Episode 144 - Evolutionary Gigantism and Dwarfism

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

Science, Education, Earth Sciences, Natural Sciences, Science:natural Sciences

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 24 July 2022

⏱️ 142 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The history of evolution is full of species of unusual size, big and small. But the factors that lead to evolutionary miniaturization or embiggening can be quite varied and are not all fully agreed-upon by scientists. This episode, we discuss what it means for life to evolve huge or tiny, what trends researchers have identified in body size evolution, and which of those trends actually holds up to further scrutiny. In the news: krait venom, a frozen pup, parental water bugs, and giant storks. Time markers:Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:06:00Main discussion, Part 1: 00:39:30Main discussion, Part 2: 01:32:30Patron question: 02:10:30 IT’S SNAKE MONTH! Check out our Snake Month activities on our social media, Discord, and Patreon! Check out our blog for bonus info and pictures:http://commondescentpodcast.wordpress.com/ Join us on Patreon to support the podcast and enjoy bonus content! https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Or make a one-time donation via PayPal: https://tinyurl.com/4c68u4hp Find merch at the Common Descent Store! http://zazzle.com/common_descent Join the Common Descent Discord server! https://discord.gg/CwPBxdh9Ev Follow and Support us on: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CommonDescentPCFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/commondescentpodcastInstagram: @commondescentpodcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCePRXHEnZmTGum2r1l2mduwPodBean: https://commondescentpodcast.podbean.com/ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-common-descent-podcast/id1207586509?mt=2 You can email us at commondescentpodcast(at)gmail.comOr send us physical mail at:The Common Descent Podcast1735 W State of Franklin Rd. Ste 5 #165Johnson City, TN 37604 The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org. Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Common Descent Podcast.
0:19.0	Hello, David. Hello, Will.
0:21.3	And hello listeners.
0:22.7	Welcome to episode 144 of the Common Descent podcast.
0:27.1	That's a square number.
0:28.1	Yeah.
0:28.9	We are discussing this episode, Evolutionary Gigantism and Dorphism.
0:35.2	Giant things and tiny things.
0:36.5	Yeah.
0:36.8	Big thing, when things get unusually big and when things get notably small.
0:41.8	In evolution.
0:42.5	In evolution.
0:43.4	So we're not talking about individuals, you know, where something in their birth
0:47.8	caused them to grow differently.
0:49.7	Right.
0:49.9	Gigantism and dwarfism are also medical terms, which we will clear up later.
0:54.6	Absolutely.
0:55.2	This is talking about trends in evolution.
0:57.3	When we see a group of life, typically animals, getting real, real big or getting surprisingly small.
1:04.9	And when that happens, why it happens, how it happens in different groups. This is actually a very
1:12.1	complex, like, it's different for each aspect that you can look at this for. And there are a few
1:17.5	major evolutionary trends that have been drawn from these observations that we will be
	...

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