1 00:00:04,520 --> 00:00:07,520 You're listening to Weird and Dead, the paleontology podcast 2 00:00:07,520 --> 00:00:10,080 that tells evolutions most embarrassing and bizarre 3 00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:11,680 stories. I'm Megan Weatherill. 4 00:00:11,680 --> 00:00:15,080 And I'm Amy Atwater, and we are two living scientists who are 5 00:00:15,080 --> 00:00:17,280 weirdly excited about dead things. 6 00:00:17,520 --> 00:00:21,640 On this episode, we talk about sexy diarrhea, eating your own 7 00:00:21,640 --> 00:00:24,880 puke, and how dinosaurs got so swollen. 8 00:00:25,240 --> 00:00:28,640 Or really, we talk about how to get big and the things that are 9 00:00:28,640 --> 00:00:30,400 holding us back from getting big. 10 00:00:30,480 --> 00:00:34,840 Evolutionarily, of course. And clearly given the mention of 11 00:00:34,840 --> 00:00:38,840 bodily fluids, you might not want to eat during this episode. 12 00:00:38,840 --> 00:00:42,240 So check out the warnings in the description or proceed at your 13 00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:50,080 own risk. For this episode, you should 14 00:00:50,080 --> 00:00:53,360 pretend that I, Megan, am weathering out a Blizzard and 15 00:00:53,360 --> 00:00:57,040 Yellowknife and not that I just messed up which microphone I was 16 00:00:57,040 --> 00:01:01,560 recording on. No, I am at sea suffering 17 00:01:01,560 --> 00:01:05,040 through the Drake's passage or something very cool. 18 00:01:05,040 --> 00:01:07,840 That explains why I sound so very bad. 19 00:01:08,680 --> 00:01:13,680 Sorry, let's talk about hippos, and specifically hippos sex 20 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:16,240 lives, because bizarrely enough, that does play into the 21 00:01:16,240 --> 00:01:18,360 conversation today. So hippos. 22 00:01:18,440 --> 00:01:23,400 Hippos are deeply into poop play, which is disgusting, but 23 00:01:23,400 --> 00:01:28,400 also kind of a necessity because they have so much poop to give. 24 00:01:28,960 --> 00:01:32,600 And that poop is not solid. It's more like a loose butt 25 00:01:32,600 --> 00:01:35,800 gravy consistency at best, perfect to make the best of a 26 00:01:35,800 --> 00:01:39,360 very bad butt situation. These male hippos will use their 27 00:01:39,360 --> 00:01:43,520 tails like little shit flinging helicopters to spread all of 28 00:01:43,520 --> 00:01:48,200 that, I guess attractiveness around to females. 29 00:01:48,200 --> 00:01:51,720 And somehow that does work because we still have hippos. 30 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:55,640 So if you ever look up a video of hippos shitting, you'll see 31 00:01:55,640 --> 00:01:57,080 poop, poop, poop, poop, poop, poop. 32 00:01:57,080 --> 00:01:58,520 That's the sound of their helicopter tail. 33 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:00,120 It does say poop, poop poop, duh. 34 00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:03,320 They are nasty. They are super, super nasty. 35 00:02:03,320 --> 00:02:06,240 And there is a reason actually for that level of diarrhea, 36 00:02:06,240 --> 00:02:08,479 which is going to be a big part of today's conversation. 37 00:02:08,759 --> 00:02:11,960 Hippos are one of the largest land mammals today. 38 00:02:12,400 --> 00:02:16,760 They can be up to 16 feet long, which is approximately 3 Megan 39 00:02:16,760 --> 00:02:19,440 units, and they are about 1 Megan unit in height. 40 00:02:19,440 --> 00:02:22,320 Pretty much exactly. I guess the maximum height of a 41 00:02:22,320 --> 00:02:25,920 hippo is about 5 foot two, which is what I round up to. 42 00:02:25,920 --> 00:02:30,840 Perfect, right? Yeah, adorable. 43 00:02:30,840 --> 00:02:32,920 And they weigh up to about 10,000 lbs. 44 00:02:32,920 --> 00:02:34,840 And I'm not going to tell you how many Megan's that is, but 45 00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:38,920 it's a lot of them. So they're huge, they're huge, 46 00:02:38,920 --> 00:02:41,560 and they are aquatic, or at least semi aquatic. 47 00:02:41,560 --> 00:02:44,480 They're not trapped like whales. They haven't made that dumb of a 48 00:02:44,480 --> 00:02:47,640 decision yet, but even though they are aquatic and they are 49 00:02:47,640 --> 00:02:50,720 living in the water, they actually eat grass on the side 50 00:02:50,720 --> 00:02:54,200 of their little rivers and lakes always at night as if they are 51 00:02:54,200 --> 00:02:57,240 embarrassed by it. But there is a strong reason as 52 00:02:57,240 --> 00:03:00,360 to why they live in the water and it is not because they are 53 00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:02,120 eating aquatic plants because they don't do that. 54 00:03:02,120 --> 00:03:06,680 They basically have to live in their toilet because you would 55 00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:10,280 also live there if you had to. Shit 24/7. 56 00:03:10,440 --> 00:03:13,480 I want you to imagine having food poisoning all the time. 57 00:03:13,480 --> 00:03:16,200 Would you leave your bathroom? No, no. 58 00:03:16,320 --> 00:03:18,000 No, no, you would not. Honestly. 59 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:20,120 They have to have frequent access to water because they 60 00:03:20,160 --> 00:03:22,840 have to stop themselves from dying of dysentery. 61 00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:24,960 Yeah, they're like mega dehydrated, I'm sure. 62 00:03:25,240 --> 00:03:27,520 Yeah, they have horrible diarrhea and so they are 63 00:03:27,520 --> 00:03:29,520 constrained to live near water as a result. 64 00:03:30,160 --> 00:03:32,880 And this is what is known as a biological constraint. 65 00:03:33,160 --> 00:03:34,800 It is the topic of today's episode. 66 00:03:34,800 --> 00:03:36,720 Go home evolution. You're drunk. 67 00:03:36,880 --> 00:03:40,280 I feel like that is like a major theme going on today when we 68 00:03:40,280 --> 00:03:44,280 talk about organisms, how big they can get, how small they can 69 00:03:44,280 --> 00:03:47,320 get, and why they are constrained to those 70 00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:49,600 limitations. Like you said, biological 71 00:03:49,600 --> 00:03:53,000 constraints are you know, frequently like morphological 72 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:57,080 factors or physiological things that limit to how an Organism 73 00:03:57,080 --> 00:04:00,800 can evolve over time, right? Like evolution again is not an 74 00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:03,520 an inventor. If we're talking about how 75 00:04:03,520 --> 00:04:06,680 evolution works, evolution has to work with what is already 76 00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:09,920 present in the Organism. So we like to think of evolution 77 00:04:09,920 --> 00:04:13,280 as more of a tinkerer and less of an inventor because you got 78 00:04:13,280 --> 00:04:16,079 to work with what you got. Personally, having just given 79 00:04:16,079 --> 00:04:19,600 birth, I'm thinking a lot about biological constraints because 80 00:04:19,600 --> 00:04:21,680 of how horrible it was to give birth. 81 00:04:22,079 --> 00:04:25,560 So that is a major biological constraint of humans is our 82 00:04:25,560 --> 00:04:27,480 giant heads and our tiny pelvises. 83 00:04:29,200 --> 00:04:33,040 All right, so let's talk about giant, giant, giant land mammals 84 00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:34,920 now. Hippos are quite big. 85 00:04:35,400 --> 00:04:39,240 They are very, very far from the biggest land mammals. 86 00:04:39,240 --> 00:04:41,240 You'll notice I'm using the word land very carefully. 87 00:04:41,240 --> 00:04:43,880 Fuck whales. Whales don't count. 88 00:04:43,880 --> 00:04:48,480 Whales are fully in the water. Whales eat whatever the fucking 89 00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:51,120 krill and bullshit they do, so they don't count. 90 00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:54,040 They're a totally different set of biological constraints. 91 00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:55,440 They different. Podcast episode. 92 00:04:55,440 --> 00:04:56,640 Exactly. Talk about them later. 93 00:04:56,640 --> 00:04:58,760 Yeah, they went back to the ocean and they're not involved 94 00:04:58,760 --> 00:05:01,960 in here. But for the biggest land mammal, 95 00:05:02,120 --> 00:05:05,040 it kind of depends on who you talk to, because again, 96 00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:10,280 estimating the mass of these animals is ridiculous and gives 97 00:05:10,280 --> 00:05:13,680 you very wild estimates. So one of the biggest ones 98 00:05:14,280 --> 00:05:17,800 probably I think the biggest one just because I want it to be the 99 00:05:17,800 --> 00:05:20,040 biggest one would be Indrikathirs. 100 00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:24,400 So Indrikathirs were like if you took a giant giraffe and then 101 00:05:24,400 --> 00:05:28,080 reskinned it as a rhino. That's an indrikathir. 102 00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:31,480 The genus is Paraceratherium is the the genus name. 103 00:05:31,960 --> 00:05:35,920 But yeah, they're just long ass rhinos and they got to be huge. 104 00:05:36,120 --> 00:05:40,880 The estimates I've read were potentially up to 24 feet tall. 105 00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:43,440 I'm not even going to tell you how many megans that is because 106 00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:47,640 it's a lot and up to potentially 40,000 lbs. 107 00:05:47,680 --> 00:05:51,360 So you know, just a little. That's just four hippos just 108 00:05:51,360 --> 00:05:54,240 stacked on top of one another. Actually, that wouldn't be tall 109 00:05:54,240 --> 00:05:56,080 enough. You need another hippos worth of 110 00:05:56,080 --> 00:05:58,840 height. Hippos are chunky, so very, very 111 00:05:58,840 --> 00:06:01,600 big animal and it is related to rhinos and horses. 112 00:06:01,760 --> 00:06:04,520 And then the next close contender is an elephant 113 00:06:04,680 --> 00:06:07,280 Paleoloxadon. Some people think it might have 114 00:06:07,280 --> 00:06:12,000 come in a little heavier at 44,000, but does not. 115 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:14,320 And he's smart. So, yeah, we. 116 00:06:14,360 --> 00:06:17,080 Listened to him. Yeah, so I don't think it really 117 00:06:17,080 --> 00:06:19,360 was that big, but it was probably pretty big and it was 118 00:06:19,360 --> 00:06:23,280 about 17 ish feet tall, so pretty big. 119 00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:26,360 And then there's the biggest ariadactyl. 120 00:06:26,960 --> 00:06:30,120 So we've got elephants that are giant, we've got horsey rhino 121 00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:32,280 way things that are giant. And then we've got the cool 122 00:06:32,280 --> 00:06:35,840 ones, which are things that are related to cows and deer and 123 00:06:35,840 --> 00:06:40,720 pigs and camels and giraffes. And the biggest one there as far 124 00:06:40,720 --> 00:06:44,480 as weight goes is hippos. There's an old hippo that's a 125 00:06:44,480 --> 00:06:46,080 little bit bigger than a modern hippo. 126 00:06:46,080 --> 00:06:50,720 It's like 10 percent, 20% larger because that's really the the 127 00:06:50,720 --> 00:06:55,280 biggest that artiodactyls can be because of this biological 128 00:06:55,280 --> 00:06:57,760 constraint. It's not embarrassment out of 129 00:06:57,760 --> 00:07:00,040 shitting themselves constantly, it's because shitting yourself 130 00:07:00,040 --> 00:07:03,440 constantly has some some problems associated with it. 131 00:07:03,600 --> 00:07:06,880 But Despite that, it's actually kind of a good thing. 132 00:07:06,880 --> 00:07:14,360 So this is not like an ad for Activia, but shitting yourself 133 00:07:14,360 --> 00:07:20,160 is awesome by my diet tea. When we talk about big 134 00:07:20,480 --> 00:07:24,080 orbivorous land mammals we are usually talking about kind of 135 00:07:24,080 --> 00:07:27,160 two different styles of digestion. 136 00:07:27,400 --> 00:07:32,200 I like to call them the tum tum crew and the bum bum because you 137 00:07:32,200 --> 00:07:35,400 have ones that have four gut fermentation. 138 00:07:35,400 --> 00:07:38,200 So they ferment and do all their weird shit at the start and you 139 00:07:38,200 --> 00:07:40,800 have ones that do hind gut fermentation. 140 00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:43,000 They ferment and do all their digestion. 141 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:46,160 At the end artiodactyls, things like cows and hippos. 142 00:07:46,680 --> 00:07:50,760 They have a four chambered stomach and that four chambered 143 00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:53,280 stomach is where they do the vast majority of their 144 00:07:53,280 --> 00:07:55,240 digestion. Then they pass everything 145 00:07:55,240 --> 00:07:58,440 through their intestines and the intestines in the colon are what 146 00:07:58,440 --> 00:08:02,880 pulls water back out. So that's why they have 147 00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:05,600 diarrhoea, especially if they get really, really big. 148 00:08:05,800 --> 00:08:08,800 They have diarrhoea because the the pulling out of the water 149 00:08:08,800 --> 00:08:12,920 part is at the very end and usually they don't have a lot of 150 00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:15,400 room for it because they have these massive 4 chambered 151 00:08:15,400 --> 00:08:17,720 stomachs. Whereas when you're talking 152 00:08:17,720 --> 00:08:20,680 about like Paraceratherium, you're talking about rhinos and 153 00:08:20,680 --> 00:08:23,400 horses and even elephants. They're part of the bum bum 154 00:08:23,400 --> 00:08:26,160 crew. They have invested more of that 155 00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:30,240 nasty ass fermentation shit in their butt region. 156 00:08:30,240 --> 00:08:34,679 So in the back half with cows as your kind of classic adiodactyl, 157 00:08:35,039 --> 00:08:38,440 they do fermentation first. Bizarrely, that is with 158 00:08:38,440 --> 00:08:41,240 bacteria, not with yeast. So they're not getting shit 159 00:08:41,240 --> 00:08:44,600 faced drunk all the time, but they do swallow their food very 160 00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:48,120 quickly as it turns out, and they ferment it you. 161 00:08:48,160 --> 00:08:51,760 Would know, yes. And then they frequently puke it 162 00:08:51,760 --> 00:08:55,400 back up and then chew it and then swallow it again. 163 00:08:56,120 --> 00:08:59,640 So they've got like the fermentation chamber is at the 164 00:08:59,640 --> 00:09:03,480 front and then they have the acid chamber, which is what you 165 00:09:03,480 --> 00:09:05,640 and I have, that we don't have that fermentation chamber, 166 00:09:05,640 --> 00:09:09,400 despite how gassy we might be. We really only have that 167 00:09:09,840 --> 00:09:13,280 hydrochloric acid stomach, You know, cows have that too. 168 00:09:13,280 --> 00:09:16,200 It's just the secondary step. And the reason that that is 169 00:09:16,200 --> 00:09:19,480 great is because fermentation is done by bacteria. 170 00:09:19,640 --> 00:09:23,640 But once the bacteria finish their job, they often get passed 171 00:09:23,640 --> 00:09:29,160 back to the stomach of acid, They die and are digested by the 172 00:09:29,160 --> 00:09:31,400 cow. So animals that have 173 00:09:31,560 --> 00:09:36,560 fermentation that starts first are usually more efficient 174 00:09:36,840 --> 00:09:39,080 because they can digest their microbes. 175 00:09:39,400 --> 00:09:43,280 Whereas animals like horses, they have their stomach first, 176 00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:46,880 they have that acid bucket 1st, and then it goes into a smaller 177 00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:50,000 fermentation chamber. Not as complicated as a cow's. 178 00:09:50,200 --> 00:09:51,800 I think it's only like one or two chambers. 179 00:09:52,240 --> 00:09:55,360 That's nothing. And so horses do fermentation 180 00:09:55,360 --> 00:09:59,560 second, which means that all of the bacteria that are in that 181 00:09:59,560 --> 00:10:02,560 fermentation chamber get passed right out through the butt. 182 00:10:02,880 --> 00:10:06,880 No nom noms, so having that 4 chambered stomach is actually 183 00:10:06,880 --> 00:10:08,600 really advantageous for artiodactyls. 184 00:10:08,600 --> 00:10:12,840 It means that they can digest really shitty ass food way more 185 00:10:12,840 --> 00:10:16,280 effectively and efficiently. They can live for longer on less 186 00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:19,040 food. However, that 4 chambered 187 00:10:19,040 --> 00:10:23,160 stomach is huge, so it often does not leave a lot of room for 188 00:10:23,160 --> 00:10:25,480 a colon. And the bigger the animal gets, 189 00:10:25,840 --> 00:10:30,800 the less room you have, in part because you don't want to have. 190 00:10:31,280 --> 00:10:34,480 You have to move your food really, really fast through your 191 00:10:34,480 --> 00:10:38,400 stomach, because otherwise you will build up methane and you 192 00:10:38,400 --> 00:10:40,080 can, you know, I don't know, explode. 193 00:10:40,080 --> 00:10:41,840 I didn't actually look up the consequences of that. 194 00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:43,200 But I'm going to go with explode. 195 00:10:43,280 --> 00:10:46,640 You can explode, obviously, or at least get very, very bad. 196 00:10:46,680 --> 00:10:50,120 Stinky Super stinky too. Yeah, so as an Rd. dactyl gets 197 00:10:50,120 --> 00:10:52,000 bigger. They have to process their food 198 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:55,560 a lot faster to avoid, I don't know, becoming a cow balloon. 199 00:10:55,680 --> 00:10:59,080 And so they're passing things through so quickly that the 200 00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:02,680 parts of their stomach and their colon, which are already smaller 201 00:11:02,680 --> 00:11:05,040 than in a horse, that are designed to take the water out 202 00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:08,080 of that food, basically don't have time to do it all the way. 203 00:11:08,080 --> 00:11:12,200 So artidactyls have a size constraint, they cannot get 204 00:11:12,200 --> 00:11:17,200 nearly as big as perisodactyls. So horses or proboscidians, 205 00:11:17,200 --> 00:11:21,600 things like elephants, which have a reverse system that 206 00:11:21,720 --> 00:11:24,960 focuses more on water, they can take out a lot more water. 207 00:11:24,960 --> 00:11:29,560 So horses might need more food than cows do, but they need less 208 00:11:29,560 --> 00:11:33,280 water than cows do. But evolutionarily, honestly, I 209 00:11:33,280 --> 00:11:36,560 think most modern domesticated horses are just kind of you look 210 00:11:36,560 --> 00:11:39,080 at them funny and they get sick. So if we're talking about like 211 00:11:39,080 --> 00:11:42,040 natural wild horses, not not the weird ones everybody keeps 212 00:11:42,040 --> 00:11:43,880 inbreeding. Well, do you think that there's 213 00:11:43,880 --> 00:11:48,200 any reason behind like we have way more artiodactyls alive 214 00:11:48,200 --> 00:11:51,520 today than we do Pericodactyls? Like we only have what, three 215 00:11:51,520 --> 00:11:55,120 groups of living pericodactyls, horses, dry nose tapirs, whereas 216 00:11:55,120 --> 00:11:57,680 artiodactyls are everything else with a hoof pretty much. 217 00:11:58,040 --> 00:12:00,560 So do you think that? I mean, would would you think 218 00:12:00,560 --> 00:12:03,520 that GUT influences this that like there are they're being 219 00:12:03,520 --> 00:12:06,520 more efficient is an evolutionary advantage too, even 220 00:12:06,520 --> 00:12:09,120 though they can't get that big? I would imagine so. 221 00:12:09,440 --> 00:12:11,960 Maybe they can't get that big, but they can sustain themselves 222 00:12:11,960 --> 00:12:14,880 on pretty low quality forage like grass. 223 00:12:14,880 --> 00:12:17,400 Grass is gross. Animals have evolved to eat 224 00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:20,400 grass, but it's not because they fucking wanted to, because that 225 00:12:20,400 --> 00:12:23,720 was all there was. Evolution is not a choice you're 226 00:12:23,760 --> 00:12:25,400 forced into. It or do you die? 227 00:12:25,800 --> 00:12:29,480 We see a rise of ardiodactyls and a decline of things like 228 00:12:29,480 --> 00:12:33,360 horses and elephants as we see kind of that increase of grasses 229 00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:36,200 and grassland expansion. So yeah, horses may have had 230 00:12:36,200 --> 00:12:39,520 like, oh, their toes got smushed together and their teeth got 231 00:12:39,520 --> 00:12:41,840 long. Well, ardiodactyls still do it 232 00:12:41,840 --> 00:12:43,840 pretty good. So what if they shit themselves? 233 00:12:46,240 --> 00:12:48,400 I was also going to ask you which one you'd rather be. 234 00:12:48,440 --> 00:12:54,240 Oh, well, OK. I mean, I don't like shitting 235 00:12:54,240 --> 00:12:55,640 myself. I'm sorry, cows. 236 00:12:55,640 --> 00:12:57,440 I know that. I feel like I should be with 237 00:12:57,440 --> 00:13:01,400 you, but if I had a choice, I'd rather have to drink less water. 238 00:13:01,720 --> 00:13:03,040 That's that's mine. What about you? 239 00:13:03,040 --> 00:13:04,840 Do you want to shit yourself or do I? 240 00:13:06,160 --> 00:13:08,760 You know, we've talked a lot, and I don't know what order 241 00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:11,200 we're going to do this in. We've already established that I 242 00:13:11,200 --> 00:13:12,360 have IBS. Yeah. 243 00:13:12,360 --> 00:13:14,840 So I mean, I'm already fairly used to that. 244 00:13:14,840 --> 00:13:19,120 So I'm like cool with sticking with what I know and having an 245 00:13:19,120 --> 00:13:22,120 efficient system. Stick with what you know. 246 00:13:22,240 --> 00:13:23,760 Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair. That's fair. 247 00:13:24,160 --> 00:13:28,480 Anyways, yeah, so sometimes your stomach can limit how big your 248 00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:30,080 body can get. So that's the biological 249 00:13:30,080 --> 00:13:32,080 constraint. We really kind of went way 250 00:13:32,080 --> 00:13:35,120 around the way around the rosy, way around the bushes in order 251 00:13:35,160 --> 00:13:38,640 to get back to that point. But sadly, diarrhea is not the 252 00:13:38,680 --> 00:13:42,320 only biological constraint, and in fact, big bodies themselves 253 00:13:42,320 --> 00:13:45,080 are not the only ones that have biological constraints. 254 00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:49,360 Some small, cute animals also have to pay attention to 255 00:13:49,400 --> 00:13:51,720 evolution's rules, Right Amy? Oh my goodness. 256 00:13:51,720 --> 00:13:53,920 Yes they do. And this was mostly my excuse to 257 00:13:53,920 --> 00:13:57,160 talk about tarsiers, because tarsiers are my favorite animals 258 00:13:57,160 --> 00:13:59,240 ever. Yeah, we're going to talk a bit 259 00:13:59,240 --> 00:14:01,400 about primates. Granted, there are really big 260 00:14:01,400 --> 00:14:03,960 primates as well. Go ahead and look at gorillas. 261 00:14:03,960 --> 00:14:07,560 Those are, yes, also very they, but they have their own 262 00:14:07,560 --> 00:14:09,600 interesting constraints too. So we'll talk a little bit about 263 00:14:09,600 --> 00:14:12,080 that. So essentially, primates are 264 00:14:12,080 --> 00:14:15,920 very interesting and something I studied in school and I'm 265 00:14:15,920 --> 00:14:18,880 fascinated with. When we try to reconstruct the 266 00:14:18,880 --> 00:14:22,240 size of fossil primates, which is what I did a lot with Oma 267 00:14:22,240 --> 00:14:26,480 Myads, which are Eocene primates that lived here in North America 268 00:14:26,480 --> 00:14:29,520 and across the world that are closely related, would have been 269 00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:32,720 more closely related to Tarsiers than any other primates. 270 00:14:33,320 --> 00:14:37,440 Tarsiers are the very, very small primates that are found in 271 00:14:37,440 --> 00:14:40,800 Southeast Asia that have giant eyeballs. 272 00:14:40,800 --> 00:14:43,440 And I always say that they look like they've had way too much 273 00:14:43,440 --> 00:14:45,400 coffee or something like that. Like, really? 274 00:14:45,400 --> 00:14:48,320 Big guys, they look like they've experienced, like a lot of 275 00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:50,680 trauma. Also like they don't just look 276 00:14:50,680 --> 00:14:53,560 caffeinated, they look shocked. Maybe that's another reason why 277 00:14:53,560 --> 00:14:57,280 I love them so much, especially. Because graduate. 278 00:14:57,280 --> 00:15:00,840 School was especially traumatizing for me and maybe 279 00:15:00,840 --> 00:15:03,120 that's why I related to the tarsier so much. 280 00:15:04,240 --> 00:15:07,000 That's a really good point. But what's really interesting 281 00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:11,040 with primates is it does seem when we try to interpret their 282 00:15:11,040 --> 00:15:14,360 size, we can also say a lot about their dietary behavior 283 00:15:14,360 --> 00:15:18,160 too, from again, their their size constraints. 284 00:15:18,400 --> 00:15:22,080 And that's an interesting idea. And so it's referred to as Kay's 285 00:15:22,080 --> 00:15:24,880 threshold. Richard Kay was the guy who 286 00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:28,760 started articulated the Thoughts 1st and so the magic number is 287 00:15:28,760 --> 00:15:32,120 500 grams. What this threshold goes into is 288 00:15:32,120 --> 00:15:37,400 that it sometimes makes sense to eat essentially insects versus 289 00:15:37,400 --> 00:15:39,800 leaves. So all primates are going to be 290 00:15:39,800 --> 00:15:44,360 eating some sort of diet that consists either of an omnivorous 291 00:15:44,360 --> 00:15:46,320 diet. That is going to be, you know, a 292 00:15:46,320 --> 00:15:49,640 lot of vegetation, lots of leaves, fruit, nuts, seeds, 293 00:15:49,640 --> 00:15:52,200 roots, tubers, those sorts of things. 294 00:15:52,200 --> 00:15:55,720 And also, though in a lot of primate diets, being we are, 295 00:15:55,800 --> 00:15:59,080 most of us are omnivorous, humans are primates as well. 296 00:15:59,200 --> 00:16:02,840 Primates as a whole are consisting of lemurs, lorises, 297 00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:05,680 tarsiers, monkeys, apes and humans. 298 00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:08,240 And so right we're doing a lot of vegetation. 299 00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:11,760 And then also there is a more carnivorous aspect or 300 00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:14,840 insectivorous aspect where you might be eating a lot of 301 00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:17,760 insects, though some primates are also eating eggs, some 302 00:16:17,760 --> 00:16:22,480 primates are eating lizards, frogs, birds, sometimes even 303 00:16:22,480 --> 00:16:25,640 other primates. Chimps are known to literally 304 00:16:25,640 --> 00:16:29,320 hunt vervet monkeys as well as Bush babies. 305 00:16:29,320 --> 00:16:32,200 Like they've been documented using like stabby sticks and 306 00:16:32,200 --> 00:16:34,720 like stabbing them into tree wells to try and get out little 307 00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:37,680 Bush babies and just have, like Bush baby kebabs. 308 00:16:37,680 --> 00:16:41,440 I feel like that implies more that they know that they're 309 00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:43,240 like, it sounds like they're good at it. 310 00:16:43,520 --> 00:16:46,080 From the videos I've seen, it's more like they're kind of just 311 00:16:46,080 --> 00:16:48,200 poking and hoping to hit something. 312 00:16:48,240 --> 00:16:50,360 They're fishing with a stick. But why would they fit? 313 00:16:50,360 --> 00:16:51,400 It's. Noodling. 314 00:16:51,600 --> 00:16:55,680 Oh my God, Chimps are. Just noodling. 315 00:16:55,680 --> 00:16:59,640 Just noodling for Bush babies. Noodling for Bush babies. 316 00:16:59,680 --> 00:17:03,320 I heard it here first. Yeah, well, it it it gets 317 00:17:03,320 --> 00:17:07,240 complicated when we try to establish what other species are 318 00:17:07,240 --> 00:17:09,400 knowingly doing. However, we do have pretty good 319 00:17:09,400 --> 00:17:12,280 evidence that chimps, like male chimps will get together and go 320 00:17:12,280 --> 00:17:14,960 hunt and like murder other male chimps. 321 00:17:15,240 --> 00:17:19,040 So they're the only other species besides humans known to 322 00:17:19,280 --> 00:17:23,000 do premeditated murder. So I mean they are aware on some 323 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:25,599 level. So it does get pretty grim with 324 00:17:25,599 --> 00:17:28,920 chimps. Anyway, we're so when we go back 325 00:17:28,920 --> 00:17:33,840 to like why would a primate want to or why are there, why is 326 00:17:33,840 --> 00:17:36,160 there this kind of magic number? And when you think about it, it 327 00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:39,880 really does make sense if you are smaller than 500 grams. 328 00:17:40,360 --> 00:17:43,520 If you eat a lot of insects. Insects are packed with 329 00:17:43,520 --> 00:17:47,240 nutrients, tons of protein, tons of calcium, all sorts of 330 00:17:47,240 --> 00:17:49,400 important stuff. They're trying to convince me 331 00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:52,760 that I should eat grasshoppers. I have a hard time with that, 332 00:17:53,280 --> 00:17:56,440 but for small primates it makes a ton of sense because they're 333 00:17:56,440 --> 00:17:58,280 pretty small and they can literally eat them. 334 00:17:58,800 --> 00:18:02,920 For bigger primates, after a certain point, it doesn't make 335 00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:06,360 as much sense because they're so small and it takes a long time. 336 00:18:06,360 --> 00:18:08,440 They're fairly hard to catch as well. 337 00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:11,880 So a a larger bodied primate literally doesn't have enough 338 00:18:11,880 --> 00:18:16,120 waking hours in the day to hunt enough insects to make it worth 339 00:18:16,520 --> 00:18:19,440 the time to be a sustainable dietary option. 340 00:18:19,640 --> 00:18:23,000 So what they do instead is have more vegetation in their diet, 341 00:18:23,560 --> 00:18:27,080 more leaves, more fruit. And this also, when we talk 342 00:18:27,080 --> 00:18:30,120 about leaves like you were just talking about, this is harder to 343 00:18:30,120 --> 00:18:34,160 digest. You need a more advanced, I 344 00:18:34,160 --> 00:18:39,280 guess, or detailed digestive system to be able to break down 345 00:18:39,280 --> 00:18:41,680 this vegetation because of all the cellulose and all these 346 00:18:41,680 --> 00:18:43,880 leaves. So you need this more complex 347 00:18:44,080 --> 00:18:48,160 digestive process, and small primates are literally not even 348 00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:51,800 big enough to maintain a constant throughput of that 349 00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:54,040 leafy material. Like they're not not even big 350 00:18:54,040 --> 00:18:58,240 enough to have the guts that would be necessary to process 351 00:18:58,520 --> 00:19:01,880 that kind of vegetation and to really swallow that load. 352 00:19:01,960 --> 00:19:07,120 So there seems to be a divide because of their body size. 353 00:19:09,600 --> 00:19:11,840 Swallow that. That's disgusting. 354 00:19:11,880 --> 00:19:14,520 Amy, you knew what you were doing. 355 00:19:16,960 --> 00:19:22,000 OK, but to end the this primate segment, if we can include any 356 00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:25,360 of it at all, there's one. I read this research paper from 357 00:19:25,360 --> 00:19:29,960 2020 about 1 primate Megan who is not following these rules. 358 00:19:30,120 --> 00:19:32,880 What? One primate, Megan, is always 359 00:19:32,880 --> 00:19:36,080 doing something different and being fucking weird. 360 00:19:36,680 --> 00:19:40,760 Is that the II? Yes, yes, thinking is giving me 361 00:19:40,760 --> 00:19:43,600 the I I finger. Yes 'cause they are fucking 362 00:19:43,600 --> 00:19:45,560 weird. They're the weirdest lemurs out 363 00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:49,480 there and they are not following this rule because they are just 364 00:19:49,480 --> 00:19:51,200 a little bit larger than the 500 grandpa. 365 00:19:51,200 --> 00:19:54,160 And apparently they eat a diet that, as we know from those 366 00:19:54,160 --> 00:19:56,760 creepy fingers that they're using to tap into trees and 367 00:19:56,760 --> 00:19:59,400 whatnot to find grubs and insects, they're eating about 368 00:19:59,400 --> 00:20:03,680 88% insectivorous diet. So again, I eyes fucking weird. 369 00:20:03,680 --> 00:20:05,920 Amazing. Not appreciated. 370 00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:08,560 We love them so much. So thank you I eyes for again. 371 00:20:08,920 --> 00:20:12,440 Doing weird stuff with bugs. And you know, sometimes, of 372 00:20:12,440 --> 00:20:16,800 course, it's not the primates or the organisms eating the bugs. 373 00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:22,120 It is the bugs. Hey, you know what's not a 374 00:20:22,120 --> 00:20:25,040 dinosaur? Everything on this shirt that 375 00:20:25,040 --> 00:20:28,680 Megan made for her clothing store Geopedal fabric.com. 376 00:20:29,080 --> 00:20:31,720 You can proudly sport your knowledge wearing the 377 00:20:31,720 --> 00:20:35,160 Dynoposaurus shirt and spread the good word. 378 00:20:35,520 --> 00:20:38,960 Enter code weird and dead at checkout for 10% off your order. 379 00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:44,480 Like this episode? I hope so, because you have 380 00:20:44,480 --> 00:20:47,440 listened to a lot of it. So if so, you should check out 381 00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:50,080 more offerings on the Geology podcasting network, like 382 00:20:50,080 --> 00:20:53,040 Backyard Geology, a podcast all about the amazing things that 383 00:20:53,040 --> 00:20:55,400 people have found literally in their own backyard. 384 00:21:00,120 --> 00:21:02,440 Yeah, bugs. Let's talk about bugs. 385 00:21:03,160 --> 00:21:07,120 Let's talk about how sometimes they got really fucking big. 386 00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:11,200 Like worryingly large. Like today's bugs. 387 00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:13,760 There's some pretty big ones, and I'm not cool with it, and 388 00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:15,240 I'm using bugs in the colloquial. 389 00:21:15,240 --> 00:21:17,960 Since I am talking about both insects and arachnids. 390 00:21:17,960 --> 00:21:19,880 I know that they're not bugs, and technically bugs as a 391 00:21:19,880 --> 00:21:24,680 subgroup, but whatever. So today's insects and arachnids 392 00:21:24,680 --> 00:21:26,600 and crustaceans and whatever, There's some big ones. 393 00:21:26,600 --> 00:21:29,320 I don't know if you knew this, but there's some giant goddamn 394 00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:33,000 crabs and lobsters. American lobsters can almost get 395 00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:35,800 to a full Megan. They're 4 feet long. 396 00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:39,680 Yeah. No, I mean, yay, is it biology 397 00:21:40,360 --> 00:21:41,080 fun? Yeah. 398 00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:44,680 I'm going to make a lot of during this section because me 399 00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:49,920 and insects and crustaceans are not always best friends, so 400 00:21:49,920 --> 00:21:51,280 we'll see how this goes. Yeah. 401 00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:54,960 Now, of course, lobsters, much like whales, They're in the sea, 402 00:21:54,960 --> 00:21:57,160 so they have totally different constraints. 403 00:21:57,200 --> 00:22:00,880 But they can get pretty big land crustaceans. 404 00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:03,920 No, not land crustaceans, land insects and arachnids. 405 00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:05,880 I don't want to promise that I looked up crustaceans. 406 00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:08,200 I got roasted out enough when I was looking at insects and 407 00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:11,120 arthropods. So land arthropods, some of the 408 00:22:11,120 --> 00:22:14,000 biggest ones were during the Carboniferous period, which is 409 00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:18,880 about like 300 or so million years ago, and they got really 410 00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:21,200 big. So Arthroplura is probably one 411 00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:24,160 of the more famous ones. It was a big, I think it's a 412 00:22:24,160 --> 00:22:27,400 millipede, not a centipede. I'll double check it later. 413 00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:30,440 It's one of those two things, millipedes, they have thousands 414 00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:33,720 of legs, but they're herbivores, Centipedes, they have slightly 415 00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:35,760 fewer legs. They only have one pair per part 416 00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:39,040 and they are carnivores. So it's one of the ones that has 417 00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:40,800 too many legs and it's really long. 418 00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:43,200 It's like a super leggy plated snake. 419 00:22:43,480 --> 00:22:46,160 And these ones got to be more than a single mega. 420 00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:49,160 They got to be pretty much an Amy in length. 421 00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:51,280 They got to be about two meters long. 422 00:22:51,600 --> 00:22:54,080 Yeah. So they were pretty tall, pretty 423 00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:56,440 tall and lanky. Well, pretty elongated and 424 00:22:56,440 --> 00:22:57,520 lanky. They didn't exactly stand. 425 00:22:57,520 --> 00:22:59,400 That long don't thank God. They were not going to be 426 00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:01,920 America's Next Top Model. They were only horizontal. 427 00:23:02,440 --> 00:23:04,920 So we've got Arthur Fleur out. We've got things like mega 428 00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:08,000 neuropsis, which was they look like dragonflies, but they're 429 00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:10,240 not technically dragonflies. They're called Griffin flies, 430 00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:13,000 and they got to be about the same size as a crow. 431 00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:15,240 They had a wingspan of about 28 inches. 432 00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:19,360 There was things like Homona Scorpius, which is a scorpion. 433 00:23:19,480 --> 00:23:21,680 Weirdly, I think it's from Scotland and they were about the 434 00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:24,840 same size, so crow length not a crow width. 435 00:23:25,120 --> 00:23:30,120 Thank you for defining that. Honestly, I don't know if that 436 00:23:30,120 --> 00:23:34,480 that measurement that I just did makes any sense, let alone when 437 00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:38,880 you can't see me doing my own wingspan thing on the video that 438 00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:43,080 Amy is watching. Regardless, Big fucking 439 00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:47,280 arthropods on land. Fortunately those are no longer 440 00:23:47,280 --> 00:23:52,560 around, but part of the reason that they were maybe able to get 441 00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:56,440 so big and maybe are no longer able to get so big is a 442 00:23:56,440 --> 00:24:00,760 constraint on oxygen. So body size, instead of being 443 00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:04,640 controlled by how much diarrhea you have, it's how much you can 444 00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:07,760 breathe. Arthropods have slightly 445 00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:10,320 different respiratory systems than we do. 446 00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:15,440 Insects have a series of tubes and the way that I saw them 447 00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:19,440 described is you know that like stretchy tube with like ribs 448 00:24:19,440 --> 00:24:23,560 that you use on like the laundry machine that like curves real 449 00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:26,800 weird or like on a shop vac. Yeah, yeah, sure. 450 00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:27,760 Yeah. Let's roll with. 451 00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:30,120 This, yeah, Yes. So imagine that small and 452 00:24:30,120 --> 00:24:32,920 snaking all the way through a lot of the body and that's what 453 00:24:32,920 --> 00:24:34,600 you get for the respiratory system. 454 00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:38,120 And they don't have lungs. They have a little bit of 455 00:24:38,120 --> 00:24:40,720 muscular control, but it's more like if you wanted to take a 456 00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:44,480 deep breath, if you had to like do a sit up, like they have to 457 00:24:44,480 --> 00:24:46,680 use external muscles. There's not like a set of 458 00:24:46,680 --> 00:24:50,720 muscles dedicated to trachea. So they have like passive air 459 00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:55,080 transport essentially Spiders and scorpions have some similar 460 00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:56,800 stuff. They also have that passive air 461 00:24:56,800 --> 00:25:00,360 transport, but they also have like this bigger organ called a 462 00:25:00,360 --> 00:25:02,680 book lung that does a little bit more of that. 463 00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:07,440 But one big thing that all arthropods have is an open 464 00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:12,800 circulatory system. So imagine this. 465 00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:15,520 No, this doesn't make sense. It's like a polyamorous 466 00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:18,760 circulatory system. It goes everywhere. 467 00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:22,600 Like, it is not constrained by anyone, vein or artery. 468 00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:24,840 It's all over the place. Yeah. 469 00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:28,680 Insects don't have veins. They don't have arteries. 470 00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:32,880 They just smushy smush that blood all around their body and 471 00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:34,680 then just hope that it gets to the right spot. 472 00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:37,680 So they actually don't do a lot, right? 473 00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:39,280 Yeah. They're like a gusher. 474 00:25:39,280 --> 00:25:42,240 They are. They're just like a gusher, just 475 00:25:42,240 --> 00:25:49,320 like a gush, 100% delicious. As a result, they have slightly 476 00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:53,720 different limitations on size because it's not the same 477 00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:56,280 system. So with us, we have the lungs 478 00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:58,600 and then it goes into the blood and then it gets sent to all the 479 00:25:58,600 --> 00:26:02,320 places that it needs to go. With insects, it goes into the 480 00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:06,800 trachea and it diffuses into the blood, but the blood has to get 481 00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:10,640 sloshed around inside the bug in order for that oxygen to get to 482 00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:14,320 different parts of the animal. So what this means is that as 483 00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:18,680 insects and spiders get bigger, they have to have more and more 484 00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:22,840 of these little trachea tubes, and they actually have to have 485 00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:25,520 more than you would expect. So we were talking about like 486 00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:29,720 isometry and olometry earlier, and how scaling is kind of 487 00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:32,120 weird. Sometimes you can't just take a 488 00:26:32,120 --> 00:26:37,160 bug and make it bigger and just make the tubes wider, especially 489 00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:40,800 not with passive airflow. You need to have relatively 490 00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:45,000 small tubes, and that means that they have to have more contact 491 00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:47,960 with the rest of the body, so you have to have more tubes. 492 00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:51,480 So as insects get bigger, they have to dedicate more of their 493 00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:55,560 body space to tubes, which is part of why today we don't have 494 00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:59,160 bugs that are just like walking around full of air tubes, 495 00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:01,680 because it's it's just too difficult. 496 00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:04,880 They'd they'd be like 90% air tubes if they were super big. 497 00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:08,040 You're making a face. This is natural. 498 00:27:08,760 --> 00:27:12,200 Well, just imagining bugs still this this big. 499 00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:13,920 I just don't. I don't. 500 00:27:14,520 --> 00:27:17,360 And I think you're getting, you're getting there about how 501 00:27:17,680 --> 00:27:20,720 and why things were different in the Carboniferous that allowed 502 00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:24,720 for them to actually, right? Like, I'm glad that the things 503 00:27:24,720 --> 00:27:27,240 are not the same as the Carboniferous right now, for a 504 00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:29,480 lot of reasons, yes. One big difference in the 505 00:27:29,480 --> 00:27:34,240 Carboniferous is that the oxygen levels were different because at 506 00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:36,760 that point bacteria were actually not very good at 507 00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:40,840 breaking down wood. So a lot of carbon dioxide was 508 00:27:40,840 --> 00:27:42,480 being pulled out and there was less. 509 00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,720 When you're when you're like decomposing something, not you 510 00:27:45,800 --> 00:27:49,600 personally, but like when bacteria do it, they also they 511 00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:52,120 bring in a lot of oxygen. And because they weren't very 512 00:27:52,120 --> 00:27:55,440 good at decomposing things, they were not burning as much oxygen 513 00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:59,520 as they used to and there was a lot of plant life pumping oxygen 514 00:27:59,520 --> 00:28:01,680 into the air. And so moral of the story is 515 00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:06,040 today we have about 20-2 kilopascals of oxygen in our 516 00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:08,640 atmosphere during the Carboniferous. 517 00:28:08,640 --> 00:28:11,120 Estimates vary. It was somewhere between 30 and 518 00:28:11,120 --> 00:28:14,760 35, so we would have probably all been a little bit stoned and 519 00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:16,760 goofy if we lived during the Carboniferous. 520 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:18,960 Well, if we went back to the Carboniferous. 521 00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:21,720 Then now that part of the Carboniferous I can get behind 522 00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:22,720 that part. Sounds cool. 523 00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:27,000 Right, OK, you want to be stoned and goofy and then see a six 524 00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:31,520 foot long millipede? Bad trip sounds even worse. 525 00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:34,640 So worse trip. Yeah. 526 00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:38,120 So during the Carboniferous, because they had such high 527 00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:42,640 oxygen, they didn't have to have quite as efficient of a trachea 528 00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:45,080 system. So really when we talk about 529 00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:48,680 constraints on insect size, a lot of times we talk about it as 530 00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:51,040 it if as if it was oxygen that was the constraint. 531 00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:54,040 It's not oxygen that's the constraint, it's the fact that 532 00:28:54,040 --> 00:28:59,320 they can't be full of tubes. So if you have more oxygen, you 533 00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:01,160 avoid that biological constraints. 534 00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:05,400 But thankfully today we don't have that much oxygen, so the 535 00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:07,800 insects are just fucked. They can't get that big. 536 00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:12,400 Weirdly, one of the other reasons that we may not have big 537 00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:15,840 insects today is actually not this biological constraint of 538 00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:18,920 trachea size and open circulatory systems. 539 00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:22,280 It's birds. Thank you, birds. 540 00:29:22,280 --> 00:29:24,760 Right. So there's actually lots and 541 00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:27,880 lots of very large flying insects that continue after the 542 00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:29,640 Carboniferous. So they continue into the 543 00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:33,840 Mesozoic with dinosaurs during a time when oxygen levels were 544 00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:35,600 much lower than they were in the Carboniferous. 545 00:29:35,600 --> 00:29:39,080 So these big Griffin flies, in particular crow sized crows, 546 00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:42,800 crow wide wide crow sized dragonfly things. 547 00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:46,880 These Griffin flies went extinct basically at the same time that 548 00:29:46,880 --> 00:29:50,160 birds evolved either because birds were like yeah that looks 549 00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:53,960 delicious or they were looking at the Griffin flies food and 550 00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:56,480 saying fuck yeah that looks delicious and they out competed 551 00:29:56,480 --> 00:30:00,560 them somehow. So birds thankfully are part of 552 00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:04,720 the reason that we do not have giant giant giant flying insects 553 00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:07,320 today. But weirdly some of bird's 554 00:30:07,320 --> 00:30:12,280 ancestors had fewer limitations on body size it seems. 555 00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:16,840 Yeah dinosaurs but why? So why so big? 556 00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:18,080 Why? Why? 557 00:30:18,120 --> 00:30:20,480 And I I know I was trying to think. 558 00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:22,960 I was like, well, it's not really biological constraints. 559 00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:26,880 It's like biological like fuck. The rules. 560 00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:28,680 Fuck the rules. I'm going to be huge. 561 00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:32,920 It's like why I'm better at this than everyone else, 562 00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:36,520 interestingly enough. But yeah, I mean, and we we, you 563 00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:39,080 know, we know that dinosaurs got stupid huge. 564 00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:43,480 I could go at it with a bunch of stats about some of the biggest 565 00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,880 dinosaurs, but I know half of our listeners know that 566 00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:47,880 information way better than I do. 567 00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:49,800 So I'm not going to bother too much. 568 00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:52,440 But what we're going to talk about is, well, how? 569 00:30:52,800 --> 00:30:54,680 How did dinosaurs get so stupid? Huge. 570 00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:56,600 Why? How were they constrained? 571 00:30:56,600 --> 00:31:01,360 If they were constrained, what allowed them to have this crazy 572 00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:04,720 diversity of body sizes? I think I read in one of the 573 00:31:04,720 --> 00:31:08,720 scientific papers I was looking at this week that the smallest 574 00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,560 dinosaur and the largest dinosaur are like 20 million 575 00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:16,080 times different in size. Like, God, there is that 576 00:31:16,080 --> 00:31:22,000 disparity within dinosaur body size evolution, which is just 577 00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:24,640 really, really, really interesting, Which is as nice as 578 00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:26,520 I'm ever going to be about dinosaurs. 579 00:31:28,800 --> 00:31:31,720 And I'm glad you were talking about the oxygen levels with the 580 00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:34,880 insects, because some of the earliest ideas about why 581 00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:37,200 dinosaurs got so big is that there is like, oh, there must 582 00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:41,000 have been more oxygen around and they were just, like getting, 583 00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:44,560 like, jacked on all of that oxygen. 584 00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:49,080 Just getting swole off of. O2 I assume it's like the 585 00:31:49,120 --> 00:31:52,840 opposite at living at elevation like I do here where we had to 586 00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:55,600 go get the baby tested like right after birth to make sure 587 00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:58,600 that he like had enough oxygen at 8000 feet. 588 00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:03,680 So anyway, I can't. I guess sea level is just great. 589 00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:07,800 So however, yeah, like we were talking about, scientists have 590 00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:10,800 largely debunked this idea that there was more oxygen. 591 00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:13,800 It looks like it was pretty similar to what the levels are 592 00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:15,800 today. And then also, which I find this 593 00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:18,680 really funny, folks also thought for a while that there was like 594 00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,680 a lower level of gravity, like less gravity. 595 00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:27,560 So they were able to just like, I love that idea of just like 596 00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:30,000 did we like, slow down in our spin? 597 00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:32,280 Did the Earth change size dramatically? 598 00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:35,800 Like, you know, I I don't know enough about physics, understand 599 00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:42,080 how this would be possible, but the Earth has generally been the 600 00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:45,520 same size since the Mesozoic, because geologically it's really 601 00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:48,520 not that long ago in terms of the Earth like the universe. 602 00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:52,640 So the gravitational impact and pull is about the same. 603 00:32:52,640 --> 00:32:55,680 So again, gravity, oxygen are remaining constants. 604 00:32:55,920 --> 00:32:59,080 So how and why? And it looks like there are, you 605 00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:01,120 know, morphological reasons behind this. 606 00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:03,720 And it looks like there's ecological reasons behind this. 607 00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:06,240 And then what I also found was really interesting that we'll 608 00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:10,520 touch on at the end is how exactly, you know, not just, 609 00:33:10,520 --> 00:33:13,160 like, what did your bones do and whatnot, but how did your 610 00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:17,960 Physiology actually lead to this increase in size 2 with, like, 611 00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:22,440 how did you grow, which is, you know, an interesting question on 612 00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:25,040 some levels. I'm going to send you an image 613 00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:27,560 from that figure from that paper too, because I think it looks 614 00:33:27,560 --> 00:33:33,880 like a butthole because I have the maturity of a 2 year old. 615 00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,200 All right, but let's talk about OK, if we're talking about big 616 00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:41,400 ass dinosaurs, we're talking the biggest of the big, the biggest 617 00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:43,760 land animals of all time are going to be sauropods. 618 00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:46,160 OK, sauropods are long neck dinosaurs. 619 00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:48,960 You know, everyone with their brontosaurus, whether or not 620 00:33:48,960 --> 00:33:53,440 brontosaurus is a valid genus. Anyway, it's not nearly as big 621 00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:58,240 as a lot of the titanosaurs, and those are the ones that are from 622 00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:00,400 South America. I'm going to talk about 623 00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:04,200 Argentinasaurus because when I lived in Atlanta, they had a 624 00:34:04,200 --> 00:34:07,160 mount of Argentinasaurus at the Fernbank Museum where I worked 625 00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:11,120 for a very brief amount of time. And it's thought to be again, 626 00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:14,560 one of the largest dinosaurs that ever lived. 627 00:34:14,560 --> 00:34:17,880 Because again, we didn't find all of this dinosaur, and we 628 00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:21,800 didn't find all of the other giant ones like Patagon. 629 00:34:21,800 --> 00:34:23,400 What is it? Patagonasaur. 630 00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:25,280 Nope, that's not right. See we have. 631 00:34:25,280 --> 00:34:28,280 To keep trying, keep trying, keep trying power through. 632 00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:32,760 No, I can't. Oh, Dreadnotus. 633 00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:44,120 Dreadnotus is another one of the really big boys and I don't even 634 00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:48,000 want to try. I'm scared of Padigo Titan. 635 00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:49,760 That's what it is. Padigo Titan. 636 00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:52,199 God damn it, I hate dinosaur name so much. 637 00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:54,679 Anyway, all of these guys are all thought to be like 638 00:34:54,679 --> 00:34:57,680 contenders for the biggest dinosaurs that ever lived. 639 00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:00,760 Argentinosaurus was thought to be again. 640 00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:03,960 I love this mass estimate that literally is just on Wikipedia 641 00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:06,800 guys. It's thought to be 110,000 lbs 642 00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:10,600 to 220,000 lbs. So we're talking about a range 643 00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:19,200 varies within 100, a £110,000. Well, you two imagine looking at 644 00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:23,760 a person and being like they're anywhere between 150 lbs and 300 645 00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:25,000 lbs. And I can't tell. 646 00:35:25,440 --> 00:35:30,040 I don't know. Yes, exactly. 647 00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:32,880 Y'all like, this is what we're working with when you're dealing 648 00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:36,280 with fossils and when you're trying to extrapolate body size 649 00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:38,880 from isolated. Anyway, it was thought to be 650 00:35:38,880 --> 00:35:41,200 about 100 feet long. It could have been up to like 651 00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:43,760 130 feet long. Maybe it was only like 90 feet 652 00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:45,280 long. Again, we don't even know how 653 00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:46,320 the bones are spaced. Anyway. 654 00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:48,320 These guys were freaking huge though. 655 00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:51,080 That's what's important is these dinosaurs were extremely big. 656 00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:54,680 And how did they get so big? Well, there's a few things that 657 00:35:54,680 --> 00:35:58,200 we're looking at. You know, they're just, I love 658 00:35:58,240 --> 00:35:59,320 this. I was reading this and they're 659 00:35:59,320 --> 00:36:03,120 like they walked on four legs and I was like, well, yeah, but 660 00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:06,080 that really does play a role. When you're not constrained by 661 00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:09,560 just two legs, you're able to put on more mass, you can 662 00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:13,040 support more body Yadi Yadi with four legs than two. 663 00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:17,200 And so that's why our sauropods get bigger than theropods, which 664 00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:20,080 are meat eating dinosaurs that are generally bipedal now. 665 00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:23,360 I'm pretty sure they're always bipedal and they are with with 666 00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:25,400 their two legs, though they're not constrained by 4, they're 667 00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:27,440 better at running. So again, it's all about like 668 00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:31,120 trade-offs with evolution. And so sauropods, they've got 669 00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:34,560 these four legs, their legs are also right under them and that's 670 00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:38,080 important because like unlike a lizard or something like a 671 00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:41,320 crocodile, they're actually able to support their body. 672 00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:45,320 Adi adi again a lot more. And these limbs are essentially 673 00:36:45,320 --> 00:36:50,520 pillars, like, they have just like incredible support because 674 00:36:50,520 --> 00:36:54,000 of these thick, strong bones. And then we also have pretty 675 00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:56,800 immobile joints. So you know, like we can do all 676 00:36:56,800 --> 00:36:59,520 this like fancy shit with our wrists and ankles. 677 00:36:59,640 --> 00:37:01,880 They don't do that. They're like, let's get these 678 00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,080 super solid so that they can again support even more weight 679 00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:09,680 on them and it also helps them disperse their weight well also. 680 00:37:10,160 --> 00:37:12,280 Now, another thing that I kind of want to talk about with some 681 00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:15,160 of the mammals too is this long neck phenomenon, because a lot 682 00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:18,480 of the biggest mammals also have either a long neck or a long 683 00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:22,960 trunk which allows them to reach more food, and it also allows 684 00:37:22,960 --> 00:37:24,600 them. I love this laziness. 685 00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:28,440 It allows them to stay in one place and reach food without 686 00:37:28,440 --> 00:37:31,400 moving like more than other organisms. 687 00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:35,800 And I'm like, that's hot. I never thought about the utter 688 00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:40,200 laziness of a long neck for that sort of adaptation. 689 00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:43,840 Now, this also ties into some of the ecological constraints, 690 00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:46,680 right? So when you have an ecosystem 691 00:37:46,680 --> 00:37:50,240 that has a canopy, right? So we've got trees that are 692 00:37:50,240 --> 00:37:52,800 growing, leaves at different heights, and you might have 693 00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:55,000 grasses. Probably not at that point. 694 00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:56,680 Nope. Shrubberies. 695 00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:00,160 Little bushes. And then we've got taller trees, 696 00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:02,880 a lot of conifers. Some early angiosperms at this 697 00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,920 point too. And if you have a long neck, 698 00:38:05,920 --> 00:38:09,640 you're able to get to a part of the ecosystem that no other 699 00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:13,680 dinosaurs are able to access. And so we I kind of think about 700 00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:16,480 this with giant ground slots too, with their crazy long claw 701 00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:20,360 hands, how they use those not to like, again, like murder each 702 00:38:20,360 --> 00:38:24,560 other, but to actually get taller branches off of their 703 00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:27,800 trees and whatnot. So again, like having this long 704 00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:31,600 neck opens up a whole new part of the ecosystem for sauropods 705 00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:36,560 to take advantage of and be able to also then eat lots of food by 706 00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:39,520 staying in one place. What I find is also interesting 707 00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:42,600 is that sauropods, it's not thought that they really chewed 708 00:38:42,600 --> 00:38:45,240 their food, which is a difference from mammals as well. 709 00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:48,200 That's also because they had gastro lift, so they had stomach 710 00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,320 stones that help them digest and breakdown food as well. 711 00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:55,400 But there's an idea that that also saves them energy by not 712 00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:57,480 having to chew. And when you think about a cow, 713 00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:01,000 like chewing all the goddamn time and then regurgitating 714 00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:03,520 their food and chewing it some more, just for good treasure. 715 00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:07,760 Cows. Cows sleep 4 hours a day. 716 00:39:08,200 --> 00:39:11,200 They ruminate, which means they chew their cud. 717 00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:13,720 They chew their own puke 8 hours a day. 718 00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:18,560 Oh my God, could you imagine eating your own vomit twice as 719 00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:21,000 long as you slept? Oh, I did. 720 00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:23,960 Also because it's always confused me because, I mean a 721 00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:27,120 cow where a sheep burp is not like a glorious smell, but it's 722 00:39:27,120 --> 00:39:32,800 not vomit because it's coming from, I didn't get a chance to 723 00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:36,440 say any of the four names, but they're such dumbass names. 724 00:39:37,040 --> 00:39:40,160 It's coming from, like the reticulum of the stomach. 725 00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:43,920 So it's not, it's not coming from the acid portion of the 726 00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:47,040 stomach. So you're just getting like, 727 00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:51,920 fermented stuff in your mouth. And it's because they don't want 728 00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:54,120 to, they don't want to chew it as they're eating it. 729 00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:57,560 It's more effective to shove it in, let the bacteria start 730 00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:00,040 breaking it down into sugar and then chew it. 731 00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:03,840 But poodoo, one of my sheep, I will take a video and send it to 732 00:40:03,840 --> 00:40:05,880 you at some point. She's a hair sheep, so she 733 00:40:05,880 --> 00:40:09,240 doesn't have like a lot of fur on her face and she will get 734 00:40:09,240 --> 00:40:11,840 like, she'll just look at me dead in the eyes and just puke a 735 00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:16,440 full fucking wad of like bubblegum size like just in her 736 00:40:16,440 --> 00:40:21,160 cheek just and just staring dead eyed at me with no problem 737 00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:22,960 whatsoever. Because yeah, I guess they like 738 00:40:22,960 --> 00:40:26,520 the taste of their own puke. You'd have to, I suppose. 739 00:40:27,120 --> 00:40:29,520 Right again. And this is where I'm I don't 740 00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:32,760 mean to get on a just on a platform here and be like 741 00:40:32,760 --> 00:40:36,360 evolution is true. But I I'm also like, come on, 742 00:40:36,360 --> 00:40:40,960 what kind of sick fuck God is like, yeah, this is how it's 743 00:40:41,280 --> 00:40:42,880 going to go. Hippos. 744 00:40:44,080 --> 00:40:49,520 Hippos get turned on by their own poop and sheep get to eat 745 00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:54,120 their own puke 24/7. This world is going to be wild, 746 00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:55,720 yeah. And we didn't talk about it. 747 00:40:55,720 --> 00:40:57,720 I think we'll have to get to it another episode. 748 00:40:57,720 --> 00:40:59,760 But I also know that lagamorphs like rabbits. 749 00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:02,440 They have a weird gut. System and they're. 750 00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:05,080 Not able to fully digest everything, so they end up 751 00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:08,600 eating their own poop a lot to be able to digest it and get the 752 00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:11,080 new out of it. And again, I just see that and 753 00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:14,200 I'm just like, hey like guys, evolution is true. 754 00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:17,800 Like what weird Creator is up there like maniacally being like 755 00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:20,280 and then this cute animal will eat its own shit? 756 00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:23,840 It just doesn't. It doesn't make. 757 00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:27,040 It doesn't make sense. You know, I just come on. 758 00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:30,800 Evolution is again a tinkerer. You work with what you got. 759 00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:32,880 It's good enough. It's not great. 760 00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:36,880 It's not great. Oh, gosh. 761 00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:37,920 Wow. All right. 762 00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:41,520 So sauropods, yeah. Another interesting thing that I 763 00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:45,480 was reading about with the ecosystem aspect is some 764 00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:48,200 scientists think that there may have been just lower levels of 765 00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:52,080 productivity in the ecosystem in the Mesozoic and that there 766 00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:56,440 wouldn't have been as much flora to support all the fauna and 767 00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:58,680 whatnot. And that that could have led to 768 00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:01,880 these animals getting much bigger because it allowed them 769 00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:07,360 to have like, oh, and and like less actual dinosaurs that were 770 00:42:07,360 --> 00:42:09,840 around too. Like within their population 771 00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:13,160 there were less sauropods. And this would allow them to 772 00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:16,840 just like hold on to their biomass and take a really long 773 00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,520 time to digest their food and suck everything out of it. 774 00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:23,800 Because there wasn't a lot of other options going on with 775 00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:28,920 these low population and low just ecosystem availability. 776 00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:30,960 And I don't know if I'm explaining that very well. 777 00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:33,360 I have to read more about some of it because it was, it was 778 00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:35,800 very, very interesting to just think that. 779 00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,320 And then when I was reading about island gigantism, it did 780 00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:42,040 kind of touch on those ideas as well as that. 781 00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:45,960 If you get bigger, you can take longer to digest your food, like 782 00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:49,400 a giant tortoise perhaps, and therefore you can go longer 783 00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:53,480 between feedings as well. So maybe sauropods were able to 784 00:42:53,480 --> 00:43:00,040 just like ride it out on their giant slow digesting stomachs, 785 00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:04,400 which leads us into why were they able to get bigger than 786 00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:06,360 mammals? Why are they better at getting 787 00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:08,120 bigger than what we see in mammals? 788 00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:12,760 And the slow, slow metabolism is a big, big part of that, That 789 00:43:12,760 --> 00:43:15,280 they had these really big stomachs that allowed their food 790 00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:18,560 to stay in their systems much longer and digest more and 791 00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:20,520 therefore get more nutrients out of it. 792 00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:23,880 And they weren't probably constrained by we don't know. 793 00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:26,120 I would love to know about sauropod diarrhea. 794 00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:30,560 Like come on, someone tell me if this is a thing, but we also 795 00:43:30,560 --> 00:43:33,960 know that they are using gizzard stones, that they have these 796 00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:37,000 gastroliths. So they're using these unique 797 00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:41,520 ways to also go about using less energy to break down their food 798 00:43:41,520 --> 00:43:43,680 as well. And then a really big one about 799 00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:46,480 why they're able to do this better than mammals is because 800 00:43:46,480 --> 00:43:49,720 they have more of a bird like breathing system and they also 801 00:43:49,720 --> 00:43:53,960 have air sacs or pneumatized bones, especially in their neck. 802 00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:58,600 I've seen sauropod neck vertebrae that are just full of 803 00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:02,320 these really intricate pockets and kind of openings and 804 00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:05,800 whatnot, and those are all allowing for air sacs to be. 805 00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:07,920 They're allowing their neck to be a little bit lighter. 806 00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:11,720 But it also helps them have a better, more efficient breathing 807 00:44:11,720 --> 00:44:15,080 system where, like birds, they're actually able to have a 808 00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:17,160 supply of oxygen in their system. 809 00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:20,200 Even as they're exhaling, breathing out, they're still 810 00:44:20,200 --> 00:44:23,480 able to maintain that oxygen. And again, talking about oxygen 811 00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:26,920 levels, more oxygen allows you to be bigger A. 812 00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:31,000 Lot of times too. It was fascinating to dive into 813 00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:34,480 the Y instead of just less gravity, which again, I love 814 00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:36,240 that idea. Do. 815 00:44:36,240 --> 00:44:40,040 That and then I read this really interesting paper that came out 816 00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:43,840 in Science this last year that was all about how did they grow 817 00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:46,200 so big. Like usually biologically you 818 00:44:46,200 --> 00:44:50,440 have two options for doing that. You can either grow faster, 819 00:44:50,440 --> 00:44:52,320 right? So like early on like you're 820 00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:55,800 going to go through a much faster growth spurt or you have 821 00:44:56,040 --> 00:45:00,320 a longer period in which you grow, so you've extended your 822 00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:03,240 growth time. So this paper actually they 823 00:45:03,240 --> 00:45:06,360 looked at the bones of theropod dinosaurs. 824 00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:09,960 So again these meat eating dinosaurs, so bipedal predators 825 00:45:10,040 --> 00:45:12,720 that don't get nearly as big as the sauropods but still got 826 00:45:12,720 --> 00:45:16,200 very, very, very large including bigger than some of these 827 00:45:16,200 --> 00:45:18,720 biggest mammals. And they looked at how these 828 00:45:18,720 --> 00:45:22,120 dinosaurs grow. And they created by looking at 829 00:45:22,120 --> 00:45:24,400 the growth rings in the different dinosaur bones. 830 00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:27,800 Through the paleohistology, they're able to figure out that 831 00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:30,360 dinosaurs didn't really follow any of the rules. 832 00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:35,000 T Rex did it one way. And then I feel like Spinosaurus 833 00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:40,200 did it totally differently. Like, yeah, T Rex decided to 834 00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:44,280 have faster growth rates. Like, they just got bigger 835 00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:48,600 faster. And then Spinosaurus instead, 836 00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:53,000 like extended its amount of time that had relatively slow growth, 837 00:45:53,000 --> 00:45:56,120 but did it over a longer amount of time. 838 00:45:56,320 --> 00:46:01,160 I'm even though none of them have like crazy long lifespans 839 00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:03,040 either. So it's very interesting to 840 00:46:03,040 --> 00:46:05,400 think about. Anyway, so dinosaurs are 841 00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:09,120 fascinating, kind of, and it's interesting to go into the 842 00:46:09,120 --> 00:46:12,120 ecological constraints of this. Then we're not going to dive 843 00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:14,480 into it on this episode because we don't have time and we're 844 00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:17,080 probably going to cut this down as is and make some bonus 845 00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:20,360 content as well. However, we hear you all 846 00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:24,120 screaming about island ISM and island gigantism and island 847 00:46:24,120 --> 00:46:28,240 dwarfism, and we hear you. It's just too dense of a topic 848 00:46:28,240 --> 00:46:31,560 to include in this. It does tie in to what we're 849 00:46:31,560 --> 00:46:35,160 talking about and it does, you know, where you live does have a 850 00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:37,880 lot to say about your constraints of what your body 851 00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:40,560 can do. And we will be talking about 852 00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:42,840 that because it's very interesting that a lot of times 853 00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:46,320 small organisms that are small on the mainland, on an island to 854 00:46:46,320 --> 00:46:47,960 get much bigger, like a lot of rodents. 855 00:46:48,360 --> 00:46:53,320 And then also a lot of animals that are bigger in the mainland, 856 00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:56,680 like artiodactyls and like proboscidians like we've been 857 00:46:56,680 --> 00:47:00,920 talking about, get smaller when they are on an island because 858 00:47:00,920 --> 00:47:04,520 they don't have to be as big and like scary to predators when 859 00:47:04,520 --> 00:47:07,040 there aren't any big predators. So then you get the cute 860 00:47:07,040 --> 00:47:09,800 channel. They can just be themselves. 861 00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:11,280 They can. Be adorable. 862 00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:15,600 I've always wanted to go to the Channel Islands off the coast of 863 00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:18,800 California because they have pygmy mammoths, fossil pig 864 00:47:18,920 --> 00:47:22,760 mammoths there because of, again, island dwarfism. 865 00:47:22,760 --> 00:47:27,160 So we'll have to do maybe we can go there or go to we were just 866 00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:28,680 in California, but we can go again. 867 00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:32,400 It's still there, yeah. It hasn't disappeared. 868 00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:37,000 Thank you for listening. If you like the podcast, be sure 869 00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:40,240 to rate and review us on your listening platform of choice. 870 00:47:40,240 --> 00:47:42,840 We really, really, really appreciate it If. 871 00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:44,760 You'd like to hear more and support the show? 872 00:47:44,800 --> 00:47:48,560 You can follow us on Patreon for some exclusive bits or on our 873 00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:52,160 various social media platforms. You can follow Amy on Instagram 874 00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:55,800 at Mary Anning's Revenge. And Megan on Instagram and 875 00:47:55,800 --> 00:47:59,680 TikTok as Geopedal fabric. Or both of us at Weird and Dead 876 00:47:59,720 --> 00:48:02,120 on Instagram. And TikTok, This podcast is 877 00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:05,080 brought to you by the Geology Podcasting net work produced by 878 00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:07,600 The Traveling Geologist AKA Chris Spencer. 879 00:48:07,680 --> 00:48:10,200 Our theme song is Unlock Me by Praz Kunal. 880 00:48:10,200 --> 00:48:14,840 You can follow them on Spotify PRAZAHANA. 881 00:48:15,040 --> 00:48:18,080 L cover art was provided by Chris Spencer and the Host. 882 00:48:18,240 --> 00:48:21,000 Editing services were provided by Abby Jansen and Chris 883 00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:23,080 Spencer, and a little bit of us as well. 884 00:48:23,080 --> 00:48:26,400 And this has been hosted and researched by us, Amy Atwater 885 00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:28,320 and Megan Wetherall. Thank you for listening. 886 00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:35,000 Even with the delay, I could hear you laughing the second I 887 00:48:35,000 --> 00:48:40,040 said sexy. Diarrhea couldn't, couldn't. 888 00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:43,840 Keep it together. It's so fucking stupid.