A dolphin dipping in a deep abyss must allow the sun to have its kiss.When scouting schools of succulent fish, a trick ensures they will not miss.What vantage a high place can be?What new things can you see?
A spy can spit at the fates of the sea on life, death, and taxonomy. Welcome back to Life, Death, and Taxonomy.It's your 30 minutes of interesting animal information.I'm Joe.
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And today we're talking about a little ocean hopping spy, but more on that later.
Ooh, intrigue, I like it.Yes, we are talking about the Irrawaddy Dolphin.
Passamaquoddy is the town that Pete's Dragon takes place in.
Oh, okay.I miss the Pete's Dragon boat.
I know what it is.I just I never watched it. And I didn't watch the remake from like 2010 or whatever they did.
But yeah, the Irrawaddy Dolphin, it is also called the Snubfin Dolphin, although it was recently differentiated from that species, the Australian Snubfin Dolphin back in 2005.
But we're gonna call it here the Fremen Fish, the Eagle-Eyed Expectorator, and Irrawaddy you're talking about. This is dumb.I've just been watching a lot of King of the Hill recently.But yeah, all good things.Let's science this up.
Let's give it a taxonomy.It's in a kingdom you know love and are in.That kingdom is Animalia.Phylum is Chordata.It's got a spine.The class is Mammalia.It's a mammal.I said fremen fish.That was wrong.But mammal, it worked with the alliteration.
The order is Cetacea.So if you have twin girls, are you gonna name one Crustacea and one Cetacea?
That's not a bad idea, but like Crustacea can be named Stacy for short.What would you name?
Tacy.Tacy.Or just C. It's in the family Delphinidae.So dolphins.The genus is Orcaella. Yeah, it's a hard C. Orcaella.And the species is brevirostris.Brevirostris.
Orcaella brevirostris.Man, that sounds really bad when you don't put an accent on it. Reveroaster.A rural juror is Brevoroastus.
Yeah, so that... Since we're in the business of naming things, and business is good, it's time for my favorite part of the show, nitty gritty nomenclature.We've done dolphins before.They're in a pod.We get it.
But what does Orcaella brevirostris mean?And that's the part of the show where I ask you, what is the English translation for the binomial nomenclature?Again, that's Orcaella brevirostris.Brevirostris.Does that mean A, short snouted whale?
B, spitting constellation? C, short-finned God of the Underworld, or D, boat with a small wind.
Wait, tell me the binomial name again.
Orcaella brevarostris.Brevarostris.
I suppose.And give me the short snouted one again.What was the whole thing of that?
The god of the underworld one.
Short finned god of the underworld.
That's your final answer?
That's correct.Maybe I should have hit it a little better.I was hoping boat with a small wind would be so weird.
I know that Orca is like Hades.
Did you know that?I did not know that until doing this research.I did know that.Orcus, I think is the god of the... Roman?Is it the Roman one? No, Pluto is the god of the underworld for the Romans.
It's a Gaulish deity of the underworld for the Gauls.It's really the little god of the underworld because Orcaella is diminutive.
yeah um so short fin little god of the underworld he's just so cute look at him it's like a little hades little uh oh i can't remember now i'm blanking on the guy who voiced hades and everyone's gonna be mad at me um all right let's talk about what this guy looks like okay uh so imagine a dolphin
that is going against the grain, goes against the ocean's high fashion, has decided instead to become handsome Squidward.Rounded, shiny, and snub-nosed. This is a dolphin.It is a dolphin.
I was looking up the difference between dolphins and porpoises and it is a dolphin.But it looks more like a beluga whale or a pilot whale than it does a dolphin.And it's closest relative is the orca, oddly enough. It has a light bluish-gray body.
It's countershaded, lighter underside, darker top, so that helps it blend into those coastal waters.But it has the signature rounded blunt head. Um, with almost no beak, which is characteristic of porpoises.
In fact, that's usually the difference between a porpoise and a dolphin is the, is the, the presence of that, that beak, the, like the bottom of those dolphin beak.Um. And its head has its melon.
We've talked about the melon because we've talked extensively about how dolphins use echolocation and that's the melon is part of how they take in sound and how it reverberates inside the melon and for them to triangulate positions.
And this is just particularly pronounced. uh, in the Irrawaddy dolphin.Um, but it's the, the thing that makes it a dolphin is the fact that it has this triangle shaped dorsal fin.It's very small and it's like near the back of the animal.
Um, but porpoises usually either don't have a dorsal fin or it's very rounded.And that's pretty much the difference between this and a porpoise.And in fact, it's often confused with the finless porpoise.
And the way you can tell the difference is this one's got a fin or a dorsal fin.They have pectoral fins and those are like oar shaped and help them to steer.And they have a unique blowhole. Well, it's unique, at least to dolphins and porpoises.
It's not quite at the center.It's a little off-centered to the right, and it's angled forward instead of straight up like other dolphins and porpoises.And they also have a flexible neck.
Uh, this allows, so all other dolphins and porpoises are like, um, uh, Michael Keaton's Batman.Like they just, like their shoulders, like Darth Vader, like they can't move their neck.
Their shoulders and everything have to go with them if they want to look to the left or right. Um, but not the, not the Irrawaddy dolphin.It can, it can bend its neck around.
Um, uh, it also makes it look more like a sock puppet than, and then dolphins and porpoises.So there's that benefit as well.It's always good to look like a sock puppet in the ocean.
Um, and they have, uh, a mouthful of 40 cone shaped teeth and it's derpy, derpy grin.Um, Yeah, I mean, it looks like it.It looks like a dolphin, like a Neanderthal dolphin.If you could trace dolphins back to like its ancestry, it's big.
It looks like it came up with the name for Yum Yum Donuts.We'll say that. So, that's what it looks like, but it's actually not super big.Dolphins are actually a bit bigger than you might think, but this one's a little bit on the smaller side.
Why don't you tell us how big it is, Joe?
Welcome to the beloved Measure Up segment, the official listener's favorite part of the show, the part of the show that's introduced by you when you send an audio of yourself saying, singing, or chittering the words Measure Up into ldtaxonomy at gmail.com.
It's also the part of the show when we present the animal size and dimensions in relatable terms through a quiz that's fun for the whole family.
We don't have a new Measure Up intro this week, but we do have that email that I saved for this week from Nora.Remember that?
Nor because we talked about fat bear week.
And here Nora is writing in about fat bear week.
She says because there seemed to be some confusion from at least one of you colon fat bear week is a celebration of the bears in Katamai National Park their preservation and their weight gain throughout the summer and early fall accumulating in a way in just before they go into hibernation for the winter and
They lose, they will you lose one third of their body weight during the winter.So naturally the fattest bears are the ones who will do best in spring.
But that's like most bears.
Yeah, but this one's like the, it's a competition in the park.
How do they weigh the bears?I would love just to learn that.
Let's keep reading and see.Katamai National Park puts a lot of work into preserving not only the bears, but the resources that the bears fatten up on.Most importantly, the salmon, their chief source of fat, which is true.
Yeah, the grizzly bears are like in Alaska rely on the salmon run.
Mm-hmm.This year, it was the 10th annual Fat Bear Week, where people can pick out a champion from a bracket. It's all a tongue-in-cheek competition.So it's kind of like a joke.
But it's a tongue-in-cheek competition to bring more awareness to the park's bears.
The ecosystem.You can bet on anything.And you can bet on that.And their ecosystem and life cycles and educate people.My daughter's classroom did a whole project on bears.And each kid picked their champion.And there was a prize for the winner.
It was a rubber bracelet. I-I-R-C.I don't know what that stands for.
You know how these things are with kids.The winning is what matters.They followed all the brackets as the bears are weighed against each other and there was a great deal of excitement.Also, No way.There's a fat bear week junior.
She says with cubs, because they also need to be putting on fat too, and cannot compete in the big leagues.Yeah.Unless they combine like in a trench coat.
It's it's six.It's six bears in a, in a trench coat.It looks just like a full grown bear.
She says it's like fantasy football, but educational.Unless you're really concerned with learning about football.
I would still love to learn how they weighed the bears.Do they knock them out with like a police baton and then, uh, and then drag them onto a scale or do they put the scale?
Ooh, what do they sneak the scales into the dens so that when the bears go and fall asleep, they lay on the scales and then they just kind of get that data transferred to them.
It might just be through, I don't know, it might just be through sight.Maybe they, yeah, they're not going to trank these bears and weigh them.
They just get a really strong guy to pick up the bear and go, yep, that's about 800 pounds.But I like the idea of like an elementary school that picks bear champions.I wish I had that.
How do they weigh the bears? Are you going to find that out now?Using a pulley system.It involves a helicopter and tranquilizing the bears.
Hmm.Not sure if this is unnecessarily stressful for bears.
Well, unless they need to weigh them for other reasons.
Oh, they were doing it anyway for research purposes.And then they're like, we might as well make an, like a, a regional competition out of this.Anyway, if you want the bears to fatten up, then yum, yum donuts, guys, yum, yum donuts.
What is this?What is yum yum?I don't even know what that is.
It's a, it's a restaurant or it's a, it's a donut shop called yum yum donuts in, in new England. Okay, but it's just such a dumb name for anything.
It's a very appropriate name.
I mean, of course, donuts are very are donuts.Yum, yum.Everyone knows yum yum donuts.But that's exactly that's my point.
Well, oh, thank you again, Nora for the for the email message and for the listener engagement. We really enjoy it.And we wish everyone that listened followed Nora.Well, yeah, yeah.Follow Nora's example.She's putting the team on her back.
She knows exactly what to do when you hear a podcast.And that is email them.
Let them know you're here.I've been watching.Well, not watching more listening to Horton.Here's a who, because it's playing in the, in our van for the kids.And I've just been hearing that over and over and over again.It's it's relevant to this show.
It's a lot of animals in that one, but we just, uh, I'm ready for a different one.Ready for a different movie to be playing.
But are you ready for measure up?
Oh, it's finally measure up time.Let's do it.
It's Yes.Without further ado, the listeners favorite part of the show.
I heard a lot of things that probably weren't a dolphin, but then I heard one thing that probably was a dolphin.
The thing, the clicking, was a dolphin.They said the name of the dolphin.Do you know the name?Did you catch that?
It's Bernie.It's Bernie the Dolphin. The Beloved Children's Show movie.Bernie the Dolphin.
Yeah, totally.Do you have a weekend at Bernie's?
They seem to be on a trip, so maybe they're spending the weekend.It's the Family Fun Adventure 2018 Bernie the Dolphin.Kevin Sorbo's in this.
You're saying words, and I don't understand the words.
You don't know who Kevin Sorbo is.
No, if he's in 2018 family-friendly dolphin-oriented movies, and if that's his niche, then I probably don't know who he is.
His niche, I guess, is Hercules.
He's Hercules, yeah.Oh, he's probably... Hercules in the TV show, 1990s TV show.
Not the movie.That's another, that's two Hercules references in this episode about a dolphin.
yeah uh yeah it's not it's like a i had a lot of trouble finding a dolphin character if you don't have one in mind and you just type in dolphin characters it's hard to find them yeah i off the top of my head i can't think of any like talking dolphins they those they're suspiciously left out of like finding nemo oh no no there is a talking dolphin in finding nemo when they're all like relaying the story that marlin
Yeah, Marlin tells the turtles and it makes it all the way to Geoffrey Rush's character. At one point, there are dolphins that are diving in and out and kind of telling the story as they jump.So that would have been them.
I don't, they don't have any names.I mean, I'm sure they have.
In Finding Nemo, there's no like main character dolphin.
They're all like, they're all fish and turtles and they're everything but dolphins.
The most famous one I could think of is Flipper.No, I guess the most famous one I can think of. is the Miami Dolphins mascot.
What about the dolphins from the beginning of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?
They have a lot to sing about.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
That movie was not good.I know people love that.I do not think that movie is any good.
It's not very good.I agree.But it's very entertaining and super star studded.
If you're 14.It's great if you're 14.
Well, offense taken then.Well, you were probably 14 when you saw it.I watch it every once in a while.
But I know, but the first time... And it gets super weird in the middle, and it gets really sacrilegious about two-thirds of the way through with John Malkovich's character.
Get rid of it.I'm sick of it.
And then there's the show, the BBC show from like the 60s, and that's even weirder.
The Prince's Bride is to homeschoolers as Hitchhiker's Guide is to dorks.
Goodness, how do you really feel about Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?To me, it was always like a Monty Python thing where like I watch it and I was like, that was good.I don't, I'm not like rolling over laughing like everyone else seems to be.
But you know, sure, like I'd watch it again. but it's not like a cultural touchstone to me.But because it has become a cultural touchstone, I reference it a lot.
Yeah.I guess I didn't see it until I was an adult and that's just no good.
I read part of the book and I had friends that, actually the same friends that were obsessed with Monty Python were the same friends that tried to get me to read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Or just people that think that Charlie Chaplin is some is an interesting watch Something Charlie Chaplin.Yeah, what's the thread like a They were all theater theater geeks So like the whole
physical comedy aspect of Monty Python and That kind of like very dry British humor even though Charlie Chaplin.
I don't think he was British now I hope they I Hope they like the ends of Frazier the last two minutes of Frazier that include David Hyde Pierce Every episode that includes David Hyde Pierce in the last two minutes of Frazier is peak physical comedy
The last two minutes, he's in every episode.
Yeah, I mean, the last two minutes of a Frasier episode is like usually a silent like scene.Oh, of him trying to get something done.
I see.I see.I see.Either that or the dog.
Yeah.It can be any of the characters can appear in it, but the best ones have Niles in it.
Sure, so they range from 90 to 200 kilograms, or 200 to 440 pounds, with a length of, no, we'll talk about length later.Why did I, no, no, like this later.Weight first.So, a Irrawaddy dolphin is closest in weight to a,
Professional strongman, Brian Shaw.B, Tammy Slack, hold on.What the heck's this person's name?How many, how, how heavy?440 pounds.Slayton.Tammy Slayton from Thousand Pound Sisters.
Or C NFL offensive guard, Nate Newman, Newton, Nate Newton.
Um, I w I'm going to go with, um, Tammy B Tammy Slayton.Yeah, sure.Why not?I have no idea.So
The correct answer is professional strongman, Brian Shaw.He's 440 pounds.Oh.Tammy Slayton is in the 700 range, and Nate Newton is 400 pounds, which is huge for an athlete.700 pounds, man.Yeah.She's from the Thousand Pound Sisters.
She says, try being my size, Amy.You don't know how it is.There are some things you can do.
Is that, is that another cultural touchstone that I've missed out on?
Thousand pound sisters?Of course it is.She's lost a lot of the weight by the way, by the way.
So Bibi watches, um, my 600 pound life.So we've seen more of that than I care to, but so if in thousand pound sisters, is it like she's 700 and then her sister's 300 or are they at least a thousand pounds?
They're, they're over a thousand pounds together.Yes. That's how it works.I was hoping that would confuse you.
Like there was no confusion necessary.I was it was a shot in the dark no matter what.
So they have a length of 2.3 meters or 7.5 feet at full maturity.They can also reach a maximum recorded length of 2.75 meters or nine feet. One male in Thailand was measured at nine feet.So let's go with nine feet.Nine feet.
We're breaking the tradition.We're not going the upper end of average.We're doing max.
This dolphin, this Thailand dolphin, is closest in height to A, Robert Wadlow, B, John Rogan, or C, John F. Carroll.
The correct answer is Robert Wadlow.
Yeah, I remember.Robert rang a bell as the tallest guy ever.
These are the three tallest guys ever.And Robert is the tallest.He's 8 foot 11.Was.One, yeah, one inch shy of nine feet.
Yeah, unfortunately people that tall sometimes they, yeah, they develop some, I think he died really young.He had just some complication.He was, that was like back in the thirties or something like that.Right.Yeah.
There's a picture of him next to like two regular sized women.And it's like, they come up to his thighs.
Yes.And like a normal sized man come up to come up to his, uh, yeah.Hip hip height.
That is incredible, and I wouldn't wish that upon anyone.
Look at me.I'm an expert on tall guy.I managed to remember that from I don't know how many years ago that I looked up pictures of the tallest guy and what happened to him.Either that or it was in Ripley's Believe It or Not.
It was.I think there's like a wax figure of him.
There's a wax figure of the heaviest person.I think he was over a thousand pounds.
Do you have any fast facts before we get into the major fact?
I do, so you mentioned Thailand.The Irrawaddy dolphin is found in the coastal and freshwater areas of Southeast Asia, from the Bay of Bengal to the Mekong River.It prefers shallow, warm waters, especially near rivers and estuaries.
And Irrawaddy dolphins are social animals.They mate seasonally. Um, and they live in smaller groups though, um, with, uh, rarely more than six dolphins to a pod.They are carnivorous.They eat fish and crustaceans.This is pretty common dolphin diet.
Um, they are pretty, uh, they're generalists.Uh, they, they kind of eat whatever they, they can that's, um, that puts it in the carnivore category.And they use echolocation to navigate and to find their food.
And they communicate also through these clicks and creaks and squawks and squeaks.And they have to keep an eye out for sharks and humans, of course, like most animals do.
They can live up to 30 years in the wild, as long as they can avoid things like nets and boats and sharks and other hazards. I'll leave it at that.
So I just found out that Wadlow was 339 pounds.That's a little.Sorry, 439 pounds.It's a lot of bones.He was the exact height, length, and weight of this dolphin.
I doubt that the longest dolphin was.
Actually, no, he was one pound lighter and one inch shorter.
But I doubt that the 440 pounds is the average weight.So I bet you that long dolphin was like 500 something pounds.
Yeah.I know it was almost perfect.
He could wear, if he had worn an Irrawaddy dolphin costume, he would have been indistinguishable from other Irrawaddy.
Yeah.Yeah.So Irrawaddy, here's the fast facts.I call it spy hopper. Irrawaddy dolphins have a unique ability to squirt streams of water up to 1.5 meters or 4 feet and 11 inches.And I specifically asked, underwater or above water?And it's above water.
It would be crazy if it would be like really high pressure if it was underwater.This behavior is often used to herd fish into a specific area for hunting.
But the dolphins sometimes perform this action while spy hopping during feeding, possibly to expel water swallowed while capturing fish.But spy hopping is when a dolphin races and maintains a vertical position partially above the water.
So it's not like fully breaching. It's like you've seen it at like dolphin shows.
If you've ever been to like a sea world, it's when they pop out, you know, like they pop out to take a peek at everyone and just like, uh, it like exploding their head, exposing their head only or initial head and shoulders, knees and toes, shoulders.
Um, this behavior is similar to a human treading water, you know,
Yeah, they kind of do that.
They swim with their flukes really fast to tread.I've never been to SeaWorld, so I have not seen the show yet.
What about Miami's Aquarium?
I have seen the beginning of a little movie you might have heard of called Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and so they do that in that one.
Disgusting.It's a slow, controlled action that can last for several minutes if the dolphin is curious about its surroundings. Curiosity like that's that's the it's the the crux of your performance in in the spy hopping arts.
So when air wadi dolphins shoot water at fish, the sudden jet of water creates a disturbance that startles or disorients the fish causing them to move in a specific direction.
So like they'll pop their head up and they'll spit water over there and hopefully the school travels toward them instead of away. By repeatedly squirting water, the dolphins can effectively drive the fish into a smaller, more concentrated area.
This makes it easier for the dolphins to catch the fish either by trapping them against the surface or herding them toward shallow water or grouping them together into what is called a bait ball.
where I think we've talked about before, where the dolphins can feed more efficiently.
But they'll also cooperate while hunting, which can involve various strategies, including circling around a school of fish to keep them contained, or using behaviors like water squirting to drive fish towards each other or into tighter clusters.
So in some areas, Irrawaddy dolphins even collaborate with local fishermen.
I think, I don't know if there's much collaboration or rather it just so happens like they, you don't think their, their, their, their fins are being greased by the local fishermen.
the the dolphins help they're not on the radio is what I'm saying together the dolphins help herd the fish toward fishermen's net and in return they reward some of the maybe there is cooperation or collaboration they they're rewarded they're getting greased they just toss them a fish it's like if you had a sheep dog that herded sheep and then you just tossed your dog a sheep
thanks yes thank you so much babe yeah the sheep here's baram you himself um this um mutualistic relationship has been observed in places like my like myanmar and parts of southeast asia showcasing the dolphin's social and cooperative nature generally though irrawaddy dolphins are quite scared of boats and they tracked
They're kind of a slow dolphin, but they tracked their top speed chasing a dolphin.So the dolphin was freaking out.
How fast can you run, bub?
No, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait.
I like the idea of them like catching fish together and then like a fin just comes out of the water and there's just a high five happens every time that another round.
If only the, uh, the, why the, the, um, the, the Galilean fishermen had, had a Irrawaddy dolphin in there to help them catch, catch fish.Instead they had Jesus, you know?
Well, he told them the cast of their net on the side where the dolphin was.
The dolphin was, yes, yes.So that's how we explain away the miracles.There's this Nerwadi dolphin stuck in the Sea of Galilee.
Yeah, like when historians were like, let's make a more miraculous situation than a miracle with naturalistic explanations.Yeah.But that's it.That's all I got.
All right, that was the Irrawaddy Dolphin.It's kind of cute in a short bus kind of way, if you want to look it up, so take a look.Free out there in Podcastia.Hit the Seafood Buffet.Always remember that yum yum donuts.
And spit your appreciation for the Atreides Spice Production, like the Irrawaddy Dolphin here in life, death, and taxonomy.
Hey Taxonomy Titans, I just want to remind you that we now have a Patreon.Patrons can see full video episodes and get shoutouts on the show.But ultimately, it's a way for you to help us cover some costs and get even better.
Still, reviews are the best way to help us grow.So if you haven't left one yet, we'd really love to hear from you.As always, thanks for listening and engaging.
life death and taxonomy is my favorite in the world podcast i lost it what does that mean the spice one what's the spice i called it the freman fish because the very first time you meet a freman in the new movie he spits on the ground and that's the first thing i thought of
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