1 00:00:04,360 --> 00:00:07,280 You're listening to Weird and Dead, the paleontology podcast 2 00:00:07,280 --> 00:00:10,040 that tells evolutions most embarrassing and bizarre 3 00:00:10,040 --> 00:00:11,840 stories. I'm Amy Atwater. 4 00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:14,600 And I'm Megan Wetherell, and we're two living scientists who 5 00:00:14,600 --> 00:00:16,520 are weirdly excited about dead things. 6 00:00:17,520 --> 00:00:21,520 From weird animals to weird geology, the Burgess Shale has 7 00:00:21,560 --> 00:00:25,720 it all, but it isn't necessarily as unique as we thought. 8 00:00:25,720 --> 00:00:29,040 In this episode, we talk about bizarre animals, the concept of 9 00:00:29,120 --> 00:00:32,400 jellyfish jerky, and a world that just fossilizes 10 00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:35,120 differently. Also weird things you can do to 11 00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:39,320 worms for. Science like always, our podcast 12 00:00:39,320 --> 00:00:41,840 talks about some disgusting stuff, so please read through 13 00:00:41,840 --> 00:00:43,800 the content warnings before continuing. 14 00:00:49,640 --> 00:00:54,040 I'm going to get us started off today by talking about possibly 15 00:00:54,440 --> 00:01:00,080 the most feminist fossil takeover of all time, which is 16 00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:05,480 the fossil Anning Vermis. Now, Anning Vermis is from the 17 00:01:05,480 --> 00:01:09,160 Cambrian period, about 500 million years ago, and it's 18 00:01:09,160 --> 00:01:13,320 found in the Burgess Shale deposits in Canada. 19 00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:17,920 And the reason that it is such a great fossil and such a great 20 00:01:17,920 --> 00:01:21,080 feminist takeover is, First off, it's named after Mary Anning, 21 00:01:21,080 --> 00:01:24,320 which is great. And Anning Vermis is a preopulid 22 00:01:24,320 --> 00:01:27,600 worm, which is a fancy science name for penis worm. 23 00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:31,920 Penis worms are named not for what they look like in the 24 00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:34,120 fossil record. We know what they look like now 25 00:01:34,120 --> 00:01:37,720 because they still exist. They are a predatory worm that 26 00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:39,480 lives in the ocean and looks like a Dick. 27 00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:44,280 And they're pink. They're floppy, they're gross. 28 00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:48,280 I will say that in the fossil record, they are slightly less 29 00:01:48,280 --> 00:01:52,600 human penis E and more like terrifying cat penis E because 30 00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:56,400 they have like spikes and spines and all sorts of horrific 31 00:01:56,400 --> 00:01:56,920 better. Yeah. 32 00:01:56,920 --> 00:01:58,000 This is a great way to start off. 33 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:01,840 Right. And the the cool thing about pre 34 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:03,600 appealing. Well, there's a lot of a lot of 35 00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:07,400 cool things about penis worms, but this penis worm and other 36 00:02:07,400 --> 00:02:10,560 penis worms in the Burgess Shale are really, really 37 00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:14,520 extraordinarily well fossilized. They don't look like you just 38 00:02:14,520 --> 00:02:18,760 took a soft fleshy tube and you squashed it in the dirt. 39 00:02:19,040 --> 00:02:22,320 There's actually things like I think stomach contents are 40 00:02:22,320 --> 00:02:25,480 preserved in some cases. They have exceptional 41 00:02:25,480 --> 00:02:29,320 preservation, which is not characteristic necessarily of 42 00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:32,280 penis worms and other soft bodied organisms, but it is 43 00:02:32,280 --> 00:02:35,680 certainly characteristic of the Burgess Shale. 44 00:02:36,040 --> 00:02:39,520 I always thought that this was something super unique to the 45 00:02:39,520 --> 00:02:42,600 Burgess Shale. Imagine my surprise when I 46 00:02:42,600 --> 00:02:46,520 learned that there are now as of 2014, which is the last paper 47 00:02:46,520 --> 00:02:50,760 that I read on that listed a number, there are 50 sites with 48 00:02:50,760 --> 00:02:54,920 Burgess Shale type preservation from the Middle Cambrian. 49 00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:58,560 So Burgess Shale type, meaning super, super awesome. 50 00:02:58,640 --> 00:03:01,800 Also you get penis worms. Well, you can preserve penis 51 00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:04,840 worms if you get them. So soft tissue preservation. 52 00:03:05,160 --> 00:03:09,760 So yeah, 50 which did mean that this paper in 2014 decided that 53 00:03:09,760 --> 00:03:12,520 that was enough to start categorizing and ranking them. 54 00:03:13,040 --> 00:03:15,840 So it was no longer, oh, you have exceptional preservation. 55 00:03:15,840 --> 00:03:18,920 It's you have almost as exceptional preservation as the 56 00:03:18,920 --> 00:03:21,760 purchase shale, but not quite as exceptional. 57 00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:25,760 OK, you know we do it slow ranking and naming things. 58 00:03:25,920 --> 00:03:30,400 As like the the epitome, the Burgess is still a number one. 59 00:03:30,400 --> 00:03:33,360 Has anything come close to knocking Burgess off of its 60 00:03:33,360 --> 00:03:36,120 giant mountain? Yes, there are a couple that 61 00:03:36,120 --> 00:03:40,640 have come pretty close, but it kind of depends on what you are 62 00:03:40,760 --> 00:03:43,560 looking for. So if you are looking for, you 63 00:03:43,560 --> 00:03:45,840 know, the one of the hardest things to preserve would be 64 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:49,920 something like a jellyfish, which is super, super soft and 65 00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:55,880 fragile and also not living on the ground, so harder to catch 66 00:03:55,960 --> 00:03:59,880 and put in the dirt without having it decomposed, for 67 00:03:59,880 --> 00:04:02,760 example, beforehand. So if you want really, really 68 00:04:02,760 --> 00:04:07,320 nice jellyfish fossils, there was a new one described in 2019 69 00:04:07,320 --> 00:04:10,920 called the Chingjiang biota, which is from the early Cambrian 70 00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:12,920 of South China. That's different from the 71 00:04:12,920 --> 00:04:17,320 Chengjiang biota, which is also Cambrian and also exceptional. 72 00:04:17,560 --> 00:04:21,240 But the Chengjiang biota has incredible preservation of 73 00:04:21,519 --> 00:04:25,000 Nigdarians, so jellyfish, anemones, that sort of thing. 74 00:04:25,360 --> 00:04:29,800 So I would say that probably that would be a good challenger 75 00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:33,040 for the Burgess Shale, as is the the Chengdian as well. 76 00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:36,960 They have lots and lots of jellyfish in some of these like 77 00:04:37,120 --> 00:04:40,960 more beautifully preserved sites, but it's not as unique as 78 00:04:40,960 --> 00:04:44,720 I thought it was unless you're looking at deep time. 79 00:04:44,920 --> 00:04:48,440 So if you're looking from the Cambrian to now jellyfish 80 00:04:48,440 --> 00:04:53,120 fossils during the Cambrian, startlingly common, still 81 00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:57,680 patchy, still not perfectly preserved, but really weirdly 82 00:04:57,680 --> 00:05:01,920 preserved considering that pretty much since then, fucking 83 00:05:01,920 --> 00:05:05,440 nothing. Like if you want penis worm 84 00:05:05,440 --> 00:05:08,360 preservation, you're going to be looking for the little holes 85 00:05:08,360 --> 00:05:10,240 that they take. You're not going to be finding 86 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:11,840 the actual penis worms themselves. 87 00:05:11,840 --> 00:05:13,840 You're not going to be finding jellyfish. 88 00:05:13,840 --> 00:05:15,840 You're probably not going to find anything that they do 89 00:05:15,840 --> 00:05:18,720 actually after about the Cambrian because, yeah, that 90 00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:23,480 preservation is exceptional and it is specific to that time 91 00:05:23,480 --> 00:05:26,120 period for a couple of reasons that we'll discuss shortly. 92 00:05:26,560 --> 00:05:29,960 Yeah, well, it wasn't necessarily like super unique 93 00:05:30,080 --> 00:05:33,480 during the Cambrian. It is incredibly unique when you 94 00:05:33,480 --> 00:05:36,080 compare it to all of the rest of time. 95 00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:38,600 So still winning for sure. And. 96 00:05:38,920 --> 00:05:41,440 That makes, yeah, I've never thought about it too much 97 00:05:41,440 --> 00:05:45,280 before, but right, we talk about the Cambrian, like specifically 98 00:05:45,280 --> 00:05:49,840 this is around 500 million years ago and a little, a little bit 99 00:05:49,840 --> 00:05:52,400 after that, maybe some a little bit before that. 100 00:05:52,400 --> 00:05:56,960 It's like 510 I think. Yeah, yeah, 585 O 8 is what I 101 00:05:56,960 --> 00:06:00,520 saw a lot of spots as well yes and then I don't think a whole 102 00:06:00,520 --> 00:06:05,440 lot about the penis worm record between present day and then 103 00:06:05,440 --> 00:06:08,160 when you just told me that they're still alive and I'm 104 00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:13,080 wearing my penis worm pants in honor of today's. 105 00:06:13,080 --> 00:06:15,200 Which does have adding vermice on it. 106 00:06:15,400 --> 00:06:19,320 Yeah, I made a penis worm Paisley print from my store. 107 00:06:19,320 --> 00:06:22,760 You too can own this print and it has anning vermis as one of 108 00:06:22,760 --> 00:06:24,960 the penis worms on it. I don't remember which one 109 00:06:24,960 --> 00:06:27,160 Anning vermis is, but I'm sure it's the coolest one. 110 00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:30,560 It obs. They're all amazing though and 111 00:06:30,560 --> 00:06:35,720 the side says bioterbated and I have had a few people ask me 112 00:06:35,720 --> 00:06:38,400 about that. Only one person got upset. 113 00:06:41,040 --> 00:06:44,640 I did initially when I was designing that I had a pair of 114 00:06:44,640 --> 00:06:49,000 shorts where I had bioturbated written across the ass because I 115 00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:53,000 thought that was even funnier. But then I couldn't find very 116 00:06:53,000 --> 00:06:54,520 good shorts. They were all, they weren't like 117 00:06:54,680 --> 00:06:56,600 sleeping shorts. They were all like jogging 118 00:06:56,600 --> 00:06:59,320 shorts but like that weird jogging material. 119 00:06:59,640 --> 00:07:04,680 So it just it didn't feel like it met the vibes of scientific 120 00:07:04,680 --> 00:07:07,840 equivalent to you need. It to be like Juicy Couture? 121 00:07:07,840 --> 00:07:11,720 Yeah, exactly. Juicy Couture just bioturbated 122 00:07:12,360 --> 00:07:13,240 across. Yeah, Juicy. 123 00:07:13,240 --> 00:07:17,920 Couture doesn't write itself on like windbreaker style fabric, 124 00:07:17,920 --> 00:07:19,720 you know? Like it's got to be a certain 125 00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:22,920 type of fabric and I couldn't find it so I settled for the 126 00:07:22,920 --> 00:07:25,600 sweatpants. Yeah, they're red. 127 00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:27,960 I like them. They replaced another pair of 128 00:07:27,960 --> 00:07:31,680 paleo pants that I had that said the Mammoth Site, which I also 129 00:07:31,680 --> 00:07:35,720 found hilarious to have my pants say the Mammoth Site. 130 00:07:36,080 --> 00:07:40,000 I just couldn't. I loved those pants. 131 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:43,440 I wore them into the ground. Yeah, exactly. 132 00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:48,280 Like, get ready. Are you ready for all this 133 00:07:48,680 --> 00:07:50,760 Jelly? Too bad it's mammoth. 134 00:07:53,080 --> 00:07:56,120 I guess. Wearing the amazing pants and 135 00:07:56,120 --> 00:07:59,760 excited for today. We've already touched on, you 136 00:07:59,760 --> 00:08:03,720 know, soft tissue and exceptional preservation, yet we 137 00:08:03,720 --> 00:08:07,760 have hinted around topics that we're going to get to really go 138 00:08:07,840 --> 00:08:12,160 go into today with the the deepest time that we've talked 139 00:08:12,160 --> 00:08:14,320 about. I mean, again, we are talking, 140 00:08:14,960 --> 00:08:18,960 but we're just I'm going to go 500 million years ago, which as 141 00:08:18,960 --> 00:08:22,160 we have established as mammal paleontologist, the oldest 142 00:08:22,160 --> 00:08:25,000 mammal fossil I have ever personally worked on was 143 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:28,720 66,000,000 years old. So I'm a little bit out of my 144 00:08:28,760 --> 00:08:33,679 comfort zone, which is exciting because you're going to hear my 145 00:08:33,679 --> 00:08:39,720 take on birches fossils, which just not that of an expert by 146 00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:42,480 any, well, I mean an expert enthusiast. 147 00:08:42,480 --> 00:08:44,600 I'll, I'll start, I'll start with that. 148 00:08:45,480 --> 00:08:49,280 And the Burgess, I mean, this we think of this time period is 149 00:08:49,280 --> 00:08:54,640 also the Cambrian explosion. And this is when we see a lot of 150 00:08:54,640 --> 00:08:58,520 visible life finally appear in the fossil record. 151 00:08:58,680 --> 00:09:01,400 And in a lot of ways it does feel exactly that. 152 00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:04,920 Like it was an incredibly rapid point for diversification and 153 00:09:04,920 --> 00:09:09,080 evolution because we literally go from like no signs of 154 00:09:09,080 --> 00:09:14,000 jellyfish to like a full bell shaped fucking jellyfish like 155 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:17,160 doing its thing. And it's this question of are we 156 00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:20,440 missing the lead up to the some of these life forms, these 157 00:09:20,560 --> 00:09:24,040 bigger, you know, bigger multi multicellular creatures? 158 00:09:24,280 --> 00:09:27,360 Did we miss it or did it really happen that fucking fast? 159 00:09:27,960 --> 00:09:32,400 And a lot of the evidence indicates that it happened that 160 00:09:32,400 --> 00:09:38,120 fucking fast in a lot of ways. I realized as I was doing 161 00:09:38,120 --> 00:09:41,200 research for this that I have always thought that the bird 162 00:09:41,200 --> 00:09:46,560 Jess Shale and the Cambrian explosion were early Cambrian. 163 00:09:46,720 --> 00:09:49,520 Like the fact that this is the middle Cambrian. 164 00:09:50,480 --> 00:09:53,520 Little startling for me. A little hard to wrap my head 165 00:09:53,520 --> 00:09:58,360 around, just like I'm missing 50 million years in what I thought 166 00:09:58,360 --> 00:10:00,400 I was looking at. But you know, there's weirder 167 00:10:00,400 --> 00:10:04,480 things about the Cambrian than that, so. 50 million years when 168 00:10:04,480 --> 00:10:07,280 you're talking, you know, that's it's, it's a fraction of that 169 00:10:07,280 --> 00:10:08,680 overall time, but yeah. I'll think you. 170 00:10:10,080 --> 00:10:13,680 You would kind of think that it it would, and I don't know my 171 00:10:13,680 --> 00:10:16,160 deep time well enough about this, but you would also think 172 00:10:16,160 --> 00:10:19,000 that the beginning of the Cambrian explosion would mark 173 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:21,280 the beginning of the Cambrian because the Cambrian would be 174 00:10:21,280 --> 00:10:26,280 defined by, you know, like a lot of times in our younger rocks, 175 00:10:26,400 --> 00:10:30,320 it's very much described by the presence or absence of specific 176 00:10:30,360 --> 00:10:32,240 creatures. Well, I guess that's kind of 177 00:10:32,240 --> 00:10:35,080 like anyway, so so it's yeah, it is kind of interesting that it's 178 00:10:35,080 --> 00:10:37,000 the middle Cambrian. It's like, well, what the fuck 179 00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:41,400 is going on before that? I'm sure a lot of things that I 180 00:10:41,400 --> 00:10:44,760 didn't read about for this, so apologies, yes. 181 00:10:46,280 --> 00:10:48,960 Yeah, so tell me some of the cool organisms that are found 182 00:10:48,960 --> 00:10:49,960 there. Woo, woo. 183 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:52,440 Yeah, for sure. And I'm excited to hear about 184 00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:55,680 some of the sites too. So I've been, I haven't hiked up 185 00:10:55,680 --> 00:11:00,000 to the quarries in Yoho National Park where the, you know, some 186 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:02,680 of the original fossils at the Burgess Shale were discovered. 187 00:11:02,840 --> 00:11:06,360 And I've been lucky enough to go find trilobite fossils in the I 188 00:11:06,360 --> 00:11:09,800 think it's the Wheeler Formation of Utah, which I'm pretty sure 189 00:11:09,800 --> 00:11:14,360 is another Middle Cambrian site. So that's the first Organism. 190 00:11:14,680 --> 00:11:17,920 I already told Megan I have a whole bunch of props so they're 191 00:11:17,920 --> 00:11:22,560 not even photos though. But I think my little cute cozy 192 00:11:22,560 --> 00:11:24,560 Ant, Nope, almost called it an ammonite. 193 00:11:24,560 --> 00:11:26,520 That's not what this is. This is a trilobite. 194 00:11:27,320 --> 00:11:30,640 So my I'm, I'm off to a great start. 195 00:11:32,680 --> 00:11:36,320 As I already said, they made a lot of mistakes figuring out 196 00:11:36,320 --> 00:11:39,560 these Burgess Shale fossils and I might make some mistakes 197 00:11:39,560 --> 00:11:42,880 interpreting them for everybody, but this is a motherfuking 198 00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:45,640 trilobite. Arguably one of the most iconic 199 00:11:45,960 --> 00:11:50,880 fossils that you can your mind's eye can generate though. 200 00:11:50,880 --> 00:11:53,760 Also, a lot of folks have no freaking clue what a trilobite 201 00:11:53,760 --> 00:11:56,400 is. It's a beautiful quandary, but 202 00:11:56,400 --> 00:12:01,680 it is an early marine arthropod. It had three lobes to its body, 203 00:12:01,680 --> 00:12:05,080 hence trilobite. It would have had a shit ton of 204 00:12:05,080 --> 00:12:08,080 icky little creepy legs around its sides. 205 00:12:09,960 --> 00:12:12,680 Yeah, you forget about the icky little creepy legs when you look 206 00:12:12,680 --> 00:12:15,320 at it, right? Like it looks so cute and then 207 00:12:15,320 --> 00:12:17,480 you have to remember how many fucking legs it so. 208 00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:22,320 Many legs, so many legs. Interesting, strange eyes. 209 00:12:22,320 --> 00:12:25,080 Some had things sticking off. Yeah, yeah. 210 00:12:25,080 --> 00:12:28,720 And things sticking off of their faces, their eye stalks and some 211 00:12:28,720 --> 00:12:32,600 of them and appendages. And again, we have a site that 212 00:12:32,960 --> 00:12:36,040 and multiple sites now that preserve like just insane 213 00:12:36,040 --> 00:12:39,720 things, like to be able to get the detail of essentially what I 214 00:12:39,720 --> 00:12:42,600 think of as a freaking cockroach of the Paleozoic. 215 00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:47,040 Like to get that level of detail about something that lived that 216 00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:49,960 long ago is really, really impressive. 217 00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:51,280 Yes. So we had trilobites. 218 00:12:51,280 --> 00:12:53,520 They're pretty, pretty standard. There wasn't a whole lot of 219 00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:55,520 drama. I think trilobites had already 220 00:12:55,520 --> 00:12:58,560 been known from other areas, but Burgess offered a chance to 221 00:12:58,560 --> 00:13:01,080 again, see some of those soft tissue features a little bit 222 00:13:01,080 --> 00:13:02,800 better. And they would have been, you 223 00:13:02,800 --> 00:13:07,240 know, eaten weird dead shit in the in the muck and the all the 224 00:13:07,480 --> 00:13:11,400 sediments and whatnot and been looking out for this 225 00:13:11,480 --> 00:13:14,520 motherfucker right here that I have. 226 00:13:16,400 --> 00:13:19,560 Yeah, such a nice plushie. Yeah, it's beautiful. 227 00:13:19,560 --> 00:13:22,720 She's really giving me a whole puppet show on Zoom here. 228 00:13:22,960 --> 00:13:25,520 I mean, I can't see her whole body, so it's not that good of a 229 00:13:25,520 --> 00:13:27,840 puppet show. But like, you know, the, the, 230 00:13:28,080 --> 00:13:32,320 the vibe is right. God, it's so true. 231 00:13:32,680 --> 00:13:34,960 Yeah. So Anomalocaris is what I'm 232 00:13:34,960 --> 00:13:38,920 showing you right now. It was one of, if not the 233 00:13:38,920 --> 00:13:43,360 largest animal and Organism, I should say, in the ecosystem at 234 00:13:43,360 --> 00:13:45,800 that time. We're talking almost a meter 235 00:13:45,800 --> 00:13:49,480 long, so almost 3 feet. And for when you're talking 236 00:13:49,480 --> 00:13:51,840 about critters that a lot of them we're talking about like 237 00:13:51,840 --> 00:13:55,640 one or two inches is still pretty big for this time period. 238 00:13:55,880 --> 00:13:58,680 Anomalocaris was a big chunky bitch. 239 00:13:58,880 --> 00:14:04,000 So one of my my favorite aspects of birches is not only the cool 240 00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:08,080 fossils, but the stumbling of humans to figure out what these 241 00:14:08,080 --> 00:14:13,440 fossils are. And early on, they Walcott and 242 00:14:13,440 --> 00:14:16,440 he Charles, he's the main, gets a lot of the credit. 243 00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:18,960 I'm going to use some other names for other researchers 244 00:14:18,960 --> 00:14:21,280 because that's what their names are, not Charles. 245 00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:25,040 I don't know where I'm going with this they. 246 00:14:25,600 --> 00:14:27,240 Really. White men are named Charles. 247 00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:30,080 That's very well known, very well established. 248 00:14:30,160 --> 00:14:31,640 It's Charles and my. Family. 249 00:14:31,640 --> 00:14:36,520 That's very true. Solidly true, Very, very 250 00:14:36,520 --> 00:14:38,320 accurate. Like both of my grandfathers. 251 00:14:39,400 --> 00:14:41,360 Yeah. So they discovered this site. 252 00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:43,760 It's high up in the Canadian Rockies. 253 00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:47,000 Where in Yoho National Park is today. 254 00:14:47,000 --> 00:14:49,920 I mean, absolutely stunning. I think the site is at over 255 00:14:49,920 --> 00:14:53,560 10,000 feet elevation. I mean we are talking like very 256 00:14:53,560 --> 00:14:59,040 mountainous area and looking for these blobby things on the sides 257 00:14:59,040 --> 00:15:02,240 of mountains and they noticed that most of them preserve the 258 00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:04,880 whole Organism. It was like a whole trilobite or 259 00:15:04,880 --> 00:15:08,960 like a whole weird eye freaking looking around. 260 00:15:08,960 --> 00:15:14,640 Whole penis worm, a whole coral, a whole sponge, something like 261 00:15:14,640 --> 00:15:16,200 that, a whole weird shrimp thing. 262 00:15:16,400 --> 00:15:19,920 And they kept finding these strange, strange other parts 263 00:15:19,920 --> 00:15:22,040 that they couldn't quite wrap their head around. 264 00:15:22,280 --> 00:15:27,400 One of them was this like circular disc shape that was 265 00:15:27,400 --> 00:15:29,040 interpreted. To be. 266 00:15:30,240 --> 00:15:33,680 It does look absolutely I that's what my favorite part of this 267 00:15:33,680 --> 00:15:36,600 the stuffy is. It's got a great butthole. 268 00:15:36,880 --> 00:15:41,480 She is currently holding up this 2 foot long stuffy and admiring 269 00:15:41,480 --> 00:15:44,120 its butthole mouth. Oh, she's making out with it 270 00:15:44,160 --> 00:15:49,120 okay. It wishes it actually it has a 271 00:15:49,120 --> 00:15:52,720 really freaky mouth. So I'm pretty OK with not going 272 00:15:52,720 --> 00:15:55,720 down that. So they it was first interpreted 273 00:15:55,720 --> 00:15:57,520 actually. OK, so got to take a little 274 00:15:57,520 --> 00:16:01,360 break. So my boy Stephen Jay Gould 275 00:16:01,480 --> 00:16:06,080 wrote a book called Wonderful Life, which is funny in its own 276 00:16:06,080 --> 00:16:08,560 that you named it that. And instead of it being about, 277 00:16:08,560 --> 00:16:11,640 you know, this classic Christmas story, it's about the Burgess 278 00:16:11,640 --> 00:16:16,480 Shale and the nature of history. And it is like not an easy read. 279 00:16:16,600 --> 00:16:20,680 It's very scientific. It's one of his more well known 280 00:16:20,680 --> 00:16:25,280 books and it goes into a lot of these amusing anecdotes around 281 00:16:25,280 --> 00:16:28,040 the history of these strange creatures. 282 00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:31,840 So yeah, they had this, they called it a jellyfish and it was 283 00:16:31,840 --> 00:16:34,600 Petoia. And then they also had this 284 00:16:34,600 --> 00:16:38,080 other strange 3 dimensional structure, lagagania or 285 00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:39,960 something like that, that they thought was a sponge. 286 00:16:40,240 --> 00:16:43,920 And then one of them was like, I don't know, I keep finding this 287 00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:46,960 jellyfish and the sponge thing together. 288 00:16:46,960 --> 00:16:50,040 So maybe they're actually different parts of the same, or, 289 00:16:50,040 --> 00:16:53,520 you know, maybe these organisms aren't different organisms, or 290 00:16:53,520 --> 00:16:56,240 maybe they're codependency. Or that's a weird way they're 291 00:16:56,240 --> 00:16:57,640 like, Oh my God, you can't leave. 292 00:16:59,800 --> 00:17:05,119 And then they also had these isolated, like shrimp arms into 293 00:17:05,119 --> 00:17:07,400 the mix too. So they had all of these 294 00:17:07,440 --> 00:17:11,839 different body parts and they were like, how does this work? 295 00:17:11,839 --> 00:17:15,640 Do we have the, they truly interpreted it to be about four 296 00:17:15,640 --> 00:17:20,040 different organisms before they found more and more of it and 297 00:17:20,040 --> 00:17:23,920 could actually piece together that it was all Anomalocaris. 298 00:17:24,200 --> 00:17:27,760 And the part that they had thought was the jellyfish is 299 00:17:27,760 --> 00:17:31,600 actually its mouth. And the part that they thought 300 00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:35,280 was laggy or something was like the torso of it. 301 00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:39,160 And then because it had the, I said there's some weird shrimp 302 00:17:39,280 --> 00:17:41,920 parts that have also been included in this. 303 00:17:42,160 --> 00:17:46,000 And those were what had already been named Anomalacaris. 304 00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:51,040 And since they were the oldest one named, Anomalacaris is the 305 00:17:51,040 --> 00:17:54,120 name that's stuck. And it's a pretty fitting name 306 00:17:54,120 --> 00:17:58,240 because it literally means abnormal shrimp, which is pretty 307 00:17:58,240 --> 00:18:02,240 accurate as to what Anomalacaris is. 308 00:18:02,280 --> 00:18:05,320 If you have not seen Anomalacaris, it looks to me 309 00:18:05,320 --> 00:18:09,320 kind of like like a flying lobster with two shrimp stapled 310 00:18:09,320 --> 00:18:12,680 to its face like that and like weird hammerhead eyes. 311 00:18:13,360 --> 00:18:16,120 And a weird suction. Well, not suction. 312 00:18:16,160 --> 00:18:17,640 But on the underside. But hold on. 313 00:18:17,880 --> 00:18:20,200 And it really does. It looks like some kind of 314 00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:25,000 creepy like mechanical device and it's all just like blades of 315 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:28,280 making up the mouth of I. I found some. 316 00:18:28,320 --> 00:18:31,360 This is why sea cucumbers wish they could have for their 317 00:18:31,360 --> 00:18:35,080 assholes. It would be like a fucking Pearl 318 00:18:35,080 --> 00:18:38,200 fish guillotine garage door. Yeah. 319 00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:42,680 Oh my gosh, that is so great. Yeah. 320 00:18:42,680 --> 00:18:44,200 So the a nominal carrots. Yeah. 321 00:18:44,200 --> 00:18:47,640 So we're talking a big predator. It didn't have any like, limbs 322 00:18:47,640 --> 00:18:51,400 or anything like that. It actually just was more of a 323 00:18:51,400 --> 00:18:53,840 swimming thing. So it wasn't crawling around on 324 00:18:53,840 --> 00:18:56,160 the ground. And because of that, it doesn't 325 00:18:56,160 --> 00:19:00,640 technically have jointed legs. So it isn't technically a true 326 00:19:00,680 --> 00:19:06,080 arthropod because the defining factor of I, I believe 327 00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:08,640 Arthropoda is this jointed leg thing. 328 00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:11,640 So it's, you know, it hangs out. She's right there. 329 00:19:11,640 --> 00:19:14,600 But OK. But then this group does call it 330 00:19:14,600 --> 00:19:16,960 Arthropoda. So maybe I was just reading 331 00:19:16,960 --> 00:19:20,680 something old around that. But there with all of these 332 00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:23,200 creatures, it's just really fascinating because a lot of our 333 00:19:23,200 --> 00:19:25,320 definitions are with modern groups. 334 00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:29,760 And when you try to understand these origins of modern taxa in 335 00:19:29,760 --> 00:19:33,080 deep time, they of course don't follow your rules because 336 00:19:33,080 --> 00:19:36,280 they're freaking 500 million years old. 337 00:19:36,560 --> 00:19:40,720 So that has been the funny part to work around is like, OK, we 338 00:19:40,720 --> 00:19:44,120 got some arthropods, we've got some Nigerians, we've got some 339 00:19:44,120 --> 00:19:49,320 like algae and we've got some sponges and whatnot. 340 00:19:49,440 --> 00:19:53,720 But then trying to figure them all out where their modern 341 00:19:53,720 --> 00:19:56,880 things live is really, really rare. 342 00:19:57,120 --> 00:20:00,240 And I mean, the jellyfish are actually one of those problems 343 00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:03,120 too. So with our jellyfish, we do 344 00:20:03,120 --> 00:20:07,720 indeed have legit jellyfish from the Burgess Shale. 345 00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:12,480 It's called Burgesso. Medusa Phasmormus. 346 00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:15,440 Nope, that's wrong. Phasmormus. 347 00:20:16,720 --> 00:20:19,560 Phasiformis, Phasiformis, There we go. 348 00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:21,800 That's what I'm going to stick with, which I'm, I believe 349 00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:26,040 literally translate to like the ghost jellyfish of the Burgess. 350 00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:33,120 And it's like you were saying, we have had, we've had jellyfish 351 00:20:33,120 --> 00:20:35,840 from the Burgess Shale for a really long time, but it hasn't 352 00:20:35,840 --> 00:20:40,800 been until technology and proper study has actually gone about to 353 00:20:40,800 --> 00:20:45,800 find that there are over 200 specimens of jellyfish of this 354 00:20:45,800 --> 00:20:49,680 specific Burgesso Medusa that are known from the Burgess 355 00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:51,480 Shale. A lot of them are. 356 00:20:51,480 --> 00:20:55,040 You can see them on display at the Royal Ontario Museum. 357 00:20:55,040 --> 00:20:56,960 I haven't been there, but that's what I read on the Internet. 358 00:20:56,960 --> 00:20:59,640 They said that I could, oh, with a ghostly form. 359 00:20:59,920 --> 00:21:02,440 And they said specifically, I know you're going to like this 360 00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:04,480 because you're going to laugh at me specifically. 361 00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:07,480 We thought it looked like the ghost from the game Pac-Man. 362 00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:11,880 You know how I feel about. That yeah, I do like that. 363 00:21:12,640 --> 00:21:14,480 Yeah, you. I know you don't like pop 364 00:21:14,480 --> 00:21:18,200 culture references because you don't understand anything that's 365 00:21:18,200 --> 00:21:21,920 not RuPaul's Drag Race, but that is cute, Pac-Man. 366 00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:24,880 Yeah, it's so it's pretty fascinating. 367 00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:28,560 And again, one article that I read was like, yeah, so these 368 00:21:28,560 --> 00:21:33,600 are the oldest swimming jellyfish that we have, older 369 00:21:33,600 --> 00:21:37,400 jellyfish that may not have actually gone into the polyp 370 00:21:37,400 --> 00:21:40,520 form and actually been doing the free floating thing. 371 00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:44,600 So this one argued that there are actually some other older 372 00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:46,520 swimming jellyfish. But then the other article I 373 00:21:46,520 --> 00:21:50,240 read was like, no, it's super debated whether or not these 374 00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:54,120 518,000,000 year old jellyfish could swim or not. 375 00:21:54,360 --> 00:21:57,800 So it's still debated about what the exact oldest Jelly is, but 376 00:21:57,800 --> 00:21:59,680 there's a pretty good, it's a pretty good. 377 00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:02,600 Well, it's definitely sometime in the Cambrian, we'll put it 378 00:22:02,600 --> 00:22:06,200 that way. That keeps it nice and vague. 379 00:22:06,560 --> 00:22:09,440 And they would have been doing very like the exact same stuff 380 00:22:09,440 --> 00:22:13,880 that they were doing before. They would turn into this when 381 00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:17,440 they swim and they can turn into their beautiful Jelly form after 382 00:22:17,440 --> 00:22:21,640 their juvenile period and would have been doing their thing and 383 00:22:21,960 --> 00:22:24,720 zapping SpongeBob. And yeah, yeah. 384 00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:27,920 So it was fairly interesting to. I had just assumed that this was 385 00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:30,400 like the oldest known jellyfish. And then it finds out. 386 00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:35,200 Well, of course there are layers to everything and everything has 387 00:22:35,200 --> 00:22:38,880 drama, like was it actually free swimming or not? 388 00:22:39,120 --> 00:22:42,000 And again, when we think of something like a jellyfish is 389 00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:45,560 kind of the epitome of just like a BLOB of an animal that when 390 00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:49,720 you think of things preserving in deep time, that is kind of 391 00:22:49,720 --> 00:22:53,760 the last animal that you are ever going to think could be 392 00:22:53,760 --> 00:22:56,600 well preserved. It's just it takes so many 393 00:22:56,600 --> 00:23:01,280 circumstances and it's from what I understand, it's insanely 394 00:23:01,280 --> 00:23:04,200 rare, at least as you're saying, for all of time. 395 00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:07,120 Yeah. So the preservation of soft 396 00:23:07,120 --> 00:23:11,800 tissue in things that are squishy is pretty difficult. 397 00:23:12,080 --> 00:23:15,040 And it's a lot more difficult now because we don't have 398 00:23:15,040 --> 00:23:20,120 certain conditions in our ocean, but it's kind of debated as to 399 00:23:20,120 --> 00:23:23,920 why it happened at all, let alone why it happened, you know, 400 00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:28,440 50 plus times with all of these different Cambrian localities. 401 00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:34,080 So when you look at these sites, one really consistent feature is 402 00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:37,880 that you find them in clay, which is a really, really fine 403 00:23:37,880 --> 00:23:39,440 particle. It's really, really small 404 00:23:39,440 --> 00:23:42,240 particles. And that is incredibly important 405 00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:47,120 for a lot of reasons. One big reason is it's harder to 406 00:23:47,120 --> 00:23:50,760 compress clay than it is to compress things like sand, 407 00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:53,840 because there's just no pore space. 408 00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:57,040 So if you have lots and lots of little tiny grains, they don't 409 00:23:57,040 --> 00:24:00,880 have any room in between them. So even if you put that whole 410 00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:05,640 Burgess Shale like mudstone under a mountain, which we did, 411 00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:09,760 and then lift it back up, it's not going to compress as much as 412 00:24:09,760 --> 00:24:12,920 if it was bigger particles like sand or silt. 413 00:24:12,920 --> 00:24:16,440 So clay is super important just for not squishing things. 414 00:24:16,760 --> 00:24:19,680 It gives you a, a nice 3D preservation. 415 00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:23,520 And it's why when we say things like we have a, a, a penis worm 416 00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:26,440 with its guts preserved, we don't mean that the penis worm 417 00:24:26,440 --> 00:24:30,400 got squished and its guts got sprayed out its mouth. 418 00:24:30,400 --> 00:24:35,840 We mean, no, we have like a penis worm that had yeah, yeah, 419 00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:38,880 it didn't, it didn't spray, it didn't squirt it. 420 00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:44,680 It just, it got compressed, but not hard enough or fast enough, 421 00:24:46,240 --> 00:24:50,280 not hard enough or fast enough to actually like become 422 00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:52,680 roadkill, right? It's not, these are not 423 00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:55,600 roadkill. They are like they're like 424 00:24:55,600 --> 00:24:58,440 pressed flowers. Instead, they're given some 425 00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:00,280 gentle compression. They're definitely still a 426 00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:04,720 relatively flat fossil, but they're not entirely like 427 00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:07,560 thrash. Because even though I personally 428 00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:10,680 feel like looking at most of these fossils is kind of like a 429 00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:14,400 Rorschach test, like there's just you're looking to see a 430 00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,680 BLOB and I don't don't know how people interpret the blobs. 431 00:25:18,480 --> 00:25:20,840 Yeah. But that would be so much worse 432 00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:22,640 if these weren't preserved in clay. 433 00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:27,200 The other thing is clay in and of itself can actually inhibit 434 00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:30,760 bacterial growth. So it depends on the type of 435 00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:32,000 clay. Different types of clay have 436 00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:36,120 different properties, but clay can actually cause bacteria to 437 00:25:36,120 --> 00:25:38,240 die. So that means you don't have 438 00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:41,760 anything breaking down all of your fossil material. 439 00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:43,560 Yeah. Yeah, clay is. 440 00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:46,840 Clay is great. So you've got clay and then 441 00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:51,280 another pretty consistent feature with these Burgess Shale 442 00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:53,960 type deposits. So that's what they call because 443 00:25:53,960 --> 00:25:56,440 Burgess, I don't think it was necessarily first, but it was 444 00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:58,560 the fanciest, right? It was the one that first got 445 00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:01,040 really recognized. So everything's called Burgess 446 00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:04,440 Shale type deposits. But with all of these deposits, 447 00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:08,360 you have mud that is very, very limey. 448 00:26:08,360 --> 00:26:13,000 And particularly you get like this top layer that has a lot of 449 00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:15,560 calcium carbonate. And they think that that was 450 00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:19,000 just deposited from the water, but that it had to go pretty 451 00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:21,560 quickly. And if you put calcium carbonate 452 00:26:21,560 --> 00:26:26,200 into your mud, it hardens it up quite a lot, which A, continues 453 00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:29,080 to prevent you from being squished and B, prevents anybody 454 00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:32,680 from digging down to eat you. It also fills in the pore space, 455 00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:35,400 which prevents more bacteria from getting into your body. 456 00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:39,760 So basically all of these things were kind of working together in 457 00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:43,760 order to ensure that these animals were really well 458 00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:45,720 preserved. But it's not just happening in 459 00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,720 one spot. It's happening in lots and lots 460 00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:51,760 and lots of spots. And so each site does have some 461 00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:54,480 kind of unique preservation qualities. 462 00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:59,280 Some of them, for example, have like really strong piratization, 463 00:26:59,360 --> 00:27:01,880 so the mineral pyrite, fake gold. 464 00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:04,400 Some of them have mineral replacements. 465 00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:07,560 So they look a little bit golden in certain Cambrian sites. 466 00:27:08,080 --> 00:27:12,840 Others have phosphatation, phosphosph, phosphate, lots of 467 00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:17,600 phosphate and it precipitates out and it preserves things. 468 00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:21,320 This is, I guess especially common in like arthropod guts. 469 00:27:21,360 --> 00:27:24,320 You get a lot of phosphate in there because there's phosphate 470 00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:26,200 kind of naturally existing in their guts. 471 00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:29,640 Although one paper I did read said that the mass balance 472 00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:34,120 equation didn't seem to work out that there was more phosphate in 473 00:27:34,120 --> 00:27:37,320 the arthropod guts than just would have occurred naturally. 474 00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:40,680 So mass balance equation isn't mass balancing for some reason. 475 00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:44,040 So still don't really know why you get so much phosphate. 476 00:27:44,040 --> 00:27:47,480 And these are guts. But yeah, fossils don't follow 477 00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:50,520 rules. So yeah, you get like this 478 00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:54,880 exceptional preservation. And I will say that one thing 479 00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:58,520 that originally was pretty strongly thought of throughout 480 00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:02,480 all of these places was OK, these have to be deposited 481 00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:06,880 without oxygen because if you have oxygen that feeds bacteria 482 00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:10,680 that are decomposed. So a good way of making sure you 483 00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:14,360 preserve everything is to make something anoxic, make it not 484 00:28:14,360 --> 00:28:17,000 have oxygen. However, there's certain like 485 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,040 elements, I guess that will kind of vary depending on how much 486 00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:23,200 oxygen was in the water when they were preserved. 487 00:28:23,560 --> 00:28:27,200 And looking at those elements, some places, like I think 488 00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:30,840 Wheeler Formation in Utah was one of the ones have signs of 489 00:28:30,840 --> 00:28:33,880 like fluctuating oxygen levels. So sometimes they're anoxic, 490 00:28:33,880 --> 00:28:37,080 sometimes they have some oxygen, but a lot of places, including 491 00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:41,280 bridges, don't really seem to have a no oxygen problem. 492 00:28:41,360 --> 00:28:45,520 So the way that they were being preserved doesn't seem to have 493 00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:49,240 been related to oxygen. Can you think of something else, 494 00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:52,400 Amy, that preserves animals really well by preventing 495 00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:55,240 bacteria from growing in them, other than clay and oxygen? 496 00:28:55,920 --> 00:28:58,080 We have touched on a few of these things. 497 00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:01,240 I mean the dinosaurs hadn't evolved yet, so Hadrosaurs 498 00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:04,240 asshole is off the table. There's no no chance. 499 00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:06,560 They didn't need that big of a space anyways. 500 00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:10,800 It's just small, guys. Well let's see. 501 00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:16,120 Well you can have degassing events from lakes, volcanoes in 502 00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:18,640 general, gassing, or even ashfall. 503 00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:20,160 Those would be some of my guesses. 504 00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:23,720 Ashfall will be good for putting silica into the water. 505 00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:25,840 It covers things up really quickly. 506 00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:30,800 But they think that at least in Burgess Shale there's another 507 00:29:30,800 --> 00:29:33,840 mineral. So in in the Burgess Shale rocks 508 00:29:34,080 --> 00:29:38,800 they find this mineral called herring bone calcite, which 509 00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:40,800 herring bone is a beautiful pattern. 510 00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,680 And herring bone calcite is specifically caused by 511 00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:48,960 magnesium. High amounts of magnesium and 512 00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:52,760 magnesium is often found in brine seeps. 513 00:29:52,760 --> 00:29:54,560 So you know what a brine seep is. 514 00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:58,560 Something super salty? Please tell me it's something 515 00:29:58,560 --> 00:30:00,600 related to something dirty and filthy. 516 00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:04,920 It's certainly dirty and salty. They think that maybe part of 517 00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:08,520 the reason that the Burgess shales are so well preserved is 518 00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:10,680 these are basically fucking slug jerky. 519 00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:13,520 Like, these are like they're brined. 520 00:30:13,520 --> 00:30:18,440 It's like salted pork, but, you know, salted jellyfish. 521 00:30:18,440 --> 00:30:21,720 It's somehow super. The salt has is now 522 00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:24,600 precipitating out and is like super super salty. 523 00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:29,080 Yeah, yeah. So there's some indications that 524 00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:32,280 the ocean in general was more alkaline than it is today. 525 00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:36,960 So a little bit like more salty, more basic, but they think 526 00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:38,880 specifically in places like Burgess. 527 00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:43,480 There was also this input of brine seeps and I could not find 528 00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:47,480 this was a real adventure in deep geologic terms. 529 00:30:47,480 --> 00:30:50,560 Exactly. I could not find a great 530 00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:52,600 explanation of what these sources were. 531 00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:57,520 I found a couple that suggested that maybe this is coming from 532 00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:01,600 when you get salt water kind of subducting someplace or going 533 00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:05,480 underneath the continent. You can kind of, I guess super 534 00:31:05,480 --> 00:31:09,080 saturate it with salt and then if it gets super heated, it 535 00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:13,160 might come back up and you get like Hot Springs that are super 536 00:31:13,160 --> 00:31:15,920 salty underneath the water. So that was one thing that I 537 00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:17,320 read about but I didn't find, I thought. 538 00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:19,960 That sounds terrible. Yeah, I didn't find anything 539 00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:23,520 that was like, really obviously like, oh, yes, we have a spring 540 00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:25,800 of deeply salty water that is coming here. 541 00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:28,960 And I will say that in general, geologists who are writing about 542 00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:33,120 the Cambrian, I'm gonna need you to do more drawings. 543 00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:36,400 OK? I'm gonna need you to stop 544 00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:39,600 assuming that anybody knows what the hell you're talking about 545 00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:44,160 when you just say the word brine seep or my current favorite, mud 546 00:31:44,160 --> 00:31:45,880 mound. Yeah, mud mound. 547 00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:48,560 Do you have any idea how long I had to fucking look that one up 548 00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:51,000 for? Like, that is such a generic ass 549 00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:52,440 term that that was really hard to find. 550 00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:58,800 It's Stromatolites 1 mud mound. Just say that right, Which is 551 00:31:58,880 --> 00:32:00,080 like more. Complicated. 552 00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,640 In some ways. Exactly. 553 00:32:02,640 --> 00:32:07,360 It's like a mound of like dirt that was also produced by 554 00:32:07,360 --> 00:32:10,800 stromatolites and thrombolytes and like bacterial mats. 555 00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:14,760 So it's like bacteria, mounds of mud that kind of go up above the 556 00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:17,400 water surface. But it was very hard to figure 557 00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:21,360 that out, I will say. So, yeah, Brian seeps creating 558 00:32:21,360 --> 00:32:26,160 some slug jerky, creating just like nasty salty things that are 559 00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:29,440 already trapped in clay that is hardening really, really 560 00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,720 rapidly. And all of those things seem to 561 00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:35,880 work together really hard for the Burgess Shale in particular. 562 00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:38,160 In a lot of other places, they think it was probably more, 563 00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:40,120 maybe there were some salt impacts. 564 00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:44,080 Some of them are oxygen. But yeah, herring bone calcite 565 00:32:44,080 --> 00:32:45,840 was a cool one. That was the coolest, that there 566 00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,280 were other minerals in that paper, but herring bone calcite 567 00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:50,360 sounded really cool. They didn't have a great picture 568 00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:51,560 of it, but it sounded really cool. 569 00:32:51,560 --> 00:32:53,680 Sounds like they didn't have shit for images. 570 00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:57,320 But we forgive you, geologists, because we love you. 571 00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:03,360 I was like, we have to. That's why we just have to make 572 00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:07,480 sure we have a choice. I I feel you, though. 573 00:33:07,480 --> 00:33:10,760 I, you know, one of the things that sparked my curiosity again 574 00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:15,840 on Burgess Shale was like, oh man, like I've really, I got to 575 00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:18,720 write about it for my little children's book project. 576 00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:21,720 And I too, you know, because we wanted to have like mode of 577 00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:24,320 preservation and like, how did they get, how did the fossil? 578 00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:31,160 It was really fucking hard to find any direct, like a recent 579 00:33:31,160 --> 00:33:34,120 or like easy to interpret and like, I have a geology degree. 580 00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:37,360 I feel like I shouldn't have for a site that was as that is as 581 00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:41,240 famous as it is. I was pretty shocked that maybe 582 00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:43,160 we're feeling the same vibe here on Yeah. 583 00:33:43,160 --> 00:33:45,640 I just was a little surprised by, yeah, the lack of kind of 584 00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:48,040 like synthesis divers or oversight things. 585 00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:49,400 And yeah, it was really dense. Yeah. 586 00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:50,720 You know what? Which is great. 587 00:33:50,720 --> 00:33:53,840 You all have your expertise. Enjoy reading all of the 588 00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:56,680 terminology of my Omamaya dentition paper. 589 00:33:56,800 --> 00:34:00,080 Enjoy that you know you, but you don't. 590 00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:04,720 You provide pictures. I did, I did, I did. 591 00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:07,920 You still have to know what a hyperflexit is, but you know, 592 00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:10,040 like that's all right, You can figure it out. 593 00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:11,800 Because there's at least there's a picture, there's. 594 00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:14,120 A picture. So you know, I I'm right. 595 00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:17,480 I'm right there with you. For such a famous site, it's 596 00:34:17,600 --> 00:34:20,080 surprisingly not well known in a lot of ways. 597 00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:22,560 Like I was helping out with this, like we're getting ready 598 00:34:22,560 --> 00:34:25,360 for our Dino Ridge quiz bowl, which happens every fall. 599 00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:27,840 And we had this one question that we were trying to rework 600 00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,600 work for the kiddos. And it was something around like 601 00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:33,520 an an example of like a well preserved site. 602 00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:35,600 And they were arguing about just how to say it. 603 00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:38,360 And I was like, oh, well, could we say like the Burgess Shale is 604 00:34:38,360 --> 00:34:39,920 an example of one of these sites? 605 00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:44,520 And they all looked at me blankly and I was like, oh, OK, 606 00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:47,239 I assume that. Burgess Shale. 607 00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:50,120 Burgess is more well known than it is. 608 00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:54,400 And then when Kelly and I did our road trip from Alaska to 609 00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:59,160 Austin, TX for Graduate School in 2014, teen, we went through 610 00:34:59,160 --> 00:35:02,120 the Canadian Rockies. It was beautiful. 611 00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:05,720 And we stopped at Yoho National Park and I was like, cool, how 612 00:35:05,720 --> 00:35:07,880 do I get to the quarry? How do I see the Burgess Shale 613 00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:09,560 fossils? And they were like, oh, you have 614 00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:13,360 to reserve a spot on a tour like months in advance. 615 00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:15,880 And oh, by the way, that we did that. 616 00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:22,200 Well, then I I I successfully tried twice, twice. 617 00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:24,800 Yeah. The Rangers, at least one of 618 00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:27,760 those times was super friendly and was like, no, we would love 619 00:35:27,760 --> 00:35:30,920 to have you on one of these hikes, but you can't just show 620 00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:35,960 up and expect to be able to go. And so then I looked at a map 621 00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,840 and was like, well, I know where the quarry is, so I'm just going 622 00:35:38,840 --> 00:35:42,600 to hike the other side of this mountain where there isn't where 623 00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:44,880 you're not really supposed to. And the rocks are totally 624 00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:48,120 different, by the way. So I dragged Kelly up this 625 00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:50,640 fucking mountain like it was dusk. 626 00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:52,240 By the time we got off this mountain. 627 00:35:52,520 --> 00:35:55,520 I shouldn't tell the whole story about what happened to my poor 628 00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:58,200 partners Tum Tum. But he didn't love that hike. 629 00:35:59,480 --> 00:36:03,360 He still, he still talks about that hike like how fucking dare 630 00:36:03,360 --> 00:36:05,240 you? 10 years ago, you remember? 631 00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:08,080 But then we got to swim in this beautiful lake. 632 00:36:08,080 --> 00:36:09,520 I think it's Emerald Lake right there. 633 00:36:09,720 --> 00:36:12,120 And it was like gorgeous. And then we met up with these a 634 00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:14,960 mate like we just happened to have a great human interaction 635 00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:19,560 with these local Canadians who were very generous with helping 636 00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:23,040 us with the problem that we were having after a shitty day. 637 00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:24,640 No pun intended. Sorry dear. 638 00:36:24,920 --> 00:36:28,240 It was we did not successfully make it to fucking anything with 639 00:36:28,240 --> 00:36:30,400 the fossil. I guess that was my point is you 640 00:36:30,400 --> 00:36:33,080 really do. As someone who kind of tried to 641 00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:35,280 poach the quarry, I wasn't going to take anything, but I was 642 00:36:35,280 --> 00:36:37,120 trying to hike there unauthorized. 643 00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:39,280 Oh my God, is this going to get me in trouble? 644 00:36:39,400 --> 00:36:41,760 Anyway, I didn't succeed. I totally fucking failed. 645 00:36:41,760 --> 00:36:44,240 You can't do it. I'm just, I want to do it the 646 00:36:44,240 --> 00:36:46,640 legal way. But it's very funny because then 647 00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:49,840 I have, I've just found this book, Wonderful Life as Stephen 648 00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:51,720 Jay Gould. And I open it up and there's a 649 00:36:51,720 --> 00:36:56,480 fucking brochure in it from Yoho National Park about hiking to 650 00:36:56,480 --> 00:37:01,000 the Burgess Shale with a receipt from a Missoula, Mt bookstore 651 00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:04,640 like in 2014. So I then went to a bookstore, 652 00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:08,160 bought this book. It's like on a mission, and I've 653 00:37:08,160 --> 00:37:13,360 totally forgotten most of it except for some of these really, 654 00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:18,920 really cool organisms. And another one that is super 655 00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:23,920 bizarro is Opabinia. Have you seen Opabinia before? 656 00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,680 Yeah, I've you. Of course you love a impression. 657 00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:29,120 Oh, yeah. OK. 658 00:37:29,160 --> 00:37:31,440 Well, I don't have an. I don't have enough eyeballs. 659 00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:33,680 OK, we're going to do like. Make it work. 660 00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:36,880 OK. Yeah. 661 00:37:36,880 --> 00:37:40,040 It's kind of like a like a star nosed mole meets an elephant. 662 00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:42,680 I like it longer. Longer. 663 00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:47,120 Longer This is the one I I I fucked up. 664 00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:49,720 I guess this is the one that because it doesn't have jointed 665 00:37:49,720 --> 00:37:51,920 legs that it's somehow not a true arthropod. 666 00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:55,920 But it's like a super basil like one of the earliest, if not the 667 00:37:55,920 --> 00:38:00,160 earliest arthropod or you know, stem weirdo arthropod. 668 00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:04,040 It's yeah, it is very ancient and that's why it doesn't look 669 00:38:04,040 --> 00:38:05,960 like anything else. It doesn't seem to act like 670 00:38:05,960 --> 00:38:08,720 anything else. It seems to be an Organism that 671 00:38:08,720 --> 00:38:12,280 is now on. It's like a part of a a weird 672 00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:15,000 stem arthropod group that now is totally extinct. 673 00:38:15,240 --> 00:38:19,840 But it is a stop another soft bodied animal, maybe about 7 in 674 00:38:19,840 --> 00:38:23,960 seven 7 centimeters long. So it had like flaps where it 675 00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:25,960 could kind of like fly a little bit, kind of like the 676 00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:29,720 Anomalocaris. And then it had Five Eyes and 677 00:38:29,720 --> 00:38:35,200 then it had a trunk proboscis that is compared to a vacuum 678 00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:39,440 cleaner hose. Like it was jointed like a 679 00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:42,560 vacuum. And it had like fucking claws at 680 00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:46,600 the end of that vacuum cleaner nose trunk. 681 00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:51,040 And it would have used that proboscis to seek out small soft 682 00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:53,600 food. And it would have. 683 00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:55,440 Yeah. And it literally had a turn like 684 00:38:55,440 --> 00:39:01,320 at the end of it was like 5 spines and just so weird and so 685 00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:05,520 different from anything around today that we still don't really 686 00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:07,560 truly, truly. And it's also one of the ones 687 00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:09,440 that's super rare. Like I said, the jellies like we 688 00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:12,680 have like 200 jellies. I was reading that of like well 689 00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:15,320 preserved, like entire Opabinia fossils. 690 00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:19,000 There's only a handful. So they're a lot more rare in 691 00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:22,320 occurrence than some of. The sense, right, Because 692 00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:26,440 they're swimming, they're not. Anything that was on the ground 693 00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:28,480 is a lot more likely to be preserved for reasons we'll 694 00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:31,880 discuss in a second, but anything that's swimming is a 695 00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:34,440 lot less likely. It's like, you know, bats. 696 00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:38,080 Bats aren't easily fossilized, but rats are easier. 697 00:39:38,520 --> 00:39:40,920 Yeah, that's a good point. And that also kind of goes in 698 00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:44,040 with the whole Anomalocaris debate was that they couldn't 699 00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:47,040 wrap their heads around this idea that the Organism was 700 00:39:47,040 --> 00:39:50,040 broken up into multiple pieces because so many of the others 701 00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:52,680 were whole bodied. And I do wonder if that's a 702 00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:56,560 different and niche space and the ecosystem again that yes, 703 00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:59,760 well, maybe the ones that are already been thick on the ground 704 00:39:59,920 --> 00:40:01,440 are going to be easier to complete. 705 00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:04,640 But Anomalo Keras maybe was ripped apart or whatever by 706 00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:07,320 another Anomalo Keras, I'm sure. Yeah. 707 00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:13,480 And then of course, I've saved the best of all of. 708 00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:16,360 Of the Burgess Shale animals for last. 709 00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:20,120 Because it's fucking weird. It should be one of our mini 710 00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:23,360 mascots of the show. And that is our friend 711 00:40:23,360 --> 00:40:28,280 Hallucinogenia. Yes, Hallucinogenia. 712 00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:34,200 It literally looks like a kitchen scrub brush. 713 00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:38,960 Like, very much so. I've been cleaning a lot of baby 714 00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:41,240 bottles. So when I saw some of the 715 00:40:41,320 --> 00:40:44,360 pictures, I was like, yeah, yeah, I would. 716 00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:48,480 That would work really great to clean clean some bottles. 717 00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:54,120 OPA Benia was probably just using that to like, clean out 718 00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:59,480 its snoot. Just deep. 719 00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:04,440 Throating I mean, it has one of the best names. 720 00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:08,280 It is a really not not only is it a fascinating creature it to 721 00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:11,200 like the Anomalocaris. So it's just a bizarro story. 722 00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:15,000 Essentially, though, it is this long tube of an animal. 723 00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:19,040 You know, it can maybe get about two inches long, but usually 724 00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:22,720 it's more around like an inch or so long tubular. 725 00:41:22,920 --> 00:41:27,520 And it's got 10 up to 10 pairs of these little slender legs. 726 00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:30,520 And then the first couple of pairs of legs are they're 727 00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:34,120 featureless and the other ones terminate with fucking claws. 728 00:41:34,480 --> 00:41:40,120 However, they also have spikes off of their back that are 729 00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:42,080 thought to be used for predation. 730 00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:46,840 But when the first scientists were describing hallucinogenia 731 00:41:46,840 --> 00:41:51,080 back in the 1970s, they interpreted the spikes on the 732 00:41:51,080 --> 00:41:55,000 back to actually be, they're like legs. 733 00:41:55,240 --> 00:41:58,720 And that they're, instead of them being feet, they were more 734 00:41:58,720 --> 00:42:03,120 like tentacles that would maybe be used to grasp at prey. 735 00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:08,360 And it's what's really funny is that the guy who named this, of 736 00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:10,960 course, what is his name? Conway. 737 00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:12,880 Conway, Morris. Charles. 738 00:42:13,440 --> 00:42:18,280 Would just this one's Conway, this one is Buddy Conway. 739 00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:21,360 This is later, yes, but still strong with that. 740 00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:24,480 So some of the like in that case, some of the tentacles 741 00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:27,440 wouldn't be able to get to the high like supposed head. 742 00:42:27,680 --> 00:42:31,440 And so then it was either like this network of like a train 743 00:42:31,440 --> 00:42:34,600 kind of network of things to funnel things into the mouth. 744 00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:38,960 Or he also proposed that maybe each of the tube feet had a 745 00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:43,640 stomach on the feet and could just like from the different. 746 00:42:43,800 --> 00:42:45,960 I mean, all of this is wrong. All of this is wrong. 747 00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:50,840 They're trying to. Wrap their heads around how it 748 00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:54,280 could have tube feet that weren't able to actually reach 749 00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:56,000 the mouth and I'm like talk to T Rex. 750 00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:59,840 I don't know fucking figured it out so anyway and they thought 751 00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:02,680 that it was right like obviously they're like well it wouldn't 752 00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:05,920 have been very good at moving around because it had straight 753 00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:09,200 spines for legs. So we guessed it just used those 754 00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:13,280 to sit in the mud and just kind of be there while they tried to 755 00:43:13,280 --> 00:43:16,120 catch things. And it just turns out that they 756 00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:20,600 had the animal upside down like Long story short as it. 757 00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:24,360 Actually is make that much more sense, right? 758 00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:26,520 Like hallucinogenia is so very weird. 759 00:43:26,600 --> 00:43:28,600 But yeah. It's so weird. 760 00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:31,720 And so he and that's why he named it Hallucinogenia. 761 00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:35,040 So yeah, it's Simon Conway Morris and he named 762 00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:39,040 Hallucinogenia because of the bizarre and dreamlike appearance 763 00:43:39,040 --> 00:43:42,160 of the animal. So I mean, this is the 1970s. 764 00:43:42,160 --> 00:43:44,480 He's like listening to Lucy in the Sky with diamonds and 765 00:43:44,480 --> 00:43:46,240 fucking writing about Hallucinogenia. 766 00:43:46,240 --> 00:43:50,640 I mean, what else was he up to? We all know just. 767 00:43:50,680 --> 00:44:00,120 Doing Rocky Mountains in 10. Miles Oh God, yeah. 768 00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:02,360 It sounds like it's a fucking grueling hike too. 769 00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:05,560 So sounds like a bit of a bit of a rough time. 770 00:44:05,720 --> 00:44:08,760 So I was just going to go over a little bit of the various 771 00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:11,840 interpretations of hallucinogenia over the years, 772 00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:15,320 which was at first it was like, hey, there's this kind of BLOB 773 00:44:15,320 --> 00:44:18,440 thing on one end. Obviously the head, obviously it 774 00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:20,880 walks on these spines and those legs. 775 00:44:20,880 --> 00:44:26,360 Nope, those are tentacles with direct, with the Direct Line to 776 00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:27,880 the stomach. You know, I don't know how 777 00:44:27,880 --> 00:44:29,720 that's parsimonious here. I don't know how that was the 778 00:44:29,720 --> 00:44:32,960 simplest explanation. And then, OK, like the early 779 00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:36,200 90s, they're like, no, you have it upside down. 780 00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:40,160 But then they put the head on the wrong and the part that 781 00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:44,000 quote UN quote, decay fluids, which I love that take for a 782 00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:51,600 butthole. And then finally they realized 783 00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:54,920 that it was actually the elongated and that was the head. 784 00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:58,520 And eventually in 2015, they finally were able to identify 785 00:44:58,520 --> 00:45:03,160 eyeballs on on that part and I and confirm, in fact, that it 786 00:45:03,160 --> 00:45:05,960 was that that's the OR like that's where its eyes and its 787 00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:07,520 head would be. Yeah. 788 00:45:07,520 --> 00:45:09,000 Like, I think you already said this phrase. 789 00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:12,360 I was not familiar with the group of animals known as 790 00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:14,680 lobopodians. Lobopodians. 791 00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:16,800 Lobopodians. I love saying it, though. 792 00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:21,200 Love, love it. Did you know, did you know that 793 00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:23,840 that means bluntfoot? And do you know that I don't 794 00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:26,280 have the maturity to read that without? 795 00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:30,080 No, I didn't know that. I mean, I knew that you don't 796 00:45:30,080 --> 00:45:32,560 have the maturity to read Bluntfoot without like 797 00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:35,640 immediately thinking of some jokes, but like, yeah, I did not 798 00:45:35,640 --> 00:45:39,280 know that, that I, I literally came across the term Lumopodian 799 00:45:39,560 --> 00:45:44,200 like 2 days ago. So yeah, hadn't explored the 800 00:45:44,200 --> 00:45:45,880 meaning at all. That's fun. 801 00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:50,680 I I I have discovered Snoop Dogg's favorite fossil 802 00:45:50,720 --> 00:45:52,920 bluntfoot. You know, like this is. 803 00:45:53,800 --> 00:45:56,000 I mean, bloodfoot hallucinogenia, yeah. 804 00:45:56,000 --> 00:45:58,400 Like these are, these are animals that are just drugs. 805 00:45:58,520 --> 00:46:03,120 These are just drugs, yeah. Yes, which is why paleontology 806 00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:05,800 is so freaking fun. I mean, there's the kid friendly 807 00:46:05,840 --> 00:46:08,120 stuff and then there's all the drug references. 808 00:46:09,480 --> 00:46:11,640 I don't think that's what they were intending. 809 00:46:11,880 --> 00:46:16,040 I don't think that someone back in the early 1900s interpreted 810 00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:19,120 thought that I was going to interpret this as a total 811 00:46:19,120 --> 00:46:21,080 cannabis reference. But so it goes. 812 00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:24,240 So it goes. And so yeah, they are these 813 00:46:24,240 --> 00:46:30,440 lobopodians, which are pan arthrans or pan arthropodians. 814 00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:34,040 Like that's what the right is, not Arthrans and pan arthropods 815 00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:38,400 include all modern day arthropods, tardigrades and 816 00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:44,120 velvet worms today and are the group and lobopodians are the 817 00:46:44,120 --> 00:46:48,880 group hypothesized to be the ancestor to modern true 818 00:46:48,880 --> 00:46:54,560 arthropods, which are now like the most numerous group on on 819 00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:56,400 the planet. Yes. 820 00:46:56,400 --> 00:46:59,640 So it is a it's got a long history. 821 00:46:59,880 --> 00:47:02,640 It was really, really. Yeah. 822 00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:06,280 So now they're the studies now with hallucinogenia are looking 823 00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:10,520 at, you know, how all of these characteristics that's insects 824 00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:14,400 and spiders and crustaceans and all of these organisms have, we 825 00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:17,280 can all be tied back to organisms like hallucinogenia 826 00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:20,600 that we don't understand. And I really enjoyed the paper 827 00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:23,560 or the blog that called them walking Cactus. 828 00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:25,280 I thought that was a pretty perfect. 829 00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:28,960 That is a pretty perfect name. I like that. 830 00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:31,480 Yeah, And that's, you know, that was, I guess the point that I 831 00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:34,960 was trying to make with some of my segments here is A, Burgess 832 00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:37,600 Shale, really cool, rapid diversification of life. 833 00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:42,560 B, we see the beginnings of the animals and organisms that we 834 00:47:42,560 --> 00:47:45,120 have around us today. And C, we also see shit that's 835 00:47:45,120 --> 00:47:48,200 like, what the fuck is this? Because it's 500 million years 836 00:47:48,200 --> 00:47:51,400 old and it doesn't have any ties to anything today. 837 00:47:51,400 --> 00:47:54,560 And it'd kind of be weird if it all did like, no things, things 838 00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:56,320 go extinct. So it's just really cool. 839 00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:58,960 There's just so many different things to get super curious 840 00:47:58,960 --> 00:48:01,360 about. Thank you for listening. 841 00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:04,480 If you like the podcast, be sure to rate and review us on your 842 00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:07,280 listening platform of choice. We really appreciate it. 843 00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:09,720 If you'd like to hear more and support the show, follow us on 844 00:48:09,760 --> 00:48:12,960 Patreon for some exclusive bits or on our various social media 845 00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:15,440 platforms. You can follow Amy on Instagram 846 00:48:15,440 --> 00:48:18,320 at Mary Annie's Revenge. And Megan on Instagram and 847 00:48:18,320 --> 00:48:22,680 Tiktok at Geopedal Fabric, or both of us at Weird and Dead on 848 00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:25,600 Instagram and Tiktok. This podcast is part of the 849 00:48:25,600 --> 00:48:28,880 Geology Podcasting Network. Produced by the traveling 850 00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:31,560 geologist Chris. Spencer Cover art provided by 851 00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:35,040 Chris Spencer and the hosts. Our theme song is Unlock me by 852 00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:37,080 Praz Canal. Editing services provided by 853 00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:37,840 the. Amazing. 854 00:48:37,840 --> 00:48:41,280 Katie Bradley, hosted by and researched by us, Amy Atwater 855 00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:43,160 and Megan Weatherall. Thanks for listening. 856 00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:46,400 And if you're thinking, wow, what a weird and abrupt ending, 857 00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:48,600 it's almost like you cut Amy off in the middle of a sentence. 858 00:48:48,640 --> 00:48:52,440 I sure did, and that is because I then talked about geology for 859 00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:55,880 30 straight minutes, which is a bonus that will be airing on 860 00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:59,440 Patreon shortly. But otherwise this episode was 861 00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:03,280 going to be unending, so it ends now. 862 00:49:04,240 --> 00:49:06,560 Here you go, Thanks for listening.