Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Jellyfish

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writer/podcaster Katie Goldin ('Creature Feature' podcast, @ProBirdRights) for a look at why jellyfish are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Hey folks, I got a quick tip for you because there is a better way to buy audiobooks. It's called Libro.fm. It's a company that I have talked about on this show before. It's the only company I've ever affiliated this podcast with. Libro.fm sells audiobooks in partnership with more than 1,300 local bookstores in the US and Canada and a few other countries. If you go to their site, you'll probably see your local independent bookstore on their list. You can pick that to be the recipient, purchase your audiobooks, and keep some of that money in your local community. I think that's way better than giving that money to the one giant audiobook company where their CEO is flying himself to

space for fun. I think that money should go to your local bookstore instead. Right? That's better. So use code SIFPA to check out at Libro.fm. You'll get two audiobook credits for the price of one because I have partnered with them. It's just a nice thing. You get two audiobooks for one. A little bit of money goes to this podcast, helps me make it. A little money goes to your local bookstore, helps keep them going. Everybody wins. And then here's the extra thing I say with an advertisement like this, is if you're a patron, you don't hear these. Every patron always gets a completely ad-free, promo-free version of the podcast. Please head to sifpod.fun if you would like that experience, and so much more. and so much more. incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people

think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. The great Katie Golden is here today. She is the absolute perfect guest for basically any topic, but especially an animal show, because she hosts the best podcast about animals. It's called Creature Feature. It's over on iHeart Radio. Please hurry up and hear it if you have not before. Katie's also an amazing comedy writer. She does the AtProBirdWrites Twitter account. She's a writer for the Some More News channel on YouTube. She does so much more comedy from there. And perhaps most importantly, Katie Golden has a different perspective than me on today's topic. Because I have a few things to fill you in on right away. One is that I'm feeling some seasonal allergies. I think my voice sounds a little lower

and a little different. So that's what's going on. Allergies. Another thing going on is jellyfish is our topic today. That is a patron chosen topic. Thank you to James Woods for the suggestion and to all the patrons who voted for it too. And the other other thing to let you know is that I am terrified of jellyfish. I have a huge phobia of them. We'll talk about how that worked when I did the research. But wow, what an experience that is to do my usual deep dive into something that I am phobic about and spooked by. So there is a lot going on here. I also want to make sure you know that I am phobic about and spooked by. So there is a lot going on here. I also want to make sure you know that I gathered all of our zip codes

and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Catawba, Eno, and Shikori peoples. Acknowledge Katie recorded this on the traditional land of the Kumye people, and acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And as I said, today's episode is about jellyfish. They are my number one animal phobia. Also, I kind of did all the freaking out about it. I think before we taped, because once you do enough research, you're a little numb to it, right? So you'll hear me be pretty put together about a thing that

spooks the heck out of me, let's say, cleanly. And I think that makes this a really special episode to hear. So please sit back or continue to be someone who not only isn't afraid of jellyfish, but in fact finds them beautiful, I think most people do, and I'm weird. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Katie Golden. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Katie Golden, it is so good to have you every time. And I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. When we were speaking, you said you love jellyfish. Elaborate.

Yes, I love jellyfish. Never been stung by one. That's probably why I love them so much. I grew up in San Diego, so right next to the beach. And I'd always see these weird blobby alien things on the shore. And that would be the mantle of a washed up jellyfish. Lots of fun to poke with a stick. But then when I learned about them and these just incredibly interesting animals, they they don't seem like animals they seem like some kind of floating space pod and that something so alien can still be an animal and exist it's it's incredible i love them uh and they have never done me any harm so i approach them with an open heart and open arms and lots of open arms, I think, on their side or tentacles, I guess they're called.

Yeah. Everything you say is true. And I just they're they're my number one animal phobia. Like, it doesn't totally make sense. But there's been a really interesting, I would say, revolting experience to research. I didn't. I was doing a lot of like holding my hand over the picture in the article. And everything you say is correct.

There's nothing actually wrong with them. It's just my snakes or bugs or whatever it is for people. Because I'm fine with bugs and snakes. I just jellyfish are really bad for me. Well, you know, this is your Batman moment where, you know, in Batman, he's afraid of bats and you're afraid of jellyfish, but you're diving into the sea, as it were, to explore the jellyfish to become Jellyman, protector of the city. You could just call me Master Wine the entire rest of the episode. Draymaster Wine, it's a wonder.

You're so fried of jellyfish, but here you are, dressed as a giant jellyfish, punching out criminals. Should have been a better father's figure to hire a figure. You probably need some therapy. And then I talk like this, but whenever I have the mask on, I talk like this. And then it's's like we can still tell it's you i know you're doing a weird voice thing you just have a giant pulsating jellyfish on your head and that's your mask and like just a living one like it's alive yeah yeah and like a pink cape with

like tendrils coming off of it. I'll get you, Captain Crustacean. Hang on a second. Got this one's tangled. And yep. And that's stuck in the jelly ring. And that one. Come back.

And you said as a kid, they would wash up on just the Pacific Ocean beach there? You just poke them? You just poke them with a stick, stick not your hands that's how you don't get stung okay yeah that makes sense yeah because i poke them and they can't go bloop oh wait like they make a bloop sound or it's just a funny visual that i'm sort of the physical the physical effect of blooping yeah yeah yeah i one one of many things i saw was jellyfish farmers in a video when i was researching this and i was like white knuckling it but i was seeing them sort of do piles of them on a floor like that yeah they're just pancakes immediately what about them this is said with no judgment because i i've had many many a strange phobia throughout my life, bananas being one

of them. And so I am not one. Yeah, no, I'm not afraid of bananas. They don't like frighten me, but I hate them so much. Don't like the smell. Don't like the look. Don't even really like touching them. And it is okay to laugh at that because it's funny to me.

So any phobia I hear, it's like, yeah, no, I get it. You can basically defeat me by wielding a banana and holding it like a gun and I am defeated. But I do want to ask, what is it about jellyfish for you that kind of triggers that fear response? Or is it fear or disgust? Oh, that's a perfect question. I think it's a little more disgust. Because also, like, in researching this,

I learned some new ways they are actually dangerous that I did not know. And it didn't really make me more afraid of them. You know what I mean? Like, I was still, like, just as mad, oh well. And also kind of fascinated. I was a little less afraid almost to know how they could kill me yeah yeah i think it's the the squishiness and the just the lack of any things i recognize as human i think is where it's coming from too yeah like because

the other similar phobias i have are like anemones and other little, anything bottom-feedy in the ocean really wigs me out. And also a little bit like fungi and mushrooms and stuff. Oh, that's so interesting. I think it's anything like alien and creeping and growing like that. Right. Well, what's interesting about that is that fungi kind of defy sort of the, some of the rules of nature because because they're not they're not animals, but they're not plants. They're sort of this weird in between thing. And jellyfish are animals, but they're so strange.

They're just so unlike most other animals on the planet that that it is kind of like they don't have they don't have a brain i mean we'll talk i'm sure we're gonna talk all about how how weird they are but yeah no no i get that but i dig it they're like alternative yeah it's like they're it's it's like a some kind of squishy gross force that is not like i'm fine with the squish force right yeah embrace the squish force Alex you know it to be true and it's like like it can't be reasoned with

even though most animals I can't talk to or discuss stuff with but jellyfish I really really can't like there's like if a lion comes up to you there's probably no way you can reason with it. But somewhere deep in the back of our heads, we're thinking like maybe if I have a laser pointer, I could kind of talk some sense into this lion. I could plead with it with a laser pointer or maybe a well-timed belly rub.

Not true, but it's like it feels like that feels right. But it's like it feels like that feels right. Whereas if you are getting, you know, stung by a giant jellyfish, it's like there's nothing you can say to a jellyfish. Yeah. Print that on a mug. Print that on a mug. Nothing you can say to a jellyfish. If it's like I'm imagining a jellyfish with a coffee mug, like don't talk to me until I've had my coffee.

But also I can't be reasoned with in any way. Right, don't talk to me until I've had my coffee. But also, I can't be reasoned with in any way. Right. Don't talk to me. Period. I can't be reasoned with. And then I think there's also like one more phobia layer of just the sea. Like most stuff I can run away from. And I'm not a super strong swimmer. And the sea is deep and mysterious.

Jellyfish, there are so many people, it's maybe their favorite animal or something they want on their wall or as art or something. And I'm totally the opposite swing. And it's for no good reason. Just don't like it. You know, everybody's got their phobias. It doesn't have to have a good reason for you to not like them. I mean, they are weird, just like bananas. When you think about it, sort of a banana peel and a jellyfish, when you hold them up next to each other, not so different, are they?

Yeah, they're dangly like that. Yeah, I see it. Slippery, you step on one, you slip and you fall down. And everyone laughs and points, and there's some wacky music that goes off. It's the same thing, they're both terrifying. Also, it it's reminding me so i had the phobia before this happened but i also had a childhood experience where like in in illinois we camp on lake michigan and then i thought a jellyfish washed up and freaked out and it was pretty embarrassing and then it turned out to be an old balloon like an old white balloon.

So it was nothing. But the counselor or whoever at camp told me, you know, you don't need to worry about that because there aren't freshwater jellyfish. And it turns out that's actually not true. I learned that researching this. There are some freshwater jellyfish. They lied to you. They gave me, like, the wrong reason to not be afraid. Like, I was cavalier about the lake, even though theoretically it could have been. This is the power of the jellyfish lobby.

Oh, yeah, there's no freshwater jellyfish. Don't worry. Let your guard down. Wink, wink. Also, can't be negotiated with. They refuse to do any trading of anything. No, you can't be negotiated. You're like, all right, let's start it at $ know 200 and then the jellyfish is kind of like flaps around you're like well they're fine

300 sting you fine 500 sting sting sting you can't be pleased yeah and and always so glad to have you on these animal shows i also the other thing from researching this i realized how humongous of a topic it is. So we won't cover every single thing about them, but I think we can get into some things here. And on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics

in a segment called statistics. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da- submit to Sipod on Twitter or to Sipod at gmail.com. I'm going to use that song in my life. Like I imagine you doing it at like some kind of very squared away accountant character, but they a tiny bit toe tap or something. Yeah. Like even their boringness. They're overwhelmed by it.

Accountants aren't boring. It's just a trope. I'm thinking with my economist husband to do that when he's working just start maroomba-ing in the room statistics oh you're gonna make him say it maybe that'd be fun yeah yeah there'll be there'll be he he may act serious but there'll be a little little jig going on in front of all the statistics on the screen. Yeah. Well, and first number of many here. This is a big numbers section for the jellies.

First one is more than half a billion years. Wow. Yeah. Billion with a B. More than half a billion years we've had jellyfish in the Earth's oceans. They've been here for a long time. That's a lot of years. Yeah. oceans. That's a lot of years. Heck, that's a lot of years.

Thank you for acknowledging. This number is coming from a book that's a key source for this. It's called Spineless, the Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone. It's by Julie Berwald, who's an ocean scientist and science writer. It's

really coming in with an aggressive energy. The title. Spineless. The ooey gooey animals that were spineless and terrible back in the day. Maybe that's part of why I picked it up at the library. It was like, they probably also don't like jellyfish. And boy was I disappointed. They love them. She tells it like it is everyone's thinking it it's like it's like one

of those books by a pundit where they're they have their arms folded on the cover and they're here to tell you about the the democrat party or how bad it is right gutless sessile organisms and their menace to society. Yeah. Anyway, wonderful book. It's very, very heartwarming. And she says they're likely one of the oldest organisms, if not the oldest organism that is still on the Earth today. You know, like they probably evolved and stuff, but it's one of the oldest kinds of life on the Earth. but it's one of the oldest kinds of life on the earth. There are octogenarians, cnidarians. Wait, they're probably more than octogenarians.

What are they? What would you say? Billionarians? Yeah, billigenarian. Let's do that. Billigenarian cnidarians. Now I don't remember. Cnidaria, that's the family or the genus or something.

That's one of the scientific names for it. It's a fun word to say. c-n-i-d-a-r-i-a it's the phylum phylum thank you that contains jellyfish is in there in nidarians yeah an invertebrate animal that's why they're called spineless on the book cover and it's fun yeah but it is no bones in them jellyfish and they do feel like ancient and uh eldritch and like one of the first rough drafts of life you know one i feel we should have moved on from but that's just me let's innovate grow up jellyfish grow a spine yeah yeah i i get that though they are very alien very sort of like cthulhu-esque something emerging from the center of the earth and casting some kind of black magic and suckling us all up with its many tentacles kind of thing going on. Yeah. Yeah, right. Like, it's a really spooky animal, man.

I'm good with everybody who likes it. man and i'm good with everybody who likes it i also it's it's on my mind that maybe some people are like starting their journey of this podcast with this episode because they love jellyfish that much and i swear i like the other things we talk about usually it's just this one is my phobia and uh and it's a cool patron pic so it's it's what it is but isn't that but that's nice to like to to face your phobias, you know? Give it a fair shake. They are ghost-shaped, though, jellyfish. So that might be another factor.

They look like a Pac-Man ghost, so they are spooky. They look a lot like a Pac-Man ghost. I'm just going to think of it as a jellyfish game now. Wow. It's kind of cool. Sorry. It's like an Echo the Dolphin, secretly. It's all underwater. It's a clam against jellyfish. It's like an Echo the Dolphin, secretly. It's all underwater.

It's a clam against jellyfish. Now I'm invested in the hero. That's right. That makes so much sense. Well, and the next number here is 3,000. And 3,000 is the lowest end estimate I could find for the number of different jellyfish species on Earth. And also there's a big caveat there, part of it being impossible for this podcast to cover every kind of jellyfish

is that we use the term jellyfish for a lot of different things. There's like comb jellies that are different from regular jellies. There's also a kind of jellyfish called the Portuguese man o' war. That's one example of a siphonophore where it's actually several different organisms living together. It's not its own animal.

Anyway, there's like box jellyfish, true jellyfish, comb jellyfish, these weird siphonophores, hydrazoans. There's all kinds of thousands and thousands of animals that get lumped into this thing. Yeah. It's kind of like, I think this has become more widely known that the term fish is sort of a tricky thing. If you describe one fish, and we're not even talking about jellyfish, because I think most people know that's kind of a misnomer that they're not really a fish. But even amongst fish like if you're if you compare like a lamprey to some other fish um and a guest of mine talked about this on the show before uh about how like you know the like one fish is very different phylogenetically from

another fish but we all call them fish even if they're not that related to each other so it's kind of like within nidaria the the phylum i think there's a lot of jellyfish-esque animals that look jelly you know but they're not necessarily super closely related they're and certainly not the same species or even in the same like family or anything like that yeah i hadn't i hadn't even thought of that part that i probably because i'm revolted by them that like jellyfish are officially not fish even though there's fish in the name like they just look so different to me i i i never even encode them as fish but even that part is confusing yeah yeah they're uh they are being deliberately obtuse subtly obtuse good another criticism of them good great keep it up welcome to jellyfish roast 2021 yeah spineless gutless animals thinking of literal guts the that weirdest thing to me is the

siphonophore such as the portuguese man o'war which is probably the one that creeps me out the most, if I had to pick one. But that Portuguese man o' war is an interconnected colony of different hydrozoans. And one of them is the comb on the top. Another different animal is the stinging tentacle part. Then there's another digestive polyp. And then there's another reproductive polyp. And there's also no organism doing propulsion. So those those siphonophores are just drifting on the ocean wherever they're brought. And it's a it's a really different way to live. Just like a hippie commune. Yeah.

Hey, man, we're just drifting along. That's Larry over there. He digests stuff. That's that's Ray over there. He digests stuff. That's Ray over there. He does like those sting tentacles. Don't worry. Don't get too close to him though. He killed a guy, but it's

cool. Is a guy in the commune or part of this jellyfish? Yeah. Exactly like a hippie commune. Yeah. There is something creepy to me about animals that are just actually a lot of different animals all linked together doing stuff. Although I think there are theories that that is how we gained our mitochondria as as like how animals gain mitochondria is that it was sort of a mitochondria were a different organism that, you know, these these living cells kind of absorbed and now just formed this like totally co-evolved together until the point where we all now have mitochondria in us all the time. Oh, OK. That's it. Yeah, that is a really interesting idea about evolution.

So you have strangers in your body. Wow. Spooky. Yeah, that is a really interesting idea about evolution. So you have strangers in your body. Parts of us started as different animals. Wow. Spooky. Spooky. I was, and I was warned, Katie, that you are a host of many parasites. I did receive that warning from the show. That is true.

Thank you for being upfront about that. We're all having a fun time in here in this little sack of parasites. Yeah. Well, this next number, it's actually, it's maybe the most human thing about them to me. This next number is 95%. And that's the approximate water content of a jellyfish. And I remember being surprised as a kid about that fun fact that humans are up to like 60% water, you know, but jellyfish are even more water. That number's from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA. You know them for weather mostly.

And then National Geographic says some species of jellyfish are up to 98% water. So they're very watery. Perhaps you, jellyfish, were the most human. Are you having a moment with a jellyfish? You have to tell me if you're having a moment with a jellyfish on the show. Just holding my hand up to one of their stingers. Ow, I love you.

Ow. The jellyfish is like, just because I can't be negotiated with doesn't mean i can't love it kind of probably does but hey it probably does yeah it's not that they can't be loved though by me ow ow ow hug ow and it's like it to that thing, the experience you had of them being on the beach totally floppy. Like once they lose their water and dry out, they're basically just like an old bag, just like a disc. Yeah, they're like a plastic grocery. Like if you put a plastic bag in the water, it looks pretty voluminous. But you take it out and it flops down.

Just like a jellyfish. Yeah. Yeah. More or less. And we'll, the farm I mentioned, the video, I will have that linked where you can see just an entire floor of harvested jellyfish. It looks like weird tile. Like it's just flat.

It's really weird. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like a slip and slide. That'd be fun. It does kind of look like that actually. Yeah. Yeah. It looks like a slip and slide. That'd be fun. It does kind of look like that actually. Yeah. Like it's some kind of really, really squeaky entertainment for kids. There's some dark, deep part of me that wants to use that as a slip and slide. Is that so wrong?

Oddly, this next number fits right in with that. Next number is 120 feet. And that's thirty six point five meters. That's the longest jellyfish slip and slide ever created. It is. It's the longest recorded length of a jellyfish. I just imagined using one to do it. You know, it's plenty. Wow.

That is so long. So that must be like including their tentacles. Right. Wow. That is so long. So that must be including their tentacles, right? Yeah. That's from the top of the bell, which is that domey, bellish top part, all the way to the bottom of the tentacles of a lion's mane jellyfish that was measured once. Now, are those stinging tentacles? Yeah. And apparently that species contains lots of neurotoxins, and it's very dangerous to

humans. Cool. Yeah. Just imagine a forest of these things just like lurking in the ocean. Really trying not to. That scene in Finding Nemo, but as humans. I was wigged out by that scene in Finding Nemo, where is a fully basically cute computer anime I know it's it's spooky at the time but it's still like just a drawing from a computer and I was like

like squirming in my seat while children enjoyed it oh it's a rough life sorry even the little polyp even the cute little baby polyp that Dory finds and name Squishy? Yeah, that's like kind of hard too. It doesn't make sense. It probably doesn't help that they're called polyps, to be honest. Right, pretty much any kind of polyp. I'm like, no way. Why can't I talk to it, you know? Yeah, forget it.

Like sharks I'm basically good with. And they're dangerous, just pure violence. It just feels like a land animal sort of to me. I could imagine it as a land animal. I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah, you could imagine it with some little feet, little arms. And you basically got a hippo, right? Kind of.

Yeah, it's kind of a hippo. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Great. Also violence. Big teeth. Yeah. But you still think maybe you could negotiate with them.

Yeah, yeah. Which you absolutely can't. There's no negotiating with a hippo. I think there is maybe negotiating with a shark, to be honest, more so than a hippo. Like you boop it on the nose or you flip it over. You can maybe negotiate with it. But a hippo, no. Right. But it does feel like maybe if with it but a hippo no but it does feel like maybe if you have some watermelons you're like maybe don't try it but maybe that's

now i'm thinking of our cultural thing where like sharks are a a what is it a metaphor an idiom like the concept of like a shark in business like the the show Shark Tank, you know, like I could like they're just making deals. But if you make a show called Jellyfish Tank, it's just about someone like getting fear factored to death, you know, it's the worst. Yeah, I just did. I just like here's my product out, out, out, out and just pain all the way down. Pain all the way down. Yeah, I just did an episode on sharks and how they are very misunderstood. They can actually form friendships with each other. Many species can be quite sweet.

That episode was with Christy Yamaguchi-Main, right? That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah. A lot of fun. We talk about all the cutest sharks in the ocean.

Yeah. Because even them, you can get along. Right, they have a heart. But this like, again, 120 feet, or what I think of as 12 stories of a building, that's how big the National Museum of Natural History says one jellyfish was. Not okay. Wow, cool. And then the next number here is the reverse it is three centimeters or 1.18 inches and that's just the bell part but that is the maximum length of the bell of what's understood

to be the world's smallest jellyfish yeah and this is uh we'll think we'll link to scientific american that's an article by becky about the Irukandji jellyfish. And the Irukandji jellyfish is like tiny, nearly invisible. Its four tentacles can be up to a meter long, but they're usually much shorter. And then the bell is a maximum of three centimeters is the biggest we've measured. Just like little sea mosquitoes. Yeah. And then, because jellyfish are

nightmares, it's also a kind of box jellyfish, and it's one of the most venomous animals on Earth. Even though it's so small. Small and deadly. Your widow and QN will kill me in the face. They describe what

happens to you after the sting as ira kanji syndrome it starts with intense lower back pain for some reason oh i see interesting and then uh and then proceeds to cause headaches chest pain anxiety i probably for good reason and then vomiting and then occasionally either through heart failure or fluid entering the lungs you can die so it's a very very dangerous stinker who's a little stinker causing cardiac arrest yeah a little contrarian nidarian that's the pundit book title contrarian nidarian this nidarian does not just get along and then there's an american flag behind them

you know while technically speaking it does go with the flow in the ocean it does not go with the flow but yeah and so this this little scamp of a jellyfish uh one place they live is the pacific ocean and there's a link a 2019 article from the australian academic researched website the conversation where they talk about a new technology where scientists would sweep the water for signs of jellyfish DNA to see if Irukandji jellies are there because they're very hard to like see with your eyes. Yeah. Kind of until you've already been stuck. Right.

Until they've actually hit your eye and you're like, ah, okay. Found one. So that's, it's experimental, but that's like one thing they're trying to do because these are you know you don't need to go sweat them at home unless you're living on like i think the northern coast of australia is the place but otherwise it's it's of course and uh the next number here is 24 and 24 is how many eyes most species of box jellyfish have, which is a lot of eyes. That's cool.

Nice. I think of jellyfish as having no eyes and just feeling their way, but many of them can see and very well. Yeah, they can see you and approach you. No, I mean, yeah, it is weird. When you think about, there are certain sea animals you just don't think of having eyes. And then it turns out they have all the eyes ever made like scallops.

Like you wouldn't think that scallops have eyes. But you look at a scallop and sure enough, all radially along, there's a bunch of these little blue dots, which are their eyes, and there can be like hundreds of them. So they have every single eye. Wow. Yeah. That's awesome. And that's such, that feels like such evolutionary commitment to eyes.

Yeah. Like you're not going to work on any other stuff. Just your body has a bunch of eyes on it. Cool. It's like, well, I'm all ears. And they're like, well, I'm all eyes. The visual of their mouth doing that would be really fun.

Just imagining it. That's great. Yeah, these jellyfish Just imagining it. That's great. Yeah. Well, these jellyfish have 24 eyes and a few different types as well. And the journal Nature has an article breaking this down. Most box jellyfish, and again, it's thousands of species, doesn't go for all of them. But most of them have four corners with a cluster of six eyes at each of the four corners six times four is 24 you get that um yeah and then each corner has six eyes on it

that's a cluster of four eyes that are cup shaped and just absorb amounts of light and then two more eyes that are complex and similar to human eyes they They have corneas, lenses, retinas, irises. They're fully, they don't look like googly cartoon eyes or something, but I wish they did. Like they basically see like we do and then some. It's amazing. Yeah, I know that like probably visually speaking, they don't look just like a human eye dangling off it. But I do really love the idea of just this jellyfish with just, you know, all along its little skirt, just a human eye jingling along like little bells. Yeah, right.

It's so much looking to do and to think of it having any human parts freaks me out almost more. What do you need to look at 24 times? Yeah. It's also apparently each of those corners with the six eyes in each corner, three of the eyes point upward and three of the eyes point downward. So I think it's trying to get a constant total view of everything around it. Sort of like scallops. Sort of a 360 feet of everything going on. Yeah.

Which is just, it's probably just looking at more creepy jellyfish. I wouldn't want that. Forget it. That's great. So it's got 24 eyes. It can be the size of like a 12 story building. It can be the size of like a 12-story building. It can be, you know, it can be tiny and deadly and make your back hurt before it gives you cardiac arrest.

This is all shaping up so great. Yeah, and it kind of, it helps me know that my phobia is not rational because this didn't make me like more scared. Like a lot of that is actually creepy and bad but i've just remained as as scared and squicked out as i already was grossed out yeah like you're you're it didn't take a lot for you it's just like they are goopy gross no no thank you well the uh the next number we have here is two and this may not go for all the species again there's tons of them but that's about how many nervous system number of jellyfish behind you right now sorry 48 eyes oh no uh that's what they call that's what they call nerd jellyfish like that have to wear glasses hey look it's 48 eyes over here give them a swirly in the toilet and they just flush right down

be so immediate too like just just gone i'd probably pop out the other end none for the worse that's why they're monsters. Yeah. Alex is like, don't make me feel sorry for jellyfish. Right. But two is the approximate number of nervous system networks that a jellyfish has. PBS. That's not a lot. It's like more than if you think of a human as only having one, you know, like it's all centralized and interconnected. They have two sets here.

And PBS says they have a large nerve net that controls their swimming and then a smaller nerve net for all other behaviors, including feeding and spasm response, which is briefly curling into a ball. Spasm response. Yeah. And they say, quote, this body-wide network of small nerves somehow makes it possible for a jelly to figure out where the different parts of its body are and to act accordingly, for example, using a single tentacle to move prey to its mouth, end quote. Hmm. Well, that's kind of neat.

It doesn't have to think about, you know, moving while it's eating, and it doesn't have to think about you know moving while it's eating and it doesn't have to think about eating and it doesn't really have to think at all does it yeah it's like i the internet resources especially were very fuzzy about the like i basically tried to google do jellyfish have a brain and a bunch of confusing headlines that probably weren't well researched came up and the the the upshot is they don't have a totally centralized system but they have a network of nerves and there's like a version of decision making going on like things work together and are on purpose i would say they have they may have some nerve clusters but i don't think that really counts as a brain yeah right it's just it's just differently

organized than than we are it's freaky in my and you can read it in the new york times bestseller brainless why jellyfish are a menace to society well and there's a couple more numbers here still. Tons of numbers, this one. The next one is 30 million. Another big number. 30 million. The number of jellyfish behind me right now. A lot of guests. 30 million is how many jellyfish used to live in one lake.

There was one pretty small lake that obviously was named Jellyfish Lake. It's on the rock islands of the South Pacific country of Palau. At one point, does it stop being a lake and then just become like a ball pit of jellyfish, though? They tried to find out, I think. Yeah.

Because this lake, it's 400 meters long, which is less than a quarter mile. That's the long side. And then it's just 30 meters deep. But despite that size, for most of its history, it had between 10 to 20 million members of a unique jellyfish subspecies. In 2005, they reached a peak of about 30 million individuals. That seems kind of crowded. It's kind of like trying to find a place in New York where it's just like, you know, all these jellyfish go like,

hey, I'm floating over here. It's very like, it's a music festival all the time. Yeah. It's hard to get a bottle of water and yeah yeah someone's seen my purse you yell to the other 30 million jellyfish yeah that's um so how like are they pretty neurotoxic too so if you like wanted to take a dip in this big old squishy pool of jellyfish, would you sort of immediately have all of your brain and heart just completely zapped to oblivion by just an incredible dose of neurotoxin? Or are they are they pretty harmless? So they're nicknamed golden jellyfish.

They do not sting and are not neurotoxic. So they're my jellyfish. Yeah, they're, we'll have pictures, but it's almost like that little polyp in Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, whatever. Like, they're cute. And if you like jellyfish, which lots of people do, it was basically the premier jellyfish tourism place in the world. Tourists flocked to see them. Tourists would swim with them. in the world.

Tourists flocked to see them. Tourists would swim with them. And then, unfortunately, in recent years, the jelly's numbers went from that peak of 30 million down to way below 1 million. And they say the main reasons are a couple of extreme El Ninos in a row, and then also runoff from the sunscreen that human visitors wore when they swam in it. Like the sunscreen level in this lake got really high and it killed a lot of them. Oh, man. See, this is why we can't have sweet jellyfish that don't sting you.

Yeah. If they defended themselves, I don't know, maybe they're still around. What happens? The doormats of the natural world. Yeah. Well, that's so sad. People wearing sunscreen. The worst. Yeah, like, we don't think about it because the sea is so huge.

We're like, oh, this bit of chemical on me doesn't matter. But in this tiny lake with endless people doing it, the levels actually got high and the jellyfish couldn't take it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, if you have ever owned an aquarium, you know, to like thoroughly wash and rinse your hands off before doing anything in the aquarium, because anything on your hands, like soap residue or makeup or lotion or sunscreen, if you dip your hand in there and you get it in there, can kill your fish because like you're introducing some kind of chemical into the aquarium. So you have to be very careful when you're keeping an aquarium full of cnidarians. So that's who you're talking to. Now I know.

Huge tank of cnidarians. Alex is like, wait a minute. We are here, Alex. We've been here the whole time. Oh, man. Why are you 120 feet long This stinks I can't help but be the jellyfish

I was born to be That's fair and I'm irrational about it It's okay Come in for a big hug I'll trust you this time But ow ow ow Zap zap zap And those jellyfish I'll trust you this time, but ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Zap, zap, zap, zap, zap.

And those jellyfish lake numbers were from a book called The Outlaw Ocean by New York Times investigative journalist Ian Urbina. And then I checked on it since then, and they reopened this lake in 2019 because the numbers rebounded. Oh, good. And apparently tourists are allowed to swim in it again, but with like, you know, careful practices. So, you know, it seems to be coming back. You have to wash your sunscreen off before I hope. Yeah, I think you basically need to accept a sunburn to hang out with them.

Yes, yes. You've got a bunch of tiny umbrellas under the lake. Just, you know, that'll help. Yeah. All right. Off of that, we're going to a short break followed by the big takeaways see you in a sec i'm jesse thorne i just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR.

Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. And from here, there's two big takeaways for the episode. I know that was a lot of numbers, but we also have two takeaways. And here comes takeaway number one. numbers, but we also have two takeaways. And here comes takeaway number one. You've probably only ever seen one stage of the bizarre life cycle of jellyfish. And you being the general person, I don't know if Katie, you've seen them, but I was astounded to learn that there's a lot of stages of the jellyfish life cycle. And what I think of as a jellyfish floating around is just kind of one way of living for them.

Yeah. Yeah. They are multifaceted, complex creatures that contain multitudes of life stages. Yeah. Yeah. So many ways to be. And the key sources here are that book Spineless by Julie Berwald, also the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. And they talk about how like what we all picture as a jellyfish is what's called a medusa.

It's the medusa stage of jellyfish life. They really pick the most aggressive sounding names for jellyfish like polyp and medusa. Yeah. sounding names for jellyfish like polyp and medusa yeah and like there's like the teenage stage just the pestilence i'm kidding that's not one like the stagflation or some you know just i don't know what would be bad but the goopening yeah yeah and uh the and the medusa is when it's a dome shaped or box shaped top part which is called the bell and then tentacles trailing behind it and the name comes from the greek mythological character medusa her hair was snakes and yeah that stage kind of looks like a head with snakes sort of that's where they got it i blame the men in that story you know like she's just trying to live with her snake hair and all these dudes keep coming in and they're like hey let me

take a look at your snake hair and she's like well it'll turn you to stone and they're like i'd still want to check out that snake hair and it's like they look at it turn to stone she's like well you know what am i supposed to do just chilling out with my snake hair. Right. It's the snake hair tourism industry. That's the problem. Right. They shouldn't sell tickets to that. No. And she's not seeing any of that money.

She doesn't get the drachma. You know? No. None of those snakes are getting any residuals. You know what I mean? The snakes go on strike. Yeah. Or strike. We're tired of turning men into stone it's getting tiresome union breaks for snakes yeah it's interesting that book spineless julie Berwald describes herself as being on Medusa's side in the myth, because it reads more like she was assaulted by Poseidon and then Athena got mad about it.

Yeah. It's kind of why Medusa becomes a monster. nothing wrong. And then some God's drama happens and then they get turned into, you know, snake hair. And then they're just trying to chill out there with their snake hair and people keep coming up and like flashing mirrors at them. And they're like,

Hey, come on, get away from me and my snake hair. None of this was my fault. Yeah. Yeah. Leave her alone. So yeah.

Leave her alone. Leave Medusa alone alone leave medusa alone but uh and yeah and then it turns out i i had no idea there's a whole cyclical system of jellyfish life beyond just that stage and starting from that medusa stage medusas are male or female and so then they can release eggs or sperm they either just release it in the ocean or specifically with another jelly some moon jellyfish do it in a big group fun cool not disgusting at all right only only my worst nightmare i'll just keep sweating uh but uh but the from there an egg gets fertilized and it into a larva, and that is called a planula. And then it apparently looks something...

That's the most beautiful names for these life cycle stages. Yeah, it's always like Greek, but way more clinical than you want it to be. Yeah. Like, no thanks. Like, it just sounds like I can have a disease in it. I don't want it to be like yeah like no thanks like it just sounds like i can have a disease in it i don't want it yeah nurse hand me the forceps and hand me the planula the planula doctor are you sure yes the planula how'd it go how'd it go in the surgery i had had to use the planula. Oh, so they're dead. Yeah, they're dead. They didn't make it. Yeah, of course. They're in several pieces, yeah.

So the planula, it sort of looks like a furry Tic Tac, according to Julie Berwald. Oh, okay. And then what it does is it wriggles around the ocean until it finds a solid surface to attach itself to. the ocean until it finds a solid surface to attach itself to then it attaches it grows and forms a digestive tract and becomes tube shaped and it stays anchored to whatever rock or shipwreck or whatever that is and then that stage of life is a polyp right so that is also a jellyfish a weird like sea sponge looking polyp so from uh fuzzy tic-tac to weird macaroni called a polyp.

Same animal. Beautiful. The circle of life is just gorgeous and elegant. What if one of the stages is like, and then it's a handsome guy. And then back to being a Medusa, obviously. Like, wait, go back, go back. I mean, that is stages is like and then it's a handsome guy and then back to being a medusa obviously like wait

go back go back i mean that is sort of there's a um animal called a uh oh shoot it's oh it's called a tunicate it just just popped into my head what's the name tunicate tunicate okay it starts out as what looks like a cute little tadpole and then it just like loses all of its uh like its brain and its digestive system and just becomes this like tube tube thing that doesn't even look alive that doesn't even look like an animal so it goes from like you know relatively cute like oh little little uh little tadpole into just tube animal it's just so bizarre because it's like starts out sort of almost this like reverse metamorphosis where it starts out like a tadpole where it's got like a normal digestive tract a brain and then it attaches to a rock and then becomes this like just it looks like a weird tube that uh you know just kind of like sits there and lets food fall into its holes wow okay it's very strange yeah

and and with tubes we have this polyp here the polyp is like also a particularly standard part of a jellyfish life cycle like they're they're a jellyfish that will stay in the polyp stage for years or for decades it's it's an entire way of living it's not some kind of intermediate thing for them and the other amazing thing about polyps is that they can reproduce asexually yes Yes. And sometimes they also start scooting to a new fixed location, which is another thing they can do, and they'll leave behind a piece of their foot. That is called a podocyst,

and then that podocyst can develop into a new polyp. But that means that... It gets so freaky, those little freaks. Yeah. Reproducing by budding and then splitting splitting and their foot becomes a whole new dude. It's just sick. Disgusting. Yeah, well, they can, like, polyps can reproduce asexually and then medusas can reproduce sexually. And it's this whole, like, jellyfish have every way of making more jellyfish.

Terrifying. Yeah. You know, others would call it interesting or neat, but I call it terrifying. Right. Because of my weird phobia. Right. And then there's also a thing they can do called strobilation, which is where. Sounds fun. Strobilation.

Yeah. You have to know a promoter. And then if you bring girls, you can get in. That's the worst part about Jellyfish is they're always handing you a flyer. Like, hey, you want to come to my set tonight? They do it all the time. And it doesn't matter how many sets you go to. You keep getting flyers. It doesn't matter how many sets you go to.

You keep getting flyers. And the strobilation is what a polyp does. And it's where a polyp decides to suck its top parts into itself and then grow into an even longer tube and then form what Julie Berwald describes as looking like a stack of pancakes on top of it. Yum. And then what a revolting idea.

And so the the stack can be anywhere from one to 60 individuals, six zero. Ah. And then they pop off of the top one by one after they wriggle around a little bit. And then those are baby essentially baby medusas they're what's called an ethira and an ethira grows into a medusa so you also have polyps able to generate a stack of medusas while they are also asexually budding into more polyps cool there there's all these branching forks and loops and paths in a jellyfish life. You can do it all.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just a free-for-all. It's a reproductive free-for-all, I think is the biological term. Yeah. There's so many paths to making more of yourself. It's sexapalooza. Just, hey, I just grew a new dude out of my butt.

Yeah. Just one new dude, that's all? Yeah, I know, that's all. It's not very many. Well, we formed a stack of pancakes and we just created a whole bunch of new dudes. Right on, brother. I'm glad I grabbed that flyer. Now I made a dude out of my butt.

Yeah, and so all of those different things are jellyfish. We just only think of Medusas. And I find it as gross as the rest of it, but it's also amazing. I guess I'm glad there was more there than I thought, you know? Yeah. There's one more takeaway here. Takeaway number two. you know? Yeah. There's one more takeaway here. Takeaway number two.

Thanks to that jellyfish life cycle, one species is kind of sort of immortal. My favorite in the world. This is a, yeah, isn't this the, um, uh, Hydra? I only found the scientific name Turritopsis dorni the and and yeah there's a story some people especially amazing animal people like katie probably know uh but it's it's coming actually might be different there might be more than one i think there's more than one oh awesome yeah it is the the source is the american museum of natural history in new york city and they just covered this one there but But I could see there being others doing it, too. It's a process that jellyfish could do. It's all the rage.

Yeah. And it's this jellyfish is very small. They say that fully grown, it's only about four and a half millimeters across or 0.18 inches. It's smaller than a pinky nail. half millimeters across or 0.18 inches. That's smaller than a pinky nail. It was first discovered by humans in the 1880s, but they say, quote, in response to physical damage or even starvation, these jellyfish take a leap back in their development process,

transforming from a Medusa back into a polyp. And in a process that looks remarkably like immortality, the born-again polyp colony eventually buds and releases Medusa that are genetically identical to the injured adult. Yeah, yeah. It's like Benjamin Buttons, but over and over again. Yeah. Like Brad Pitt, just like every time he gets punched, he gets young again and then old again. And if he gets punched again, he turns into a baby again. Yeah. again and then old again and he gets punched again he gets turns into a baby again yeah yeah and it uh it's like that cycle we were talking about if you could also loop it the other direction

which is it's all it's almost more of a self-cloning than an immortality but either way it's incredible like it's it's a form of living that is astonishing. Aren't we all just clones of our younger selves, but bigger and with more back problems? Back problems? Were you stung by the tiny Irukandji jellyfish? Oh, no. Maybe. I love to hug them so much. Yeah, I mean, that is so fascinating to me how we have this sense of life as you're born, you get old, and then you die.

And that's life. But these Cnidarians, like that jellyfish you described, the Hydra too, which is, I guess it maybe is technically not considered a jellyfish, the Hydra. It is a Cnidarian. It looks more like a wacky inflatable arms guy it is it's also tiny it just shares so much with with the jellyfish you described it's very tiny cool and it kind of it doesn't they they have this regenerative ability of being able to uh you know such that they they really have theoretically an unlimited lifespan and and maybe one day we'll just inject jellyfish dna into our bloodstream and then we'll every time we trip stub a foot you'd like

lose a year in age well it is a it's a the the process these uh turritopsis door and i do is called trans differentiation and please we'll find stuff about that hydra too because it sounds similar it's where an adult cell goes from one specialty to another specialty and they think that might have medical applications and there's also a team that partly won a nobel prize in chemistry by looking at jellyfish bioluminescence and how that could be markers of things and there are loose possible medical developments that we could get from just how totally different and weird jellyfish are yeah that's how it starts and then we start to think like a jellyfish and want to goose around

like a jellyfish they do goose around oh god that's the new word. That's it, folks. Write it down. Jellyfish, you've been caught. You're gooshers. Gooshers. Exposing jellyfish. Ha ha ha! folks that is the main episode for this week my thanks to katie golden for being the pal i needed to white knuckle my way through this topic successfully and you know if you're curious i would say after doing this i am still creeped out by jellyfish. I am still afraid of them because it is irrational, but I appreciate them more now.

And I think that's kind of the thing we can do maybe with our irrational phobias. So maybe that's a tip for you out there with your, you know, snakes, bugs, other animals, I think are fine, even though most people don't, you know, it's a, it's a weird world out there. Anyway, I said, that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com, patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is the reasons why we all will probably eat jellyfish

sooner or later. And I don't mean to make that sound exotic because many people eat jellyfish right now, but I'm the weird one with the hang up. You know, I hope you're excited to hear where that goes. The idea of eating them with me. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than four dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring jellyfish with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. takeaways. Takeaway number one, you've probably only ever seen one stage of the bizarre life cycle of jellyfish. Takeaway number two, thanks to that jellyfish life cycle, one species is kind of sort of immortal. And then a humongous numbers section this week might be one of the biggest ones we've

ever done, plus an exploration of how many different things are called jellyfish when in fact they are, you know, other stuff such as horrifying colonies of all sorts of creepy stuff. I am looking at you, Portuguese men of war. Also, I'm not looking closely. Really freaks me out. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guest. She pulled me through this. Katie Golden tweets as at ProBirdWrites. She also is at Katie Golden. That's G-O-L-D-I-N on Twitter. And she hosts an amazing podcast called Creature Feature. If you like my podcast at all, you foundational guest to this show. She was the guest on the first ever taping of this show. Please, please, please support her if you like this show. And you're going to have a great time doing it. It's an amazing podcast. Again, that is Creature Feature. Many research sources this week.

Here are some key ones. And the most key one is a book. It's a really enjoyable book, Even If You Are Me, which I think says a lot. The book is called Spineless, The Science of are me, which I think says a lot. The book is called Spineless, the Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone. That is by Julie Berwald, who's an ocean scientist and science writer. Also linking tons of great articles, in particular from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., also the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is unbroken, unshaven by the Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.