tail. As the waves sort of 0:17:21.280 --> 0:17:23.840 starts at the head and then gets bigger and bigger 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:26.440 as it goes back towards the tail, and it generates 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:31.080 this upside down y shape of of directional motion. Oh yeah, 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:33.439 it's like a full body movement as opposed to just 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:35.720 you know, a mechanical fish with the tail that goes 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.919 back and forth from their your bathtub, right, that'd be 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:42.000 more like a I don't know, a side to side propeller. 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:44.000 I guess that's kind of like sculling in a in 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:46.520 a boat, right, if you just wag the rudder back 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:50.760 and forth. Another interesting fact, if you've never noticed, is 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.480 that fish tend to sweep side to side and there swimming, 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:59.119 and marine mammals like dolphins and whales sweep up and down. Uh. 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:01.800 There may be a septions to this, I'm not aware 0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:04.040 of them if there are, but it's an interesting artifact 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:09.280 of the divergent and then subsequently re convergent evolutionary pathways 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:12.280 of fish and marine mammals, so that like the whale tail, 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:15.680 the horizontal whale tail versus the vertical shark tail. Yeah. 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:18.399 Or I guess the more apt of comparison would be 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:21.840 dolphins and sharks, as that is the distinction one is 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.240 often trying to make at the beach in the water. Yeah. 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:26.000 I don't know why it took me so long in 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:28.560 my life to notice this, but I just never noticed 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:30.920 that difference until I think I was at an aquarium 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:35.560 one time and I was looking at the belugas that 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.640 we're swimming through the aquarium, and I was like, what's 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.359 wrong with that thing's tail? Oh, it's just not like 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.880 fish tails, it goes the other way. Yeah. Of course 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.239 we already mentioned that communication is a big deal with 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:49.960 tales and a number of species, and of course what 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:53.719 what manner of communication is more important than than that 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:57.080 involved in courtship? Exactly right, And here we're going to 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:00.359 get to one of the most interesting things I've come 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:02.800 across in in our research about tales, which is the 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:09.679 courtship tail feathers of the p cock. Actually, another pop quiz. 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:13.119 Do you know the generic non gendered term for peacocks 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:16.760 and p hens? No? I don't. It is p foul 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:20.080 foul Okay, that's that's that seems brother neutral. Yeah, I 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:22.560 just thought that was a great word. Fo Yeah, nobody 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:24.560 ever says, let's go look at the p foul though 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:28.720 the peacocks. It's true. Well, it's an unfortunate fact that 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:31.280 nobody cares about seeing the p hens because they do 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:35.640 not have these gigantic, interesting tails. Uh. I'm sure phns 0:19:35.640 --> 0:19:38.360 are wonderful. No, no offense to them, but that they 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:40.679 don't put on a display like this, and that's what 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:43.639 we're gonna talk about here. Another interesting fact, did you 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:46.920 know that what we call the peacocks tail is usually 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.840 not actually it's tail really yeah, most of the time 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:53.520 this thing you see when you think of a peacock, 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:56.840 what we're talking about is it's covert feathers, which your 0:19:56.920 --> 0:19:59.639 feathers that cover the tail feathers. It's also referred to 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:03.320 as a peacock's train. And as you've surely seen before, 0:20:03.400 --> 0:20:06.480 when a when a peacock props up and spreads out 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:11.600 its covert feathers, they formed this gigantic, shimmering, iridescent display 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:15.320 of plumage full of spots that look like eyes, and 0:20:15.359 --> 0:20:17.160 if you want to use a cool word, those eye 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:22.800 spots are called ocelli. I had always read that the 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:26.639 peacocks train was known to be used for mate selection purposes, 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:29.840 though in reading up on this for today's episode, I 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.879 found out that there have been some really interesting questions 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:36.160 and doubts recently thrown into the mix here. But this 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:40.560 is a really interesting story about the complexities of evolutionary 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:44.360 biology and and questioning what we thought we knew. So 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:47.959 there's this mate selection theory of the peacocks train. The 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:50.360 ideas of the most prominent one, this is the one 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:53.679 we've all heard growing up. Yeah, and and Charles Darwin 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:57.600 thought about this. Charles Darwin. If you're Charles Darwin and 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:01.359 you look at a peacock's train, this huge, huge, shimmering, 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:07.200 eyespot covered extravagance, you think, what on earth is this for? 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:10.080 You're you're coming up with this theory of natural selection, 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.439 where organisms that are the most adapted to survive and 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:17.320 reproduce in their environment are the ones that survive. How 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:21.360 do you encourage a trait that's so wasteful and pointless. 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:24.639 I mean, it doesn't it takes energy or resources to 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:28.000 develop a train like this. It doesn't seem to provide 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:30.920 any sort of mechanical survival advantage, So it doesn't help 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.200 the peacock fly higher, or you know, kick with its 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:37.160 spurs harder or something. In fact, it would actually seem 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:41.040 that feathers like this make the peacocks more vulnerable to predators. 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:44.000 So what's the deal. Why would you have something like 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:47.520 this in an animal? So I've actually read several hypotheses 0:21:47.520 --> 0:21:50.560 over the years to explain the the extravagance of the 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:55.320