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You're listening to Weird and 
Dead, the paleontology podcast 

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that tells evolutions most 
embarrassing and bizarre 

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stories. 
I'm Megan Weatherell. 

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And I'm Amy Atwater, and we are 
two living scientists who are 

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weirdly excited about dead 
things. 

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On this episode, we'll talk 
about what exactly an egg is, 

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what sort of animals have them, 
including why some mammals do 

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and some mammals don't. 
And spoiler alert, I have a 

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fantastic. 
Placenta instead. 

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And of course we'll answer the 
age-old question, Which came 

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first, the chicken or the egg? 
Like always, our podcast talks 

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about some disgusting things, so
definitely don't eat while 

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listening to this episode and 
check the warnings in the 

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description. 
Today we're talking about things

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related to reproduction, 
specifically eggs and eggs in 

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the fossil record. 
When did they happen, why did 

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they happen and who, if anyone 
cared for them? 

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Which leads us to, I think, 
starting with a no brainer 

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question to get us going of 
Megan, What came first, the 

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chicken or the egg? 
Well, thank you, Amy. 

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I'm glad you asked, but it is 
obviously the egg since that was

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around for a very, very long 
time before chickens. 

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So eggs evolved a very long time
ago. 

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But chickens have a very special
type of egg, their eggs 

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basically just like your eggs, 
just like reptile eggs, just 

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like mammal eggs, whether they 
are real eggs or not, get 

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dressed up in a series of 
additional membranes. 

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So they're kind of like 
Victorian style where they have 

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all of these additional layers. 
So an egg that has all of these 

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additional layers is called an 
amniotic egg. 

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And amniotic eggs are something 
that links a lot of the modern 

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vertebrate animals together. 
And apart from things like 

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frogs, which lay gelatinous 
eggs, so amniotic eggs, we 

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diverged amniotes as a group 
around 310 million years ago. 

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That's when reptiles split off 
from the things that would lead 

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to mammals. 
So eggs have actually been 

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around for a very, very long 
time. 

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Way before the chicken, that's 
what you're saying? 

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Way before the chicken. 
So chicken eggs are kind of the 

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quintessential amniotic egg. 
They're the thing that we think 

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of the most. 
They have a hard, calcareous 

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shell on top of them, which is a
little bit different from other 

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eggs, which are more leathery. 
And I'd like to give you a 

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mental picture right now of what
chicken eggs look like inside of

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the chicken. 
Are you prepared? 

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Yeah, I mean, I like to only 
think about them on my breakfast

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sandwich or like full of 
chocolate that aren't real eggs 

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and hidden somewhere. 
And my mom, I'm like way too old

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to go on an Easter egg hunt, but
she really wants to see it 

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happen. 
So she puts 20s in the plastic 

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eggs to convince me and my 
stepbrother while we're in 

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college to go to an Easter egg 
hunt. 

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It was awesome. 
We got a lot of bar money. 

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It was great. 
Wow. 

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That's what I think of when I 
think of eggs, eggs, eggs, eggs.

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Yeah, chickens don't lay hollow 
eggs or eggs that you can fill 

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with 20. 
I guess you could fill them. 

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With that would be really 
difficult though, 'cause I know 

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with blowing eggs it's like very
small holes in them. 

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So I don't know how you'd get 
the 20, like, rolled up into the

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egg. 
It would be cool, though. 

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It'd be cool. 
Anyways, OK, so chicken eggs. 

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They take about 26 hours inside 
of a chicken to go from like 

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beginning egg to exiting the 
body egg. 

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So on the ovary of a chicken, I 
want you to imagine the 

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slimiest, wettest looking yolk 
that you can imagine. 

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No what, No whites. 
Those get added later. 

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It's basically a cluster of yolk
grapes on a pink fleshy ovary. 

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I see how this is going to 
start. 

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Wonderful. 
And they are. 

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However, however big you think 
there are, they are go bigger. 

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They're bigger than you expect. 
So it is almost full yolks. 

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They have thousands of them 
forming at different levels. 

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But the the ovary that I'm 
looking at in particular has 

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like 2 super big ones that are 
ready to egg up and then 

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everything else is like a 
slightly smaller size or has a 

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lot of variety in there. 
Amy, do you remember the Jelly 

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beans that are covered in nerds 
that are like encrusted that you

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get Oh my God, that you're 
actively eating right now? 

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Yeah, they look like that. 
We didn't plant this, but I it's

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after Easter. 
They're all on sale. 

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She knows they're my favorite. 
I'm gonna eat one in honor of 

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this disgusting description. 
Yeah, yeah. 

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So imagine that. 
But it's like popping inside of 

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your teeth. 
Like a gusher. 

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Yeah, a. 
Yolk gusher. 

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A yolk gusher. 
I mean it's. 

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Always really like. 
Nutritionist. 

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Is that a word? 
Yeah, yeah. 

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I mean, if you ate a chicken 
ovary, you probably have some 

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pretty high cholesterol. 
OK, so there's just like, so I'm

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kind of envisioning like, I 
don't know, almost like a 

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fiddlehead Fern, you know, as 
they're like unrolling. 

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No, no no. 
That sounds way cooler. 

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Instead it's like migrating, 
right? 

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Like they so like there's the 
the big dollops of yolk at the 

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top, the ones that are ready to 
fall off and go into the 

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fallopian tube and do whatever 
fucking other shit they do 

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afterwards. 
It's like big ones at the top 

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and then medium ones and then 
smaller ones and then just 

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smaller and smaller and smaller 
till they're like pimple size 

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and pimple colored. 
I do love a runny yolk, I'm not 

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going to lie. 
Yeah, so. 

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It's so gross to me. 
So gross. 

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So the yolk of the egg is the 
more nutritious part, which is 

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why if you eat like an egg white
sandwich, it just tastes like 

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sadness. 
And the yolks themselves are the

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the starting point of the egg 
and those get passed down 

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through their fallopian tube or 
ova duct I think is what it's 

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called in a chicken. 
I don't think they have 

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fallopian tubes and so they're 
ova duct is where things like 

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all of these additional Victoria
level membranes are being put on

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top of it. 
So you get all of these 

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additional membranes getting 
wrapped around this beautiful 

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little egg. 
Which is why, even though it 

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takes 26 hours for an egg to be 
formed, there's about a 14 to 18

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minute window in which it can be
fertilized. 

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I was wondering, I was like, 
when in this journey does the 

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sperm come into play? 
Well, just like I guess with 

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most reproductive acts, it has 
to happen before it gets all of 

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the additional clothing layers 
back on. 

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Yes. 
Once the yolk plops in, you got 

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to get fertilized before you 
start forming like a calcareous 

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shell and so that initial phase 
really is pretty quick. 

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So that's why you have a very 
short time window as a rooster 

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to make a fertilized egg. 
I don't know if chickens can 

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hold the sperm inside of their 
body, probably lots of animals 

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can, so they might be able to 
like save it for the next time. 

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But regardless, very short 
window it takes. 

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Putting a calcareous shell is 
the longest time period, so it 

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takes like 20 hours I think to 
put on the actual like egg shell

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coating. 
So with chickens, do they end up

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stopping to lay more eggs if 
they have a fertile bunch? 

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Like we raise chickens to just 
be constantly producing eggs? 

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What about like other bird? 
Like I mean don't. 

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Did Did I get a biological cue 
where they're like, OK, stop, Or

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else they would just be like, 
constantly covered in little 

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baby chicks at slightly 
different stages of development?

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Yeah. 
So I think they basically have 

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like a set number that they 
produce and then sit on. 

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I think it's like 12 to 20 or 
something. 

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And so once they've accumulated 
that number of eggs, they will 

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go into kind of a brooding mode.
So it's not infinite eggs if 

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they're allowed to brood and 
raise chicks. 

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So us taking their eggs all the 
time is why they are still. 

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Got to start over. 
And more eggs because we keep 

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destroying their sand castles. 
Wonderful. 

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Wonderful. 
Oh, wow. 

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I'm still, you know, I'm still 
hungry. 

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It's still totally eat an egg. 
We've. 

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Only been recording for like 10 
minutes so you just wait. 

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I have some grocer stories at 
the end. 

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Yeah, chicken eggs have a hard 
shell. 

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Chicken eggs also have color. 
So with blue chicken eggs, that 

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coloration is like part of the 
actual shell. 

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So that comes in super early in 
the process. 

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Whereas if chicken eggs are 
brown, that's actually like the 

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last couple of hours before the 
chicken lays the actual egg. 

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So like brown is a secondary 
color, which is why to make 

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green, you have kind of the blue
color in the whole shell at 1st 

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and then brown is laid on down 
on top of that. 

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And that's how you typically 
make a green chicken egg or a 

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green dinosaur egg, because 
theropod dinosaurs and their 

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descendants are the only ones 
that are known not only to have,

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like potentially chicken shell 
style eggs, but also colored 

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eggs. 
Turns out Dinonicus had 

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blue-green eggs. 
As said, a lot of oviractors and

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trudons. 
That's so cool because you 

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remember everyone, birds are 
dinosaurs. 

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This is not a question to be 
debated. 

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We're not up for that. 
We also don't really care that 

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much except for when it's 
interesting. 

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Yeah, when I think about like 
turtle eggs or crock eggs, 

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they're all just like that kind 
of white. 

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And then those are also tend to 
be like a softer shell too. 

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So that's another thing that 
divides like the birds from some

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of the reptilian scum. 
Tell us a little bit more about 

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what eggs and dinosaurs look 
like. 

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I have actually found Dinosaur 
egg before. 

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It looked fairly unremarkable. 
I mean, it was really. 

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Really cool. 
Thanks so much. 

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I mean they were cool. 
One side was a little bumpier, 

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one side was a little smoother. 
What I will say is that dinosaur

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eggs are one of probably the 
number one pseudo fossils that 

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us paleontologists deal with, 
with the general public or just 

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with each other. 
I think that's where I've heard 

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a lot from folks. 
It's like I found a dinosaur 

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egg. 
It's like up there with finding 

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a meteorite. 
Like it's never a meteorite. 

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Sorry, it's just, I mean, 
technically, yes, occasionally 

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it could be a meteorite and it 
could be a dinosaur. 

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But honestly, if you're finding 
a rock in Oregon and you think 

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it's a dinosaur egg, it's not 
for so many reasons that we can 

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go into. 
So all those people who love to 

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DM me on social media, joke's on
you. 

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I never answer my DMS and want 
to know if this is a dinosaur 

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egg. 
Let me just tell you right now, 

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it is not a dinosaur egg. 
We had these limestone 

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concretions in Big Bend National
Park where I worked that would 

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kind of dissolve away and they 
were very rounded. 

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And so it was almost like you 
could look in them and see 

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little baby dinosaur bones 
because of just the dissolution 

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of the limestone. 
And oh so many times at the 

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visitor center, People like we. 
Found. 

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Dinosaur eggs and it's like you 
drop some hydrochloric acid on 

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it and you're like, Nope, it's 
not. 

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But anyway, I digress. 
Dinosaur eggs are really cool. 

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The ones I found we're going to 
talk a little bit more about. 

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We do actually know who laid 
those eggs, which turns out to 

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be really, really hard to do in 
paleontology because you can't 

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just watch the Troodon lay an 
egg in real time. 

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They they happened, you know, 
75,000,000 years ago. 

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So it's really, really hard if 
you have just an isolated egg to

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match it with a dinosaur. 
Or to match it with some 

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ambiguous cloaca, You can't. 
You can't find, like shape 

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matches. 
Cloaca, by the way, is the 

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unidimensional opening that 
dinosaurs and chickens use to do

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everything. 
It's just one hole. 

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Oh yeah. 
I'm so glad you've mentioned 

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Cloaca, because now I can bring 
the cloak to the table all day, 

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every day because it's one of my
favorite topics in our 

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household. 
It is one of our favorite things

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to talk about is Cloaca of 
dinosaurs and what did it look 

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like? 
Is it Shape of Water? 

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You know how she describes it as
like it opens up and then 

226
00:12:19,280 --> 00:12:21,720
something comes on out with her 
fishy, fresh friend? 

227
00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:23,240
Yeah, it's great scene in the 
movie. 

228
00:12:25,560 --> 00:12:28,480
Or what is it like? 
And like you said, it's not like

229
00:12:28,480 --> 00:12:32,360
a cloaca of any given type of 
dinosaur is like a specific 

230
00:12:32,360 --> 00:12:36,080
stamp where it leaves its mark 
on that egg. 

231
00:12:36,320 --> 00:12:40,080
And so we can't go matching up. 
And plus cloaks don't fossilize 

232
00:12:40,200 --> 00:12:42,240
because they're not. 
They're not Bony. 

233
00:12:42,240 --> 00:12:43,800
This is just. 
That one. 

234
00:12:43,920 --> 00:12:46,800
That one Cicadasaurus, or 
whatever it is. 

235
00:12:46,880 --> 00:12:49,160
Oh, is that one of those weird 
mummy ones? 

236
00:12:49,160 --> 00:12:53,680
Too A whole episode on 
fossilized butt holes. 

237
00:12:53,680 --> 00:12:58,200
I'm sure, and I'm pretty sure we
have cloaca trace fossils. 

238
00:12:59,560 --> 00:13:04,200
I want you to imagine if you sat
in the mud that was so fine it 

239
00:13:04,200 --> 00:13:07,920
preserved the specific 
anatomical details of whatever 

240
00:13:07,920 --> 00:13:09,840
hole was touching it. 
God. 

241
00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:12,880
Geology is magical, isn't it? 
Could you imagine though? 

242
00:13:12,880 --> 00:13:18,320
Seriously for a second, if your 
legacy for millions of years was

243
00:13:18,320 --> 00:13:22,040
like you sitting down on like 
the Bank of a river totally with

244
00:13:22,040 --> 00:13:27,880
nothing on your bottoms and just
that that impression being 

245
00:13:27,880 --> 00:13:30,560
preserved for like 100 million 
years. 

246
00:13:30,880 --> 00:13:34,400
I think that's a beautiful 
legacy and we should personally 

247
00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:36,760
aim for it. 
However I die. 

248
00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:41,560
I want you to find a way to 
preserve my holes, my orifices. 

249
00:13:41,880 --> 00:13:45,160
All of them. 
Oh, exactly, exactly. 

250
00:13:45,680 --> 00:13:47,440
This trace fossils are where 
it's at, y'all. 

251
00:13:47,440 --> 00:13:50,080
It's where you can actually get 
some idea of soft tissue. 

252
00:13:50,080 --> 00:13:52,000
It's where you can get some 
ideas of behavior. 

253
00:13:52,200 --> 00:13:54,520
We'll go down that route for 
now. 

254
00:13:54,520 --> 00:13:58,960
The point of this discussion is 
the lack of a match of cloaca to

255
00:13:58,960 --> 00:14:01,800
egg, or even dinosaur to cloaca 
to egg. 

256
00:14:01,800 --> 00:14:05,720
So there's many missing pieces 
here in this story, which means 

257
00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:09,880
that dinosaur folks that study 
dinosaur eggs actually have 

258
00:14:09,880 --> 00:14:14,120
their own naming system that's 
unique from all other dinosaur 

259
00:14:14,120 --> 00:14:15,640
names. 
So it's like Troodon. 

260
00:14:15,800 --> 00:14:18,960
Actually Troodon, we do have 
some connections because of 

261
00:14:18,960 --> 00:14:20,960
being able to identify some of 
the embryos. 

262
00:14:21,080 --> 00:14:24,880
But say like there's a bunch of 
like a Triceratops, we don't 

263
00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:28,360
have any known Triceratops eggs.
And so instead they have their 

264
00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:34,160
own genera, which is just oh oh 
genera, which just is 

265
00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:39,320
essentially taxonomic names for.
Emphasize the oh if you say that

266
00:14:39,360 --> 00:14:41,040
word. 
It's not just, oh genera, oh 

267
00:14:41,640 --> 00:14:43,800
genera. 
Could you imagine going to one 

268
00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:47,440
of their talks at a conference 
and being like this, oh genius 

269
00:14:47,720 --> 00:14:51,880
and this oh genius over here 
would be really entertaining. 

270
00:14:51,920 --> 00:14:56,760
Like, I 'cause there's Ohids and
oh, AIDS structures and intro 

271
00:14:56,760 --> 00:14:59,240
geology classes and we would 
always be like really into 

272
00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:01,520
saying that. 
And so most of the names for 

273
00:15:01,520 --> 00:15:04,720
these dinosaur egg species and 
an ulithus. 

274
00:15:05,040 --> 00:15:08,440
And again, they're not 
necessarily tied to a specific 

275
00:15:08,440 --> 00:15:12,640
known dinosaur skeleton because 
they don't again come pre 

276
00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:14,640
labeled. 
But this is the cloaca I came 

277
00:15:14,640 --> 00:15:16,680
out of. 
I'm assuming that most of these 

278
00:15:16,680 --> 00:15:19,480
dinosaur eggs, in addition to 
lacking the cloaca connection, 

279
00:15:19,720 --> 00:15:21,720
they also don't have an embryo 
inside, right? 

280
00:15:21,720 --> 00:15:23,880
So it's not like you could cut 
them open and be like, wow, 

281
00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:27,440
cool, Because eggs don't always 
have embryos like the chicken 

282
00:15:27,440 --> 00:15:31,880
eggs we eat, That's there's no 
bones in the chicken eggs that 

283
00:15:31,880 --> 00:15:33,840
we eat. 
So you have to wait a long time 

284
00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:36,120
for those to develop. 
So if you're preserving 

285
00:15:36,120 --> 00:15:39,320
something early on, there's 
gonna just be goo in the inside.

286
00:15:39,520 --> 00:15:41,320
Right. 
Or I mean, what if you lay an 

287
00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:43,920
unfertilized egg too? 
You know, one that just doesn't 

288
00:15:43,920 --> 00:15:45,120
get fertilized. 
You know, like. 

289
00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:47,840
What if he missed that window, 
you know? 

290
00:15:49,440 --> 00:15:53,640
What was he doing? 
But that's exactly thank you I 

291
00:15:53,720 --> 00:15:56,760
that's exactly one of the 
reasons is because either they 

292
00:15:56,760 --> 00:16:00,600
need to be found in association 
like literally still in the 

293
00:16:00,640 --> 00:16:05,400
abdomen of the female skeleton 
or it needs to have an 

294
00:16:05,400 --> 00:16:09,040
identifiable embryo, which is 
really, really hard to do and 

295
00:16:09,040 --> 00:16:13,160
has really only come around in 
the more recent years because we

296
00:16:13,160 --> 00:16:16,520
have better technology. 
There is a relatively famous, 

297
00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:19,960
OK, very famous dinosaur 
paleontologist who likes to brag

298
00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:23,880
that he still just smashes eggs 
open and like looks at them with

299
00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:27,920
his eyes. 
And this is not well received by

300
00:16:27,920 --> 00:16:31,640
the Paleo community when you can
now CT scan things and X-ray 

301
00:16:31,680 --> 00:16:35,120
things and you can syncotron 
things, which are all just 

302
00:16:35,120 --> 00:16:38,320
different ways to get images of 
inside the egg, so you don't 

303
00:16:38,320 --> 00:16:42,800
have to destroy it to be able to
get that information. 

304
00:16:43,360 --> 00:16:47,000
And so we are able to do that 
now, or folks have found eggs 

305
00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:50,480
that have been partially eroded 
to expose some of that. 

306
00:16:50,480 --> 00:16:53,480
And then with a little bit of 
acid prep, you might be able to 

307
00:16:53,480 --> 00:16:57,000
get down to that embryo, 
identify what the embryo is, and

308
00:16:57,000 --> 00:17:00,080
then you can understand more. 
But that's really rare. 

309
00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:03,520
There's like, really only about 
a dozen dinosaur species that 

310
00:17:03,520 --> 00:17:07,839
haven't known egg embryo, which 
means some of our most iconic 

311
00:17:07,839 --> 00:17:09,480
dinosaurs. 
No eggs. 

312
00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:11,280
We don't have any eggs from AT 
Rex. 

313
00:17:11,319 --> 00:17:12,200
We. 
Don't have any. 

314
00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:16,319
We do and they just right. 
We're unfertilized or gooey, 

315
00:17:16,359 --> 00:17:18,520
yeah? 
We need like this, you know, 

316
00:17:19,319 --> 00:17:25,119
match.com for T Rex and all of 
its babies anyway we don't. 

317
00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:27,640
You think? 
Happens on match.com Amy, but 

318
00:17:27,640 --> 00:17:29,520
it's definitely not one of the 
sites where you find your 

319
00:17:29,520 --> 00:17:32,520
parents. 
If you do, it would be really 

320
00:17:32,520 --> 00:17:35,440
bad. 
So I believe you're thinking of 

321
00:17:35,920 --> 00:17:40,880
ancestry.com 23andMe. 
Right. 

322
00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:43,080
Oops. 
Yeah, I shouldn't say that 

323
00:17:43,080 --> 00:17:45,520
because yeah, both my parents 
definitely met their current 

324
00:17:45,520 --> 00:17:49,720
spouses on match.com. 
But but they didn't meet their 

325
00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:53,640
family members, which is we. 
Did find a bonus 

326
00:17:53,720 --> 00:17:56,560
auntthroughancestry.com but 
again another. 

327
00:17:56,560 --> 00:18:01,600
Notmatch.com. 
My baby Atwater This is 

328
00:18:01,600 --> 00:18:04,320
match.com. 
Yeah, we do need to get 

329
00:18:04,320 --> 00:18:06,160
sponsored. 
Probably match.com will never 

330
00:18:06,160 --> 00:18:08,600
sponsor us. 
Now we do talk too much about 

331
00:18:08,600 --> 00:18:10,120
incest. 
We're already there. 

332
00:18:10,400 --> 00:18:13,120
We're already there. 
Exactly how long is it? 

333
00:18:13,120 --> 00:18:16,800
Mark the clock. 
Mark the clock talking about 

334
00:18:16,800 --> 00:18:19,680
incest. 
Oh man, wait. 

335
00:18:19,680 --> 00:18:22,240
It is just really fascinating to
to think that right? 

336
00:18:22,280 --> 00:18:25,320
We might have their eggs out 
there, but again, we don't see 

337
00:18:25,320 --> 00:18:28,280
an embryo inside. 
Maybe we haven't had the study 

338
00:18:28,280 --> 00:18:31,200
to look and see if there's an 
embryo inside it. 

339
00:18:31,200 --> 00:18:34,960
We've found embryonic T Rex 
specimens, but without their 

340
00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:39,200
egg, like the egg didn't 
preserve but the embryos did, 

341
00:18:39,480 --> 00:18:42,720
which is crazy too, to think 
about just the chances of that 

342
00:18:42,720 --> 00:18:45,040
being fossilized and then even 
discovered. 

343
00:18:45,720 --> 00:18:51,280
Some scientists think that it is
likely because not all dinosaur 

344
00:18:51,280 --> 00:18:54,080
eggs necessarily were hard shell
like what we've been talking 

345
00:18:54,080 --> 00:18:56,800
about so far. 
They might have been softer 

346
00:18:56,800 --> 00:19:01,280
shells, like what we see in 
turtles or crocodiles that 

347
00:19:01,280 --> 00:19:05,160
probably wouldn't fossilize as 
well, so the jury's still kind 

348
00:19:05,160 --> 00:19:07,840
of out on that. 
The other way that you would 

349
00:19:07,840 --> 00:19:12,720
know is if potentially the 
dinosaur just happened to die on

350
00:19:12,720 --> 00:19:15,360
top of it for one or another 
reasons, right leading into 

351
00:19:15,360 --> 00:19:18,360
maybe your next topic. 
Yeah, Holla. 

352
00:19:18,360 --> 00:19:21,120
Like, I'm sleepy. 
I'm just gonna, like, die on 

353
00:19:21,120 --> 00:19:24,080
this nest. 
Thank you. 

354
00:19:24,120 --> 00:19:27,400
Yes, one of my favorite stories,
because not only is it 

355
00:19:27,400 --> 00:19:31,000
fascinating paleontology, but it
also just gives you a glimpse of

356
00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:34,400
what happens when every 
paleontologist is just a white 

357
00:19:34,400 --> 00:19:37,080
guy. 
And they don't have a very 

358
00:19:37,080 --> 00:19:41,600
diverse set of ideas about 
interpreting fossil discoveries 

359
00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:45,360
because they all are the same. 
Anyway, yeah, there's this 

360
00:19:45,360 --> 00:19:47,440
really cool dinosaur called 
Oviraptor. 

361
00:19:47,640 --> 00:19:54,120
I should say Oviraptor. 
It was a relatively small 

362
00:19:54,120 --> 00:19:57,160
dinosaur. 
It was pretty bird like it had. 

363
00:19:57,160 --> 00:20:01,360
It's got a really silly face, 
looks kind of like a beaked 

364
00:20:01,360 --> 00:20:05,480
face, and it had feathers. 
But it is thought to be 

365
00:20:05,480 --> 00:20:10,000
flightless and it lived about 
75,000,000 years ago during the 

366
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:12,760
late Cretaceous. 
I know I have to double check 

367
00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:15,560
about its face. 
I think I'm just comparing it to

368
00:20:15,600 --> 00:20:18,000
others. 
Yeah, they are. 

369
00:20:18,040 --> 00:20:21,400
One of the smashed faced 
ostriches. 

370
00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:22,600
Yeah. 
Yeah. 

371
00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:23,960
Yeah. 
Like a lateral? 

372
00:20:23,960 --> 00:20:26,800
Ostrich turtle like an ostrich 
turtle face. 

373
00:20:27,360 --> 00:20:29,920
And it's interesting because 
they're closely related to a 

374
00:20:29,920 --> 00:20:32,160
bunch of other theropod 
dinosaurs, which are what we 

375
00:20:32,160 --> 00:20:36,280
normally think of as our really 
big, sexy, scary ones like T Rex

376
00:20:36,280 --> 00:20:39,480
and Allosaurus. 
And then these later lineages of

377
00:20:39,480 --> 00:20:43,840
theropods are just these weird 
bird things that are really 

378
00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:47,440
adorable and awkward. 
And they always display them in 

379
00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:50,440
museums with, like, their arms 
out to, like, show that they 

380
00:20:50,440 --> 00:20:52,920
would have had wings. 
But I think they all look like 

381
00:20:52,920 --> 00:20:56,680
they want a big hug. 
And I just want, I like, I'm 

382
00:20:56,720 --> 00:20:59,640
always like, I wish I could hug 
you, 'cause they're just can't 

383
00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:01,280
stand it there, you know, arms 
out. 

384
00:21:01,280 --> 00:21:04,520
Like, I'm ready for it. 
So Oviraptor is one of these 

385
00:21:04,520 --> 00:21:07,800
weird theropods that is Super 
Bird. 

386
00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:13,640
Like it was discovered for the 
first time in the early 1920s by

387
00:21:13,640 --> 00:21:16,680
a bunch of dudes who were 
working with the American Museum

388
00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:21,360
of Natural History in Mongolia. 
And they found a skeleton of a 

389
00:21:21,360 --> 00:21:25,440
small dinosaur on top of a 
dinosaur egg nest in the Gobi 

390
00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:28,120
Desert. 
And when they brought news of 

391
00:21:28,120 --> 00:21:31,560
this discovery and the evidence 
back to the United States, they 

392
00:21:31,560 --> 00:21:36,760
took their discoveries to the 
president of the AM NH at that 

393
00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:42,440
time, Our friend, the one and 
only Henry Fairfield Osborne, 

394
00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:44,400
don't. 
Call him my friend. 

395
00:21:45,600 --> 00:21:50,840
Do not subscribe to that. 
But all the material that we get

396
00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:55,480
from this one idiot, he's not a 
total idiot. 

397
00:21:55,560 --> 00:21:58,760
He just did some really dumb 
stuff anyway. 

398
00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:02,480
And one of my favorite Henry 
Fairfield Osborne stories is the

399
00:22:02,480 --> 00:22:06,840
fact that this is the guy who 
brought to the world Nebraska 

400
00:22:06,840 --> 00:22:11,000
man, Oh no. 
Which is literally when he was 

401
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:14,520
brought these, like, I think 
they're pig or peckery teeth 

402
00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:16,520
molars, and they're from 
Nebraska. 

403
00:22:16,520 --> 00:22:20,080
And when he saw them, he was 
like, this is Hesperopithecus, 

404
00:22:20,080 --> 00:22:23,080
the Western ape man, not their 
pig. 

405
00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:23,840
It's. 
Not their pig. 

406
00:22:25,960 --> 00:22:29,840
Yes, with no other lines of 
evidence that somehow a plio 

407
00:22:29,840 --> 00:22:33,120
Pleistocene ape got to North 
America. 

408
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:38,680
I guess maybe he rafted. 
We don't know it. 

409
00:22:38,680 --> 00:22:41,320
It's just like this, very not 
well supported. 

410
00:22:41,320 --> 00:22:44,800
And if he'd, you know, looked at
some other samples, he probably 

411
00:22:44,800 --> 00:22:47,320
would have concluded much 
earlier on that they were from a

412
00:22:47,320 --> 00:22:52,560
pig, not from Bigfoot of the 
Plio Pleistocene of Nebraska. 

413
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:56,320
However, that's not how it 
played out, and I just find that

414
00:22:56,320 --> 00:23:02,320
hilarious that yes, there has 
been a hypothesized humanoid to 

415
00:23:02,320 --> 00:23:06,480
evolve in North America, and 
it's totally BS and it's because

416
00:23:06,480 --> 00:23:11,000
of Henry Fairfield Osborne. 
So this genius gets handed a 

417
00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:15,160
whole bunch of dinosaur eggs 
with a dead dinosaur on top of 

418
00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:17,480
them. 
And thanks. 

419
00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:20,880
What? 
He looks at them and he's just 

420
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:23,480
brilliant. 
So he's going look at the 

421
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:27,080
proximity of this dinosaur's 
cloaca to the nest. 

422
00:23:27,080 --> 00:23:28,360
No, I'm just kidding. 
You didn't say that. 

423
00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:34,120
This president of the AM and H 
looked at the proximity of the 

424
00:23:34,120 --> 00:23:38,080
dinosaur to the nest and he saw 
that they had these long slender

425
00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:42,320
fingers with some claws and 
decided obviously this dinosaur 

426
00:23:42,320 --> 00:23:46,160
had died trying to steal and eat
these eggs. 

427
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:50,920
And so he named it oviraptor, 
which literally means egg 

428
00:23:50,920 --> 00:23:54,000
Caesar. 
And he was convinced that they 

429
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:58,560
loved eating eggs of this 
ceratopsian dinosaur there 

430
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:01,560
Proceratops. 
So think of like a really early 

431
00:24:01,560 --> 00:24:04,880
Triceratops cousin, and they 
were just like, Yep, look, all 

432
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:08,960
these Proceratops eggs are just 
being mowed down by these 

433
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:12,480
oviraptors. 
It's just an oviraptor grabbing 

434
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:15,760
like a last minute snack as it 
runs away from what other 

435
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:18,360
whatever geological event is 
about to kill it. 

436
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:20,880
Exactly. 
It's like, look at the sandstorm

437
00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:25,840
approacheth must, must preserve 
for the long storm ahead. 

438
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:30,440
So it wasn't until the 2000s, 
2010 or something like that the 

439
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:33,840
paleontologists were able to 
actually identify an embryo, 

440
00:24:33,840 --> 00:24:37,560
going back to the importance of 
embryos in one of these mini 

441
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:41,240
nests that have been discovered 
and discovered that no, it's an 

442
00:24:41,320 --> 00:24:45,680
oviraptor embryo. 
This wasn't a murderous, violent

443
00:24:45,680 --> 00:24:49,960
egg stealing monster, it was 
just evidence of dinosaurs that 

444
00:24:49,960 --> 00:24:56,160
actually cared for their young, 
sat brooding on their nests and 

445
00:24:56,160 --> 00:25:01,480
gasped parentally cared. 
Which is totally contrary to 

446
00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:04,560
these dudes thinking like 
obviously they were trying to 

447
00:25:04,560 --> 00:25:08,640
steal and eat these eggs instead
of assuming, like maybe they're 

448
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:12,200
trying to care for them. 
So that's just a just an 

449
00:25:12,200 --> 00:25:15,120
astounding story. 
This mental image of an 

450
00:25:15,120 --> 00:25:19,000
oviraptor sprinting away from 
like a plume or whatever, and 

451
00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:23,240
the face plants on to a nest 
and. 

452
00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:26,360
That they keep founding it like 
that's like they keep finding 

453
00:25:26,360 --> 00:25:29,520
the same founding it. 
They keep finding the same 

454
00:25:29,760 --> 00:25:33,280
association. 
It's like if we just like had 

455
00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:37,480
like a tray of popcorn or 
something, and we just preserve 

456
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:41,320
face down in the popcorn, like 
that's what they're expecting to

457
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:44,280
happen, not just once, but 
multiple times. 

458
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:49,360
Yes. 
And it's just such good images. 

459
00:25:49,640 --> 00:25:53,880
And I love again that there's 
this idea of, oh, not that, you 

460
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:55,680
know preservation is a weird 
thing. 

461
00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:58,320
Do they have any idea that 
they're about to die? 

462
00:25:58,320 --> 00:26:01,040
Probably not. 
But in this world, you know, 

463
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:03,160
like, oh, they were about to 
steal it in the storm. 

464
00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:07,200
Doesn't it make more sense that 
a parent was like hunkering down

465
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:12,840
to take care of its it's lineage
and it's it's eggs and it's 

466
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:14,200
final moments? 
Not. 

467
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:18,640
Like hungry eggs that way. 
I don't eat eggs by falling full

468
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:23,640
force in the chicken coop onto 
the eggs and like, putting my 

469
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:27,160
wings out to hug them. 
That's not how anybody eats 

470
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,560
eggs. 
Like, that's. 

471
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:33,640
Yeah, it seems like maybe, yeah,
brooding chickens is just. 

472
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:36,920
Like bobbin for eggs, right? 
They're not. 

473
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:39,960
Yeah. 
And I have a feeling that this 

474
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:45,200
trope is going to come up a lot 
throughout this podcast of how 

475
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:49,640
we've interpreted certain 
behaviors or certain functions 

476
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:53,840
and anatomical features. 
And it's funny how often it goes

477
00:26:53,840 --> 00:27:00,160
to violence and why maybe they 
were trying to take care of 

478
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,200
their babies. 
So that story actually, I mean, 

479
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:07,240
for literal decades we just 
assumed that this was this egg 

480
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:09,680
thief dinosaur. 
And it really wasn't until like 

481
00:27:09,680 --> 00:27:13,480
the past 20 years that we've 
been able to see that, no, it's 

482
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:15,480
actually some evidence of 
parental care. 

483
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,560
However, that wasn't the first 
time that parental care has been

484
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:21,400
identified in dinosaurs. 
We actually had the first 

485
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:26,840
evidence of this back in the 70s
thanks to fossils preserved at 

486
00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:31,480
this awesome site called Egg 
Mountain in northern Montana. 

487
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:35,160
This is where I have been lucky 
enough to go find dinosaur egg 

488
00:27:35,360 --> 00:27:37,120
shell frag I'm. 
Impressed by them? 

489
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:41,200
I mean, I think I still got a 
little emotional because 

490
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:43,920
anything can make me a little 
emotional. 

491
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:46,520
It's not like, again, it's not 
like you find a perfectly 

492
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:51,720
preserved egg egg sometimes you 
do if you see evidence of some 

493
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:54,560
egg shell float on top 
underneath, sometimes there 

494
00:27:54,560 --> 00:27:58,160
could be more better preserved 
eggs and that is how we have had

495
00:27:58,160 --> 00:28:02,760
some good luck with eggs, a 
couple different types of eggs 

496
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:05,720
at Egg Mountain. 
And so the site is from the Two 

497
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:09,680
Medicine Formation, which is a 
late Cretaceous site, our 

498
00:28:09,680 --> 00:28:12,120
formation time period. 
So we're talking about 

499
00:28:12,120 --> 00:28:17,680
76,000,000 years ago, so before 
T Rex and Triceratops, but after

500
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:22,960
Stegosaurus and I, I some other 
ones from the Jurassic, like 

501
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:26,320
Allosaurus and stuff like that. 
Actually two women were two of 

502
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:30,200
the main discoverers of this in 
the 1970s, Marion Branville and 

503
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:34,480
Laurie Trexler. 
And they found these dinosaur 

504
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:39,720
eggs and baby bones essentially.
And what was really significant 

505
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:43,560
is not just embryonic like bones
from the eggs like we've been 

506
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:50,000
talking about, but also of 
nestlings, like young dinosaurs,

507
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,480
not from the egg, had fully 
hatched but weren't out on their

508
00:28:53,480 --> 00:28:55,160
own. 
You know, they were still being 

509
00:28:55,160 --> 00:29:00,480
clearly cared for by the parents
beyond hatching, which was 

510
00:29:00,520 --> 00:29:03,760
really, really significant and 
unheard of at this point in 

511
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:07,440
dinosaur paleontology. 
They did end up naming this 

512
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:11,160
group of dinosaurs Myosaura, 
which translates to the good 

513
00:29:11,160 --> 00:29:14,720
mother lizard, which is a 
throwback to, again, the fact 

514
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:16,640
that they obviously cared for 
their young. 

515
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:20,960
And you can go see this first 
Myosaurus specimen on display at

516
00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:24,840
the Montana Dinosaur Center if 
you have a reason to go all the 

517
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:29,640
way up there. 
Myosaurus Oviraptor. 

518
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:33,480
These are unique stories amongst
dinosaurs because we don't 

519
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:38,360
necessarily think of reptiles as
being especially attuned to 

520
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:42,480
parental care. 
You know, that's something that 

521
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:44,560
we think about more with 
mammals. 

522
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:49,560
But how do eggs and mammals work
out for the topic of what we're 

523
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:51,720
talking about? 
I mean, do we like, I I know I 

524
00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:54,120
technically have eggs, but like,
talk to me. 

525
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:58,040
What are mammal eggs like? 
Surprisingly, the topic of eggs 

526
00:29:58,040 --> 00:30:02,880
is very relevant to mammals 
because mammals do have eggs. 

527
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:06,240
All female mammals are carrying 
eggs. 

528
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:09,800
It's just that they look a 
little different in placental 

529
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:11,880
mammals. 
So things that have a placenta, 

530
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:15,600
so things like humans, cows, 
most of the things that you can 

531
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:19,160
think of as mammals if you don't
live in Australia, because there

532
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:23,240
are three broad groupings of 
Mammalia. 

533
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:26,680
There's placentals, which is 
what you're probably most used 

534
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:28,760
to. 
There's marsupials, which are 

535
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:30,280
the things that you see in 
Australia. 

536
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:32,880
They've got the pouches, things 
like Kangaroos. 

537
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:33,840
They're so cute. 
They're. 

538
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:37,360
So cute. 
And then monotremes, which are 

539
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:40,600
also in that area, are you not 
going to say that they're super 

540
00:30:40,600 --> 00:30:42,840
cute? 
I mean, that's not your visceral

541
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:44,440
reaction. 
They are super cute. 

542
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:49,040
I I just saw on social media 
this week #monotrem dream and I 

543
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:53,000
just my day was made, you know, 
I was like, who are these people

544
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:56,960
and are they my friends yet? 
If you think like that, yeah. 

545
00:30:57,080 --> 00:30:59,320
We should hang out. 
So monotremes are one of the 

546
00:30:59,880 --> 00:31:05,200
they're the only mammal that 
still has external eggs, because

547
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:09,280
the eggs in marsupials and in 
placentals, they undergo some 

548
00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:10,760
other stuff that Amy will talk 
about in a second. 

549
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:16,200
But monotremes, which are things
like platypus, platypus, don't 

550
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:17,920
say that. 
No Platy Platypi. 

551
00:31:19,920 --> 00:31:21,560
Let's just not put an ease at 
the end of that. 

552
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:22,400
I didn't know. 
Well. 

553
00:31:24,840 --> 00:31:32,880
Platypi fever ducks and 
echidnas, which are spiky oh 

554
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:35,320
weird looking creatures with 
like a pill. 

555
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:38,760
There's so weird and their back 
legs are like backwards, it's. 

556
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:42,840
So weird I've seen. 
One once and it was the 

557
00:31:42,840 --> 00:31:45,160
highlight of my life. 
It was amazing. 

558
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:49,000
So these are mammals. 
They still have hair, which is 

559
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:50,240
something that all mammals 
share. 

560
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:54,480
They have milk, although they 
don't have nipples. 

561
00:31:54,800 --> 00:31:58,760
They just like exude it from a 
patch of skin on their belly. 

562
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:04,320
So that's the other thing is 
that monotremes, in addition to 

563
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:09,720
laying eggs, they cannot suckle.
So you cannot feed an orphaned 

564
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:13,640
platypus using like a bottle. 
You have to put it, put the milk

565
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:17,880
out on your hand or something 
else for it to suck it up off of

566
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:19,640
the patch because that's what 
they're used to doing. 

567
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:23,200
So imagine that, like, imagine 
you produce milk the same way 

568
00:32:23,200 --> 00:32:27,360
you produce sweat and like you 
just had more from one 

569
00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:29,920
particular part of your body. 
And that's kind of what 

570
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:34,120
monotremes do. 
Oh, I also like when you say 

571
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:36,280
like, they don't suckle, it's 
like, right, Well, look at the 

572
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:39,240
bill of a platypus. 
And I'm like, yeah, no, I don't,

573
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:42,720
I don't like what nipple looks 
like that match. 

574
00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:45,440
We're talking about matching 
anatomy here. 

575
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:46,960
Like, how does that work? 
It's. 

576
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:53,800
Long and flat. 
Like a fissure instead of it 

577
00:32:53,800 --> 00:32:58,280
being like a volcano. 
Oh God. 

578
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:03,040
OK, horrifying mental images are
abounding in this episode. 

579
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:04,800
You're. 
Welcome. 

580
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:07,800
Yes. 
So in addition to having weird, 

581
00:33:09,120 --> 00:33:14,280
leaky monitoring milk patches, 
monitoring dream monitoring 

582
00:33:14,280 --> 00:33:17,800
dream, they also do lay eggs. 
So there's two species of 

583
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:21,440
echidna and there's one species 
of platypus, and the platypus 

584
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:24,680
lays the eggs and then kind of 
lays on them to incubate them. 

585
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:26,680
Or you know, of course, if they 
were found in the fossil record,

586
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:28,280
they'd be perceived as eating 
them. 

587
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:31,120
But they do lay really small 
eggs. 

588
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:33,400
They're like 2cm long. 
So they're really tiny. 

589
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:37,880
Echidnas will lay their eggs. 
And then echidnas actually have 

590
00:33:37,880 --> 00:33:40,040
a pouch, sort of like 
marsupials. 

591
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:42,520
And so they, they tuck the eggs 
in their pouch. 

592
00:33:42,520 --> 00:33:46,000
So the eggs come with them. 
They are the nest, which is 

593
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:48,560
interesting. 
See, why do we celebrate the 

594
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:52,400
Easter Bunny when we already 
have an mammal that's already 

595
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:56,600
carrying its eggs around and is 
super adorable and has a tongue 

596
00:33:56,840 --> 00:34:00,120
that's at least the exact same 
length of its entire body? 

597
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:02,600
I mean, that's cooler than the 
Easter Bunny. 

598
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:07,920
Well, and I mean, Easter is like
ducks and rabbits, and an 

599
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:11,440
echidna is kind of like those 
things with spikes. 

600
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:13,639
With a hedgehog? 
Yeah. 

601
00:34:13,639 --> 00:34:16,239
Echidnas. 
Totally underrated. 

602
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:19,600
Totally. 
We have a We've got all sorts of

603
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:22,440
stories about a kid. 
I'm sure we will be sharing many

604
00:34:22,440 --> 00:34:26,960
Echidna facts. 
Because they got some funky 

605
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:29,760
junk. 
Yes, so modest shrimps do still 

606
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:32,360
lay eggs. 
The eggs that are in placental 

607
00:34:32,360 --> 00:34:35,560
mammals and marsupials are a 
little different because they 

608
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:39,280
don't develop some sort of shell
necessarily monotremes. 

609
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:41,639
They have a little leathery 
shell, sort of like a turtle 

610
00:34:41,639 --> 00:34:46,040
egg, and they also have a pretty
like substantial compared to 

611
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:49,880
other mammals yolk. 
So there's a yolk in a monotrem 

612
00:34:49,920 --> 00:34:52,080
egg which will be important 
later. 

613
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:55,280
So in placental mammals, I just 
want to reassure you because 

614
00:34:55,280 --> 00:34:58,360
while I was doing research for 
this, my immediate thought was, 

615
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:00,360
wait, what happens to our egg 
shell? 

616
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:03,120
Is there an egg shell inside us?
No, there's no shell. 

617
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:06,480
Whatever reason echidnas they 
have to kick the shell out of 

618
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:08,080
the pouch. 
But like they have a shell but 

619
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:10,040
you, there's no shell inside of 
you. 

620
00:35:10,520 --> 00:35:13,240
We're shell is and we actually 
don't have yolks. 

621
00:35:13,240 --> 00:35:15,840
Really. 
What happens to eggs in people 

622
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:19,920
and other placental mammals? 
You first start with a very, 

623
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:25,120
very, very small yolk sack, even
in humans, that then over time, 

624
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:29,800
as the placenta and umbilical 
cord develop, the yolk goes 

625
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:33,560
completely away because the baby
is able to get all of its 

626
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:37,600
nutrients and send all of its 
waste via the placenta and the 

627
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:41,080
umbilical cord. 
So that is what makes placental 

628
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:45,640
mammals so special is the 
presence of this organ that we 

629
00:35:45,640 --> 00:35:50,000
make literally just for birth. 
We create an organ. 

630
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:52,000
And here's slippery meat 
pancakes. 

631
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:54,320
Spongy. 
Spongy. 

632
00:35:55,080 --> 00:35:57,320
Slippery. 
I have slipped on them so. 

633
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:01,480
Sheep. 
Sheep related, sheep related, 

634
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:05,200
I'm not. 
To explain that out of context, 

635
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:07,160
that is just. 
You know, maybe we should. 

636
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:10,440
I know you're a doctor, but I 
know you're not that kind of 

637
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:13,600
doctor. 
Yeah, I'm a human doctor and I 

638
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:17,200
love to just tear out the 
placenta and then just play down

639
00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:20,280
the hallway. 
Slip and slide. 

640
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:26,040
I've helped out on sheep farms, 
and the placenta just is like a 

641
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:29,560
it's like the ultimate banana 
peel, but gross. 

642
00:36:29,760 --> 00:36:33,120
So gross. 
And they're just all over the 

643
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:35,600
farm. 
When it's landing season, no one

644
00:36:35,600 --> 00:36:37,480
is safe. 
Yeah. 

645
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:41,840
For females, when you're in 
utero, you have about 6,000,000 

646
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:47,360
eggs in your ovaries that are 
developing around 16 weeks, 

647
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:49,760
which is, you know, right the 
beginning of your second 

648
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:52,040
trimester, you've got like 
6,000,000 eggs. 

649
00:36:52,360 --> 00:36:54,680
By birth. 
You've got about 1 to 2 million 

650
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:56,680
eggs. 
By puberty, I think you've got 

651
00:36:56,680 --> 00:36:59,680
about 300,000 eggs. 
Like, that's how you're just 

652
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:01,640
like they're just popping off 
all the time. 

653
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:03,480
They're just, you know, going 
out. 

654
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:08,760
And then, yeah, I mean, it's by 
about, you know, 40 that you're 

655
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:13,480
down to like less than 100,000 
and then it's just downhill from

656
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:16,160
there until you hit menopause. 
It's just fascinating. 

657
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:20,080
We are little Russian nesting 
dolls of eggs, whereas men just 

658
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:23,960
create their swimmers like every
72 hours or something like that,

659
00:37:25,440 --> 00:37:27,000
yeah. 
Slower than chicken eggs? 

660
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:34,240
Oh, I wish I'd never seen that. 
You guys need something to be 

661
00:37:34,240 --> 00:37:36,520
grossed out by. 
Think about my placenta. 

662
00:37:40,240 --> 00:37:45,600
Yeah, so eggs are still a part 
of us warm blooded mammalian 

663
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:50,480
types, and we have a connection 
to a lot of our evolutionary 

664
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:55,320
history through these very 
important structures that 

665
00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:58,160
without we would not be able to 
evolve. 

666
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:02,360
If we know what, you know, eggs 
of birds taste like and whatnot,

667
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:04,320
I mean, what about monitoring 
eggs? 

668
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:06,920
Would those have been even more 
juicy and delicious 'cause 

669
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:11,080
they're, you know, close kin? 
OK so I have looked into this 

670
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:14,840
pretty extensively and again 
ruined my Google search history.

671
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:20,600
So monitoring eggs, they have 
eggs, they do have a yolk, but 

672
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:22,400
my question was would they taste
good? 

673
00:38:22,400 --> 00:38:23,880
Would they taste bad? 
What would they taste like? 

674
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:26,280
And obviously you're not going 
to actually eat them because I 

675
00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:29,200
think almost all, I think all 
modern dreams are endangered. 

676
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:32,320
So even if they weren't 
endangered, it sounds kind of 

677
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:34,160
gross to me. 
But again, I've established I 

678
00:38:34,160 --> 00:38:38,440
don't really like eggs. 
So this took me down a rabbit 

679
00:38:38,440 --> 00:38:43,480
hole of what makes eggs taste 
good and also what eggs can you 

680
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:47,720
eat and what eggs can't you eat.
And I've got to say, it seems 

681
00:38:47,720 --> 00:38:53,760
like almost all eggs are edible 
to a certain point of 

682
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:57,280
development because there 
becomes a transition point where

683
00:38:57,280 --> 00:38:59,880
you're not just the you're not 
eating the egg, you're eating 

684
00:38:59,880 --> 00:39:03,640
something else with bones. 
So or not bones if you're 

685
00:39:03,640 --> 00:39:06,720
talking about insects. 
So almost all eggs are edible 

686
00:39:06,720 --> 00:39:09,600
except for certain, like 
salamanders don't eat salamander

687
00:39:09,600 --> 00:39:13,840
eggs, Newt eggs are poisonous. 
They have cytotoxin frog eggs, 

688
00:39:13,840 --> 00:39:16,920
though. 
Frog eggs you can eat. 

689
00:39:17,240 --> 00:39:19,280
Do people eat frog eggs? 
Yes. 

690
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:21,520
So people do eat frog eggs. 
Not like, a lot. 

691
00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:25,200
But frog eggs have been 
described in the many, many 

692
00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:29,640
weird places of the Internet. 
Object Frog eggs are described 

693
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:34,120
as being tart and salty, and 
that seems to happen with any 

694
00:39:34,120 --> 00:39:37,600
sort of freshwater animal. 
You're getting a lot of that 

695
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:39,760
kind of saltiness, and you're 
getting a little bit of tart. 

696
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:41,760
You're getting a little bit of 
musky. 

697
00:39:41,760 --> 00:39:44,760
That's what turtle eggs 
apparently taste like is musky. 

698
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:47,080
Don't eat turtle eggs though, 
guys. 

699
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:48,640
Just don't do it. 
Just don't do. 

700
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:51,320
It snakes, I guess. 
Snake eggs are really high in 

701
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:54,480
omega-3 fatty acids, so they are
super fishy. 

702
00:39:55,000 --> 00:39:59,480
Iguana eggs are described as 
pretty mild, but they taste kind

703
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:02,800
of like pasta, which makes sense
because pasta is actually made 

704
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:04,520
with eggs. 
So they kind of just taste like 

705
00:40:04,520 --> 00:40:07,960
mild eggs essentially, but with 
a worse texture. 

706
00:40:08,240 --> 00:40:11,840
Who's eating these eggs? 
Influencers. 

707
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:14,240
Apparently. 
That's like 90% of where this 

708
00:40:14,240 --> 00:40:16,760
information is gone. 
Snail eggs. 

709
00:40:16,760 --> 00:40:19,000
You can eat snail eggs. 
It's called snail caviar. 

710
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:21,280
They are salty and of course 
gelatinous. 

711
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:24,880
Fish eggs, of course you can eat
fish eggs are also largely 

712
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:26,840
described as being kind of 
salty. 

713
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:30,280
They taste briny, like the sea. 
I have had fish eggs, so I don't

714
00:40:30,280 --> 00:40:32,240
know why I'm acting like I have 
never tasted them. 

715
00:40:32,360 --> 00:40:34,880
I have not. 
I will not, no. 

716
00:40:35,640 --> 00:40:39,880
So really it seems like it kind 
of boils down to some like 

717
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:43,600
characteristics of the family of
animal, or like where it's 

718
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:45,520
living. 
Saltwater animals are almost 

719
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:48,000
always described as being pretty
salty and briny, whereas 

720
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:50,160
freshwater and terrestrial 
animals are a little less so. 

721
00:40:50,360 --> 00:40:54,440
It also has to do with the 
amount of yolk that you contain,

722
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:58,080
so. 
The more yolk the better, right?

723
00:40:58,080 --> 00:41:00,280
Yes, yeah. 
So fish eggs, for example. 

724
00:41:00,280 --> 00:41:01,720
Part of the reason people love 
fish eggs. 

725
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:03,960
It's fish, it's just yolk 
basically. 

726
00:41:03,960 --> 00:41:07,880
It's like a large yolky egg. 
It's a salty yolky egg. 

727
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:10,960
So lots and lots of yolk in fish
eggs, a lot of yolk in 

728
00:41:10,960 --> 00:41:14,120
gelatinous eggs. 
So the the difference in yolk 

729
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:16,720
ratio is really important. 
Duck eggs and quail eggs. 

730
00:41:16,720 --> 00:41:19,720
Part of the reason they taste 
richer than chicken eggs is 

731
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:22,960
because they have more yolk 
monotremes therefore. 

732
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:27,320
So Platypi, because they are 
freshwater and terrestrial 

733
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:30,840
animals, are a little different 
I think than probably echidna 

734
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:32,760
eggs are going to taste. 
But I'm going to guess both of 

735
00:41:32,760 --> 00:41:36,640
them kind of a little bit mild 
in flavor, maybe a little salty,

736
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,200
probably taste like shit because
they don't have very much yolk 

737
00:41:39,200 --> 00:41:42,600
in them because mono creams 
they, even though they lay eggs,

738
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:46,720
the eggs hatch and then they 
have babies that look just like 

739
00:41:47,160 --> 00:41:50,960
little gummy bears like your 
embryo does, because they're not

740
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:53,360
very far developed and then they
take care of them for a long 

741
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:54,880
time after they've hatched out 
of the egg. 

742
00:41:55,200 --> 00:41:57,880
So they don't need a lot of 
yolk, 'cause they're not going 

743
00:41:57,880 --> 00:42:01,360
to be in there for very long, 
and they patch pretty quickly. 

744
00:42:01,760 --> 00:42:04,480
So monotrem eggs, even if you 
were allowed to eat them, 

745
00:42:04,840 --> 00:42:08,120
probably would taste kind of 
like nothing at all. 

746
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,560
And maybe that's why we still 
have monotremes is because, I 

747
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:13,880
mean, they got started a real 
long time ago. 

748
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:18,560
And maybe having nasty eggs is 
like a good evolutionary defense

749
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:23,360
too, because then you won't have
all the oviraptors falling over 

750
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:27,760
onto yours too. 
Nobody's face planting into your

751
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:28,720
eggs. 
Mod of dreams. 

752
00:42:29,000 --> 00:42:33,440
They're not worth it. 
No one wants to face plant into 

753
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:38,280
your eggs, though I am sure any 
opportunistic animal out there, 

754
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:42,440
an egg generally is a great 
source of nutrients because it 

755
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:46,360
is packed to take care of a 
developing embryo or it's 

756
00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:49,680
already got an embryo in it and 
it's you know like pre veal. 

757
00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:53,400
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 
There's a cut off point for all 

758
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:56,120
eggs as to where you can eat 
them. 

759
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:00,120
Well, I do think we will have 
more opportunities to talk about

760
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:03,760
what ancient mammals and ancient
animals that that matter tasted 

761
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:06,280
like. 
I mean, we also barely touched 

762
00:43:06,280 --> 00:43:07,400
milk. 
For sure. 

763
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:10,080
So what? 
Its own can of weird worms. 

764
00:43:10,080 --> 00:43:12,840
I mean, as you were describing 
that all I could see was meet 

765
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:16,000
the Fockers and him being like 
you're gonna milk me, Focker. 

766
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:19,720
Like having it be a platypus 
being like you're gonna milk me.

767
00:43:20,720 --> 00:43:24,880
So in all of the research that 
we did for this episode, I 

768
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:27,360
didn't have any fun paper 
awards. 

769
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:31,880
But I do want to mention some of
the weirdest Google searches 

770
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:36,280
that were popping up as like 
alternate search histories. 

771
00:43:36,440 --> 00:43:38,880
So. 
Let us let us in. 

772
00:43:39,800 --> 00:43:43,600
Particular order Are platypus 
eggs poisonous? 

773
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:47,000
The answer is no. 
Can you eat platypus milk? 

774
00:43:47,160 --> 00:43:50,400
The answer is you'd have to lick
it off the platypus. 

775
00:43:52,360 --> 00:43:55,600
What does? 
What does platypus taste like? 

776
00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:58,240
A bad decision because they're 
endangered. 

777
00:43:59,920 --> 00:44:04,920
And then some of my favorites 
would be do elephants lay eggs 

778
00:44:04,920 --> 00:44:10,960
or give birth elephant eggs? 
Does cheetah lay eggs? 

779
00:44:11,320 --> 00:44:15,160
Do antelope lay eggs? 
Does platypus lay eggs? 

780
00:44:15,160 --> 00:44:17,000
That's the only one so far that 
the answer is yes. 

781
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:20,400
Do giraffes lay eggs? 
Oh my God. 

782
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:23,120
So I went and looked a little 
bit because I was curious as to 

783
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:27,200
why elephants were coming up so 
frequently as an egg layer. 

784
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:33,640
Elephants do not lay eggs and it
is because ChatGPT, which has 

785
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:36,840
permeated every aspect of our 
lives at this point. 

786
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:40,480
ChatGPT got asked by someone who
posted this on Twitter. 

787
00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:45,360
They they asked what mammal lays
the largest eggs and ChatGPT 

788
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:48,560
said the mammal that lays the 
largest eggs is the elephant. 

789
00:44:48,560 --> 00:44:51,680
Elephant eggs are the largest of
all animals and animals, with 

790
00:44:51,680 --> 00:44:55,880
some reaching up to 9 inches in 
length and weighing up to 5 lbs.

791
00:44:57,200 --> 00:44:59,880
Wow. 
Yeah, elephants don't lay eggs. 

792
00:44:59,920 --> 00:45:03,440
I just really want to ChatGPT is
not a search engine. 

793
00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:10,560
Elephants don't lay eggs, chat. 
GPT is just making stuff up, so.

794
00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:17,800
Thank you for listening. 
If you like the podcast, be sure

795
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:21,080
to rate and review us on your 
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796
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:23,360
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797
00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:26,400
If you'd like to hear more and 
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798
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:30,200
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799
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:33,080
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You can follow Amy on Instagram 

800
00:45:33,120 --> 00:45:36,640
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And Megan on Instagram and 

801
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:40,520
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Or both of us at Weird and Dead 

802
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:43,360
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803
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:45,920
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804
00:45:45,920 --> 00:45:48,320
traveling Geologist AKA Chris 
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805
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:50,920
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806
00:45:50,920 --> 00:45:53,680
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807
00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:56,560
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808
00:45:56,560 --> 00:45:58,600
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809
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:01,960
And this has been hosted and 
researched by us, Amy Atwater 

810
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:03,880
and Megan Weatherall. 
Thank you for listening, 

811
00:46:07,240 --> 00:46:12,320
interfingering, membranes. 
That's just yeah, God, biology 

812
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:14,360
is so beautiful, so gross.