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Speaker 1: I want you to close your eyes for a second,

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just for a moment, picture a boxing match. Okay, but

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I want you to erase the image of a ring

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in Vegas. Forget the lights, the announcer, of the gloves,

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all of it right. Instead, I want you to transport

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yourself into the middle of a steaming, dense, equatorial jungle.

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The mud is thick, the air is just buzzing with insects.

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Speaker 2: I can feel the humidity.

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Speaker 1: And the contenders they aren't men. They're pigs. Pigs, wild

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naked pigs, standing upright on their hind legs, balancing and

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throwing jabs and hooks at each other like they're heavyweight champions.

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Speaker 2: That is a completely absurd image. It sounds like something

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from a cartoon, really it does.

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Speaker 1: But then if you look up, I mean way up,

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maybe fifty or sixty feet into the canopy, it gets

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even weirder.

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Speaker 2: How could it get weirder than boxing pig.

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Speaker 1: There's a kangaroo up there, a kangaroo, an animal that

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evolution designs specifically to hop across the flat, red, baking

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deserts of Australia. But here in this jungle, it's just

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swaying on a thin brand and looking down trying its

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absolute hardest.

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Speaker 2: To be a monkey, and just to cap off this

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fever dream as you put it, look at the ground.

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Speaker 1: Oh, this is the best part.

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Speaker 2: There's a bird there, and this bird has decided that

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the whole concept of parenting is just, you know, too

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much work.

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Speaker 1: It's opted out completely.

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Speaker 2: It doesn't build a nest, it doesn't sit on its eggs. Instead,

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it finds an active volcano, digs a hole in the

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side of it, buries its egg in the hot ash,

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and just walks away.

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Speaker 1: Let's the magma do the babysitting.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like we're world building for a fantasy novel,

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or maybe describing an alien biosphere in a sci fi

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movie exactly, but we aren't.

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Speaker 1: This is Earth specifically. It's a very specific, very chaotic

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slice of Earth where nature seems to have thrown the

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rule book into a shredder.

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Speaker 2: And that's what we're getting into today.

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Thrilling Threads. I'm your host, and I

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am honestly buzzing to get into this stack of research.

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We're looking at a collection of articles, research notes, and

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a few transcripts from a documentary titled World's Strangest islands,

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and we are zooming in on that jagged puzzle piece

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mess of islands sandwich right between Southeast Asia and Australia.

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And we're talking New Guinea, Borneo, Java, Silawac, and it is.

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Speaker 2: Good to be here. You are right to be excited.

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This region is and I'd argue this, it's arguably the

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biological richest and certainly the most biologically confused place on

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the entire planet.

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Speaker 1: Biologically confused. I love that.

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Speaker 2: But what makes the material we have today so compelling

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is that we aren't just going to list the freaks,

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you know, We're not just going to say look at

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the weird pig. We're going to dig into the y.

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Speaker 1: That's the key, right. The source material frames this whole

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discussion around a central idea. It argues that this biological

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chaos isn't random at all. Next the result of three specific,

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really fundamental forces.

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Speaker 2: Exactly, It identifies three threads, if you will, that weave

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this whole tapestry. First you have the Earth that means

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the violent geology, the fire, the tectonic. Then you have

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the Moon, which is all about the gravitational pull that

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rolls the tides and the coasts. And finally, you have

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the Sun, the relentless solar engine of the equator.

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Speaker 1: So our mission for this episode of Thrilling Threads is

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to trace those three forces. We want to understand how

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a tectonic collision leads to a kangaroo and a tree,

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and how the moon leads to a fish that understands ballistics.

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Speaker 2: It's a journey into the extreme. Look. Evolution is essentially

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a problem solving exercise. And when the Earth, Moon and

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Sun throw these really extreme problems at life, well life

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comes up with some pretty extreme solutions.

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Speaker 1: Let's start with the big one. Then the heavyweight champion

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of forces, Let's start with the Earth the fire.

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Speaker 2: To understand this region, you absolutely have to understand that

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it was born in violence. This is a geological battleground.

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If we rewind the clock about say twenty five million years,

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the map looked completely different. You had the Australian continental

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plate and it was just drifting north.

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Speaker 1: Australia was on a road trip, a very.

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Speaker 2: Very slow road trip. It was carrying a very specific cargo.

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Speaker 1: Of passengers, marsupials.

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Speaker 2: Marsupials animals adapted to the dry flat Australian bush. But

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then the road trip ended in a crash. The Australian

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plate slammed right into the Asian plate.

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Speaker 1: The source material calls this a slow motion car crash.

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Speaker 2: That's the perfect analogy. And like any car crash, the metal,

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or in this case of the land, it just buckled.

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This collision didn't just merge the land, It thrusted upwards violently.

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Speaker 1: And this is how New Guinea was created exactly. And

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I think people really underestimate New Guinea. We think tropical island,

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we think beaches and palm tree.

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Speaker 2: Right, but New Guinea is the tallest island on Earth.

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Because of that tectonic smashup, you have peaks rising nearly

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five thousand meters.

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Speaker 1: That's over sixteen thousand feet.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there are glaciers on the equator because of this.

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So you have this massive vertical wall of rock appearing

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out of seemingly nowhere.

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Speaker 1: And this brings us to the first huge problem for

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the animals. Yeah, these Australian passengers, the kangaro who, the wallabies,

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who are used to hopping on flat ground, right and

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suddenly they are shoved into a vertical, dense, humid Asian

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style rainforest.

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Speaker 2: I mean, just imagine the confusion you are built for

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speed on the planes. You have giant feet, massive tendons

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for that bouncy energy return, or rigid tail for balance,

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and suddenly the floor is gone and all the food

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is fifty feet up in a tree.

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Speaker 1: It's adapter Die.

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Speaker 2: Precisely, and this is where we get the tree kangaroo.

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I love the description in the notes because it doesn't

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try to make them sound majestic or graceful. It describes

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them as works in progress.

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Speaker 1: They're clumsy, that's what it says. They're just clumsy.

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Speaker 2: They are. I mean, if you watch a monkey move

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through trees, it flows, it's like water, just seamless. A

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tree kangaroo is, well, it's hesitant.

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Speaker 1: So how have they adapted? They must have done something.

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Speaker 2: Oh for sure, their forelimbs are shorter and much stronger

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for gripping. Their claws are curved now to hook onto bark.

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But they still have those giant, almost comical hopping feet.

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Speaker 1: So they can't run along a branch like a squirrel

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or a monkey.

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Speaker 2: No, no, they have to hop on a branch. It's

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incredibly precarious. The source material mentions that they fall all

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the time. Really, Oh yeah, they take tumbles that would

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break a human's neck, but they're just built tough. They land,

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shake it off and climb back up.

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Speaker 1: It really highlights that evolution isn't always about perfection, is it.

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It's just about being good enough to survive.

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Speaker 2: That's a great point. The tree kangaroo is not the

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perfect tree climber, not by a long shot, but it's

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the only large mammal in New Guinea that could fill

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that niche. There were no monkeys there, so.

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Speaker 1: The kangaroo just looked up, saw all those leaves and said, well,

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I guess I'll give it a shot. Pretty much now.

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While the mammals were struggling to learn how to climb,

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the birds were having an absolute field day. The collision

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created these massive mountain ranges which acted like walls isolation.

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Speaker 2: That is the engine of speciation right there. The mountains

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cut populations off from one another completely, so.

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Speaker 1: A bird in one valley might never meete a bird

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in the next valley, even if it's just five miles.

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Speaker 2: Away exactly, and over millions of years they just drift

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apart genetically they become different species.

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Speaker 1: And New Guinea's famous for this. It's known as the

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Island of birds, specifically the birds of Paradise.

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Speaker 2: The birds of Paradise. We have thirty nine distinct species

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there and they all descended from one single crow like

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ancestor that came over from Australia. That's incredible, and the

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variety is staggering. You have birds with long wires coming

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out of their heads, birds with iridescent breasts, shields that

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change color in the light.

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Speaker 1: The ones that can shape shift into a black oval

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with a blue smiley face on it.

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Speaker 2: That's the one. It's unbelievable.

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Speaker 1: But why, I mean, why do they become so fancy?

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The notes mentioned something called the abundance factor.

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Speaker 2: This is crucial to understanding them. In most of the world,

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life is hard. If you're a bird in say Europe

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or North America, you spend almost all your waking hours

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just looking for food.

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Speaker 1: Right, it's a calorie deficit game.

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Speaker 2: And if you have babies, the male has to help.

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If he doesn't bring worms back to the nest, the

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chicks die, simple as that.

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Speaker 1: So he doesn't have time to practice a dance routine exactly.

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Speaker 2: He's a working dad. He's got bills to pay. But

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in New Guinea, because of the tropical climate and the

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rich volcanic soils. Fruit is everywhere. It's a two hundred

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and forty seven buffet.

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Speaker 1: So a female bird of paradise can feed herself in

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her chicks easily. She doesn't need the male's help.

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Speaker 2: Which means the males are well. They're biologically unemployed.

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Speaker 1: They have no dad duties none.

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Speaker 2: They have unlimited calories and unlimited free time. So where

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does all that excess energy go?

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Speaker 1: In?

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Speaker 2: Competition goes into competition, into sexual selection. The females hold

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all the cards.

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Speaker 1: They become the ultimate gatekeepers of the gene.

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Speaker 2: Pool totally because they don't need a provider. They can

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select purely for esthetics. They become incredibly picky. The notes

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say they inspect the males for minutes, even hours. If

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a single feather is out of place, if the dance

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move is slightly offbeats rejected instantly. It's the most brutal

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talent show on Earth.

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Speaker 1: And over millions of years, this female choice has driven

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the males to these incredible extremes.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, they have evolved plumage that actually makes it harder

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for them to fly. They've evolved dances that take them

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years to practice and perfect. It's an evolutionary arms race

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of beauty, and it's all fueled by the fact that

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they just don't have to worry about starving.

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Speaker 1: That's a fascinating idea. The luxury of the environment allows

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for the luxury of art.

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Speaker 2: That's a beautiful way to put it. It really is.

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Speaker 1: But the Earth force isn't always so generous, is it.

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We've talked about the collision, but we also have to

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talk about the fire the volcanoes.

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Speaker 2: Right the ring of fire runs right through this region.

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And while mountains isolate, volcanoes, well, they incinerate, but life

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finds a way. And this brings us to the volo,

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the volcano bird.

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Speaker 1: This was the part of the research that I kept

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rereading because I genuinely couldn't believe it was real. Bird

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uses the volcano as a tool.

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Speaker 2: It's a story of outsourcing. Incubation is expensive. Sitting on

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an egg requires body heat, which requires calories. It makes

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you vulnerable to predators.

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Speaker 1: So the Malayo just decided to opt out of that

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whole system. It did.

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Speaker 2: They live on sulues, which is highly volcanic. They come

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down from the hills to these specific nesting drounds. But

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the ground isn't just dirk.

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Speaker 1: It's volcanic ash or.

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Speaker 2: Sand near thermal fence. It is heated from below by

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the magma of the earth.

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Speaker 1: But heat is tricky, right. You can't just bury an

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egg anywhere too hot, it cooks, too cold, it dies.

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There has to be a sweet spot.

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Speaker 2: That is the genius of the malayo. The female has

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a specialized sensory organ, not in her feet.

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Speaker 1: But in her throat, in her throat.

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Speaker 2: In her throat, she digs a massive pit, sometimes a

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meter deep. Then she leans her head in and tests

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the temperature with her tongue and throat. It can sense

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changes of half a degree celsius.

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Speaker 1: She's checking the thermostat for the planet.

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Speaker 2: She is looking for a very specific window thirty three

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degrees celsius two, not thirty four, exactly thirty three. She

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might dig five or six different test holes before she

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finds the perfect spot.

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Speaker 1: And once she finds it.

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Speaker 2: She lays the egg. Her mate helps her cover it

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up with sand, and then they leave. They go back

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to the forest.

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Speaker 1: They never see the egg again. Never that feels cold.

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No pun intended.

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Speaker 2: It's incredibly efficient. But think about the consequence for the baby.

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That egg incubates for about sixty to eighty days. That's

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a long time.

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Speaker 1: So when the chick hatches, it's completely alone.

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Speaker 2: It's alone, it's in the pitch dark, and it's buried

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under a meter of heavy wet sand.

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Speaker 1: It wakes up in a coffin.

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Speaker 2: Effectively, yes, and it has to dig its way out.

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This is its first experience of existence, clawing through the

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earth for up to forty eight hours just to reach

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the surface.

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Speaker 1: That's insane. And when it finally pops out.

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Speaker 2: It is fully formed because of that long incubation. It

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has feathers, it has strength, It can run immediately, it

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can fly within hours of emerging.

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Speaker 1: That is the ultimate sink or swim parenting style. It's

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just welcome to the world, kid, dig yourself out, good luck.

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Speaker 2: It sounds harsh to us mammals, who you know, we

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cuddle our young, but from an evolutionary standpoint, it's brilliant.

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The mother saves huge amounts of energy, which allows her

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to lay larger, more nutrient rich eggs.

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Speaker 1: But the trade off is that the chick has to

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be a super soldier from minute one.

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Speaker 2: From day one, it's on its own.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So that's the collision zone and the volcanic belt

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of the east. But I want to shift our gaze

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west now to the islands of Borneo, Sumatra and Java.

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The notes make a really important distinction here. These islands

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have a different origin story.

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Speaker 2: Yes, this is really crucial for the listener to visualize.

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New Guinea is for all intents and purposes Australian. But

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the western ailes Borneo, Sumatra, Java, they sit on what's

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called the Sunda Shelf.

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Speaker 1: They're part of the Asian Continental Tlake exactly.

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Speaker 2: And this matters because of the ice ages. When the

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world freezes, sea level drop a lot. The water gets

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locked up in the ice caps. So the shallow seas

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that are now between these islands and main land Asia

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just disappeared. It became a giant land bridge. So it

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was a highway, a super highway. Animals could literally walk

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from what is now Thailand or Vietnam straight into Borneo.

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This is why you find elephants and tigers and leopards

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on these islands. They aren't island animals, They're continental refugees.

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Speaker 1: And this leads to a perfect counterpoint to our clumsy

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tree kangaroo. In the west, the trees are ruled by

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the given.

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Speaker 2: The given is the master class If the tree kangaroo

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is an amateur fumbling around, the given is an olympian

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at the top of its game. These animals have had

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millions of years in the Asian rainforests to perfect their anatomy.

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Speaker 1: The descriptions of their movement are incredible. They call it bruciation.

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Speaker 2: Swinging, but just look at the mechanics of it. Their

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fingers are elongated into permanent hooks. Their wrists have a

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ball and socket joint that allows a kind of rotation

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that you and I can't even dream of. They just

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act like pendulums and speed.

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Speaker 1: The notes said something like fifty kilometers an hour.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, fifty k an hour through dense trees. Imagine driving

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your car through a city at thirty miles per hour,

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but you are on on a road. You're grabbing lampposts

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to propel yourself forward, and.

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Speaker 1: If you miss one lamp post, you die.

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Speaker 2: The processing speed of their brain must be extraordinary. They're

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calculating distance, trajectory, and branch strength in milliseconds. It just

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shows a difference between an animal adapted to an environment

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over deep time versus one thrust into it.

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Speaker 1: Recently, speaking of animals that walked over from the mainland.

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We have to talk about the hairy rhino, the Sumatra

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and rhinoceros.

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Speaker 2: A tragic, beautiful and very confusing creature. There are what

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fewer than one hundred of them left in the wild,

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so few and physically they're an anomaly. They are covered

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in this coarse, reddish brown hair, which.

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Speaker 1: Again in the tropics, seems like a major design flaw.

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I mean, I sweat just thinking about wearing a wool

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sweater and a rainforest.

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Speaker 2: It's a relic, it's a throwback. They are the closest

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living relatives to the wooly rhino that roamed the frozen

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tundra during the last ice.

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Speaker 1: Age, so they kept the family coat.

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Speaker 2: They did, but to survive the heat, they had to

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basically hack their own biology with mud. With mud the wallow,

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we see pigs rolling in mud, but for the Sumatran rhino,

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the wallow is life support. They don't just find a puddle,

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They engineer it. They dig it out, maintain the pit,

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keep it clear of debris, and make sure it collects rainwater.

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Speaker 1: They're building their own personal spa.

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Speaker 2: They will soak in there for hours a day. The

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mud plasters the hair down to the skin, which traps

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moisture and cools them through evaporation. It also protects them

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from biting flies.

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Speaker 1: So it's an ice age adaptation that's been hacked for

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the tropics.

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Speaker 2: I love that phrasing. I'm wearing a winter coat, so

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I'm gonna live in a mud bath. It's a perfect summary.

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Speaker 1: Now, staying with the earth force in the West, we

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talked about volcanoes as nurseries, but here they're also destroyers

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on a massive scale.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The documentary highlights two specific sites. First, you have

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Kawa Eyegen on the island of Java, and this place

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is visually stunning, has blue flames.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, explain that. How does a volcano burn blue? I

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didn't even know that it was possible.

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Speaker 2: It's pure chemistry. The volcano sits on a massive deposit

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of sulfur. The crater itself is a lake of sulfuric acid.

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It's actually the largest acid lake in the world. Whoa

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high pressure sulfur gases bellow out of cracks in the

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rock at six hundred degrees celsius, and when that superheated

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gas hits the oxygen in the air, it ignites.

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Speaker 1: And sulfur burns blue.

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Speaker 2: A vivid electric blue at night, it looks like rivers

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of blue neon lava are flowing down the mountain. It's

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incredibly toxic, incredibly dangerous, and somehow incredibly beautiful.

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Speaker 1: And then there's the Big One Lake Toba on Simatra, Toba.

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Speaker 2: Today, it's this serene, massive lake you'd never guess, but

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it's actually the caldera of a supervolcano about seventy five

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thousand years ago. It didn't just erupt, it exploded.

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Speaker 1: This wasn't the local event. This was a global event.

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Speaker 2: It was the largest volcanic eruption in the last twenty

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five million years. It ejected so much ash and sulfo

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dioxide into the atmosphere that it blocked out the sun.

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Global temperatures plummeted, and.

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Speaker 1: There's a theory that it almost wiped out humanity.

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Speaker 2: Right the Toba catastrophe theory. It suggests that our species

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might have been reduced to just a few thousand reading pairs.

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We were pushed to the brink of extinction.

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Speaker 1: So we're all here today because our ancient ancestors managed

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to survive the Toba Winter. But the real twist in

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the research is what happened after the explosion.

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Speaker 2: Destruction leads to creation. That is the great paradox of

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this earth force. Volcanic ash is unbelievably rich in minerals, magnesium, potassium, calcium.

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It is the ultimate fertilizer.

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Speaker 1: So Coba killed everything, but in its wake it created

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a garden of Eden.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly it. The forests on Sumatra today are spectacularly

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productive because of that ancient ashfall, and this abundance has

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had a fascinating effect on the animals living there, specifically

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the orangutans.

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Speaker 1: This was the section about culture which blew my mind.

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Speaker 2: Yes, usually animals are opportunity. They eat whatever they can find.

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If there are figs available, everyone eats figs. But around

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Toba the biodiversity of plants is so high thousands of

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different fruit species, that the orangutans can afford to be picky.

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Speaker 1: The notes call it individual diets. Right.

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Speaker 2: One mother might decide she absolutely loves the seeds of

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the sat toor tree. She becomes an expert in finding them,

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cracking them open, processing them, and she teaches her baby

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how to do it.

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Speaker 1: But another family might ignore that trade completely.

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Speaker 2: Just a mile away, another mother might ignore the sat

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tour tree completely and focus all her energy on rambutan fruit.

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It's like human families. Some are pasta families, some are

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potato families.

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Speaker 1: That is exactly what it's like. It's cultural transmission of knowledge.

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Speaker 2: It is the baby learns a specific mental map of

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the forest from its mother. This level of dietary individuality

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is almost unique among great apes. And it's only possible

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because the ecosystem is so incredibly rich.

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Speaker 1: And the ecosystem is so rich because a super volcano

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blew up seventy five thousand years ago.

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Speaker 2: Connecting those dots is just it's amazing. A global catastrophe

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creates a gourmet culture for apes.

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Speaker 1: I love that, but not everywhere in this region is

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so lucky. We have to talk about Borneo.

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Speaker 2: Borneo is the counter example. Borneo is ancient rock. It

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hasn't had active volcanoes for millions of years. It hasn't

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had that fresh dusting of mineral rich.

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Speaker 1: Ash, so the soil is old.

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Speaker 2: It's exhausted. The heavy tropical rains day after day for

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millions of years, have just washed all the nutrients away.

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The source material calls it a wet desert.

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Speaker 1: The forest looks lush and green, but the soil is

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basically bankrupt exactly.

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Speaker 2: So if you're a plant and you can't get your

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food from the ground, what do you do?

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Speaker 1: You turn into a predator, you do.

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Speaker 2: This is why Borneo is the world capital of carnivorous plants.

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The picture plants.

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Speaker 1: We've all seen the cartoons, the classic plant that eats bugs.

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Speaker 2: They're marvels of engineering. The leaf curls into a cup

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or a pitcher, and it fills with digestive fluid. The

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rim is slippery. Insects come for the nectar. They fall in,

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drown and are slowly dissolved, and.

427
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Speaker 1: The plant gets its nitrogen from the bug's body bypassing

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the poor soil entirely.

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Speaker 2: It's a brilliant workaround.

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Speaker 1: But there is one story in here that just stands

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out above all the others. The hems Leanna pitcher plant.

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This is my favorite thrilling thread in the whole stack

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of notes.

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Speaker 2: Ah, the bat toilet.

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Speaker 1: I still can't see it with a straight face. Please

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00:20:23,119 --> 00:20:24,119
explain the bad toilet.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So, nepenthe Umsliana is a large pitcher plant. But

438
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scientists noticed it wasn't catching very many insects. It seemed

439
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like a pretty bad predator.

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Speaker 1: It was failing at its one job.

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Speaker 2: It was then they looked at the shape of the

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back wall of the pitcher and they realized it's a

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perfect parabolic.

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Speaker 1: Dish like a satellite dish.

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Speaker 2: Exactly like a satellite dish, but it's not for TV.

446
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It's shaped to reflect ultrasound sonar. Yes, there's a specific

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tiny bat, the Hardworks wooly bat that flies through these forests.

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It uses sonar to navigate. When it pings this particular plant,

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the plant reflects. It's a very distinct acoustic signature.

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Speaker 1: So it lights up on the bat's radar.

451
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Speaker 2: It's an acoustic beacon. It's basically shouting vacancy here. So

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the bat flies in and it roosts inside the picture.

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The plant is tapered perfectly, so the bat gets stuck

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just above the digestive fluid. For the bat, it's a safe, cool,

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parasite free sleeping bag.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so the bat gets a five star hotel room.

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What does the plant get in return?

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Speaker 2: The rent is paid in guano.

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Speaker 1: The bat poops in the plant.

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Speaker 2: It does and backuano is incredibly rich in nitrogen. Its

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premium fertilizer delivered directly to the plant.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

463
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Speaker 2: Research shows These plants get almost one hundred percent of

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their nitrogen from these bats.

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Speaker 1: That is symbiosis at its absolute finest. All provide the bed,

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you provide the fertilizer.

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Speaker 2: It really connects back to the theme. The problem was

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poor soil. The solution wasn't to grow deeper roots. The

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00:21:50,920 --> 00:21:54,559
solution was evolve the sonar dish to attract a flying

470
00:21:54,599 --> 00:21:56,359
mammal to use you as a bathroom.

471
00:21:56,480 --> 00:21:59,079
Speaker 1: Evolution has no dignity, only results.

472
00:21:59,160 --> 00:22:00,559
Speaker 2: That is the perfect to put it.

473
00:22:00,839 --> 00:22:03,279
Speaker 1: Okay, let's move on before we get to the moon,

474
00:22:03,480 --> 00:22:05,839
our second big force, we need to bridge a gap.

475
00:22:06,720 --> 00:22:09,119
We've talked about islands that crash together in islands that

476
00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:11,720
were connected by land bridges, but what about the islands

477
00:22:11,720 --> 00:22:14,000
that just popped up out of the sea. How does

478
00:22:14,039 --> 00:22:15,759
life get to a sterile rock.

479
00:22:15,599 --> 00:22:18,480
Speaker 2: In the middle of the ocean colonization. This forces us

480
00:22:18,519 --> 00:22:20,680
to look at the air and the water differently. We

481
00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:23,079
think of the air as empty, but it's a highway.

482
00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:25,000
Speaker 1: The notes call it the aerial army.

483
00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:29,079
Speaker 2: You have the obvious things like seeds, spores, pollen, all

484
00:22:29,119 --> 00:22:34,559
blowing on the wind, but you also have baby spiders ballooning. Yes,

485
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:37,440
young spiders climb to the tip of a leaf. They

486
00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:39,720
stick their abdomens in the air and they release these

487
00:22:39,759 --> 00:22:42,759
long strands of silk. But they aren't just catching the

488
00:22:42,799 --> 00:22:45,359
wind like a kite. It's more complex than that.

489
00:22:45,559 --> 00:22:46,039
Speaker 1: What do you mean.

490
00:22:46,359 --> 00:22:49,960
Speaker 2: The silk actually picks up electrostatic charges from the Earth's

491
00:22:50,039 --> 00:22:51,279
natural electric field.

492
00:22:51,359 --> 00:22:53,240
Speaker 1: Wait, they're flying on electricity.

493
00:22:53,319 --> 00:22:55,599
Speaker 2: They are using the potential difference in the atmosphere to

494
00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:59,839
generate lyft. They can travel hundreds even thousands of kilometers

495
00:22:59,880 --> 00:23:03,759
across the open ocean at altitudes of thousands of meters.

496
00:23:03,799 --> 00:23:06,640
Speaker 1: So there are just millions of spiders raining down on

497
00:23:06,680 --> 00:23:07,799
these islands every day.

498
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:11,119
Speaker 2: That's nightmare fuel for some people, but it's amazing for biology.

499
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:13,599
And then after spiders come the.

500
00:23:13,559 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 1: Gardeners, the fruit bats.

501
00:23:15,319 --> 00:23:17,640
Speaker 2: The fruit bats, they can fly between islands. They eat

502
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:20,599
fruit on the mainland, fly to a barren volcanic rock

503
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:22,519
to roost, and while.

504
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:23,799
Speaker 1: Nature calls droppings.

505
00:23:23,799 --> 00:23:26,880
Speaker 2: Again, it's a theme, it's a recurring theme. They drop

506
00:23:26,960 --> 00:23:30,480
the seeds prepackaged in a little packet of fertilizer. They

507
00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:33,440
can turn a sterile rock into a fledgling forest in

508
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:34,680
just a few decades.

509
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:38,440
Speaker 1: Now, in this mix of islands, there is this weird

510
00:23:39,039 --> 00:23:40,160
in between zone.

511
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:43,319
Speaker 2: The notes called Walaysia, right, it's named after Alfred Russel Wallace,

512
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:46,559
the other father of evolution. Walaysia is the in between.

513
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:50,119
These are islands like Sulaweseed that were never connected to

514
00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:51,920
Asia and never connected to Australia.

515
00:23:52,039 --> 00:23:53,880
Speaker 1: They're surrounded by deep ocean trenches.

516
00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 2: You can't walk there. You have to swim or fly

517
00:23:57,039 --> 00:24:01,200
or drift on a raft of vegetation for months because it's.

518
00:24:01,119 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 1: So hard to get to. The mix of animals is

519
00:24:03,079 --> 00:24:07,079
just bizarre. It's a mashup, a total mashup. Let's talk

520
00:24:07,079 --> 00:24:10,920
about the Barbarusa, the pig gear. This animal looks like

521
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:12,480
a Glish in the simulation.

522
00:24:12,759 --> 00:24:15,079
Speaker 2: It really really does. It's a pig that has been

523
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:18,960
isolated on the island of Siluesi for maybe twenty million years.

524
00:24:19,359 --> 00:24:21,279
And when you leave a pig alone for that long,

525
00:24:21,799 --> 00:24:23,119
strange things start to happen.

526
00:24:23,319 --> 00:24:25,000
Speaker 1: The tusks. Let's start with the tusks.

527
00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:27,400
Speaker 2: In a normal wild boar, the tusks grow from the

528
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,200
lower jaw and curve up and out. In the barbarusa,

529
00:24:30,440 --> 00:24:33,960
the upper canine teeth grow upward, but they don't come.

530
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:35,839
Speaker 1: Out of the mouth, no, they pierce right through the

531
00:24:35,880 --> 00:24:37,759
flesh of the snout. They come out at the top

532
00:24:37,799 --> 00:24:40,000
of the nose and curve back towards the forehead.

533
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:42,359
Speaker 2: It looks painful, and if they grow too long, they

534
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:44,960
can actually grow back into the skull and kill the animal.

535
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:47,200
Speaker 1: So what are they for. They can't be for fighting,

536
00:24:47,279 --> 00:24:48,359
they're pointing the wrong way.

537
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:51,240
Speaker 2: They're not. They're actually quite brittle. If you hit them hard,

538
00:24:51,319 --> 00:24:54,799
they snap. They're purely for display for attracting mates.

539
00:24:55,119 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 1: But the males still need to fight for dominance.

540
00:24:57,519 --> 00:25:00,759
Speaker 2: They do, and this brings us back to your opening image.

541
00:25:01,240 --> 00:25:02,920
Speaker 1: The boxing boxing pigs.

542
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:05,839
Speaker 2: Because they can't slash at each other with their tusks

543
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:10,519
like normal pigs, they've evolved a completely new fighting style.

544
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:13,559
They stand up on their hind legs and they wrestle

545
00:25:13,640 --> 00:25:17,000
and shove with their front hoofs. They box, They box,

546
00:25:17,079 --> 00:25:19,480
they try to knock each other over. It's a completely

547
00:25:19,759 --> 00:25:24,119
unique behavior born out of this weird anatomical constraint.

548
00:25:24,240 --> 00:25:26,920
Speaker 1: It's amazing. And right next to this boxing pig you

549
00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:27,880
might see a bear.

550
00:25:27,839 --> 00:25:31,039
Speaker 2: Kuskis, which is a marsupial. It's a relative of the

551
00:25:31,119 --> 00:25:34,440
possum with a prehensile tail. So on one single island

552
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:37,920
you have an Asian derived pig and an Australian derived

553
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:40,640
marsupial hanging out in the same tree. It's the meeting

554
00:25:40,720 --> 00:25:42,720
point of two completely different worlds.

555
00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:46,519
Speaker 1: Okay, we've covered the Earth, the fire in the collisions.

556
00:25:47,079 --> 00:25:49,920
Now let's shift to the second great force, the moon,

557
00:25:50,240 --> 00:25:52,240
the force of gravity, the tides.

558
00:25:52,480 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 2: The source material takes us to the coast for this one, specifically,

559
00:25:55,559 --> 00:25:59,160
to the mangroves. This is a world that completely shape shifts.

560
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: It does. Twice a day the moon drags the ocean in,

561
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:05,599
flooding the entire forest, and twice a day it drags

562
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:08,680
it back out, leaving behind these endless miles of thick,

563
00:26:08,839 --> 00:26:09,640
sticky mud.

564
00:26:09,880 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 2: It sounds unpleasant.

565
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:14,319
Speaker 1: It's a brutal environment. It's salty, it's hot, and the

566
00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:17,559
mud is anoxic. It has no oxygen, so it smells

567
00:26:17,599 --> 00:26:21,200
like rotten eggs. And yet nature fills the vacuum. We

568
00:26:21,279 --> 00:26:23,799
find monkeys here. The pis monkey.

569
00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:27,559
Speaker 2: Another top contender for Nature's most unfortunate looking animal.

570
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:32,559
Speaker 1: The nose is undeniable. It's huge, bulbous, fleshy on the

571
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:34,519
old males that hangs down over the mouth.

572
00:26:34,599 --> 00:26:35,599
Speaker 2: What on earth is the point of it?

573
00:26:36,079 --> 00:26:40,519
Speaker 1: Sex? The females prefer males with bigger, droopier noses. It

574
00:26:40,599 --> 00:26:42,960
also acts as an echo chamber to amplify their loud,

575
00:26:43,039 --> 00:26:44,519
honking calls across the forest.

576
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:46,880
Speaker 2: Okay, but looking past the note, look at their bellies.

577
00:26:46,920 --> 00:26:49,279
They have these massive pot bellies. They look like they've

578
00:26:49,279 --> 00:26:52,160
had a few too many beers, but that belly is

579
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:55,759
a survival tool. Mangrove leaves are tough, they're waxy, and

580
00:26:55,839 --> 00:27:00,359
they're full of toxins. Most animals can't eat them as

581
00:27:00,400 --> 00:27:04,119
monkey can. It has a complex, multi chambered stomach, just

582
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:07,880
like a cow. It's a fermentation tank filled with bacteria

583
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:11,039
that break down the leaves. They're constantly full of gas

584
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:13,960
because they are literally digesting the undigestible.

585
00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:15,960
Speaker 1: But the notes say they have a sweet tooth threat.

586
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:16,200
They do.

587
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 2: Inland there are sea high biscus trees with these big

588
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:23,200
sweet flowers. But to get there they have to cross

589
00:27:23,279 --> 00:27:24,880
the open mudflats at low.

590
00:27:24,799 --> 00:27:26,920
Speaker 1: Tide, which is incredibly dangerous.

591
00:27:27,079 --> 00:27:30,839
Speaker 2: Extremely when the tide is out there completely exposed. There

592
00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:35,119
are clouded leopards, huge pythons, massive monitor lizards out there.

593
00:27:35,559 --> 00:27:37,599
But the monkeys take that risk every day for the

594
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:38,119
sugar hit.

595
00:27:38,240 --> 00:27:41,640
Speaker 1: It's a daily commute of terror just to get dessert. Basically,

596
00:27:42,319 --> 00:27:45,000
speaking of terear, let's look closer at that mud. The

597
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:48,079
real drama is happening on a microscale. We have fish

598
00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:50,559
living inside trees, the gobies.

599
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:55,759
Speaker 2: This is a story of extreme almost claustrophobic adaptation. On

600
00:27:55,839 --> 00:27:59,440
the mudflats you find these fallen logs. Shipworms and sea

601
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:03,319
snails bore tunnels into these logs, turning them into Swiss cheese.

602
00:28:03,759 --> 00:28:05,039
Speaker 1: So the log is a maze.

603
00:28:05,240 --> 00:28:07,839
Speaker 2: It's a labyrinth. When the tide goes out, the mud

604
00:28:07,920 --> 00:28:10,640
dries up and gets baked by the sun. Most fish

605
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:13,400
would die in minutes, but the gobi swims into the

606
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:17,839
tunnels inside the log. The wet wood holds moisture, but

607
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:21,279
it's pitch black in there. It is a dark, twisting labyrinth.

608
00:28:21,799 --> 00:28:24,640
The gobe has to navigate these tunnels to find tiny

609
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:27,440
pockets of trapped water. If it takes a wrong turn,

610
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:30,559
it hits a dead end and desiccates. And they aren't

611
00:28:30,559 --> 00:28:33,240
alone in there. There are predatory worms and even small

612
00:28:33,279 --> 00:28:35,039
octopuses living inside the log too.

613
00:28:35,319 --> 00:28:38,880
Speaker 1: It's like a dungeon coller video game level one. The

614
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:40,119
rotten log, it really is.

615
00:28:40,200 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 2: They have to hide in the dungeon until the tide

616
00:28:42,039 --> 00:28:43,200
returns and they can escape.

617
00:28:43,400 --> 00:28:45,519
Speaker 1: And just outside the log you have the fiddler crabs.

618
00:28:45,599 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 2: The fiddler crab is a study in asymmetry. The male

619
00:28:48,319 --> 00:28:51,599
has one tiny little claw for feeding and one absolutely

620
00:28:51,799 --> 00:28:53,720
massive claw that can weigh as much as the rest

621
00:28:53,759 --> 00:28:54,759
of his body combined.

622
00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:57,279
Speaker 1: It's like a human walking around with a tennis racket

623
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,400
made of solid lead permanently strapped to arm.

624
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:04,559
Speaker 2: That's a perfect analogy. It is a massive handicap. He

625
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:07,599
can't eat with the big claw, so he feeds at

626
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:10,839
half the speed of the female. He is constantly on

627
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:13,319
the verge of starvation because he has to drag this

628
00:29:13,519 --> 00:29:15,079
giant weapon around all day.

629
00:29:15,279 --> 00:29:16,359
Speaker 1: So why you do it? Why have it?

630
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:20,279
Speaker 2: To wave? He stands by his burrow and he waves

631
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:23,839
that giant claw in the air to attract females. It's

632
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:26,680
a signal, Look how big my claw is. Look how

633
00:29:26,759 --> 00:29:28,000
strong I must be to lift it.

634
00:29:28,039 --> 00:29:30,559
Speaker 1: It's the handicap principle. I am so fit, I can

635
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:32,640
survive despite this ridiculous burden.

636
00:29:32,839 --> 00:29:36,119
Speaker 2: Exactly. And if the waving doesn't impress another male, they fight.

637
00:29:36,599 --> 00:29:39,400
They lock those giant claws and just sumo rustle the

638
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:41,720
goal is to flip your opponent onto his back.

639
00:29:41,599 --> 00:29:44,039
Speaker 1: And then the baking sun. Getting flipped can be a

640
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:44,680
death sentence.

641
00:29:44,799 --> 00:29:47,119
Speaker 2: It can be fatal if you can't write yourself quickly.

642
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:50,680
Speaker 1: All this drama is driven by the moon. But when

643
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:54,079
the water comes back high tide breaks the hunters.

644
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 2: The archer fish. This is my absolute favorite example of

645
00:29:56,680 --> 00:29:58,440
physics in nature. It's just brilliant.

646
00:29:58,559 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: The sniper the archer.

647
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:03,079
Speaker 2: Fish hunts insects that are sitting on leaves above the water,

648
00:30:04,119 --> 00:30:05,160
and it shoots them down.

649
00:30:05,559 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: But it's not just spitting, is it. It's more sophisticated

650
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:08,400
than that.

651
00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:13,039
Speaker 2: No spitting implies a messy spray. This is a projectile weapon.

652
00:30:13,519 --> 00:30:15,960
They press their tongue against a groove in the roof

653
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:18,319
of their mouth to form a tube like the barrel

654
00:30:18,359 --> 00:30:21,519
of a gun. Then they compress their gill covers to

655
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:23,680
create a blast of pressure, and.

656
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: They fire a jet of water. But the physics are

657
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:27,880
the really hard part.

658
00:30:27,839 --> 00:30:32,160
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. First you have to account for refraction. Light

659
00:30:32,279 --> 00:30:35,240
bends when it passes from air to water. If you

660
00:30:35,319 --> 00:30:37,039
look at a straw and a glass of water, it.

661
00:30:37,079 --> 00:30:37,960
Speaker 1: Looks bent right.

662
00:30:38,359 --> 00:30:40,359
Speaker 2: The fish looks up at the bug, but the bug

663
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:43,000
isn't visually where it seems to be. The fish has

664
00:30:43,039 --> 00:30:45,480
to calculate the angle of refraction and aim for the

665
00:30:45,559 --> 00:30:47,960
real bug, not the ghost image of the bug.

666
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:50,480
Speaker 1: It's doing trigonometry in its head and ballistics.

667
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:53,119
Speaker 2: It has to account for gravity which will pull the

668
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:55,720
water stream down. It has to arc the shot perfectly.

669
00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:58,799
But the most mind blowing detail in the source material

670
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:01,599
is something they call hydrodynamic bunching.

671
00:31:02,279 --> 00:31:04,359
Speaker 1: Explain that that sounds like something out of Star Trek.

672
00:31:04,519 --> 00:31:06,559
Speaker 2: Okay. So if you just shoot a stream of water,

673
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:09,680
it naturally breaks up into mist. A mist isn't going

674
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:11,880
to knock a big an off a leaf. So the

675
00:31:12,039 --> 00:31:15,079
archer fish changes the velocity of the water during the spit.

676
00:31:15,759 --> 00:31:18,160
It shoots the tail end of the stream faster than

677
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:18,559
the head of.

678
00:31:18,559 --> 00:31:20,599
Speaker 1: The stream, so the back of the water jet catches

679
00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:21,519
up to the front.

680
00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:25,359
Speaker 2: Exactly the water collides with itself in midair to form

681
00:31:25,480 --> 00:31:30,000
a single solid bullet or slug of liquid right at

682
00:31:30,039 --> 00:31:33,839
the moment of impact. It maximizes the kinetic energy transfer

683
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:35,680
to punch the bug off the leaf.

684
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 1: That is weaponized fluid dynamics. That is unbelievable.

685
00:31:40,079 --> 00:31:42,759
Speaker 2: It effectively brings the danger of the ocean up into

686
00:31:42,799 --> 00:31:45,599
the air. The moon brings the tide, the tide brings

687
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:47,640
the fish, and the fish brings the physics.

688
00:31:47,960 --> 00:31:50,279
Speaker 1: Moving a bit deeper into the water. The lunar fores

689
00:31:50,359 --> 00:31:51,400
powers the reefs too.

690
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,559
Speaker 2: Tides mean currents. Currents churn up nutrients from the deep ocean.

691
00:31:56,000 --> 00:31:58,720
Nutrients mean a bloom of plankton, and a bloom of

692
00:31:58,799 --> 00:32:00,079
plankton attracts.

693
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: The giants, whale, sharks and manta rays.

694
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 2: The documentary describes a wonderful scene they call a mantray

695
00:32:05,519 --> 00:32:06,000
car wash.

696
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:06,920
Speaker 1: I love this bit.

697
00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 2: Reef mantis are huge five six meter wingspans, but they

698
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,319
can't clean themselves. They get covered in tiny parasites on

699
00:32:13,359 --> 00:32:16,640
their skin, so they go to specific coral heads. These

700
00:32:16,680 --> 00:32:18,000
are known as cleaning stations.

701
00:32:18,359 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: They just hover in the current and the staff comes

702
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:21,119
out to work.

703
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 2: The cleaning crew. The moon rass these are small, brightly

704
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:29,039
colored reef fish. They swim right up to the manta

705
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:31,519
and they pick the parasites off its skin. It's a

706
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:35,480
perfect mutualism. The ray gets clean, the little fish gets

707
00:32:35,519 --> 00:32:36,000
a free meal.

708
00:32:36,079 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 1: They even clean inside the gills.

709
00:32:37,839 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 2: In the mouth, right right up inside. The manta just

710
00:32:40,279 --> 00:32:42,640
holds perfectly still and lets them do their job, and

711
00:32:42,759 --> 00:32:43,519
then we have.

712
00:32:43,519 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 1: The synchronization events, the moon acting as a conductor for

713
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:48,279
the whole ecosystem's orchestra.

714
00:32:48,519 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 2: The fireflies in the mangroves, there are these trees that

715
00:32:51,079 --> 00:32:54,599
are just full of fireflies, and usually fireflies flash randomly,

716
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:57,000
but here they all flash in perfect unison.

717
00:32:57,119 --> 00:32:59,279
Speaker 1: The whole tree blinks on and off at once, like

718
00:32:59,359 --> 00:33:01,319
a giant biological neon sign.

719
00:33:01,559 --> 00:33:04,000
Speaker 2: For a long time, scientists thought it was a cooperative thing,

720
00:33:04,119 --> 00:33:06,480
you know, hey, let's all flash together to be brighter

721
00:33:06,559 --> 00:33:09,559
and attract more females. But the transcript says it's actually

722
00:33:09,599 --> 00:33:12,519
the complete opposite. It's driven by competition.

723
00:33:13,119 --> 00:33:16,000
Speaker 1: How is synchrony competitive? That seems counterintuitive.

724
00:33:16,279 --> 00:33:18,640
Speaker 2: The female, as it turns out, prefer the male who

725
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:21,599
flashes first. They are drawn to the leader of the pack.

726
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:24,279
So every single male in that true is trying to

727
00:33:24,359 --> 00:33:27,000
flash just a millisecond before his neighbor.

728
00:33:27,160 --> 00:33:28,079
Speaker 1: It's a race to the start.

729
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:30,759
Speaker 2: It's an arms race to be first, and because they

730
00:33:30,799 --> 00:33:33,680
are all trying so desperately to be first, the gap

731
00:33:33,759 --> 00:33:36,759
between them just disappears. They end up flashing at the

732
00:33:36,839 --> 00:33:41,440
exact same moment. It's perfect order created by pure selfish competition.

733
00:33:41,759 --> 00:33:44,119
Speaker 1: That is a profound insight, and it happens in the

734
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:46,880
new moon, right when it's darkest Yes, and on the flip.

735
00:33:46,759 --> 00:33:50,519
Speaker 2: Side of the lunar cycle, the full moon triggers the Bohar.

736
00:33:50,279 --> 00:33:51,880
Speaker 1: Snappers, the spawning orgy.

737
00:33:52,119 --> 00:33:55,319
Speaker 2: Thousands and thousands of these red snappers gather from all

738
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,319
over the reef at dusk on the full moon. They

739
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:00,880
spiral up to the surface in the moon light. They

740
00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:04,160
release these massive clouds of eggs.

741
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:06,279
Speaker 1: And sperm into the water and they time it with

742
00:34:06,359 --> 00:34:06,799
the tides.

743
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 2: They time it with the strongest lunar tides to flush

744
00:34:10,039 --> 00:34:12,960
the fertilized eggs out into the deep ocean, away from

745
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:15,000
all the predators waiting on the reef to eat them.

746
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:19,639
Speaker 1: It really emphasizes that these animals are living on a clock,

747
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:25,559
a celestial clock, which brings us to our final great force, the.

748
00:34:25,679 --> 00:34:28,800
Speaker 2: Sun, the masterclock, the engine of the rainforest.

749
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:31,480
Speaker 1: Because we're on the equator, the sun is different here.

750
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:35,559
It's not about seasons, no summer, no winter. It's just

751
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:39,960
twelve hours of blistering sun, twelve hours of pitch black dark.

752
00:34:40,039 --> 00:34:43,280
Speaker 2: Every single day of the year. That consistency allows the

753
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:46,280
forest to become a colossal solar power plant, and.

754
00:34:46,360 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: At the top are the giants, the dipterocarp trees.

755
00:34:49,519 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 2: These are the tallest rainforest trees in the world. They

756
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,400
can reach ninety meters high, almost three hundred feet. They

757
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:56,079
hold up the sky. But the real store here is

758
00:34:56,119 --> 00:34:56,920
the struggle for light.

759
00:34:57,199 --> 00:34:59,360
Speaker 1: The forest floor is incredibly dark.

760
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:02,320
Speaker 2: Two percent of the sunlight that hits the canopy actually

761
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:04,760
makes it to the ground, So if you're a little seedling,

762
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:08,199
you are in deep trouble. A dipterocarp seedling can sit

763
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:10,199
in that gloom for fifty years.

764
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:12,199
Speaker 1: Fifty years, it barely grows.

765
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 2: It just enters a state of suspended animation, waiting, waiting

766
00:35:16,039 --> 00:35:18,400
for a death, waiting for one of the giants to fall.

767
00:35:18,960 --> 00:35:21,920
When an old tree finally crashes down, a light gap

768
00:35:22,079 --> 00:35:24,400
opens up in the canopy, and then the race is on.

769
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,000
The seedlings that were waiting just sprint upwards towards the light.

770
00:35:28,360 --> 00:35:30,679
If they don't reach the canopy before the gap closes,

771
00:35:30,880 --> 00:35:31,320
they die.

772
00:35:31,559 --> 00:35:34,639
Speaker 1: Now these trees have an nemesis. The seeds they produce

773
00:35:34,679 --> 00:35:35,599
are really tasty.

774
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:38,880
Speaker 2: The bearded pigs love them. If the trees drop fruit

775
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:41,960
every year on a predictable schedule, the pig population would

776
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:45,679
explode and they'd eat every single seed. The trees would

777
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:46,599
never reproduce.

778
00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:49,239
Speaker 1: So the trees have a strategy to outsmart the pigs

779
00:35:49,519 --> 00:35:50,239
mass fruiting.

780
00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:54,400
Speaker 2: It is a collective, coordinated strategy. The trees in an

781
00:35:54,559 --> 00:35:57,880
entire region communicate, we think, through chemical signals in the soil.

782
00:35:58,519 --> 00:36:01,840
They wait for years, sometimes a decade, producing nothing. The

783
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:05,280
pig population starves or moves on, and then then all

784
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:09,800
at once, millions of trees fruit simultaneously. They drop billions

785
00:36:09,840 --> 00:36:11,440
of seas in the space of a few mets.

786
00:36:11,599 --> 00:36:12,679
Speaker 1: They're flooding the market.

787
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:17,400
Speaker 2: It's a strategy called predator satiation. Even if every single

788
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:20,079
pig on the island eats until it bursts, there are

789
00:36:20,159 --> 00:36:23,480
still millions of seeds left over to germinate. It's a

790
00:36:23,559 --> 00:36:26,320
boom and bust cycle controlled by the trees to manipulate

791
00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:27,760
the animal population below.

792
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:31,519
Speaker 1: But this unpredictability must be a nightmare for the animals

793
00:36:31,559 --> 00:36:33,920
that live there. If you don't know when the fruit

794
00:36:34,039 --> 00:36:36,400
is coming, how do you possibly survive?

795
00:36:36,639 --> 00:36:40,119
Speaker 2: You need a big brain. This is why the orangutan

796
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:43,599
is the genius of the forests. Orangutans have the longest

797
00:36:43,679 --> 00:36:46,679
childhood of any animal except for us humans. A baby

798
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:48,559
will stay with its mother for up to nine years.

799
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:50,440
Speaker 1: Nine years. Why so long.

800
00:36:50,639 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 2: Because it has to learn the map, the mental map

801
00:36:53,440 --> 00:36:56,360
of the forest. It's not just climb tree, eat fruit. No,

802
00:36:57,039 --> 00:36:59,679
it's the fig tree in the Southern Valley fruits in May,

803
00:37:00,119 --> 00:37:02,880
but only if it rained heavily in March. The Durian

804
00:37:02,960 --> 00:37:05,599
tree on the high Ridge fruits every four years, but

805
00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:07,800
the fruit is only good for two recks. They have

806
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:10,840
to memorize the location and the fruiting cycle of hundreds

807
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:11,960
of different tree species.

808
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:14,559
Speaker 1: They're building a mental database of food resources.

809
00:37:14,960 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 2: If they forget or if they don't learn that map

810
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:20,280
from their mother, they will starve during the lean times.

811
00:37:20,920 --> 00:37:24,239
Their incredible intelligence is a direct response to the erratic

812
00:37:24,320 --> 00:37:25,239
rhythm of the forest.

813
00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:28,440
Speaker 1: And speaking of trees and survival, we have to talk

814
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:31,639
about the strangler fig. The name alone is a horror

815
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:32,239
movie title.

816
00:37:32,519 --> 00:37:35,599
Speaker 2: It is the ultimate killer and the savior. It starts

817
00:37:35,679 --> 00:37:38,480
as a tiny seed, maybe dropped by a bird or

818
00:37:38,559 --> 00:37:41,159
a bat, in the upper branches of a giant host tree.

819
00:37:41,239 --> 00:37:42,760
Speaker 1: So it starts the top and grows down.

820
00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 2: That's backwards, completely backwards. It sends these long, thin roots

821
00:37:47,519 --> 00:37:50,639
descending from the sky. They dangle down, sometimes for one

822
00:37:50,679 --> 00:37:53,360
hundred feet until they hit the soil. Then they anchor

823
00:37:53,440 --> 00:37:57,039
in and thicken, they become woody. They wrap around the host.

824
00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:58,960
Speaker 1: Trees trunk and they fuse together.

825
00:37:59,119 --> 00:38:02,320
Speaker 2: They fuse together to form a latticework cage, and they

826
00:38:02,360 --> 00:38:03,960
are literally scrangling the host.

827
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:04,440
Speaker 1: Oh.

828
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:07,280
Speaker 2: They squeeze the trunk, cutting off the flow of water

829
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:09,960
and nutrients, and their leaves grow over the top of

830
00:38:10,000 --> 00:38:13,840
the host canopy, stealing all the sunlight. Eventually, the host

831
00:38:13,920 --> 00:38:15,920
tree inside dies and rots away.

832
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:19,760
Speaker 1: So when we see a big hollow strangler fig, the

833
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:23,960
hollow space inside is the ghost of its victim exactly.

834
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 2: It is a ghost shape, a perfect mold of the

835
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:28,079
tree it killed.

836
00:38:28,280 --> 00:38:30,800
Speaker 1: That's the killer part. That's pretty brutal. Why is it

837
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:32,320
also a savior because.

838
00:38:32,039 --> 00:38:34,800
Speaker 2: Of the wasp? The relationship between the fig and the

839
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:38,840
fig wasp is arguably the most complex and intimate symbiosis

840
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:39,280
on Earth.

841
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:42,599
Speaker 1: Okay, walk us through this. The notes on this were intricate, right,

842
00:38:42,840 --> 00:38:43,159
So a.

843
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:46,159
Speaker 2: Fig isn't a fruit in the normal sense. It's actually

844
00:38:46,199 --> 00:38:49,639
an inverted flower garden. All the tiny flowers are on

845
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:51,159
the inside of that ball.

846
00:38:51,320 --> 00:38:53,320
Speaker 1: So to get pollinated something has to get inside.

847
00:38:53,400 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 2: A tiny wasp has to get inside. We're talking two

848
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:59,559
millimeters long. A female wasp finds a fig. She has

849
00:38:59,599 --> 00:39:03,039
to crawl through a tiny opening called the ostele. It

850
00:39:03,159 --> 00:39:05,639
is so tight that she usually rips her own wings

851
00:39:05,639 --> 00:39:07,840
and antenna off to get in. She is on a

852
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:10,920
one way mission, that is dedication. She gets inside, she

853
00:39:11,039 --> 00:39:13,000
lays her eggs in some of the flowers, she pollinates

854
00:39:13,039 --> 00:39:15,239
the other flowers, and then she dies. Her body is

855
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:16,639
just digested by the fig.

856
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:18,119
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a grim start.

857
00:39:18,199 --> 00:39:21,039
Speaker 2: Then her eggs hatch the male's hatch. First. They're blind,

858
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:25,719
their wingless, pale little things. They live their entire short

859
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:27,239
lives inside that one.

860
00:39:27,199 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 1: Dark fig, and their only purpose.

861
00:39:29,199 --> 00:39:31,519
Speaker 2: Their only purpose is to find a female, one of

862
00:39:31,559 --> 00:39:34,639
their sister's mate with her and then use their strong

863
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:37,320
jaws to chew an escape tunnel through the thick wall

864
00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:39,320
of the fig for her and then the male's diy.

865
00:39:39,519 --> 00:39:42,760
They die inside. They never see the sun, but the females,

866
00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:45,000
now pregnant and covered in pollen, crawl out through the

867
00:39:45,039 --> 00:39:47,840
tunnels the male's made. They fly out into the forest

868
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:50,320
to find a new fig and start the whole cycle again.

869
00:39:50,440 --> 00:39:53,679
Speaker 1: It's a cycle of absolute total sacrifice. It is.

870
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:57,119
Speaker 2: But here's the savior part. Because the wasps live such

871
00:39:57,239 --> 00:39:59,880
short lives, only a couple of days outside the fig,

872
00:40:00,280 --> 00:40:03,440
the fig trees have to fruit constantly year round to

873
00:40:03,559 --> 00:40:07,679
keep their specific wasp population alive. They can't wait for seasons.

874
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:09,519
Speaker 1: So even when the rest of the forest is shut

875
00:40:09,599 --> 00:40:10,480
down during a dry.

876
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:13,679
Speaker 2: Spell, even during a drought, even when the dipterocarps are

877
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:17,159
dormant and there's no other fruit, the strangler figs are producing.

878
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:21,800
They are the keystone species. The orangutans, the hornbills, the gibbons.

879
00:40:22,119 --> 00:40:25,360
The entire forest community relies on the fig to survive

880
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:26,199
the bad times.

881
00:40:26,559 --> 00:40:28,840
Speaker 1: The tree that kills its host keeps the rest of

882
00:40:28,920 --> 00:40:29,760
the forest alive.

883
00:40:30,039 --> 00:40:33,039
Speaker 2: It's nature's mind bending complexity in a nutshell.

884
00:40:33,320 --> 00:40:35,599
Speaker 1: We're reaching the end of the daily cycle here. The

885
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:39,599
sun also brings the rain, the classic afternoon downpour.

886
00:40:40,000 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 2: The intense equatorial heat causes massive evaporation. Clouds build up

887
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:47,480
all morning, and then by two PM, the heavens just

888
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:50,599
open its violent torrential rain, and.

889
00:40:50,639 --> 00:40:53,840
Speaker 1: Animals have hacked this too. The gricilla's pitcher plant.

890
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:57,320
Speaker 2: The rain driven trap. Most pitcher plants rely on slippery

891
00:40:57,400 --> 00:41:01,079
wax or sweet nectar to trap insects. This one relies

892
00:41:01,159 --> 00:41:04,199
on physics. It has a lid that acts as a springboard.

893
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:05,119
Speaker 1: What sprain board.

894
00:41:05,239 --> 00:41:07,199
Speaker 2: The nectar is on the underside of the lid, so

895
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:10,320
ants have to climb underneath to drink it, hanging upside down,

896
00:41:10,639 --> 00:41:13,119
and when the rain hits a single rain drop strikes

897
00:41:13,159 --> 00:41:16,159
the top of the lid. The impact vibrates the lid violently.

898
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:19,119
The ant loses its grip and is literally catapulted down

899
00:41:19,199 --> 00:41:20,599
into the digestive fluid below.

900
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:22,719
Speaker 1: It's using the weather as a hammer to catch its

901
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:25,880
food precisely, and finally the sun goes down, the night

902
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:26,559
shift begins.

903
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:29,800
Speaker 2: The transition is marked by sound, the six point of

904
00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:33,440
pm cicada. It calls at dusk with such incredible precision

905
00:41:33,480 --> 00:41:34,719
you could set your watch by it.

906
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:38,320
Speaker 1: And outcome the night hunters. The ned casting spider.

907
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 2: The dynopsis or ogre faced spider. This thing is pure

908
00:41:43,039 --> 00:41:46,159
Sci fi. It hunts at night in the darkest part

909
00:41:46,199 --> 00:41:48,079
of the forest, so it needs to see in the dark.

910
00:41:48,320 --> 00:41:50,840
Speaker 1: But it doesn't just have night vision. It builds it

911
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:51,440
from scratch.

912
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:55,920
Speaker 2: Every single evening it grows a new massive light sensitive

913
00:41:56,000 --> 00:42:00,360
membrane inside its two huge eyes. It becomes two thousand

914
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:03,440
times more sensitive than a human eye. It can see

915
00:42:03,519 --> 00:42:05,159
clearly in near total darkness.

916
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:07,679
Speaker 1: But that sensitivity would be destroyed by sunlight.

917
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:10,599
Speaker 2: It would burn out instantly, So when the sun starts

918
00:42:10,639 --> 00:42:14,840
to rise, the spider's body dissolves the membrane. It destroys

919
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:17,639
its own night vision every morning and rebuilds it every

920
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:18,320
single night.

921
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:21,119
Speaker 1: The metabolic cost of that must be astronomical.

922
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:23,960
Speaker 2: It's immense, but it allows the spider to hunt in

923
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:26,239
the way no one else can. It hangs upside down

924
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:28,719
holding a square net of web between its front legs.

925
00:42:29,119 --> 00:42:31,840
When an insect walks in the leaf below, it lunges

926
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:33,719
down and wraps it up like a gladiator.

927
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 1: Incredible. And up in the trees we have the Tarsia.

928
00:42:36,079 --> 00:42:38,679
Speaker 2: The Yoda of the forest. It has these massive eyes.

929
00:42:38,760 --> 00:42:40,679
In fact, each one of its eyeballs is as big

930
00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:41,880
as its entire brain.

931
00:42:42,239 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 1: That seems like a design flock. There's no room for

932
00:42:44,480 --> 00:42:45,000
anything else.

933
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:47,960
Speaker 2: It means there's no room for muscles in the eye sockets,

934
00:42:48,199 --> 00:42:51,239
so they can't move their eyes to look left. They

935
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:52,960
have to turn their entire head left.

936
00:42:53,199 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 1: So they've evolved a special neck they have.

937
00:42:55,880 --> 00:42:58,519
Speaker 2: They have neck vertebrae that allow for a one hundred

938
00:42:58,519 --> 00:43:01,119
and eighty degree rotation, just like an owl.

939
00:43:01,559 --> 00:43:06,239
Speaker 1: And one final creature to close out the night, the Kolugo.

940
00:43:06,199 --> 00:43:09,639
Speaker 2: The so called flying lemur, which is neither a lemer

941
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:11,079
nor does it actually fly.

942
00:43:11,320 --> 00:43:12,719
Speaker 1: A completely misleading name.

943
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 2: It's a glider, but it has the most extensive gliding

944
00:43:16,079 --> 00:43:18,760
membrane of any mammal on Earth. It's a sheet of

945
00:43:18,840 --> 00:43:21,199
skin that stretches from its jaw to its fingertips, to

946
00:43:21,280 --> 00:43:23,599
its toes and right to the tip of its tail

947
00:43:24,320 --> 00:43:26,360
when it spreads out. It is a living kite.

948
00:43:26,599 --> 00:43:28,679
Speaker 1: And why glide? Why not just climb down it up

949
00:43:28,760 --> 00:43:30,280
like a squirrel energetics.

950
00:43:30,760 --> 00:43:34,320
Speaker 2: The trees are huge and they're far apart. Climbing all

951
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:35,960
the way down to the ground and all the way

952
00:43:36,079 --> 00:43:38,719
back up the next tree takes huge amounts of calories.

953
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:42,159
Gliding is free transportation, it's gravity powered travel.

954
00:43:42,559 --> 00:43:44,480
Speaker 1: So bringing it all together, now, we've looked at this

955
00:43:44,599 --> 00:43:48,719
one incredible region through three different lenses, Earth, Moon, and Sun.

956
00:43:49,079 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 2: The violence of the Earth created the stage, It built

957
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:54,559
the mountains, It isolated the islands, It created the nutrient

958
00:43:54,599 --> 00:43:57,559
poor soil. In one place, and the rich volcanic ash.

959
00:43:57,639 --> 00:44:01,239
In another right, the moon provides. It's the constant rhythm

960
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:04,800
for the coastal life, driving the tides, the currents, and

961
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:07,840
the reef cycles, and the sun, and the sun drives

962
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:11,039
the engine of the forest itself, and the daily, relentless

963
00:44:11,079 --> 00:44:12,639
struggle for light and energy.

964
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:15,679
Speaker 1: And the result of these three forces converging is this

965
00:44:15,880 --> 00:44:18,199
one pocket of the world where evolution has just gone

966
00:44:18,320 --> 00:44:19,480
completely wild.

967
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,760
Speaker 2: It's the biologically richest place on Earth for a reason,

968
00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:28,000
and that reason is adversity. Diversity comes from adversity, the toxins,

969
00:44:28,119 --> 00:44:32,400
the isolation, the competition, the weird problems. It forces life

970
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:34,920
to innovate in ways you just don't see anywhere else.

971
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:37,599
Speaker 1: So it brings us to the big thrilling thread takeaway.

972
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:41,119
You mentioned earlier that evolution is really just a problem

973
00:44:41,199 --> 00:44:42,119
solving exercise.

974
00:44:42,280 --> 00:44:44,440
Speaker 2: It is, we look at a bird burying an egg

975
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:46,559
in a volcano, and we think it's weird, but it's

976
00:44:46,639 --> 00:44:49,880
not weird. It's a solution. The problem was incubation is

977
00:44:50,039 --> 00:44:54,840
energy expensive and dangerous. The solution was use geothermal energy.

978
00:44:55,199 --> 00:44:57,599
Speaker 1: The problem for the picture plant was there's no food in.

979
00:44:57,599 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 2: The soil, and the solution was of all the sonar

980
00:45:00,440 --> 00:45:02,199
and get a bat to use you as a toilet,

981
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:04,559
or use rain drops as a catapult.

982
00:45:05,079 --> 00:45:07,800
Speaker 1: It makes you look at nature completely differently. It's not

983
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:11,679
just animals doing random things. It's a world of engineers

984
00:45:12,079 --> 00:45:13,719
solving problems with the only.

985
00:45:13,639 --> 00:45:16,519
Speaker 2: Tools they have precisely. And sometimes those tools are a

986
00:45:16,639 --> 00:45:20,280
giant claw, or a reflective leaf, or a nose that

987
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:21,760
acts as an echo chamber.

988
00:45:22,199 --> 00:45:24,639
Speaker 1: So here's my question for you listening right now. We've

989
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:27,840
covered some really extreme niches today. If you had to

990
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:31,800
evolve to survive in one of these spots, which one

991
00:45:32,039 --> 00:45:32,639
would you pick?

992
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:33,679
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a tough one.

993
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: Would you be the volcano bird, trusting the earth itself

994
00:45:37,079 --> 00:45:40,360
to raise your kids? Would you be the gobie living

995
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:43,239
in a dark, wet tunnel inside a log, playing high

996
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:46,679
stakes mazes every single day, or maybe the strangler fig

997
00:45:46,840 --> 00:45:49,559
playing the long, slow game of Killer and Savior.

998
00:45:50,000 --> 00:45:52,400
Speaker 2: I think I'd go with the gibbon. Hitting fifty kph

999
00:45:52,519 --> 00:45:54,320
through the pre tops seems like a pretty good life.

1000
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:56,559
It's basically flying without needing a license.

1001
00:45:56,920 --> 00:45:59,239
Speaker 1: It's hard to argue with that one though. Being a

1002
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:02,559
male bird a pair with literally no responsibilities except to

1003
00:46:02,679 --> 00:46:04,400
dance sounds pretty good too.

1004
00:46:04,679 --> 00:46:07,039
Speaker 2: That's a fair point, a very fair point.

1005
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:09,840
Speaker 1: Listeners, let us know what you think in the comments.

1006
00:46:10,400 --> 00:46:14,239
What would your evolutionary strategy be, and maybe consider what

1007
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,920
forces are shaping your own environment right now. Maybe it's

1008
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:21,639
not volcanoes and tides, but the principles of adaptation remain.

1009
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:23,360
Speaker 2: Adaptation is the game.

1010
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:26,039
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on this journey through the world's

1011
00:46:26,039 --> 00:46:30,239
strangest islands. This has been thrilling threads until next time.