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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. In today it's

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Speaker 1: not Saturday, but we're bringing you a vault episode. We

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Speaker 1: we missed a day of work this week, and to

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Speaker 1: cover for the time off, we're we're subbing in an

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Speaker 1: episode from last May. This is the one from May

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Speaker 1: I think twenty second called the Mighty star Lack. You

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Speaker 1: can guess what it's about. A creature from tattooed. That's right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is this is really fun when we get into

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Speaker 1: you know, talk a little bit about just sort of

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Speaker 1: the Star Wars lore of the star Lack, but mostly

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Speaker 1: we talked about, uh, stuff in the real world, actual

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Speaker 1: terrestrial organisms that that are kind of parallel to this

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Speaker 1: imagined creature. Now, one thing that that definitely has changed

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Speaker 1: since we recorded this episode is the second episode, I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: the second season of The Mandalorian came out and officially

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Speaker 1: brought Boba Fette back into the live action UM Star

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Speaker 1: Wars canon. So anything that I say in this regarding uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, Boba Fett being dead or if you should

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Speaker 1: stay dead, just take out that with a grainess of salt,

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Speaker 1: because he has come back, and uh he I thought

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Speaker 1: he was awesome, So I'm I'm very much in favor

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Speaker 1: of Boba Fett being alive again. Uh in the live

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Speaker 1: action played by Tamara Morrison, who of course played Django

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Speaker 1: Fat and played all the clones in the prequel trilogy. Now,

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Speaker 1: did we ever decide whether the burp was canon? Um?

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Speaker 1: I guess the burp is still in there, So I

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Speaker 1: guess the Bourp is canon. Yeah, far as I know,

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Speaker 1: nobody's nobody's corrected us on that. Okay, Now I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure where what that says about, you know, about the

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Speaker 1: digestive system of the creature. We still don't know how

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Speaker 1: how Boba Fett escaped. But when he shows up again

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Speaker 1: in uh uh in the Mandalorian, which I believe this

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Speaker 1: is also his first canonical appearance. Um, you know, um

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Speaker 1: after the star Lack incident, he is like visibly scarred up,

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Speaker 1: possibly by like digestive juices. So uh we we still

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Speaker 1: are going to have to await the full story when

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Speaker 1: he gets his own his own series this fall, the

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Speaker 1: Book of Boba Fett. That is the best scar story

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Speaker 1: I've ever heard, you know, that's like the scene in

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Speaker 1: Jaws where they're comparing their scar. I got this, you know,

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Speaker 1: thresher's tail. Uh more, A eel bit me through my

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Speaker 1: wet suit. Oh yeah, well I was partially digested by

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Speaker 1: a giant creature that lives in the ground. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: you know, but Boba plays it cool, so if you

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Speaker 1: were to ask about it, he'd probably like be like,

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Speaker 1: I've gotten a scrape once. Anyway, let's go ahead and

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Speaker 1: jump into it. Then the Mighty Sarlac. And now for traffic,

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Speaker 1: we take you to week Way Ray in the Channel

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Speaker 1: five sky skiff. Hey, Jim, we're pretty clear of sandstorms

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Speaker 1: across much of the dune seed this morning, so that's

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Speaker 1: great news for sky hopper landspeeder traffic. So far, however,

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Speaker 1: we're already seeing a bit of pre boot to Eve

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Speaker 1: classic traffic heading into Moss aspect. Plus, things are dragging

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Speaker 1: to a halt out near the Great Pit of Carcoon

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Speaker 1: and the walt rafts are playing as it looks like

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Speaker 1: the huts are hosting another multi skiff Sarlac offering. Always

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Speaker 1: best to steer clear unless you've got an invite, especially

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Speaker 1: if you've got an invite. All too true. Ray. Now

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Speaker 1: let's check in with Merge surgeon on for a look

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Speaker 1: at this week's solar activity. Looks like we're in for

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Speaker 1: a double helping of solar flares. Welcome to Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey you,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And here we are,

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Speaker 1: finally here in a galaxy far far away. I did

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Speaker 1: not think we would end up doing Star Wars content,

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Speaker 1: especially so close to May fourth, but not on it.

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Speaker 1: Things are getting strange. Yeah, Now, fittingly, we're recording this

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Speaker 1: episode on May the fourth, but that that just benefits

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Speaker 1: the two of us. The listeners are gonna get it

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Speaker 1: a little later. However, since the May the fourth like

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Speaker 1: sales begin before May the fourth, I think it's okay

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Speaker 1: to assume that May the fourth is just generally a

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Speaker 1: a you know, a multi day, even multi week affair

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Speaker 1: in which we celebrate Star Wars. Yeah, it's like Christmas

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Speaker 1: gradually creeps out to the edges. Yeah, the thirty days

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Speaker 1: of May the fourth or what have you. Uh. Now,

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Speaker 1: so you've been going on a Star Wars expedition in

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Speaker 1: your house, right, Yeah? Yeah, we've been watching all the

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Speaker 1: all the movies. We also watched The Mandalorian. I think

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Speaker 1: at this point we've watched everything except the most recent one,

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Speaker 1: and we're going to catch that one tonight because it

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Speaker 1: just dropped on Disney Plus. But yeah, we've been we've

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Speaker 1: been full, full blown into the Star Wars um and

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Speaker 1: it's been It's been pretty fun because I've I think

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Speaker 1: I've been personally been like several different stereotypical Star Wars

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Speaker 1: fans over the years. I was born in seventy eight,

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Speaker 1: so the original trilogy and their associated toys were just

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Speaker 1: a key part of my childhood and uh and just

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Speaker 1: as aspects of their structure were based on you know,

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Speaker 1: archetypes of comparative mythology. You know, these films introduced many

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Speaker 1: of us to some of these mythic energies. So I

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Speaker 1: remember loving these films as a child. I remember lapsing

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Speaker 1: somewhat during what I think of as like the Star

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Speaker 1: Wars Dark Age of the early and mid nineties. I

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Speaker 1: think that's when I was getting like the Star Wars

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Speaker 1: Insider fan magazine. Oh cool, Yeah, and he'd kind of gone,

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Speaker 1: uh underground. I mean, I don't want to say underground,

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Speaker 1: because obviously there was there was still tons of content

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Speaker 1: coming out, and you know, the Expanded Universe and so forth.

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Speaker 1: There were books, there were comics, there were there were games,

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Speaker 1: but it wasn't as as prevalent in the pop culture

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Speaker 1: at that time. But of course it was gearing up

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Speaker 1: because then came, uh, the the prequels, right um uh Now,

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Speaker 1: I I too remember reading some of the Extended Universe stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm getting into that and the like the late nineties.

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Speaker 1: But then we had Phantom Menace, and I remember being

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Speaker 1: first of all, like super excited for it. And then

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Speaker 1: I was a bit of a prequel apologist there for

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Speaker 1: a bit regarding the Phantom Menace, and then I became

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Speaker 1: kind of a snarky fan who focused only on the

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Speaker 1: flaws of the prequel films. And I'd say I didn't

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Speaker 1: fully recover from that until I watched The Mandalorian with

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Speaker 1: my family, uh, and we all loved it. And then

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Speaker 1: we started watching all the films again. And and now

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm leaning into the force. I'm I'm I'm just

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Speaker 1: saying I'm enjoying all of them. I've enjoyed each film

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Speaker 1: that I've watched, and and she really kind of tried

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Speaker 1: to watch them you know, with my son, but also

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Speaker 1: kind of threw his eyes and it's been a blast.

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Speaker 1: What are his favorites? He tells me that his favorites

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Speaker 1: are The Phantom Menace and let's see Phantom Menace and

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Speaker 1: Return of the Jedi, but especially Phantom Menace. He in

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Speaker 1: fact requested that we watched that one again, and so

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Speaker 1: we watched half of it last night. Those It does

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Speaker 1: not escape my attention that those are the two that

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Speaker 1: have the highest quotient of cuteness content they do. They have,

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Speaker 1: They have cuteness, but then also they just have a

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Speaker 1: ton of creatures. And I think that's also key because

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Speaker 1: like The Phantom Menace, most of it takes place on

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Speaker 1: like a dinosaur ridden uh you know planet where there's

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Speaker 1: just you know, monster after monster after monster, and and yeah,

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Speaker 1: you have the comic elements as well, and you have

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Speaker 1: an actual child in it, which I think also is

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Speaker 1: adds to this kind of anchor for younger viewers, going

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Speaker 1: against what I was just saying about cuteness. Obviously, Return

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Speaker 1: of the Jedi is where we get the the e

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Speaker 1: walks the classic Teddy Bear planet. But the first half

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Speaker 1: of Return of the Jedi's just when we rewatched it

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Speaker 1: not too long ago. I was like, man, I loved

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Speaker 1: this wasn't when I was a kid. But the first

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Speaker 1: half of this movie is gross. It is full of

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Speaker 1: like just like like nasty, slimy critters everywhere and and

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Speaker 1: and horrible monsters and uh. And I would say, actually,

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Speaker 1: the thing maybe that stands out the most in my

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Speaker 1: mind is going to be the subject of today's episode,

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Speaker 1: which is the Sarlac. Yes, yes, the Sarlac features heavily

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Speaker 1: into this portion of the film, and it is It's

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Speaker 1: just something that just captures uh. It certainly captures the

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Speaker 1: young imagination, you know, here's this pit, here is this thing.

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Speaker 1: And I think it also played well with the action

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Speaker 1: figures growing up, because you could you could pretty much

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Speaker 1: make a sarlac. There wasn't. I don't think there was

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Speaker 1: a starlac um like action play set or anything, because

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Speaker 1: how wrong you are, really they had one, because I

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Speaker 1: was just thinking you just had you had dirt, you

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Speaker 1: had holes, you had things you could do with like

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Speaker 1: a bedspread, and you had instant Starlac. Robert, I want

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Speaker 1: you to scroll all the way down to the bottom

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Speaker 1: of our notes and have a look at the images

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Speaker 1: I've attached for you. All these would fill you with joy.

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Speaker 1: This comes from a board game that I found evidence

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Speaker 1: of on the internet late last night. I think, uh,

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Speaker 1: it's called Battle at Sarlas Pit. It was released at

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Speaker 1: the same time as the movie, or sometime around the movie,

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Speaker 1: I guess, to help promote it. And it is a

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Speaker 1: It is a board game with a sarlac like a

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Speaker 1: cardboard sarlac cone set up, and then it's got a

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Speaker 1: little barge or skiff on top where it looks like

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Speaker 1: you you. You play with miniatures of Han Solo, Luke, Skywalker, Chewbacca,

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Speaker 1: and I guess maybe that's also supposed to be Leia.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of hard to tell. The miniatures are not

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Speaker 1: super detailed, and you have to fight your way through these,

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Speaker 1: you know, green pig face guards and Boba fette to

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Speaker 1: to confront Jab of the Hut, and I guess if

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Speaker 1: you lose, you fall off into the starlacks mouth. Well

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Speaker 1: that it looks beautiful, I mean, especially the cover art

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Speaker 1: in this box, it's incredible, and in the set itself

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Speaker 1: is is pretty ingenious, especially given the time. I can't

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Speaker 1: obviously I can't speak for the actual gameplay, but it

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Speaker 1: looks intriguing. Yeah, I've never seen this before. Well, I

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Speaker 1: know you're a miniatures guy, so I was wondering if

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Speaker 1: you might end up looking this thing up. I might

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Speaker 1: have to the miniatures. It looks like the miniatures are

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Speaker 1: supplied poorly painted, or perhaps they're supplied unpainted. And what

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Speaker 1: we're looking at here is the work of a child

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Speaker 1: roughly painting. Then I can't tell, but yeah, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: have to look into this more. This this is interesting.

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Speaker 1: If I had known this existed when I was a kid,

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Speaker 1: I would have insisted on it. So I guess we should.

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Speaker 1: We can assume that most listeners have probably seen Return

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Speaker 1: of the Jedi, don't The star Lack doesn't need a

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Speaker 1: lot of explaining, but just to do the very basics,

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Speaker 1: we should explain what happens in the movie. So the

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Speaker 1: role in the plot is you remember our heroes Luke Skywalker,

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Speaker 1: Han Solo Chewbaccah. They are sentenced to death by the

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Speaker 1: gangster Job of the Hut. He's the big slug guy

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Speaker 1: and job Job of the Hut says the method of

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Speaker 1: execution for these three heroes is going to be a

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Speaker 1: kind of alien desert. For version of the pirates walking

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Speaker 1: of the plank, right, you know they're gonna be forced

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Speaker 1: to walk the plank off of this floating barge or

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Speaker 1: this floating boat type thing into this hole in the desert,

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Speaker 1: and the droid C three p o translates job as

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Speaker 1: execution order. He says, you will therefore be taken to

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Speaker 1: the dune sea, this big desert, and cast into the

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Speaker 1: pit of Carcoon, the nesting place of the all powerful Sarlac.

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Speaker 1: In his belly, you will find a new definition of

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Speaker 1: pain and suffering as you are slowly digested over a

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Speaker 1: thousand years. And I'm not gonna lie. That concept haunted

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Speaker 1: me as a child. I was like, slowly digested over

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Speaker 1: a thousand years. Wouldn't it be over sooner than that? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there's this idea that it extends your suffering, that it

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Speaker 1: is to enter into the Sarlac is to kind of

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Speaker 1: enter into an underworld or an afterlife of pain. It's

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Speaker 1: like going to hell. Yeah, yeah, hell of digestion. And

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Speaker 1: I also love how in C. Three pos translation, there's

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Speaker 1: this idea, Yeah, that's that's not only the star Lak,

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Speaker 1: it is the all powerful Sarlac. There's this idea that

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Speaker 1: it is a thing that is revered that it almost

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Speaker 1: has a divine quality to it. And certainly, as we

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Speaker 1: see in the film, it's not something that is defeated.

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Speaker 1: It is not something that is really truly overcome. It

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Speaker 1: is just avoided and escaped at best. Well, it's not

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Speaker 1: really the enemy, right, it's kind of the setting. It's

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Speaker 1: the threat in the setting. It's kind of in the

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Speaker 1: way that in most zombie movies the zombies are not

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Speaker 1: really the enemy. They're more like a hostile environment in

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Speaker 1: which the drama between the characters is set. Usually in

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Speaker 1: the zombie movie, you've got a human villain, and the

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Speaker 1: same is true here. Clearly the villain is Jab of

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Speaker 1: the Hut, not the not the star Lac. And of

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Speaker 1: course so it's very satisfying when when Leah chokes out

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Speaker 1: Jab of the Hut, that's like a great you know,

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Speaker 1: defeat of the villain scene. But there's no need to

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Speaker 1: kill the Sarlac. It's just do in its thing in

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Speaker 1: the desert. That's right. Yeah, there's this It has this

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Speaker 1: quality where the Sarlac is kind of like a pet.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like a pampered pet of of Java,

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Speaker 1: as much like the Rain Corps is that we see

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Speaker 1: earlier in the film, but it also feels like something

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Speaker 1: that is greater than Job and certainly it's something that

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Speaker 1: will will outlive Java. Yeah. So one thing I really

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Speaker 1: liked about this monster when I was a kid um

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Speaker 1: was something about the way that the monster was presented

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Speaker 1: visually the pit of Carcoon and the Sarlac. It was

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Speaker 1: that the monster wasn't just in a pit. The monster

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Speaker 1: was the pit. Uh And and so to explain this

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Speaker 1: a little bit more, it's kind of like a presented

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Speaker 1: visually as a bio geological hybrid, like a cave or

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Speaker 1: a hole in the ground that has tentacle tongues and

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Speaker 1: eats bounty hunters alive. You can't tell where the animal

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Speaker 1: stops and the earth begins. And as a point of comparison,

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Speaker 1: I think I'd used the appeal of like the biomechanical

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Speaker 1: artwork of hr Geiger that and how that influenced the

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Speaker 1: creation of the xenomorph in the Alien films. The xenomorph

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Speaker 1: is basically supposed to be an animal, but it has

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Speaker 1: tons of body features that look like parts of industrial machines.

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Speaker 1: It's an animal made out of tubes and hoses and

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Speaker 1: hinges and pistons, and I think I always thought the

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Speaker 1: Star Lac was cool because it was like this, but

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Speaker 1: with geology instead of machinery. Uh, it's it's a mouth

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Speaker 1: that is the earth. It looks like the teeth are

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Speaker 1: coming out of rock or coming out of the sand.

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Speaker 1: And uh. Of course this is all predicated on the

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Speaker 1: fact that I grew up watching the versions of these

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Speaker 1: movies before the special edition remasters. So the version I'm

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Speaker 1: used to seeing is the original, where it's just the

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Speaker 1: gaping mouth that blends into the earth and has these

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Speaker 1: rings of inward facing teeth and the tentacles that reach

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Speaker 1: out from who knows where and grab things. When the

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Speaker 1: remasters came, of course, they added a big c g

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Speaker 1: I beak poking up out of the pit it, which

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Speaker 1: sort of eliminates some of that bio geological magic. I

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Speaker 1: try these days not to be one of the guys

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Speaker 1: who's just constantly shrieking about how Lucas ruined things and

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Speaker 1: complaining about remasters and prequels and all that, but I

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Speaker 1: will say I do not like this change. I think

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Speaker 1: it's creepier in the original version without the c g

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Speaker 1: I beak. I like it when it's just the hole

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Speaker 1: in the earth, the cave with teeth. Yeah, I I

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Speaker 1: certainly grew up with the the unedited version as well,

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Speaker 1: and so that's that's probably the version that was that

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Speaker 1: It's cemented in my mind the most. And I used

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Speaker 1: to feel, I think a lot stronger about it where

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Speaker 1: I'm like, nope, original Starla only. But I don't know,

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Speaker 1: I can I'm okay with the redesign. I just wish

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Speaker 1: that the c G I would maybe get another, you know,

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Speaker 1: a fresh coat of paint to make it look a

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Speaker 1: little sleeker. But but still like I also, I understand

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Speaker 1: that they are part of the original concept was that

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Speaker 1: it would have those elements, but they weren't able to

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Speaker 1: make it happen because they just didn't have the the

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Speaker 1: budget of the technology to implement it at the time. Um.

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Speaker 1: But but I and I also think that the addition

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Speaker 1: of the plant like elements doesn't completely take away from

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Speaker 1: what you were describing, this idea of the monster as

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Speaker 1: as pit, the monster as earth. Um. There's something very primal,

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Speaker 1: primordial even about about the star Lac. And you know,

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Speaker 1: some people, I think a lot to like to criticize

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Speaker 1: Lucas and you know that they want to go all

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Speaker 1: in on this idea that well, Lucas depended on all

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Speaker 1: these other creative people and anything that he got right,

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00:16:34,800 --> 00:16:38,560
Speaker 1: he only did accidentally. But I I suspect that, you know,

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Speaker 1: that he was really onto something with this idea of

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Speaker 1: the star lac Um. I think there there is something

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Speaker 1: intentionally primordial about it. And well, we'll get into that

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Speaker 1: as we go. Well, I think it just it suggests

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Speaker 1: the magical thinking that that that is so common in

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Speaker 1: human culture, that characterizes caves and pits in the earth

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Speaker 1: as a mouth. I mean that kind of that kind

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Speaker 1: of language is extremely common. Yeah, So before we get

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Speaker 1: a little bit more into some mythic parallels for the

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Speaker 1: star lac I want to talk just a little bit

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Speaker 1: more about its presumed biology and its biology is presented

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Speaker 1: uh in Cannon, and also just a little interpretation on

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Speaker 1: our part. So obviously, the vast majority of the star

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Speaker 1: lacks bulk is hidden beneath the sand, leaving only its spiked,

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Speaker 1: tentacled mouth exposed. Now, presumably the star lac just normally,

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Speaker 1: you know, waits there. It doesn't move, It just waits. First,

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Speaker 1: you know, some creature to fall into it. You know,

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Speaker 1: some of the mega fauna of tattooings such as the

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Speaker 1: do back or the bantha. You know, it just waits

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Speaker 1: for them to wander close enough to fall in or

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Speaker 1: succumb to those fast moving, grasping tentacles. And if this,

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Speaker 1: you know, seems rare enough for currents, we have to

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Speaker 1: consider that it's it has an alleged one thousand year

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Speaker 1: digestive cycle, so presumably it has a slow enough metabolism

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Speaker 1: that it doesn't need this regular feet gings. It can

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Speaker 1: get by on the odd bantha that just falls in.

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Speaker 1: And then on top of that, we have to consider

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Speaker 1: that this star lac might be in a privileged situation

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Speaker 1: as well, sustained by regular feedings from Job as pleasure barges,

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Speaker 1: because let's face it, Job is the type of fella

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Speaker 1: that's liable to just throw people into the sarlac on

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Speaker 1: a weekly or bi weekly basis, So we may not

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Speaker 1: be observing the sarlac in its natural environment. This this

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Speaker 1: could be a domesticated sarlac of sorts. Yeah, yeah, I

340
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Speaker 1: think we have to take that into into account now

341
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Speaker 1: in terms of like, you know, turning to the literature

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Speaker 1: for you know, explanations of something like the sarlac Uh.

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Speaker 1: That can be a bit confusing because, first of all,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's presented as it is in the movie,

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Speaker 1: and I think a fair amount of mystery about it

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Speaker 1: is ideal. Like, for instance, C three Po doesn't turn

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Speaker 1: to you and explain everything about the star Lak. He

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Speaker 1: doesn't go into a big ten minute monologue about it,

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Speaker 1: because you're supposed to do some of the work, right,

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Speaker 1: It's supposed to inspire you, right, Yeah, I mean what's

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Speaker 1: cool about it is that you can't see so much

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Speaker 1: of it. It's a mystery. It's hidden under the earth.

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Speaker 1: I think some of that would be spoiled if you've

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Speaker 1: got a better look at it, or you've got C

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Speaker 1: three po explaining its whole life history. As much as

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Speaker 1: I would have wanted that when I was a kid,

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Speaker 1: and we were talking recently about like children, you know,

358
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Speaker 1: being obsessed with Cannon and the stories they love and

359
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Speaker 1: like wanting to know all the details, I mean, I mean,

360
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Speaker 1: I bet when I was like eight, I would have

361
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Speaker 1: just wished that the Star Wars movies included like Star

362
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Speaker 1: Wars illustrated encyclopedia pages as as like scenes throughout them.

363
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Speaker 1: But yeah, it works better as a mystery. I think

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Speaker 1: that's my adult mind. Yeah. Now that being said, this

365
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Speaker 1: this sort of mystery has inspired lots of people, and

366
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Speaker 1: so you have you have a number of different uh

367
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Speaker 1: you know, expanded universe treatments of the Star Lac as

368
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Speaker 1: well as compendiums that attempt to explain to some degree

369
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Speaker 1: what the Star Lack is and you're gon to deal

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Speaker 1: with you know, conflicting accounts and uh and and so

371
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Speaker 1: forth if you start looking at all of those. But

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Speaker 1: I do want to touch on some ideas that were

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Speaker 1: presented in a relatively new book that came out, Star

374
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Speaker 1: Wars Alien Archive, which I've been reading with my son. Uh.

375
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Speaker 1: It's you know, it's basically a you know, a monstrous compendium,

376
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Speaker 1: a monster manual of Star Wars aliens, and it's pretty fun.

377
00:20:22,520 --> 00:20:26,959
Speaker 1: It has these fabulous illustrations in it, and it you know,

378
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Speaker 1: doesn't have everything that shows up in the Star Wars

379
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Speaker 1: films and TV shows, but it has quite a bit,

380
00:20:33,119 --> 00:20:36,440
Speaker 1: uh you know, everything from you know, from from from

381
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Speaker 1: major characters and and and major aliens to even a

382
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Speaker 1: few things that for instance, only show up in one

383
00:20:42,520 --> 00:20:46,440
Speaker 1: of the Ewoks movies. So it's a fun collection. Naturally,

384
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Speaker 1: of course, there's an entry on the Mighty star Lack.

385
00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:50,360
Speaker 1: So I just want to touch on a few of

386
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Speaker 1: the key points, uh that that are that are made

387
00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:57,960
Speaker 1: in this Lucasfilm Press book. First of all, it's described

388
00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:02,640
Speaker 1: as quote terrifying carnivorous beast, and this seems to fall

389
00:21:02,760 --> 00:21:06,240
Speaker 1: more on the animal side of interpretation. Some people try

390
00:21:06,280 --> 00:21:09,080
Speaker 1: and I guess explain the starlight is being more of

391
00:21:09,119 --> 00:21:13,359
Speaker 1: a plant, uh And it is sometimes described as reproducing

392
00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:16,760
Speaker 1: by spores, which leads in list to more of a

393
00:21:16,920 --> 00:21:19,600
Speaker 1: you know, fungal explanation. But of course none of this

394
00:21:19,680 --> 00:21:22,840
Speaker 1: is exactly limiting when we're ultimately talking about an alien

395
00:21:22,920 --> 00:21:26,159
Speaker 1: life form that may you know, easily skew the lines

396
00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:29,439
Speaker 1: that we draw on Earth between one kingdom and another.

397
00:21:29,720 --> 00:21:31,800
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, I mean, yeah, if we want to

398
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:35,879
Speaker 1: be real technical sticklers, the difference between plants and animals

399
00:21:36,040 --> 00:21:39,440
Speaker 1: is an evolutionary division that you know, they are different clades.

400
00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:42,720
Speaker 1: You can sort their histories differently, and you know, animals

401
00:21:42,720 --> 00:21:46,000
Speaker 1: arising on other planets might be animal like and that

402
00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:48,320
Speaker 1: they might move around quickly or something like that, or

403
00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:51,080
Speaker 1: they might be plant like in that their sessile and

404
00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:55,280
Speaker 1: the photosynthesize or whatever. But but yeah, they would not

405
00:21:55,320 --> 00:21:58,639
Speaker 1: be descended from these kingdoms, so those sortings wouldn't necessarily

406
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:02,560
Speaker 1: even make sense. Plus, oh man, there's a whole additional,

407
00:22:03,080 --> 00:22:05,040
Speaker 1: uh deep end we could get into if we tried

408
00:22:05,080 --> 00:22:08,359
Speaker 1: to figure out how we consider life in the Star

409
00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:11,359
Speaker 1: Wars universe, a universe where not only do we have

410
00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:15,960
Speaker 1: um life, you know, certainly arising on a plethora of

411
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:20,439
Speaker 1: different worlds, but also you have interstellar life still life

412
00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:24,280
Speaker 1: that is clinging to asteroids. You have pan spermia and

413
00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:27,560
Speaker 1: colonization taking place that you know at you know, at

414
00:22:27,680 --> 00:22:31,080
Speaker 1: various points in galactic history. There's a lot to unpack

415
00:22:31,160 --> 00:22:34,359
Speaker 1: their deep space evolution. Yeah, that's right, the mine ox

416
00:22:34,760 --> 00:22:37,200
Speaker 1: they live in a vacuum. How is that possible? I

417
00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:40,400
Speaker 1: don't think a large animal would do that. Yeah, well

418
00:22:40,480 --> 00:22:41,679
Speaker 1: that would be a fun one to come back to

419
00:22:41,720 --> 00:22:44,439
Speaker 1: at some point, maybe maybe maybe some some people have

420
00:22:44,680 --> 00:22:48,080
Speaker 1: written on that topic. Um, okay, a few other points

421
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:51,360
Speaker 1: from the Alien Archive book. Uh. They to point out

422
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:53,880
Speaker 1: that the star lack of carcoon is sustained at least

423
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 1: in part by sacrifices and executions by the huts. But

424
00:22:57,800 --> 00:23:00,560
Speaker 1: they also say that adults are lacks such as this

425
00:23:00,600 --> 00:23:04,960
Speaker 1: one can also release an odor that attracts nearby herbivores

426
00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:08,399
Speaker 1: to the pit. Oh okay, so that answer I. I

427
00:23:08,520 --> 00:23:11,080
Speaker 1: that would answer a question that I had because I

428
00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:14,240
Speaker 1: was thinking about how a sarlac would normally eat If

429
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:17,479
Speaker 1: it's just this, you know, sessile pit in the desert,

430
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:21,879
Speaker 1: Most sessile trap predators have some way of assuring that

431
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:25,200
Speaker 1: prey will fall in, Like sessile predators in the ocean,

432
00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 1: will often try to maximize their catch by doing their

433
00:23:28,840 --> 00:23:32,040
Speaker 1: best to latch on in places where the current will

434
00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:36,760
Speaker 1: carry unfortunate prey animals right by them. Otherwise, trap predators,

435
00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:38,679
Speaker 1: like some that we'll talk about in a bit, like

436
00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:41,680
Speaker 1: insects that that lay traps in the ground, need to

437
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:44,000
Speaker 1: find a place where, you know, the places that are

438
00:23:44,080 --> 00:23:47,040
Speaker 1: naturally trafficked by prey, places where you know, ants or

439
00:23:47,080 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 1: beetles or whatever going to be walking by. Another option

440
00:23:50,640 --> 00:23:53,920
Speaker 1: is to look more at the realm of of plants,

441
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:56,399
Speaker 1: which you know, let's say, like carnivorous plants like the

442
00:23:56,400 --> 00:23:58,919
Speaker 1: picture plant that's not an animal, but it is a

443
00:23:58,960 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 1: predatory organ is um that functions as a trap pit,

444
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:06,760
Speaker 1: and yeah, it uses smells to attract animals to it. Yeah,

445
00:24:06,840 --> 00:24:09,840
Speaker 1: so perhaps we might imagine that, um, you know, say

446
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:14,280
Speaker 1: that the sarlac releases uh uh, some sort of odor

447
00:24:14,359 --> 00:24:17,960
Speaker 1: that mega fauno would associate with an oasis, you know,

448
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:21,720
Speaker 1: or with with with plant life, and therefore brings them in.

449
00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:23,360
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to bring them in all the way, right,

450
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 1: because those technacles will do the rest of of the job.

451
00:24:26,160 --> 00:24:29,119
Speaker 1: The shifting sand will do, you know, the rest of

452
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:32,800
Speaker 1: the work. But but perhaps this odor will be enough

453
00:24:32,880 --> 00:24:35,640
Speaker 1: to just bring in some food. That makes a lot

454
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:37,680
Speaker 1: more sense than what I had in mind, Yeah, because

455
00:24:37,680 --> 00:24:39,359
Speaker 1: I was just trying to think. Okay, so it just

456
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:42,040
Speaker 1: waits until a banthera wanders end. Seems like it could

457
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:46,199
Speaker 1: be waiting a long time yea once a millennium. The

458
00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:50,400
Speaker 1: Alien Archive also points out that the creature has several stomachs,

459
00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 1: which you know, I guess makes sense given a lengthy

460
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:57,000
Speaker 1: digestive process. Also says that it's average length is of

461
00:24:57,119 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 1: one and this is interest thing. It contends that younger

462
00:25:01,600 --> 00:25:06,560
Speaker 1: star lacks are capable of moving about to capture food, which, um,

463
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 1: which is an interesting detail. But I think one that

464
00:25:09,600 --> 00:25:12,840
Speaker 1: you brought up is is kind of supported by an

465
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:16,640
Speaker 1: old Super Nintendo game right, Oh, that's right. Yeah, So

466
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:19,000
Speaker 1: I I was trying to remember, don't you fight a

467
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: star Lac in like the old Super Nintendo Superstar Wars game?

468
00:25:23,160 --> 00:25:25,520
Speaker 1: So I looked up the boss fight on YouTube. Robert,

469
00:25:25,600 --> 00:25:28,439
Speaker 1: did you watch it? I did. Yes, It's terrible. It

470
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:31,119
Speaker 1: doesn't capture the Starlac magic at all because it's not

471
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:33,400
Speaker 1: a pit. It's just like a big worm that comes

472
00:25:33,480 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: up out of the ground and it moves around and

473
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:38,680
Speaker 1: spits rocks at you. That's not a star Lac. But

474
00:25:38,680 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 1: but maybe it's supposed to be a young Starlac a

475
00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 1: different part of its life cycle, I guess. So if

476
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:46,679
Speaker 1: we were, if we were to force ourselves to to

477
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 1: take that boss fight and incorporate it into into Star

478
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:51,640
Speaker 1: Wars Cannon, I think that's the only way you could

479
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:55,879
Speaker 1: go that. Basically we'd be looking at, uh, you know,

480
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:58,760
Speaker 1: say a four part lifespan that goes like this. You

481
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: have a spore of a star Lac that's carried by

482
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:03,639
Speaker 1: the you know, the dust storms. Then you have some

483
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:07,200
Speaker 1: sort of burrowing larva, and then you have a sandworm

484
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:10,560
Speaker 1: esque burrowing juvenile like we see in the Super in

485
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:13,800
Speaker 1: ne S game. And then that eventually if it survives

486
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 1: will become a stationary adult like we see in Return

487
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:19,440
Speaker 1: of the Jedi. That is very interesting, and it's also

488
00:26:19,520 --> 00:26:22,440
Speaker 1: interesting how that is going to be the exact inverse

489
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:25,480
Speaker 1: of some examples. Will look at from the from the

490
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:28,560
Speaker 1: natural world in a bit where there are things that

491
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,800
Speaker 1: are only a trap predator for part of their life cycle,

492
00:26:31,840 --> 00:26:35,199
Speaker 1: but it actually comes at the beginning rather than the end. Yeah,

493
00:26:35,280 --> 00:26:39,080
Speaker 1: that's true. Uh, it's interesting that if we were to

494
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:42,399
Speaker 1: really look for some potential real world analogs that match

495
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:47,480
Speaker 1: this basic uh you know, four part transformation, I'd say

496
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: that something like this mostly resembles the life cycles, uh,

497
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 1: that we would see in say corals or perhaps a barnacle,

498
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:59,440
Speaker 1: both of which we've discussed in depth on the show before. Um,

499
00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 1: you know the idea that this is something that is

500
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:06,040
Speaker 1: free swimming earlier in its development, but then initially eventually

501
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:08,840
Speaker 1: puts down roots and stays there for the rest of

502
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: its life. Yeah, that's interesting. Well, well, maybe we need

503
00:27:11,640 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 1: to take a break, but when we come back, we

504
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 1: can talk about pit monster mythology and about pit trap

505
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:20,520
Speaker 1: predators in the natural world. All right, we'll be right back.

506
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:27,479
Speaker 1: All right, We're back now. Either way you look at it. Uh,

507
00:27:27,800 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 1: I'd say the star Lack is a creature with with

508
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 1: fittingly deep mythological roots. It is in essence as you

509
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:37,520
Speaker 1: as you pointed out, the earth swallowing up the living,

510
00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: with key ties to understandings and interpretations of earthquakes, sink holes,

511
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:47,440
Speaker 1: just caves in general, but also other land based catastrophes.

512
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:51,040
Speaker 1: So in preparing for this episode, I wanted to look

513
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 1: something up, something that I've always assumed because you see

514
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:55,440
Speaker 1: it in movies. You know the scene in the movie

515
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,959
Speaker 1: where there is an earthquake and the ground opens up,

516
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:02,880
Speaker 1: there's this giant fissure, then everything just disappears super deep

517
00:28:02,920 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: into the earth. Uh. I was like, wait a minute,

518
00:28:06,320 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 1: does that happen in real life? Basically from what I

519
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: could tell most of the time, No, I think it's not,

520
00:28:13,080 --> 00:28:17,160
Speaker 1: in principle impossible. But generally in earthquakes there might be

521
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:19,000
Speaker 1: you know, fissures that form in the ground, but they

522
00:28:19,040 --> 00:28:22,280
Speaker 1: don't You don't get these deep chasms going down into

523
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 1: the belly of the earth that you know swallow people

524
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 1: and buildings. Hold that if that happens at all, that

525
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 1: does not happen very often. Yeah, that that specifically happens

526
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:34,280
Speaker 1: in the force awakens. Remember when Ray is having that

527
00:28:34,359 --> 00:28:37,200
Speaker 1: duel with Kylo Wren and then the the the earth

528
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: shakes and suddenly there's this this deep gulf between them,

529
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 1: which is you know, you know, awesome in a film,

530
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 1: but maybe not that likely in the real world. Yeah,

531
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: but it's interesting that. So if this doesn't actually happen

532
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 1: in reality, or at least doesn't happen often enough for

533
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 1: people to you know, really see it and make a

534
00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: meme out of it and their culture, where does this

535
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 1: idea come from? Because it goes way back, the idea

536
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 1: that the earth like cracks open and swallows people whole. Right, Yeah,

537
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: I remember, like, well, first of all, I probably saw

538
00:29:06,960 --> 00:29:09,920
Speaker 1: it in various films growing up as well, but I

539
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 1: specifically remember having an illustrated um Bible Stories book and

540
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: it had an illustration of what I what I seem

541
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 1: to remember being the this episode from the Book of

542
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:25,840
Speaker 1: Numbers in the Old Testament, which this is the King

543
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:29,120
Speaker 1: James version quote, and the earth opened its mouth and

544
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 1: swallowed them up with their households and all the men

545
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:37,840
Speaker 1: with Cora, with all their goods. Wow. Well yeah, that's

546
00:29:37,840 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 1: basically what the earthquake movie pictures. Yeah, so you know

547
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,360
Speaker 1: it's it's I guess it's a pretty deeply set idea

548
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:47,680
Speaker 1: in in that respect. So I was looking around to

549
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 1: see if I could come across any other like specific

550
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: ideas of monsters or gods or you know, the adventures

551
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:59,000
Speaker 1: of a hero that involves something like the Sarlac. And

552
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 1: what I what I came a process maybe not a

553
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:04,840
Speaker 1: you know, a directly related example, but but I think

554
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:06,640
Speaker 1: once I explain it, people will see a number of

555
00:30:06,680 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 1: parallels that are pretty pretty interesting. This is from the

556
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 1: Mesoamerican mythology of the Aztecs, the earth goddess plow to

557
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 1: Kutli that is t l A l t e c

558
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:23,720
Speaker 1: u h t l I and most translations and man,

559
00:30:23,840 --> 00:30:30,280
Speaker 1: she is a really interesting earth goddess. Yes, so for starters,

560
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:35,040
Speaker 1: she embodies a typical primordial god goddess archetype of a

561
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: divided and dismembered form who scattered pieces constitute the world,

562
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 1: and we see that a lot in mythologies. But she

563
00:30:43,600 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 1: is also monstrous, incorporating amphibian and reptile morphology, and she

564
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: is also presented as an eater of the dead, so

565
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,520
Speaker 1: the blood of human sacrifice flows into the earth to

566
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: feed her, and she is often depicted with a flint

567
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 1: knife between her teeth and or rivers of blood flowing

568
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 1: from her mouth. She's also seen as a boundary deity,

569
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 1: bridging the world of the living to Micklin, the world

570
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: of the dead, and her role here is essentially one

571
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:17,200
Speaker 1: of of maintaining balance, and therefore sacrifices made to her

572
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 1: are about keeping into the balance of the world's together.

573
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: I mean, she is the Earth, and she is also

574
00:31:23,920 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 1: this bridge between our world and the world of the dead.

575
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 1: And when you look at likenesses of her, this is

576
00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:31,960
Speaker 1: also interesting. Her likeness was often carved into the base

577
00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 1: of sculptures, you know, where humans could not see them

578
00:31:35,240 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 1: once the sculpture was in place where the sculpture touched

579
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:41,480
Speaker 1: the earth, so you know, the living would not see this.

580
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: It's it's as if it was only to be seen

581
00:31:43,760 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 1: by her. Interesting now, her color was red, which is

582
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 1: of course the color for blood associated with sacrifice, but

583
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 1: red was also the color of sunset because at night

584
00:31:55,000 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 1: she was said to consume the sun. We think of

585
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 1: the you know, the setting sun uh aemingly to to

586
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: be consumed by the earth and then night sets in yeah,

587
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: and this is a motif we see in other mythologies

588
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 1: from around the world. I think there are the god

589
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: or the monster that eats the sun appears in Egyptian

590
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 1: mythology I believe in in Hindu stories. Yes, yes, indeed. Now,

591
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 1: if you look up some interpretations of this goddess uh,

592
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 1: you'll find at least a couple of different versions. One

593
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 1: is more of a uh, you know, more of a

594
00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:30,480
Speaker 1: just a monstrous feminine form. But there's another one that's

595
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 1: really interesting where it's kind of the squat toad like

596
00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:38,960
Speaker 1: creature with its mouth open skyword towards the eagle. And

597
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 1: and this one really makes me think of the star

598
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: Lac because it is like a mouth open wide towards

599
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:47,720
Speaker 1: the heavens. Yeah, totally. Now, I think all this is

600
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:50,080
Speaker 1: interesting in context of the star Lac because the star

601
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:53,440
Speaker 1: Lac two is presented as something that is perhaps divine

602
00:32:53,640 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 1: and to some degree immortal uh and an entity that

603
00:32:57,120 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: demands sacrificial victims as well, and something of a gateway

604
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 1: between our world and a hellish underworld. Again, think back

605
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: to that that idea of a thousand years of digestion

606
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:12,959
Speaker 1: in the belly of the sarlac Um. I remember this

607
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 1: was explored to a wonderful effect in a short story.

608
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: This was by um an author by the name of

609
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:24,320
Speaker 1: Daniel Keys Moran published under the name J. D. Montgomery,

610
00:33:24,400 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 1: and it was in a short story collection called Tale

611
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 1: from Jabs Palace titled a bar of like that The

612
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:35,120
Speaker 1: Tale of Boba Fette um And I haven't read it

613
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: since junior high school, but I remember really loving it

614
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:40,600
Speaker 1: because it it kind of scratched that itch of like, oh,

615
00:33:40,680 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 1: I must know how Boba Fette escaped from the star Lak.

616
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 1: You know, you must write it for me, make it happen. Uh.

617
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:50,560
Speaker 1: And so it succeeded in that, but it also presented

618
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: digestion in the Starlac as being this kind of sentient

619
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:57,560
Speaker 1: immortality of pain. I have so many thoughts about this.

620
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: Uh So, first of all, I'm thinking about all of

621
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:04,320
Speaker 1: the like sort of off label Star Wars fiction that

622
00:34:04,400 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 1: I read in the nineties. I didn't read as much

623
00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:08,640
Speaker 1: of it as some people did, but I do remember

624
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,520
Speaker 1: I read some series of books that involved people who

625
00:34:11,560 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 1: had three eyes and like a whole bunch of weirdness.

626
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 1: But the other thing is, I'm sorry if this is

627
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:19,600
Speaker 1: a is a frivolous side trail that. I've got to

628
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:21,839
Speaker 1: ask you, Robert, do you have an opinion on the

629
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: belch the Starlac burp oh, after Fat falls in? Yeah,

630
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:29,080
Speaker 1: it doesn't Fat fall in and then and then the

631
00:34:29,120 --> 00:34:33,279
Speaker 1: thing just it burps it. I'm not mistaken about this, right, No, No,

632
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: I believe it does burp pro burb or anti berb.

633
00:34:37,600 --> 00:34:40,680
Speaker 1: I guess I'm I'm pro burp. It's it's fun, it's funny.

634
00:34:40,760 --> 00:34:42,799
Speaker 1: I was probably there was probably a point that I'm

635
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:45,920
Speaker 1: not specifically remembering in my Star Wars wors fandom wre

636
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 1: I probably thought I was above it and thought that

637
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,439
Speaker 1: that belt should be edited out because I also didn't

638
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 1: want any indication that Fat was gone and that a

639
00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 1: belt should be uh you know his um, you know

640
00:34:56,960 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 1: his tombstone. But I don't really have any st opinions

641
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:03,839
Speaker 1: about it now. It seemed an ignominious end for this,

642
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:08,040
Speaker 1: this much beloved minor character, and I think I think

643
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:09,839
Speaker 1: it bothered me when I was younger, when I also

644
00:35:09,880 --> 00:35:12,359
Speaker 1: thought Boba Fette was so cool. I just gotta say,

645
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:14,839
Speaker 1: I'm I'm about to earn us all the hate mail

646
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:16,200
Speaker 1: we're going to get for the rest of the year.

647
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:20,319
Speaker 1: Boats armor looks cool. But I don't actually get what

648
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:24,720
Speaker 1: is just like mind meltingly amazing about him two people.

649
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:27,360
Speaker 1: I just feel like he's a kind of cool looking character.

650
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 1: He's got like five lines. Yeah, yeah, I think it

651
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 1: comes back to like the less you know, right, there

652
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 1: was mystery about really all those bounty hunters and um,

653
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 1: you know who were these guys? What what was their deal?

654
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 1: You know? What what was the I like the one

655
00:35:42,560 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 1: that's got like insect dies like a fly's head, Yeah,

656
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:48,760
Speaker 1: he's good. Or the reptilian one with the long arms,

657
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:50,799
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry, I know they all have names and

658
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:53,840
Speaker 1: species and uh, if if I had my alien archive

659
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 1: book in front of me, I would look them up.

660
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 1: But basically it's a wonderful rogues gallery. Well, I don't

661
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:01,680
Speaker 1: have a position on the burp, but you know what,

662
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:05,080
Speaker 1: I'll support you in your decision, so so have me

663
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:07,920
Speaker 1: on board. I'm probb to. Yeah. I mean it's star

664
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:10,800
Speaker 1: Lag getting a good laugh there. I I think I

665
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:13,480
Speaker 1: think it was well received by my son. Now, I

666
00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:15,880
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit more about mythology here

667
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:18,520
Speaker 1: because I feel like there's an excellent connection to be made.

668
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 1: Um specifically, I'm thinking about a parallel here in Greek mythology,

669
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: where of course we have Skilla and Charybdis, the twin

670
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: oceanic dangers that Odysseus must sail between the very horns

671
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:37,920
Speaker 1: of dilemma. Uh. These are magnificent monstrosities. Oh yeah, the classics.

672
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:40,120
Speaker 1: I mean, like the ultimate sea monster. How could you

673
00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:43,879
Speaker 1: beat it? Yeah? So Charybdis. I think it's the most

674
00:36:43,880 --> 00:36:48,600
Speaker 1: obvious analog here, an underwater monster of varying description that

675
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:51,799
Speaker 1: above water is just seen as this massive whirlpool that

676
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:55,560
Speaker 1: threatens to swallow up any ship that comes near it. Meanwhile,

677
00:36:55,840 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: Skilla is this multi headed beast that plucks men from

678
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:03,839
Speaker 1: their ships. Now the star Lack basically incorporates elements from

679
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 1: both of these monsters, because we have to remember that, Okay,

680
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:10,719
Speaker 1: Tattooing is a desert world, but the dune sea has

681
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:13,600
Speaker 1: all of these oceanic qualities to it as well. And

682
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: in fact, I mean the whole encounter in Return of

683
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:18,799
Speaker 1: the Jedi is essentially the sci Fi mash up of

684
00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:22,839
Speaker 1: nautical and swashbuckling tropes. Oh yeah, I mean, I think

685
00:37:22,840 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 1: that's the thing people might not realize if they're not

686
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:27,920
Speaker 1: familiar with the old Errol Flynn Pirate movies and stuff

687
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:31,040
Speaker 1: like that. But clearly they're walking the plank off the skiff.

688
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,239
Speaker 1: This is supposed to be boats on the ocean. Job

689
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:37,120
Speaker 1: of the hut is an evil pirate captain. Yes, yes,

690
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:40,240
Speaker 1: I mean it makes perfect sense that the Crybdis analog

691
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:44,600
Speaker 1: here becomes very clear. And I should also point out

692
00:37:44,640 --> 00:37:47,240
Speaker 1: that for anybody out there who may be a Percy

693
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:52,240
Speaker 1: Jackson fan. In uh, the film adaptation Percy of Percy

694
00:37:52,320 --> 00:37:56,560
Speaker 1: Jackson Sea of Monsters, it has a wonderful Crybdis in it. Uh,

695
00:37:56,640 --> 00:37:59,399
Speaker 1: Crybdis shows up and really takes on a very star

696
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:03,359
Speaker 1: lackey an appearance, no doubt playing upon this connection. Yeah,

697
00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:05,760
Speaker 1: you attached an image. It is a very good looking

698
00:38:05,800 --> 00:38:08,239
Speaker 1: mall and it's got the inward facing spike teeth. I

699
00:38:08,280 --> 00:38:10,799
Speaker 1: like it a lot. Yeah, it's it's quite it's quite

700
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:13,319
Speaker 1: a wonderful sequence. Like if you if you just want

701
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: to check it out for no other reason, check it

702
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 1: out for that. Uh, it's pretty fun as well. Uh. Now,

703
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:20,920
Speaker 1: my son and my wife who have read the book

704
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 1: tell me that in the book both Skilla and carib

705
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:26,840
Speaker 1: does show up, but in the movie we're just stuck

706
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:30,239
Speaker 1: with the whirlpool. But still the whirlpool is fabulous. Now,

707
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:32,840
Speaker 1: I think maybe it's time to turn to the natural

708
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:35,839
Speaker 1: world and look at some animals that that, even here

709
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: on Earth somewhat mimic the star lac. Now, there there

710
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:42,359
Speaker 1: might be one that you out there are already thinking of,

711
00:38:42,520 --> 00:38:45,880
Speaker 1: because it's it's it's quite monstrously close, though on a

712
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:48,840
Speaker 1: much smaller scale. And that would be, of course, the

713
00:38:48,880 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: ant lion. Yes, uh, the ant lion is is certainly

714
00:38:53,200 --> 00:38:55,319
Speaker 1: the first place that my mind goes when I think

715
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:57,840
Speaker 1: of the star lac, because it's also something that I

716
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:01,160
Speaker 1: definitely remember encountering as a child. Getting to see the

717
00:39:01,200 --> 00:39:03,920
Speaker 1: ant lions in action. Uh, you know, and try and

718
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: you know, ultimately try and trigger them to you know,

719
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:07,960
Speaker 1: try and get them to to eat the ends of

720
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:10,520
Speaker 1: sticks and whatnot, which I'm not recommending you do, but

721
00:39:10,719 --> 00:39:13,279
Speaker 1: if if you get a chance to observe an ant

722
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 1: lion in the wild, it's worth checking out. Robert, where

723
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:19,320
Speaker 1: did you encounter them? Were you in the Southwest? I know,

724
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:24,480
Speaker 1: in Arizona or wherever? Uh this, I definitely remember encountering

725
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:28,479
Speaker 1: them in Tennessee. Actually, yeah, like this would have been

726
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:33,839
Speaker 1: um a north western Tennessee. I remember encountering them there.

727
00:39:34,160 --> 00:39:36,560
Speaker 1: Maybe my mind was primed for Arizona because I just

728
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:39,799
Speaker 1: know that that's where they shot the sarlaxines. I think

729
00:39:39,800 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: it's near Yuma that they did that. But yeah, I

730
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:45,200
Speaker 1: guess the range of the ant lion is much wider. Yeah,

731
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 1: I mean it needs sand or loose soil. But uh,

732
00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 1: I understand it's fairly why I've spread. Now, I will say,

733
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 1: I am just recalling a childhood memory here. It is

734
00:39:55,360 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 1: entirely possible that I was observing something else and thought

735
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:00,719
Speaker 1: it was an ant lion, or that my memory has

736
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 1: some other has become altered one way or another. But

737
00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure I saw an antline. Oh, I'm not

738
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 1: doubting you. The ant lion, as we alluded to earlier

739
00:40:09,560 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 1: when we were talking about life cycles of of the

740
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:15,480
Speaker 1: possible sarlac or or analogs in the natural world, the

741
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:18,560
Speaker 1: ant lion, as we know it is, is actually mainly

742
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:23,279
Speaker 1: one stage of the life of a certain insect. That's right,

743
00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:26,720
Speaker 1: it's the it's the larval form of a rather nondescript

744
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 1: of flying romillion today, insect of which there are some

745
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:35,040
Speaker 1: two thousand individual species. So, in other words, the ant

746
00:40:35,080 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: lion the larval form here is a high is highly

747
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:41,520
Speaker 1: interesting and unique, while the adult form is basically a

748
00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 1: short lived I mean, very short lived flying nothing that

749
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: is far less studied. I mean, when you got you

750
00:40:49,680 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 1: got one stage of your life cycle where you become

751
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:54,480
Speaker 1: a sarlac, You're just not going to get a lot

752
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:56,400
Speaker 1: of attention for the part of your life where you

753
00:40:56,400 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 1: grow wings and fly around and land on plants. Yeah.

754
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:02,239
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the larval form first. So the

755
00:41:02,320 --> 00:41:04,880
Speaker 1: larval ant lion, and I recommend looking at a picture

756
00:41:04,880 --> 00:41:07,320
Speaker 1: of this anyone if you you have seen an illustration,

757
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:11,360
Speaker 1: because it's really gnarly. It has this globular abdomen, a

758
00:41:11,520 --> 00:41:15,760
Speaker 1: narrow head, and a set of vicious sickle shaped mandibles.

759
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 1: Some species, but not all, famously make their home at

760
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:22,200
Speaker 1: the bottom of a shallow pit, a shallow pit trap

761
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:25,279
Speaker 1: that they make themselves. Uh and then the and they

762
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:29,280
Speaker 1: produced this by burrowing backwards in a circle, flicking loose

763
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 1: soil or sand out of the way as they go.

764
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 1: And then once they're situated, only those twin mandibles remain visible,

765
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:39,279
Speaker 1: poking out of the bottom of the sand pit. Yeah.

766
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:41,359
Speaker 1: So so they form this thing, like you're saying, by

767
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:45,040
Speaker 1: sort of digging around in a conical in a conical shape,

768
00:41:45,560 --> 00:41:49,600
Speaker 1: going backwards, flinging the sand out until they've created this

769
00:41:49,719 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 1: pit that's got these sort of perfectly sloped conical sides.

770
00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 1: It's like a you know, like a coffee filter sort

771
00:41:56,040 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: of uh. And it reminds me of the episodes we

772
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:02,239
Speaker 1: did about spider web agmission, because um, you know, it's

773
00:42:02,280 --> 00:42:07,080
Speaker 1: interesting to think about the underlying algorithms in an animal's brain,

774
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 1: like in the spider's brain that produced the web, or

775
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:11,919
Speaker 1: in the ant lion's brain that enable it to make

776
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 1: these perfect little conical pit traps. And I remember one

777
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 1: of the things we talked about in that other episode

778
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 1: about spiderweb cognissition was how beautiful and complex patterns emerge

779
00:42:21,800 --> 00:42:26,839
Speaker 1: in spiderwebs, even based on extremely simple algorithms for spinning, which,

780
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,319
Speaker 1: of course, the spiders can vary to adapt to environmental conditions.

781
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:33,279
Speaker 1: And I think there are some environmental variables that that

782
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:35,880
Speaker 1: work on ant lions as well. This might include things

783
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:39,040
Speaker 1: like the depth of the sand and the grain size.

784
00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:41,800
Speaker 1: I was looking at one study that said apparently ant

785
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 1: lions and a similar predator called worm lions tend to

786
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:49,120
Speaker 1: prefer finer and deeper sand, the finer sand, I'm sure

787
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:53,239
Speaker 1: better to trap you with exactly. So how does this

788
00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:56,920
Speaker 1: trapping work? Well? When ants or other small insects fall

789
00:42:57,040 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 1: into the pit, the ant lion throws more sand, like

790
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: flicks more sand up towards the would be victim in

791
00:43:05,640 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 1: order to keep them from escaping, and then they grapple

792
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:11,600
Speaker 1: their victim at the bottom of that pit, piercing their

793
00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 1: body with those mandibles and sucking out the fluids. Afterwards,

794
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 1: the ant lion flicks the desiccated corpse out and then

795
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 1: resets the pit for its next meal. Yeah, the and

796
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:24,720
Speaker 1: you can look up video of this of them literally

797
00:43:24,760 --> 00:43:28,160
Speaker 1: just throwing like desiccated ant bodies out of their pit,

798
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:32,359
Speaker 1: just chucking them off to the side, literally a dead soldier. Now,

799
00:43:32,400 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 1: I can't remember if we mentioned, but the antline does

800
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 1: have it does have chemicals on its side when it

801
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:39,880
Speaker 1: attacks the victim that falls down to the bottom of

802
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:44,080
Speaker 1: the pit. So it's uh, it's piercing mandibles. The it's

803
00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 1: pincer type things inject a venom to the prey. But

804
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:50,520
Speaker 1: then also they've got a digestive enzyme that they use

805
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:53,359
Speaker 1: much like some of the spider feeding stuff that we've

806
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: talked about where they can inject the enzyme that sort

807
00:43:56,680 --> 00:43:59,279
Speaker 1: of melts the guts of the prey animal and then

808
00:43:59,320 --> 00:44:02,799
Speaker 1: allows some easy slurping. Now, like the star lac, the

809
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:05,879
Speaker 1: anti lion benefits from a really slow metabolism. The ant

810
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:09,200
Speaker 1: lion can go months without food and get this, does

811
00:44:09,239 --> 00:44:12,839
Speaker 1: not even have an anus. It simply puts off defecation

812
00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:16,640
Speaker 1: until it assumes it's a mature and final form. And

813
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:19,160
Speaker 1: this is something we see in other larval forms as

814
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:23,239
Speaker 1: well um elsewhere in the animal kingdom, where basically the

815
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:26,120
Speaker 1: creature is an eating machine. It's just about eating and eating,

816
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:28,920
Speaker 1: and it can in some cases just put off pooping

817
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:34,040
Speaker 1: until it has reached that final morphological form that is

818
00:44:34,080 --> 00:44:37,080
Speaker 1: going to obtain. Yeah, let's stick on this for a second.

819
00:44:37,200 --> 00:44:39,800
Speaker 1: In case that just went by you, the ant lion

820
00:44:40,120 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 1: in its larval stage does not have an anus and

821
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:46,520
Speaker 1: cannot poop, and this goes on for the entire larval

822
00:44:46,600 --> 00:44:49,000
Speaker 1: stage of its life cycle, which can last for up

823
00:44:49,040 --> 00:44:52,640
Speaker 1: to three years. Right, no anus, you got your poop

824
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 1: in for three years. So I guess imagine if like

825
00:44:55,600 --> 00:44:58,680
Speaker 1: we only grew an anus and became able to defecate

826
00:44:58,680 --> 00:45:01,320
Speaker 1: when we turned eighteen or something, you know, the parents

827
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:03,800
Speaker 1: talking about how you know you'll poop when you're older,

828
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:07,400
Speaker 1: you'll understand then, Oh man, I mean, I guess I

829
00:45:07,400 --> 00:45:10,359
Speaker 1: have mixed thoughts about that, because on one hand, not

830
00:45:10,440 --> 00:45:12,920
Speaker 1: having to poop is is I mean, it's really everyone's dream.

831
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:16,520
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, being filled with an increasing

832
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:20,399
Speaker 1: amount of poop is everyone's nightmare. So uh, I guess

833
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 1: it just comes down to that, like you either extreme,

834
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:25,520
Speaker 1: you you don't want either extreme. You want the balance

835
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:28,840
Speaker 1: of normal human pooping. Now, the funny thing is that

836
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:33,560
Speaker 1: there are some skewed ways where we conceptualize animal life cycles,

837
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:36,440
Speaker 1: insect life cycles and stuff. Because we're talking about how

838
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:39,280
Speaker 1: when the antline is done with its pit trap larval

839
00:45:39,320 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: stage and then matures and becomes an adult. But this

840
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 1: adult stage lasts for a much shorter period than its

841
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:49,120
Speaker 1: larval stage does, so in a weird way, you shouldn't

842
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:52,280
Speaker 1: think of its adult phase as like it's normal life,

843
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:56,320
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, Because again you mentioned that the larval

844
00:45:56,360 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 1: stage will live like about three years, but the flying

845
00:46:00,040 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 1: adult stage lives for a mere twenty five days or so,

846
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:06,120
Speaker 1: So really it's adult form is just its last hurrah.

847
00:46:06,320 --> 00:46:08,919
Speaker 1: You know, this is about it just well, I guess

848
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:13,759
Speaker 1: finally pooping, but also and more importantly reproducing. Right, yes,

849
00:46:14,120 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: now this would sort of answer the question for me

850
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:18,080
Speaker 1: that I had when we were beginning to work on

851
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 1: this episode. I was wondering, like, does a star lack

852
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 1: poop if its whole body is under the ground. If

853
00:46:23,040 --> 00:46:25,919
Speaker 1: it does poop, where does the poop go? And now

854
00:46:26,360 --> 00:46:29,360
Speaker 1: you hypothesized, Robert, You were like, well, maybe it doesn't poop,

855
00:46:29,480 --> 00:46:32,000
Speaker 1: just like the antline doesn't poop. But the airline's got

856
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:34,399
Speaker 1: a poop eventually, it's got the next stage of its

857
00:46:34,440 --> 00:46:36,040
Speaker 1: life cycle. And as far as we know, the star

858
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 1: lack does not. It's not gonna eventually grow wings, grow ananus,

859
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:42,239
Speaker 1: and then fly off somewhere to poop everything that has

860
00:46:42,280 --> 00:46:45,239
Speaker 1: accumulated over the thousands of years. So what's going on

861
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,080
Speaker 1: with the star lac Well, it does make me think

862
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:51,239
Speaker 1: it could. This is just me, you know, spitball in here.

863
00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 1: But perhaps if there is anything it cannot digest, maybe

864
00:46:56,120 --> 00:46:58,799
Speaker 1: it spits it back out, kind of like an owl will,

865
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:01,759
Speaker 1: do you know with something that you know that it

866
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:05,400
Speaker 1: is swallowed, you know, the various bones and whatnot. Or

867
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:10,400
Speaker 1: perhaps there is just like terminal digestion going on inside

868
00:47:11,080 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 1: the sarlac. You know, it's just digesting and digesting, and

869
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:17,439
Speaker 1: at the end of this there's just nothing like maybe

870
00:47:17,480 --> 00:47:19,800
Speaker 1: it's just that efficient. I can see that. But I

871
00:47:19,880 --> 00:47:22,520
Speaker 1: also like the idea of the two way digestive system.

872
00:47:22,560 --> 00:47:25,080
Speaker 1: There are organisms like that that live in the ocean,

873
00:47:25,120 --> 00:47:28,279
Speaker 1: mainly like the hydra I believe has a has a

874
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:32,360
Speaker 1: two way digestive system where it basically eats and poops

875
00:47:32,360 --> 00:47:35,080
Speaker 1: through the same opening. That's right, Yeah, I think we

876
00:47:35,120 --> 00:47:37,799
Speaker 1: went into that on our episode about the evolution of

877
00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 1: the anus um. So yeah, there are there are various

878
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:44,480
Speaker 1: models for this that we see throughout the evolution of

879
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:46,759
Speaker 1: life on Earth. It could be, uh, you know, used

880
00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:48,759
Speaker 1: to explain it another way of looking at it would

881
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:51,600
Speaker 1: be something down there under the ground is pooping for

882
00:47:51,600 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 1: the star lac, but we don't really know what sort

883
00:47:54,640 --> 00:47:58,359
Speaker 1: of underground environment it is pooping into. Like there could

884
00:47:58,360 --> 00:48:02,640
Speaker 1: be a pretty rich under underground world on tattooing, right,

885
00:48:02,719 --> 00:48:05,520
Speaker 1: I mean, there could be you know, organisms that depend

886
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:09,760
Speaker 1: on the poop of the sarlac for food or or

887
00:48:10,160 --> 00:48:13,000
Speaker 1: for shelter in the same way that the poop of

888
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:16,239
Speaker 1: of of large you know, megafauna are essential to the

889
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:19,160
Speaker 1: life cycles of organisms here on the surface of Earth.

890
00:48:19,520 --> 00:48:22,280
Speaker 1: Here's one for you. Here's a here's my hypothesis. Okay,

891
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:27,920
Speaker 1: the sarlac secretes an acidic compound that slowly over time

892
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 1: dissolves the bedrock, dissolves the sedimentary rock down below where

893
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:35,800
Speaker 1: it is resting in the ground, and forms a karst

894
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:39,360
Speaker 1: cavity in the ground, basically creates its own poop cave,

895
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:42,959
Speaker 1: and then poops into the cave. Uh. What do you think?

896
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:45,960
Speaker 1: I like it? I like it. You could have a

897
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:49,360
Speaker 1: whole uh, you know, the whole aspect of Tattooine society

898
00:48:49,440 --> 00:48:52,200
Speaker 1: where like jawas are out there trying to dig down

899
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:54,799
Speaker 1: to get those poop reserves from the sarlacs. You know,

900
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 1: like especially if it's like ancient poop reserves of the sarlac,

901
00:48:58,040 --> 00:49:01,959
Speaker 1: it's aged and you know, high valuable for something or another.

902
00:49:02,040 --> 00:49:04,719
Speaker 1: I'm sure. Uh, I've got it, the most sought after

903
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 1: fertilizer in the universe. Oh nice, Yes, the poop must flow. Yes. Now,

904
00:49:11,680 --> 00:49:15,359
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier that not all ant lions um are

905
00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:18,520
Speaker 1: are going to be these these uh, these pit digging

906
00:49:18,719 --> 00:49:23,120
Speaker 1: um trap predators. You also have some that that that

907
00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:26,480
Speaker 1: have other modes of existence, and we see this also

908
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:30,160
Speaker 1: with owl flies, which are uh an organism that look

909
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:34,320
Speaker 1: very similar as larva and also live as ambush predators

910
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:37,280
Speaker 1: in the soil. They look again a lot like ant lions,

911
00:49:37,960 --> 00:49:40,360
Speaker 1: but while it seems like they have been known to

912
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:43,360
Speaker 1: obscure their lower bodies with sand and debris, UH the

913
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:46,200
Speaker 1: al fly larva don't seem to engage in the sort

914
00:49:46,239 --> 00:49:50,000
Speaker 1: of robust, pit based and stationary ambush tactics that we

915
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:53,440
Speaker 1: see with those most notable species of antlions. Now, I

916
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:56,600
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier that there is a very similar pit trap

917
00:49:56,640 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 1: predator which has a hunting strategy almost identical to that

918
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:02,800
Speaker 1: of the ant lion, and this is a winged insect

919
00:50:02,880 --> 00:50:07,040
Speaker 1: family called Vermilion a day known as the worm lions.

920
00:50:07,360 --> 00:50:10,080
Speaker 1: I think this might actually be an even closer parallel

921
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:14,160
Speaker 1: to the sarlac because it is a striking worm and

922
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:16,840
Speaker 1: in this way it kind of resembles the tentacles of

923
00:50:16,880 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 1: the carcoon uh of the star lack of the pit

924
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:23,960
Speaker 1: of carcoon. So despite how similar their pit trap strategies are,

925
00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:27,160
Speaker 1: I was reading that the interestingly, worm lions are not

926
00:50:27,440 --> 00:50:31,720
Speaker 1: closely related to ant lions. This appears to be another

927
00:50:31,800 --> 00:50:36,719
Speaker 1: interesting example of convergent evolution where in totally different ways, uh,

928
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:40,759
Speaker 1: different organisms have discovered basically the same way to to

929
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 1: make a living. And in this case, it's digging these

930
00:50:43,480 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 1: conical pit traps in the sand. Another thing I was

931
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:49,640
Speaker 1: wondering is like, why do the conical pits look so

932
00:50:49,719 --> 00:50:53,239
Speaker 1: similar if the hunters are not closely related, wouldn't the

933
00:50:53,239 --> 00:50:56,480
Speaker 1: pits be kind of more different for these different animals.

934
00:50:56,680 --> 00:50:59,840
Speaker 1: Apparently has to do with mass or like the geometry

935
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:03,600
Speaker 1: of how sediments lay at an angle. Uh. The angles

936
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:05,920
Speaker 1: of the pit slopes are determined by what's known as

937
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:09,719
Speaker 1: the angle of repose, which is the steepest angle at

938
00:51:09,719 --> 00:51:15,600
Speaker 1: which a sloping surface formed of a loose material is stable. Interesting,

939
00:51:16,000 --> 00:51:18,000
Speaker 1: so you'll see that kind of like on the edges

940
00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 1: of mountains where there's sediments sliding down, it will settle

941
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:24,080
Speaker 1: into a certain angle that is stable. If it gets

942
00:51:24,080 --> 00:51:26,360
Speaker 1: any steeper than that, it will start to collapse in

943
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:29,760
Speaker 1: an avalancheal form. Yeah, that that makes sense. I should

944
00:51:29,760 --> 00:51:32,760
Speaker 1: also add that everyone should definitely look up a picture

945
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:36,080
Speaker 1: of the worm lion because it is very very cool

946
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:39,360
Speaker 1: looking at it has I think you mentioned like tentacle

947
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 1: like protrusions around its head. Uh, Like the image I'm

948
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:46,239
Speaker 1: looking at here looks like four of them. Oh, and

949
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:49,879
Speaker 1: that its body just itself looks like a tentacle. It

950
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 1: is the organism, but like when it's wrapping around an

951
00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:55,480
Speaker 1: ant or beetle or something that's falling into the trap,

952
00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:59,759
Speaker 1: it looks kind of like a sarlac tentacle. Yeah, it's segmented,

953
00:51:59,800 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 1: but but appears far more prehensile than you know, something

954
00:52:03,719 --> 00:52:06,759
Speaker 1: like a normal earth worm. But there is another organism

955
00:52:06,840 --> 00:52:09,399
Speaker 1: that's parallel to the sarlac in some ways I think

956
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:12,480
Speaker 1: we should definitely talk about, and that is the predatory

957
00:52:12,600 --> 00:52:18,640
Speaker 1: polycute worm known as unicey afrodetois yes, also known as

958
00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:21,399
Speaker 1: a sand striker uh, and it has some other names

959
00:52:21,440 --> 00:52:23,520
Speaker 1: I'm not going to mention here on the show, but

960
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:26,759
Speaker 1: that have been informally applied to it. But it's essentially

961
00:52:26,800 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 1: a rainbow colored marine deathworm, and it buries itself in

962
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:34,719
Speaker 1: the sand, ready to strike at passing prey. They can

963
00:52:34,760 --> 00:52:39,120
Speaker 1: reach lengths of nearly nine point eight feeders or two pots,

964
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:42,279
Speaker 1: but most of its segmented body remains coiled in the

965
00:52:42,360 --> 00:52:45,640
Speaker 1: sand and as an array of five antennae to help

966
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:48,400
Speaker 1: it since prey a feature that I think is reminiscent

967
00:52:48,440 --> 00:52:51,560
Speaker 1: of of you know, this idea that the sarlac might

968
00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:54,520
Speaker 1: have a root like systems of system of feelers, spines

969
00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:57,600
Speaker 1: and tentacles, which you see in some of these illustrations

970
00:52:57,600 --> 00:52:59,839
Speaker 1: that try to get to the heart of the star lac.

971
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 1: But the sand striker here, it strikes with incredible speed,

972
00:53:04,520 --> 00:53:08,839
Speaker 1: whipping out its mandible studded farynx to capture prey. Yeah,

973
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:11,440
Speaker 1: I think let's dwell on this just a little bit

974
00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:13,960
Speaker 1: more because this might have gone past really fast. This

975
00:53:14,040 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 1: is a predatory worm buries in the sand, attacks and

976
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:19,120
Speaker 1: it grows to like ten ft long. This is a

977
00:53:19,160 --> 00:53:22,719
Speaker 1: ten foot long or you know, three meter worm that

978
00:53:22,800 --> 00:53:25,440
Speaker 1: preys on fish and other animals in the sea. So

979
00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:28,000
Speaker 1: it'll just have its little head poking out. But if

980
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:30,080
Speaker 1: you were to keep pulling this worm up out of

981
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:32,160
Speaker 1: the ground, you could end up with like the magician's

982
00:53:32,200 --> 00:53:36,400
Speaker 1: scarf situation where it just keeps coming out as ten

983
00:53:36,440 --> 00:53:40,320
Speaker 1: ft long. I was reading that sometimes it's it's pincer

984
00:53:40,360 --> 00:53:46,279
Speaker 1: attack is so powerful that it chops prey fish in half. Uh.

985
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 1: And I was reading a Scientific American blog post from

986
00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:52,920
Speaker 1: from by writer named Becky Crew about these animals, and

987
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:56,799
Speaker 1: she drew my attention to this one story about how

988
00:53:56,840 --> 00:54:00,239
Speaker 1: back in two thousand nine, at a marine aquarium in

989
00:54:00,239 --> 00:54:04,960
Speaker 1: a town called New Key In in England, aquarium keepers

990
00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:08,920
Speaker 1: noticed that in this one tank, the coral on display

991
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:13,279
Speaker 1: and some of the fish and stuff kept accumulating weird damage.

992
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:16,359
Speaker 1: It was as if something inside the tank was like

993
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:20,360
Speaker 1: chopping parts of the coral formation off and killing the animals.

994
00:54:20,600 --> 00:54:23,239
Speaker 1: And there was no obvious culprit in the tank, so

995
00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:26,120
Speaker 1: they had to like remove rocks and coral and plants

996
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:28,279
Speaker 1: from this tank. Wanted a time to find out what

997
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:32,320
Speaker 1: was causing the attacks, and a curator named Matt Slater

998
00:54:32,520 --> 00:54:34,880
Speaker 1: was quoted in the Daily Mail at the time talking

999
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:38,840
Speaker 1: about what happened. He said, quote, something was guzzling our reef,

1000
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:41,799
Speaker 1: but we had no idea what. We also found an

1001
00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:45,200
Speaker 1: injured tank fish, so we laid traps, but they got

1002
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:48,720
Speaker 1: ripped apart in the night. That were must have obliterated

1003
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:51,320
Speaker 1: the traps. The bait was full of hooks which he

1004
00:54:51,400 --> 00:54:55,920
Speaker 1: must have just digested. Uh So, I don't know if

1005
00:54:55,960 --> 00:54:58,840
Speaker 1: that's sounds kind of hard to believe, but if that's true,

1006
00:54:59,320 --> 00:55:02,319
Speaker 1: it would kind of or the sarlac digestion thing. But

1007
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:04,200
Speaker 1: in any case, like it does seem to be the

1008
00:55:04,200 --> 00:55:07,719
Speaker 1: case that they had one of these worms. One of

1009
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:10,759
Speaker 1: these worms burrowed down in the bottom of the tank.

1010
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:14,680
Speaker 1: So the workers discovered that there was a stowaway sarlac

1011
00:55:14,800 --> 00:55:17,719
Speaker 1: like this predatory burrowing sea worm was hiding down in

1012
00:55:17,719 --> 00:55:20,880
Speaker 1: the sediment at the bottom, and it had probably snuck

1013
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:24,239
Speaker 1: in among the coral that were transplated into the transplanted

1014
00:55:24,239 --> 00:55:27,479
Speaker 1: into the tank years before and had just grown there

1015
00:55:27,480 --> 00:55:31,160
Speaker 1: and hiding ever since. But this also made me think,

1016
00:55:31,200 --> 00:55:34,759
Speaker 1: so this worm is fast, powerful, venomous, mostly hidden down

1017
00:55:34,760 --> 00:55:37,200
Speaker 1: in the ground or down in the sediment, how can

1018
00:55:37,239 --> 00:55:40,880
Speaker 1: prey animals defend themselves? Well, actually, I found an interesting

1019
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 1: article about this where there is one strategy that's been

1020
00:55:44,160 --> 00:55:48,319
Speaker 1: uncovered and it was published in Scientific Reports in It

1021
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 1: was by jose La Shot and Daniel hog Walker Nagle

1022
00:55:53,440 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 1: called novel mobbing Strategies on a fish population against a

1023
00:55:57,080 --> 00:56:01,200
Speaker 1: sessile analid predator. And basically the authors here described this

1024
00:56:01,239 --> 00:56:05,440
Speaker 1: weird thing where these fish a type of bream called

1025
00:56:05,760 --> 00:56:10,800
Speaker 1: Scalopsis afinus. They would where like one fish would find

1026
00:56:10,880 --> 00:56:13,520
Speaker 1: one of these worms would be near it and discover

1027
00:56:13,640 --> 00:56:17,160
Speaker 1: it was there and would start spitting jets of water

1028
00:56:17,480 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 1: toward the worm, and then other fish would join in.

1029
00:56:21,200 --> 00:56:23,960
Speaker 1: These prey fish would join in this mobbing behavior where

1030
00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:27,680
Speaker 1: they would all gather around and start spitting these jets

1031
00:56:27,680 --> 00:56:30,120
Speaker 1: of water towards the worm, which apparently caused the worm

1032
00:56:30,200 --> 00:56:34,040
Speaker 1: to retract down into the sediment. I'm not sure exactly

1033
00:56:34,040 --> 00:56:36,279
Speaker 1: what's going on there. I mean, so obviously this is

1034
00:56:36,320 --> 00:56:39,239
Speaker 1: some kind of group defensive behavior against a predator when

1035
00:56:39,239 --> 00:56:42,240
Speaker 1: the predator's location is discovered. But it makes me wonder

1036
00:56:42,280 --> 00:56:44,520
Speaker 1: if anything similar could go on with the sarlac or

1037
00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 1: would it even need to Like would you need to

1038
00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:49,600
Speaker 1: have bantas like spitting jets of air at a star

1039
00:56:49,680 --> 00:56:52,480
Speaker 1: lac or something, or could they just stay away from it? Yeah?

1040
00:56:52,600 --> 00:56:55,000
Speaker 1: I guess that's the thing about a land based scenario

1041
00:56:55,200 --> 00:56:59,319
Speaker 1: versus the marine scenario is that on the land once,

1042
00:56:59,440 --> 00:57:02,520
Speaker 1: unless you are a you know, in a flying creature,

1043
00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:04,799
Speaker 1: by the time you got close enough to the star

1044
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:07,160
Speaker 1: lac to really be in danger to really need to

1045
00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:10,120
Speaker 1: spit at it, it's probably too late. Yeah, I mean,

1046
00:57:10,160 --> 00:57:12,520
Speaker 1: I mean, I think part of this this behavior though,

1047
00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:16,800
Speaker 1: might just be not necessarily in like harming the worm

1048
00:57:16,960 --> 00:57:20,000
Speaker 1: or something, but in alerting the other con specifics to

1049
00:57:20,080 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 1: its location. So you can imagine something like that for

1050
00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:25,240
Speaker 1: trap predators too. I mean I would. I don't know

1051
00:57:25,320 --> 00:57:27,400
Speaker 1: of any evidence like this, but I wouldn't be surprised

1052
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 1: if there are some types of ants or other prey

1053
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:33,400
Speaker 1: insects of the ant lion that have some kind of

1054
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:38,280
Speaker 1: group defense strategy where when one species identifies an ant

1055
00:57:38,320 --> 00:57:40,840
Speaker 1: lion pit, it can kind of like you know, sound

1056
00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:44,000
Speaker 1: the alarm and alert the others to to to what's

1057
00:57:44,000 --> 00:57:45,760
Speaker 1: happening there. I don't know of any evidence of that,

1058
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:48,240
Speaker 1: but I would not be surprised to find out something

1059
00:57:48,320 --> 00:57:50,600
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, so I you know, I think maybe

1060
00:57:50,640 --> 00:57:55,240
Speaker 1: the banthers might have some sort of um, some sort

1061
00:57:55,280 --> 00:57:58,560
Speaker 1: of the strategy to deal with that. Now. Um, Ultimately,

1062
00:57:58,600 --> 00:58:01,480
Speaker 1: the sea is home to other atom dwelling ambush predators

1063
00:58:01,480 --> 00:58:04,960
Speaker 1: as well, more than we could conceivably list in the

1064
00:58:05,080 --> 00:58:07,480
Speaker 1: episode here. But you have things like the devil scorpion

1065
00:58:07,560 --> 00:58:10,120
Speaker 1: fish and the ward eye star gazer, and if you

1066
00:58:10,160 --> 00:58:14,160
Speaker 1: watch enough, um, you know, underwater documentaries, you'll see some

1067
00:58:14,200 --> 00:58:17,480
Speaker 1: of these bizarre and wondrous creatures. All right, we need

1068
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:19,440
Speaker 1: to take another break, but we'll be right back to

1069
00:58:19,680 --> 00:58:26,880
Speaker 1: discuss digestion for a thousand years. Thank alright, we're back. Okay.

1070
00:58:26,880 --> 00:58:28,640
Speaker 1: So I think we need to finish up today by

1071
00:58:28,640 --> 00:58:32,080
Speaker 1: talking about the idea of the star lacks really slow digestion.

1072
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:35,120
Speaker 1: Remember Cee three Po says that when you fall into

1073
00:58:35,160 --> 00:58:38,520
Speaker 1: the all powerful starlac again, I'm not maybe things this

1074
00:58:38,600 --> 00:58:40,200
Speaker 1: can come up again. I'm not quite sure why the

1075
00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:43,880
Speaker 1: star lack is all powerful. It seems relatively powerful within

1076
00:58:43,960 --> 00:58:46,400
Speaker 1: its own mouth and the range right around there, but

1077
00:58:46,480 --> 00:58:53,760
Speaker 1: beyond its powers rapidly diminish. Um Uh. But see three

1078
00:58:53,760 --> 00:58:56,280
Speaker 1: Po says in there in the belly, you will find

1079
00:58:56,280 --> 00:58:59,480
Speaker 1: a new definition of pain and suffering as you're slowly digested.

1080
00:58:59,520 --> 00:59:03,840
Speaker 1: Over thousand years now, we've already discussed the slow metabolism

1081
00:59:03,920 --> 00:59:06,920
Speaker 1: and of the eating machine the ant lion. But I

1082
00:59:06,960 --> 00:59:10,040
Speaker 1: want to look at another emblem of slow digestion, this

1083
00:59:10,120 --> 00:59:15,240
Speaker 1: time of mammal. I think we should look at the sloth.

1084
00:59:15,600 --> 00:59:17,200
Speaker 1: And now there are a lot of ways actually that

1085
00:59:17,320 --> 00:59:20,840
Speaker 1: sloths have been observed to be generally slow. Right, the

1086
00:59:20,960 --> 00:59:24,440
Speaker 1: name their English name is not a coincidence. Uh. And

1087
00:59:24,680 --> 00:59:28,560
Speaker 1: this this slowness does extend not just to their movements

1088
00:59:28,560 --> 00:59:30,920
Speaker 1: through the trees. You know, if you watch them climb something,

1089
00:59:30,920 --> 00:59:33,800
Speaker 1: they tend to be very slow moving creatures. But their

1090
00:59:33,840 --> 00:59:38,480
Speaker 1: slowness extends down to the chemical, the biochemical level within

1091
00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:41,960
Speaker 1: their bodies. I was looking at a study by Jonathan

1092
00:59:42,000 --> 00:59:46,720
Speaker 1: and Pauli, M. Zachariah Pierri, Emily D. Fountain, and William H.

1093
00:59:46,880 --> 00:59:51,720
Speaker 1: Kerosov called arboreal folio wars limit their energetic output all

1094
00:59:51,760 --> 00:59:55,160
Speaker 1: the way to slothfulness in the American Naturalist in six

1095
00:59:56,120 --> 00:59:59,760
Speaker 1: and the authors here are trying to explore possible reasons

1096
00:59:59,760 --> 01:00:04,600
Speaker 1: that animals they call arboreal full levorees animals that eat

1097
01:00:04,680 --> 01:00:07,800
Speaker 1: tree leaves, hang out in the trees, eat leaves from trees,

1098
01:00:08,240 --> 01:00:11,320
Speaker 1: why they are relatively rare compared to some other types

1099
01:00:11,360 --> 01:00:14,720
Speaker 1: of animals and do not display as much adaptive radiation

1100
01:00:14,840 --> 01:00:18,320
Speaker 1: as some other animals. And adaptive radiation here means, uh,

1101
01:00:18,360 --> 01:00:21,680
Speaker 1: you know, diversifying of the species into different ecological niches,

1102
01:00:21,760 --> 01:00:25,640
Speaker 1: basically like evolving into many different types and variations to

1103
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:28,280
Speaker 1: fill ecological niches. You don't see a lot of this

1104
01:00:28,360 --> 01:00:31,640
Speaker 1: with animals like sloths. And so they point out that,

1105
01:00:31,680 --> 01:00:35,120
Speaker 1: you know, like mature tree leaves, that the dietary, the

1106
01:00:35,200 --> 01:00:38,040
Speaker 1: main diet source of these animals like sloths, and there

1107
01:00:38,040 --> 01:00:41,200
Speaker 1: are other animals like this tu pandas, koalas and so forth.

1108
01:00:41,480 --> 01:00:44,720
Speaker 1: Mature tree leaves are not a very high quality food.

1109
01:00:44,760 --> 01:00:47,240
Speaker 1: They tend to be tough and woody. Often they've got

1110
01:00:47,320 --> 01:00:49,720
Speaker 1: some kind of poisons or tannins or some kind of

1111
01:00:50,200 --> 01:00:54,680
Speaker 1: unpleasant chemical in them. It's generally really difficult to live

1112
01:00:54,840 --> 01:00:59,480
Speaker 1: by eating, digesting, and extracting energy from mature tree leaves,

1113
01:01:00,080 --> 01:01:04,080
Speaker 1: but sloths do it. So maybe the energy constraints on

1114
01:01:04,120 --> 01:01:08,680
Speaker 1: these animals have somehow controlled their spread and evolution. So

1115
01:01:08,760 --> 01:01:11,920
Speaker 1: the authors here wanted to measure the metabolic rates of

1116
01:01:12,000 --> 01:01:16,440
Speaker 1: sloths in Costa Rica, and they write, quote, we quantified

1117
01:01:16,520 --> 01:01:21,280
Speaker 1: the field metabolic rate or FMR movement and body temperature

1118
01:01:21,360 --> 01:01:26,040
Speaker 1: for sin topic two and three toed sloths, extreme arboreal

1119
01:01:26,120 --> 01:01:30,760
Speaker 1: fulivorees that differ in their degree of specialization. Both species

1120
01:01:30,760 --> 01:01:35,280
Speaker 1: expended little energy, but three toed sloths possess the lowest

1121
01:01:35,440 --> 01:01:39,360
Speaker 1: FMR recorded for any mammal. And so the three toed

1122
01:01:39,400 --> 01:01:42,200
Speaker 1: sloth lives on a on a field metabolic rate of

1123
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:45,280
Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty two killer jewels per day per

1124
01:01:45,400 --> 01:01:48,040
Speaker 1: kilogram of body weight. Now that number alone might not

1125
01:01:48,120 --> 01:01:51,360
Speaker 1: mean much to you. But comparing it to other animals, uh,

1126
01:01:51,400 --> 01:01:55,040
Speaker 1: it's way lower than say the howler monkey, who who

1127
01:01:55,080 --> 01:01:57,960
Speaker 1: has a field metabolic rate of five hundred and eighty

1128
01:01:58,040 --> 01:02:00,840
Speaker 1: three killer jewels per day per kilo am of body weight.

1129
01:02:01,200 --> 01:02:04,680
Speaker 1: It's lower than koalas at four hundred and ten. Even

1130
01:02:04,720 --> 01:02:08,480
Speaker 1: the giant panda is more at five. The three toads

1131
01:02:08,560 --> 01:02:12,640
Speaker 1: lost is the lowest ever measured, uh at a hundred

1132
01:02:12,640 --> 01:02:15,240
Speaker 1: and sixty two kill a jewels per day per kilogram.

1133
01:02:15,320 --> 01:02:18,800
Speaker 1: And so in a way, it is a profound evolutionary

1134
01:02:18,840 --> 01:02:23,480
Speaker 1: experiment in slowing everything down. And this is historically in

1135
01:02:23,800 --> 01:02:26,800
Speaker 1: a kind of funny and interesting way lad some thinkers

1136
01:02:27,400 --> 01:02:32,200
Speaker 1: to view sloths as as some kind of like like

1137
01:02:32,240 --> 01:02:35,480
Speaker 1: that there's a problem with their existence, that there's something

1138
01:02:35,560 --> 01:02:38,920
Speaker 1: wrong with them. Like the Count de Buffon, you know,

1139
01:02:39,000 --> 01:02:41,800
Speaker 1: George Louis la Clerk, Count of Buffon, who we talked

1140
01:02:41,840 --> 01:02:44,280
Speaker 1: about in our Age of the Earth episode, because he

1141
01:02:44,320 --> 01:02:47,680
Speaker 1: did some experiments trying to, uh, trying to determine the

1142
01:02:47,680 --> 01:02:49,960
Speaker 1: age of the Earth based on I believe his idea

1143
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:51,600
Speaker 1: had to do with like how long it would take

1144
01:02:51,600 --> 01:02:54,440
Speaker 1: the Earth to cool to its current temperature. But he

1145
01:02:54,480 --> 01:02:58,840
Speaker 1: wrote this huge multi volume natural history work during his

1146
01:02:58,920 --> 01:03:02,120
Speaker 1: life where he tried to become you know, the eighteenth

1147
01:03:02,160 --> 01:03:05,400
Speaker 1: century uh plenty of the elder, you know, to catalog

1148
01:03:05,520 --> 01:03:07,960
Speaker 1: all of the stuff in the world and tell you

1149
01:03:08,040 --> 01:03:12,160
Speaker 1: all about it. And his section on sloths is kind

1150
01:03:12,160 --> 01:03:15,520
Speaker 1: of hilarious. Are you ready for this, Robert, Yeah, let's

1151
01:03:15,520 --> 01:03:19,160
Speaker 1: bring it on, Okay, So he says. These animals have

1152
01:03:19,280 --> 01:03:23,280
Speaker 1: neither incisive nor canine teeth. Their eyes are dull and

1153
01:03:23,320 --> 01:03:26,720
Speaker 1: almost concealed with hair. Their mouths are wide, and their

1154
01:03:26,720 --> 01:03:29,959
Speaker 1: lips thick and heavy. Their fur is course and looks

1155
01:03:30,000 --> 01:03:34,480
Speaker 1: like dried grass. Their thighs seem almost disjointed from the haunches,

1156
01:03:34,800 --> 01:03:38,000
Speaker 1: their legs very short and badly shaped. They have no

1157
01:03:38,160 --> 01:03:41,600
Speaker 1: soles to their feet, nor toe is separately movable, but

1158
01:03:41,720 --> 01:03:45,600
Speaker 1: only two or three claws, excessively long and crooked downwards,

1159
01:03:45,760 --> 01:03:48,600
Speaker 1: which move together and are only useful to the animal

1160
01:03:48,680 --> 01:03:54,080
Speaker 1: in climbing. Slowness, stupidity, and even habitual pain result from

1161
01:03:54,080 --> 01:03:58,240
Speaker 1: its uncouth conformation. They have no arms, either to attack

1162
01:03:58,400 --> 01:04:01,400
Speaker 1: or defend themselves. No or are they furnished with any

1163
01:04:01,400 --> 01:04:04,520
Speaker 1: means of security, as they can neither scratch up the

1164
01:04:04,560 --> 01:04:07,880
Speaker 1: earth nor seek for safety by flight. But confined to

1165
01:04:07,920 --> 01:04:10,720
Speaker 1: a small spot of ground, or to the tree under

1166
01:04:10,760 --> 01:04:13,840
Speaker 1: which they are brought forth. They remain prisoners in the

1167
01:04:13,880 --> 01:04:17,440
Speaker 1: midst of an extended space, unable to move more than

1168
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:20,920
Speaker 1: three feet in an hour. They climb with difficulty and pain,

1169
01:04:21,360 --> 01:04:24,600
Speaker 1: and their plaintive and interrupted cry they dare only utter

1170
01:04:24,720 --> 01:04:28,480
Speaker 1: by night. After some more moralizing about how awful they are,

1171
01:04:28,800 --> 01:04:31,960
Speaker 1: he says, Uh, we have already observed that it seems

1172
01:04:32,360 --> 01:04:35,480
Speaker 1: as if all that could be does exist, and of

1173
01:04:35,640 --> 01:04:38,840
Speaker 1: this the sloths appear to be a striking proof. They

1174
01:04:38,880 --> 01:04:42,800
Speaker 1: constitute the last term of existence in the order of animals,

1175
01:04:42,880 --> 01:04:46,280
Speaker 1: endowed with flesh and blood. One more defect and they

1176
01:04:46,320 --> 01:04:50,040
Speaker 1: could not have existed. Oh my goodness, Now, I think

1177
01:04:50,080 --> 01:04:53,520
Speaker 1: this is funny because like in some ways, uh, you know,

1178
01:04:54,160 --> 01:04:57,680
Speaker 1: Buffon was considered a very you know, learned man of

1179
01:04:57,760 --> 01:05:00,880
Speaker 1: his day. But like just the amazing ignorance of this

1180
01:05:01,800 --> 01:05:04,720
Speaker 1: is just like, given what we know about animals now,

1181
01:05:04,720 --> 01:05:07,200
Speaker 1: and the Clark had all kinds of terrible ideas, you know.

1182
01:05:07,240 --> 01:05:11,200
Speaker 1: He he endorsed scientific racism. He believed that like the

1183
01:05:11,280 --> 01:05:15,240
Speaker 1: animals of the New World were somehow inferior to the

1184
01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:18,680
Speaker 1: animals of the Old world. Uh, there's all this weird,

1185
01:05:18,760 --> 01:05:22,000
Speaker 1: genuine disgust in his writing when he talks about animals

1186
01:05:22,000 --> 01:05:24,800
Speaker 1: found in North and South America. So he had all

1187
01:05:24,840 --> 01:05:28,760
Speaker 1: these extremely misguided theories. Because all this stuff that he

1188
01:05:28,840 --> 01:05:32,680
Speaker 1: characterizes as defects with this species, I think we would

1189
01:05:32,680 --> 01:05:34,720
Speaker 1: probably look at and say, I don't know, given our

1190
01:05:34,720 --> 01:05:39,880
Speaker 1: modern evolutionary understanding, you are probably not understanding these correctly.

1191
01:05:39,920 --> 01:05:44,920
Speaker 1: These are probably not actually defects, these are adaptations. His

1192
01:05:44,920 --> 01:05:48,360
Speaker 1: His thinking falls prey to the naive version of survival

1193
01:05:48,440 --> 01:05:50,680
Speaker 1: of the fittest, as you know, the fittest, not as

1194
01:05:50,720 --> 01:05:54,080
Speaker 1: in best adapted to its environment, but as like the toughest,

1195
01:05:54,160 --> 01:05:58,160
Speaker 1: the buffest, the biggest, sharpest teeth and so forth. Yeah. Absolutely,

1196
01:05:58,200 --> 01:06:02,400
Speaker 1: I mean it's um in his his description of the sloth,

1197
01:06:02,480 --> 01:06:05,080
Speaker 1: really it comes off like a like a dis track,

1198
01:06:05,480 --> 01:06:08,720
Speaker 1: you know, against against the sloth. It also reminds me

1199
01:06:08,720 --> 01:06:11,440
Speaker 1: a little bit of of Darwin's descriptions of the with

1200
01:06:11,560 --> 01:06:14,560
Speaker 1: the marine iguanas, the iguanas of the club. I mean,

1201
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:17,280
Speaker 1: Darwin didn't normally fall into this way of thinking, but

1202
01:06:17,360 --> 01:06:22,120
Speaker 1: occasionally there was some animal he didn't like. Yeah, but

1203
01:06:22,160 --> 01:06:26,600
Speaker 1: the sloth, like the main like counter arguments. In addition,

1204
01:06:26,640 --> 01:06:29,080
Speaker 1: to to what we said here about the true nature

1205
01:06:29,120 --> 01:06:32,480
Speaker 1: of adaptation. I would also, you know, put forth at

1206
01:06:32,520 --> 01:06:35,720
Speaker 1: first of all, sloths tend to be cute. That tends

1207
01:06:35,760 --> 01:06:38,760
Speaker 1: to be our interpretation of them, especially babies sloths or

1208
01:06:38,800 --> 01:06:42,160
Speaker 1: slothes if you're using the British pronunciation, but but also

1209
01:06:42,200 --> 01:06:45,920
Speaker 1: the adults. There's a certain adorableness to them. And I

1210
01:06:46,000 --> 01:06:49,840
Speaker 1: have to say when when I was in Costa Rica

1211
01:06:49,920 --> 01:06:52,320
Speaker 1: with my family and we went on a hike, uh

1212
01:06:52,360 --> 01:06:55,360
Speaker 1: through the forest there and we got to see got

1213
01:06:55,400 --> 01:06:58,440
Speaker 1: the glimpse a wild sloth like where we you know,

1214
01:06:58,440 --> 01:07:01,080
Speaker 1: had to stand there for several min it's and watch

1215
01:07:01,160 --> 01:07:04,400
Speaker 1: what would presume to be a sloth finally move and

1216
01:07:04,560 --> 01:07:08,720
Speaker 1: slowly confirm it's it's sloth hood Like that was a

1217
01:07:08,760 --> 01:07:11,520
Speaker 1: genuinely magical moment. Like that has to be one of

1218
01:07:11,880 --> 01:07:15,520
Speaker 1: one of my top interactions with wildlife ever. Like it

1219
01:07:15,640 --> 01:07:20,640
Speaker 1: just it truly felt like magic and time was standing still. Um. So,

1220
01:07:20,800 --> 01:07:23,040
Speaker 1: I you know, it's it's very difficult for me to

1221
01:07:23,200 --> 01:07:26,440
Speaker 1: put my put myself in the mindset of of sloth

1222
01:07:26,600 --> 01:07:31,600
Speaker 1: hating um worldview. I think Bufon would think you're a sucker,

1223
01:07:31,640 --> 01:07:35,000
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think he was quite clearly wrong. Like

1224
01:07:35,080 --> 01:07:38,720
Speaker 1: the sloths, including the extremely slow, yes, very slow, three

1225
01:07:38,760 --> 01:07:41,680
Speaker 1: toed sloths, are incredibly well adapted to their environments in

1226
01:07:41,800 --> 01:07:45,280
Speaker 1: very interesting ways. I was reading an article about this

1227
01:07:45,360 --> 01:07:49,320
Speaker 1: on The Conversation from sixteen by a British zoologist named

1228
01:07:49,360 --> 01:07:52,760
Speaker 1: Becky Cliff, who I believe she either currently works or

1229
01:07:52,800 --> 01:07:56,320
Speaker 1: has worked in a sloth sanctuary in Costa Rica, so

1230
01:07:56,400 --> 01:07:57,880
Speaker 1: you know, doing a lot of hands on work with

1231
01:07:57,920 --> 01:08:02,520
Speaker 1: sloths um and so she's writing about these adaptations. She says,

1232
01:08:02,560 --> 01:08:05,000
Speaker 1: of course, it's true that sloths are slow in pretty

1233
01:08:05,080 --> 01:08:08,520
Speaker 1: much every way. At the sloth sanctuary she works out

1234
01:08:08,520 --> 01:08:12,520
Speaker 1: in Costa Rica, they use these sloth backpacks two track

1235
01:08:12,640 --> 01:08:15,440
Speaker 1: sloth movement in the wild. And yes, it's true they

1236
01:08:15,520 --> 01:08:18,479
Speaker 1: move very slowly and they move very little. But there's

1237
01:08:18,479 --> 01:08:22,120
Speaker 1: a reason for this. It's not weakness. It is strategic

1238
01:08:22,200 --> 01:08:26,439
Speaker 1: in an evolutionary sense. Slow movement uses a lot less

1239
01:08:26,640 --> 01:08:30,559
Speaker 1: energy than fast movement. Remember that metabolic discovery we were

1240
01:08:30,560 --> 01:08:34,000
Speaker 1: talking about earlier. Three toad sloths have the slowest metabolism

1241
01:08:34,000 --> 01:08:37,160
Speaker 1: of any known mammal. In a weird way, they're almost

1242
01:08:37,160 --> 01:08:39,120
Speaker 1: like you can imagine them kind of like going through

1243
01:08:39,120 --> 01:08:42,280
Speaker 1: a convergent evolution thing. But across kingdoms of life. They're

1244
01:08:42,280 --> 01:08:46,439
Speaker 1: trying to slowly over the eons converge with plants. Uh,

1245
01:08:46,640 --> 01:08:49,760
Speaker 1: you know, like so too. And to make this possible,

1246
01:08:50,320 --> 01:08:52,880
Speaker 1: you know this this low metabolic rate. Of course, they

1247
01:08:52,880 --> 01:08:56,360
Speaker 1: move very slowly, but they also regulate their body temperature

1248
01:08:56,400 --> 01:09:00,280
Speaker 1: differently than most mammals, do you know. Mammals have their

1249
01:09:00,320 --> 01:09:02,800
Speaker 1: warm blooded they have thermoregulation, they've got to keep their

1250
01:09:02,800 --> 01:09:07,080
Speaker 1: body temperature up through internal chemical means. But sloths manage

1251
01:09:07,120 --> 01:09:09,920
Speaker 1: a much lower body temperature than your average mammal. They

1252
01:09:09,960 --> 01:09:12,120
Speaker 1: they tend to go it around thirty two point seven

1253
01:09:12,160 --> 01:09:15,800
Speaker 1: degrees celsius or ninety one degrees fahrenheit. That's a full like, uh,

1254
01:09:15,840 --> 01:09:18,559
Speaker 1: you know, seven or eight degrees lower than our average

1255
01:09:18,600 --> 01:09:22,679
Speaker 1: body temperature. And uh. Cliff mentions that their metabolic rate

1256
01:09:22,800 --> 01:09:27,240
Speaker 1: is somewhere between forty to seventy of what you would

1257
01:09:27,240 --> 01:09:30,080
Speaker 1: expect for an animal of its body mass. So they're

1258
01:09:30,160 --> 01:09:34,760
Speaker 1: they're they're going way underweight on energy needs. And so

1259
01:09:34,800 --> 01:09:37,120
Speaker 1: the question might be, well, why live like this, why

1260
01:09:37,160 --> 01:09:39,719
Speaker 1: would you be so slow have such a relatively cool

1261
01:09:39,800 --> 01:09:43,200
Speaker 1: body and all that. Again, it's cheap, it's mega cheap.

1262
01:09:43,720 --> 01:09:47,400
Speaker 1: Sloths require much less food, energy, than other mammals of

1263
01:09:47,439 --> 01:09:50,439
Speaker 1: similar size. They can eat this, you know, this kind

1264
01:09:50,439 --> 01:09:52,639
Speaker 1: of bad food. I mean, it wouldn't be bad from

1265
01:09:52,640 --> 01:09:55,479
Speaker 1: their point of view, but it's low caloric density. This

1266
01:09:55,600 --> 01:09:59,080
Speaker 1: food like tough, fibrous tree leaves, and they don't even

1267
01:09:59,120 --> 01:10:01,040
Speaker 1: need to eat all the that much of it. Usually,

1268
01:10:01,080 --> 01:10:03,800
Speaker 1: if you're an animal that's subsisting on tough plant matter,

1269
01:10:04,120 --> 01:10:06,560
Speaker 1: you have to eat a ton of it to survive.

1270
01:10:07,000 --> 01:10:09,640
Speaker 1: Cliff points out that howler monkeys, who also live in

1271
01:10:09,680 --> 01:10:12,040
Speaker 1: the trees and eat tough leaves, they have to eat

1272
01:10:12,200 --> 01:10:15,680
Speaker 1: three times as much food per kilogram of body mass

1273
01:10:15,720 --> 01:10:19,280
Speaker 1: as the sloth does, and so requiring three times less

1274
01:10:19,320 --> 01:10:22,240
Speaker 1: food than something else in your niche opens up all

1275
01:10:22,360 --> 01:10:26,360
Speaker 1: kinds of possibilities for survival. So the sloth might not

1276
01:10:26,479 --> 01:10:29,320
Speaker 1: be lean and fast moving in a physical movement sense,

1277
01:10:29,360 --> 01:10:31,720
Speaker 1: but in a chemical sense, it is lean. It is

1278
01:10:31,800 --> 01:10:34,120
Speaker 1: like it has a lot to work with. It's got

1279
01:10:34,200 --> 01:10:36,800
Speaker 1: this wiggle room. But here's another thing we get to

1280
01:10:36,920 --> 01:10:40,679
Speaker 1: with sloth. Sloth metabolism in a in a way that's

1281
01:10:40,720 --> 01:10:44,679
Speaker 1: related to their very slow metabolism. They also digest food

1282
01:10:44,800 --> 01:10:47,960
Speaker 1: really slow, and this brings us back to the sarlac.

1283
01:10:48,760 --> 01:10:51,240
Speaker 1: Cliff points out research, saying, well, so we we don't

1284
01:10:51,280 --> 01:10:54,719
Speaker 1: know the exact rate, uh, you know, the exact bounded

1285
01:10:54,840 --> 01:10:57,559
Speaker 1: rates of sloth digestion, but there are estimates that it

1286
01:10:57,600 --> 01:11:02,120
Speaker 1: takes food between like a hundred fifty seven hours or

1287
01:11:02,360 --> 01:11:05,960
Speaker 1: up to twelve hundred hours to pass through the slots

1288
01:11:06,080 --> 01:11:09,320
Speaker 1: digestive system. So the upper end of this estimate would

1289
01:11:09,360 --> 01:11:12,720
Speaker 1: be like fifty days. Um, you can imagine, you know,

1290
01:11:12,840 --> 01:11:17,439
Speaker 1: having having your food waste in your body for that long. Robert,

1291
01:11:17,520 --> 01:11:20,080
Speaker 1: you said before we came on to record today that

1292
01:11:20,120 --> 01:11:23,800
Speaker 1: you have actually watched video of a sloth pooping. You

1293
01:11:23,880 --> 01:11:26,200
Speaker 1: people at home, if you have not seen this, you

1294
01:11:26,200 --> 01:11:29,320
Speaker 1: should look it up. It's fair warning. It looks kind

1295
01:11:29,320 --> 01:11:32,840
Speaker 1: of traumatic, like there's a lot coming out. Yeah, and

1296
01:11:32,840 --> 01:11:35,320
Speaker 1: I mean, the other interesting thing about slots pooping is that,

1297
01:11:35,360 --> 01:11:38,600
Speaker 1: of course they have to climb down to do it. Uh.

1298
01:11:38,720 --> 01:11:41,400
Speaker 1: They don't just poop out of the branches. They return

1299
01:11:41,479 --> 01:11:44,280
Speaker 1: to the earth to carry this out. Yeah. Uh and

1300
01:11:44,360 --> 01:11:48,360
Speaker 1: so Cliff Rights quote. Unsurprisingly, the slots four chambered stomach

1301
01:11:48,479 --> 01:11:51,800
Speaker 1: is constantly full, and so more leaves can only be

1302
01:11:51,960 --> 01:11:56,080
Speaker 1: ingested when digesta leaves the stomach and enters the small intestine.

1303
01:11:56,520 --> 01:12:00,679
Speaker 1: Food intake and critically, energy expenditure are likely limited by

1304
01:12:00,840 --> 01:12:04,960
Speaker 1: digestion rate and room in the stomach. Indeed, the abdominal

1305
01:12:05,000 --> 01:12:07,360
Speaker 1: contents of a sloth can account for up to thirty

1306
01:12:07,400 --> 01:12:11,439
Speaker 1: seven percent of their body mass. So it's digesting for

1307
01:12:11,640 --> 01:12:13,559
Speaker 1: days at a time, maybe you know, a month or

1308
01:12:13,560 --> 01:12:16,960
Speaker 1: more at a time digesting food. It's maybe a third

1309
01:12:17,000 --> 01:12:19,680
Speaker 1: of its body weight or more. Is the poop that

1310
01:12:19,760 --> 01:12:22,360
Speaker 1: it's got inside it right now, and it you know,

1311
01:12:22,439 --> 01:12:25,439
Speaker 1: hasn't purged yet. You can also imagine though that like

1312
01:12:25,479 --> 01:12:27,880
Speaker 1: why would it hang on this long? I can also

1313
01:12:27,920 --> 01:12:29,840
Speaker 1: imagine this having to do with what you're talking about,

1314
01:12:29,840 --> 01:12:31,840
Speaker 1: that it has to come down to the forest floor

1315
01:12:32,280 --> 01:12:35,880
Speaker 1: to do it, which is inherently a vulnerable activity. So

1316
01:12:36,200 --> 01:12:38,679
Speaker 1: and because it's slow moving, you might want to limit

1317
01:12:38,760 --> 01:12:42,960
Speaker 1: those trips down to the vulnerable position as much as possible. Yeah,

1318
01:12:43,000 --> 01:12:45,120
Speaker 1: it's like if you live in a you know, a

1319
01:12:45,160 --> 01:12:48,240
Speaker 1: walk up apartment in New York and you prefer to

1320
01:12:49,040 --> 01:12:53,080
Speaker 1: to poop in the say the john, but choice down

1321
01:12:53,080 --> 01:12:55,880
Speaker 1: on the street. I think that was the joke from

1322
01:12:55,880 --> 01:13:00,160
Speaker 1: Dirty Rock. Toilet might limit how many times you go

1323
01:13:00,240 --> 01:13:04,080
Speaker 1: to the jamba juice too exactly? Yes, yeah, you might

1324
01:13:04,160 --> 01:13:07,599
Speaker 1: you might wait, Awhile, there was another interesting fact that

1325
01:13:07,640 --> 01:13:09,240
Speaker 1: came up in this article, by the way, that the

1326
01:13:09,320 --> 01:13:12,439
Speaker 1: Cliff mentioned that I had never heard about before. Um So,

1327
01:13:12,800 --> 01:13:14,840
Speaker 1: you know, the obvious question might be, how does a

1328
01:13:14,880 --> 01:13:17,200
Speaker 1: sloth of aid predators If it's so slow, it's not

1329
01:13:17,280 --> 01:13:21,120
Speaker 1: a fighter, it doesn't run, it's a hyder. Uh. So

1330
01:13:21,200 --> 01:13:24,799
Speaker 1: the sloths have to protect themselves via camouflage, and Cliff

1331
01:13:24,840 --> 01:13:27,760
Speaker 1: mentions in an article that uh that all of the

1332
01:13:27,760 --> 01:13:31,880
Speaker 1: sloth's major predators like jaguars, awesl lots, harpy eagles are

1333
01:13:31,920 --> 01:13:35,679
Speaker 1: primarily visual hunters, so camouflage can actually go a long

1334
01:13:35,720 --> 01:13:39,320
Speaker 1: way to protect you. And she points to an interesting

1335
01:13:39,720 --> 01:13:45,280
Speaker 1: suggested symbiotic relationship with algae with between sloths and algae

1336
01:13:45,320 --> 01:13:48,920
Speaker 1: that grow in the sloths fur, and this algae is

1337
01:13:48,920 --> 01:13:52,200
Speaker 1: apparently passed on from mother to offspring. So it is

1338
01:13:52,680 --> 01:13:58,519
Speaker 1: visual camouflage through inherited microbiota, which is pretty interesting. Yeah.

1339
01:13:58,520 --> 01:14:00,519
Speaker 1: I do have to say that time that I got

1340
01:14:00,520 --> 01:14:04,439
Speaker 1: to to see, not only see, but to find, uh

1341
01:14:04,520 --> 01:14:06,479
Speaker 1: the sloth in the wild, like it wasn't pointed out

1342
01:14:06,520 --> 01:14:08,320
Speaker 1: by a guide, Well, it was just the whole time

1343
01:14:08,680 --> 01:14:10,960
Speaker 1: I knew based on what the guys that told us

1344
01:14:11,000 --> 01:14:13,920
Speaker 1: that there might be sloths in the trees, we just

1345
01:14:13,960 --> 01:14:16,240
Speaker 1: have to look really hard for them, and it did.

1346
01:14:16,280 --> 01:14:19,360
Speaker 1: It took forever to see this, this creature, because you're

1347
01:14:19,400 --> 01:14:22,799
Speaker 1: just kind of constantly on the lookout for possible movement,

1348
01:14:22,920 --> 01:14:26,559
Speaker 1: possible lumps, uh you know, in the in these you know,

1349
01:14:26,680 --> 01:14:29,640
Speaker 1: rich canopy of trees that might be a slot. And

1350
01:14:29,720 --> 01:14:31,760
Speaker 1: most of the time I was wrong, or at least

1351
01:14:31,760 --> 01:14:34,200
Speaker 1: I was unable to confirm that what I was looking

1352
01:14:34,240 --> 01:14:36,800
Speaker 1: at at a distance was a living creature at all.

1353
01:14:37,600 --> 01:14:40,799
Speaker 1: So so when really I was more lucky than anything.

1354
01:14:40,840 --> 01:14:43,280
Speaker 1: I think that I was able to to zero in

1355
01:14:43,520 --> 01:14:46,280
Speaker 1: on this this lump in the trees and then finally

1356
01:14:46,320 --> 01:14:49,400
Speaker 1: see it move and finally make out the movements of

1357
01:14:49,400 --> 01:14:51,800
Speaker 1: of an actual sloth. So yeah, I imagine they have

1358
01:14:51,840 --> 01:14:55,439
Speaker 1: a you know, tremendous advantage versus predators that are doing

1359
01:14:55,439 --> 01:14:58,880
Speaker 1: the same thing, you know, on constant lookout for, uh

1360
01:14:58,960 --> 01:15:02,120
Speaker 1: for prey amid the tree limbs. I don't know this,

1361
01:15:02,160 --> 01:15:05,639
Speaker 1: but i'd also guess that slower metabolism, slower movement would

1362
01:15:05,640 --> 01:15:10,000
Speaker 1: make you less fidgety. Yeah, yeah, they're not fidgety, like

1363
01:15:10,040 --> 01:15:12,240
Speaker 1: I remember. That was another thing. It's like the movements

1364
01:15:12,280 --> 01:15:17,240
Speaker 1: where we're very slow and fluid and kind of you know,

1365
01:15:17,439 --> 01:15:20,679
Speaker 1: far between, Like it wasn't it was wasn't like looking

1366
01:15:20,800 --> 01:15:23,960
Speaker 1: for the movement of a traditional creature, you know, or

1367
01:15:24,000 --> 01:15:25,600
Speaker 1: at least the kind of creatures that I tend to

1368
01:15:25,600 --> 01:15:27,600
Speaker 1: find myself looking for, you know, like the movements of

1369
01:15:27,680 --> 01:15:30,200
Speaker 1: say a squirrel or a or a chipmunk or a

1370
01:15:30,200 --> 01:15:32,840
Speaker 1: bird of some sort. You know, it's a it's it's

1371
01:15:32,880 --> 01:15:37,880
Speaker 1: a totally different animal. Can we imagine a sarlac evolving

1372
01:15:38,479 --> 01:15:41,240
Speaker 1: over over a very long period, over millions of years,

1373
01:15:41,360 --> 01:15:45,000
Speaker 1: from some type of sloth like creature, like a formerly

1374
01:15:45,200 --> 01:15:51,720
Speaker 1: totally mobile creature that over time evolves too slow, its

1375
01:15:51,760 --> 01:15:56,559
Speaker 1: metabolism and digestion down further and further and further in

1376
01:15:56,680 --> 01:16:00,400
Speaker 1: order to you know, survive on maybe tough dietary material

1377
01:16:00,560 --> 01:16:03,920
Speaker 1: like like plant leaves or something, uh, to support this

1378
01:16:04,000 --> 01:16:08,720
Speaker 1: high efficiency of you know, a slow metabolism, highly efficient digestion.

1379
01:16:10,120 --> 01:16:11,800
Speaker 1: I wonder if there are routes like that. I mean,

1380
01:16:11,840 --> 01:16:14,519
Speaker 1: I have wondered before. Like one of the main things

1381
01:16:14,600 --> 01:16:19,160
Speaker 1: we think of is characterizing intelligent animal life is fast movement.

1382
01:16:19,840 --> 01:16:24,840
Speaker 1: But that doesn't you can understand why intelligence evolves from

1383
01:16:25,040 --> 01:16:28,320
Speaker 1: fast movement in the history of animal life. But it

1384
01:16:28,360 --> 01:16:31,240
Speaker 1: doesn't have to stay that way in terms of that association, right,

1385
01:16:31,280 --> 01:16:33,240
Speaker 1: Like you could imagine that there could be an animal

1386
01:16:33,360 --> 01:16:37,200
Speaker 1: with intelligence that just keeps evolving back down to have

1387
01:16:37,560 --> 01:16:40,840
Speaker 1: less and less need to move its body around and

1388
01:16:40,920 --> 01:16:45,360
Speaker 1: kind of becomes sessile, becomes plant. Like I don't know,

1389
01:16:45,439 --> 01:16:47,799
Speaker 1: I mean maybe maybe millions of years in the future.

1390
01:16:48,080 --> 01:16:50,800
Speaker 1: I'm just saying there there will be ant lions that

1391
01:16:50,880 --> 01:16:54,040
Speaker 1: evolved from sloths and you know, fall into the pit

1392
01:16:54,120 --> 01:16:55,920
Speaker 1: and you'll one day get to be a part of

1393
01:16:55,960 --> 01:17:01,040
Speaker 1: their dramatic traumatic pooping. I like that. Yeah, the idea

1394
01:17:01,080 --> 01:17:04,559
Speaker 1: of a far future sessile sloth. All right, So there

1395
01:17:04,560 --> 01:17:07,240
Speaker 1: you have it. Did we expose all of the secrets

1396
01:17:07,240 --> 01:17:09,879
Speaker 1: of the sarlac? Uh? No, we did not. The sarlak

1397
01:17:10,439 --> 01:17:14,120
Speaker 1: retains its mysteries, which I think is is you know,

1398
01:17:14,160 --> 01:17:18,599
Speaker 1: one of the key attractions to the creature to begin with. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

1399
01:17:18,640 --> 01:17:20,600
Speaker 1: I mean you can't fully lift up the sarlac and

1400
01:17:20,640 --> 01:17:23,160
Speaker 1: peek at what's under it, but we'll have to imagine

1401
01:17:23,160 --> 01:17:25,479
Speaker 1: that there is a poop cave, yeah, or what if

1402
01:17:25,479 --> 01:17:27,880
Speaker 1: there's just a NonStop party in there, you know, like

1403
01:17:27,880 --> 01:17:30,000
Speaker 1: what if you had an alternate cut where Boba fett

1404
01:17:30,120 --> 01:17:32,200
Speaker 1: Is is swallowed whole by the star Lac and then

1405
01:17:32,200 --> 01:17:35,400
Speaker 1: he's just dropped into this stomach cavity that's actually just

1406
01:17:35,400 --> 01:17:38,639
Speaker 1: to really happening hang out. You know that everybody that's

1407
01:17:38,640 --> 01:17:40,400
Speaker 1: ever been eaten by it is just in there kind

1408
01:17:40,400 --> 01:17:42,840
Speaker 1: of chilling, you know. And it turns out the Starla

1409
01:17:43,000 --> 01:17:46,360
Speaker 1: doesn't digest people. Instead, it has like a symbiotic relationship

1410
01:17:46,439 --> 01:17:49,719
Speaker 1: with you know, other organisms, you know, beneath the surface

1411
01:17:49,720 --> 01:17:54,160
Speaker 1: of tattooin and everything like friends. Yeah, yeah, it gets lonely.

1412
01:17:54,160 --> 01:17:56,519
Speaker 1: It's an intelligent creature. It gets lonely. It needs friends,

1413
01:17:56,840 --> 01:17:59,760
Speaker 1: right well, Robert, this has been a lot of fun. Yeah,

1414
01:17:59,840 --> 01:18:02,720
Speaker 1: this has been fun. Um. It is kind of hard

1415
01:18:02,760 --> 01:18:04,800
Speaker 1: to believe this is the This is I think the

1416
01:18:04,840 --> 01:18:07,800
Speaker 1: first Star Wars episode of stuff to blow your mind.

1417
01:18:07,880 --> 01:18:10,639
Speaker 1: But hey, who knows. There's a lot of a lot

1418
01:18:10,680 --> 01:18:13,120
Speaker 1: of stuff in the Star Wars universe. Maybe we'll maybe

1419
01:18:13,120 --> 01:18:14,720
Speaker 1: we'll get up the energy to do another one of

1420
01:18:14,760 --> 01:18:19,839
Speaker 1: the one of these one day. I'm game. In the meantime, obviously,

1421
01:18:19,960 --> 01:18:21,960
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone out there. We know

1422
01:18:22,040 --> 01:18:24,719
Speaker 1: we have a lot of Star Wars fans, general science

1423
01:18:24,760 --> 01:18:29,639
Speaker 1: fiction fans, monster fans. Uh out there amid our listeners,

1424
01:18:29,680 --> 01:18:32,080
Speaker 1: and yeah, we would love to hear your feedback on

1425
01:18:32,160 --> 01:18:35,320
Speaker 1: this episode, on the Star Lac itself, your memories and

1426
01:18:35,360 --> 01:18:38,120
Speaker 1: interpretations of the Star Lack. And indeed, if you think

1427
01:18:38,160 --> 01:18:41,240
Speaker 1: there's a strong candidate for a future episode of Stuff

1428
01:18:41,240 --> 01:18:43,760
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind related to Star Wars or any

1429
01:18:43,760 --> 01:18:48,880
Speaker 1: other work of fiction, science fiction, et cetera, let us know. Um,

1430
01:18:49,240 --> 01:18:50,720
Speaker 1: we'll tell you how to get in touch with us

1431
01:18:50,720 --> 01:18:52,640
Speaker 1: here in a second, But if you just want to

1432
01:18:52,680 --> 01:18:56,120
Speaker 1: support the show, best thing you can do is rate, review,

1433
01:18:56,120 --> 01:19:00,679
Speaker 1: and subscribe wherever you get this podcast us banks as always,

1434
01:19:00,680 --> 01:19:03,600
Speaker 1: who are excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you

1435
01:19:03,600 --> 01:19:05,439
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

1436
01:19:05,479 --> 01:19:07,679
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic

1437
01:19:07,720 --> 01:19:09,400
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hi, you can

1438
01:19:09,479 --> 01:19:12,360
Speaker 1: email us at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind

1439
01:19:12,439 --> 01:19:22,200
Speaker 1: dot Common. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of

1440
01:19:22,200 --> 01:19:24,840
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio,

1441
01:19:25,040 --> 01:19:27,880
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're

1442
01:19:27,880 --> 01:19:39,840
Speaker 1: listening to your favorite shows.