1 00:00:04,440 --> 00:00:07,320 You're listening to Weird and Dead, the paleontology podcast 2 00:00:07,320 --> 00:00:10,040 that tells evolutions most embarrassing and bizarre 3 00:00:10,040 --> 00:00:11,800 stories. I'm Amy Atwater. 4 00:00:11,800 --> 00:00:14,480 And I'm Megan Wetherell, and we are two living scientists who 5 00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:16,239 are really excited about dead things. 6 00:00:17,520 --> 00:00:19,760 This week is all about brain fossils. 7 00:00:19,840 --> 00:00:24,240 Brains made of sand of putty and also those made by a computer. 8 00:00:24,360 --> 00:00:27,640 We will tell you all about an insane fossil brain bonanza in 9 00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:30,480 West TX and stumble through medical terms for tissue that 10 00:00:30,480 --> 00:00:32,880 doesn't usually fossilize. Flocculus. 11 00:00:33,480 --> 00:00:36,440 And of course, we talk about Tilly Edinger, the 12 00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:39,880 paleontologist who figured out what brain fossils were good for 13 00:00:39,880 --> 00:00:42,680 in the first place. Like always, our podcast talks 14 00:00:42,680 --> 00:00:45,800 about some disgusting stuff Blocculus, so please read 15 00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:48,080 through the content warnings before continuing. 16 00:00:51,760 --> 00:00:55,600 OK, today we are going to start out on a story about the best 17 00:00:55,800 --> 00:00:59,760 animal in the world, oriadonts. Oriadonts are awesome because I 18 00:00:59,760 --> 00:01:01,880 study them, but they're also awesome because they're 19 00:01:02,280 --> 00:01:04,840 extremely weird little hooved mammals. 20 00:01:04,840 --> 00:01:07,760 They're all extinct, and it's very, very sad, but they're very 21 00:01:07,760 --> 00:01:10,840 cool, and they're found in one of the coolest paleontological 22 00:01:10,840 --> 00:01:13,560 places in the world, which is West TX. 23 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:17,920 So in West TX there are a lot of different fossil beds. 24 00:01:17,920 --> 00:01:21,080 Amy and I have both done some research together at them. 25 00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:24,280 I don't think we've actually been to this particular one. 26 00:01:24,560 --> 00:01:26,920 And a lot of that was collected during the 70s. 27 00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:30,480 And just like I'm shocked that like there hasn't been much more 28 00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:32,720 work there. But we're going to talk today a 29 00:01:32,800 --> 00:01:35,800 lot about brains. And we're going to start with a 30 00:01:35,800 --> 00:01:37,840 conversation about Oriodont brains. 31 00:01:37,840 --> 00:01:41,880 And specifically, there's a place in West TX called Reeves 32 00:01:41,880 --> 00:01:44,720 Bone Bed. It's in the chamber's tough 33 00:01:44,720 --> 00:01:48,160 formation. It's Eocene, and it's about 80 34 00:01:48,160 --> 00:01:52,000 feet by 20 feet with a thickness of three feet deep. 35 00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:53,880 And it was described by Wilson ET al. 36 00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:57,280 In 1971 as being like a paleontologist dream. 37 00:01:57,600 --> 00:01:59,680 Just because it's such dense bone. 38 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,400 And it's not just bone. It has a lot of what we call 39 00:02:03,400 --> 00:02:06,680 endo casts. And an endo cast is functionally 40 00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:11,840 just where something has taken the surface of the inside of the 41 00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:14,160 brain case. So it's not a brain, but it 42 00:02:14,160 --> 00:02:17,200 looks like a brain and it takes the place of a brain. 43 00:02:17,440 --> 00:02:23,760 So it's sort of a sand brain. And in the Reeves bone bed, can 44 00:02:23,760 --> 00:02:28,160 you guess how many endocasts they have? 45 00:02:28,520 --> 00:02:31,960 They've collected more actually since then, but just by 1971, 46 00:02:31,960 --> 00:02:35,880 how many natural endocasts of oriodonts alone do you think 47 00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:39,480 they found within 80 by 20? By three feet. 80 by 20 by 48 00:02:39,520 --> 00:02:42,120 three. However, I have to consider that 49 00:02:42,120 --> 00:02:46,200 they're oriodonts, so they die in herds and they're fucking 50 00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:48,280 everywhere. These are not herd ones. 51 00:02:48,280 --> 00:02:51,040 These are little tiny ones. These are little babies. 52 00:02:51,040 --> 00:02:53,120 They were just delicious. Yeah. 53 00:02:53,240 --> 00:02:55,960 Oh, OK. Well, OK, OK, so they're small, 54 00:02:55,960 --> 00:02:58,280 so that means more of them could pack in per area. 55 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:03,240 I'm just gonna go. I'm gonna go with a 52. 157. 56 00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:09,680 I was only off by 105. Now I will say that holy crap, 57 00:03:09,920 --> 00:03:12,720 this study on basically like their shapes. 58 00:03:12,720 --> 00:03:17,360 In 2009, he looked at 157 natural endo cast. 59 00:03:17,360 --> 00:03:20,560 That represented a minimum of 107 individuals. 60 00:03:20,880 --> 00:03:23,480 Because when we talk about endocasts, it's not always the 61 00:03:23,480 --> 00:03:27,520 whole fake sand brain. Sometimes it's half of the fake 62 00:03:27,520 --> 00:03:30,880 sand brain and you can't guarantee that other sections 63 00:03:30,880 --> 00:03:34,920 didn't link up. That is still a minimum of 107 64 00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:38,520 individuals. They're they're not still in the 65 00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:40,480 cranium. They're not like some of them 66 00:03:40,480 --> 00:03:44,120 are just loose brains. These are all loose brains. 67 00:03:44,520 --> 00:03:48,880 Yeah, these are. Wasn't ready for that. 68 00:03:49,240 --> 00:03:52,440 No. So that's the weird thing about 69 00:03:52,440 --> 00:03:57,280 natural endo casts is natural endo casts are usually something 70 00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:00,920 where you have an infill into the brain case, so the skull 71 00:04:00,920 --> 00:04:05,960 gets filled with sand or dirt or something and then the skull 72 00:04:06,240 --> 00:04:09,760 disappears somehow. Maybe it gets cracked and it 73 00:04:09,760 --> 00:04:11,760 falls off and the brain is harder. 74 00:04:12,120 --> 00:04:16,480 Maybe it, you know, dissolves because it's not made of sand, 75 00:04:16,480 --> 00:04:21,760 it's made of calcium. So there's basically 107 loose 76 00:04:22,320 --> 00:04:25,360 casts of the inside of a skull. Wow, wow. 77 00:04:25,360 --> 00:04:28,000 I have, I just, I have. So I just have so many thoughts 78 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:31,560 like my one of my brains, my brain just went to the fact that 79 00:04:31,560 --> 00:04:34,240 UT Austin used to have the largest collection of like human 80 00:04:34,240 --> 00:04:37,480 brains, like just in jars, including of like Charles 81 00:04:37,840 --> 00:04:41,200 Whitman and others. And so now I'm just like, and 82 00:04:41,200 --> 00:04:43,760 actually one of the primates I'm going to talk about is got a 83 00:04:43,760 --> 00:04:46,080 natural endocast and it's from West, TX. 84 00:04:46,240 --> 00:04:48,600 So what the fuck is with Texas and brains? 85 00:04:48,640 --> 00:04:50,680 Like I wouldn't put those two together. 86 00:04:51,920 --> 00:04:55,080 Just kidding, just kidding. I love everyone from Texas. 87 00:04:56,400 --> 00:04:57,920 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Texas is great. 88 00:04:58,440 --> 00:05:00,120 Texas paleontology is definitely great. 89 00:05:00,120 --> 00:05:03,520 So someone needs to go back to Reeves Bone Bed and actually 90 00:05:03,520 --> 00:05:05,760 write up like a sedimental logical study. 91 00:05:06,040 --> 00:05:09,360 The only other information I could find about Reeves Bone Bed 92 00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:14,520 was like this mention of an abstract that was published in 93 00:05:14,520 --> 00:05:18,000 1989 at a conference at GSA. And I haven't been able to get a 94 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:21,040 hold of the abstract. But the idea, from what I can 95 00:05:21,040 --> 00:05:25,400 glean from a second hand source discussing an abstract, is that 96 00:05:25,400 --> 00:05:31,120 maybe this was a predator den that was just eating a ton of 97 00:05:31,120 --> 00:05:33,920 Orionuts. There was also other small 98 00:05:33,920 --> 00:05:37,440 animals, Leptomerix, which is a really what is leptomerix? 99 00:05:37,440 --> 00:05:41,600 Is that a paleomerisid? It's a weird thing that isn't an 100 00:05:41,600 --> 00:05:44,440 Orionant, but they kind of look like I, I think it's actually 101 00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:46,400 leptomerisid. I think they they're their own 102 00:05:46,400 --> 00:05:48,440 thing. Oh my gosh, how dare you. 103 00:05:48,720 --> 00:05:51,640 It's a weird little weird little ungulate. 104 00:05:51,640 --> 00:05:54,240 A weird little artiodactyl. Yeah, in the you've seen, 105 00:05:54,240 --> 00:05:55,760 they're all pretty. Weird. 106 00:05:56,480 --> 00:05:58,800 And there's a ton of endocasts from them, too. 107 00:05:59,680 --> 00:06:03,480 Yeah, so the oriadont that they found there is probably 108 00:06:03,480 --> 00:06:06,800 bathogenies, which is a really tiny little oriadont. 109 00:06:06,840 --> 00:06:10,640 There's a bunch of them at UT Austin that have little tiny 110 00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:14,120 puncture marks in their skull. But again, someone needs to go 111 00:06:14,120 --> 00:06:16,920 study that. I'm not 100% convinced by the 112 00:06:16,960 --> 00:06:19,840 ambiguous mention of an abstract that thinks it's a carnivore den 113 00:06:19,840 --> 00:06:22,760 because it's a little weird to have that many dead. 114 00:06:22,760 --> 00:06:24,800 Or maybe it's a collector you know. 115 00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:27,840 But regardless. And wouldn't they eat the 116 00:06:27,840 --> 00:06:30,840 brains? Yes, well remember these aren't 117 00:06:30,840 --> 00:06:34,360 brains, they are sand on the inside of a skull. 118 00:06:34,720 --> 00:06:37,400 But the weird part is the skull is gone. 119 00:06:37,880 --> 00:06:41,000 But they didn't bust it, right? The skull is gone. 120 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:43,800 But if the brains are largely intact, that tells me that at 121 00:06:43,800 --> 00:06:47,680 least the sand had to be within the skull for a period of time 122 00:06:47,680 --> 00:06:50,680 to get the shape right. So that wouldn't be during the 123 00:06:50,680 --> 00:06:54,120 actual perimortem experience. That would be like taffanom. 124 00:06:54,120 --> 00:06:56,120 Oh, right, which is here. We go, you know what, let's just 125 00:06:56,120 --> 00:06:58,280 talk about the taffonomy. I wasn't sure if we were going 126 00:06:58,360 --> 00:07:01,640 to fit this in, but it's kind of impossible not to, right? 127 00:07:01,920 --> 00:07:05,840 So there are not as far as I can find a lot of studies on the 128 00:07:05,840 --> 00:07:09,440 taffonomy of endocast. We find a lot of isolated ones. 129 00:07:09,440 --> 00:07:12,680 So most of the papers about endo casts are like, we found a cool 130 00:07:12,680 --> 00:07:16,360 endo cast, but with Orion's from this low occasion, it's we found 131 00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:19,600 107. And the one study that I could 132 00:07:19,600 --> 00:07:22,160 find, they were trying to figure out if they could actually 133 00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:26,000 identify all of these oriadons as pathogenes revisai. 134 00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:29,560 And they decided that no, probably it's not actually all 135 00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:31,480 one species. They weren't sure if it might be 136 00:07:31,480 --> 00:07:35,000 two different genera or not, but they only could conclude that 137 00:07:35,000 --> 00:07:38,280 because they were variable enough to be too much variation 138 00:07:38,280 --> 00:07:42,640 to be one species, they cannot link it 100% to this oriadon. 139 00:07:42,640 --> 00:07:47,800 It's not 100% diagnostic for like a chunk of a like you can't 140 00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:50,680 have a sand brain and identify exactly what it's coming from. 141 00:07:50,800 --> 00:07:54,600 But I haven't found anybody who's really looked into what 142 00:07:54,600 --> 00:07:59,040 are the consistent factors that are causing endo casts to form 143 00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:02,840 because they're not very normal. They're not like a like a super 144 00:08:02,840 --> 00:08:06,000 common aspect of sedimentology. They're they're normal enough 145 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:08,720 that most people who study paleontology know about them, 146 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:13,800 but they're not normal enough that having 107 endo, 157 endo 147 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:15,920 casts is like a normal collection. 148 00:08:16,360 --> 00:08:19,760 That's pretty weird. So the endocast that I have 149 00:08:19,760 --> 00:08:23,440 found people doing studies on, as far as Tafani goes, I found 150 00:08:23,440 --> 00:08:27,760 one good study that did a study basically on a lynx endocast 151 00:08:27,760 --> 00:08:31,520 from Italy. And what they found was they 152 00:08:31,520 --> 00:08:32,840 took a look at the shape of the brain. 153 00:08:32,919 --> 00:08:37,039 They realized that when it was initially deposited, the skull 154 00:08:37,120 --> 00:08:40,159 was deposited probably in some sort of a river or a lake or 155 00:08:40,159 --> 00:08:42,440 something. And it was deposited with the 156 00:08:42,440 --> 00:08:45,720 foramen magnum, which is the hole where your head connects to 157 00:08:45,720 --> 00:08:48,560 your neck, probably in the upward position. 158 00:08:48,760 --> 00:08:54,200 And they, they realized this because it had stratigraphy 159 00:08:54,200 --> 00:08:56,200 infills inside of it. So if you looked at the 160 00:08:56,200 --> 00:09:00,960 endocast, because the skull was gone, yeah, you had really big 161 00:09:00,960 --> 00:09:04,640 stones that had come in, well, big compared to a lynx's brain 162 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:07,640 that had come in and been deposited initially. 163 00:09:07,640 --> 00:09:10,640 So like the bottom, the top of the skull, but the bottom of 164 00:09:10,640 --> 00:09:13,640 when it was flipped over had bigger stones and then there was 165 00:09:13,640 --> 00:09:16,680 another layer of like sand and another layer of silt. 166 00:09:16,720 --> 00:09:21,200 So they had like slower accumulation of different sizes 167 00:09:21,200 --> 00:09:24,320 of particles indicating that the water was slowing down overtime. 168 00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:28,640 It was also probably multiple events, so it's not like one big 169 00:09:28,680 --> 00:09:31,320 underwater landslide and then they looked at the outside. 170 00:09:31,320 --> 00:09:34,440 I was going to say this sounds like you're describing a a bauma 171 00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:37,160 sequence, you know, like that's exactly what you look for. 172 00:09:37,160 --> 00:09:40,200 But those are turbidites. Those are underwater landslides 173 00:09:40,200 --> 00:09:42,360 that you then are seeing the bigger grains at the base. 174 00:09:42,360 --> 00:09:44,960 But Oh my God, that contained within a skull. 175 00:09:44,960 --> 00:09:48,080 That's the most metal thing. That's like the most Geo paleo 176 00:09:48,080 --> 00:09:50,640 you know. What it is though is I mean I 177 00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:53,800 don't, I haven't found a they didn't say this, but I think 178 00:09:53,800 --> 00:09:55,520 that might be a Geo pedal, right? 179 00:09:55,520 --> 00:09:59,720 Like a way up structure indicating which direction is 180 00:09:59,760 --> 00:10:02,080 up. Yes, which is funny. 181 00:10:02,600 --> 00:10:04,320 Yeah. So bigger particles at the 182 00:10:04,320 --> 00:10:07,560 bottom, they at least tell you which direction the endocast was 183 00:10:07,560 --> 00:10:09,680 facing. And then on the outside of the 184 00:10:09,680 --> 00:10:14,120 endocast itself is a layer of basically like carbonate 185 00:10:14,120 --> 00:10:17,720 enriched like sediment. So essentially you had this 186 00:10:17,720 --> 00:10:20,680 skull sitting upside down. It got filled with a couple 187 00:10:20,680 --> 00:10:24,480 different events, so it was full of sand and rocks and things. 188 00:10:24,720 --> 00:10:28,960 And then over time, the skull itself probably leached some 189 00:10:28,960 --> 00:10:33,320 calcium into the outside of the little sand brain thing. 190 00:10:33,640 --> 00:10:37,640 And yeah, all of a sudden, once the skull had decomposed or been 191 00:10:37,640 --> 00:10:42,560 knocked off, there was enough calcium on this big lump of sand 192 00:10:42,560 --> 00:10:46,440 in the shape of a brain that it stuck around preferentially. 193 00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:51,000 So wow, yes. Oh, paleontology is so cool, 194 00:10:51,200 --> 00:10:53,560 yes. God, and for some reason in the 195 00:10:53,560 --> 00:10:57,320 Reeves bone bed, those brains are really preferentially 196 00:10:57,320 --> 00:11:00,440 preserved. I wonder if bathogenes, unlike a 197 00:11:00,440 --> 00:11:03,000 lot of other oriadonts, has a really thin skull. 198 00:11:03,160 --> 00:11:06,960 So it it's it's other oriadonts are like bowling balls with 199 00:11:06,960 --> 00:11:09,400 their head. So I wonder if Bathogenes 200 00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:12,520 bathogenes. I wonder if it was just a little 201 00:11:12,520 --> 00:11:14,840 bit too fragile and so they don't stick around. 202 00:11:14,840 --> 00:11:18,440 But we have a lot of endo casts of pathogenes. 203 00:11:18,880 --> 00:11:22,400 Even though I think the story of the taphonomy is maybe the 204 00:11:22,400 --> 00:11:26,600 cooler aspect, it's definitely not what people love to study 205 00:11:26,600 --> 00:11:29,840 about endo casts. And in fact, natural endo casts 206 00:11:29,840 --> 00:11:32,280 aren't even the entirety of the story that we're going to talk 207 00:11:32,280 --> 00:11:34,640 about today. So a natural endo cast is where 208 00:11:34,640 --> 00:11:37,600 the the sand and whatever infills the skull and then 209 00:11:37,600 --> 00:11:40,760 somehow gets separated from the skull, at least partially. 210 00:11:40,880 --> 00:11:42,960 But you can of course, simulate this. 211 00:11:43,320 --> 00:11:47,200 You can put mold compound into a skull and then break it open. 212 00:11:47,200 --> 00:11:50,720 And you can have like a, a replica of how the brain was 213 00:11:50,720 --> 00:11:54,080 imprinting against the skull. You can also do CT scanning, you 214 00:11:54,080 --> 00:11:55,920 know, if you don't want to break the skull that you're dealing 215 00:11:55,920 --> 00:11:59,160 with. So studying endo cast has become 216 00:11:59,160 --> 00:12:02,800 a kind of, it's become a lot more popular for sure, because 217 00:12:02,800 --> 00:12:06,720 we don't have to just wait until we can find sand, sand brain 218 00:12:06,720 --> 00:12:09,360 casts. We can actually make them 219 00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:12,560 ourselves. So tell us about people who make 220 00:12:12,560 --> 00:12:14,920 them. Yeah, and I love the CT scan 221 00:12:14,920 --> 00:12:17,400 aspect. I did a little of this actually. 222 00:12:17,400 --> 00:12:20,560 And what my question is immediately is with the bath 223 00:12:20,560 --> 00:12:25,440 Jennies, has anyone taken a CT scan of an empty, like a, you 224 00:12:25,440 --> 00:12:28,240 know, a full skull that doesn't have an endocast and then 225 00:12:28,240 --> 00:12:32,320 compared it to one of these loose brains to see if there's a 226 00:12:32,320 --> 00:12:34,880 general fit? Like 'cause you said there's no 227 00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:37,640 for sure ID but that also cost money. 228 00:12:37,640 --> 00:12:40,040 They did that. That was what this paper from 229 00:12:40,040 --> 00:12:43,120 2009 was, was they compared it very, it was actually a very 230 00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:45,320 good paper. I say actually cause a lot of 231 00:12:45,320 --> 00:12:48,760 worry, not papers sadly or not, but it was a very good paper. 232 00:12:49,080 --> 00:12:52,680 Megan is picky. Also very picky, but yeah, they 233 00:12:52,680 --> 00:12:56,120 they they took ACT scan of bathogennis and they cross 234 00:12:56,120 --> 00:12:57,480 compared it to a bunch of the brains. 235 00:12:57,960 --> 00:13:00,840 But they also, I think discovered that a when you have 236 00:13:00,840 --> 00:13:03,160 a sandy endocast, sometimes it gets rattled around. 237 00:13:03,160 --> 00:13:07,360 So sometimes the features are kind of worn off and then just 238 00:13:07,400 --> 00:13:11,080 it it isn't super clear. At least at that point, there's 239 00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:13,920 enough variation that telling the difference between bath and 240 00:13:13,920 --> 00:13:18,000 Jenny's and Liam Needy's another small Orion that was alive at 241 00:13:18,000 --> 00:13:21,120 the time that we just don't have a good enough concept of their 242 00:13:21,120 --> 00:13:23,400 brain slash. Maybe their brain isn't 243 00:13:23,400 --> 00:13:26,200 diagnostically different. Sometimes you can't idea brain. 244 00:13:26,680 --> 00:13:28,720 Science. Wow. 245 00:13:28,720 --> 00:13:30,800 That's, that's that's very, very cool. 246 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:33,440 And again, just like West, TX. Thank you. 247 00:13:33,440 --> 00:13:35,040 Very, very cool place. So, yeah. 248 00:13:35,040 --> 00:13:39,560 But where would we be today without some pivotal research 249 00:13:39,800 --> 00:13:44,520 from the founding paleontologist who created the entire field of 250 00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:48,120 paleo neurology, the study of fossil brains? 251 00:13:48,280 --> 00:13:52,120 And that was Tilly Edinger. Doctor Tilly Edinger, I should 252 00:13:52,120 --> 00:13:54,680 say. And her full name is Doctor 253 00:13:54,680 --> 00:13:58,600 Johanna Gabrielle Altilly and she went by Tilly. 254 00:13:58,600 --> 00:14:01,240 So thanks girl, appreciate that. It makes my life a little bit 255 00:14:01,240 --> 00:14:04,320 easier today. And she was inspired, you know, 256 00:14:04,320 --> 00:14:05,840 talking about natural endocast, right? 257 00:14:05,840 --> 00:14:07,760 So those can form in anything that's hollow. 258 00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:12,040 You know, we can find endocast and, and other things in it. 259 00:14:12,280 --> 00:14:15,320 It usually means brains, but sometimes it can mean like inner 260 00:14:15,320 --> 00:14:17,160 ear structures that we might talk about later. 261 00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:19,800 It can also be like nasal features, like your nasal 262 00:14:19,800 --> 00:14:21,520 turbinates, little swirls in your nose. 263 00:14:21,600 --> 00:14:24,760 So it really just is like this perfect kind of, yeah, 264 00:14:24,760 --> 00:14:27,920 sedimental, logical replica of this hollow void. 265 00:14:28,160 --> 00:14:33,080 And that is how Tilly first got exposed to the fossil brains. 266 00:14:33,080 --> 00:14:37,200 And I will say for the record, she was born in the late 1800s 267 00:14:37,480 --> 00:14:40,800 and she is the daughter of a very famous neurologist. 268 00:14:41,160 --> 00:14:44,360 So I will say for the record that she is a total nepo. 269 00:14:44,480 --> 00:14:47,880 Baby, you had to be at that point to be a woman in science 270 00:14:47,880 --> 00:14:50,440 though, so. Exactly. 271 00:14:50,440 --> 00:14:53,680 Oh my God, that's exactly what I was going to say is like, but so 272 00:14:53,680 --> 00:14:58,880 the fact that this woman pursued APHD in 1920, it goes to say 273 00:14:58,880 --> 00:15:01,800 like, holy shit. Maybe she did have an upper hand 274 00:15:01,800 --> 00:15:05,280 because of her lifestyle and her father's connections, but it 275 00:15:05,280 --> 00:15:08,080 this is like a time that there was no such thing as female 276 00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:10,560 neppo babies. So just no, sorry, that's not an 277 00:15:10,560 --> 00:15:11,800 option. Yeah. 278 00:15:11,800 --> 00:15:15,520 So she actually did her PhD in Frankfurt, Germany, where she 279 00:15:15,520 --> 00:15:19,120 was from. And she was working on, she was 280 00:15:19,120 --> 00:15:21,320 just doing straight up paleontology for her doctoral 281 00:15:21,320 --> 00:15:23,440 research. And she was working on this 282 00:15:23,440 --> 00:15:28,000 Mesozoic marine reptile called Nosaurus, and it had a skull 283 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:30,560 with a a natural brain cast in it. 284 00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:33,720 And she could see, I think part of it was partially exposed, 285 00:15:33,720 --> 00:15:35,680 which are the most metal looking ones. 286 00:15:35,680 --> 00:15:38,360 When you can see them, they're still in the skull, but like 287 00:15:38,520 --> 00:15:41,400 only a chunk of the skull is removed and you can just see 288 00:15:41,400 --> 00:15:44,760 these brains behind it, which is really exciting. 289 00:15:45,280 --> 00:15:47,760 So she got super into this because she was like, oh shit. 290 00:15:47,760 --> 00:15:50,880 You know, Like I can apply what I know from growing up with a 291 00:15:50,880 --> 00:15:55,760 total nerd for a dad and be able to look at the external features 292 00:15:55,760 --> 00:15:58,720 of brains and fossil animals and be able to say more about the 293 00:15:58,760 --> 00:16:02,360 evolution of brains and be able to have that deep time 294 00:16:02,360 --> 00:16:04,960 perspective. Now, unfortunately, her and her 295 00:16:04,960 --> 00:16:09,160 family were Jewish and they lived in Germany in the 1930s 296 00:16:09,160 --> 00:16:12,640 and 40s. Not a great time to be Jewish in 297 00:16:12,640 --> 00:16:15,400 Germany. She really didn't want to leave 298 00:16:15,400 --> 00:16:17,040 Germany. It was her home. 299 00:16:17,040 --> 00:16:19,920 She did lose immediate family members to the Holocaust. 300 00:16:20,360 --> 00:16:25,080 And it was actually paleontology that got her out of Germany. 301 00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:28,120 She has a quote where she was literally saying, like, one way 302 00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:30,680 or another, fossils are going to be how I escape. 303 00:16:31,160 --> 00:16:36,000 And it was that Roamer, the famous Roamer of paleontology, 304 00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:41,120 the Roamer session, he gave her a unpaid research position at 305 00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:44,400 the Harvard Museum of Comparative Anatomy or whatever 306 00:16:44,400 --> 00:16:46,560 it's called. And that is how she was able to 307 00:16:46,560 --> 00:16:49,720 get a visa to get to the United States in 1940. 308 00:16:49,920 --> 00:16:53,440 So she was able to escape. Another interesting fact about 309 00:16:53,440 --> 00:16:58,000 Tilly is that she was deaf, not her entire life, but she started 310 00:16:58,000 --> 00:17:00,800 to go deaf from this degenerative disease of starting 311 00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:03,920 in like high school. And so by the, you know, by the 312 00:17:03,920 --> 00:17:07,640 time she'd gotten her PhD, she was pretty much fully deaf. 313 00:17:07,839 --> 00:17:12,280 And it unfortunately seems like it led to her untimely passing 314 00:17:12,280 --> 00:17:17,200 because she was hit by a truck, unfortunately, and did not did 315 00:17:17,200 --> 00:17:19,920 not hear it coming. So there are lots of quotes 316 00:17:19,920 --> 00:17:22,960 about how it was. Yeah, the very She just had a 317 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:25,720 tough, tough situation. You could be born to a doctor 318 00:17:25,720 --> 00:17:27,319 and still have a tough life, y'all. 319 00:17:27,800 --> 00:17:30,560 But she was like, OK, so I can see in this marine reptile that 320 00:17:30,560 --> 00:17:33,120 it has a natural endocast. I wonder what happens if I fill 321 00:17:33,120 --> 00:17:37,920 it with rubber or plaster or later plastic and then either 322 00:17:37,920 --> 00:17:40,720 gently pull it out. And by that we mean break part 323 00:17:40,720 --> 00:17:44,840 of the skull usually to get whatever your medium is out and 324 00:17:44,840 --> 00:17:47,320 then be able to study those features. 325 00:17:47,440 --> 00:17:49,560 So she's looking at things for all of these internal 326 00:17:49,560 --> 00:17:52,480 structures, looking at things like, OK, one of the first 327 00:17:52,480 --> 00:17:54,720 things that she studied was again, whales. 328 00:17:54,880 --> 00:17:58,920 Sorry everyone, whales again. So we know that, you know, parts 329 00:17:58,920 --> 00:18:01,240 of your brain have a lot to do with different senses. 330 00:18:01,240 --> 00:18:04,800 So for example, your nose smelling is your olfactory 331 00:18:04,800 --> 00:18:07,680 bulbs. So those are all having to do 332 00:18:07,680 --> 00:18:10,280 with sense of smell. I think they're generally 333 00:18:10,280 --> 00:18:12,760 towards the more anterior portion of the brain. 334 00:18:12,960 --> 00:18:16,080 And so she could see that in fossil whales, they got smaller 335 00:18:16,080 --> 00:18:20,080 over time, largely because they don't need to smell as much 336 00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:22,360 underwater. They might need things that are 337 00:18:22,360 --> 00:18:26,320 more of like the hearing and aspects that are being selected 338 00:18:26,320 --> 00:18:29,560 for. And so then she really dove into 339 00:18:29,600 --> 00:18:32,480 other animals too. She wrote an entire book. 340 00:18:32,480 --> 00:18:35,960 I've got it right here on the evolution of fossil horse 341 00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:39,440 brains. She looks at 55,000,000 years of 342 00:18:39,440 --> 00:18:46,200 horse brain evolution. And her conclusion was, I want 343 00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:47,920 to see. If they're not as good as Artie 344 00:18:47,920 --> 00:18:50,040 Anactyls, is that her conclusion? 345 00:18:50,480 --> 00:18:54,200 Yeah, very much so. And that they had weird penises. 346 00:18:54,200 --> 00:18:57,040 No, she didn't know that part. No endo cast of those, 347 00:18:57,040 --> 00:19:00,240 fortunately for all of us. I, I don't know why I laughed so 348 00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:02,840 hard at this line, but but I did, she wrote. 349 00:19:02,840 --> 00:19:06,680 While the Equidae developed from cat size to horse stature, the 350 00:19:06,680 --> 00:19:10,040 brain became progressively smaller part of the body. 351 00:19:10,040 --> 00:19:14,440 And I was like, I was like, I don't know why I'm like talking 352 00:19:14,440 --> 00:19:19,040 shit on horses, but I found that really, really amusing and OK. 353 00:19:19,040 --> 00:19:22,200 And before Tilly, you know, before literally trying to 354 00:19:22,200 --> 00:19:25,760 interpret fossil brains, scientists were trying to 355 00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:28,600 understand like the evolution of brains by just like dissecting 356 00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:31,560 modern animals and kind of doing like comparative methods. 357 00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:35,320 So it was more of like, oh, I dissected this fish and its 358 00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:37,760 brain is like this. And so compared to them, like a 359 00:19:37,760 --> 00:19:41,960 reptile and a mammal like, which is, you know, informative, but 360 00:19:41,960 --> 00:19:44,520 the things diverge. Things evolve on their own 361 00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:46,400 lineages. So it it's hard to say the 362 00:19:46,400 --> 00:19:49,800 ancestral condition by looking at all modern things. 363 00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:54,560 So she was really, really good at being able to figure out the 364 00:19:54,560 --> 00:19:58,680 evolution of brains by the skill set of smashing skulls and 365 00:19:58,680 --> 00:20:01,440 taking names. It's pretty pretty badass. 366 00:20:01,680 --> 00:20:04,600 One of my favorite things I read about. 367 00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:08,160 And then found copious amounts of evidence for that. 368 00:20:08,160 --> 00:20:11,080 I was like, I don't know if you were super familiar with her 369 00:20:11,080 --> 00:20:14,160 work and I don't know if you were a fan of hers prior to 370 00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:16,760 this, but you're going to be. You're going to be. 371 00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:20,840 So I was reading this other book I have about Tilly that's mostly 372 00:20:20,840 --> 00:20:22,960 in German. Whoops, my bad. 373 00:20:23,640 --> 00:20:26,440 There are a few sections that are in English. 374 00:20:28,920 --> 00:20:32,080 This is the quote. To appreciate her kindness to 375 00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:37,880 me, one should keep in mind her deep hatred for Marsh. 376 00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:43,120 Yeah, OK. Which I never fully understood, 377 00:20:43,120 --> 00:20:47,520 but in many publications she took great pains to expose what 378 00:20:47,520 --> 00:20:51,640 she considered to be fraudulence of Marsh's science. 379 00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:56,200 She was convinced that he invented the images of bird 380 00:20:56,200 --> 00:20:59,640 brains from Hesper Ornis and Ichthyornis that he had 381 00:20:59,640 --> 00:21:02,680 published, that she literally like he made them up and that he 382 00:21:02,680 --> 00:21:06,280 had never actually prepared the specimens the way she does. 383 00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:10,280 And then I guess this guy, this, so this is Harry, Harry Jarrison 384 00:21:10,280 --> 00:21:13,600 who wrote this, who said that they they were like gossiping 385 00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:16,480 like little girls talking mad shit on Marsh. 386 00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:20,400 And one of his points is that Carifidon, which is another ES 387 00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:24,800 scene, big awkward ungulity thing, a lot of them in Texas as 388 00:21:24,800 --> 00:21:30,240 well, that he created, like these fantastic pictures of the 389 00:21:30,240 --> 00:21:34,280 brain of Carifidon and the enlarged olfactory bulbs in a 390 00:21:34,280 --> 00:21:37,320 Uinta Fear, Like they're gossiping about how dumb he is 391 00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:40,120 because he made a Uinta fear brain look like an enlarged 392 00:21:40,120 --> 00:21:43,400 rodent brain. Like this was her sassafras. 393 00:21:43,720 --> 00:21:48,000 Such specific, specific gossip. They point out that you can fuck 394 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:51,480 it up when you're doing these human made casts that 395 00:21:51,480 --> 00:21:54,960 essentially you might be removing they say essentially 396 00:21:54,960 --> 00:21:58,640 matrix from the cranial cavity, but it's actually bone and you 397 00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:01,040 might not be able to know the difference as you're prepping 398 00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:03,080 through it. And so then you can come up with 399 00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:08,800 inaccurate relative sizes of the portions of the brain, which is 400 00:22:08,800 --> 00:22:10,800 just funny. And so then I was like reading 401 00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:13,760 her book The Evolution of the Horse Brain, and I didn't have 402 00:22:13,760 --> 00:22:16,960 to read very far before she just starts talking match shit on. 403 00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:23,720 Marsh was totally here for it and one of her lines and like 404 00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:25,600 this is one of those. I'm going to read it and then 405 00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:27,640 explain why I think it's really funny. 406 00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:30,960 If I can get through it, it's it's like because it's academic 407 00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:32,920 sass. I'm just going to say in advance 408 00:22:32,920 --> 00:22:36,600 that it is like her being like, fuck you, you're an idiot. 409 00:22:36,600 --> 00:22:40,280 But she's doing it academically. So she wrote one Paleo 410 00:22:40,280 --> 00:22:43,840 neurological theory of evolution must be briefly discussed. 411 00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:48,440 Although the outcome of a typical 19th century ideology, 412 00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:52,440 it has found its way into so many kinds of literature that to 413 00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:56,360 test it with the evidence of our study seemed necessary. 414 00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:59,680 Essentially being like, this is a ton of bullshit. 415 00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:02,520 We all know it's bullshit, but people keep talking about it as 416 00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:05,960 if it's legitimate. So here I go again, showing you 417 00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:09,000 why this is total horseshit, no pun intended. 418 00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:13,680 Because it's all about horses. Just like I love her. 419 00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:16,640 And then she like, literally spends multiple pages talking 420 00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:20,400 about why Marsh was wrong. And the main thing that she 421 00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:24,960 criticizes is that Marsh had this theory that as animals 422 00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:29,000 evolved, their brains always got bigger, especially in mammals, 423 00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:33,280 that the derived mammalians are so superior, which, you know, 424 00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:37,720 probably not talk to a, you know, crocodile that. 425 00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:41,040 And a lot of her work, as we're talking about with the horses is 426 00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:44,640 that they actually get smaller proportionally to body size, 427 00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:48,000 especially, she writes, once they evolved the muzzle and the 428 00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:51,240 Miocene, the brain becomes an even smaller portion of the 429 00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:53,560 head. And it has remained that way in 430 00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:56,520 the modern day. And so she is just totally 431 00:23:56,520 --> 00:24:00,840 reading him for just being over generalization and being too 432 00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:04,480 focused on function instead of the constraints of ancestry is 433 00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:07,680 really her whole point, which is why Stephen Jay Gould loved her 434 00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:10,680 like a lot too. So it's just kind of this idea, 435 00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:13,600 and I think that that goes into what you're going to be telling 436 00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:16,760 me about, about the size of brains and brain regions. 437 00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:18,000 Yes. Why? 438 00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:20,880 What we think we know might be what we actually don't know, 439 00:24:20,880 --> 00:24:22,120 Yes. Yeah, yeah. 440 00:24:22,120 --> 00:24:27,280 So there is this concept that is often referred to in the study 441 00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:30,640 of endo casts, whether they're sand or otherwise, called the 442 00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:34,480 principle of proper mass, which is basically this idea that the 443 00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:39,000 size of a region of the brain is proportional to its ability to 444 00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:42,560 process information. So that means that like if you 445 00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:46,160 have really great vision, you'll probably have a bigger section 446 00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:48,760 of your brain that is dedicated to vision. 447 00:24:49,040 --> 00:24:52,240 And of course, therefore that would mean that if you could 448 00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,840 look at the brain, or at least look at a cast of it, you might 449 00:24:55,840 --> 00:25:00,040 be able to determine where basically a animal was investing 450 00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:02,880 its brain energy. Is it really big into sight? 451 00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:06,520 Is it really big into smell? Is it really big into balance? 452 00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:10,120 And as I was reading through these papers, I did notice that 453 00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:13,800 Tilly Edinger's concept of hey, yeah, your phylogenetic 454 00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:15,960 relationship there is going to really kind of determine. 455 00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:19,040 A lot of that stuff is absolutely true. 456 00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:23,680 When you talk about brains, you really have to keep in mind who 457 00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:29,360 they're related to. So for example, the endocasts of 458 00:25:29,360 --> 00:25:35,400 dinosaurs way different than the endo casts of birds and mammals. 459 00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:40,120 So with birds and mammals, our brains fill that space. 460 00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:46,320 They push up. I like I already love this. 461 00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:51,560 I know really, I've been taking this is this is week two of 462 00:25:51,600 --> 00:25:53,800 volunteering to talk about dinosaurs. 463 00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:57,880 And it's just week two of Megan finds a reason to talk shit 464 00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:02,320 about dinosaurs because. Yeah, so our brains are pretty 465 00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:06,920 big and they press up up against the confines of our our skull. 466 00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,640 So you can actually do a lot more interpretation of a bird 467 00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:14,800 brain or of a mammal brain than you can of a dinosaur brain, 468 00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:17,240 because dinosaurs, by and large, I'd. 469 00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:18,960 Never thought about it like that. 470 00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:23,080 Yeah, so dinosaurs, not all of them Pachycephalosaurs, I 471 00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:25,880 imagine just because they don't have a lot of brain space left. 472 00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,320 They have pretty tightly constrained brain. 473 00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:30,760 So you you can tell more from their endo casts. 474 00:26:30,880 --> 00:26:34,480 I mean, they've dedicated so much of their skull to bone. 475 00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,000 So like they just don't have a lot of space for that brain. 476 00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:39,360 Is my is my thought. That's right. 477 00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:45,520 We got to get that Dome. Yeah, so not all animals fill 478 00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:48,720 their entire brain case. Celicants and basking sharks, 479 00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:52,760 Less than 1% of their brain space is full of brain. 480 00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:56,320 Nobody told me what the rest of it was by the way, So I've just 481 00:26:56,320 --> 00:26:59,000 been envisioning very tiny little brains floating around a 482 00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:01,280 fluid. I'm sure that's not really true, 483 00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:06,000 but the most of the brain case in a coelacanth or a basking 484 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:08,760 shark isn't brain. It's actually the same with 485 00:27:08,880 --> 00:27:11,360 alligators. And I, I, I giggled a little bit 486 00:27:11,360 --> 00:27:13,480 when you said something about ask a crocodile. 487 00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:17,080 Because it turns out that with crocodilians, if you want to 488 00:27:17,080 --> 00:27:20,840 talk to a big brained crocodilian, you should talk to 489 00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:24,680 babies. Because baby crocodilians have a 490 00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:28,440 much bigger brain size in comparison to their body than 491 00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:31,440 adults do. Because adults might grow their 492 00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:35,840 big fat faces, but they don't actually grow their brains as 493 00:27:35,840 --> 00:27:40,400 quickly. So baby alligator has about 68% 494 00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:44,160 of its brain capacity full of actual brains. 495 00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:48,800 So like the actual organ is only like 68% of that space, whereas 496 00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:54,040 adults are like 32%. So a real sharp decline. 497 00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:57,000 Yeah. So that means a lot of things 498 00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,440 other than just kind of the funny implications of having 499 00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:03,320 less brain as you get older. But it also means that because 500 00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:06,920 there's not as much brain inside the brain case, that it's not 501 00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:10,040 pushing up against every single boundary of the skull. 502 00:28:10,360 --> 00:28:13,240 So you're not actually getting. Like with mammals, you can look 503 00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:15,520 and you can see the wrinkles, You can see the different 504 00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:18,600 regions of the brain. You can see veins even that are 505 00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:23,880 pushing up against the surface. But with alligators you can see 506 00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:27,440 like the different general regions and in some dinosaurs 507 00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:30,400 you can see a little bit more, but there's not nearly as much 508 00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:34,800 detail preserved with an endo cast because the actual it's a 509 00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:38,680 smooth brain as far as the inside of the skull goes because 510 00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:41,560 there's no brain touching it to make brain shape. 511 00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:44,720 There's no. There's no mold. 512 00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:49,320 There's no, there's no Wakadu designs to to replicate on the 513 00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:52,360 surface of of the brains because they're not filling it. 514 00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:56,000 And for whatever reason that hasn't been selected for, to 515 00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:59,400 decrease that space or use it for something else, right. 516 00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:02,640 I mean, like, that's weird, but like, like, is that just? 517 00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:05,400 Yeah, I guess that works. I'm sure there's something else 518 00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:08,320 in there, you know, there this is not probably just an empty 519 00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:10,080 space with a brain floating around in it. 520 00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:14,200 But I I genuinely could not find in the space between this 521 00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,040 morning when I realized that fact and this afternoon when we 522 00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:19,440 were filming this. I couldn't figure out what else 523 00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,200 was in there. So fill it in with your mental 524 00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,960 image of whatever else you might imagine is in a dinosaur brain 525 00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:27,200 or an alligator brain. Confetti. 526 00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:28,160 Confetti. Yeah. 527 00:29:28,440 --> 00:29:30,120 Oh my God. Like candy. 528 00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:34,280 Candy like. Yeah, I did read a paper about 529 00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:38,520 someone found an isolated hadrosaur endo cast with a 530 00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:39,920 little bit of skull attached to it. 531 00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:43,360 They found it floating in a tide pool, well, not floating, but 532 00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:46,120 rolling around in a side pool. And when they looked at the 533 00:29:46,120 --> 00:29:50,080 actual endo cast, it was filled not just with sand, but it was 534 00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:54,080 also filled with it had fossil leaves, fossil wood, and some 535 00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:58,200 bone that wasn't its bone like some other bone that had gotten 536 00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:03,600 shoved into the brain. So like, that's as complex as 537 00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:09,080 that Hadrosaurus brain ever. Got yes, SO11 fun side effect of 538 00:30:09,080 --> 00:30:11,720 all of this is essentially that when you're talking about endo 539 00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:15,320 cast, you do have to to be aware of like just size alone is not 540 00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:18,760 actually going to necessarily correspond to changes in 541 00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:21,680 intelligence. But also with certain groups of 542 00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:25,280 lineages, you have to take into account the body size, and you 543 00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:27,240 have to take into account whether it's an adult. 544 00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:32,400 And someone use that to talk shit about Nanotyrannus. 545 00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:39,960 Yes, Oh my God we're talking about Nano Tyrannis on our 546 00:30:39,960 --> 00:30:43,840 podcast. I never thought we would sell 547 00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:46,520 out. We are total sluts. 548 00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:49,120 Geez. So nano tyrannis, if you're not 549 00:30:49,120 --> 00:30:52,480 familiar, is a controversial dinosaur. 550 00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:55,840 Some people think it's a juvenile tyrannosaur and not a 551 00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:58,120 new species, other people think it's a new species. 552 00:30:58,280 --> 00:31:02,640 I don't care, but this particular paper said. 553 00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:06,840 Right answer. They, they took cast of these 554 00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:09,800 different dinosaurs brains. I think they did CT scanning. 555 00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:12,680 So they had to do all of this like complicated stuff because 556 00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:17,080 remember, the endo cast of a dinosaur is its brain plus 557 00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:20,840 whatever mystery goo is outside of that. 558 00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:24,600 So they did some weird math where they compared endo cast 559 00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:28,920 versus actual brains of alligators use that mathematical 560 00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:32,520 relationship to scale the endocasts of these theropods. 561 00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:36,160 And so the the big Nanotyrannus disc was that they looked at 562 00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:40,200 Nanotyrannus and they found that it had too much brain compared 563 00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:44,800 to its body size, which means like alligators, they thought it 564 00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:48,920 was a baby. A juvenile a juvenile. 565 00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:51,920 Oh, I I see. I like that kind of comparison 566 00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:56,200 of like it has a larger ratio of brain to body size. 567 00:31:56,320 --> 00:31:58,720 Okay, okay, unique. I mean everyone's digging for 568 00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,360 every freaking angle they can get with the nano stuff. 569 00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:03,840 So here for it. Here for the new new 570 00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:07,920 perspective. And one chunk of the brain that 571 00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:12,000 seems to pop up a lot and be relatively visible regardless of 572 00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:17,240 how little your brain touches your skull is probably the one 573 00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:19,560 of the stupider words that I had to read. 574 00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:22,600 I have a note here that says that this entire paper reads 575 00:32:22,600 --> 00:32:24,880 like fucking Doctor Seuss poetry. 576 00:32:25,320 --> 00:32:28,880 Because. Here are some sentences. 577 00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:32,640 I highlighted the protrusion of the flocculus into the fossa, 578 00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:35,120 the volume of the nodulus and uvula. 579 00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:40,000 Just Oh my God. Yeah, so the flocculus is one 580 00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:41,200 part of the brain. Tell me. 581 00:32:41,440 --> 00:32:45,080 About this flocculus. Yes, the the flocculus, which is 582 00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:48,160 a word that, if I'm not directly staring at it, removes itself 583 00:32:48,160 --> 00:32:50,360 from my brain. I don't remember this word every 584 00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:52,160 time I've scrolled away from this page. 585 00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:54,640 Probably because. You don't have a flocculus. 586 00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,000 Flocculus is gone. So flocculus basically it 587 00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:00,480 operates the eyes, neck and head movements. 588 00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:05,240 So you being spatially aware of where your head is and what it's 589 00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:08,760 doing, pretty important function, although apparently 590 00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:12,800 not in sauropods. So the volume of the flocculus 591 00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:16,560 has been analyzed to see if like basically like how big is your 592 00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:20,080 flocculus relates to, you know, how good your eyes, neck and 593 00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:23,080 head movement is. Even though the term flocculus 594 00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:26,440 is fucking hilarious to me, I did find it a little confusing 595 00:33:26,440 --> 00:33:28,760 while reading today. And so for all of you who study 596 00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:30,440 the flocculus, please keep this in mind. 597 00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:34,800 There is a difference between the flocculus and the floccular 598 00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:37,400 fossa. So the flocculus is the stupid 599 00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,480 part of the brain that deals with where the fuck your your 600 00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:41,280 head is. Yeah. 601 00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:46,920 And then the floccular fossa is the divot inside of the skull. 602 00:33:47,160 --> 00:33:50,280 So the floccular fossa is the only thing you're measuring if 603 00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:53,440 you're measuring an endo cast, and that is not the full 604 00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:55,600 flocculus. So even though there are some 605 00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:59,280 papers looking at flocculus size saying like, OK, well if you 606 00:33:59,280 --> 00:34:02,520 have a big one, it probably means you're like a carnivore 607 00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:05,600 because you need better understanding of where your head 608 00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:06,600 is. Whereas if you were an 609 00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:09,600 herbivore, you can just smack your head into leaves, I guess. 610 00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:13,840 But the floccular fossa that you're measuring in a dinosaur 611 00:34:13,840 --> 00:34:16,960 skull is not the same as the actual flocculus. 612 00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:20,360 In particular, we know with birds at least, their flocculus 613 00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:22,800 is actually made-up of two different parts, and one part is 614 00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:27,800 on the inside of the brain. So like, you can't 100% cross 615 00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:30,679 correlate these two things. That makes sense, yeah. 616 00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:34,000 But I guess you work with what you've got too. 617 00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:35,440 You know, I can't. I can't. 618 00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:38,639 It can be hard to to clock it when it's like, yeah, no, it's 619 00:34:38,639 --> 00:34:40,639 not perfect. And like, if, you know, you're 620 00:34:40,639 --> 00:34:43,840 working with what scant material we have, and then I have to just 621 00:34:43,840 --> 00:34:45,719 take it back to what you're talking about. 622 00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:49,320 You're like 157 Orient brains rolling around. 623 00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:52,120 All over the place. And the individual variation 624 00:34:52,120 --> 00:34:54,760 playing enough of a role that it's hard to even make a direct 625 00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:56,159 fit. And so then when we're talking 626 00:34:56,159 --> 00:34:59,920 about like literally maybe one or two Nanotyrana skulls out 627 00:34:59,920 --> 00:35:03,400 there and trying to make all these larger, you know, 628 00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:06,520 interpretations of it, I just have to like, I feel like that's 629 00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:09,240 always my thing with dinosaur people as I'm like time the fuck 630 00:35:09,240 --> 00:35:11,560 out. Your sample size is one like you 631 00:35:11,560 --> 00:35:14,120 cannot account for variation in that. 632 00:35:14,360 --> 00:35:16,640 Please give me a bigger sample size. 633 00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:18,920 And I know that sometimes, again, it's not possible. 634 00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:22,240 And then maybe just hedge on, let's not create an entire new 635 00:35:22,240 --> 00:35:25,760 genus and tell like we have a little bit more evidence. 636 00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:29,680 But you know what was me? Don't listen to the idiot mammal 637 00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:31,520 paleontologist up in here. So. 638 00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:36,160 Yeah. So the flocculus is a is a 639 00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:40,440 little bit weird apparently also the parts of our brain that 640 00:35:40,440 --> 00:35:44,040 control like I guess our flocculus that control like our 641 00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:48,160 ability to keep smooth pursuits of tracking a moving object in a 642 00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:51,400 field of view. If you get a brain lesion on 643 00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:54,800 those parts, your brain can compensate because we have brain 644 00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:58,400 plasticity. So even though these regions are 645 00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:02,560 like broadly corresponding to these sections, it's not 100% 646 00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:07,040 guarantee that the animal hasn't adapted a different kind of 647 00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:09,960 method for dealing with that stuff, which is. 648 00:36:09,960 --> 00:36:12,600 Interesting. Yeah. 649 00:36:13,160 --> 00:36:15,920 Oh, and I've seen, you know, I've seen a lot of actual full 650 00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:19,360 blown models of dinosaur endocasts and things like that, 651 00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:22,160 which when you look at like a mammalian one, they do look 652 00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:23,800 pretty brainy. They look like brains. 653 00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,200 When you see one of a dinosaur, it just looks like, I don't 654 00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:29,600 know, an Ant hill, like the internal structure of an 655 00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:31,200 anthill. I don't know, it's just like. 656 00:36:31,520 --> 00:36:33,320 It. Looks like a weird root system 657 00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:36,040 or something like a carrot gone horribly wrong. 658 00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:38,280 I don't know, but they don't look like brains. 659 00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:41,360 They just look like essentially cranial nerves that have never 660 00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:45,120 actually turned into brain. They're just like nerve brains. 661 00:36:45,120 --> 00:36:47,960 I don't know. We're just like kind of smooth 662 00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:51,080 lumps because they're not pushing up against the skull 663 00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:52,280 like it's a really good. Yeah. 664 00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:53,440 So that's. A really good point. 665 00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:56,120 When we yeah, so when we talk about these brain structures, 666 00:36:56,120 --> 00:37:00,200 these brain structures can change one of the and this is 667 00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:03,200 the other stupid, stupid word, the wolst. 668 00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:05,560 I even looked it up on YouTube because I was like, how do 669 00:37:05,560 --> 00:37:08,120 people pronounce this? YouTube doesn't have a 670 00:37:08,120 --> 00:37:10,800 pronunciation option. I've never found a word on 671 00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:13,080 YouTube that doesn't have a pronunciation option. 672 00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:18,320 But the wolst is a portion of a bird brain and it's, it's 673 00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:22,120 supposed to maybe like be connected to like your, your 674 00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:25,240 locomotion ability. And so they've studied it in 675 00:37:25,240 --> 00:37:29,840 things like Penguins because Penguins have really big wolsts. 676 00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:34,120 So whatever the wolst is doing for them, it should in theory. 677 00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:37,880 And they've also found that like other aquatic animals often have 678 00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:42,920 very big wolsts, but they show up after Penguins go into the 679 00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:45,640 water. So like very very ancient 680 00:37:45,640 --> 00:37:52,760 Penguins don't have wolst so and it shows up like 25,000,000 681 00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:55,080 years later is when they get a wolst. 682 00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:59,760 So like, even though these structures might seem odd in 683 00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:02,720 something like a Penguin, they often are showing up at 684 00:38:02,720 --> 00:38:06,680 different times and that might be related to brain plasticity. 685 00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:10,280 But they're like making it work. I honestly think it's evolution 686 00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:14,280 being like, I know that you're humiliated and your inability to 687 00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:21,320 fly, so here's a wolst consolation prize. 688 00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,280 Don't know what it does, but here you go. 689 00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:27,720 Yeah, that's dinosaur brains. Dinosaur brains are smooth 690 00:38:27,720 --> 00:38:30,040 brained. They float around somehow in 691 00:38:30,040 --> 00:38:31,800 their skulls. Sometimes they bump up against 692 00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:33,280 the surface, sometimes they don't. 693 00:38:33,960 --> 00:38:37,720 Babies have bigger brains. Nano Tyrannous had a big brain. 694 00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:41,960 That's dinosaur brains. So I'll get there. 695 00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:45,560 I love this idea that like, you know, it's like this kind of 696 00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:47,720 insult, right? Is to be like, oh, you've got 697 00:38:47,720 --> 00:38:50,240 nothing in your noggin. Like you can hear like a marble 698 00:38:50,240 --> 00:38:52,440 rolling around. And to know that now that is 699 00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:56,280 like actually supported with concrete evidence about 700 00:38:56,280 --> 00:39:00,160 dinosaurs. It just continues to feed my 701 00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:03,680 superiority over the most. Whatever. 702 00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:06,000 I appreciate them, but they're totally overrated. 703 00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:10,280 So ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Motherfuckers. 704 00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:14,520 You know, I was actually thinking a nice and could be you 705 00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:17,800 were just talking about this behavior and understanding like 706 00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:21,640 things of just like eyesight and actually the semicircular canals 707 00:39:21,640 --> 00:39:25,360 and cochlear like the features of the inner ear. 708 00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:28,240 I'm going to chat about that for maybe our finale. 709 00:39:28,240 --> 00:39:32,360 And so in your inner ear, you've got some funky shit. 710 00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:36,240 I know because my son just had his first ear infection. 711 00:39:36,240 --> 00:39:39,160 And so we got to look at that poster in the pediatrician's 712 00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:41,920 office of the inner ear and what it looks like when it's like 713 00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:46,880 pussy and infected, which is what Tracy's ear was looking 714 00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:48,840 like. It was literally like oozing out 715 00:39:48,840 --> 00:39:50,800 of, it was gross. It was very gross. 716 00:39:51,120 --> 00:39:54,520 However, like I've done some CT work at UT Austin. 717 00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:57,400 I did a bunch of brain endocast, but I also did some ears. 718 00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:00,280 And you've got these semicircular canals which are 719 00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:05,280 like a series of about like 3 loops that are a big part of how 720 00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:10,840 we help with things like balance and that are literally keeping 721 00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:14,200 that sense of balance. So there have been research into 722 00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:18,960 especially like mammals. And primates is that there seems 723 00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:23,320 to be a selection for having this large. 724 00:40:23,760 --> 00:40:25,760 There seems to be quite. A large canals. 725 00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:28,680 Huh. Yeah, larger canals. 726 00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:32,280 I think I I came across some similar stuff with pterosaurs in 727 00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:34,880 particular. Is this preponderance towards 728 00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:37,880 bigger bigger canals? Were you finding variation? 729 00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:39,240 Was that there? Seems to. 730 00:40:39,240 --> 00:40:42,840 Also be like variation that has to do with literally the 731 00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:47,240 curvature of Mammalias and that seems to be that organisms that 732 00:40:47,240 --> 00:40:52,960 have large eyes and acute vision have oh God, is it bigger or 733 00:40:52,960 --> 00:40:54,680 smaller? That's what I don't have a link 734 00:40:54,680 --> 00:40:56,640 for right here, but essentially right. 735 00:40:56,640 --> 00:41:00,640 Being able to interpret an aspect of eye size, which then 736 00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:04,960 can also go into like hunting and just overall placement in 737 00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:07,440 your ecosystem. What can be learned from 738 00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:10,560 literally looking at that? And what's also cool is that 739 00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:15,680 this paper found that having small semicircular canals tends 740 00:41:15,680 --> 00:41:19,240 to be a thing that we find in fossorial mammals and 741 00:41:19,240 --> 00:41:22,320 plesiodapiforms, which are things that Burrow. 742 00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:25,440 So there seems to be the selection for getting those a 743 00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:27,560 little bit smaller for whatever reason. 744 00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:30,400 Is it a balanced thing? Is it an A reliance on other 745 00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:33,800 senses and a less reliance on those senses? 746 00:41:33,960 --> 00:41:39,440 But we can interpret some aspects of locomotion senses. 747 00:41:39,560 --> 00:41:42,800 Again, these are forms of behavior by looking at the inner 748 00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:44,800 ear. And then also the cochlear is 749 00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:46,520 the part that looks like a little snail. 750 00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:50,360 It's like curvy and windy and it all has to do a lot with 751 00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:52,520 hearing. So again, we can look at the 752 00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:57,560 size of that spiral shaped inner ear and get a vibe for at least 753 00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:00,120 you know, again, this is not one, one to one. 754 00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:03,520 But you are going to have a better idea about that adaptive 755 00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:08,520 ability by looking at the size and like how tight the circles 756 00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:11,760 of the the snail shell is, which you don't actually have a snail 757 00:42:11,760 --> 00:42:15,000 shell in your ear, but it looks exactly it looks exactly like 758 00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:17,320 that. OK, yeah, let me just treat this 759 00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:21,200 abstract as the semicircular canals of the inner ear detect 760 00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:26,200 head rotations and have to have compensory movement to stabilize 761 00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:30,240 the gaze and help maintain visual fixation. 762 00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:33,680 So it's very interesting that eyes are having something to do 763 00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:35,960 with your ears that you would think like, no, those are 764 00:42:35,960 --> 00:42:37,880 separate senses, but they cannot, well, they're all 765 00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:40,040 friggin related. They're all in your own head. 766 00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:43,240 So it's just really cool to think that it's, it's not just 767 00:42:43,240 --> 00:42:45,680 brains that endo cast can be really useful for. 768 00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:50,400 It's also these other hollow places in your body. 769 00:42:50,840 --> 00:42:56,120 If it's hollow, we can endo cast it, which is which is exciting 770 00:42:56,120 --> 00:42:57,560 to think about. So yeah, I've had some 771 00:42:57,560 --> 00:43:00,360 experience with all of my experiences have been with the 772 00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:02,120 with the some parts of the skull. 773 00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:05,480 So I'd be curious to know about, I don't know if you like, is 774 00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:08,920 there soft tissue of like, I was like Googling like intestines, 775 00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:12,400 like do we have like endo cast of intestines and things like 776 00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:14,520 that? And I'm also realizing that we 777 00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:18,040 were just talking to Doctor Ohenia Gold last week, and she 778 00:43:18,040 --> 00:43:21,680 works on bird brains, so maybe we'll have to do a bonus thing 779 00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:24,800 and chat with her or something like that too to find out more. 780 00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:28,960 Well, at least have to ask her what the hell is inside of a 781 00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:31,480 dinosaur brain? If it's not brain, what is it? 782 00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:36,920 Float again, great question. Thank you for listening. 783 00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:39,880 If you liked the podcast, be sure to rate and review us on 784 00:43:39,880 --> 00:43:41,640 your listening platform of choice. 785 00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:44,000 We really appreciate it. If you'd like to hear more and 786 00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:47,040 support the show, follow us on Patreon for some exclusive bits 787 00:43:47,040 --> 00:43:48,920 or on our various social media platforms. 788 00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:52,240 You can follow Amy on Instagram at Mary Emming's Revenge. 789 00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:56,040 And Megan on Instagram and TikTok at Geo Pedal Fabric or 790 00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:59,720 both of us at Weird and Dead on Instagram and TikTok. 791 00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:02,880 This podcast is part of the Geology Podcasting Network. 792 00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:05,680 Produced by the traveling geologist Chris Spencer. 793 00:44:05,920 --> 00:44:08,600 Cover art provided by Chris Spencer and the host. 794 00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:12,160 Our theme song is Unblock Me by Prasminal editing services 795 00:44:12,160 --> 00:44:15,040 provided by the amazing. Pretty Bradley, hosted by and 796 00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:17,920 researched by us, Amy Atwater and Megan Weatherall. 797 00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:24,640 Thanks for listening. We'll tell you all about an 798 00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:28,520 insane brain bonanza in West, TX and stumble through medical 799 00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:32,320 terms for tissues that don't usually flossulize. 800 00:44:32,520 --> 00:44:38,880 God damn it. That was perfect.