March 31, 2021 • 59 mins
We’ve got round-trip tickets to crustacean station, and I’m answering all your shrimpy questions. What is shrimp? How big they get? What’s up with that poop vein? Discover this and more as we answer the age-old question: are shrimp just tiny lobsters? Join us with guest Danl Goodman on this journey under the sea.
Footnotes:
- Deep sea shrimp?!
- EYELESS deep sea shrimp?!?!
- A pistol shrimp's big meaty claw
- Brine shrimps is aliens
- Beautiful peacock mantis shrimp
- GIANT MANTIS SHRIMP
- THERE'S A DUCK IN YOUR FROG metal cover
- Check out more of Andrew's music!
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature future production of I Heart Radio. I'm
your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, the Shrimp
episode soul So shrimp have been in the news for
stupid reasons, but I think we can all agree on
how cool shrimp are. We've got round trip tickets to
(00:27):
Chris Stacean Station, and I'm answering all your shrimpy questions.
What is a shrimp? How big they get? What's up
with that poop vein? Discover this and more as we
answer the angel question, Our shrimp just tiny lobsters. Joining
me today to have a shrimp ly wonderful time is
friend of the pod and frequent voice on Fake Doctor's
(00:48):
Real Friends, lead pro gamer d J. Daniel Goodman. Welcome back,
Thank you. I'm I'm overjoyed to be here once again.
You're very lucky because this is this is the week,
this is the shrimp times. Let's let's get after it.
The it's it's a special time of year. It's like
(01:11):
the wait, is it the vernal equinox? It's the shrimple
shrimp shrimp lee, shrimple equinox. Absolutely a criller pun right there.
Uh yes, But but we are talking about shrimp today,
and I thought, Hey, instead of me just yammering about shrimp,
(01:34):
why don't I ask you guys what you want to
hear about shrimp? So I did, and I got some
really awesome questions on Twitter about like, hey, what the
what the heck going on with shrimp? You know, what
the heck going on with shrimp? Right? You know, like
you're where you take up for granted that they're just shrimp,
but when you think about it, the heck, Yeah, that's
(01:56):
a really good question. I am. I am constantly wondering
what go on with shrimp? What go on with shrimp?
And why are shrimp? And like that was a lot
of the theme of a lot of questions. Some of
them were very specific, but some of them were just like, hey,
why why why shrimp? Why are shrimp? Uh? Here are
some of my favorite questions along the theme of what
(02:17):
is a shrimp? Anyways? So? From Alex is our shrimp
tiny lobsters? Uh? From the Tiago is am I a shrimp?
From Mr Borax is is there a difference between a
shrimp and a prawn? Are crawfish freshwater shrimp and from
(02:37):
Blake Rogers is Pepe the muppet is often very vocal
that he is a prawn and not a shrimp. Is
there truth to this or is he just trying to
reinvent himself like a college freshman. So I think it's
interesting because often there are these questions about taxonomy where
(02:58):
it's like what is a shrimp? And the reason it's
confusing is not because of you guys. It's because it's confusing.
It just is like even when you look into sort
of the like official categorization of shrimp like animals, it
gets pretty confusing. So generally speaking, there are like I
(03:19):
would say, four types of animals that fall into the
realm of like shrimp, like, in my opinion, so there
are shrimp, prawns, crayfish, and krill. Uh So you've heard
of all these guys right right down in some way
shape or in some way or another. Yes, yes, um.
(03:40):
So you know shrimp like we get that in like
in our food there, like when we cook them, they're
those little pink things, but when they're uncooked and alive,
they can come in many different colors. You know. Prawns
are another thing that we think of as like, hey,
that's pretty similar to a shrimp, Like is that a different,
different thing? Crayfish or another thing that's like, is it
(04:03):
a shrimp? Is it a lobster? What is that? And
then krill or teeny tiny things that kind of look
like shrimp, But what the heck are they? So all
of these dudes are crustaceans, and with the exception of krill,
they're also all decapods. So they're all related to crabs
and lobsters. Okay, what's comforting? Yes, is it? I'm glad
(04:29):
to know that it's all part of the same family. Yes,
I you know, sometimes I worry about I don't want
to offend any any sea creature of any kind and
just make some sort of assumption about yeah exactly, just
you know exactly, or the or the deep deep cold
take But I don't want to. I don't want to
offend any sort of crustacean or shelled animals of any kinds.
(04:53):
So it's confident they're all the same family. Yeah, you
don't want to be thoughtless and shellfish. I do it
because I do it because I heard I'm kidding. I'm
kidding you could in terms of like what what is
(05:13):
a shrimp. You could define shrimp as anything belonging to
the infra order kara or true shrimp, if you're being
really strict about it, but you could also define them
as anything belonging to corider or dendro branchiata, which is
the suborder of decapods known as proms um. And so
(05:38):
that's a little bit of a more generous definition of shrimp.
But then that still leaves out some species commonly called shrimp,
like boxer shrimp or ghost shrimp, or even mud shrimp. Mud. Yeah, there,
they are shrimp that often live in muddy flats. Uh.
(05:58):
And so the most broad definition of shrimp that belongs
to not only many different species but different orders as well,
would be any small crustacean that looks shrimp like so
elongated body, long tails, thin legs, a rostrum. So that's
that pointing nose like thing out in front of them
(06:20):
that that looks like a little nose, but it's actually
not a nose. It's just a point extrusion, eye, stalks
and antenna. You know, the shrimp look get the shrimp
drip if you will. Okay, well i'm i'm you know
it's one of those things where it's like you always
see an appendage or some sort of like extra extrusion
(06:43):
from a creature and you're like, yeah, that could be this,
but that's me putting my own human centric ideals on
what these things should be. And it's like, no, that's
not that. That's for sensing earthquakes. It's like, oh, okay,
all right, the cool there's this. I love. There's this
like joke and the original SpongeBob movie where there's a
(07:06):
deep sea anglerfish that it's um lure is in the
shape of like an entire ice cream store and grandmother.
So I just love I love that kind of like
thing where it's like, oh, it looks like it looks
like a human hand, but really what it is is amount.
But yeah, what would like if if I said, like
(07:29):
like get the shrimp look like, what would you do? Like?
What what shoes? If I wanted to get the shrimp
look well, I mean this again maybe traditional and stereotypical,
but I would go for a pink a pink color
would arch I would arch my back, probably stick my
face out as much as possible, and have my arms
(07:49):
and fingers kind of out like this just kind of
like right. I know I'm saying like this, this is
you know, podcast, a famously video medium, but eagine Danial
and he's like kind of like he's got his fingers
out like a bunch of shrimp legs and he's making
a shrimp face too. It's very convincing, and he's like
wiggling thank you, and it's like I'm looking at a shrimp.
I appreciate that. Thank you. I've been working on my
(08:11):
improv recently and that thank you. Yeah. So in terms
of what we get to call he nailed it. In
terms of what we get to call shrimp, I would say, like,
I think you're pretty safe to call prawns and most shrimp,
(08:32):
like crustaceans, shrimp. Nobody's gonna get too mad at you.
And maybe there's some shrimp purists. I would say krill.
While they do look a bit like shrimp, they're so
teeny tiny and I've actually never seen them referred to
as shrimp, so maybe maybe they don't qualify. Maybe they're
not allowed. They get turned down by the shrimp bouncer.
(08:52):
The club. Shrimp and crayfish, in my opinion, are crayfish
are too large and meaty to really be called shrimp.
I think they're more similar to lobster. Like on the
shrimp to lobster spectrum, they fall mainly lobster. So I
would say like, like, if you're like, hey, prawns and
shrimp are basically the interchangeable, I'd agree with you. But
(09:13):
if you're like, oh, our crayfish shrimp, I'd say, no,
you know, I feel it m hm. And you know,
but shrimp can be found all over the world, and
they can live in a variety of environments, from the
sea to freshwater to mud flats like that mud shrimp
(09:34):
we just And this relates to another question I got
from a listener who writes, this is the devil to pay.
That's a good that's a good. Uh, that's a good handle,
especially especially when it's just like this polite shrimp question.
Are there shrimp that live by those volcano events at
(09:56):
the bottom of the ocean? If so, are they all
see through like most of the weird stuff down there? Also,
do cave shrimp exist? Are they eyelists like some cavefish?
I love this question. Um, So indeed, there are deep
sea vent shrimp, and lots of them, like as we
know that really in the deep sea. It's this cold,
(10:18):
harsh environment, but there are these thermal vents from geothermal
activity below the Earth's surface and they spew this hot water.
It's a mixture of like gases and water and weird
minerals and lots of bacteria can grow around them, and
so a lot of life can be sustained by these things,
including huge amounts of shrimp. So there is something called
(10:43):
the bie Bay I'm not sure how you pronounce this.
It's like either Bebe or bee Bay hydrothermal vent field.
Or it's also called the Picard vent field. I guess
where you star trek nerds out there, uh. And they
are the deepest hydrothermal vents in the world, and they
(11:05):
are found in the Caribbean near the Cayman Islands. And
it is absolutely teeming with a strange, relatively newly discovered
species of ghostly white eyelis shrimp. So there are a
couple of pictures of it that I have shared with you, Yes,
(11:27):
And it just looks there's this it looks like there's
this weird sort of like white coding on this thing.
The shrimp. That's all shrimp, Like hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of shrimp, and it's the second picture down to
maybe jump ahead as a second picture down more of
a close up on set. Yeah yeah, yeah, so you
can see in the second picture you can see more
(11:49):
of the individual shrimp, but that there are so many
of them and they're all sustained by these hydrothermal bits.
These are called Rima Harris and these pale shrimp do
not have functional eyes. Instead, they have photoreceptive patches on
(12:10):
their backs that are able to detect the faint glow
of a deep sea event. So they only need enough
like photosensory cells to be able to guide themselves towards
events so that they can feed on the life sustained
by the event and stay you know, relatively warm compared
(12:32):
to the cold cruelty of the deep sea. I have
I have a question about said cold cruelty of the
deep sea, or rather the the lack there of around
these events. How hot the events get? Do you know?
They get extremely hot, so you definitely don't want to
get up near the boiling points. So most of the
water in the deep sea is very very cold, so
(12:53):
around forty degrees fahrenheit to which is two degrees celsius.
But once you get to one of these events, it
is from boiling to super boiling, So from around a
hundred and forty degrees fahrenheit, which is sixty degrees celsius too,
(13:15):
up to eight hundred and seventy degrees fahrenheit, which is
around four hundred and sixty degrees celsius. That's really okay,
that's extrue. That is very hot, very hot. That's you know,
skull meltingly hot. Wasna I was literally gonna say, melt
your skin off hot, but you know what you said
it for me? Yep, yep. So these shrimp do have
(13:35):
to be careful not to get like right near the
mouth of the hydrothermal fin or else. They probably turned
into a kind of tempera situation surrounding the events. They
basically find an area that's not too hot, not too cold,
sort of the goldilocks area, and and hover around there
so they don't get boiled, but they also get nice,
(13:58):
nice warmth, and they also get a lot of nutrition
from the life that these events sustain. That's I just
I'm still blown away. The heat resistance of these tiny
shrimp is like, that's wild, that's wild. Think skin melting
off easily like not even not not like you could
you know, you could handle it for a minute, and
(14:18):
I was no, we're talking like instant skin melting versus
these shrimps that are like, oh could we found it? No,
we can. I mean I think, to be fair, I
think if these shrimp get towards the area that is
skin melting, they would they would get boiled in probably
really tasty kind of just like this, yes exactly, but
(14:40):
uh they do know where to go, like where to
hang out um where it's not so boilingly hot and
that they can survive. And this is the case for
like there are certainly micro organisms that actually can withstand
extreme heat, like the bacteria I mentioned, They actually can
survive that skin meltingly boiling heat of the hydrothermal vents.
(15:04):
But the invertebrates that hang around these vents would get
boiled by that. But there they figured out how to
basically stay in the in between zones, so things like
YETI crabs and these these eyeless shrimps they make sure
that they stay within the realm where it's like close
enough that they can benefit from all the like the
(15:26):
fauna that these events allowed to grow without getting boiled
and turned into shrimp scampy that will there you go.
And the second part of the question is whether caves
have shrimp, and yes, indeed they do. There are a
few species of cave shrimps. Among them are the Kentucky
(15:48):
cave shrimp, which to me sounds like a fast food item.
Kentucky cave shrimp that's come, that's coming from KFC very soon.
I guarantee it, I will be in line to get
my first batchup popcorn Kentucky cave shrimp, Kentucky cave They
are pale and eyelis just like their deep sea counterparts,
(16:08):
and they managed to live in caves by feeding off
the sediment brought into the cave system by groundwater. So yeah,
shrimp are extremely hardy animals that can really survive some
extreme conditions, which I think is sometimes it's a little
bit interesting to think about because it's like shrimp, they're
so little and delicate, but they can be badasses. M
(16:33):
I mean, if I've learned anything about animals is that
they are stronger than us by a country mile or
an animal or whatever, but like they will outlive us
in every respect no matter what. Shrimp unionized screwed. We've screwed.
I don't know if they're like ants, but I gotta
imagine that there's like several hundred or hundred thousand shrimp
(16:56):
for every human on earth. Yeah, oh yeah, I'm sure
we'd be outnumbered extremely so yeah, including Brian shrimp doomed utterly. Yeah, no,
they would take us all were I love the word skeletonized. Well,
we're going to take a shrimp sized break and then
(17:19):
we are going to be back with more shrimp questions
that I will answer. Welcome back, and we are answering
your shrimp questions. So this was a frequent question. It's
about It's about those poop veins. This is from Wizard
(17:41):
Wizard p I on Twitter. Everyone knows about shrimp veins
and removing them, but do shrimp have real veins little
shrimp hearts? Where are they hiding them? If so, what
kind of course strength do these suckers have? Seems like
they're like muscle. So and then here's another question from
(18:03):
Zinte Daniel who writes, when you eat shrimp, are you
eating shrimp poop? Legit? Concern for me. My sister told
me this once and I've never eaten it, eaten it
since son I've got got a lot of other requests
about the poop veins. Um. So, the poop vein, if
you don't know, is this dark string looking thing that
(18:23):
runs along the back of the shrimp uh and is
said to be full of poop. It's not a real vein.
It is actually the shrimps intestinal tract. Yeah. I like
how you threw up devil horns for intestinal intestinal track.
Vein intestinal track, So the black stuff inside of it
(18:48):
is actually digested food and yes, poop. Uh. Most chefs
will actually remove the poop vein by cutting along the
back of the dead shrimp and removing the intestine. So
in this case, you would not be eating any shrimp
poop if you do not remove the poop vein. Yeah,
(19:08):
you're gonna be eating a little bit of shrimp poop.
We're gonna get a little shrimpoop. I mean, you know. Look,
but even in that case, it is generally harmless because
we cook shrimp. So the reason people prefer to remove
the poop vein other than the yuck factor is that
some people find it too gritty with the vein in
because shrimper scavengers, they actually get a lot of sand
(19:31):
and grit in with their diet. Um. So like you
chew into shrimp, maybe you're kind of getting a gritty taste,
Like I don't like the taste of gritty shrimp poop,
picky picky. But during the cooking process, any bacteria in
the digestive tract is killed and so it's it's not
going to hurt you. And how do you know whether
(19:52):
the shrimp has been d veined? I mean, if you
see a black vein running along the shrimp back, then
that's the intestine. It's still the and if you if
you don't see that the shrimp poop, it's probably poop free.
So that that is how you know whether you're getting
shrimp poop or not. In terms of the shrimp core strength,
(20:14):
we're actually going to talk a little bit more about
amazing feats of shrimp strength later. Um. But yeah, they
do have a lot of muscle, but they also do
have a circulatory system and other little tiny organs that um,
you know, it's hard to imagine fit inside a little
little shrimps. So they do have a circulatory system with
(20:36):
real veins, So they have a tiny heart arteries and
veins that run along its body and supply it with blood.
It also has a tiny brain and nervous system. So
when chef's talk about de veining a shrimp, they're not
really referring to removing all of its arteries or circulatory system.
They're they're talking about the poop, the digestive tract, or
(20:57):
the quote unquote poop vein um. But when you do
remove the intestine, you actually also remove the posterior aorta
because those are attached to each other. So you are
technically removing a vein um. But the reason for it
is the poop tube. Yes, indeed, the poop tube. I
love that poop tube given to me spectacular. So you
(21:18):
want to you want to eat? Do you? What about you, Dane?
Do you have a preference? Do you eat shrimp? Even?
I do? Yeah, I do. I do shrimp um. I
am of the lazier of lazier shrimp consumers who will
when I go to my local shrimpery, I'm getting the
easy peel d veined shellless shrimp, so that I just
I pull them tails off and then cut them in
(21:39):
half and throw them in the pot. So I'm usually
not eating the vein. That said, I do love the
act of like you know, peeling apart and like taking
and you know, it's doing a little bit of the
actual gift your hands dirty sort of work. So and
that's yeah, I do too. It's it's like it's a
little bit of I feel like kind of an animalistic
(21:59):
instinct for me. I love like um, sort of like
cracking into food, which sounds very like a little bit grotesque,
but it's like from anything from like a pistachio to
a lobster. I like this like sort of like getting
in there. I actually don't love shrimp that much in
terms of food, Like I don't eat it very often often.
(22:19):
I do like shrimp tempera um. That's like kind of
my only exception somehow. Like the texture I don't like,
which is weird because I do can tolerate lobster even
though it's a fairly simple similar texture. But yeah, I
don't know it's it's but I do like the I
like getting in there like with crab or lobster, like
you know, which is kind of like. Well, on the
(22:42):
more shrimp questions, so here's one is jumbo shrimp and
oxy moron. Also, why did trigger and pistol shrimp evolved
their snapping abilities. This is from Christi Yamagucci, Maine. I
think you know Christie, of course, of course shout out
and Crispy Keen, Crispy. And here's another one from Blake Rogers.
(23:03):
If a pistol shrimp attack the palm of my hand,
what sort of damage would it do? So these are
related questions. I'm gonna answer both of them. Yes please.
So first of all, is jumbo shrimp and oxymoron um No,
I would say like jumbo shrimp is like everything is relative, right,
like I can say a large chihuahua or a small whale,
(23:24):
yes exactly, or like I'm having a minor emergency my
large chihuahua. It just took a dump the size of
a small whale, and you know it all, it all
works out right. I mean to me that that question
reads like a bad stand up joke from the early
two thousands or the lake or something. We are roasting
Christie on this. Well, I mean, he even even he
(23:46):
knows if I know Christie, he knows that there's a
little bit of the old there's the little wink and
nod at this joke right here or at this question
right here. But like to anybody who can't read between
the lines. It's like, is it we call we call?
We call know? Mini Coopers or whatever compact cars are
they compact? Does it fit in your pocket? Absolutely not.
It's still a compact car. Can I check my make
(24:08):
up with it? No? Thank you, thank you. But yeah,
Daniel's calling out Christie. I'm gonna have to have Christie
on the show to call you out. I guess please.
I mean, first of all, have him on. Who he
would be a great guest, excellent speaker, hilarious person. Let's
do it. Yeah. Also a big also a big proponent
of the Chris Crofton Poetry Hour. Have you read Cris Crofton?
(24:30):
Have had Cris Crofton? Oh my gosh, what a legend.
I love that guy, Chris Crofton's Poetry Hour. It's great.
You can suggest any kind of poetry prompt and he'll
write a poem for you and it's very good. So
we need to have him back onto. In terms of
the serious part of your question, pistol and trigger shrimps.
So they are a whole family of quick draw shrimp
(24:54):
who use a mechanism in their claws to snap at
prey and stun them. So let's talk about the claw mechanism. So, um,
they have these huge claws that are like over half
the size of the rest of their body. There's actually
an image in their uh danial where you can see
(25:14):
how huge these claws are. It's like it's like hell, God, damn,
that is a huge claw. What you know, how like
hell Boy has a big arm exactly like that. It's
just like that. But yeah, that's a big that's a
that's big arm. It's like having a machine gun for
an arm. So and indeed, they can snap these claws
(25:35):
very quickly and shoot out like a pulse of water
that can stunt prey. So uh. The top of the
claw is the only part that basically moves, and it
has a hidden plunger in it that actually fits into
a socket at the bottom of the claws, sort of
like a mortar and pestle uh mechanism. So the top
(25:56):
part opens up and then with a huge amount of force,
the muscles snap it back into place and it closes
over like the water in this mortar uh. And the
bottom claw with such a huge amount of force that
it creates a jet stream that can travel over a
hundred feet a second, which is so fast it creates
(26:20):
a cavitation bubble that collapses with a lot of force
and for a fraction of a second. In some species,
that cavitation bubble can reach eight thousand degrees fahrenheit, which
is almost as hot as the sun. Yes, it's like
(26:43):
a time, it's like creating a tiny sun in this
right near this shrimp claw. But it's such a it's
so tiny and such a like fraction of a second.
It doesn't like burn the shrimp or anything around it.
It's just it's just how concentrated that forces. It's just
(27:04):
to be clear, Just to be clear, audience. You know
I have been I've been very I've just had my
mouth open a gate for the past like ten seconds
staring at Katie just with with the with the mentioned
of that. There was no drop on the connection or
anything like that. You didn't lose me there, Well, I
mean I lost my mind. But like eight thousand degrees
in the tip of that shrimps claw, all right. I
(27:29):
mean I was already never going in the ocean again,
but now I'm definitely never going in the ocean again. Wow.
That's wow, that's that's a big scary geez. Louise this
snap also goes in at two d and ten decibels,
which you know under yeah, underwater, it's not going to
(27:50):
hurt your ears. But yeah, it's it's technically extremely loud.
It just happens to not because it's not in air
and the sound doesn't travel like it doesn't in the air,
Like it's not going to like cause any deafness, but
very loud. They use this ridiculously forceful snap, uh to
(28:12):
that to stun their prey, so that jet stream smacks
the prey. It's done them. Sometimes it even kills them
if it's a little little fish. Uh So yeah, it's
it's an incredibly powerful Yeah. So some pistol shrimp species
aren't all about the violence. Uh, they are pretty cute
(28:33):
and that they can form a symbiotic relations shrimp with
gobie fish who they share a burrow with and team
up against danger. So the gobie has better vision than
the shrimp and can warn the shrimp of threats, and
the shrimp kind of keeps the gobie as like a
pet and like we'll touch it with its little antenna
to maintain trust in their relations shrimp and justice. Nice.
(29:02):
Uh And in terms of like how did pistol shrimp
evolve their snapping abilities. So if you look at the
anatomy of a pistol shrimps claw versus a non snapping shrimp,
it looks like the muscle tissue evolved to be able
to pull back the top of the claw further over
the full crum of the hinge joint, which allows a
much more powerful snap. Uh. So this seems to indicate
(29:26):
that selection pressured uh drove for bigger muscle mass so
like a more powerful like snap, which makes sense, like
even if you're just like a non pistol shrimp, like
getting a powerful snap and a quick snap will help
you catch prey faster and grip onto it with more strength.
So you can see how that could start to like
(29:47):
go spin out of control and instead of just being
about grabbing the prey, having such a powerful snap that
just the snap itself, you know, stunts the prey with
the jet stream. So I think it probably was like
selective rushers for catching the prey by manually grabbing onto it,
which kind of turned into this thing of like, oh, well,
I snapped and missed the prey, but my snap was
(30:09):
so powerful it's still stunned the prey. So yeah. And
in terms of the the last question about these pistol shrimp,
what would happen if a pistol shrimp attacked the palm
of your hand? Just blow cold clear through the palmp.
Now I'm kidding. You wouldn't have a hand. What hand? Now,
(30:32):
I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Um. So outside of the water,
if you pick up one and they shrimp, it probably
couldn't do much um as its pistol uses water bullets.
So um. I think if you've got your hand hot
in the clode, probably hurt pretty bad. Inside the water.
If you put your hand in and it snaps at
(30:52):
your hand, it hurts a lot. Apparently, I read on
an aquarium owner's website that they own a pistol shrimp
as a pet. Apparently people own these things, these little
tiny weapons on legs as pets, and it, um, she
got her hand too close, it's snapped at her and
(31:12):
it hurt real bad, and she cried. I'm not laughing
at her crying. It's just like, no, no, it's it's silly.
It's like she I mean, I would expect cry. I mean,
just with all the information I understand, it's like a
scale thing, you know what I mean, they're tiny. It's
it's small, so it's not like it's not like a
tome to danders. But like I would have been ready
for you to say. And she screamed so loud it
(31:34):
broke the heavens apart, right that it just she she
had like a perfect like hole in the middle of
her home. Shrimp stigmata. That's fine, that's funny, but yeah, no, no,
it just it doesn't um while like this jet stream
is very powerful, you know, because the shrimp is relatively small,
(31:58):
and I think it's just sort of a matter of scale.
So for a delicate little fish like that, snap is
going to be lethal, um if or it's gonna stun you,
Whereas like you know, it's like if you if you
poke a hand really hard, it hurts, but it doesn't
destroy your handwheards, if you poke a little goldfish real hard,
(32:20):
just bordered goldfish and the monster, that's jerk stuff right there,
that's jerk stuff. Don't poke gold not about that life,
not about that life. No. Uh. And here's another shrimp question.
So this is from Hannah Michaels, who we've also had
on the show. Another friend of this show um, which
is why do Brian shrimp hatch so easily? And Brian
(32:44):
shrimp are really really interesting. They are this ancient primitive
crustacean who really haven't changed since the Triassic Period. So
have you did you ever get sea monkeys as a
as a kid? Dandal? You know, I did not. I
was not a sea monkey person. Unfortunately. I had goldfish
that or I had a couple of fish that I
(33:04):
was not very good at taking care of um, and
we decided that we probably shouldn't let me. I was
just you know what it was. It was the big
issue was that I was bad at regulating the temperature
of the tank. It was like there was a specific
temportunity to hit and I think it was that, like
my tank was too close to the window, it was
getting heat it up by the sun. It was like
it was I was a bad fish owner. I'm just
(33:28):
I was very bad and I am so sorry to
those fish. I'm eternally very sorry. They forgive you from
fish heaven. Probably that's what I needed to hear. The
like trying to own fish as a kid. It is
one of the more heartbreaking things because it's it's hard
to keep fish alive as an adult. But like you,
you're like, hey, kid, here's a good starter pet um.
(33:50):
Except it's like an extremely finicky animal that if like
you give it the wrong temperature or the water pH
is slightly off, it'll be dead and it'll be your fault.
Always strange to me how it's like goldfish are a
starter animal. Exactly, yeah, exactly. I think it's easier to
like take care of a cat than like a fish.
(34:11):
I am tempted to agree with you entirely. At least
the cat is going to tell you explicitly. It's like, hey,
you're yeah, did you take mack you in the face
if you're not feeding it right? But yeah, Brian, Shrimp
a k a. Sea monkeys are these teeny teeny tiny crustaceans.
You get this little package of what looks like tiny
like little poppy seeds or something, and you pour them
(34:32):
in water and boom, you've got a sea monkey civilization. Uh.
And the classic thing is that it's like on the
package they look like some kind of like king and
queen of sea monkey Land. But then when you hatch them,
their tiny weird, little like like prehistoric looking things with
a bunch of little wiggly legs. But it is like,
(34:53):
it is super interesting how this works, Like how do
you create brine shrimp from these dry, little poppy seed things.
So these eggs are known as cysts, which is a
lovely term. I love uh. And so they can remain
dormant in dry, oxygen free or even freezing conditions for
(35:14):
over two years and once they're placed in water, they
can hatch in a couple of hours. So this is
some some sci fi stuff going on, very sci fi.
What in the hell? So, typically brine shrimp will lay
thin shelled eggs that hatch immediately, and this is when
(35:35):
the mother senses that conditions are optimal for the babies
to hatch and go along their life cycle. But when
conditions are rough, like high concentrations of salt or low
levels of food, the brine shrimp will lay thick shelled cysts,
which contain a fully developed little larva and is basically
(35:56):
a holding stasis chamber for the baby. Brin instrim. This
is this continues to be true like sci fi of
just like I love nature and that's why I love
your podcast so much. Like every every episode is is
like it's like, yeah, the stuff that's like, this is
only these the tales of legend. It's like, no, these
(36:17):
are these this is actually most of the animals out
there in the world. They do the stuff already. It's
actually not even sci fi. It's just reality for a
lot of these creatures. It's like, right, like you want
to see like alien stuff, alien sci fi stuff. You
just like, like you get a package of sea monkeys,
open up a book, Open up a book, open up
a book, open up your mind exactly, you're actually going
(36:39):
to share a picture of a price. Like they look
they kind of look like like aliens, like alien aliens
from the movie Alien. Gorgeous. Wow, look at those things. Yeah,
they're they're like little aliens. And then they can go
into like alien stasis. I feel like, like, what's his name,
like hr Geiger, the guy who did the designed for Aliens.
(37:00):
Like they must have gotten some inspiration from Brian shrimp.
Absolutely absolutely, um so uh. These cysts that contain the
Brian shrimp larva can become completely dehydrated and the larva
enter into what's called an hydrobiosis, which is a state
(37:22):
of suspended animation in the absence of water. And so
when you get some of these sea monkeys and hatch them.
You are rehydrating these dehydrated cysts and you are rehydrating
the larva inside of them, which will then trigger them
to hatch, and so you will watch them hatch like
(37:43):
in a couple of hours. Luckily or hopefully, I got
some brin shrimp wants, and like I tried to hatch them,
and they just were all dead. I don't think I
had the right water. I think I just used some
like tap water or something, or maybe a few I
think a few of them did hatch, but then they
die classics um. But yeah, yeah, and then you have
(38:07):
these little tiny, primordial alien shrimp things. It's really incredible.
It's one of those things that like as kids, it's like,
oh yeah, that is messed up that you could do
that as a kid. It's like like in in you know,
I don't even know if like the full like weirdness
of it occurred to me as a kid, because it's like, oh, yeah,
just get a package of a little poppy seeds, Poorman.
(38:28):
Then I get a bunch of like weird little animals
wiggling around. Normal and fine, it's normal and fine, all right,
So we got more shrimp questions Danial. Yeah, so here
(38:49):
is a question from Leon the Badger, who asks do
shrimp have any camouflage abilities? If so, how do they
use them? And I just have a real quick answer
to this, which is lots of shrimp can camouflage. And
there are so many different types of shrimp camouflage, Like
I don't have time to go through all of them.
Maybe I'll do a bigger episode or something where I
(39:10):
talk more about these in detail. But you have everything
from like see through shrimp like ghost shrimp or Peterson's
Cleaner shrimp, who are literally they look like they're made
out of glass. You can see right through them. Um,
and so that is a form of camouflage. Uh there
are some shrimp who use stripes or disruptive coloration to
blend in with their coral environment. There are just so
(39:33):
many beautiful shrimp out there to be discovered and in
so many different types of shrimp. Crips is. So yes,
absolutely they do use camouflage and it's really interesting and
gorgeous and sometimes creepy, like the ghost shrimp. And so
our next question is from Bob Don who asks what
are the largest and smallest shrimp species? And uh, so this,
(39:57):
and then another question from Reynard is what is the
biggest a shrimp could possibly get in modern conditions? Um?
In terms of the smallest shrimp species, UM, I would
say probably. I mean Brian shrimp, I think are probably
the smallest. And you know, Brian shrimp are a little
bit weird. I don't know, like how because there's such
(40:20):
an kind of archaic shrimp type thing. Uh. It's again
one of those weird taxonomy things, like do they really
count as shrimp? But I would say, because we call
them shrimp, you know, small shrimp. But in terms of
the smallest like non Brian shrimp species is the fairy shrimp,
who uh is a little teeny tiny looks exactly like
(40:42):
a bigger shrimp, but just little teen tiny and they
only grow to be about six millimeters long as adults.
But they're they're also like a whole different there. There
are a bunch of varieties of species of these shrimps.
So yeah, so the fairy shrimp, which sounds beautiful and enchanted,
it sounds beautiful. I know, I want to party with
(41:03):
a fairy shrimp. Uh so uh, But in terms of
the biggest shrimp, this gets disconcerting. So the largest types
of shrimp are mantis shrimp species, which can grow to
be about four inches long or ten centimeters, which doesn't
seem too intimidating, but some specimens grow abnormally large, up
(41:25):
to eighteen inches long or forty eight centimeters. So I
don't love it. I'm gonna say, like, there's something about
a big shrimp that I'm not a you know, like
(41:46):
I'm not like big snail. Like we talked about small
things or things that are normally small that are actually
big a couple of weeks ago, and like big snail
I'm good with, like giant snail. I'm like, yeah, that's key.
It's somehow a big shrimp. When you scale up a shrimp,
it scares me. I don't like it. Okay, okay, you
(42:08):
know uncomfortable. Yeah you hear that. I hear that big
big shrimp definitely has I mean there's more, like there's
more wiggliness to it. A huge snail is just like
moving its slow, sluggish body across the round. It's like
I feel like I've become a fairy in a garden, right, Like, okay,
that look at my dog sized snail. We're friends now,
(42:29):
it's fine. When it's a big shrimp, It's like I
have been shrunk and put into a hostile ocean where
I'm going to get eaten by like a shrimp. And
that's not great. I don't love it. But yeah, so
while typically they do not grow to be up to
eighteen inches, they can and that is you know, again,
(42:51):
I'm not sure I love it. I'm not sure I
like it, especially when you look at I'll have these
pictures in the show notes and you can look at
it Danial in the docum. But like when you get
one of these big, big mantis shrimps, Yeah, they're big, big,
they were, They're big. I would definitely be I would
definitely be, um, what's world before here? It would be
(43:11):
weirded out. If I just saw that thing like crawling
along the ocean floor next me, I would definitely do
a jump. I would sprint out of the water. It
would be like those comics or those cartoons rather where
like the ghost of image of the person stays, but
then the person is just off screen already. It's like that.
That would be me getting out of the water, right.
I would do that thing where you run so fast
because you're scared that you run on top of the
(43:33):
water until you look down and you realize you're on water,
and then you got back into the water because you
remembered physics. Yeah, it's it's uh, you know, but so
so mantis shrimps, it's the whole big group of shrimp.
They there are many different species of mantis shrimp. They
can come in beautiful colors, like the peacock mantis, which
is absolutely divine. Boom oh wow wow right that is
(44:00):
so so yes, once again stunning from here. If I
saw it in person, I would leap. I wouldn't be
able to hold myself. I would not be able to
just like keep it in. I would definitely be out
of there super fast. But if someone who was bolder
than I was able to be like no, no, no, no, no,
it's okay, look and then lifted it and was able to,
you know, safely and properly show me this incredibly beautiful creature,
(44:22):
I would then be able to appreciate it. But I
know on first look I would it would be flight.
It would not be fight like an alien is about
to like crawl into your face holes and take over
your brain. That is um wow, that's wow, that's beautiful. Yeah.
So then but the ones that get really big, like
(44:42):
the larger species, tend to be less colorful, so like
they tend to be like gray or black and white.
Um so yeah, unfortunately there's not like the like huge
arm sized peacock mantis shrump. I guess I'm not or
why I'm saying unfortunately, but whatever. Uh So, there are
(45:03):
actually some more questions about mantis shrimps. So um. Someone
named Tomorrow asks I want to know everything there is
to know about mantis shrimps, and Rob Cunningham asks, Rob,
I read online that the mantis shrimp doesn't actually see
(45:25):
a bunch of different fancy colors because of the way
the brain's interpret color. Can you expand on that a bit? Please? Yes,
I can, thank you. So, mantis shrimp, like their name implies,
have mantis like blades for their fore limbs, called raptorials,
so they can attack and stab their prey. I mean
you play you've played um uh cyro punk some uh
(45:50):
and like you know you got you got the mantis
blades in that game where you got things on your arms,
right exactly, Manta shrimp have these things. It's pretty cool.
There are over four d fifty species of mantis shrimp,
all with different colors and slightly different methods of hunting.
Some use their fore limbs as clubs, so they have
(46:12):
sort of these beefy things that they used to just
like knock out their prey. And some use them like sides,
so like more like blades. Uh. So it is true
that they have what are probably the most complex eyes
of the animal kingdom. So they have eyes that move
independently of each other and have about fifteen types of
(46:34):
photoreceptor cells compared with three types of photo receptor cells
and human eyes. And so the original thought was, like, man,
these these shrimp must just see like an incredible psychedelic
rainbow of colors that humans simply cannot see. Um. But
just because the eyeball itself is very complex, it doesn't
(46:56):
mean they're experience of color or or vision is extremely complex,
because you know, the the bottleneck is going to happen
in their brains and how their brains process uh these colors.
So I don't know if this analogy quiet works, So
please computer people don't get too mad at me, But
imagine like a really good graphics card and like an
(47:20):
old computer, like you're still like you may have like
in the latest r t X five thousand, B seven
g t A b b q um. But if you
put that in like right, if you put that in
like an old computer, like, it's not necessarily going to
(47:41):
give you, you know, like spectacular graphics like you need.
You need a great GPO and a great CPU to
get to get those graphics, which is how I believe
computers to work. So yeah, that's yep, that's that's you
nailed it. That's it good, I did computers. So in
(48:03):
a similar way, the mantis eyes are limited by its
simple neural structures. So just because it has these amazing
eyes doesn't mean that the mantis is just enjoying a
smorgas board of color all the time. The reason the
mantis shrimp's eyes are so complex is not so it
can see a bunch of pretty colors, but for processing speed.
(48:27):
So the mantis is not really interested necessarily in having
a fun like visual experience. It's all about hunting and survival.
So when humans see something, we use I would say
relatively simple photoreceptor set up. I mean relatively is kind
of doing a lot of work here, because obviously the
human eye is incredibly complex. Um, but that information is
(48:52):
processed in our extremely powerful brains, So an extremely powerful
CPU which calculates the comparative levels of stimulation of our
three different photoreceptor cells. So basically were we have We
only have three photoreceptor cells, but we are calculating the
differentials in terms of their activation in our brains. That
(49:15):
paints an extremely clear picture of our environment. Um. So
you know, it's kind of like, well, like if you
have an HDTV there are only three colors of pickle
pixels on that TV, Like you have red, blue, and
green pixels. Uh, and you manage to get such complex
(49:36):
pictures of it because of the relative brightness of these
pixels that come together to form a very clear, complex
and sharp image. Similarly, we only have three photoreceptor cells
in our eyeballs, but we our brain calculates like the
different levels of activation of these and creates very clear pictures.
Mantis shrimp, meanwhile, is not really interested in creating a
(50:01):
super complex picture of its environment. It is optimized for
speed of recognizing an image, so instead of doing complex
processing in the brain, it can make immediate assessment of
color using its broader range of photosensory cells. So, uh,
it actually may perceive your colors than humans, but it
(50:24):
can react to them more quickly, which is like if
your whole thing is like hunting small fish and not
going to an art museum, being able to quickly respond
to colors and movement rather than like, you know, having
this experience of of you know, different colors is much
more important. So like there's a lot more kind of
(50:44):
localized processing in the eyeballs happening before it gets to
the brain, so that it's just gets this like very
quick boom response, uh, and knows that something is a
prey item and can snatch it with its creepy side
claws and ball. Yeah. So like that so like and
in terms of I think someone also asked, like how
(51:05):
did how did I feel like finding out like they
don't see all these colors, Like is it disappointing? I
don't think so. I think it's really interesting to see
sort of like how you can have such incredible complexity
in an eyeball and what that really means, like what
what that shrimp's experience is really like it it makes
(51:25):
us question our assumptions about like the purpose of things,
Like you see an incredibly complex eyeball, You're like, oh,
this thing must be seeing in like five dimensions. But
really it's just so that it can very quickly find
prey snatch it up. Um. But like if you show
it like a monet or something, it's not going to
know what what the heck you're doing, Like you know, Um,
(51:46):
it doesn't understand. It couldn't possibly. Yeah. So yeah, I mean,
like these have been really really cool shrimp questions you guys.
I'm I'm amazing. I'm amazed really, Like I I can
just ask you guys, like, hey, what do you want
to know about shrimp? And your questions are so smart
and so interesting and like a lot of this stuff
(52:07):
like I had to go on a research hole, down
a research hole to find all this stuff out. So
I'm learning as you guys are learning. Isn't that fun
ning exactly? Yeah, So thank you again for all of
those those shrimp questions. Um. Before we go, I do
have a quick listener email I'm very excited to share
(52:27):
with you guys. UM. So this was sent in uh
by Andy uh and I think this was we had
talked about frogs and how they got tormented by birds sometimes. Um,
and so sent in a video uh and and so
here's the email, just saying I'm fairly sure ducks normally
(52:50):
torment frogs, making this an act of ultimate revenge. This
was sent from my dad's South African dentist, so I
added lyrics apollo geez, I was in a metal mood.
Never apologize for welcome. Don't you dare apologize for being
in a metal mood? Love, love, love your work, Katie
(53:13):
from Andy, thank you so much for this. Uh, and
I'll link to I think he's got a music website
that'll link to in the show notes. But so let me,
since this is an audio medium, let me describe what's
happening in the video, which I'll also link in the
show notes. Um, but there is a frog who's caught
(53:35):
a duck and its mouth, and then someone is trying
to rescue the duck from the frog. Uh and pulls
pulls the duck out of the frog. Actually, I'm wondering
if this is it's a fairly big frog. Um, so
I mean to get a duck stuck? I mean, like,
(53:56):
how small was the duck? Was it a duck link No,
it's like a norm most size. I'm actually not even
sure it's some kind of waterfowl. I'm not sure even
if it's a duck or if it's like a grebe
or but regardless, uh, it is pretty crazy what happens
in this In this video, the the person is able
(54:17):
to get the water bird out of the frog, so
the bird escapes, the frog is just left kind of disappointed.
Um so let me let me play this for you. Okay,
So here is the song that goes along with this
video of a frog trying to eat a duck or
(54:37):
I think it might be some other kind of waterfowl.
Oh my god, oh my god, look at that from
what the frog rock? Hell yeah, perfect, that's perfect. Love it.
(55:19):
I love it so much. That's so funny. It's so good.
Thank you so much. Andy. This is incredible, incredible, amazing.
The art high art, truly absolutely high. I love I
mean you know it. Give me a metal cover of
(55:40):
just about anything, Give me a metal cover of a
frog trying to eat a birden and that video was horrifying.
I'm not gonna lie. That frog didn't even want to
let go. It seems like, no, no, what do you
think he was going to do? I mean, well, I
don't know, probably drowned the poor thing. Like yeah, that's
but you know, I mean birds do sometimes like I
(56:04):
think our ravens will sometimes like poke open frog stomachs
and just eat like their internal organs and then leave
them to explode later because they can't like when they
pull in a big breath of air, they just like
kind of pop open because there's a big hole in them.
Uh So, yeah, I guess turned around this fair play. Yeah,
(56:26):
I mean, I guess that's it goes. But I think
what we can all agree on is that it is
extremely metal and this song is great, so than on
that one. Well, I think we've done it. So thank
you so much for joining Meat today, Daniels about everything shrimp.
It is always a pleasure. I am honored to be
here to talk shrimp with you and and everything with
(56:49):
you anytime. Thank you so much. Well, it is an
honor to have you on Hey, where can the people
find you? You can find me on Twitter at DJ
underscore Daniel. I find on Instagram and just DJ Daniel
no underscore, and you can find me on Twitch at
DJ Underscore d A n L d J Underscore Daniel.
I should have done the underscore one second, do the Well,
it doesn't matter. I'll figure it out. I'll figure that out.
(57:11):
I have been playing my Instagram lately, but then but
I would be I literally just posted something on Instagram
for the first time, and I was like, I should
probably pay attention to this more. I'm so bad at it.
It's like, I so do like I like getting dumbass
jokes off and saying stupid on Twitter that I forgot
to post something serious on Instagram every once in a while,
and then I'm just like, I'm bad at Yeah. No,
I'm I'm also not like I'm I love to post
(57:34):
dumb jokes. But then it's like, oh, I think I
forgot to post an update for the Creature Feature on
the Internet. I probably did. Actually, no, that's okay, Sorry
about that, folks, um, but yeah you can. Speaking of which,
speaking of mine bad at social media social media's you
can find the podcast on the Internet at Creature Feature
(57:55):
Pod on Instagram, at Creature Fat Pod on Twitter. That's
f T f et then very different. Uh. You can
also gives send me an email with your metal covers.
Doesn't have to be a metal cover, though it could
be your questions could be a picture of your dog,
or your cat, or your giant shrimp. Pet as you
try to convince me to like huge Shrimp whatever you want. Uh.
(58:19):
That is Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com. Ah. Yeah,
and I'm Katie Golden on Twitter. Uh and I just
post my Katie thoughts not necessarily podcast related, but if
you're interested in those, you know, check them out thoughts.
Thank that's nice of you to say, uh, And thank
you guys so much for listening. Heck do I appreciate it.
(58:41):
And I do also appreciate if you have time to
drop a review and a rating. It actually really helps
tells tells them robot algorithms that hey, this is a
good podcast and people listen. And I also read all
the rows and I really appreciate it makes my day
whenever I get a review an So thank you for that. Uh.
(59:02):
And also thanks to the space Coffis for their super
awesome song ex Alumina. Reat your features of production by
Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard,
visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast, or hey
guess what wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I
don't care, I don't judge not watching you secretly from
the darkness. See you next Wednesday.
Welcome to Creature future production of I Heart Radio. I'm
your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, the Shrimp
episode soul So shrimp have been in the news for
stupid reasons, but I think we can all agree on
how cool shrimp are. We've got round trip tickets to
(00:27):
Chris Stacean Station, and I'm answering all your shrimpy questions.
What is a shrimp? How big they get? What's up
with that poop vein? Discover this and more as we
answer the angel question, Our shrimp just tiny lobsters. Joining
me today to have a shrimp ly wonderful time is
friend of the pod and frequent voice on Fake Doctor's
(00:48):
Real Friends, lead pro gamer d J. Daniel Goodman. Welcome back,
Thank you. I'm I'm overjoyed to be here once again.
You're very lucky because this is this is the week,
this is the shrimp times. Let's let's get after it.
The it's it's a special time of year. It's like
(01:11):
the wait, is it the vernal equinox? It's the shrimple
shrimp shrimp lee, shrimple equinox. Absolutely a criller pun right there.
Uh yes, But but we are talking about shrimp today,
and I thought, Hey, instead of me just yammering about shrimp,
(01:34):
why don't I ask you guys what you want to
hear about shrimp? So I did, and I got some
really awesome questions on Twitter about like, hey, what the
what the heck going on with shrimp? You know, what
the heck going on with shrimp? Right? You know, like
you're where you take up for granted that they're just shrimp,
but when you think about it, the heck, Yeah, that's
(01:56):
a really good question. I am. I am constantly wondering
what go on with shrimp? What go on with shrimp?
And why are shrimp? And like that was a lot
of the theme of a lot of questions. Some of
them were very specific, but some of them were just like, hey,
why why why shrimp? Why are shrimp? Uh? Here are
some of my favorite questions along the theme of what
(02:17):
is a shrimp? Anyways? So? From Alex is our shrimp
tiny lobsters? Uh? From the Tiago is am I a shrimp?
From Mr Borax is is there a difference between a
shrimp and a prawn? Are crawfish freshwater shrimp and from
(02:37):
Blake Rogers is Pepe the muppet is often very vocal
that he is a prawn and not a shrimp. Is
there truth to this or is he just trying to
reinvent himself like a college freshman. So I think it's
interesting because often there are these questions about taxonomy where
(02:58):
it's like what is a shrimp? And the reason it's
confusing is not because of you guys. It's because it's confusing.
It just is like even when you look into sort
of the like official categorization of shrimp like animals, it
gets pretty confusing. So generally speaking, there are like I
(03:19):
would say, four types of animals that fall into the
realm of like shrimp, like, in my opinion, so there
are shrimp, prawns, crayfish, and krill. Uh So you've heard
of all these guys right right down in some way
shape or in some way or another. Yes, yes, um.
(03:40):
So you know shrimp like we get that in like
in our food there, like when we cook them, they're
those little pink things, but when they're uncooked and alive,
they can come in many different colors. You know. Prawns
are another thing that we think of as like, hey,
that's pretty similar to a shrimp, Like is that a different,
different thing? Crayfish or another thing that's like, is it
(04:03):
a shrimp? Is it a lobster? What is that? And
then krill or teeny tiny things that kind of look
like shrimp, But what the heck are they? So all
of these dudes are crustaceans, and with the exception of krill,
they're also all decapods. So they're all related to crabs
and lobsters. Okay, what's comforting? Yes, is it? I'm glad
(04:29):
to know that it's all part of the same family. Yes,
I you know, sometimes I worry about I don't want
to offend any any sea creature of any kind and
just make some sort of assumption about yeah exactly, just
you know exactly, or the or the deep deep cold
take But I don't want to. I don't want to
offend any sort of crustacean or shelled animals of any kinds.
(04:53):
So it's confident they're all the same family. Yeah, you
don't want to be thoughtless and shellfish. I do it
because I do it because I heard I'm kidding. I'm
kidding you could in terms of like what what is
(05:13):
a shrimp. You could define shrimp as anything belonging to
the infra order kara or true shrimp, if you're being
really strict about it, but you could also define them
as anything belonging to corider or dendro branchiata, which is
the suborder of decapods known as proms um. And so
(05:38):
that's a little bit of a more generous definition of shrimp.
But then that still leaves out some species commonly called shrimp,
like boxer shrimp or ghost shrimp, or even mud shrimp. Mud. Yeah, there,
they are shrimp that often live in muddy flats. Uh.
(05:58):
And so the most broad definition of shrimp that belongs
to not only many different species but different orders as well,
would be any small crustacean that looks shrimp like so
elongated body, long tails, thin legs, a rostrum. So that's
that pointing nose like thing out in front of them
(06:20):
that that looks like a little nose, but it's actually
not a nose. It's just a point extrusion, eye, stalks
and antenna. You know, the shrimp look get the shrimp
drip if you will. Okay, well i'm i'm you know
it's one of those things where it's like you always
see an appendage or some sort of like extra extrusion
(06:43):
from a creature and you're like, yeah, that could be this,
but that's me putting my own human centric ideals on
what these things should be. And it's like, no, that's
not that. That's for sensing earthquakes. It's like, oh, okay,
all right, the cool there's this. I love. There's this
like joke and the original SpongeBob movie where there's a
(07:06):
deep sea anglerfish that it's um lure is in the
shape of like an entire ice cream store and grandmother.
So I just love I love that kind of like
thing where it's like, oh, it looks like it looks
like a human hand, but really what it is is amount.
But yeah, what would like if if I said, like
(07:29):
like get the shrimp look like, what would you do? Like?
What what shoes? If I wanted to get the shrimp
look well, I mean this again maybe traditional and stereotypical,
but I would go for a pink a pink color
would arch I would arch my back, probably stick my
face out as much as possible, and have my arms
(07:49):
and fingers kind of out like this just kind of
like right. I know I'm saying like this, this is
you know, podcast, a famously video medium, but eagine Danial
and he's like kind of like he's got his fingers
out like a bunch of shrimp legs and he's making
a shrimp face too. It's very convincing, and he's like
wiggling thank you, and it's like I'm looking at a shrimp.
I appreciate that. Thank you. I've been working on my
(08:11):
improv recently and that thank you. Yeah. So in terms
of what we get to call he nailed it. In
terms of what we get to call shrimp, I would say, like,
I think you're pretty safe to call prawns and most shrimp,
(08:32):
like crustaceans, shrimp. Nobody's gonna get too mad at you.
And maybe there's some shrimp purists. I would say krill.
While they do look a bit like shrimp, they're so
teeny tiny and I've actually never seen them referred to
as shrimp, so maybe maybe they don't qualify. Maybe they're
not allowed. They get turned down by the shrimp bouncer.
(08:52):
The club. Shrimp and crayfish, in my opinion, are crayfish
are too large and meaty to really be called shrimp.
I think they're more similar to lobster. Like on the
shrimp to lobster spectrum, they fall mainly lobster. So I
would say like, like, if you're like, hey, prawns and
shrimp are basically the interchangeable, I'd agree with you. But
(09:13):
if you're like, oh, our crayfish shrimp, I'd say, no,
you know, I feel it m hm. And you know,
but shrimp can be found all over the world, and
they can live in a variety of environments, from the
sea to freshwater to mud flats like that mud shrimp
(09:34):
we just And this relates to another question I got
from a listener who writes, this is the devil to pay.
That's a good that's a good. Uh, that's a good handle,
especially especially when it's just like this polite shrimp question.
Are there shrimp that live by those volcano events at
(09:56):
the bottom of the ocean? If so, are they all
see through like most of the weird stuff down there? Also,
do cave shrimp exist? Are they eyelists like some cavefish?
I love this question. Um, So indeed, there are deep
sea vent shrimp, and lots of them, like as we
know that really in the deep sea. It's this cold,
(10:18):
harsh environment, but there are these thermal vents from geothermal
activity below the Earth's surface and they spew this hot water.
It's a mixture of like gases and water and weird
minerals and lots of bacteria can grow around them, and
so a lot of life can be sustained by these things,
including huge amounts of shrimp. So there is something called
(10:43):
the bie Bay I'm not sure how you pronounce this.
It's like either Bebe or bee Bay hydrothermal vent field.
Or it's also called the Picard vent field. I guess
where you star trek nerds out there, uh. And they
are the deepest hydrothermal vents in the world, and they
(11:05):
are found in the Caribbean near the Cayman Islands. And
it is absolutely teeming with a strange, relatively newly discovered
species of ghostly white eyelis shrimp. So there are a
couple of pictures of it that I have shared with you, Yes,
(11:27):
And it just looks there's this it looks like there's
this weird sort of like white coding on this thing.
The shrimp. That's all shrimp, Like hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of shrimp, and it's the second picture down to
maybe jump ahead as a second picture down more of
a close up on set. Yeah yeah, yeah, so you
can see in the second picture you can see more
(11:49):
of the individual shrimp, but that there are so many
of them and they're all sustained by these hydrothermal bits.
These are called Rima Harris and these pale shrimp do
not have functional eyes. Instead, they have photoreceptive patches on
(12:10):
their backs that are able to detect the faint glow
of a deep sea event. So they only need enough
like photosensory cells to be able to guide themselves towards
events so that they can feed on the life sustained
by the event and stay you know, relatively warm compared
(12:32):
to the cold cruelty of the deep sea. I have
I have a question about said cold cruelty of the
deep sea, or rather the the lack there of around
these events. How hot the events get? Do you know?
They get extremely hot, so you definitely don't want to
get up near the boiling points. So most of the
water in the deep sea is very very cold, so
(12:53):
around forty degrees fahrenheit to which is two degrees celsius.
But once you get to one of these events, it
is from boiling to super boiling, So from around a
hundred and forty degrees fahrenheit, which is sixty degrees celsius too,
(13:15):
up to eight hundred and seventy degrees fahrenheit, which is
around four hundred and sixty degrees celsius. That's really okay,
that's extrue. That is very hot, very hot. That's you know,
skull meltingly hot. Wasna I was literally gonna say, melt
your skin off hot, but you know what you said
it for me? Yep, yep. So these shrimp do have
(13:35):
to be careful not to get like right near the
mouth of the hydrothermal fin or else. They probably turned
into a kind of tempera situation surrounding the events. They
basically find an area that's not too hot, not too cold,
sort of the goldilocks area, and and hover around there
so they don't get boiled, but they also get nice,
(13:58):
nice warmth, and they also get a lot of nutrition
from the life that these events sustain. That's I just
I'm still blown away. The heat resistance of these tiny
shrimp is like, that's wild, that's wild. Think skin melting
off easily like not even not not like you could
you know, you could handle it for a minute, and
(14:18):
I was no, we're talking like instant skin melting versus
these shrimps that are like, oh could we found it? No,
we can. I mean I think, to be fair, I
think if these shrimp get towards the area that is
skin melting, they would they would get boiled in probably
really tasty kind of just like this, yes exactly, but
(14:40):
uh they do know where to go, like where to
hang out um where it's not so boilingly hot and
that they can survive. And this is the case for
like there are certainly micro organisms that actually can withstand
extreme heat, like the bacteria I mentioned, They actually can
survive that skin meltingly boiling heat of the hydrothermal vents.
(15:04):
But the invertebrates that hang around these vents would get
boiled by that. But there they figured out how to
basically stay in the in between zones, so things like
YETI crabs and these these eyeless shrimps they make sure
that they stay within the realm where it's like close
enough that they can benefit from all the like the
(15:26):
fauna that these events allowed to grow without getting boiled
and turned into shrimp scampy that will there you go.
And the second part of the question is whether caves
have shrimp, and yes, indeed they do. There are a
few species of cave shrimps. Among them are the Kentucky
(15:48):
cave shrimp, which to me sounds like a fast food item.
Kentucky cave shrimp that's come, that's coming from KFC very soon.
I guarantee it, I will be in line to get
my first batchup popcorn Kentucky cave shrimp, Kentucky cave They
are pale and eyelis just like their deep sea counterparts,
(16:08):
and they managed to live in caves by feeding off
the sediment brought into the cave system by groundwater. So yeah,
shrimp are extremely hardy animals that can really survive some
extreme conditions, which I think is sometimes it's a little
bit interesting to think about because it's like shrimp, they're
so little and delicate, but they can be badasses. M
(16:33):
I mean, if I've learned anything about animals is that
they are stronger than us by a country mile or
an animal or whatever, but like they will outlive us
in every respect no matter what. Shrimp unionized screwed. We've screwed.
I don't know if they're like ants, but I gotta
imagine that there's like several hundred or hundred thousand shrimp
(16:56):
for every human on earth. Yeah, oh yeah, I'm sure
we'd be outnumbered extremely so yeah, including Brian shrimp doomed utterly. Yeah, no,
they would take us all were I love the word skeletonized. Well,
we're going to take a shrimp sized break and then
(17:19):
we are going to be back with more shrimp questions
that I will answer. Welcome back, and we are answering
your shrimp questions. So this was a frequent question. It's
about It's about those poop veins. This is from Wizard
(17:41):
Wizard p I on Twitter. Everyone knows about shrimp veins
and removing them, but do shrimp have real veins little
shrimp hearts? Where are they hiding them? If so, what
kind of course strength do these suckers have? Seems like
they're like muscle. So and then here's another question from
(18:03):
Zinte Daniel who writes, when you eat shrimp, are you
eating shrimp poop? Legit? Concern for me. My sister told
me this once and I've never eaten it, eaten it
since son I've got got a lot of other requests
about the poop veins. Um. So, the poop vein, if
you don't know, is this dark string looking thing that
(18:23):
runs along the back of the shrimp uh and is
said to be full of poop. It's not a real vein.
It is actually the shrimps intestinal tract. Yeah. I like
how you threw up devil horns for intestinal intestinal track.
Vein intestinal track, So the black stuff inside of it
(18:48):
is actually digested food and yes, poop. Uh. Most chefs
will actually remove the poop vein by cutting along the
back of the dead shrimp and removing the intestine. So
in this case, you would not be eating any shrimp
poop if you do not remove the poop vein. Yeah,
(19:08):
you're gonna be eating a little bit of shrimp poop.
We're gonna get a little shrimpoop. I mean, you know. Look,
but even in that case, it is generally harmless because
we cook shrimp. So the reason people prefer to remove
the poop vein other than the yuck factor is that
some people find it too gritty with the vein in
because shrimper scavengers, they actually get a lot of sand
(19:31):
and grit in with their diet. Um. So like you
chew into shrimp, maybe you're kind of getting a gritty taste,
Like I don't like the taste of gritty shrimp poop,
picky picky. But during the cooking process, any bacteria in
the digestive tract is killed and so it's it's not
going to hurt you. And how do you know whether
(19:52):
the shrimp has been d veined? I mean, if you
see a black vein running along the shrimp back, then
that's the intestine. It's still the and if you if
you don't see that the shrimp poop, it's probably poop free.
So that that is how you know whether you're getting
shrimp poop or not. In terms of the shrimp core strength,
(20:14):
we're actually going to talk a little bit more about
amazing feats of shrimp strength later. Um. But yeah, they
do have a lot of muscle, but they also do
have a circulatory system and other little tiny organs that um,
you know, it's hard to imagine fit inside a little
little shrimps. So they do have a circulatory system with
(20:36):
real veins, So they have a tiny heart arteries and
veins that run along its body and supply it with blood.
It also has a tiny brain and nervous system. So
when chef's talk about de veining a shrimp, they're not
really referring to removing all of its arteries or circulatory system.
They're they're talking about the poop, the digestive tract, or
(20:57):
the quote unquote poop vein um. But when you do
remove the intestine, you actually also remove the posterior aorta
because those are attached to each other. So you are
technically removing a vein um. But the reason for it
is the poop tube. Yes, indeed, the poop tube. I
love that poop tube given to me spectacular. So you
(21:18):
want to you want to eat? Do you? What about you, Dane?
Do you have a preference? Do you eat shrimp? Even?
I do? Yeah, I do. I do shrimp um. I
am of the lazier of lazier shrimp consumers who will
when I go to my local shrimpery, I'm getting the
easy peel d veined shellless shrimp, so that I just
I pull them tails off and then cut them in
(21:39):
half and throw them in the pot. So I'm usually
not eating the vein. That said, I do love the
act of like you know, peeling apart and like taking
and you know, it's doing a little bit of the
actual gift your hands dirty sort of work. So and
that's yeah, I do too. It's it's like it's a
little bit of I feel like kind of an animalistic
(21:59):
instinct for me. I love like um, sort of like
cracking into food, which sounds very like a little bit grotesque,
but it's like from anything from like a pistachio to
a lobster. I like this like sort of like getting
in there. I actually don't love shrimp that much in
terms of food, Like I don't eat it very often often.
(22:19):
I do like shrimp tempera um. That's like kind of
my only exception somehow. Like the texture I don't like,
which is weird because I do can tolerate lobster even
though it's a fairly simple similar texture. But yeah, I
don't know it's it's but I do like the I
like getting in there like with crab or lobster, like
you know, which is kind of like. Well, on the
(22:42):
more shrimp questions, so here's one is jumbo shrimp and
oxy moron. Also, why did trigger and pistol shrimp evolved
their snapping abilities. This is from Christi Yamagucci, Maine. I
think you know Christie, of course, of course shout out
and Crispy Keen, Crispy. And here's another one from Blake Rogers.
(23:03):
If a pistol shrimp attack the palm of my hand,
what sort of damage would it do? So these are
related questions. I'm gonna answer both of them. Yes please.
So first of all, is jumbo shrimp and oxymoron um No,
I would say like jumbo shrimp is like everything is relative, right,
like I can say a large chihuahua or a small whale,
(23:24):
yes exactly, or like I'm having a minor emergency my
large chihuahua. It just took a dump the size of
a small whale, and you know it all, it all
works out right. I mean to me that that question
reads like a bad stand up joke from the early
two thousands or the lake or something. We are roasting
Christie on this. Well, I mean, he even even he
(23:46):
knows if I know Christie, he knows that there's a
little bit of the old there's the little wink and
nod at this joke right here or at this question
right here. But like to anybody who can't read between
the lines. It's like, is it we call we call?
We call know? Mini Coopers or whatever compact cars are
they compact? Does it fit in your pocket? Absolutely not.
It's still a compact car. Can I check my make
(24:08):
up with it? No? Thank you, thank you. But yeah,
Daniel's calling out Christie. I'm gonna have to have Christie
on the show to call you out. I guess please.
I mean, first of all, have him on. Who he
would be a great guest, excellent speaker, hilarious person. Let's
do it. Yeah. Also a big also a big proponent
of the Chris Crofton Poetry Hour. Have you read Cris Crofton?
(24:30):
Have had Cris Crofton? Oh my gosh, what a legend.
I love that guy, Chris Crofton's Poetry Hour. It's great.
You can suggest any kind of poetry prompt and he'll
write a poem for you and it's very good. So
we need to have him back onto. In terms of
the serious part of your question, pistol and trigger shrimps.
So they are a whole family of quick draw shrimp
(24:54):
who use a mechanism in their claws to snap at
prey and stun them. So let's talk about the claw mechanism. So, um,
they have these huge claws that are like over half
the size of the rest of their body. There's actually
an image in their uh danial where you can see
(25:14):
how huge these claws are. It's like it's like hell, God, damn,
that is a huge claw. What you know, how like
hell Boy has a big arm exactly like that. It's
just like that. But yeah, that's a big that's a
that's big arm. It's like having a machine gun for
an arm. So and indeed, they can snap these claws
(25:35):
very quickly and shoot out like a pulse of water
that can stunt prey. So uh. The top of the
claw is the only part that basically moves, and it
has a hidden plunger in it that actually fits into
a socket at the bottom of the claws, sort of
like a mortar and pestle uh mechanism. So the top
(25:56):
part opens up and then with a huge amount of force,
the muscles snap it back into place and it closes
over like the water in this mortar uh. And the
bottom claw with such a huge amount of force that
it creates a jet stream that can travel over a
hundred feet a second, which is so fast it creates
(26:20):
a cavitation bubble that collapses with a lot of force
and for a fraction of a second. In some species,
that cavitation bubble can reach eight thousand degrees fahrenheit, which
is almost as hot as the sun. Yes, it's like
(26:43):
a time, it's like creating a tiny sun in this
right near this shrimp claw. But it's such a it's
so tiny and such a like fraction of a second.
It doesn't like burn the shrimp or anything around it.
It's just it's just how concentrated that forces. It's just
(27:04):
to be clear, Just to be clear, audience. You know
I have been I've been very I've just had my
mouth open a gate for the past like ten seconds
staring at Katie just with with the with the mentioned
of that. There was no drop on the connection or
anything like that. You didn't lose me there, Well, I
mean I lost my mind. But like eight thousand degrees
in the tip of that shrimps claw, all right. I
(27:29):
mean I was already never going in the ocean again,
but now I'm definitely never going in the ocean again. Wow.
That's wow, that's that's a big scary geez. Louise this
snap also goes in at two d and ten decibels,
which you know under yeah, underwater, it's not going to
(27:50):
hurt your ears. But yeah, it's it's technically extremely loud.
It just happens to not because it's not in air
and the sound doesn't travel like it doesn't in the air,
Like it's not going to like cause any deafness, but
very loud. They use this ridiculously forceful snap, uh to
(28:12):
that to stun their prey, so that jet stream smacks
the prey. It's done them. Sometimes it even kills them
if it's a little little fish. Uh So yeah, it's
it's an incredibly powerful Yeah. So some pistol shrimp species
aren't all about the violence. Uh, they are pretty cute
(28:33):
and that they can form a symbiotic relations shrimp with
gobie fish who they share a burrow with and team
up against danger. So the gobie has better vision than
the shrimp and can warn the shrimp of threats, and
the shrimp kind of keeps the gobie as like a
pet and like we'll touch it with its little antenna
to maintain trust in their relations shrimp and justice. Nice.
(29:02):
Uh And in terms of like how did pistol shrimp
evolve their snapping abilities. So if you look at the
anatomy of a pistol shrimps claw versus a non snapping shrimp,
it looks like the muscle tissue evolved to be able
to pull back the top of the claw further over
the full crum of the hinge joint, which allows a
much more powerful snap. Uh. So this seems to indicate
(29:26):
that selection pressured uh drove for bigger muscle mass so
like a more powerful like snap, which makes sense, like
even if you're just like a non pistol shrimp, like
getting a powerful snap and a quick snap will help
you catch prey faster and grip onto it with more strength.
So you can see how that could start to like
(29:47):
go spin out of control and instead of just being
about grabbing the prey, having such a powerful snap that
just the snap itself, you know, stunts the prey with
the jet stream. So I think it probably was like
selective rushers for catching the prey by manually grabbing onto it,
which kind of turned into this thing of like, oh, well,
I snapped and missed the prey, but my snap was
(30:09):
so powerful it's still stunned the prey. So yeah. And
in terms of the the last question about these pistol shrimp,
what would happen if a pistol shrimp attacked the palm
of your hand? Just blow cold clear through the palmp.
Now I'm kidding. You wouldn't have a hand. What hand? Now,
(30:32):
I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Um. So outside of the water,
if you pick up one and they shrimp, it probably
couldn't do much um as its pistol uses water bullets.
So um. I think if you've got your hand hot
in the clode, probably hurt pretty bad. Inside the water.
If you put your hand in and it snaps at
(30:52):
your hand, it hurts a lot. Apparently, I read on
an aquarium owner's website that they own a pistol shrimp
as a pet. Apparently people own these things, these little
tiny weapons on legs as pets, and it, um, she
got her hand too close, it's snapped at her and
(31:12):
it hurt real bad, and she cried. I'm not laughing
at her crying. It's just like, no, no, it's it's silly.
It's like she I mean, I would expect cry. I mean,
just with all the information I understand, it's like a
scale thing, you know what I mean, they're tiny. It's
it's small, so it's not like it's not like a
tome to danders. But like I would have been ready
for you to say. And she screamed so loud it
(31:34):
broke the heavens apart, right that it just she she
had like a perfect like hole in the middle of
her home. Shrimp stigmata. That's fine, that's funny, but yeah, no, no,
it just it doesn't um while like this jet stream
is very powerful, you know, because the shrimp is relatively small,
(31:58):
and I think it's just sort of a matter of scale.
So for a delicate little fish like that, snap is
going to be lethal, um if or it's gonna stun you,
Whereas like you know, it's like if you if you
poke a hand really hard, it hurts, but it doesn't
destroy your handwheards, if you poke a little goldfish real hard,
(32:20):
just bordered goldfish and the monster, that's jerk stuff right there,
that's jerk stuff. Don't poke gold not about that life,
not about that life. No. Uh. And here's another shrimp question.
So this is from Hannah Michaels, who we've also had
on the show. Another friend of this show um, which
is why do Brian shrimp hatch so easily? And Brian
(32:44):
shrimp are really really interesting. They are this ancient primitive
crustacean who really haven't changed since the Triassic Period. So
have you did you ever get sea monkeys as a
as a kid? Dandal? You know, I did not. I
was not a sea monkey person. Unfortunately. I had goldfish
that or I had a couple of fish that I
(33:04):
was not very good at taking care of um, and
we decided that we probably shouldn't let me. I was
just you know what it was. It was the big
issue was that I was bad at regulating the temperature
of the tank. It was like there was a specific
temportunity to hit and I think it was that, like
my tank was too close to the window, it was
getting heat it up by the sun. It was like
it was I was a bad fish owner. I'm just
(33:28):
I was very bad and I am so sorry to
those fish. I'm eternally very sorry. They forgive you from
fish heaven. Probably that's what I needed to hear. The
like trying to own fish as a kid. It is
one of the more heartbreaking things because it's it's hard
to keep fish alive as an adult. But like you,
you're like, hey, kid, here's a good starter pet um.
(33:50):
Except it's like an extremely finicky animal that if like
you give it the wrong temperature or the water pH
is slightly off, it'll be dead and it'll be your fault.
Always strange to me how it's like goldfish are a
starter animal. Exactly, yeah, exactly. I think it's easier to
like take care of a cat than like a fish.
(34:11):
I am tempted to agree with you entirely. At least
the cat is going to tell you explicitly. It's like, hey,
you're yeah, did you take mack you in the face
if you're not feeding it right? But yeah, Brian, Shrimp
a k a. Sea monkeys are these teeny teeny tiny crustaceans.
You get this little package of what looks like tiny
like little poppy seeds or something, and you pour them
(34:32):
in water and boom, you've got a sea monkey civilization. Uh.
And the classic thing is that it's like on the
package they look like some kind of like king and
queen of sea monkey Land. But then when you hatch them,
their tiny weird, little like like prehistoric looking things with
a bunch of little wiggly legs. But it is like,
(34:53):
it is super interesting how this works, Like how do
you create brine shrimp from these dry, little poppy seed things.
So these eggs are known as cysts, which is a
lovely term. I love uh. And so they can remain
dormant in dry, oxygen free or even freezing conditions for
(35:14):
over two years and once they're placed in water, they
can hatch in a couple of hours. So this is
some some sci fi stuff going on, very sci fi.
What in the hell? So, typically brine shrimp will lay
thin shelled eggs that hatch immediately, and this is when
(35:35):
the mother senses that conditions are optimal for the babies
to hatch and go along their life cycle. But when
conditions are rough, like high concentrations of salt or low
levels of food, the brine shrimp will lay thick shelled cysts,
which contain a fully developed little larva and is basically
(35:56):
a holding stasis chamber for the baby. Brin instrim. This
is this continues to be true like sci fi of
just like I love nature and that's why I love
your podcast so much. Like every every episode is is
like it's like, yeah, the stuff that's like, this is
only these the tales of legend. It's like, no, these
(36:17):
are these this is actually most of the animals out
there in the world. They do the stuff already. It's
actually not even sci fi. It's just reality for a
lot of these creatures. It's like, right, like you want
to see like alien stuff, alien sci fi stuff. You
just like, like you get a package of sea monkeys,
open up a book, Open up a book, open up
a book, open up your mind exactly, you're actually going
(36:39):
to share a picture of a price. Like they look
they kind of look like like aliens, like alien aliens
from the movie Alien. Gorgeous. Wow, look at those things. Yeah,
they're they're like little aliens. And then they can go
into like alien stasis. I feel like, like, what's his name,
like hr Geiger, the guy who did the designed for Aliens.
(37:00):
Like they must have gotten some inspiration from Brian shrimp.
Absolutely absolutely, um so uh. These cysts that contain the
Brian shrimp larva can become completely dehydrated and the larva
enter into what's called an hydrobiosis, which is a state
(37:22):
of suspended animation in the absence of water. And so
when you get some of these sea monkeys and hatch them.
You are rehydrating these dehydrated cysts and you are rehydrating
the larva inside of them, which will then trigger them
to hatch, and so you will watch them hatch like
(37:43):
in a couple of hours. Luckily or hopefully, I got
some brin shrimp wants, and like I tried to hatch them,
and they just were all dead. I don't think I
had the right water. I think I just used some
like tap water or something, or maybe a few I
think a few of them did hatch, but then they
die classics um. But yeah, yeah, and then you have
(38:07):
these little tiny, primordial alien shrimp things. It's really incredible.
It's one of those things that like as kids, it's like,
oh yeah, that is messed up that you could do
that as a kid. It's like like in in you know,
I don't even know if like the full like weirdness
of it occurred to me as a kid, because it's like, oh, yeah,
just get a package of a little poppy seeds, Poorman.
(38:28):
Then I get a bunch of like weird little animals
wiggling around. Normal and fine, it's normal and fine, all right,
So we got more shrimp questions Danial. Yeah, so here
(38:49):
is a question from Leon the Badger, who asks do
shrimp have any camouflage abilities? If so, how do they
use them? And I just have a real quick answer
to this, which is lots of shrimp can camouflage. And
there are so many different types of shrimp camouflage, Like
I don't have time to go through all of them.
Maybe I'll do a bigger episode or something where I
(39:10):
talk more about these in detail. But you have everything
from like see through shrimp like ghost shrimp or Peterson's
Cleaner shrimp, who are literally they look like they're made
out of glass. You can see right through them. Um,
and so that is a form of camouflage. Uh there
are some shrimp who use stripes or disruptive coloration to
blend in with their coral environment. There are just so
(39:33):
many beautiful shrimp out there to be discovered and in
so many different types of shrimp. Crips is. So yes,
absolutely they do use camouflage and it's really interesting and
gorgeous and sometimes creepy, like the ghost shrimp. And so
our next question is from Bob Don who asks what
are the largest and smallest shrimp species? And uh, so this,
(39:57):
and then another question from Reynard is what is the
biggest a shrimp could possibly get in modern conditions? Um?
In terms of the smallest shrimp species, UM, I would
say probably. I mean Brian shrimp, I think are probably
the smallest. And you know, Brian shrimp are a little
bit weird. I don't know, like how because there's such
(40:20):
an kind of archaic shrimp type thing. Uh. It's again
one of those weird taxonomy things, like do they really
count as shrimp? But I would say, because we call
them shrimp, you know, small shrimp. But in terms of
the smallest like non Brian shrimp species is the fairy shrimp,
who uh is a little teeny tiny looks exactly like
(40:42):
a bigger shrimp, but just little teen tiny and they
only grow to be about six millimeters long as adults.
But they're they're also like a whole different there. There
are a bunch of varieties of species of these shrimps.
So yeah, so the fairy shrimp, which sounds beautiful and enchanted,
it sounds beautiful. I know, I want to party with
(41:03):
a fairy shrimp. Uh so uh, But in terms of
the biggest shrimp, this gets disconcerting. So the largest types
of shrimp are mantis shrimp species, which can grow to
be about four inches long or ten centimeters, which doesn't
seem too intimidating, but some specimens grow abnormally large, up
(41:25):
to eighteen inches long or forty eight centimeters. So I
don't love it. I'm gonna say, like, there's something about
a big shrimp that I'm not a you know, like
(41:46):
I'm not like big snail. Like we talked about small
things or things that are normally small that are actually
big a couple of weeks ago, and like big snail
I'm good with, like giant snail. I'm like, yeah, that's key.
It's somehow a big shrimp. When you scale up a shrimp,
it scares me. I don't like it. Okay, okay, you
(42:08):
know uncomfortable. Yeah you hear that. I hear that big
big shrimp definitely has I mean there's more, like there's
more wiggliness to it. A huge snail is just like
moving its slow, sluggish body across the round. It's like
I feel like I've become a fairy in a garden, right, Like, okay,
that look at my dog sized snail. We're friends now,
(42:29):
it's fine. When it's a big shrimp, It's like I
have been shrunk and put into a hostile ocean where
I'm going to get eaten by like a shrimp. And
that's not great. I don't love it. But yeah, so
while typically they do not grow to be up to
eighteen inches, they can and that is you know, again,
(42:51):
I'm not sure I love it. I'm not sure I
like it, especially when you look at I'll have these
pictures in the show notes and you can look at
it Danial in the docum. But like when you get
one of these big, big mantis shrimps, Yeah, they're big, big,
they were, They're big. I would definitely be I would
definitely be, um, what's world before here? It would be
(43:11):
weirded out. If I just saw that thing like crawling
along the ocean floor next me, I would definitely do
a jump. I would sprint out of the water. It
would be like those comics or those cartoons rather where
like the ghost of image of the person stays, but
then the person is just off screen already. It's like that.
That would be me getting out of the water, right.
I would do that thing where you run so fast
because you're scared that you run on top of the
(43:33):
water until you look down and you realize you're on water,
and then you got back into the water because you
remembered physics. Yeah, it's it's uh, you know, but so
so mantis shrimps, it's the whole big group of shrimp.
They there are many different species of mantis shrimp. They
can come in beautiful colors, like the peacock mantis, which
is absolutely divine. Boom oh wow wow right that is
(44:00):
so so yes, once again stunning from here. If I
saw it in person, I would leap. I wouldn't be
able to hold myself. I would not be able to
just like keep it in. I would definitely be out
of there super fast. But if someone who was bolder
than I was able to be like no, no, no, no, no,
it's okay, look and then lifted it and was able to,
you know, safely and properly show me this incredibly beautiful creature,
(44:22):
I would then be able to appreciate it. But I
know on first look I would it would be flight.
It would not be fight like an alien is about
to like crawl into your face holes and take over
your brain. That is um wow, that's wow, that's beautiful. Yeah.
So then but the ones that get really big, like
(44:42):
the larger species, tend to be less colorful, so like
they tend to be like gray or black and white.
Um so yeah, unfortunately there's not like the like huge
arm sized peacock mantis shrump. I guess I'm not or
why I'm saying unfortunately, but whatever. Uh So, there are
(45:03):
actually some more questions about mantis shrimps. So um. Someone
named Tomorrow asks I want to know everything there is
to know about mantis shrimps, and Rob Cunningham asks, Rob,
I read online that the mantis shrimp doesn't actually see
(45:25):
a bunch of different fancy colors because of the way
the brain's interpret color. Can you expand on that a bit? Please? Yes,
I can, thank you. So, mantis shrimp, like their name implies,
have mantis like blades for their fore limbs, called raptorials,
so they can attack and stab their prey. I mean
you play you've played um uh cyro punk some uh
(45:50):
and like you know you got you got the mantis
blades in that game where you got things on your arms,
right exactly, Manta shrimp have these things. It's pretty cool.
There are over four d fifty species of mantis shrimp,
all with different colors and slightly different methods of hunting.
Some use their fore limbs as clubs, so they have
(46:12):
sort of these beefy things that they used to just
like knock out their prey. And some use them like sides,
so like more like blades. Uh. So it is true
that they have what are probably the most complex eyes
of the animal kingdom. So they have eyes that move
independently of each other and have about fifteen types of
(46:34):
photoreceptor cells compared with three types of photo receptor cells
and human eyes. And so the original thought was, like, man,
these these shrimp must just see like an incredible psychedelic
rainbow of colors that humans simply cannot see. Um. But
just because the eyeball itself is very complex, it doesn't
(46:56):
mean they're experience of color or or vision is extremely complex,
because you know, the the bottleneck is going to happen
in their brains and how their brains process uh these colors.
So I don't know if this analogy quiet works, So
please computer people don't get too mad at me, But
imagine like a really good graphics card and like an
(47:20):
old computer, like you're still like you may have like
in the latest r t X five thousand, B seven
g t A b b q um. But if you
put that in like right, if you put that in
like an old computer, like, it's not necessarily going to
(47:41):
give you, you know, like spectacular graphics like you need.
You need a great GPO and a great CPU to
get to get those graphics, which is how I believe
computers to work. So yeah, that's yep, that's that's you
nailed it. That's it good, I did computers. So in
(48:03):
a similar way, the mantis eyes are limited by its
simple neural structures. So just because it has these amazing
eyes doesn't mean that the mantis is just enjoying a
smorgas board of color all the time. The reason the
mantis shrimp's eyes are so complex is not so it
can see a bunch of pretty colors, but for processing speed.
(48:27):
So the mantis is not really interested necessarily in having
a fun like visual experience. It's all about hunting and survival.
So when humans see something, we use I would say
relatively simple photoreceptor set up. I mean relatively is kind
of doing a lot of work here, because obviously the
human eye is incredibly complex. Um, but that information is
(48:52):
processed in our extremely powerful brains, So an extremely powerful
CPU which calculates the comparative levels of stimulation of our
three different photoreceptor cells. So basically were we have We
only have three photoreceptor cells, but we are calculating the
differentials in terms of their activation in our brains. That
(49:15):
paints an extremely clear picture of our environment. Um. So
you know, it's kind of like, well, like if you
have an HDTV there are only three colors of pickle
pixels on that TV, Like you have red, blue, and
green pixels. Uh, and you manage to get such complex
(49:36):
pictures of it because of the relative brightness of these
pixels that come together to form a very clear, complex
and sharp image. Similarly, we only have three photoreceptor cells
in our eyeballs, but we our brain calculates like the
different levels of activation of these and creates very clear pictures.
Mantis shrimp, meanwhile, is not really interested in creating a
(50:01):
super complex picture of its environment. It is optimized for
speed of recognizing an image, so instead of doing complex
processing in the brain, it can make immediate assessment of
color using its broader range of photosensory cells. So, uh,
it actually may perceive your colors than humans, but it
(50:24):
can react to them more quickly, which is like if
your whole thing is like hunting small fish and not
going to an art museum, being able to quickly respond
to colors and movement rather than like, you know, having
this experience of of you know, different colors is much
more important. So like there's a lot more kind of
(50:44):
localized processing in the eyeballs happening before it gets to
the brain, so that it's just gets this like very
quick boom response, uh, and knows that something is a
prey item and can snatch it with its creepy side
claws and ball. Yeah. So like that so like and
in terms of I think someone also asked, like how
(51:05):
did how did I feel like finding out like they
don't see all these colors, Like is it disappointing? I
don't think so. I think it's really interesting to see
sort of like how you can have such incredible complexity
in an eyeball and what that really means, like what
what that shrimp's experience is really like it it makes
(51:25):
us question our assumptions about like the purpose of things,
Like you see an incredibly complex eyeball, You're like, oh,
this thing must be seeing in like five dimensions. But
really it's just so that it can very quickly find
prey snatch it up. Um. But like if you show
it like a monet or something, it's not going to
know what what the heck you're doing, Like you know, Um,
(51:46):
it doesn't understand. It couldn't possibly. Yeah. So yeah, I mean,
like these have been really really cool shrimp questions you guys.
I'm I'm amazing. I'm amazed really, Like I I can
just ask you guys, like, hey, what do you want
to know about shrimp? And your questions are so smart
and so interesting and like a lot of this stuff
(52:07):
like I had to go on a research hole, down
a research hole to find all this stuff out. So
I'm learning as you guys are learning. Isn't that fun
ning exactly? Yeah, So thank you again for all of
those those shrimp questions. Um. Before we go, I do
have a quick listener email I'm very excited to share
(52:27):
with you guys. UM. So this was sent in uh
by Andy uh and I think this was we had
talked about frogs and how they got tormented by birds sometimes. Um,
and so sent in a video uh and and so
here's the email, just saying I'm fairly sure ducks normally
(52:50):
torment frogs, making this an act of ultimate revenge. This
was sent from my dad's South African dentist, so I
added lyrics apollo geez, I was in a metal mood.
Never apologize for welcome. Don't you dare apologize for being
in a metal mood? Love, love, love your work, Katie
(53:13):
from Andy, thank you so much for this. Uh, and
I'll link to I think he's got a music website
that'll link to in the show notes. But so let me,
since this is an audio medium, let me describe what's
happening in the video, which I'll also link in the
show notes. Um, but there is a frog who's caught
(53:35):
a duck and its mouth, and then someone is trying
to rescue the duck from the frog. Uh and pulls
pulls the duck out of the frog. Actually, I'm wondering
if this is it's a fairly big frog. Um, so
I mean to get a duck stuck? I mean, like,
(53:56):
how small was the duck? Was it a duck link No,
it's like a norm most size. I'm actually not even
sure it's some kind of waterfowl. I'm not sure even
if it's a duck or if it's like a grebe
or but regardless, uh, it is pretty crazy what happens
in this In this video, the the person is able
(54:17):
to get the water bird out of the frog, so
the bird escapes, the frog is just left kind of disappointed.
Um so let me let me play this for you. Okay,
So here is the song that goes along with this
video of a frog trying to eat a duck or
(54:37):
I think it might be some other kind of waterfowl.
Oh my god, oh my god, look at that from
what the frog rock? Hell yeah, perfect, that's perfect. Love it.
(55:19):
I love it so much. That's so funny. It's so good.
Thank you so much. Andy. This is incredible, incredible, amazing.
The art high art, truly absolutely high. I love I
mean you know it. Give me a metal cover of
(55:40):
just about anything, Give me a metal cover of a
frog trying to eat a birden and that video was horrifying.
I'm not gonna lie. That frog didn't even want to
let go. It seems like, no, no, what do you
think he was going to do? I mean, well, I
don't know, probably drowned the poor thing. Like yeah, that's
but you know, I mean birds do sometimes like I
(56:04):
think our ravens will sometimes like poke open frog stomachs
and just eat like their internal organs and then leave
them to explode later because they can't like when they
pull in a big breath of air, they just like
kind of pop open because there's a big hole in them.
Uh So, yeah, I guess turned around this fair play. Yeah,
(56:26):
I mean, I guess that's it goes. But I think
what we can all agree on is that it is
extremely metal and this song is great, so than on
that one. Well, I think we've done it. So thank
you so much for joining Meat today, Daniels about everything shrimp.
It is always a pleasure. I am honored to be
here to talk shrimp with you and and everything with
(56:49):
you anytime. Thank you so much. Well, it is an
honor to have you on Hey, where can the people
find you? You can find me on Twitter at DJ
underscore Daniel. I find on Instagram and just DJ Daniel
no underscore, and you can find me on Twitch at
DJ Underscore d A n L d J Underscore Daniel.
I should have done the underscore one second, do the Well,
it doesn't matter. I'll figure it out. I'll figure that out.
(57:11):
I have been playing my Instagram lately, but then but
I would be I literally just posted something on Instagram
for the first time, and I was like, I should
probably pay attention to this more. I'm so bad at it.
It's like, I so do like I like getting dumbass
jokes off and saying stupid on Twitter that I forgot
to post something serious on Instagram every once in a while,
and then I'm just like, I'm bad at Yeah. No,
I'm I'm also not like I'm I love to post
(57:34):
dumb jokes. But then it's like, oh, I think I
forgot to post an update for the Creature Feature on
the Internet. I probably did. Actually, no, that's okay, Sorry
about that, folks, um, but yeah you can. Speaking of which,
speaking of mine bad at social media social media's you
can find the podcast on the Internet at Creature Feature
(57:55):
Pod on Instagram, at Creature Fat Pod on Twitter. That's
f T f et then very different. Uh. You can
also gives send me an email with your metal covers.
Doesn't have to be a metal cover, though it could
be your questions could be a picture of your dog,
or your cat, or your giant shrimp. Pet as you
try to convince me to like huge Shrimp whatever you want. Uh.
(58:19):
That is Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com. Ah. Yeah,
and I'm Katie Golden on Twitter. Uh and I just
post my Katie thoughts not necessarily podcast related, but if
you're interested in those, you know, check them out thoughts.
Thank that's nice of you to say, uh, And thank
you guys so much for listening. Heck do I appreciate it.
(58:41):
And I do also appreciate if you have time to
drop a review and a rating. It actually really helps
tells tells them robot algorithms that hey, this is a
good podcast and people listen. And I also read all
the rows and I really appreciate it makes my day
whenever I get a review an So thank you for that. Uh.
(59:02):
And also thanks to the space Coffis for their super
awesome song ex Alumina. Reat your features of production by
Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard,
visit the I Heart Radio app Apple podcast, or hey
guess what wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I
don't care, I don't judge not watching you secretly from
the darkness. See you next Wednesday.
Creature Feature News
Host
Katie Goldin
Show Links
RSSAbout Creature FeatureTheme SongPopular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!