This salamander famously stood still for seven years, but there's much more (or, perhaps, less) worth noticing about them. Come learn about one of the strangest animals on earth on this episode of Species.
Summary
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| 0:00.0 | Stay still. |
| 0:02.9 | If you aren't doing anything important while listening to this, if you can afford to drop what you're doing for just one minute, stay still. |
| 0:11.1 | Breathe, of course, and if an emergency arises, respond to it. |
| 0:14.8 | But aside from that, don't move a muscle. |
| 0:17.5 | This is the challenge. |
| 0:19.9 | See if you can stay still while listening to me in this manner |
| 0:23.8 | until Eric starts playing the piano in just one minute. One minute of staying still, starting now. |
| 0:33.9 | Within moments, reasons to move will start arising. Your body is going to start incentivizing you to do |
| 0:42.1 | something, anything other than stay still. An itch or a cramp or any slight discomfort will become unbearable, |
| 0:50.8 | and your body will tell you that responding to this sensation is an emergency. |
| 0:56.1 | As a human, as the type of creature you are, staying perfectly still for any measurable length of time is unbearable. |
| 1:05.6 | Today we're going to talk about a different type of creature. |
| 1:10.3 | A creature that can comfortably stay perfectly still for a minute, even several minutes, even half an hour or an hour. |
| 1:19.8 | An animal very similar to you with a brain and nervous system, arms, legs, a face, muscles. |
| 1:25.5 | We're not talking about a sea sponge. |
| 1:27.4 | This isn't a trick question. |
| 1:29.0 | An animal that can stay perfectly still for a day. Imagine staying still as you are doing now, |
| 1:36.9 | or likely failing to do, all day, how impossible that would be. This animal can stay still for a week, |
| 1:48.0 | even a month. Imagine a month of stillness. |
| 1:57.9 | They can even stay still for a year, even seven years, and perhaps for much longer than that. |
| 2:04.5 | Today we're going to talk about the Alm, Proteus Anguinus. |
| 2:11.7 | Today you're going to find out how we know that they stay still, how they stay still, |
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