Ten Things I Like About... Podcast

Summary: Are they limbs or are they fins? What are those things on the side of the coelacanth? Join Kiersten and a guest host to find out! For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Shoe Notes: “Coelacanth Fossil Sheds Light On Fin-to-limb Evolution.” Science Daily, https://www.sciencedaily.com Anatomy: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/fish/anatomy.html Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Oxford Languages Dictionary Merriam-Webster Dictionary Casey teaches her students all about cladograms! Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues the coelacanth and their crazy interesting fins is the eighth thing I like about this deep sea fish. Today I have a guest cohost joining me, my friend Casey. Thanks for joining me Casey. Casey: You’re welcome. Thanks for having me. Kiersten: Casey and I have known each other for a long time. We met as zookeepers 18 years ago and became friends very quickly. Today, Casey is a biology teacher and when she found out I was doing this podcast she was excited to help me. Casey: Coelacanths are extremely interesting and their appendages, or limbs, are interesting in their history. Kiersten: Great! Today we’re talking about limbs versus fins! I hope by now, listeners, you’ve all googled a picture of the coelacanth and have gotten a glimpse of their interesting fins. In episode two, anatomy, I talked about the coelacanths special fins called lobed fins. They have six lobed fins. Casey: I love their little limbs! Kiersten: Me too! But I thought they were fins? Casey: They do look like limbs. Kiersten: I think we need to dive into this topic and learn a bit more. Casey: I agree! Kiersten: Let’s start with some definitions. The Oxford Languages Dictionary says a limb is "a leg or arm of a person or a four-legged animal, or a bird’s wing”. That completely leaves out the coelacanth, for sure! Casey: I agree! But the Merriam-Webster Dictionary definition is “one of the projecting paired appendages of an animal body used especially for movement and grasping but sometimes modified into sensory or sexual organs.” I think that puts the coelacanth back in the limb arena! Kiersten: Maybe…Let’s hear Oxford Languages Dictionary’s definition of fin: “a flattened appendage on various parts of the body of many aquatic vertebrates and some invertebrates, including fish and cetaceans, used for propelling, steering, and balancing.” That definitely sounds like the coelacanth. Casey: I can’t argue with that! But Merriam-Webster’s definition of fin is “an external membranous process of an aquatic animal used in propelling or guiding the body.” I’m on the fence with this one. I wouldn’t say that coelacanths have membranous fins. Kiersten: Hmmmmm….I think what we need to do is look at what these fins can do. Casey: You mean limbs. Kiersten: Let’s call them appendages until we get his settled. Casey: Deal! Kiersten: The coelacanth has seven appendages overall. Four are paired, two behind the gills, the pectoral fins, one on each side; two mid body on the bottom of the fish the pelvic fins, one on each side. Then there is one anal fin just in front of the tail on the underside of the fish and then two dorsal fins. They have eight if you include the tail. I think it’s interesting in itself that they have eight appendages, that’s quite a lot for a fish. Casey: Yeah, what are they using all those appendages for? Kiersten: Well the four paired fins on each side of the body move like paddles propelling them forward through the water. These appendages are able to rotate 180 degrees so they can probably use them to back up as well as more forward. The really cool thing about these four extremities is that they work in conjunction with each other. The right pectoral fin moves together with the left pelvic fin. Casey: You mean like the way a horse walks? Kiersten: Yes! It’s a lot like how a many land mammals move their ….. oh, I see where you going with this. You just want me to say they're limbs! Casey: Yes! Yes, I do! Kiersten: Well, I think we might both get what we want from the next definition. Coelacanths are classified as a lobe-finned fish. This means that the flouncy part of the fins are attached to a stalk that projects out from their body. It actually looks like a paddle with a fin attached to the end. Casey: That sounds like a limb…..and a fin. Kiersten: Yes, I agree. Maybe we can agree that we’re bot

Summary: Coelacanth reproduction is the most mind-blowing episode yet! Join Kiersten as she digs deep into the life cycle of this ancient animal. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: Anatomy: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/fish/anatomy.html Vims Fish Collection: Coelacanth, https://www.vims.edu Goliath Grouper - https://marinesanctuary.org “New Scale Analysis reveal centenarian African coelacanths,” Kelig Made, Bruno Ernande and Marc Herbin, Current Biology 31, 3621-3628, August 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2021.05.054 “Latimeria, the Living Coelacanth, Is Ovoviviparous,” by c. Lavett Smith, Charles S. Rand, Bobb Schaeffer, and James W. Ate. Science, 12 Dec 1975, Vol 190, Issue 4219, pp1105-1106; https://doi.org/10.1126/science.190.4219.1105 “‘Living fossil’ fish surprises scientists with 100-year lifespan,” by Thomson Reuters. Science, https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/coalacanth-fossil-1.6074328 Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues the coelacanth series and the seventh thing I like about them is how they reproduce. Strap in for this one listeners because this is the most mind-blowing episode of the coelacanth so far! There are so many unbelievable facts about coelacanth reproduction I almost don’t know where to start, but I have to start somewhere, so let’s start with their maturation age. Coelacanths are large fish averaging about five feet long with some individuals reaching six feet. With most large animals it takes some time to become mature enough to reproduce. For example, it takes elephants approximately ten years before they are ready to reproduce, blue whales, the largest animal alive today, mature around 15 years old, and Goliath groupers, a fish that can reach almost 8 feet in length, mature at about 20 years old. The coelacanth is no exception to this trend but they push it even farther than these three examples. A coelacanth becomes sexually mature at 55 years of age. That is an awful long time to survive before you can make more coelacanth. When coelacanths are ready to reproduce, a mate must be chosen. We don’t know what goes into this decision because we have not seen coelacanths copulating, yet. We don’t know what females look for in a mate, we don’t know if there is a mating ritual that males perform to attract females. We do know that most likely females choose the male and allow him to mate with her because fertilization is internal in coelacanths. I say this because other males of species that have internal reproduction or internal fertilization have various behaviors to attract females to them. The females pick the males that impress them most based on established criteria such as feather color, winning a fight with another suitor, or singing the best song. We’re already off to an unusual start because most scaled fish reproduce externally by laying eggs with males fertilizing the eggs after they are laid. Internal fertilization in fish such as sharks and rays is common but not so much in scaled fish. We do know with some certainty that coelacanths are probably monogamous. In a scientific paper published in 2013, researchers genetically studied two clutches of coelacanth eggs and their mothers. Both coelacanth females were Latimeria chalumnae, the African Coelacanth. One female had 26 embryos and the other had 22 embryos. Both clutches appeared to be close to birth when the females were caught and perished. Let’s call the females with 26 embryos Clutch 1 and the female with 22 embryos Clutch 2. Results revealed that all the young of clutch 1 had four genotypes present. These were contributed by two individuals. The same results were reported for clutch 2. What exactly does this mean? It means only one male contributed his genetic material to the embryos. It was a different male for each female, but only one male contributed to the embryos. It’s an extremely small sample size, but this leads us to believe that coelacanths are monogamous. The females, at least, may only mate with one male at a time. Coelacanths are classified as ovoviviparous. For those of you who have listened to my caecilian series and remember the reproduction episode, you already know that ovoviviparous animals give live birth to animals that they incubate inside an egg that remains inside the female during development. This is what the co

Summary: How does this deep sea fish find food? Just like everything else with the coelacanth, it’s fascinating! Join Kiersten as she explains how the coelacanth hunts and what it likes to eat. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “The coelacanth rostral organ is a unique low=resolution electro-detector that facilitates the feeding strike,” by Rachel M. Berquist, Vitaly L. Galinsky, Stephen M. Kajiura, and Lawrence R. Frank. Scientific Reports 5, #8962 (2015) https://doi.org/10.1038/srep08962 “The first direct evidence of a Late Devonian coelacanth fish feeding on conodont animals,” by Michel Zaton, Krzysztof Broda, Martin Qvarnstrom, Grzegorz Niedzweidzki and Per Erik Ahlberg. The Science of Nature 104, #26 (2017), https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-017-1455-7 Anatomy: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/fish/anatomy.html Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues the coelacanth and their diet and how they hunt is the sixth thing I like about them. If you remember from episode two, Anatomy, coelacanths have what is called a rostral organ. This organ is believed to help them detect electric fields in their environment. Why do they need to detect electric fields? I love this question, listeners, and I’m proud of you for asking it! Some fish have the ability to detect weak, low frequency electric fields produced by living tissue that is in contact with water. These fish typically have some kind of electrosensitive organ that detects the electric fields and these fish tend to be meat eaters. See where I’m going with this? The electric fields that living creatures give off is how the coelacanth finds its food. Let’s delve into the details of their rostral organ and see how this thing works. Most fish with an electrosensitive organ that have been studied have complex labyrinths of hundreds to thousands of sensory canals. These canals are distributed throughout both the top and bottom of the head and are also often found around the mouth. These canals are typically arranged in clusters that are reminiscent of a directional antenna. All of the canals connect to an electrosensitive organ. The layout of the canals allows the fish to sense other animals near it from several different directions. This can help them find food, recognize conspecifics, or detect predators when they are at close range. Every animal’s electric field will be different and our fish can use those differences to discriminate between the animals near them. The coelacanth’s rostral organ is an electrosensitive organ but, just like everything else we’ve learned about so far, it’s not quite like other fish’s. To discover more about this organ, a team of scientists used an MRI machine on a preserved specimen of Latimeria chulumnae to get a good look at it. What they found was slightly unexpected but explained a few things that we’ll talk about in just a moment. The rostral organ of the coelacanth has only three sensory canals, as opposed to hundreds or thousands seen in other extant species of fish. These canals are called tubules and they are all restricted to a small area of the upper snout. They also have no electroreceptors connected to the lower surface of the snout or lower jaw. Seeing the smaller scope and size of the rostral organ, the researchers asked what good is it really doing the coelacanth. Using the 3D images they got with the MRI, they approximated the sensitivity of each tubule which allowed them to estimate the range of the rostral organ. What they found was that the coelacanth can only detect animals directly in front of their snout. Their rostral organ is only a low-resolution electro-detector so they do not get any complex information from the electric fields they detect and the field must be very close to them. This makes them unique in living fishes that use electrosensory organs to detect prey because they cannot track the prey items movements. They have to wait until the prey is practically in their mouths before they sense them. Remember I said this studies’ findings explained something about the coelacanth, well the is it. It explains why they hunt the way they hunt. When we first developed technology that allowed us to study live coelacanths in situ, we noticed a strange behavior. Sometimes coelacanths would drift along in a current with their heads down and their

Summary: Is the coelacanth a ‘living fossil’? Join Kiersten and a guest co-host as they discuss this controversial topic. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: ‘Coelacanths as “almost living fossils”’ by Lionel Calvin and Guillaume Guinot, Front. Ecol. Evol., 13 August 2014, https://www.frontiersin.org “Resolving the Phylogenetic Position of Coelacanth: The Closest Relative Is Not Always the Most Appropriate Outgroup”, by Naoko Takezaki and Hidenori Nishihara, Genome Bill Evil, 2016Apr; 8(4): 1208-1221, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.201200145#sec1-3-title Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues the coelacanth and the controversy about whether they are a living fossil or not is the fifth thing I like about this ancient animal. Today I have a guest cohost joining me, my friend Casey. Thanks for joining me Casey. Casey: You’re welcome. Thanks for having me. Kiersten: Casey and I have known each other for a long time. We met as zookeepers 18 years ago and became friends very quickly. Today Casey is a biology teacher and when she found out I was doing this podcast she was excited to help me. Casey: I excited to talk about the coelacanth. Kiersten: When the coelacanth was first rediscovered in 1938 by the Marjorie Courtaney-Latimer in East London, South Africa people immediately began calling it a “living fossil” with quotations because this fish had not been seen by modern humans expect in fossils. Today there is a big controversy over whether the living coelacanths actually qualify as a “living fossil.” Guess we should start off with a definition of “living fossil.” Casey: Yes. One of the controversies is that there isn’t a real definition of living fossil. Kiersten: Ah! I could see how that could be a problem, but I thought Darwin had defined living fossil back in 1859. Casey: He coined the term but it’s not really a scientifically accepted word. It’s just not measurable in scientific terms. Kiersten: Okay, but I think we should let my listeners know what it is and so they can follow along. According to Darwin’s definition a living fossil is a species or group of species that is so little changed that it provides an insight into earlier, now extinct, forms of life. Casey: It can also be described as an organism that has remained relatively unchanged over millions of years, or one that has no, or very few, close surviving relatives. Kiersten: Well that certainly sounds like the coelacanth to me! Casey: Me too! But not all scientists agree. Kiersten: I’ve heard of some researchers using RNA sequencing to determine whether they are living fossils. Can you explain this? Casey: Certainly….You have to think about when the coelacanth was first discovered. In 1938 we didn’t have a way to sequence genetics. Even in the 1990’s when the second specimen was found we still didn't have the technology that we do now. We know now that the coelacanth have been changing internally all this time even if they still look very similar on the outside to fossil coelcanths. Kiersten: Okay, so comparing this to Darwin’s definition, they may look the same on the outside but on the inside they are different. Genetically speaking. Casey: Yes. And looking at the second definition that I gave, once the second species was found in 1998 it voids that definition. There are now two related species or close surviving relatives. Kiersten: So we can’t call the coelacanth a living fossil any more. That’s kind of sad. Casey: I think so too! It’s a neat phrase to use but not necessarily the best. Kiersten: Let’s recap. The coelacanth looks physically the same because maybe the habitat is the same as years ago, and they do not need to change physically because their habitat is basically the same. Casey: Correct, that could be one of the reasons. What they have seen geographically they haven’t seen much change on their habitat. Now. I’m not saying that their hasn’t been pollution or other similar changes but there have been no changes that cause them to change physically. Molecule or genetic changes are a different story. What scientists are looking at are RNA changes. Kiersten: Okay. We hear a lot about DNA, not so much about RNA. What’s the difference? Casey: DNA is deoxyribonucleic acid while RNA is ribonucleic acid. They are looking at RNA to determine where coe

Summary: What are those coelacanth doing in the deep water of the ocean? Join Kiersten as she discusses some of the coelacanth’s behavior. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: Coelacanth, Smithsonian, https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/fish/coelacanth “New Insights About the Behavioral Ecology of the Coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae Video Recorded in the Absence of Humans Off South Africa” by Jiro Sakaue, Kazuhiko Maeda, Micheal J. Miller, Ryuichi Sakai, Koh-ichi Tahara, Hideki Abe, Kazuya Made, and Hitoshi Ida, Front. Mar. Sci., 10 November 2021, https://www.frontiersin.org Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues coelacanths and the fourth thing I like about this enormous fish is their behavior. Once again, I’m going to state that we are still learning new things about the coelacanth everyday, so what I talk about in this episode is what we currently know, but the future may bring different information. As I mentioned in the last episode, coelacanths are a deep water fish. They are typically found between 250 feet to1300 feet below the surface. We can see them using specialized scuba diving equipment called ‘rebreathers’ and by using submersibles. This technology has allowed us to study live individuals instead of the dead specimens that wash ashore or are, most often, caught as by-catch by fishermen. Because of this we know a lot about their anatomy, since many of the dead specimens have been dissected, but we don’t know as much about their behavior. In the 1980’s studying coelacanths with deep sea vehicles became the common practice in the Comoros Island area. Between 1986 and 2009 we studied this population with submersibles and remote operated vehicles, or ROVs. Using their spot patterns we determined that this population contained approximately 300 to 400 individuals. We also observed their basic day to day pattern. A day in the life of a coelacanth consists of resting in caves at a depth of 500 feet to 800 feet during daylight hours. They will share caves with other coelacanths and smaller species of underwater life. The caves are carbonate caves formed during underwater volcanic eruptions. During the night, coelacanths leave the caves to hunt in even deeper waters. At least one individual was seen hunting in waters approximately 2000 feet deep. That’s a third of a mile under the surface of the water! I can’t even imagine the pressure these fish endure. In the Fall of 2000, a few individuals were encountered by divers in another area near South Africa called Jesser Canyon. This encounter actually was the first direct contact between humans and a live coelacanth. We then began focusing on this area, as well, to study the coelacanth. Between 2002 and 2004 submersibles were used to watch this area. Here they observed 21 individuals in 16 different locations in canyons off the coast of Sodwana Bay, South Africa. These individuals were seen at depths of 300 feet to 450 feet. These studies revealed that the coelacanths in this area were traveling between two canyons, Jesser Canyon and Wright Canyon. Research begun in 2018 wanted do something that had never been done before, study coelacanths without the influence or interference of humans. If you noticed in all the research I’ve detailed so far, the common thread was the presence of a submersible, human diver, or mobile ROV. We have no idea how these things might change the behavior of the coelacanths observed. We do know that the presence of unknown stimuli, meaning divers or ROVs, can alter the natural behavior of wild animals. These researchers used fixed cameras set up in a known coelacanth resting places to record the fish’s behavior without the presence of humans. They also wanted to record the ocean conditions such as temperature and current direction and velocity. To do this they placed two oceanographic recording devices near the study site. The main focus of this study was on the folding or unfolding of the first dorsal fin. Now you might think, wow that’s a lot of work to look at one trivial little fin, but we’ve learned some of the most ground breaking things about animals by looking at one tiny little behavior, such as the eye movement of gorillas and the tongue flicking of snakes. This research actually shone a light on coelacanth behavior that we didn’t even know we should be

Summary: Where do coelacanths live? Join Kiersten as she talks about the habitat of the coelacanth. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth by Samantha Weinberg “Madagascar may be a secret stronghold for ‘living fossil’ fish” by Stephanie Pappas, www.livescience.com African Coelacanth, NOAA Fisheries, www.fisheries.noaa.gov Coelacanth, Smithsonian, https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/fish/coelacanth Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues the coelacanth and their habitat is the third thing I like about this amazing animal. We are still learning more and more about the coelacanth everyday. And one of the things we’re still learning about is their habitat. Where exactly do these behemoths live? The information I’ll give you in this episode is what we know to date, but the future could show us something different. When the coelacanth was discovered off the coast of South Africa eighty-five years ago we had no idea where it came from, but we did know where it was caught. The fisherman caught it off the coast of South Africa in the Indian Ocean at a depth of forty fathoms, or 240 feet. We didn’t see another one until 1952. This one was caught near the Comoros Islands which is off the southeastern coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. Now we had an idea of where we might find more. It wasn’t until later that researchers went to the islands and talked to the native islanders asking about this giant fish. (Quick note here, we should do more of this. Native inhabitants of areas that others explore know a lot about local wildlife. Why reinvent the wheel when you have so much information right in front of you, if you are just willing to listen?) Now, back to the coelacanth. Locals of the Comoros Islands were familiar with the coelacanth and had even eaten them in the past. Focusing on this area, several more coelacanth were found. In 1998, more coelacanth were discovered in Indonesia, half a world away. The question was how did they get there? Did they migrate? Do they do that seasonally? Did a few get lost? Did they get washed away in a storm? Or have they been there this whole time? Turns out, they’d been there the whole time. When the Indonesian coelacanth was discovered, scientists performed DNA tests to see if they were related to the African coelacanth or possibly a new species. Once again these ancient fish surprised us, the two populations were indeed two separate species. According to research available at the recording of this episode it looks like these two species may have evolved separately. The African coelacanth’s scientific name is Latimeria chalumnae and the Indonesian coelacanth’s scientific name is Latimeria menadoensis. I mention this because they were named after Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer the discoverer of the first specimen in 1938 and I think it’s wonderful that this woman of science gets props for her discovery. Before we get into where exactly these fish are found around the global let’s talk about at what depths they are found. This first specimen found in 1938 was caught by fisherman at a depth of 40 fathoms or 240 feet. For quite some time we thought this deepwater depth is where they lived. But we now know that they actually inhabit, mesopelagic waters, also known as the “twilight zone”, that reach depths of 650 feet to 1,300 feet. That’s a lot deeper that we thought or ever expected. We’re not sure why the original specimens were caught in the shallower depths, but they could have been hunting or they could have been ill and unable to control their swim bladders properly and floated up into shallower depths. More recent sitings of both species have been between 300-500 feet deep, so obviously these fish are doing something important at these depths. Now that we know at what depths the coelacanth can be found let’s look at where in the world we can find them. Let’s investigate the habitat of the African coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae, first. These coelacanth are found in the Indian Ocean near the coasts of southeastern Africa, Madagascar, and the Comoros. The first one found in 1938 was caught off the coast of South Africa but after that no more were seen in the area. More specimens were found near the Comoros islands, that are situated between Madagascar and the east coast

Summary: Join Kiersten as she takes you on a surprising journey from the head of the coelacanth to the tail. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth by Samantha Weinberg https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/fish/anatomy.html Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues the coelacanth and their anatomy is the second thing I like about this ancient animal. In the first episode we established that the coelacanth is a fish, so the anatomy should be like fish anatomy, right? Maybe, but this fish has been around for 400 million years and from comparisons between living specimens and fossils, they don’t seem to have changed much at all. So the coelacanth has some anatomical surprises that other fish do not possess. Let’s start at the head of the coelacanth and work our way back. In the center of the snout there is a large jelly-filled cavity. It’s called the rostral organ. Scientists initially thought this might be an electrosensory organ for detecting weak electrical impulses given off by prey. This hypothesis was supported by examining the organ’s intricacies including nerves and how it interacted with the brainstem. When submersible exploration became available to scientists, we were able to test this on a living coelacanth. Using electrical fields, researchers confirmed that coelacanths do indeed respond to electrical fields under water. There is no other vertebrate, that we know of, alive today that has a rostral organ. So we’re already off to an interesting start. Let’s see what else the coelacanth has that other animals may not! Moving to the mouth we find teeth. That’s not entirely unique in fish that eat other fish and the coelacanth is a carnivore. They have three different shapes of teeth, one is a high, sharp cone-shaped tooth that could be called a fang, the second is a midsized, sharp cone-shaped tooth, and the last is a small rounded tooth. What is unique to the coelacanth is that the small rounded teeth are embedded in a bony dental plate that lies beneath their chin. We’re not entirely sure what the advantage of having a dental plate gives the coelacanth. In general, the teeth seem more like a way to keep fish in the mouth once they are sucked in versus tearing or chomping on their prey. The eyes are just above the mouth and they are attached to thick optic nerves. The eyes are large. I’d say they are in proportion to their body and they are a five foot long fish, so…large eyes. Each eye does have a few cones, which allows for color vision, but they many rods, which help detect light. This is perfect for the coelacanth because they live deep under water where there is very little light available. The rods help them see in almost near darkness. They also have something else that helps them see in the dark and this is a layer behind the retina of the eye called the tapetum lucidum. If you’ve ever seen light flash in your cat’s eyes at night, you’re seeing the tapetum lucidum. This layer acts like a mirror reflecting the light that comes into the eyes back out of the eye to increase the amount of light that passes over the retina. This enhances the coelacanth’s ability to see in low light. Just behind the eye toward the top of the head is the intracranial joint. Until we rediscovered the coelacanth this joint had only been seen in fossils of primitive fish. This joint allows the coelacanth to open its mouth exceptionally wide to swallow fish and other prey. Two powerful muscles cross the intracranial joint providing strength to the coelacanth’s jaws. The coelacanth is the only fish alive that still has an intracranial joint. Just under this joint and near the eye is the brain. The brain is small. It takes up only 1.5% of the brain case in mature adults. In a 90 lbs coelacanth the brain weighs less than a tenth of an ounce. That’s a pretty tiny brain. There is no extant vertebrate with this much of a difference between the size of the brain and the size of the body. Although, they have been alive for 400 million years so it must be working. Coelacanths do have gills like other species of living fish and they are located behind the eye in the usual place that you find fish gills. They are relatively small in comparison to the overall body size, but they are similar to other fish species found at

Summary: In 1938 something amazing happened in a small town off the eastern coast of South Africa. Join Kiersten as she reveals the unbelievable story of how the coelacanth, a fish thought extinct for millions of years, was rediscovered. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Shoe Notes: A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth by Samantha Weinberg Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode begins a new series about an animal thought to have been extinct since the time of the dinosaurs, but as this episode will show the coelacanth has been here all along and this is the first thing I like about them. We’ll begin with the unbelievable story of the rediscovery of this amazing animal. Let me set the scene for you: It’s 1938 in the town of East London, South Africa. East London sits on the eastern coast of South Africa and harbors a bustling fishing industry. It’s a hot and humid December day and the young, female curator of the East London Museum is hustling to get her newest exhibition completed before they close for the upcoming Christmas holiday. As Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer is painstakingly assembling a rare dinosaur fossil, a startling sound shatters the peace of the museum and her concentration. It’s the ringing of the newly installed phone and she doesn’t know it yet, but it’s the sound of destiny calling. On the other end of the phone is the manager of the Irvin and Johnson trawler fleet. Mr. Jackson would call Marjorie when his ships came back to port with specimens that she might be interested in for the museum. This day Majorie was so stressed to get things organized before the holiday break that she almost said No, but she didn’t want to jeopardize her relationship with the shipping company manager. She decided to take a quick break and see what she could see. She had no idea what she’d find when she stepped onto the deck of the Nerine. Over the phone Mr. Jackson had indicated that several pounds of sharks were available for her perusal. The museum didn’t need any sharks currently and Marjorie had decided that she’d most likely not take anything, but she took a look through the pile of fish on the forecastle deck anyway. She found sharks, seaweed, starfish, sponges, rat-tail fish, and many more. She carefully sorted through the pile but saw nothing she of interest which strengthened her reserve to take nothing that day. About halfway through she noticed a blue fin, not the usual faire, and she dug down through slime and scales to take a closer look. What she’d found was a fish, a very unusual fish. A quote from the book A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth by Samantha Weinberg expresses the discovery in Marjorie’s own words. “I picked away the layers of slime to reveal the most beautiful fish I had ever seen,” she recounts. “It was five feet long, a pale, mauvy blue with faint flecks of whitish spots; it had an iridescent silver-blue-green sheen all over it. It was covered in hard scales, and it had four limb-like fins and a strange little puppy dog tail. It was such a beautiful fish - more like a big china ornament - but I didn’t know what it was.” End quote. The fisherman who stood by watching, said in thirty years of fishing he’d never seen anything thing like it. They’d caught it at a depth of forty fathoms, 240 feet, off the mouth of the Chalumna River. When the captain of the ship first saw the catch he’d thought it so beautiful he’d almost set it free. Marjorie’s gut told her to take it. She and her museum assistant, Enoch, wrapped the fish in a bag and transported it back to the museum to give it a more complete inspection. It was weighed and measured and Marjorie sketched a rough picture of this puzzling fish. The specimen weighed in at 127 pounds and a voice in Marjorie’s head kept circling back to something she’d learned as a child in grade school. She’d gotten in a bit of trouble with her teacher and had to write a sentence as punishment. ‘A ganoid fish is a fossil fish.’ She had to write it twenty-five times and; therefore, never forgot the statement. Essentially it means a ganoid fish is a fish that has long been extinct and is only seen in the fossil records. (As an aside, Ganoid also refers to a type of scale that can be found in extant fishes such as bowfin, gars, paddlefish, and sturgeon.) This sentence kept

Summary: Even though we don’t know much about caecilians they still need our help. Join Kiersten as she talks about what threats caecilians face and how we can help. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: IUCN Red List: www.iucnredlist.org “Fatal fungus found in third major amphibian group, caecilians,” by Natural History Museum, Phys Org; phys.org/news/2013-05-fatal-fungus-major-amphibian-group.html Chytridiomycosis: Cornell Wildlife Health Lab: cwhl.vet.cornell.edu Conservation Organizations: IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group: www.iucn-amphibians.org Amphibian Ark: www.amphibianark.org Save the Frogs: savethefrogs.com Association of Zoos and Aquariums: www.aza.org/amphibian-conservation Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode concludes caecilians and the tenth thing I like about these intriguing creatures is the conservation efforts we already have under way to protect their future. Throughout the last nine episodes I have clearly established that we don’t know as much about these fascinating amphibians as we should considering how long they’ve been on the planet. Of course, they are fairly secretive living underground and under the water, so it’s definitely been hard to study them. Having said this, you may be wondering how do we know anything about their conservation status if we can’t get an accurate count of how many are in the wild. The answer is, we can’t, but we do have enough information on some of the species to classify them on the IUCN red list of threatened species. As a reminder, or for the first time if you haven’t listened to any of my previous series’, the IUCN stands for International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. They list the conservation status of animals and plants from around the world. A species can be listed as data deficient, which means we don’t have enough information to make a decision on whether the population is so low that the species is in danger of disappearing, or extinct, which means all the individuals of that species have died. They no longer exist. There are several stages in-between data deficient and extinct. These classifications help us develop plans to help species survive the changing environment that is most often impacted by human activity. Of the 200 species of caecilians that we know about, 193 are listed on the IUCN’s red list. 76 are listed as Least Concern which is good, that means their populations are healthy and thriving. 3 are listed as Near Threatened which is a step up from Least Concern, which means they are still okay for now but we should start including them in conservation plans. 7 are listed as Vulnerable which means they are one step away from Endangered and need help now. 16 are listed as endangered which means if efforts are not taken now we could lose this species. And 2 are listed as critically endangered which means they are a step away from extinction. That leaves 89 listed species as Data Deficient, almost half of the known species of caecilians. Now that we have the numbers, we have to ask what is impacting caecilian populations. I think you, my listeners, may be able to guess. According to the IUCN website habitat loss is the biggest impact on caecilian populations. It’s the subtropical and tropical species that are being disturbed the most and the activities that are impacting them are all human centric activities. Non-timber agriculture is the largest pressure on the habitat in which our most endangered caecilians are found. The pesticides used in association with the agriculture is the next threat to their lives. Since they live in the ground and are dependent on mainly insects for food you can see how they would be majorly impacted by these activities. So what exactly are we doing to help? The first thing is we’re still studying them. The more information we have about how they live and where they live the better our conservation plans. We have to know what habitat is best for them, what they eat, and how long they live to truly understand how to successfully protect them. Studying their natural history is a great tool for any conservation efforts for their future. Any students or zoologists out there listening that are looking for a species to study, maybe you can think about caecilians. Studying animal’s in situ, which means out in their natu

Summary: In this episode Kiersten and a guest host talk about a few things we know only a little bit about, such as caecilian origins and how they communicate. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: Caecilians: An Overview https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/caecilians “Petrified Forest Brings the Funk with the World’s Oldest Fossil Caecilian.” Park Paleontology News, Vol 15, No 1, Spring 2023. Https://www.nps.gov/aticles/000/petrified-forest-brings-the-funk-with-the-world-s-oldest-fossil-caecilian.htm Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues caecilians and the ninth thing I like about them is a bit of this and a bit of that. In this episode we’re going to talk about some of the amazing things that we only know a little bit about and my husband Georgiy will be joining me. Hello Georgiy! Georgiy: Hello! Kiersten: Are you enjoying my series on caecilians? Georgiy: Da! Kiersten: I’m so surprised about all the amazing attributes these animals have. I think it’s my favorite research so far! Georgiy: I’m surprised that they have lived for so long and we hardly know anything about them! Kiersten: I agree and speaking of which. New information about their fossil history has recently been discovered! Georgiy: Really? Kiersten: Yes! In the Chinle Formation of the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, paleontologists have found the oldest caecilian fossils to date. Georgiy: How old are they? Kiersten: They are 220 million years old. More than 80 bones from the caecilian named Funcusvermis gilmorei have been found. Scientists are excited about this because it bumps the fossil record of caecilians back about 35 million years. So they are even older than we thought they were. These ancient caecilians have the two rows of teeth like modern day living caecilians but, unlike extant caecilians, they have legs and no tentacles. Finding these fossils answers a question that scientists have had for many years. Where are the Triassic Era caecilians? Now we know! Georgiy: Does this tell us anything new about modern day caecilians? Kiersten: Sort of. These fossils help support the hypothesis that living amphibians are more closely related to each other than any of their extinct ancestors. So frogs, salamanders, and caecilians that are alive today are more closely related to each other than their long dead ancestors. Even though modern day amphibians look and act so much different from each other. Georgiy: That’s interesting. Kiersten: I think so, too. You know what else is interesting? Georgiy: What? Kiersten: Caecilians are both terrestrial and aquatic. Georgiy: I say again, What? Kiersten: (laughs) I’ve mentioned this before in a few episodes but I wanted to make it very clear. Some caecilians live on land, terrestrial, and some live underwater, aquatic. The terrestrial species usually live under ground in tunnels, but some live in the thick leaf liter of the tropical forest floor. Georgiy: Oh…I see. Kiersten: Good. Now to throw another curve at you, some species of caecilians live on land as adults but live under water as juveniles. Georgiy: Whoa! How does that work? Kiersten: As adults, some caecilian species lay eggs in an underground burrow near fresh water. When the eggs hatch the young make their way to the water where they slither in and spend their larval stage under the water. Georgiy: How can they breathe? Kiersten: Oh, good question! While in the egg the young developed external gills to help them breath under water. They also developed lungs so, when they become adults they loose the gills and emerge onto land where they breath air with their lungs. Georgiy: That’s just cool! So let me get this straight, some caecilians live their entire lives underground, some spend their entire lives underwater, and some split their lives between the water and the ground. Kiersten: Exactly! Georgiy: This episode has been pretty cool. Kiersten: But wait, there’s more! Another interesting thing about caecilians is how they communicate. Georgiy: Oooo! How do they communicate? Kiersten: With chemical perception. Georgiy: Explain please. Kiersten: Why certainly. Caecilians are the only amphibians with tentacles. These tentacles are on their face in-between their eyes and nose and detect chemical in the environment. Scientists b

Summary: Join Kiersten as she talks about how caecilians defend themselves against predators. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: “Morphological Evidence for an Oral Venom System in Caecilian Amphibians,” by Pedro Luis Mailho-Fontana, Marta Maria Antoniazzi, Cesar Alenandre, Daniel Carvalho Pimenta, Juliana Mozer Sciani, Edmund D. Brodie Jr., and Carlos Jared. iScience, Volume 23. Issue 7,101234, July 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2020.101234 “Predation on Caecilians (Caecilia orientalis) by Hawks (Leucopternis princeps) Depends on Rainfall,” by Harold F. Greeney, Rudy A. Gelis, and W. Chris Funk. Herpetological Review, 2008, 39(2), 162-164. “Skin gland concentrations adapted to different evolutionary pressures in the head and posterior regions of the caecilian Siphonops annulatus,” by Carlos Jared, Pedro Luis Mailho-Fontana, Rafael Marquez-Porto, Juliana Mozer Sciani, Daniel Carvalho Pimenta, Edmund D. Brodie Jr., and Marta Maria Antoniazzi. Scientific Reports 8, Article number: 3576 (2018). “This Worm-Like Amphibian May Pack a Venomous Bite,” by Alex Fox, Smithsonian Magazine, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/worm-amphibian-may-pack-venomous-bite-180975266/ Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues caecilians and the eighth thing I like about these amazing amphibians is how they defend themselves. Who are caecilians protecting themselves from? We’re aware of a few species of animals that eat caecilians. Snakes, spiders, turtles, and ants have all been reported preying on caecilians. In 2008 a surprising animal was added to this list. A group of researchers watching cameras set up to record a Barred hawk nesting site in Ecuador captured something unexpected. The parents fed their single chick many different animals including 50 individual Caecilia orientalis, a terrestrial caecilian species. Researchers are unsure how a hawk was able to find a subterranean animal easily enough to bring 50 of them to their young, but we can add these hawks to the list of caecilian predators. So how do caecilians protect themselves from getting eaten? The first way caecilians protect themselves from predators is really a bit of a happy accident and that’s their fossorial lifestyle. Spending most of your life underground does cut down on the number of predators that can find you, although it doesn’t seem to be slowing down the Barred Hawk. Even so, evolution has given terrestrial caecilians a bit of a jump start on protecting themselves by equipping them to live underground. Aquatic caecilians spend a large amount of time close to the substrate of their chosen water source and hidden in dense plant matter, also a great place to start protecting themselves. Caecilians do have a few other tricks up their sleeves to actively defend themselves from predators. But before we get to those, I want to tell you that most of the information I’ve found on this subject comes from the study of one species of caecilian, Siphonops annulatus, so it may not apply to all species of caecilians. One more I caveat need to mention is that this information is based on educated inference. Because we have not actively seen caecilians defending themselves from predators, we are making some assumptions based on the natural history of other species of animals. Now that’s out of the way, let’s get to the really cool stuff! Most amphibians are covered in mucus to help with oxygen transmission and disease protection, caecilians are no exception. Actually, caecilians have more mucus glands than any other amphibian. If you remember, in the locomotion episode, I mentioned that some fossorial caecilians, such as Siphonops annulatus, use their mucus to help lubricate their tunnels to make movement easier. To do this they have glands on their heads that create and release the mucus. They also have glands on their rear end and scientists assumed it was for the same reason. Not so. The gland on the rear end expels a poisonous mucus. We assume that this poison is excreted to protect them from predators that might follow them into their tunnels. They also tend to plug the opening of their tunnels with their rounded bums when they are sleeping or resting. A perfect way to keep a predator at bay, greet them with a face full of poison! Another option Siphonops annulatus has is their bi

Summary: Now that we know about the existence of caecilians. Let’s talk about how caecilians make more caecilians! Join Kiersten as she walks us through the various ways caecilians reproduce. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: “The Care and Captive Breeding of the Caecilian Typhlonectes natans” by Richard Parkinson. Herpetological Bulletin, 2004, Number 88. “Reproductive ecology of female caecilian amphibians (genus Ichthyophis): a baseline study” by Alexander Kupfer, Jarujin Nabhitabhata, Werner Himstedt. Boiological Journal of the Linnean Society, Vol 83, Issue 2, October 2004, pg 207-217. *cool egg pictures in this paper “Life history and reproduction of the neotropical caecilian Siphonops annulatus with special emphasis on parental care” by Carlos Jared, Pedro Luiz Mailho-Fontana, Simone G. S. Jared, Alexander Kupfer, Jacques Hubert Charles Delabie, Mark Wilkinson, and Marta Maria Antoniazzi. Acta Zoological, Vol 100, Issue 3, pg 292-302. Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues caecilians and the seventh thing I like about these hidden gems is how they reproduce. When it comes to reproduction most animals will reproduce in one of three ways. If you are viviparous, you give live birth to young that have developed in your uterus. If you are ovoviviparous, you give live birth to young that have developed inside eggs that are incubated in your uterus. These young are typically born with a yolk that helps nourish the young for a few days after birth. If you are oviparous, then you lay eggs that are incubated outside the body by parental warm or substrate covering. There are animals out there that reproduce in other ways, but these are the three main ways of animal reproduction. Caecilians use two of these reproductive techniques. Of the caecilians we know of today, they are either oviparous or viviparous. Let’s take a look at our oviparous species’ first. Some research has been done on species in Family Ichthyophiidae. These species lay eggs and their young go through an aquatic larval stage. The species studied in this particular research was found in Thailand and individuals were observed in the wild as well as in captivity. It was actually one of the first times caecilians in this family had been studied in situ, which means on site in their natural habitat. Ichthyophis kohtaoensis was studied for three consecutive years and researchers discovered many previously unknown behaviors. When we talk about reproduction in most species, it tends to revolve around certain times of the year. Very few animals are like humans and reproduce anytime of the year. Most amphibians found in tropical areas jump into breeding mode at the start of monsoon season, so one of the first questions researchers asked is whether this would be the same for caecilians. The answer they found was a bit of yes and a bit of no. Just like other amphibians, caecilians breeding season was cyclical and revolved around the rainy season. But actual mating appeared to begin at the end of the dry season before the rains came and continued into the beginning of the rainy season. Egg laying typically happened after the rainy season had already begun. When it comes to parental care, if there is any given, it is the female only. Ichthyophis kohtaoensis does incubate eggs for approximately three months. Toward the end of the dry season, females will begin to gain weight in anticipation of remaining in a nest to guard and incubate eggs. The average number of eggs is 37 with a range of 22-58 eggs laid in one nest. Larger females tended to have larger clutch sizes. The eggs are round and clear, so you can see the developmental stages of the young inside. The pictures they included in their scientific paper were pretty cool! The nest site is extremely important because the larval stage of this caecilian is spent in the water. Females will chose a site with softer substrate such as sand, loose soil beneath tree roots, and sandy clay loam under grass tufts. Every nest found was between seven to nine feet from the edge of a freshwater source. The sources were varied including standing ponds and pools, slow moving brooks and rivers, and large seasonal ponds. Once the eggs hatch the young make their way into the water and are on their own. Field studies and captive observations indicate a

Summary: What do these secretive amphibians eat? Join Kiersten as she takes you on a culinary journey in this episode on caecilian diet. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: “Caecilian jaw-closing mechanics: integrating two muscle systems” by Thomas Kleinteich, Alexander Haas, and Adam P. Summers. J R Soc Interface, 2008 Dec 6: 5(29): 1491-1504. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2008.0155 “Diet of the Banana Caecilian Ichthyophis bannanicus in Mekong Delta, Vietnam” by Binh V. Ngo, Nghiep T. Hoang, and Chung D Ego. Journal of Herpetology, 48(4):506-513 (2014). doi.org/10.1670/13-113. “Rotational feeding in caecilians: putting a spin on the evolution of cranial design” by G. John Easy and Anthony Herrel. Biology Letters (2006) 2, 485-487. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2006.0516 “Dietary Partitioning in Two Co-occurring Caecilian Species (Geotrypetes seraphim and Herepele squalostoma) in Central Africa” by M. T. Kouete and D. C. Blackburn, Integr Org Bill, 2020; 2(1). doi:10.1093/iob/obz035 Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues caecilians and the sixth thing I like about these awesome amphibians is their diet. Our understanding of what and how caecilians eat is still evolving but we know enough to know that it is fascinating! First, let’s talk about what they eat. Caecilians are carnivores. That means they eat meat. There have been enough studies into various species of caecilians that we have a decent idea of what prey items they tend to eat. In general they focus on invertebrates that are commonly found where they live, underground, in the leaf litter of tropical forests, and underwater. Some examples include ants, termites, earthworms, snails, and some caecilians have been recorded eating crabs, lizards, frogs, and blind snakes. Aquatic caecilians eat fish and aquatic invertebrates. You probably get the drift, if it’s an insect or small animal that lives where caecilians live and it fits in their mouth, they’ll eat it. Since caecilians have no limbs to help them catch or stabilize prey items their jaw muscles and skulls have evolved to produce a high bite force to help prevent prey items from squiggling away. Caecilians have developed a double jaw muscle mechanism that is special to these amphibians. These muscles are different from other vertebrates because they are actually located above and below the jaw as opposed to the side of the jaw. Take a moment here and place your hands on the side of your jaw. Now open and close your mouth. What you feel moving is your jaw muscles. If we were able to place our hands on the sides of a caecilian’s jaw, we would not feel those muscles. Scientists think that the placement of the muscles on the top and bottom of the skull may be due to the close confines of burrows in which the caecilians live and hunt. Whatever the reason it’s one more cool adaptations these amphibians have developed. In the last episode we talked about the two different skull formations found in caecilians. At first thought, these differences might be due to the burrowing needs of the caecilian, but upon studying bite force and diet the different skull formations may actually be related to bite force. Caecilians who have the perforated, or zygokrotaphic, skull structure utilize the leverage from the two jaw muscles more efficiently than caecilians with the completely roofed, or stegokrotaphic, skull. What exactly does this information indicate? We’re not quite sure yet. We need more research to determine what these results may mean. For now, we’ll just have to settle for the knowledge itself. Scientists, being the inquisitive people that they are, asked if caecilians might specialize in specific diet items. Two pieces of evidence leans us towards yes as the answer. One piece of evidence supporting this is tooth shape. Caecilains that eat mostly soft-bodied invertebrates, like earthworms, tend to have sharp curved teeth. This allows the teeth to hook into soft tissue and hold tight. Caecilians that tend to eat prey items that have a harder shell, such as snails, have flatter, pedestal style teeth. This allows them to crush and grind the hard shell. While we’re talking about teeth, let me toss this cool fact out there. Caecilians have two rows of teeth in their top jaw and may have one to two rows in the bottom jaw! Forgive my side trip, I just couldn’t r

Summary: Caecilians are legless amphibians, so how do they get around? Join Kiersten as she talks about caecilian locomotion. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: “The kinematics of locomotion in caecilians: effects of substrate and body shape” by Anthony Here et. al, J Exp Cool A Ecol Genet Physiol. 2010. Https//pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov “A comparative study of locomotion in the caecilian Dermophis mexicanus and Typhlonectes natans (Amphibia: Gymnophiona)” by Adam P. Summers and James C. O’Reilly, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, Vol 121, Issue 1, Sept 1997, pls 65-76. Https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-3642.1997.tb000147.x Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right outside our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues caecilians and the fifth thing I like about these supercool amphibians is the way they get around. In previous episodes, we have clearly established that caecilians do not have legs, so you may have been asking yourself, how do they get around? Excellent question. Let’s get the answer. Caecilians are definitely not the only no-legged animal on planet Earth. There are snakes, glass lizards, and fish that do not have legs. Each of these examples have a unique way of locomotion. Caecilian locomotion is something that blows my mind! In the last episode we learned that caecilians are divided into ten different families. Most of those families are terrestrial, which means, according to the Oxford Dictionary, of, on, or relating to the earth. Furthermore, many terrestrial caecilians, are fossorial which means they live underground. Nine of our ten families are considered terrestrial caecilians. So how exactly do caecilians create motion? They use hydrostatic movement. Hydrostatic motion is created when one set of muscles contracts in a circular and longitudinal pattern and another set of muscles stretches in response. Think of how a jellyfish moves. That in and out, almost like breathing, motion is how hydrostatic movement works. Many species of invertebrates use hydrostatic systems to move and several species of vertebrates use hydrostatic systems in specific body parts. What makes caecilian hydrostatic locomotion unique is that they are the first known vertebrate to use their entire body as a hydrostatic system for locomotion. How could this get more interesting? I shall tell you! Hydrostatic movement generally depends on utilizing fluid filled portions of the body or vertebrae, but caecilians hydrostatic motion depends on a criss-cross array of tendons that surround their body cavity. Caecilians' skin and skeleton move independently of each other. Muscles do not attach the skin to the skeleton like other vertebrates. This allows them to create twice the maximum forward force of similar sized burrowing snakes that rely on longitudinal movement. This is one more example of what makes caecilians so unique in the animal kingdom. Now that we know exactly how terrestrial caecilians create forward motion let’s look at another characteristic that is influenced by their fossorial lifestyle. As you know, caecilians don’t have feet, so instead their skull bones have adapted into the perfect shape to move through the soil. They’re skulls are often described as wedge-shaped, compact, and robust. Sounds a lot like a shovel which would be perfect for digging through soil! Fossorial caecilians’ skull bones have actually fused together in ways that other animals’ skull bones are not fused. There are two types of skull structures in caecilians. The first type is zygokrotaphic in which the skull is perforated between the squamosal, or the side of the skull and the parietal, or the top of the skull. The second type of skull is stegokrotaphic which means the skull in completely roofed. These two skull types are incredibly interesting to researchers and have inspired several scientific studies. One study investigated whether the amount of tunneling a species does determines which skull formation is found in their family. The thought was that the completely roofed skull formation would be better suited to caecilians that burrow in soil more than other species that live mainly in leaf litter. To withstand the force needed to push through the soil a completely fused skull would be better, right? What investigators found did not support this hypothesis. There was no evidence showing caecilians with stego

Summary: This little known amphibian has 200 different species in its ranks. Join Kiersten as she takes you on a quick tour of the different caecilian species. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: The Amphibian Class by Rebecca Stefoff https://www.britannica.com/animal/caecilian-amphibian/classification Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues caecilians and the fourth thing I like about this unknown animal is the number of species that we know about. I have to admit as I was doing my research into the caecilian I was amazed to discover that we actually know of about 200 species of this amphibian. Most of my friends and family looked at me with blank faces when I mentioned that I wanted to do the next series of Ten Things I Like About on caecilians. I had a few people ask me if it was going to be about people from Sicily. (laughs) Clearly not. This episode will include a lot of scientific names so I apologize in advance but most caecilians don’t have common names since they are not very well known. Let’s start off with a little taxonomy, that’s the scientific classification of all living things. All caecilians are in Kingdom Animalia, as are humans, Phylum Chordata, because they are vertebrates with a skeletal system, Class Amphibia, because they are amphibians, Subclass Lissamphibia, and Order Gymnophiona also known as Apoda which is Latin for “without foot”. Within this Order there are ten Families of caecilians. The different Families of caecilians are distinguished from each other based on physical characteristics and life history. The extant, or living species, are classified by the absence or presence of a tail, the amount of fusion of the skull bones, the degree of movement in the skull, the nature of the annular grooves (these are the cutaneous grooves that circle the body), and the structure of the phallodeum (which is the male’s sex organ). Classification is also based on whether an aquatic larval stage is present in the life history of the caecilian and whether they lay eggs or have live birth. The youngest family of caecilians is Family Caeciliidae. The species in this family date from the Paleocene era which is 65 to 55 million years ago to today. They have no tails and most have no aquatic larval stage. There are 42 species in Family Caeciliidae. They are native to Central and South America and as adults they range in size from 4 to 60 inches. The next seven families all date from the Cretaceous period which is 145 to 65 million years ago to today. Family Dermophiidae includes 13 species. They have secondary annuli with annular scales. They are viviparous which means they give live birth and they are found in Africa and Central and South America. Family Herpelidae, commonly known as the African caecilians, is native to Africa and includes 9 species of caecilian. Family Ichthyophiidae species have tails, an aquatic larval stage and are native to Southeast Asia, peninsular India, Sri Lanka, Sumatra, Borneo, and the Philippines. There are 50 species in this family that range in size from 16 to 20 inches as adults. This family is also known as the Asiatic tailed caecilians or the fish caecilians. I couldn’t determine why they are called fish caecilians but they do have an aquatic larval stage. Family Indotyphlidae is native to Africa, the Seychelles, and India. There are 21 speices in this family. Some of them are viviparous and some of them are oviparous which means they lay eggs to reproduce. The viviparous species do not have scales or secondary annuli. The characteristics that bond these species together are their non-perforated ear bone and the presence of teeth in the lower jaw. Family Rhinatrematidae has tails and aquatic larvae. The 11 species of this family are native to South America and range in size from 10 to 13 inches as adults. This family is also known as the Neotropical tailed caecilians, the American tailed caecilians, or the beaked caecilians. Family Siphonopidae, also known as common caecilians, have non-perforated ear bones and no teeth in the lower jaw. The 19 species of this South American caecilian family are oviparous. Our last family originating in the Cretaceous period is Family Typhlonectidae. These caecilians have no tails. Adults are aquatic, so these caecilians live their entire lives in the water.

Summary: Caecilians are unique vertebrates that have some incredible anatomy. Join Kiersten as she takes on a tour of the caecilian body. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: The Amphibian Class by Rebecca Stefoff Caecilians: An Overview https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/caecilians “An insight into the skin glands, dermal scales and secretions of the caecilian amphibian Ichthyophis beddomei.” Damodaran Arun, S. Sandy, Mohammad Abdulkader Akbarsha, Omen V. Omen, and Letha Divya. Saudi J Bill Sci, 2020 Oct:27(10): 2683-2690 doi: 10.1016/j.sjbs.2020.06.009 Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues caecilians and the third thing I like about this wiggly, squiggly amphibian is their anatomy! We’re going to start on the outside and work our way in by beginning with the skin. Most amphibian skin is slimy because it’s covered by mucus. Caecilians are no exception. They have two types of glands in their skin and one type produces mucus. The mucus covers the entire body so whenever you try to pick up a caecilian it’s slippery and that’s part of the point! Being slippery makes it much harder for predators to get a hold on you. Another reason for the mucus is to keep the skin moist which helps with temperature regulation and cutaneous respiration. That means you can breath through your skin. The second type of skin gland is called a granular gland also known as a poison gland. It does appear that at least some species of caecilians produce a poison in their adult stage. While studying Siphonops annulus, a species of caecilian from Brazil, researchers noticed a concentration of enlarged mucus-producing glands on their head and their bums. The glands on their head produce mucus to cover their skin as well as lube up their underground burrows to make it easier to move through the tunnels. The glands on their bums release a poisonous mucus that helps in predator defense. An extremely unusual and unique characteristic of caecilian skin is that they have scales. Amphibians don’t have scales, but these amphibians do! To make it even weirder their scales are under the top layer of their skin! We don’t know why they have these scales. It may just be an evolutionary hold over from ancestors. But we do know that not all species have scales, which only makes it a bigger mystery. Why do them have them? And what are they used for? The skin is also segmented with annuli which are grooves that encircle the body. I haven’t found any information on why they have these annuli or what advantage they give the caecilian, but I’m sure there is a purpose for them. While we’re still on the outside let’s talk about limbs or legs. Caecilians have none! They are like snakes in this characteristic. Modern day caecilians have no vestigial components of legs at all, no shoulder bones or pelvic girdle indicating that they might have had legs in their evolutionary past. This is a testament to how old these animals are evolutionarily speaking because the fossils we have found from 190 million years ago have legs. We can make an educated guess that the legs became unnecessary as caecilians adapted to live their entire lives underground or underwater. As they evolved the bones that supported these limbs also disappeared. In the last episode we discussed senses, so if you’re listening in order you already know that caecilians do not have image processing eyes. Depending on the species the eyes will be covered in skin, bone, or absent all together. Those that still have an eye can probably determine the difference between light and dark but cannot see images. For a more in depth discussion of this, backtrack to episode two. Since caecilians do not rely on vision to interact with their surroundings, they have developed tentacles that help them smell and feel their environment. The tentacles are located on the face in-between the eye and nostrils. They are short little protrusions that are chemoreceptors. For more on caecilian tentacles check out episode two of this series. Okay, we’re going to head inside the body through the nares. As we’ve already discovered caecilians can breathe through their skin, but for most of them that does not provide enough oxygen to survive. Most caecilians have a functioning right lung and a vestigial left lung that does

Summary: This amazing amphibian’s senses are unique and almost unbelievable! Join Kiersten as she sheds a little light on caecilian senses. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: The Amphibian Class by Rebecca Stefoff “Underground amphibians evolved unique ear.” by PlanetEarth Online. https://phys,org/news/2014-07-underground-amphibians-evolved-unique-ear.html Caecilians: An Overview https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/caecilians “The comparative morphology and evolution of the eyes of caecilians (Amphibia, Gymnophiona) by Marvalee H. Wake, Zoomorphology: 105, 277-295 (1985) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/bf00312059 Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues caecilians and the second thing I like about this amphibian is their senses! Let’s dive right in, listeners, because this is some fascinating stuff! We’re going to start off talking about vision. In the first episode my guest co-host and I touched quickly on the fact that caecilians are essentially blind. Let’s explore this in a bit more detail. In all the species of caecilians that have been investigated it appears that their eyes are either covered by skin or bone. Interestingly all of the examined species have a functional photoreceptor. What does this mean in layman’s terms? It means that they don’t have eyes that help them see images but they may still use their eyes to detect light. Ancient fossils of caecilians showed that they had larger eyes that might have been used to see images but over the millennia their eyes have become smaller and weaker. We know why this has happened. Caecilians live in dark places, underground and underwater. This behavior probably evolved slowly as they adapted to the pressures of survival in a changing world. As they relied less and less on light their eyes became smaller. Scientists, always on the hunt for more information, asked the question “What exactly happened to the eyes of caecilians as they evolved?” Did they retain all the components of a functional eye or did they loose certain structures that were no longer needed? In 1985 a biologist in the Department of Zoology at the University of California Berkley found some answers. At the time Marvalee Wake investigated all the caecilians that were known and studied the structure of their eyes. Seven differ trends were seen. 1. The eyes were covered by thicker skin as well as bone. 2. Nonessential ocular muscles became smaller or nonexistent 3. The retina progressed from a typical layered pattern to fewer cells to a net like formation instead of layering 4. The optical nerve starts off present then becomes smaller and weaker then to only a small amount of cells 5. The lens of the eye is originally round or spherical then progresses to crystalline to cellular to absent. 6. The vitreous liquid in the eye is lost 7. The cornea becomes attached to the covering skin and the lens becomes attached to the cornea and retina. All of these trends show how the eyes of caecilians became obsolete, but some structures still remained. Another project from 2014 studied the rods and cones in the the eyes of caecilians. Rods are the structures that are active in lower light levels while cones are active at higher light levels and can detect color. They found that the caecilians optical cells only contained rods. This is further evidence supporting the thought that their eyes my still be used to detect light but are no longer used to see actual images. So, now we know that caecilians no longer rely on their vision to help shape their knowledge of the world around them. Some of you may be asking if they have compensated for this lack of information in some other way? I like the way you think, listeners, because this is exactly what happened! Let’s look at the sense of smell next. Most caecilians have nostrils through which they breath but there is no evidence that indicates their sense of smell is located within the nares. Many species have another anatomical structure that helps them smell, tentacles. Caecilian tentacles are located on their face in-between the eye and nostrils. They have one on each side. I know when I think of a tentacle I think of the arms of an octopus, tentacles that are long, thin, and capable of grasping objects. Caecilian tentacles are not like th

Summary: Have you ever heard of a caecilian? Join Kiersten and a guest co-host to find out what it is! For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: The Amphibian Class by Rebecca Stefoff https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/science/carcilians-found-in-south-florida “The Creature Feature: 10 Fun FactsAbout Caecilians (or, This Amphibian is One in a Caecilian)” by Mary Bates, https://www.wired.com Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. My name is Kiersten and I have a Master’s Degree in Animal Behavior and did my thesis on the breeding behavior of the Tri-colored bat. I was a zookeeper for many years and have worked with all sorts of animals from Aba Aba fish to tigers to ravens to domesticated dogs and so many more in between. Many of those years were spent in education programs and the most important lesson I learned was that the more information someone has about a particular animal the less they fear them. The less they fear them the more they crave information about them and before you know it you’ve become an advocate for that misunderstood animal. This is the first episode of caecilians and I have a guest cohost with me to kick off this series about an unknown animal that most of you have probably never heard of. My friend and cohost of my other podcast The Feathered Desert a podcast all about backyard bird feeding in the Southwest region of the United States, Cheryl is here with me today. Thanks for joining me Cheryl! Cheryl - Thanks fro asking me! Kiersten - So, Cheryl do you know what a caecilian is? Cheryl - (laughs) No! But you’re going to tell, aren’t you? Kiersten - Yes! We are certainly not talking about people from Sicily although it sounds the same. The caecilians we’re talking about are amphibians. It’s spelled c-a-e-c-i-l-i-a-n. It comes from the Latin word for “blind” and we’ll find out why they were given this name shortly. I guess the next question we need to answer is what is an amphibian? Cheryl - Oh! I know this one! An amphibian is an organism that can live both on land and in the water. We typically think of frogs, toads, and salamanders when we think of amphibians. The most distinctive characteristic is that their early years are spent underwater breathing through gills and their adult years are generally spent on land breathing air through their nose. Kiersten - Exactly! Caecilians are an amphibians that most people don’t know about. Even if you were to come across one, you might mistake it for something else. Something like an earthworm. Many caecilians have segmented skin called annuli that makes them look a lot like worms. They’re also legless. Essentially caecilians are amphibians that look like earthworms. Cheryl - How exactly would I come across one? Kiersten - Well, caecilians live underground. Terrestrial ones burrow into the dirt and aquatic ones burrow into the bottom of lakes and streams. You could, possibly, encounter one while digging in your garden if you live in a humid, tropical or neotropical area in Central America, South America, Central Africa, or Southeast Asia. In 2021 they were discovered in a canal in Miami, Florida! Cheryl - So pretty much all over the world. Kiersten - Yes, in the right habitat they are naturally found on almost every continent, except Antarctica and Australia. Although three species have been introduced into Australia. Cheryl - Three species? So there’s more than one species of caecilian? Kiersten - Yes! There’s approximately 200 species of caecilians that have been discovered around the world. Can you believe there’s that many species and virtually no one has ever heard of them? Cheryl - No! Don’t forget you were going to tell about why their name comes from the Latin word for blind. Kiersten - Right! Thanks for the reminder. Caecilians, for all intents and purposes, are blind. As they evolved their eyes became smaller and weaker, since they spend so much time in the dark. Scientists believe they still have optic nerves but most caecilians eyes are covered by skin and some are even covered by bone. Cheryl - So not using those eyes for much, then. Kiersten - Not much, no. We believe that the ones covered only by skin may use them to tell light from dark, but they certainly do not use them to determine clear images. Cheryl - Now you said, as they evolved they lost their eyes. That’s got to take a lot of time. How old are these animals exactly? Kiersten - Good catch! We have found caecilian fossils dating back 190 million years ago. That’s before the time of the dinosaurs. Cheryl - These guys sound pretty cool! I can’t wait to learn

Summary: Even tarantulas need a little love! Many species of tarantulas are disappearing and in this episode Kiersten talk about what’s happening and what we’re doing to help. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: The Tarantula Scientist by Sy Montgomery “Farewell to the World’s Smallest Tarantula?” By Jane Schneider https://www.nwf.org/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2017/Oct-Nov/Conservation/Spruce-Fir-Moss_Spider “Beautiful Ornamental Tarantulas Win Global Protections from Pet Trade.” https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/beautiful-ornamental-tarantulas-win-global-protections-pet-trade-2019-08-26/ Conservation Organizations to check out: Butterfly Pavillion in Colorado - https://butterflies.org/spider-conservation-research/ Commission for Environmental Cooperation - www.cec.org Tarantulas de Mexico - https://www.tarantulasdemexico.com iNaturalist app can be downloaded from any app store Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode is the tenth and final episode of tarantulas and the tenth thing I like about these hairy beauties is the conservation efforts being done to ensure we never lose them. Now it may not seem like tarantulas need conservation efforts but many of them are impacted by habitat loss, the pet trade, and souvenir trinkets. In this episode we’re going to take a look at some of these threats and what we’re doing to help. When discussing any animal conservation issue, habitat loss is often one of the main problems. There are a lot of us creatures on this planet and we need to get much better at sharing it with all living things. One example of a tarantula impacted by habitat loss is the spruce-fir moss spider, the smallest tarantula in the world. This tiny BB-pellet sized tarantula is found in only a few isolated pockets of the Southern Appalachian mountains. They used to be commonly found all over Clingmans Dome, a mountain straddling North Carolina and Tennessee, but they have become more and more difficult to find. Biology Professor Kefyn Catley says in 1987 he could find them all over the rocks at Clingmans Dome but in 2017 they were none to be found. These small tarantulas live at high elevations typically above 5300 feet above sea level in moss that clings to boulders. The moss grows in mats which creates a microclimate that provides warmth, moisture, and food that the tarantula needs to survive. If the moss dries out, the spider cannot survive. This is exactly what’s plaguing the spruce-moss tarantulas of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Invasive insects have invaded the park and are decimating the native trees that provide shade and moisture which keeps the moss growing. The loss of these trees has also increased the temperatures of this ecosystem. This is bad news for our little friend. The tarantulas are trying to find new habitat by moving to north-facing rocks that still harbor the moss mats they need, but these refuges are also quickly disappearing. So what are we doing to help? First we’re still studying this little arachnid. Biologists from Western Carolina University and Great Smoky Mountain National Park forestry biologists are continuing their studies of this tarantula. We must know more about their natural history and their current population numbers if we are to help them survive. The second action we’ve taken is to add the spruce-moss tarantula to the Endangered Species List. In 1995, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added this tarantula to the endangered species list making it only the third spider to be added to the list. Doing this provided scientists leverage to take steps toward protecting the habitat in which the tarantula lives. Once this was done, a third action was approved which was the targeted eradication of the invasive insect eating the trees in the park. Now, spraying insecticide around can impact more than just the insect you want to kill and the scientists knew this, so with the help of park services, they devised a plan that targeted the invasive insect with as little impact to others as possible. This is an ongoing project and I know I have my fingers crossed that the spruce-fir moss tarantula survives for years to come. For those of us that are fans of the great outdoors, we know that habitat loss is something that is a problem on every continent and in every environment. Hundreds of different animals are imp

Summary: There are so many myths about tarantulas that are untrue and perpetuate fear. Join Kiersten as she dispels some of these myths. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: https://tomsbigspiders.com/2015/08/15/the-best-and-most-ridiculous-tarantula-myths/ “The Natural History of Tarantula Spiders” by Richard C. Gallon https://www.thebts.co.uk/old_articles/natural.htm Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues tarantulas and the ninth thing I like about this beautiful creature is myth busting. What exactly to I mean by that? This episode is all about putting an end to the incorrect myths about tarantulas. Regrettably, tarantulas have been the subject of many a cheesy horror flick. Hollywood loves a good monster movie. I have to admit I have watched my fair share of them, but I do not have a fear of spiders so these movies have impacted my daily life very little. Since the fear of spiders is such a wide spread phobia, these movies have only perpetuated myths about these invertebrates, myths that are largely untrue. Myth number one: Tarantulas are aggressive to humans. Those of you that have listened to my previous episode already know that this is false. We can blame this one on movies like Arachnophobia, Tarantula, and Earth vs. the Spider that keep this myth on everyone’s mind. Tarantulas are not aggressive, especially towards people. They see us as scary predators to avoid. Most likely when we encounter them they run away or hide. Myth number two: Tarantulas will chase you across the room. Tarantulas do not chase people. Tarantulas cannot run long distances, period, because of their physiology. To move their legs they rely on the pressure of the hemolymph in their bodies. This is reliant on the amount of moisture they have stored. They get moisture from the food they eat and from drinking water. When they move quickly they deplete the pressure. They must take breaks when moving quickly to recharge. They can run fast, when they need to, but only in short spurts. If a tarantula seems to be chasing you or running toward you it’s because it’s the only way they can get to a safe hiding place. It is a defensive action to run at something larger than themselves, such as humans. They never aggressively run after humans. Myth number three: Tarantulas can jump 5, 6, 7, etc. feet in the air! Completely false. Terrestrial tarantulas can leap on prey, but we’re talking about an inch. They are ambush predators meaning they sit and wait until prey is close enough for them to capture without a lot of expended energy. So when they pounce, it’s an inch or less. They are too heavy to jump feet into the air. If you have ever held a tarantula you can probably remember they felt much heavier that you expected. They are just not equipped to get that bulky body leaping into the air. They are not jumping spiders. If they actually leapt six feet into the air, when they landed they’d go splat. Tarantulas are actually pretty fragile and a drop of a few inches could kill them. It was one of the things I was most concerned about when we had our rose-haired tarantula. We housed her on a very sturdy piece of furniture because I knew if she ever fell she’d die. Now, arboreal tarantulas are capable of jumping from tree branch to tree branch, but it’s only a few inches. They are very careful when they do it, because if they fall from the tree they will not survive. Tarantulas cannot jump several feet into the air. Myth number four: Tarantulas are poisonous. Once again false, but not too far off. Tarantulas are not poisonous because you can touch them and not get a toxin on you. Animals that are poisonous such as poison arrow dart frogs excrete a poison on their skin that can be spread by merely touching something. Tarantulas are venomous which means they must inject the poison in their bodies with something like fangs. And that’s exactly what tarantulas do, they inject venom into their prey with their fangs when they need to eat. So touching a tarantula will not make you sick or spread a toxin. Myth number five: Tarantula bites will kill you! False. No one has ever died from a tarantula bite. There are many cases of humans getting bitten by tarantulas but not one has ever died as a direct result of the venom from a tarantula bite. About 100 years ago there are records that two people died after being bitte

Summary: Tarantulas have many predators and they have developed a plethora of ways to defend themselves. Join Kiersten as she discusses these interesting and surprising behaviors. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: The Tarantula Scientist by Sy Montgomery “The Natural History of Tarantula Spiders” by Richard C. Gallon https://www.thebts.co.uk/old_articles/natural.htm “Parasites of Tarantulas,” Pizzi, Romain. Journal of Exotic Pet Medicine, Vol 18, Issue 4, pg 283-288. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1557506309001153 Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues tarantulas and the eighth thing I like about these awe-inspiring arachnids is how they defend themselves. I know lots of people are afraid of tarantulas, but tarantulas have predators that they’re afraid of too. So they’ve developed a plethora of ways to defend themselves. The first way a tarantula will defend themselves from predators larger than themselves is to stay out of sight. They accomplish this quite well by only coming out at night. Tarantulas are nocturnal, except during mating season, as we learned in the previous episode, when males are out looking for females. When they come out at night during the rest of the year, they do try to stay under cover. This is also where the prey they are hunting is most often found. What kind of predators are these tarantulas hiding from? They actually have quite a few natural predators including foxes, skunks, coyotes, large lizards, birds, and even some fellow invertebrates such as centipedes, scorpions, and tarantula hawk wasps. In Cambodia, they have to worry about being eaten by people. They are considered a delicacy. Certainly not on my menu, but… If hiding does not keep the tarantula safe, the next step they’ll take to ensure survival is to run away. I’m not seeing too much fault in this strategy, honestly. The one who runs away, lives to fight another day. I would love for those of you who are afraid of tarantulas, or those of you that have friends or family that are afraid of tarantulas, and think they are hideous spiders out get you to remember that the first two behaviors they use when confronted with danger is to hide or run away. They are not vicious invertebrates out to bite humans. If they come across us, they really don't want to have anything to do with us and will run away. Having said that, sometimes you don’t have the ability to run away. When a tarantula finds itself in a position that does not allow for running away, a third behavior called threat posturing is employed. Threat posturing is when a tarantula rears up placing their weight on the back legs and raising its front two pairs of legs and pedipalps straight up in the air. This makes it look much bigger than it is, which hopefully will make a potential predator think twice about making a meal out of the tarantula. This posture also displays the tarantulas large fangs, which would certainly make me think twice about trying to eat it. The underside of many species is dark which highlights the red fangs making them even more impressive. To enhance this defense mechanism some Old World tarantulas, those that are found in Africa, Asia, and Europe, have brightly colored bands of yellow, white, and black under their two front pairs of legs. We believe flashing these colors is used as a threat to scare off predators. Defense strategy number four is also only used by Old World tarantulas and involves making threatening sounds. Many species of Old World tarantula have specialized hairs, or setae, that they can use to make sounds. These are called stridulatory setae. They are typically found on the chelicerae and by rubbing the hairs together they can produce hissing or rasping sounds that can scare off a predator. Defense strategy number five is used by New World tarantulas, those found in North, Central, and South America. This strategy involves urticating hairs. The main purpose of these hairs is to irritate a predator to ward them off and keep them from coming back for a second try. The irritating hairs, or setae, are generally found on the tarantulas abdomen. These hairs can be deployed in one of two ways. The first way is for the tarantula to rub their abdomen against a predator’s skin. The urticating hairs will dislodge from the tarantula and pierce the predator’s skin and wiggl

Summary: Making babies isn’t easy for tarantulas! So many steps go into creating tarantula spiderlings. Join Kiersten as she talks you through this fascinating behavior. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: The Tarantula Scientist by Sy Montgomery “The Natural History of Tarantula Spiders” by Richard C. Gallon https://www.thebts.co.uk/old_articles/natural.htm Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues tarantulas and the seventh thing I like about tarantulas is how they reproduce! I’m sure you have all heard at least one thing about spider reproduction before listening to this podcast episode and I’m sure it’s the rumor that male spiders better run fast after mating or they’ll get eaten! That can be a valid concern with various species of spiders and even some tarantulas, but not all female spiders are out there looking for a good man to eat. Before the male finds himself in this precarious situation there are many steps he must perform first. Let’s start at the beginning. Mating season for many tarantulas is in the late summer or early fall. This is when those of us that live in the western United States will encounter male tarantulas in the road, yards, or even our houses. They are out looking for females. Before they leave their burrows though, they have a bit of work to do to get ready to win over the ladies. Males must charge their palpal bulbs on the ends of their pedipalps with sperm before they wander out to find a female mate. What exactly does that mean? Great question and I have one doozy of an answer! To be able to mate with a female the male tarantula must have a way to transfer his sperm to the female so that her eggs can be fertilized and grow into baby tarantulas, or spiderlings. The male tarantula uses the palpal bulbs, which are hardened sperm storage organs on their pedipalps to make that transfer. His sperm is made inside his body but not near the pedipalps; therefore, he has to complete a rather long process to get his sperm just where he wants. First the male spins a blanket of silk somewhere in his burrow or a protected area at an angle, then he spreads his sperm on the underside of the silk blanket, or sperm web. Next he maneuvers himself on top of the web in just the right spot so that he can reach the sperm with his pedipalps and dips the palpal bulbs into the sperm drawing it into this storage organ. Whew! I’m worn out just talking about all that work. Once he’s all charged up, he’s on the prowl. Most females stay in or near their burrows or nests their entire lives, so the male has to go hunting. Now he doesn't just charge into a female’s burrow, that’s how you get eaten! So how do you get a female to come out of their deep, dark hole without losing your life? You dazzle her with song! Male tarantulas will drum their front legs on the ground just outside the burrow or on the silk threads that protrude outside the female’s burrow. This is how they let the female know it is a romantic house call. This is risky for the male because if the female is not receptive to mating she could come out and aggressively run him off or even damage him. He might also mistakenly pick a male’s burrow. Males don’t generally get into fierce fights with an accidental courting but it’s precious time wasted. To help streamline things, females will often announce their receptiveness by applying a pheromone on the silk outside their burrow that let’s males know to knock on her door. Some species of tarantula will actually place this pheromone web in plant matter above their burrow so that the wind will blow the scent farther. Then the male will come and the drumming will commence. If the female is interested, she will emerge from the burrow to inspect her suitor. Once they are face to face there are a few things that can happen. If she needs a bit more persuading, the male will begin a dance with his front legs, lifting them up and down. Sometimes the female will join in the dance and sometimes she just moves towards the male immediately. Responses can vary from species to species but can also vary with individuals in the same species. Once he’s won the female’s permission, the slightly dangerous part begins for the male. The two tarantulas will stand in front of each other face to face, then the male with reach under her with his front legs and grasp her fangs with small sp

Summary: Tarantulas have taught us some pretty cool things! Join Kiersten and a guest co-host as they talk about what tarantulas have taught us about colors and pain killers. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: “Tarantula venom could be used as a potent pain reliever” by Angela Betsaida B. Laguipo, BSN; https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200414/Tarantula-venom-could-be-used-as-a-potent-pain-reliver.aspx “Tarantula Venom Helps Reveal How We Sense Pain” by Ben Taub; https://www.iflscience.com/tarantula-venom-helps-reveal-how-we-sense-pain-36091 “Blue Tarantula Hair Inspires Nonfading Color Pigment” by Kacey Deamer; https://www.livescience.com/58031-tarantula-hair-inspired-nonfading-color.html Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues tarantulas and the sixth thing I like about tarantulas is what we’re learning from them that changes the way we see our world! Today I have a special guest to help me, my husband Georgiy! Thanks for helping me with this episode on biomimicry, Georgiy. Georgiy - You’re welcome. You said bio-what? Kiersten - Biomimicry. Georgiy - What is biomimicry? Kiersten - Biomimicry means that a structure or process built or designed by humans was influenced by biological creatures or processes that happen naturally in the world. Georgiy - Cool! So this episode is about what we are learning from studying tarantulas? Kiersten - Yes! Exactly! And we’re going to start off with a study done by scientists researching color in tarantulas. Georigy, do you know that tarantulas come in many different colors? Georgiy - I do because you showed me pictures. My favorite tarantula is the bright blue Sapphire Tarantula. Kiersten - Ooo. Good choice! That one is amazing! Georgiy - What did they find out researching the blue color of these tarantulas? Kiersten - I’m so glad you asked because it’s super cool! They discovered that the blue on the tarantula is a structural color. Many of the colors we see are pigments that produce color when the electrons interact with light. Our clothing and our paint are based on these kinds of pigments. The problem is that they will eventually fade and is often made with chemicals that can harm our environment. The tarantula’s blue color is a structural color, which means there are tiny nanostructures on their exoskeleton that scatter light at a specific wavelength producing the blue color we see. Now structural colors, which are produced when light interacts with nanostructures that are about the same size as a specific color’s wavelength, are nothing new. We’ve known about structural colors for a while, but most of them are iridescent. Georgiy - Like some bird feathers? Kiersten - Yes! Just like certain bird’s feathers. Have you ever looked at at peacock feather in the sun? Georgiy - I have. It’s very pretty. Kiersten - What happened when you twisted that feather between your fingers? Georgiy - It looks like it changed colors. Kiersten - Exactly! When the light reflects off the nanostructures at different angles the light changes m aking the color change. It’s beautiful but as one of the researchers from the University of Akron in Ohio, Bor-Kai Hsiung (suhng) said in an interview with LiveScience, “It’s beautiful out in nature, but not very functional when we’re watching television and we move to a new seat.” Georgiy - So how does the Sapphire Tarantula fit in? Kiersten - Researchers took a closer look at several different species of blue tarantulas and discovered that their pigments are not iridescent. The nanostructres of their hair are covered with distinct flower-like structures that limit the iridescence. Georgiy - Wow! What does that mean? Kiersten - It means that we could use this structure to create more vibrant, longer lasting, and less toxic colors for use in paints, clothing, and digital screens! Georgiy - Well, that is just cool! What other things are tarantulas teaching us? Kiersten - The venom of Heteroscodra maculata, or the Togo Starburst Tarantula native to West Africa, is helping us understand how our bodies process pain. Georgiy - Hmmm. Tell me more. Kiersten - Certainly. Researchers at the University of California, San Fransisco were interested in isolating the specific pathways that indicate pain to our central nervous system. The impulses that tell our CNS that we are in pain use voltage-gated sodium channels known as

Summary: Did you know that there are more than 850 species of tarantulas and that they’ve been around since the time of the dinosaurs? Join Kiersten as she delves into the natural history of the tarantula and takes a look at the different species alive today. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: The Tarantula Scientist by Sy Montgomery Remarkable Animals: The Tarantula by Gail LaBonte “Tarantulas are everywhere and now researchers know why” by Mihai Andrei, ZME Science https://www.zmescience.com/science/biology/tarantula-evolution-gondwana-19042021/ https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/goliath-bird-eating-tarantula https://tarantulafriendly.com/category/tarantula-species/south-america “Farewell to the World’s Smallest Tarantula?” By Jane Schneider https://www.nwf.org/Magazines/National-Wildlife/2017/Oct-Nov/Conservation/Spruce-Fir-Moss_Spider Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues tarantulas and the fifth thing I like about these unbelievable spiders is how many different species and sizes there are! There are 850 different species of tarantula currently known today and we’re discovering new species all the time! Let’s clarify what exactly I’m talking about when I use the word tarantula. In all the episodes of Ten Things I Like About Tarantulas, I am talking about spiders in the Theraphosidae Family. This family includes nothing but tarantulas, the heavy bodied, hairy looking arachnids. All sub-tropical and tropical tarantulas are classified under Family Theraphosidae. They were not originally called tarantulas actually. In Malaysia they are called “earth tigers”, parts of Africa call them “monkey spiders”. The name tarantula came from European explorers that made a mistake. The original spider referred to as a tarantula is not a spider classified in the Family Theraphosidae. It’s actually a wolf spider from Mediterranean Europe and it IS a fairly large, hairy spider, but not a tarantula. Back in the day, people thought this spider’s bite was exceptionally dangerous. They were mistaken, another spider was actually responsible for the terrible bite but that’s another story. It was said that the wolf spider’s bite hurt so much that it made you dance around in pain while you tried to get rid of the venom! They called the dance the tarantella, named after the Italian town of Taranto where this wolf spider is commonly found. When European explorers traveled to far away lands and saw large hairy spiders they called them tarantulas because they looked so much like the wolf spiders they ere used to seeing. So once again, a misunderstanding in language has lasted throughout human history. Okay, now that we know the origin of the tarantula’s name, let’s look at their evolutionary history. It seems that tarantulas evolved about 120 million years ago in the Cretaceous period. That’s when dinosaurs were still roaming the earth. They actually shared the planet with dinosaurs for about 60 million years. Tarantulas roamed the content of Gondwana, which was a super continent formed of modern day South America, Africa, Arabia, Madagascar, India, Australia, and Antarctica. This is why they are so widespread today. When continental drift began to create the Earth’s modern day configuration, tarantulas hitched a ride on the moving landscape. The preserved fossil of a 40 million year old tarantula shows that they have changed very little from that time period. They look pretty much like the tarantulas of today. Why mess with perfection, right? As time passed varies sizes and species of tarantula developed. Let’s look at some of the fascinating species of tarantula that inhabit our planet today. We’ll start off with the largest species of tarantula. Weighing in at 6 ounces with a body length of 5 inches and a leg span of 12 inches, we have the Goliath Bird-Eating Tarantula. If you put a full grown adult on a common dinner plate their legs would sit comfortably on the edges of this plate. That is a huge spider! The Goliath Bird-Eating Tarantula is found in South American rainforests. They eat pretty much anything smaller than themselves including mice, lizards, amphibians, and invertebrates. Even though they are called bird eating tarantulas they rarely if ever eat birds. The name comes from a sketch that Maria Sybilla Merian, a naturalist who lived from 1647-1717, drew of a tarantula in a tree e

Summary: Tarantulas are predators! They have a unique way of hunting their prey. Join Kiersten as she walks you through how these eight-legged wonders catch food. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: The Tarantula Scientist by Sy Montgomery Remarkable Animals: The Tarantula by Gail LaBonte Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues tarantulas and the fourth thing I like about these eight-legged wonders is how they hunt! Most of the tarantulas that we currently know about are carnivores. That means they eat meat. We have yet to discover a tarantula that eats vegetables but you never know. Most tarantulas are ambush predators which means they lay in wait until the right prey comes along. They hide under cover and wait patiently until food comes to them. Some species will stay in or near their burrows to hunt while others will travel a short distance from their homes. If you’ve ever encountered a tarantula in your house at night, it was probably searching for a nice midnight meal! What is the correct prey item for a tarantula? That can depend on the species of tarantula and how big they are, but the majority of them hunt other invertebrates. Tarantulas are opportunistic eaters which means they will consume almost anything that they can catch. Examples of common prey items are grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, wasps, cicadas, worms, caterpillars, and even other spider species. Sam Marshall, a scientist studying tarantulas in the wild, has been able to lure them our of burrows by dangling earthworms in front the entrance. I could go on but the list is long when it comes to invertebrates. Almost any kind of insect you can think of could be consumed by a tarantula. Hmmm. Maybe not ants, I haven’t seen any references to tarantulas eating ants. Some of you may be asking if they eat things other than invertebrates. You may even be thinking about the bird-eating tarantulas of South America. They must eat birds if it’s in their name, right? That is a reasonable thought but…Not so much. These tarantulas are large enough to eat birds, but there is not a lot of evidence proving that they do eat birds. These large tarantulas eat bigger invertebrates, mice, lizards, and will even occasionally catch a toad. The reason they have this name is because of an illustration depicting an arboreal tarantula eating a hummingbird, but as of yet no one has seen this behavior in the wild. I’ll have more on this in a future episode. Now that we know what they eat, let’s find out how they catch their prey. For those of you who have already listened to the episode on senses, you know that tarantulas have fairly poor eyesight. They cannot see in detail. So if they cannot see clearly, they must rely on another sense to detect prey, right? That is an excellent thought, Listeners. And that is exactly what they do! The sensitive hairs, or setae, covering their body help them feel prey items when they are close enough to successfully catch them. These hairs are extremely sensitive and as the tarantula gains experience it learns which movements indicate potential prey. They can tell the difference between a grasshopper, a moth, or a mouse. Tarantulas that hunt from home have another trick they use to successfully catch a meal. All spiders spin silk and tarantulas are no exception. Other species of spiders spin large webs in open spaces to catch prey items that happen to get caught in the sticky silk. It’s an excellent way to catch prey unawares, but tarantulas do not use their silk webs in this way. However, they do set trip wires along the ground that attach to webbing laid down on the floor of their burrows. These trip wires will vibrate when something walks by it. The tarantula will sit patiently in the entrance of the burrow with one of its legs touching the silk attached to the trip wire. As soon as the silk vibrates at just the right frequency, they pounce! Tarantulas cannot jump but they have strong chelicerae and pedipalps that aide in catching, as well as eating, food. Once they have determined that an appropriate food item is nearby they can move quickly to snatch it. They grab it with the two fangs that are attached to the end of the chelicerae and stabilize it with the pedipalps. Tarantula fangs can only move up and down, so they must rear back to expose their fangs when they are grabbing their prey. The

Summary: Tarantuals live all over the world! Join Kiersten as she talks about where tarantulas live, what habitats they like, and how they got all over the planet. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: The Tarantula Scientist by Sy Montgomery “Tarantulas are everywhere and now researchers know why” by Mihai Andrei, ZME Science https://www.zmescience.com/science/biology/tarantula-evolution-gondwana-19042021/ https://www.heath-hands.org.uk/blog/subterranean-spiders https://www.biodiversityexplorer.info/arachnids/spiders/theraphosidae/index.htm https://environment.des.qld.gov.au/wildlife/animals/living-with/tarantulas https://usaspiders.com/aphonopelma-hentzi-texas-brown-tarantula/ “The Natural History of Tarantula Spiders” by Richard C. Gallon https://www.thebts.co.uk/old_articles/natural.htm Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues tarantulas and the third thing I like about these amazing arachnids is where they live! Tarantulas are found on every continent on the planet with the exception of Antartica. For those arachnaphobs out there this is distressing news, but do not worry they have specific habitats that they prefer and once you know what these are you can successfully avoid them. Although, by the end of this series of Ten Things I Like About, I know all my listeners will be in love with tarantulas! Okay, okay, if not love then at least in appreciation. Tarantulas are most commonly found in warmer climates. Semi-arid desert habitat is the environment that most people associate with tarantulas, but more tarantulas are actually found in tropical rainforests than desert areas. Most tarantulas are distributed on land found 40 degrees north of the equator to 40 degrees south of the equator. This places them in warmer regions of the planet which includes Africa, southern Europe, areas of the Middle East, southern Asia, Indonesia, Australia, and all of Central and South America. Tarantulas found in North America are typically restricted to the Southwest, including Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Colorado, Texas, and Oklahoma; although, the Texas Brown has been seen as far east as Missouri. A common area home to several species of tarantula in North America is the desert. Various species of tarantula are found in semi-desert areas of the Sonoran, Chihuahua, and Mojave deserts. There are seven species of tarantula described in Australia. They are found in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia. The habitat they favor consists of desert, temperate, and rainforest areas. They are not found in the southern coastal areas or the northern tropics. South America is a hotspot for tarantulas. These hairy arachnids are found almost everywhere on this continent. The warm, humid tropical forests are a great place to find tarantulas. Just north of the equator sits French Guiana, it’s about the size of Indiana in the United States and is considered by many scientists to be the tarantula capital of the world. About a dozen different species of tarantula live there including the world famous bird-eating tarantulas! In Africa, tarantulas are found almost everywhere with the exception of the Sahara desert. This desert is home to only a handful of creatures that can tolerate the super dry environment and the extreme temperatures. No tarantula has yet to be found that is equipped to survive there. But Africa is host to many species of temperate as well as tropical species of tarantula, one of the most famous being the baboon spiders. In Europe, one must be very careful when looking for tarantulas. You must be sure to not get them mixed up with hairy wolf spiders! The original “tarantula” was a very hairy wolf spider seen in Taranto, Italy. The name was carried to other continents by European explorers who used it to describe other hairy spiders they saw. We ended up keeping and using the word “tarantula” for arachnids in the Family Theraphosidae. There is only one known species of tarantula in the United Kingdom classified in Family Therphosidae and that is the purse web spider. You might be thinking, how did tarantulas find their way to almost every continent in the world? Well some scientists from Carnegie Mellon University had the same question. Behaviorally speaking, tarantulas are typically homebodies, so how did they spread across the planet? Turns out tarantu

Summary: The senses of the tarantula are complex and bind-blowing! Join Kiersten as she walks you through this amazing arachnid’s sense of sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: The Tarantula Scientist by Sy Montgomery https://study.com/academy/lesson/tarantulas-anatomy-habitat-bite.html https://www.labroots.com/trending/plants-and-animals/18796/surprise-tarantulas-color-vision “The evolution of coloration and opsin in tarantulas.” By Satires Foley, Vinodkumar Saranathan, and William H. Piel. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, September 2020. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.1688 “Airborne Acoustic Perception by a Jumping Spider.” By Paul S. Shamble, Gil Menda, James R. Golden, Eyal I. Nitzany, Katherine Walden, Tsevi Beatus, Damian O. Elias, Itai Cohen, Ronald N. Miles, and Ronald R. Hoy, Current Biology, Vol. 26, Issue 21, pg 2913-2920 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2016.08.041 https://faunafacts.com/spiders/can-tarantulas-hear/ Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. ] This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues tarantulas and the second thing I like about these awesome creatures is their senses! The five senses that are typically common amongst most animals are sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. We’re going to look at each one of these in relation to tarantulas. Buckle up listeners, this is going to be a crazy ride! Okay, let’s start with vision. As mentioned in the anatomy episode, tarantulas have eight eyes. They are set just above the chelicerae. Two large eyes, that are relatively easy to see with the naked human eye, are centered in the middle of the front portion of the cephalothorax. Four eyes sit below those. These are smaller than the large eyes and sit in a line. Of these four eyes, the two in the middle will be slightly larger than the two on the ends. Now, if you’re keeping count that gives us only six eyes. The final two eyes sit on each side of the head. Once again, they will be smaller than the large front facing eyes, but they are bigger than the four eyes that are lined below the main eyes. This is typical of most tarantulas but not all species will be exactly the same. So based on the fact that they have eight eyes, their eyesight must be amazing! That’s an excellent deductive thought listeners, but in this case it is not correct. Tarantulas’ eyes are capable of detecting motion and changes in light, but cannot determine visual cues in any detail. When it comes to tarantulas, more eyes does not mean better vision. But before you shed a tear for these wee animals, their eyes are perfect for how they live their lives. Most tarantulas are nocturnal, so seeing in shades of light and dark is just what they need to navigate their environment successfully. It is commonly thought that tarantulas cannot see color. It makes sense that if you live in the shadows of night the ability to see color is not important, but there is some recent research that is challenging this thought. There are some tarantulas that are covered in bright blues and greens. For example, the Cobalt Blue tarantula of Myanmar and Thailand is a bright, beautiful sapphire blue. This is a truly gorgeous species of tarantula, to the human eye, but why would the tarantula produce a blue color if they themselves cannot see it? In a research paper published in 2020, scientists analyzed the opsins in tarantula eyes. Opsins are light-sensitive proteins that are often present in animals that possess color vision. It was previously thought that these opsins would not be present in tarantulas but the scientists found some. This indicates that the tarantula can see in color, or at least some colors. We’re not one hundred percent sure why these tarantulas are blue, but the current thought is that the color is used to attract mates. Studies have not been performed with brown, red, or orange colored tarantulas so we’ll have to wait to find out if they can see in color. The closer you look at these amazing arachnids, the cooler they become. Am I right? Let’s move on to hearing. The question here is can tarantulas hear? H-E-A-R. (Laugh) Sorry bad pun. The answer is more complicated than just a yes or no, so let’s discuss the details. Tarantulas do not have ears in the traditional sense, but they are capable of hearing. As you have probably noticed tarantulas are pretty hairy. These hairs, or setae, are no

Summary: Tarantulas are a frequently misunderstood animal so join Kiersten as she illuminates what makes them so cool! We start off with anatomy. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show notes: The Tarantula Scientist by Sy Montgomery https://study.com/academy/lesson/tarantulas-anatomy-habitat-bite.html https://www.britannica.com/science/book-lung https://www.tarantulasdemexico.com/en/anatomia_en.htm Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. My name is Kiersten and I have a Master’s Degree in Animal Behavior and did my thesis on the breeding behavior of the Tri-colored bat. I was a zookeeper for many years and have worked with all sorts of animals from Aba Aba fish to tigers to ravens to domesticated dogs and so many more in between. Many of those years were spent in education programs and the most important lesson I learned was that the more information someone has about a particular animal the less they fear them. The less they fear them the more they crave information about them and before you know it you’ve become an advocate for that misunderstood animal. This is the first episode of tarantulas, my first misunderstood animal, and my first favorite thing about tarantulas is their anatomy! I’m not kidding listeners! This is one fascinating animal and o ne of the best ways to get comfortable with a misunderstood animal is to understand how they work, so let’s get started with the tarantula’s anatomy. Tarantulas are classified as arachnids which means they are invertebrates that have eight legs. This puts them in the company of spiders, scorpions, harvestmen, ticks, and mites. Many people clump spiders and tarantulas together, but spiders and tarantulas are classified separately by scientists because of some anatomical differences and we’ll touch on these toward the end of this episode. As invertebrates, tarantulas have an exoskeleton. This is a hard outer shell made of chitin that gives their body shape. To grow they must shed this exoskeleton periodically in a process called molting. The most iconic attribute of tarantulas is their hair. This may be the biggest reason they creep people out, but this hair is super cool. The bristles are not made of of the same thing animal hair is made out, so technically not hair. Tarantula bristles are made of chitin, the same thing their exoskeleton is made of and there are four types of bristles. One type is the setae which all tarantulas have and these bristles act as sensory organs detecting chemicals, feeling vibrations, and sensing wind direction. The next type of bristles are the scopulae. These are found at the end of their legs and allow tarantulas to cling to surfaces. There are two other types of bristles that some but not all, tarantulas have, both are used in defense. One is the stridulating bristles that tarantula can rub together to make a hissing sound when threatened! How cool is that! And the fourth bristle is the urticating bristles that can be detached from the abdomen and thrown at predators. These bristles are itchy and can irritate the nose, eyes, and mouth of a predator for hours. Starting with the easily seen anatomy, tarantulas have two segments of their body the prosoma and the opisthosoma. The prosoma is the front portion of the tarantula, also known as the cephalothorax, where the eight legs are attached, where the eyes and mouth sit, and where the pedipalps attach. The opisthosoma is the back portion of the tarantula, often called the abdomen, where the lungs are housed and the spinnerets are attached. Let’s take a closer look at the prosoma. The most notable appendage attached to the prosoma are the legs. Tarantulas have eight legs with seven segments on each leg. At the end of the legs are small tarsal claws that aide the tarantula in climbing and sticking to surfaces. These claws are retractable which means they can be extended when in use or brought back in when not in use. Depending on the species, there are two to three tarsal claws. Pedipalps are the second most obvious appendage attached to the prosoma. These are leg-like appendage at the front of the prosoma. They are often mistaken for legs but pedipalps are used to help catch and hold food, smelling, and feeling vibrations. They do not help the tarantula walk. Males will also use these to transfer sperm to the female during breeding season. The chelicerae are also on the prosoma but these are not as obvious unless you are holding the tarantula upside down, which I would not recommend, they really don't like that! The chelicerae kind of look like hairy beaver teeth and house th

Episode 15: Vaquita: Conservation Summary: The vaquita is balancing on the edge of extinction. With only 10 left, can we save these beautiful porpoises? Join Kiersten as she talks about the conservation efforts surrounding the vaquita. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/science-data/vaquita-conservation-and-abundance https://seasheperd.org/milagro/ Robinson, Jacqueline; Kyriazis Christopher; Nidenda-Morales, Sergio; Beichman, Annabel; Rojas-Bracho, LOrenzo; Robertson, Kelly; Fontaine, Micheal; Wayne, Robert; Lohmueller, Kirk; Taylor Barbara, and Morin, Phillip. “The critically endangered vaquita is not doomed to extinction by inbreeding depression.” Science, May 2022: Vol 376, Issue 6593, pg 635-639; DOI:10.1126/science.abm1742 Vaquita: Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez by Brooke Bessesen Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp Vaquita Conservation Organizations porpoise.org Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues the vaquita and the fifth thing I like about the vaquita is how much effort we are putting into conservation of this species! Regrettably, this will be my last episode about the vaquita. I wanted to do a full ten episodes but we know so little about this animal that I could only gather enough information to do five episodes. Also, a word of caution about this episode, it will be hard to listen to and it was incredibly emotionally for me to write, but this is an important part of the vaquita’s story and must be told. Have some tissues handy. At the posting of this episode, in December 2022 there are only 10 vaquitas alive in the Sea of Cortez. They are the only vaquitas alive on the planet. There are no individuals in captivity. We have the slimmest of chances to save them from extinction and the odds are not on our, or their side, but we haven’t given up. Conservation efforts concerning the vaquita began in 1972 when the United States gave them protection under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. In 1975 Mexico also listed them as endangered. By this time, it was determined that the gill net fishing in the Sea of Cortez was greatly impacting not only the totoaba fish the nets were intended to catch but also the vaquita. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website gill nets are described as a wall of netting that hangs in the water column, typically made of monofilament or multifilament nylon. Mesh sizes can vary depending on species that you wish to catch but they are designed to allow the fish’ s head to get through but not the body. As the fish struggles to get free it gets more and more tangled keeping it captured until fishermen retrieve the nets. This type of fishing is not manned, it is a passive form of fishing that means fisherman can come by at different times to retrieve the fish caught in the nets. Commercial fisheries have been using this method to catch the totoaba, a fish that can grow to 6 feet long and is in great demand in Chinese markets, since the 1930s. These nets are huge risks to oxygen breathing animals that live in areas where they are used. Animals such as sea turtles, sea lions, dolphins, whales and porpoises can all die when caught in these nets because they become trapped under water and suffocate. In 1996 vaquita were listed as critically endangered by the International Union of Conservation of Nature, aka IUCN. In 1997, the first reliable estimate of the vaquita population was obtained through a cooperative Mexican-American survey. A total of 567 individuals were estimated by this survey. In 2008 another survey found only 245 vaquitas. This is a loss of 57%. That’s 322 individuals in eleven years. Now gill net fishing for totoaba had been outlawed in 1975 because of the severe decline seen in this species, but the swim bladder of this fish can bring a very high price on the black market, so fisherman were willing to risk punishment for the huge payday. In 2010 the totoaba were listed as critically endangered by the IUCN. Gillnets are still used illegally to catch this fish and these nets are also the main reason vaquitas are balancing on the edge of extinction. In the last episode, I mentioned the Sea Shepherd Organization and the conservation efforts they are involved in. Let’s start with two projects focused on helping keep the

Summary: Scientific research into the natural history of animals is incredibly important. Join Kiersten as she talks about the ways we are researching the vaquita. For my hearing impaired listeners, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean. Show Notes: Vaquita: Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez by Brooke Bessesen Original music written and performed by Katherine Camp Vaquita Conservation Organizations porpoise.org Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This episode continues the vaquita and the fourth thing I like about the vaquita is how we are researching them! There are two incredibly important ways we are researching vaquitas. If you’ve listened to the preceding episodes you know that vaquitas are very shy animals. They are notoriously hard to spot when looking for them from boats, but visual observation is one of the best ways we have of studying them. Researchers with a lot of patience, have actually compiled an identification guide using the dorsal fins of the vaquitas. Each dorsal fin is unique unto its owner. They have a particular curve, a notch or scar from some injury or encounter in its life that makes them easy to recognize. The dorsal fin always breaches the surface each time a vaquita needs to breath, so it makes them the perfect identification tool. To study an animal that lives in the water you need a boat or a ship that can get you where you need to go. Most researchers can’t afford to buy a boat or even rent a boat when they need to gather data, and some research institutions do not have their own boats either, but luckily, there are non-profit conservation organizations that are often willing to save a seat for a scientist. The Sea Shepard is one of those organizations. The Sea Shepherd’s main goal is to protect marine wildlife all over the world. Since the time we have determined that the vaquitas population is declining, the Sea Shepherd Organization has been involved. I’m going to discuss the vaquita conservation efforts this organization is helping with in the next podcast, but they are always happy to provide spotting opportunities to researchers. The Sea Shepherd organization has several ships of different sizes that they pilot for the various missions they are involved in. Some of these ships have been used in the Sea of Cortez for both conservation efforts and research opportunities. These ships are often staffed by volunteers that help scan the horizon for animal activity in the water. High-powered military binoculars called Big Eyes are mounted to the deck of most of their ships and are capable of swiveling to search the horizon easily. These binoculars have a magnification power of 25x150 which allows for visual clarity at exceptional distances helping scientists see activity clearly up to a mile away. Which is a good thing because the shy tendencies of the vaquita make it hard to approach too closely. Volunteers and scientists will also use their own personal binoculars, as well ,increasing the chances of spotting vaquita activity. Since the Sea of Cortez is one of the most biologically diverse bodies of water on the planet, many variety of animals are often spotted and each sighting is documented and rejoiced no matter what species it is. Visual sightings are only one way we are currently studying the vaquita, though. The second way we are researching the vaquita has to do with sound, but it’s not sound that we can hear. All porpoises use echolocation to hunt for food. The vaquita does this too. Using special equipment, researchers can use their echolocation calls to find the vaquitas. Mexico’s National Institute of Ecology and Climate Change, also known as INECC, is using devices called c-pods to “listen” for vaquitas in the Sea of Cortez. Brooke Bessesen, in her book Vaquita: Science, Politics, and Crime in the Sea of Cortez, describes c-pods as “self-contained ultrasound monitors that select tonal clicks and record the time, duration and other features of each click to 5-microseconds resolution.” These devices are essentially recording the echolocation calls of the vaquita. Okay, how exactly do they work? These are water proof devices that run on batteries and record data onto memory cards that can be removed to access the data later. They are deposited throughout a chosen range within the Sea of Cortez, specifically within the Vaquita Refuge area. Passive acoustic monitoring technology, also