Episode 188 - Cannibalism

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

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

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2024

⏱️ 141 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

An animal eating another member of its own species might sound like a rare and abnormal occurrence – and it is often portrayed that way – but cannibalism is actually extremely widespread and common in nature. Some animals are occasional cannibals, while some go so far as to rely on this behavior to fuel proper growth and development. In this episode, we’ll discuss some of the varieties of cannibalism, explore how this behavior has been misunderstood and misconstrued in the past, and investigate some evidence from the fossil record. In the news: toothless Cretaceous birds, giant river dolphins, Alaska dinosaurs, and Kermit the temnospondyl. Time markers:Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00|News: 00:05:50Main discussion, Part 1: 00:29:30Main discussion, Part 2: 01:16:45Patron question: 02:09:15 Check out our website for this episode’s blog post and more: http://commondescentpodcast.com/ Join us on Patreon to support the podcast and enjoy bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast What's The "T" Stand For?: A Let's Learn-A-Saurus Bookhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CYZJ1QLR Got a topic you want to hear about? Submit your episode request here: https://commondescentpodcast.com/request-a-topic/ We’re an Audible Affiliate Partner! Use this link for a 30-day free trial to Audible: https://www.audibletrial.com/CommonDescent Lots more ways to connect with us: https://linktr.ee/common_descent 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 3.0 http://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.
0:21.0	And hello listeners.
0:22.8	Welcome to episode 188 of the Common Sense podcast.
0:26.5	Today we are discussing cannibalism.
0:29.2	What fun.
0:30.1	Yeah.
0:31.1	This may immediately spark the feeling of like, oh, one of the weird topic ones.
0:34.7	Not as weird as you might think it would be.
0:38.1	Yeah, certainly not the weirdest diet episode that we've talked about.
0:42.0	No.
0:42.5	A very common, as we will find out, feature of nature is species eating their own kind.
0:49.7	We will be discussing what entails cannibalism.
0:52.8	What are the varieties and the different ways we see
0:56.1	it show up, and what causes it? You know, what are the benefits, the pros, the cons, the
1:01.7	pressures that lead to cannibalism, and can we detect it in the fossil record, and how does it
1:09.5	evolve? And if so, what does that mean?
1:12.1	Yeah.
1:12.9	Very fun.
1:13.9	This is going to be one of those topics where a lot of the discussion is this thing,
1:17.4	not the way you probably think that it is.
1:19.5	Yeah, a lot of stereotypes and stigmas around cannibalism,
	...

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