Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
From the brains behind Brains On, this is the Moment of Um. Moment of Um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Anna G. I'm not the world's most graceful person. Sure, I can hop, skip, jump, and even bop around on the dance floor. But I also fall down a lot. Like, a lot. I trip over my own feet or over a bump in the sidewalk.
I've tripped over logs. I've tripped over dogs. One time, I got startled by a car honk and I walked straight into a street sign. So embarrassing. Sometimes I think moving around would be a lot easier if I didn't have legs. I mean, snakes don't have legs and they don't trip, right? Plus, even if they did fall, they're already on the ground, so it wouldn't hurt so much.
I know millions of years ago, the ancestors of snakes had legs. So what happened? Were they as clumsy as me? Why did they evolve to be legless? We got this question from a listener too. I'm Kian. I'm Maria from Thomas, Indiana. My question is, why did snakes lose their legs?
Indeed, snakes' evolutionary ancestors had legs and they lost them over millions of years. And we know now that it was to help them move more efficiently underground inside burrows. I'm Emily Taylor. I'm a professor of biological sciences at Cal Poly, which is a university in San Luis Obispo, California.
Snakes basically used to be like lizards. They share a common ancestor with lizards, and then this one lineage lost their legs over evolutionary time millions of years ago.
Actually, it happened multiple different times because there's legless lizards now, too. But this one lineage was really, really, really successful and gave rise to thousands of species. Those ones are snakes. When it comes to moving underground inside burrows, snakes, which are not only limbless but also really long, can move much faster and much more efficiently, meaning they spend less energy to do it, than something like a lizard. And we see this because...
Lots of lizards that also move around underground have little tiny legs, which shows they might be in the process evolutionarily of losing those legs too. I gotta say, I'm pretty jealous of snakes. Their bodies are incredible. They have a long, flexible backbone and hundreds of ribs. Their jaws have a special kind of hinge that lets them open their mouth super wide. Imagine how tall I could make my sandwiches if I had a jaw like that.
And snakes can scoot through tunnels faster than I ever could. I guess I like having regular human legs, even if I'm kind of clumsy. Well, guess I better get going. I'm okay. If you like this episode, take a second to subscribe to Moment of Um wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you've got big feelings from time to time, like anyone, check out the Brains On podcast where we have a whole episode all about understanding your emotions.
If you have a question, we'd love to help you answer it. Drop us a line by going to brainson.org contact.
Moment of M is produced by Molly Bloom, Rosie DuPont, Anna Goldfield, Ruby Guthrie, Mark Sanchez, Sandin Totten, Anna Wagle, Aaron Waldeslasi, and Nico Gonzalez-Whistler. We had editing help from Shayla Farzan and Rachel Breeze, and engineering help from Alex Simpson. Our theme song is by Mark Sanchez. Our executive producer is Beth Perlman. The executives in charge of APM Studios are Chandra Kavadi, Alex Shaffert, and Joanne Griffith. A big special snaky thanks this week goes out to our pal Emily Taylor.
See you next time and the next day and every weekday. Until then.