Sharks - Under the Sea Theme

Tanner 0:01

Yeah.

Andi 0:01

have babies till they're 150. That's

Sups 0:03

what? Mm-hmm. Imagine hitting your puberty.

Andi 0:07

people went and like poked a shark and then they got attacked by it, and then they were like, Well,

Sups 0:14

And also, why would you want to move backward? Like

Andi 0:17

Yeah.

Sups 0:18

right? I mean, Yeah, right.

Andi 0:19

Move forward. into the future.

Sups 0:21

right? Move back.

Andi 0:24

Hello and welcome to this episode of the I Should Have Known podcast, the trivia podcast that can't be trusted. Each week our Quizmaster presents you with four big facts on a topic, but one of those facts is a lie, and we are doing under the sea. And our quizmaster this week is Tanner.

Tanner 0:39

Hello.

Andi 0:40

He's going to be presenting us with four facts about sharks. But remember, one of his facts is a lie. So join me, Andy, Enter our other host soups in figuring out which one it is.

Tanner 0:52

All right. Start with the low hanging fruit, What is the largest species of fish?

Sups 0:57

Um,

Andi 0:58

it's the whale

Sups 0:59

Whale. Shark. Yes.

Tanner 1:01

Whale

Andi 1:01

sharks are fish is what you're saying.

Sups 1:03

Mm-hmm.

Tanner 1:03

Sharks are fish, The whale shark, is the biggest fish. They grow up to 12 meters, 40 feet.

Andi 1:09

Yeah. They're big

Sups 1:09

Okay.

Tanner 1:10

But they're kind of gentle giants. They're mostly docile filter

Andi 1:13

feeders, aren't they?

Tanner 1:14

Yeah.

Andi 1:15

I'm always afraid of them in basking sharks. I have like a nightmare of them. Cuz if they get these huge mouths and they just filter feed Right. They just swim with their mouths open. Mm-hmm. And I have like a nightmare of getting

Sups 1:26

Swallow. Yeah.

Tanner 1:27

Yeah. Their mouth is over a meter wide.

Andi 1:29

Yeah. You can definitely fit inside. Yeah. Yeah,

Tanner 1:31

So this just shows that. There's tons of kinds of sharks. Yeah. From the smallest to the biggest from,

Andi 1:37

Yeah.

Tanner 1:38

carnivores to docile filter feeders.

Andi 1:40

I guess most people when they think of sharks are picturing like a great white mm-hmm. With big, scary teeth, jaws type thing,

Tanner 1:47

when you dig deep and look at the facts, they're kind of the exception to a lot of rules. Everything you know about sharks, there's an exception to it. Yeah.

Andi 1:54

Okay.

Tanner 1:55

fact number one, Greenland Sharks can live for over 300 years.

Andi 2:01

Okay. I've heard of Greenland sharks. They are scary.

Tanner 2:05

they're one of the sleeper sharks, so they live towards the bottom of the sea. don't really interact with humans. They don't attack humans. Humans don't really attack them, except when they hunt them.

Andi 2:16

Oh, those are the ones where they like ferment them and bury them in like Iceland.

Tanner 2:20

Yes. Greenland shark meat is toxic to humans unless you let it ferment. Then it's an Icelandic

Sups 2:27

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Tanner 2:28

they grow very slowly. the biggest one was 392, give or take 120

Andi 2:34

years. Oh my God.

Tanner 2:36

They reach maturity at about 150 years old. Yeah.

Andi 2:41

have babies till they're 150. That's

Sups 2:43

What? Mm-hmm. Imagine hitting your puberty. Yeah. What? One 50. Wow.

Tanner 2:48

Greenland. Sharks reach 500 centimeters in length.

Sups 2:52

Okay. Five

Andi 2:52

Oh, they're

Tanner 2:54

half a meter, Half

Sups 2:54

a meter.

Andi 2:55

they're little

Sups 2:56

they're shorter than us.

Tanner 2:57

Yeah. Okay.

Andi 2:57

Okay, so a couple things make this believable. One is that it's cold. So I've heard this before, that the cold slows all your body processes. So like you just live longer Mm-hmm. And the fact that they're like this weird creature at the bottom of the sea, we never really noticed that. They get really old. I guess that kind of makes sense, but it also seems like it'd be an easy lie. cuz I know there are whales. that live up in the Arctic sometimes that are famously long-lived. So I'm wondering if maybe he borrowed that and was like, oh, it's sharks,

Sups 3:32

Mm-hmm. guests, we'll have to listen to the other three to make up. Yeah.

Tanner 3:36

Fact number two. Over 3 million sharks are killed each year for sunscreen and cosmetics.

Andi 3:43

No, that where squalene comes from? Exactly. Okay. cuz I know about Squalene, I don't know if you guys know about Squalene, but Squalene it's like one of the chemicals dejour in like cosmetics. Mm-hmm. I'm allergic to it. So I always have to look and search for it on the ingredients list. And often it says specifically shark free squealing.

Tanner 4:04

Mm. mm-hmm. That's exactly what you should look for.

Sups 4:06

for. Yeah. And these are produced in the lab, the shark free ones? Or

Tanner 4:10

You can get it from plants. Okay. We make it

Andi 4:13

then why were they taking it from sharks?

Sups 4:14

Yeah.

Tanner 4:15

the reason that this is even a thing is because of the anatomy of sharks. Okay. So they're fish, they're cartilaginous.

Andi 4:23

Yeah. That's a weird thing about 'em.

Tanner 4:25

So they don't have bones, except maybe some of them have bones in their fins, but mostly they're made of cartilage, like our noses and ears and cartilage is very light, And most fish. how do you stay underwater and not just come to the surface? And how do you also not just sink because you're heavier than water? Most fish have swim bladders, they can control the air content in order to stay at the depth they want. Sharks don't sharks have livers that are very high in oil content, oil is lighter than

Sups 5:00

Mm-hmm.

Tanner 5:00

but the rest of the shark is heavier than water. and the liver full of oil, they can control their buoyancy and thus their depth in the water, very energy efficiently.

Andi 5:12

Okay. Wow. Smart.

Tanner 5:14

So some sharks, over 90% of their livers are oil, specifically squalene. So if you are a cosmetics company and you need something that's not greasy, but it's like a lubricant. And soluble. It's resistant to extreme temperatures. Then Squalene is the way to go. And the easiest and fastest and cheapest way to get a ton of it is to take a shark liver, sharks. Kill a bunch of sharks.

Andi 5:41

Okay. but how much is in your little bottle when you buy like a moisturizer?

Tanner 5:46

but if you extrapolate it out, it's about 3 million sharks worth.

Sups 5:49

Right. So you're saying all of these famous cosmetic companies like L'Oreal or, I dunno, that's the only one that I could think of.

Andi 5:59

squealing kind of tends to be in like the higher end products. Like I don't know if like the kind of drugstore brands. Use it. Right. So who's still using sharks?

Tanner 6:12

there was a nonprofit that looked at moisturizing creams. in one in five, had shark derived squalene regardless of price of the product. So cheap or expensive.

Sups 6:24

yeah, but that's what makes it so interesting this could be also like a marketing spin, But the fact that you say that this is actually across price ranges. Mm-hmm. that's quite interesting for me.

Tanner 6:35

yeah,

Andi 6:35

what makes me skeptical about this fact. Mm-hmm. Is that I would think most people in like the US and Europe would not want shark derived squalene. I think a lot of people would make like a. stand on that they would be turned off by, oh, we killed a bunch of sharks for this. that's why they put shark free on the thing. That's like why they put dolphin free tuna because they're saying like, animals are good. You like these animals? We didn't use them. Yeah. So, well, what is it like China? Like where are they still using shark derived squalene for it to, for this fact to be true?

Tanner 7:08

I mean, yeah. shark conscious companies that don't use Shark Squalene. These are like Sephora and Lush. In the study that this nonprofit did, they found a higher incidence of shark squalene in Asian companies and lower in European and American companies. But it's still in all

Sups 7:27

those. Yeah.

Andi 7:28

I totally believe that humans, kill way more sharks than sharks kill humans. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But interesting about the cosmetics. I mean, I would think like, yeah, in East Asia maybe people aren't as squeamish about Yeah. Shark squalene, but it still seems very sad and high. Yeah. Maybe it's like wishful thinking. I don't want it to be true. but Okay.

Tanner 7:47

Yeah. in 20 9 people were killed by sharks in the world and four of them were provoked. Yeah,

Andi 7:55

people went and like poked a shark and then they got attacked by it, and then they were like, Well, I'm on Team Shark.

Sups 8:02

I wanna say

Andi 8:03

Team Shark.

Sups 8:04

I'm rooting for you.

Tanner 8:05

you.

Andi 8:05

I mean,

Sups 8:06

you

Andi 8:07

a shark, don't poke a shark. What are you

Tanner 8:09

doing? How

Sups 8:09

And do you know the nationalities of these four people who were poking?

Tanner 8:13

I mean, I looked at the number of shark bites in the world, and Florida had more than a lot of

Andi 8:18

that would make sense. I would believe that. Yeah. I would've guessed that some of 'em would be Florida for sure. Yeah, Yeah.

Tanner 8:26

All right. Fact number three, sharks cannot move backwards.

Andi 8:30

I've heard this before. this about all fish

Tanner 8:33

Some fish can swim backwards. Oh. But sharks are built for such speed and movement forward then they physically cannot move backwards.

Andi 8:42

Oh, okay. Gotcha. People famously, they'll say, sharks can't stop

Sups 8:46

Mm-hmm. can't be stationary

Andi 8:47

still or they'll die. But I think that has to do with their gills. Yes, exactly. That's like how they breathe is by moving through the water.

Tanner 8:54

Yes. So all fish need to move water across their gills in order to derive oxygen it. some fish, can stop. And then puff up their mouths and

Sups 9:04

it looks mm-hmm.

Tanner 9:06

you know, like mm-hmm. The face you would make if you're pretending to be a fish. Yeah. That's called buckle breathing. And so that's rushing water into your mouth and then through your gills you it.

Andi 9:17

Right. kind of like how we can breathe involuntarily Or

Tanner 9:20

Or voluntarily.

Andi 9:21

Mm-hmm. We

Tanner 9:21

can not. Yes. So the fact that like sharks can't stop moving. Not exactly true. But they thing. Exactly. Some of them can, but if you pulled a shark backwards, then you can force water into their gills instead of a cross and it can kill them.

Sups 9:37

Oh no.

Tanner 9:39

And

Andi 9:39

Well then that's probably what those people did, and then they

Tanner 9:42

got

Andi 9:42

bitten.

Sups 9:43

Hey, listen from today's episode, don't try and pull a shock. Just say don't

Andi 9:48

touch sharks.

Sups 9:49

Probably just say I. Yeah. Okay. yeah.

Andi 9:51

just don't touch sar sharks. Yeah.

Sups 9:52

I em. Mm-hmm.

Tanner 9:54

so again, with shark anatomy, Their head is like a torpedo. Their pectoral fins they're built just like an airplane wing. Mm-hmm. And then the tail fin is smaller, but it's very powerful. Yeah. Which makes it great for moving forward. Yeah.

Sups 10:06

Yeah. And, I, and I think it checks out

Andi 10:08

Yeah. I'm trying to think like, if I could picture like a goldfish. Mm. I can picture a goldfish. Trying to move backwards by using a little flappy fins and pushing forward, like how you would move a boat, but like shark fins seem very static. They don't really move their fins, but this is also like he keeps talking about how there are lots of different kinds of sharks. So like one kind of

Sups 10:31

needs to be but also, have you

Andi 10:33

for the lie.

Sups 10:34

fish move backward?

Andi 10:36

No, but I haven't

Sups 10:37

I've seen a lot of

Andi 10:38

fish,

Sups 10:39

not gonna lie.

Andi 10:39

Yeah, But also just like mechanically, literally. How would you, you'd have

Sups 10:44

to use your fins Yeah. And also, why would you want to move backward? Like

Andi 10:48

Yeah.

Sups 10:49

right? I mean, Yeah, right.

Andi 10:50

Move forward. into the future.

Sups 10:52

right? Move back.

Andi 10:54

Yeah. So I guess this is one of those facts where it's like, I feel like I should know this. Yeah. It seems so simple I'm like, I'm drawing a blank on how they would even do it.

Sups 11:04

Yeah. as you said, but it also only takes one to move backward in this hole. Yeah.

Andi 11:10

you know, if this one's true, it'd be good advice just get behind a shark. If

Sups 11:14

you see

Andi 11:14

a shark get behind it, it can't get you. It'd have to turn all the way around. Okay. All right. I wanna hear some about like jaws stuff.

Tanner 11:23

You've got it. Fact number four, sharks never stop growing new teeth.

Andi 11:28

Oh, there it is. they keep getting more teeth. Mm-hmm. Always. Mm-hmm. Like they lose their like teeth, like baby teeth. Mm-hmm. And then they get more teeth. Yep. Forever for their 300 years

Tanner 11:39

that they live. long as they live.

Sups 11:40

How many teeth does a normal shark have? You know,

Andi 11:44

Tanner actually looked This up too. This is not something he needed to look up, but he did

Tanner 11:48

great white sharks have like 50. but. 300 teeth in various stages of development.

Sups 11:54

Oh,

Andi 11:55

Wow.

Tanner 11:56

But

Andi 11:57

like when you x-ray a baby, a child, and they have like all have, you've ever seen one of those where they have like all of the adult teeth are like inside their jaws and it's terrifying. Yeah. Sharks are like that all the time.

Tanner 12:07

time. Rows and rows and rows of these. Yeah. And it makes sense when you go back to their anatomy again. Sharks are made of cartilage.

Andi 12:15

What are their teeth made out

Tanner 12:16

of? Uh, Enamel and dentin. Like

Andi 12:19

our teeth. Like our teeth. They're not quite boned, but they're kind of

Tanner 12:22

Exactly. So that's like the only thing that really fossilizes well. Right. So that's why we find so many shark teeth along with the fact that they fall out very easily because they can't be anchored into a bony

Andi 12:33

Oh, of course. That's they got little squishy jaws and so they just like flop

Tanner 12:39

out. Right.

Andi 12:40

Oh, this seal was a particularly difficult one and it, flopped a tooth out exactly. While I've gotta have a backup tooth. Otherwise, can you imagine like a toothless great white,

Tanner 12:49

Not possible man? yeah, exactly what you're saying. When they bite into something, they usually lose some teeth.

Sups 12:55

Oh, wow.

Tanner 12:56

They are that like flimsy. They're Yeah. And they can go through like tens of thousands of teeth

Andi 13:02

Oh.

Sups 13:03

in the, in their lifetime.

Andi 13:04

Oh my god.

Sups 13:05

Okay.

Andi 13:06

That's terrifying. Oh

Tanner 13:07

Yeah.

Andi 13:08

Wow.

Sups 13:09

What a great lesson on sharks. Fantastic.

Andi 13:12

We got into the terror. I wanted the terror stuff. I'm not gonna lie. I want some shark terror. You

Tanner 13:17

to be terrified.

Andi 13:18

Yeah. I'm realizing that I have quite a few anxieties about

Tanner 13:22

Yeah. Yeah. we tend to think of them as like the enemies of the sea. Right. They're the scariest thing down there.

Andi 13:28

apex predators. They Yeah. Well, I'm just as afraid of a lion.

Tanner 13:33

Yeah.

Sups 13:33

For,

Andi 13:34

you know,

Tanner 13:34

right. For good reason. Yeah. But like, you. you're much, much, much more likely to be killed by a car accident or by

Andi 13:42

Sure. But I'm not afraid of like, This will be the cause of my death. It's just that like they're a scary thing.

Tanner 13:48

Yeah.

Andi 13:49

That exists

Sups 13:50

Yes. And you

Tanner 13:50

see them coming. Yeah. Yeah. usually they're more afraid of the you than you are of them. Yes.

Sups 13:55

Yes. But when

Andi 13:55

You're in

Sups 13:56

situation, you're not thinking you're, oh, shark. Yes, shark. I know. You're more afraid of, of, me that,

Andi 14:02

To bite me. and it's like, Okay.

Sups 14:03

So I'm just gonna chill here. Yeah,

Andi 14:05

Yeah. You're in their house. Yeah. You know? You're in the water, Yeah. Shark has every advantage. You are just the weird flopping creature that looks like a seal, I guess. Yeah. Don't look like a seal. That's the best way to knock, get eaten.

Tanner 14:19

Mm-hmm.

Andi 14:19

shark

Sups 14:20

Yeah.

Andi 14:21

But anyway, one of those four facts that you shared with us about sharks was a lie. So could you please repeat them before soups and I take our guests on which one it is?

Tanner 14:29

Sure. Fact number one, Greenland sharks can live for over 300 years. number two, over 3 million sharks are killed each year for sunscreen and cosmetics. Fact number three, sharks cannot move backwards. Fact number four, sharks never stop growing new teeth. One of those is a lie.

Andi 15:03

oh man, what are you thinking?

Sups 15:05

Two,

Andi 15:06

The cosmetics. Is that like a wishful thinking thing? Mm-hmm. I know. Me too. Yeah. I really want that to not be true. I want there to be like a un agreement

Sups 15:14

Mm-hmm. no for cosmetics. Yes. It's 2023. you know, if cruelty free can be such widespread accepted

Andi 15:22

I'm

Sups 15:23

guessing this one. Yeah. Yeah.

Andi 15:25

And think of what we did as a species for whales. Mm-hmm. coming together and being like, let's not kill them anymore. I would imagine we'd do that for sharks, right? because you see that on all the cosmetics, they say shark Free then at the same time, that kind of implies that. There is not shark free, but that could just be a marketing thing, like with dolphin safe tuna, because I'm sorry, no one is catching not dolphin safe tuna anymore. Yeah. So it's just like an unnecessary thing. Yeah. I'm with you. I feel like that too. I want to believe that we are a better species than that. Maybe that's a bad thing.

Sups 15:59

so much. Yeah. And all the other facts, like, being able to move backward. Logically it makes sense. Right. Teeth falling out again. Okay, sure. If I understand the anatomy and the one about like 300 years, it could be any number, right?

Andi 16:15

yeah, he could just be making it up. Yeah. But then also like, well you made that up. That was the lie you came up with. Yeah. You were just looking at how long do sharks live? And you're like, oh, they only live like 15 years. But I'm gonna say they live to be 300. 300. Like

Sups 16:27

outrageous number. Yeah. Okay.

Andi 16:29

Weird. Weird choice.

Sups 16:30

But I would imagine that they live long. I don't know if it's

Andi 16:32

300, but

Sups 16:33

would imagine that they live long.

Andi 16:34

They are kind of very. Strange creatures. Mm-hmm. And they've been around for millions and millions of years. So like this was like an evolutionary Yeah. Track that one species went down. That's not that weird.

Sups 16:48

No.

Andi 16:48

Yeah. The other two. I also think they sound like facts. You read a lot. And so it's either like, oh, this is a common misconception. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So I want it to be number two as well.

Sups 16:59

So we can do a double,

Andi 17:00

this was hard. please. No Sharkies. oh. No. Oh no.

Tanner 17:06

true. but should we

Sups 17:09

another chance? What? Now that we know number Teresa? I think it's number four or number one. Or

Andi 17:15

two, or number three. I think maybe it's number

Tanner 17:18

one, of those. Yeah, But I think this is really good to talk about. It will bring more awareness to the fact that people are still killing millions of sharks just for a thing you can get from olives and peanuts. yeah. It's just, okay, it costs more Don't kill

Sups 17:32

sharks. Yep.

Andi 17:33

my thing is like people are charging a lot of money for it anyway,

Sups 17:36

Mm-hmm. So

Andi 17:37

It's really just the corporations who are taking the, difference they could afford to get it from plants.

Sups 17:43

For

Tanner 17:44

sure. Yep, For sure. Yeah. So the lie is number three, Number yeah. Just like you said, there's exceptions. There's

Andi 17:50

a, some species that can, do It Yeah. This has right? Yeah.

Sups 17:53

Mm-hmm.

Tanner 17:54

So,

Andi 17:54

what shark can swim backwards?

Tanner 17:56

Definitely epie sharks. What is that? And, and nurse sharks and some white sharks, Nurse sharks They're bottom feeders. Mm-hmm. They swim along the bottom and they can use their pectoral fins to push off the the bottom, and then they move backwards So get in a better position to eat their prey. Some white sharks will stop swimming and then they'll sink backwards because they are heavier than water.

Andi 18:21

oh, that's tricky. not They

Tanner 18:23

move backwards. But the appe shark this is a tiny little shark, up to three feet long lives in Australia and New Guinea and. It lives in like tide pools and when the tide is low, then they can actually live up to an hour out of the water and they just crawl along with their fins even backwards. Then go in any direction like guppies, and they just move along on their fins.

Andi 18:50

What

Sups 18:51

Wow.

Tanner 18:51

Yeah.

Andi 18:51

I guess we should have applied the same logic that we did to the Greenland shark that some one little branch on their evolutionary tree. Eventually they were like, moving backwards would be very useful.

Tanner 19:01

Yeah. it's kind of a last resort thing.

Sups 19:03

Right. Yeah. I would imagine this is not like a normal activity that they do, but only,

Andi 19:08

Yeah. I mean, I also don't really walk backwards very much.

Tanner 19:11

but you can.

Andi 19:12

I can Absolutely can. Yeah.

Sups 19:15

I also

Andi 19:15

swim

Tanner 19:16

yeah.

Sups 19:16

Fair point. Fair

Andi 19:18

Suck at sharks.

Sups 19:21

I should have known.

Andi 19:22

I should have known. Thanks for listening to this episode of the I Should Have Known podcast. If you liked this episode we would be eternally grateful, If you left us a five star review wherever you listen to podcasts. we'd really appreciate it. And as always, thanks for listening.

Tanner 19:41

Donut,