Stuff You Should Know - What is biospeleology?

Episode Date: September 16, 2010

Biospeleology is the scientific study of cave organisms and ecosystems. In this episode, amateur biospeleologists Josh and Chuck explore the dark, dank world of caves and the weird and wonderful creatures that live in them. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to the War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's an echo in here. Echo. Yeah. And it's dark and dank. Dank. Creepy. Remember that word, dank? I do. Is that not a word anymore? Not really. Okay.

Um, hey, how are you? Thanks for meeting me here. Of course, I've got the invitation, I couldn't resist. Yeah. Did you like the fact that I gave you the invitation and cut out letters from magazines? Yeah, sealed with the kiss. It's very nice. So, Chuck, we are here in a cave. Yeah, man. And the reason why is because we are talking about something called biospeleology. That's your big word. It is. Say it. Biospeleology. Biospeleology. Yes. Um, you've heard of spelunking? Yeah, I've done minor spelunking, nothing big. Yeah, I mean, not deep, but I love caves, so I think they're really cool. So have you gone caving or spelunking? Yeah, probably caving. Were there like harnesses and ropes and like helmets with

lights on the top? No. Okay, you went caving. Yeah, that was me and my brother, you know, like poking around. Spelunking is like where you go into a cave and you like go into a cave. Yeah. And like, you may die. Yeah, but it's recreational. Yes. That's what differentiates it. Differentiates from speleology, which is. Speleology. Speleology, which is cave research. Right. And biospeleology is cave research on the life inside that cave. Bingo. And there is actually quite a bit of life. We only figured this out as recently as the 1700s. Yeah. But once we did figure it out, we realized that there's some really awesome, creepy, freaky life in caves. Like you sent me a cool picture of basically a faceless salamander, right? Yeah, that's the proteas salamander.

And that's the one. Oh, is that the one? Yeah, that's the one in the 1700s. They saw this thing and they were like, whoa, something's different. Well, the first thing that I think they noticed that was different was that it was a foot long. Yeah. And that's a big salamander. Can you imagine seeing that thing though with no eyes? No face. Yeah, no face. It's just like a head. Uh-huh. Did you ever see, I think it was a Twilight Zone, the movie, one of those. Oh, I love that. And you remember the kid who like created this whole like cartoon world? Yeah. And his sister, he didn't like his sister talking back to him because she was missing the mouth. That's so creepy. And she sat there and watched cartoons the whole time. Yeah. It is creepy and the salamander

is creepy in much the same way. Yeah. Slightly less because it's not a human, you know, we're not hardwired to really be disturbed by faceless salamanders like we are. Right. Mouthless humans, but it's along the same lines, right? They did that in The Matrix too. Keanu had the no mouth in that one scene, but you could sort of see the makeup and that always bugged me. Yeah, it wasn't that good. There's also plenty of slightly less exotic life in caves, right? You've got beetles, you've got worms, you kind of crickets, crickets bats, of course, are the stars of caves. Oh, yeah. Right. And it turns out from reading this article, how cave biology works. I guess all of, if not most, if not all of the life in caves is based on, well, basically they're

descended from above ground dwelling species, right? Yeah, I was kind of surprised. I was also surprised to learn that there were shrimp in caves for some reason that just, I don't know, I could see like cave shrimp being some exotic, you know, thing you would find at a four-star restaurant because it tastes different because never like seen the sun. They were like over the shoulder furs carried like big wooden clubs. But yeah, you're right. They weren't necessarily born there, but they made their way down there in a process called regressive evolution. Right. Fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy will recognize this. How so? Because it's pretty much what Gollum did. Oh, yeah. Remember? Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's pretty much regressive evolution within a single

organism, which never happens. My precious. Right. But this was, this is over the course of many, many generations, right? Yeah, they would like, not devolve, but it's called regressive evolution. They would actually lose features to adapt to the environment rather than, you know, gain features. Right. Well, I mean, if you think about it, the faceless salamander that had no eyes, if it lives in complete darkness, constant darkness, there's no reason for it to have eyes. So so it might as well just not have them and maybe put its effort and energy elsewhere. Yeah. You've seen the one of the common pictures of aliens from outer space. You always see is the sort of the big head, the huge eyes and the little nostrils without a nose. The Whitney Striper communion

aliens. Right. And then the holes for ears, but not ears. Right. My buddy, Jerry, always thought that these were like super evolved humans from the future. Yeah. And that like we don't need the structure of the nose. We just need the nostrils. We don't need the structure of the ears. We just need the hole. And eventually, and our brains are getting bigger. So he was like, that's why they got the big heads. That's why they don't have nose. They just have nostrils and kind of blew me away. I was like, wow. Right. Maybe they are like humans from the future. He's like, and George Washington grew him. Exactly. You guys are laying on top of your car. Right. Speaking of aliens, have you ever seen Bad Taste? And speaking of Peter Jackson, crazy. No. You haven't? No. So Peter Jackson, the

guy who did Lord of the Rings, he directed this horrible, schlock, graphically violent movie called Bad Taste in 1988. You have to see it. Well, he did another one too. I can't remember the name of it, but same thing. Yeah. He started out doing like schlocky horror. Yeah. Like movies. I can't remember the name of it. It's pretty, it's worth seeing. What does it have to do with this? Aliens and Peter Jackson. Gotcha. Alrighty. Full circle. Thanks for that. We haven't gone off on a good tangent in a while. No. You know, that felt good. Thanks. Well, you know what, Woodsman, this is very nice out here and all, but I feel like we should, you know, get back to the office. Yeah, you're right. Let's go Jerry. So Chuck, we talked about regressive evolution,

right? And it's not just the loss of eyes. You lose skin pigmentation. Right. And you also, we've found that among cave organisms, cave dwelling organisms, their metabolism is super efficient because there's so little food down there that they have to make do with what they have. It's like if you are, if you have to have a section of your intestine removed, you like basically spend the rest of your life malnourished because our metabolism is used to like taking its time absorbing nutrients. So if there's less place for it to go, we become malnourished. These guys are like the exact opposite. It's like hyper metabolism. And so as a result, we're figuring out that we can really learn a lot by studying freaks of nature, right?

Well, yeah. And they said they look at fish because I didn't know that a lot of our water passes through a cave ecosystem at some point. And so they'll study like fish and how they live in the water to study water quality that we end up drinking, which is kind of crazy too. Yeah, you're drinking stuff that cave shrimp's been in. Wow. Cave shrimp has pooped in the water that you're drinking. Monkey meat. Bush meat. Dead alive. I think that was the movie. I think you're right. It's funny how it comes back like that. We also can learn a lot from studying the lack of eyes, abnormal eye development, right? Remember the Asian Orange podcast? Remember those kids that were born without eyes? Yeah. How does that happen? What genes are responsible for that?

Well, you learn it by comparing, say, an eyeless Proteus Salamander to a regular Salamander and figure out what genes they lack. It's pretty cool. Yeah. Humans are smarter. So, Chuck, we started to go into the caves. We figured out why people are going into caves when they started going in. What are we finding there? Well, you find one of three categories of species in a cave. Notice they didn't say species. People often say species. Yeah. Species. Or wash. Or wash. Have you ever been one to say wash? No. Me neither. The first one is a, is it a Troglycine? I, yeah. Troglycine. Troglycine. And Troglyce is Greek for cave. Zenos is Greek for guest. Or stranger. Or stranger. And as you would imagine, this is a cave visitor. And the three

branches here of the things you'll find there, they categorize them depending on how much time they spend in the cave. Gotcha. So, they spend the least amount of time and they can come and go when they want to and they go in there for specific reasons, like a bear to hibernate or to nest or to give birth. Right. So, probably for shelter. Right. We're talking bears, skunks, coons, moths. Right. Right. So, that's number one. Bats as well make that list. They make that list as well. Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. Because they hibernate in there. Right. Right. And poop. And poop, which we'll get to in a little bit. Yeah. Because that's important. So, what's number two? The other, the next one is a Troglyphiles, which means cave lovers. Yeah, I like that name. Which is

like a cave. How's it going? They just like you're looking good. Yeah. They love it so much that they actually enjoy being in there. Right. These describe species that are capable of living inside or outside of caves, but they love the caves. So, they decide to stick around there. So, you've got like beetles, worms, frogs, that kind of stuff. Yeah. These things could live outside of the caves, but they tend to spend their their lifetimes inside of caves. Right. And they'll go out to to get food a lot of times and then bring it back in. Right. Which we'll also get to. That's a good thing to do that. Yes, it is. Man, there's foreshadowing going on all over the place. The third one, Chuckers. Yeah. That's the creepiest one, obviously, is the Troglobytes

and Bios for life, obviously. And this, these are the ones that never leave. They can't leave. They will die outside of the cave. Yeah. I thought that was a bit of a stretch to go from Bios to Bites. Yeah. No. Well, I mean, you got, you know, files. Those were good ones and then Bites. Yeah. Should be Chugglobios. That's good. And these little guys have adapted so well, like I said, they can't leave. These are the ones that either have eyes that don't work well or don't have eyes at all. Not much pigmentation like the Salamander we talked about was sort of a almost a translucent pink, pinkish hue. And they, they have adapted metabolisms, so they don't have a lot of food and nutrients down there, so they don't need it to live.

Right. They're the ones with the hyper metabolisms. Right. And what else? The, oh, the legs and antenna are longer to help them, you know, find food when there is food. Right. So let's talk about food, man. Well, let's talk about the different places you're going to find these things, right? Okay. So I like think, I think one of the reasons I'm, I like this cave biology article or cave biology in general is that everything's divided up so neatly and cleanly. Right. Yeah. So we've got the three different kinds of organisms. You've got Chugglozenes, right? Mm-hmm. Chugglofiles, Chugglobites. There's also three different segments of a cave. Right. And they all fit in each one. And the second one's a great, great name too.

Yeah. The first one is the entrance zone. And that's, you still obviously will have some sunlight coming in and out, recessive sunlight. And that means you can have some plant life. Mm-hmm. A little bit. You got bears sleeping. You got bears sleeping. You got coons sleeping. They're nesting, laying eggs and what have you. You got some moss, snails, owls. And this is in the, in the, in the school picture too, it really is kind of creepy looking. That looks like a Lee Dempsey picture. Yeah, I'm sure it is Lee. So that's the first one. But the second one is the really good one. The twilight zone. Yeah. Isn't that cool? That's actually what it's called. Yeah. You're about to enter the twilight zone. Exactly. And you mentioned twilight zone earlier.

Did I? Yeah, with the kid who, uh, the mouth of the sister. Holy cow, man. There's, wow. You didn't even pick up on that, did you? I feel like I'm about to wake up. I really? Yeah. And this didn't happen. Uh, in the twilight zone, this is the middle zone and there is a little bit of light and there can be a little bit of plant life, but don't count on it. No. Uh, but there's going to be plenty of mushrooms and probably some albino mushrooms. Well, that's plant life, right? Yeah. Well, it's fungus. Okay. So yeah, it's in the plant kingdom. Uh, and the temperature there is, oh, we should mention that the temperature in the entrance zone varies obviously according to the weather outside, right? But it gets a little more static in the twilight zone. I just love saying

that. I know. And, uh, it's very moist and very cool. And that is where the troglocene lives, spiders, millipedes, uh, bats, moths. Right. Um, and I think troglophiles, you'll find those here as well. Hanging out too. And I guess, I mean, don't you imagine that this is where Rod Serling got the name for twilight zone? I don't know. Because think about it. He was talking about this place between this world and another world, you know, that thin fibrous transition place. This is the, this is that. We'll have to look that up. I can't believe we didn't already. I know. Uh, what's the third one? That's a good one. The third one is the dark zone. Yeah. This is the creepy slag type. This is where you're going to find no light whatsoever. Pitch dark. No, um,

change in temperature. No, um, weather and definitely no vegetation. Right. At all. Right. Yeah. Creepy. But lots of troglobites. Yeah. You're going to find lots of foot long salamanders that have no faces. Did you see the descent, that movie? Kind of a not too great horror movie. I know what you're talking about. These girls go caving deep, deep and there, there are these like, I think they were humans from way back when that never left the cave. But they're basically like human troglobites that trample at you. Uh, it was in the woods sort of. Yeah. Maybe so. The Ozarks maybe. Um, we're going to get some mail for that one, I think. The problem with the dark zone is there's organisms running around that are alive and healthy. Uh, that kind of flies in the face of

this, um, rule of thumb here on planet earth that everything, uh, is kept alive by the sun. Right. Right. If there's no light whatsoever, how are animals in the dark zone allowed to live? Food chain. Which I guess still, I mean, she didn't really draw the conclusion that the food chain depends on the sun. But I guess that's what it means, right? Right. The sun still comes into play, just not deep down within there. Right. They get the, um, they benefit from photosynthesis distally rather than proximally. Wow. Look at you fancy boy. Uh, so, you know, if there's gonna, how do you get food deep down in the cave? One way is, and I didn't even consider this is by flooding. Right. When the waters rise, it'll just wash things in there that the animals can eat.

Right. And it's, it's rather than a food chain. I mean, a food chain is actually a good way to describe it, but it's almost like a food bucket brigade. You know what I mean? Yeah. So like you have, you have food maybe washed in, um, leaves, twigs, sticks or actual food. Yeah. Um, maybe a dead raccoon. Um, and then things feast on it in the entrance zone. Right. Right. And then things that are, things that are living in the twilight zone can feast on those things that ate it in the entrance zone. Right. And then it just kind of goes and goes until you finally reach the dark zone and then they're eating, you know, maybe four times removed what washed into the entrance zone. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, and that's just one way it gets in washing. Um, another way is your

favorite thing, guano, bat poop. This is a really good fertilizer. Is it? Yeah. That you can usually buy it at, um, nurseries. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, there's lots of it because I've seen the specials where there's like mounds, like mountains of bat poop. Mm-hmm. Because they're there for months on end, right? Yeah. Hibernating and they're all just pooping. That's all they're doing, eating and pooping. Yeah. And it stinks too. Oh, I bet. Um, you can't eat it right away though, isn't that right? Or like they can't just feed on the poop initially, didn't have to decompose? Well, it depends. You've got decomposers, microorganisms that are actually eating the poop. Right. So bat guano is a food source for these, these organisms at the very bottom of the, um,

biospeleology food bucket brigade, right? The unsung heroes. Yeah. So they decompose, they break it down for themselves, turn it into food themselves, but they're also leaving nutrients as byproducts. And these decomposers and microorganisms make, make up food for slightly larger organisms, right? Like, um, millipedes and centipedes and other small insects, right? Right. And then it just kind of goes up from, up to the apex, which is the predators. Yeah, it's a food pyramid, essentially. Which really all, all ecosystems are. Yeah, I guess so. At the top, you have predators and there's going to be the smaller, well, the larger the animal, the fewer there are of them. You know, if you compare sharks to plankton, right? There's a lot more plankton

than sharks in the ocean. Yeah, good point. Uh, one of the things that really creeped me out, and this one's going to keep me awake tonight, uh, the insects get bigger and bigger, centipedes, spider salamanders, and then, uh, apparently some centipedes are so big that they can feed on bats. Right. That's what I want to see. I do too, actually. And it's kind of like why mess around with guano and wait for the whole food chain thing to happen. Just go right to the source and eat the bat. Yeah. You know? Yeah, the heck of a centipede. That's, yeah. I'd like to see that, too. We're going to look for some video of that after this, okay? So how do these guys get in there and gals, these researchers? Um, very carefully. You got to look out for crazy hillbillies who have,

um, regressively evolved. Right. Uh, you have to not fall off of ledges. Sure. You have to go through very narrow crevasses. Watch out for bears initially, and I'm sure the entrance zone can be a little dodgy. Definitely. And, um, I guess we said that biospeleology, or speleology in general, is a pretty recent field of science, a couple hundred years old. Yeah. Um, and we figured out pretty quick though that these are almost pristine ecosystems. And when we show up and we're covered in fungi or bacteria or whatever, um, we introduce that to the ecosystem and can cause its collapse pretty quick. Yeah. Uh, Debbie Broncombe, my buddy who you met as well, who wrote this pointed out that even just like shedding like lint off of your shirt or dandruff or dandruff off your head.

Yeah. Off your scabie head can, uh, can start a reaction that can like destroy the ecosystem potentially. Right. Creepy. And scary. There's nothing, there's nothing sadder than seeing a foot long faceless salamander die. Yeah. And you know that it was because of your, your version of smallpox. You would know it was sad though. You wouldn't be able to tell. It would just look like the faceless beast that it was. Yeah. Are you happy? Are you sad? Yeah. Uh, I had another point to make, but I can't remember it right now. Uh, were you going to make the point about the federal cave resources protection act of 1988? No, but go ahead. Well, the US passed an act that said if you go into a cave and you spray

paint a cave, go to jail. You go to jail for that. You can't spray paint in a cave. Well, maybe that was my point was that that's pretty recent. Like I get the feeling because they didn't explore caves until sort of recently as far as if you talk about how long science has been around. Right. So I think caves have kind of just been ignored or maybe hundreds of years ago, they were like, I ain't going in there. No, there's no, or maybe they didn't think there was a reason to, there was anything worth finding in there. Plus they're just really scary. I think that more than anything that's kept us out. I ain't going in there. Right. I would like to do this though, that like the caves and the cenotes, is that what they're called? Yeah, those are so cool.

Those are really neat cenotes. Yeah. The underground water, like it's a, this is fascinating to me. Yeah. I want someone to like email us and say, Hey guys, I do this and I'd love to fly you down and take you spelunking. I think coolest stuff may have done something on cenotes. Oh, really? Maybe we'll see. So you got anything else? No, sir. I guess the one thing that we took away from this is that instead of stranger danger, you could also say zenos danger if you're in Greece. Oh yeah. And they'd be like, we get the zenos part, but I didn't catch the second. If you want to learn about cave biology or biospeleology, you should type in cave biology or biospeleology in the search bar at howstuffworks.com. There's

some pretty cool illustrations in there. Yeah. Or Google Proteus Salamander too. Yeah, that's pretty cool. It's creepy. I said creepy like 10 times. I wonder also, we were talking about guano and it being a fertilizer. I wonder if the bat guano fertilizer market is contributing to a decline in cave ecosystems. It's got to go in there and harvest it in the dark zone. Right. I know one thing we did forget was she made a point that they are concerned that climate change is not going to be too good for what's in the cave because they kind of depend on that constant temperature in the dark zone. Right. We can get used to changes in temperature. These organisms like literally don't experience the temperature

change in generations and generations. I would imagine even a couple of degrees could wipe them out. Sure. Plus also, we've got the white nose syndrome facing our bat populations. Yeah. What is that? We talked about it before. Remember, I can't remember how it came up, but we were talking about bats with like little fungus on their nose and it was killing like entire populations of bats. Wow. They're dropping by the millions and I guess bat researchers are like, we have no idea what's going on. We don't know how to fight this. It's actually a big problem because if you hate mosquitoes, brother, you better like bats. Really? They can eat up to 600 mosquitoes in an hour. I need to get some bats in my heart. You do. It's awful. Yeah.

You can actually put up a bat house. Really? Yeah. They sell them usually at nurseries again. You know a lot about bats. We had a bat in our chimney and we did a little research and found out it's like one of the worst things that could happen to you as a family. Having bad luck? No. Just like health risks. Oh, really? If you wake up in a... It's bad luck to have a bat. It probably is. It's bad luck to run over graves. Really? I heard good. If you wake up in a room and there's a bat in the corner, you have to kill that bat and go right to the hospital. Really? Because people are often known to sleep through being bitten by a bat. Right. Bats carry rabies. So if you wake up, you might not know that you were bitten and you need to go get checked

out. I wouldn't sleep through that, buddy. People do. Well, I'm a light sleeper. There's no way. Are you really? Big time. Oh, my goodness. I'm a heavy sleeper. Really? Yeah. It's like I got hit in the head with a shovel in there. I think she's recalling her Guatemala experience. The snoring. That's right. Is that it? I think that's it. I think that's it, man. Yeah. Okay. Well, then let's just go right to listener mail. There is no listener mail. This is Plugfest. Okay. Yes. Help. Let's do it, Chuck. Go ahead. Oh, I guess we should start with Atlanta. Yeah. October 13th. The time is still being worked out, but we're going to do like a doors open at this time and then trivia starts at this time. It'll be in the evening hours, of course. Yeah. At a

place called Five Seasons Brewing Company. They're on the west side. They have a few locations, but the one we're going to be at is on the west side. Not too far away from downtown by Georgia Tech Boo. And we're going to be playing trivia. Anybody who wants to come play us, we're taking all comers. It's free. Yeah. You got to buy your own drinks. I imagine we'll have some S-Y-S-K swag and some House of Works swag. We definitely will. There'll probably be some other podcasters, some other House of Works podcasters there. We're assembling our team right now. Yeah. We're trying to, we're more on that later, but we're sending out emails to some people that may or may not want to join us. Yeah. So please come October 13th. That's a Wednesday, right?

Yeah. It's going to be awesome. It's not to be missed. They've got a cool scene there on the roof. It's going to have the downtown be nice and cooled off by then. Yeah. It's going to be nice. Yeah. It's going to be way cool. Yeah. So that's that plug. And we welcome our friends from Florida. We've already gotten some guff because I said Floridians will be turned away at the door. Well, maybe we should say University of Florida people aren't welcome. If you show up with the Florida Gator shirt, you're just asking for it. That's all I'm saying. Okay. There you go. Yes. Anything else? No. Well, we're going on our trivia tour after that to five or six cities. We're going to end up in Austin and the other cities are kind of being

worked out. And we appreciate those of you on Facebook who have lobbied for your city. We're taking that into consideration, of course. And Facebook is a great place to interact with us. Yeah. We've got a fan page, Facebook slash stuff you should know. We also have a Twitter feed. Mm-hmm. It's hit or miss in how funny it is. That is good. At SYSK podcast, one word. And we also have a Kiva team that's closing in, man. We just hit $230,000 in donations. Really? Yeah. We are trying to hit the $250,000 mark by our one year anniversary. I will make that for sure. Which is October 6th, I believe. Kiva7.org. Kiva.org slash team slash stuff you should know.

Team singular, not plural. And finally, our friends in Guatemala and Coed, they have left the campaign open. If you still want to text $5 to 20222, isn't that how it works? Yeah, it is. If you text the word stuff to 20222. Right. And you can donate $5 and by, I think we've raised over $15,000 now. The stuff you should know, Army. It's a good cause. Yeah, it's a way good cause. And that's a lot of dough for them. You know, that's like three computer centers in full. Yeah. Or textbooks for life for like thousands and thousands of kids. Yeah. So we appreciate their work and it's an ongoing campaign right now.

And we have a super cool blog too, Chuck. People don't go to the blog. It's all happening on Facebook these days. You know how it works. I like the blog too. You know these kids. Well, your blog posts are awesome. So are yours. All right. Well, yeah, that's another thing too. I don't know if anyone knows. Every week, Mr. Charles W. Chuck Bryant does a little roundup, little additional info about whatever podcast we released that week on the blogs at howstuffworks.com. So you can check that out every Friday. And that's that, man. If you want to get in touch with me, Chuck, Jerry, or this chair.

All right. Yeah. Let's name this chair. Frank. If you want to get in touch with me, Chuck, Jerry, or Frank the chair, you can email us at stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. Want more HowStuffWorks? Check out our blogs on the howstuffworks.com homepage. They call civil answer. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. So embrace the holidays at iHeartland in Fortnite. Head to iHeartRadio.com slash iHeartland today.