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Strange,

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animals,

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podcast.

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Welcome to strange animals podcast.

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I'm your host. Kate Shaw.

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Every so often I get an animal suggestion

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that I'm positively we've already covered, but then

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I'm fl acid and when it turns out

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we haven't.

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That's the case for the animals will learn

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about this episode. With thanks to Jackson and

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Lorenzo.

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A while ago, Jackson left us a nice

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review and suggested we talk about Wall.

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I was

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convinced. We'd talked about the Wall repeatedly, but

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I think I was thinking about the womb

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bat. We've hardly ever mentioned the Wall, and

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it's such a great animal.

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The Wall is a mars

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that basically looks like a miniature kangaroo

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Although some species grow pretty large. The resemblance

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make sense because kangaroo and wall bees are

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closely related. But everything else about the Wall

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family tree is confusing.

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That's because there are a lot of animals

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called Wall that aren't Actually, the same type

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of animal. Wall is just a catch all

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term used by people to describe any animal

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that looks kind of like a miniature kangaroo.

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Wall are native to Australia and New Guinea,

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but various species have been introduced to other

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places. Where they're invasive,

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including New Zealand, France,

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England, Scotland, and Hawaii. Most of these non

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native

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populations happened by accident wim pets or zoo

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animals escaped into the wild, but some were

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introduced on purpose by people who didn't know

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they were causing damage to the local

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ecosystems.

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1 thing everyone knows about kangaroo, which is

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also true for wall,

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is that they hop instead of running.

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Their hi legs are extremely strong with big

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feet and in fact, the name of the

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family they share, macro pod

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means big feet.

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So, you know, big foot exists. But maybe

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doesn't look like most people think. The animal

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hops by leaning forward and jumping with its

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big hi feet leaving the ground at about

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the same time and landing at the same

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time too before it bounces again. It's big

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tail helps it balance.

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But there's a lot more to this hopping

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than you might think.

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While the wall or Kangaroo has strong leg

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muscles, what's even more important is that it

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has very strong Very elastic tendons in its

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legs. These basically act like massively strong rubber

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bands.

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When you stretch a rubber band, it stores

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energy that it releases when you let go

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of it and it snaps back and whips

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you in the thumb and you wonder why

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you did that, because it hurt. The tendons

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in the wall b's legs store energy when

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it hops. And when it lands, the energy

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releases and helps bounce the animal right back

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into the next hop. Once it gets going,

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its muscles are only doing a fraction of

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the work to keep it hopping at high

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speed.

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Even better for the animal, a lot of

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its breathing is regulated by its movements when

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it's hopping. So it always has plenty of

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oxygen to power its body while moving fast.

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When it lands after a bounce, the impact

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pushes its breath out of its lungs. But

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the action of bringing its legs forward helps

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suck fresh air in. It's an incredibly efficient

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way to move. And allows the animal to

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travel long distances to find food and water

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without spending a lot of energy. W easy

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plants. And naturally, the bigger species can eat

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bigger puffer plants than smaller species.

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The exception is the dwarf rock wall.

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According to a study published in March of

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20 24.

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There are over a dozen species of rock

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quality, But in general, they live in small

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groups in rocky areas.

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They're nocturnal and spend the day sleeping in

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shady places among the rocks. Under rock overhang

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or in small caves and cliffs.

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At night, they come out to find plants.

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But because they live in such harsh environments,

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Most of the plants are pretty tough.

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2 species of dwarf rock wall in particular

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turn out to have incredibly strong jaws for

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their size. As strong as the jaws of

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much larger species.

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Their teeth are also larger to help them

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grind up tough plants. And 1 species called

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the Nab Wall even grows new mueller's to

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ride its life as the old ones wear

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down.

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That's the only Mars known to grow new

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Mower throughout its life.

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The Nab luck is reddish gray in color

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and only weighs about 3 and a half

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pounds at most, or 1.6

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kilograms

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and is barely more than a foot long

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or 30 centimeters.

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With its fluffy tail almost doubling that length.

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When it hops, it curls its tail up

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over its back.

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It eats grass, fern and other tough plants.

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Like most species of wall, it's endangered due

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to habitat loss and introduced predators like fox.

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Another very small Wall is the band hair

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wall, which only has a few small

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populations remaining on a few island.

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It's almost exactly the same size and weight

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as the nab

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and is gray with lighter speck and darker

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stripes on its back.

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It's also nocturnal and lives in brushing areas

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where it can hide easily.

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Even though these wall are smaller than domestic

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cats. Some 45000

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years ago, there used to be a type

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of kangaroo that was extremely large.

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The short faced kangaroo

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stood as tall as a big gray or

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red kangaroo,

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about 5 feet tall or 1 and a

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half meters but was much bulk here as

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much as twice the weight of a modern

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kangaroo.

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It was so heavy that some researchers think

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it couldn't hop but actually walked on its

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hi legs instead like a person.

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Big foot.

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A few years ago, scientists

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comparing the genetic sequence of the short faced

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kangaroo to other Macro pods discovered that this

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big strong kangaroo

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closest living relative

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was the tiny band hair wall.

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Our next animal is a suggestion for Lorenzo.

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Who sent a bunch of requests a while

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back.

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Before we talk about the animal, I should

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probably

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explain the situation with the list.

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This is the list of topics that I

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want to cover. A lot of them suggestions

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from listeners and a lot of them animals

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I've added myself.

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It started out as a simple word document,

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but after a few years, I moved it

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over to a spreadsheet and divided it into

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categories.

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There's a page for mammals, a page for

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birds and so on. I copied and pasted

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Lorenzo suggestions

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into the reptile page because I recognized the

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first few as reptile or at least their.

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Well, at some point, I took a closer

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look at that list of Lorenzo suggestions,

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and added a note. These may not all

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be reptile. Then later, I took a even

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closer look and added another note These down

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here are basal art pods. Why did you

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put them under reptile. But next to today's

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animal at some point I added the note

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I think this is a bird.

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Dear listener.

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W wax is not a bird.

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Scientists aren't actually sure what it is. But

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100 percent it is not a bird. It

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lived just over half a billion years ago

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in the early to middle cam period. Which

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we talked about in episode 69

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about the Cam

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explosion.

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That's when life on earth evolved from relatively

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simple, tiny organisms

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to much larger and more complex ones.

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Many of the cam animals look bizarre and

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confusing to us today because they're so different

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from the animals we're familiar with, and that's

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the case for w wax.

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W

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grew about 2 inches long at most or

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5 centimeters,

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and slightly less wide.

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It was flat underneath like a slug, and

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it probably moved sort of like a slug

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too. The upper part of its body was

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covered in overlapping plates called sc, which acted

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as armor. As the animal grew older, it

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also developed spines that grew between the sc

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in 2 rows with the longest spines growing

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2 inches long or 5 centimeters.

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Modern marine invert have mineral

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spines and scales that make them harder. But

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this hadn't evolved yet, and Wax were basically

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the same material as the rest of the

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body, but tougher.

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Both the scales and the spines were shed

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and reg grown every so often.

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Like all the other animals in the cam

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Wall lived in warm shallow ocean water. It

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had a feeding apparatus at its front that

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had tiny con teeth and scientists think it

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used this feeding apparatus to scrape bacteria off

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the microbial mats that lived on the sea

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floor in most places

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or it might have lived directly on the

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sea floor or on rocks.

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Either way, its feeding apparatus is enough like

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the reg found a modern mu

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that it's been tentatively placed in the ph.

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This means it may be a very distant

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ancestor of slugs,

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snails,

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clams, muscles, oysters,

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squid,

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octopus, and lots of other animals.

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W was originally

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as an ancestor or at least a relation

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of modern poly worms, and a lot of

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scientists

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still think that's correct.

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Since the original

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description of

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In 18 99,

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a lot of specimens have been discovered in

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the Burgess Shale and Canada,

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along with a lot more found in China,

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Russia, the Czech Republic, and Australia, with more

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fossils found in other places that might be

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w wax spines.

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Because all the cam fossils discovered are flattened,

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there's a limit to how much we know

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about it anatomy when alive. The best fossils

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are re examined frequently as new and more

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powerful methods of study are invented.

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W was apparently very common throughout the world

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between about 520

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and 505000000

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years ago. So as more and more fossils

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are discovered, we'll definitely learn more about it.

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You can find strange animals podcast,

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at strange Animals podcast dot blueberry dot net.

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That's blueberry without any ease. If you have

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questions,

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comments, or suggestions for future episodes, email us

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at strange animals podcast at gmail mail dot

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com. We also have a Patreon at patreon

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dot com slash strange animals podcast.

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If you'd like to support us for as

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little as 1 dollar a month and get

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00:11:22,531 --> 00:11:25,501
monthly bonus episodes. Thanks for listening.

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But 100 percent, it is not a bird.

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It's like the opposite of a bird.

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Actually, now that I think about it, the

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opposite of a bird would probably

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be a rock.

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Because rocks can't fly, and they don't have

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00:11:42,054 --> 00:11:42,554
feathers

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00:11:42,937 --> 00:11:43,437
and

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00:11:43,809 --> 00:11:46,026
they aren't alive. They don't like eggs.

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00:11:46,739 --> 00:11:48,640
Actually, rocks are the opposite of a lot

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of animals.