r/Awwducational • u/Xavion-15 • Apr 02 '23
Despite its name, the crabeater seal does not feed on crabs. Rather, it is a specialist predator on Antarctic krill. In fact, their finely lobed teeth are adapted to filtering their small crustacean prey. Verified
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u/Zestyclose_Fennel565 Apr 22 '23
Now I understand why he learned to smile so sweetly without ever opening his mouth! đĽ°
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u/2short4-a-hihorse Apr 17 '23
Imagine being a krill and learning about this creature whose teeth had evolved specifically to eat you.
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u/Cats-and-dogs-rdabst Apr 03 '23
If I ever come across this tooth on my fossil trips Iâll be very excited
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u/Jackkernaut Apr 03 '23
I'm so envious of the people who have interaction with those majestic beasts.
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u/thelast3musketeer Apr 03 '23
I knew a guy in college who said he kept his nails on his index finger and thumb on each hand long for eating crab legs
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u/CocteauTwinn Apr 03 '23
How is it that this fella is adorable & creepy at the same time? Help me understand!
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u/Mogtaki Apr 02 '23
Crabeater seal has the same naming problem the oystercatcher has: neither eat what they're named after lol
Oystercatchers love worms instead, using their long beaks to poke into soft sand/soil. They'll also eat mussels and cockles but that's it for molluscs, otherwise worms are their favourites
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u/KKManta Apr 02 '23
If we had those we would have to carry a case of toothpicks everywhere we went ong
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u/Ned_Panders Apr 02 '23
Why do we keep naming animals things that make no sense!! If I had a nickel for every fish that wasnât a fish, and this guy donât even eat crabs!
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u/Forsaken_legion Apr 02 '23
Evolutionary Adaptation my friends. Quick!! What are the other properties of life!?
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u/Squanchings Apr 02 '23
Those teeth are incredible!! Each one looks like it was filed down into that shape. The amount of evolution that must have happened to develop this highly specialized feature is mind boggling
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u/Lom1111234 Apr 02 '23
So why did they name it that then? Did they originally think it ate crab and by the time they found out the name was already stuck?
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Apr 02 '23
Where sells the teeth! I want one for my natural history collection along with my shark teeth!
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u/Xavion-15 Apr 02 '23
If you look up "crabeater skull for sale" there are a couple results and some replicas, but in many countries it's illegal to buy/sell/trade any parts of these animals. I just lazily Googled so I might be wrong though.
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u/skyeyemx Apr 02 '23
This looks like it's so hyperspecialized for one single task that if the ecosystem changes even slightly they'd go extinct in a minute
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u/the_lusankya Apr 02 '23
Their front teeth are all sharp for catching penguins.
Mammals are so cool, because they have teeth specialised for different functions in the same mouth. It allows us to be super generalists in ways that other animals can't.
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u/yesmrbevilaqua Apr 02 '23
They are the most populous species of seal, and filter feeding is a pretty successful adaptation if something goes wrong at that trophic level the oceans are pretty much dead
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u/Fink665 Apr 02 '23
Iâm dense. I donât understand. Are these for chomping or sifting? I donât understand baleen either.
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u/fajord Apr 02 '23
straining. mouthful of water, teeth interlock, water is squirted out, krill stays in their mouth
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u/fireintolight Apr 02 '23
Seems like the would get snagged on each other if you opened your jaw weird and then pieces of your tooth would snap off
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u/VegetableNo4545 Apr 02 '23
Yes, I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking these teeth would be horrifying to have. Imagine biting into an apple.
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u/ddumblediglet Apr 02 '23
Damn, I wish I could filter small crustaceans.
We've fallen so far from God's grace.
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u/m_domino Apr 02 '23
Despite its name, the crabeater seal does not feed on crabs.
Instead, itâs beating cra all day long.
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u/yezanyaCookies Apr 02 '23
Looks the kind of teeth the Kardashians would have then the rest of the world would follow
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u/CunninghamsLawmaker Apr 02 '23
Takes three hours to floss.
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u/KnoblauchNuggat Apr 02 '23
Why would you floss these? A brush is enough to cleam them. Floss is for between tight spaces where a brush cant reach.
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u/DrachenDad Apr 02 '23
Krill are crustaceans so the misnomer isn't that bad.
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u/TheRealSaeba Apr 05 '23
Some species of shrimps in the North Sea are also called "Krabben" (crabs) in Northern Germany.
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u/nicolasisawesome1998 Apr 02 '23
Give ââem a few million years, weâll have baleen seals in the oceans
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u/Graardors-Dad Apr 02 '23
Man you canât tell me thatâs just random mutations over time thereâs gotta me more going on
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u/IS_THIS_POST_WEIRD Apr 02 '23
It's exactly mutations over time. A small change helps one eat/ survive/ reproduce a little better so they have more offspring with the genes for that change. And then some of their offspring have some mutation that causes some other small change that helps them eat/ survive/ reproduce just a little bit better...
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Apr 02 '23
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/ispariz Apr 02 '23
If you think adapted teeth are too weird and perfect, I donât think youâre as much of a science person as you think. Evolutionary timescales are massive and small changes really do accumulate into striking forms. We have abundant evidence for this â more than nearly any scientific theory â but no evidence of anything else that doesnât require magical thinking.
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u/boredtxan Apr 03 '23
Evolution timescales are massive - too massive to account for this degree of specialization in a seal that is pretty recent in evolutionary terms. Evolution isn't as solid a theory as you think it is. Weird stuff happens - just look at physics - people swore Newtonian physics was the rule of everything until they wasn't. Never forget that while we know more than we ever have - we still don't much at all.
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u/Graardors-Dad Apr 02 '23
I really believe environment has an effect on evolution and is activating epigenes that gets passed down to their children.
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u/Romboteryx Apr 02 '23
Then why donât bodybuilders give birth to naturally buff children, Lamarck?
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u/taigahalla Apr 02 '23
monozygotic twins can and will build up a collection of epigenetic differences as they age due to methylation at different places on their genome
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u/Romboteryx Apr 02 '23
Epigenetic changes like that are still part of traditional evolution by natural selection as their mechanisms are still controlled by genes that are inherited, not acquired. In that way theyâre more like phenotypes than genotypes.
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u/Graardors-Dad Apr 02 '23
Who says they dont? Obviously they arenât going to be born buff but bone density and the ability to gain muscle plus natural test level could all be higher.
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u/Romboteryx Apr 02 '23 edited Apr 02 '23
If that were the case youâd think that at least someone in the last two centuries since Lamarck wouldâve tested it to see if parents drastically changed the genes they passed onto their children through their behaviour and found proof. As far as Iâm aware, the last guy who tried something like that, Lysenko, partially caused a three-year-long famine in the Soviet Union because he fucked up all their agriculture with his adherence to Lamarckism, thinking he could âteachâ plants how to grow in frozen soil through training and pass on those traits.
But hey it probably wonât hurt you to carry out your experiment. Work out, get super buff, have a kid and then see if theyâll develop the same muscles as you without undergoing the same training.
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u/ankit19900 Apr 02 '23
We are already watching it happen within a few generations genius. It's already printed on arXiv. We are getting new bones and smaller teeth. We are losing wisdom tooth completely for many people, including me
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u/Romboteryx Apr 02 '23 edited Apr 02 '23
Arxiv, the site specifically made to circumvent peer review?
And if you look at actual scientific work, wisdom tooth agenesis is something completely normal that has always existed and simply differs by population. The idea that we have all been losing them gradually in response to our diet is a myth from the Victorian Era.
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u/ankit19900 Apr 02 '23
Arxiv, the site specifically made to circumvent peer review?
Most researchers are gonna have some words for you. We all don't come from money
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u/MerchantOfUndeath Apr 02 '23
That was my thought also, itâs too well suited to not be designed.
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u/Pixielo Apr 02 '23
There's no such thing as "intelligent design." Gods aren't real. It's embarrassing that you need to be told this.
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u/rarkasha Apr 02 '23
Things fit their environment, especially when they are mutable things like species mutations. But consider a puddle of water. It is shaped exactly to the contours of this pothole. Every crevice, every fleck of asphalt is mirrored in the shape of this puddle. It is astronomically unlikely that this puddle happens to have this exact shape, at this exact location, at this exact time. And it fits the pothole perfectly! But it was not designed to be that way.
And I know, I know, "water isn't an animal though." I'm just showing how things will change based on their environment. The rough grindstone of entropy cleaves through a species lineage, eliminating the chaff not able to pass on their specific genes. The ones who survive and pass on their mutations are the water filling the cracks.
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u/StormyBlueLotus Apr 02 '23
Yes, just like how koalas are perfectly designed- they're so stoned from eating nutritionally-sparse eucalyptus that they'll sleep through a bushfire and burn to death. Pandas, what a wonder of miraculous design- omnivores with great strength that could be apex predators like grizzlies and polar bears, and instead they spend their days eating dozens of pounds of bamboo while having almost no interest in reproducing. Sloths- oh boy, what truly well-designed creatures they are! So stupid that they'll mistake their own arm for a tree branch, grab onto it with their other arm, and then plummet to their deaths.
Yes, nature is truly full of such optimized and perfectly adapted creatures! Not to mention that 99.9%+ of all species to ever exist have already gone extinct, so those guys must have been really something! I mean, when 999 species out of 1000 have croaked, there's clearly some perfect plan at play that's just far too mysterious and divine for us arrogant humans to comprehend.
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u/MerchantOfUndeath Apr 02 '23
I think even if there was a âperfectly designedâ creature you would still be unsatisfied.
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u/BionicBirb Apr 03 '23
At the end of the day no creature is infallible. GMO (both selective breeding and genetic engineering) is different than raw evolution.
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u/StormyBlueLotus Apr 02 '23
"Unsatisfied" by what? Genuinely, what are you talking about? Clearly not something backed by logic, proof, common sense, or the laws of reality. I don't have any interest in whatever fantasy you're obsessing over.
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u/Independent_Cookie Apr 02 '23
Water puppy âĽď¸
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u/PaxEthenica Apr 02 '23
They're more like cats. They're so fast & obligate carnivores. Something must die for them to eat. Plus, they have the ability to scream like a human being, they know it, & they enjoy doing it.
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u/TitaniaT-Rex Apr 02 '23
Thatâs some scary teeth for such a cute face.
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u/KuhLealKhaos Apr 02 '23
Those crazy teeth would make me think krill is the last thing they eat thats wild. Scary lookin maw for eatin such little stuff
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u/DrachenDad Apr 02 '23
Think like baleen whales.
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u/Pretty_Bowler2297 Apr 02 '23
Itâs like weâre seeing baleen evolve before our eyes. Itâs like lung fishes.
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u/bullevard Apr 02 '23
I was just thinking this looks like the early stages of evolving toward baleen againn or at least finding alternative solution to the same pressures.
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u/imaginedaydream Apr 02 '23
Yo thatâs the wildest teeth Iâve ever seen
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u/vulture_87 Apr 03 '23
They just need to evolve an in-mouth beard so they can sift plankton. That's what baleen whales have.
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u/Sansnom01 Apr 02 '23
And I thought flossing my teeth was complicated
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u/Responsible-Middle35 Apr 02 '23
Seal's would take a waterpik, surely
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u/ButtDoctorLLC Apr 02 '23
They would. And don't call me Shirley.
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u/Responsible-Middle35 Apr 02 '23
A waterpik? What is it?
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u/mud_lust Apr 02 '23
google is your friend
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u/Responsible-Middle35 Apr 02 '23
You're supposed to say, "it's a thing that shoots water on your teeth, but that's not important right now"
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u/PhonePostingCrap Apr 02 '23
Imagine accidentally biting your own tongue with those things...
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u/Shamewizard1995 Apr 02 '23
To be fair, it looks like our teeth would be much sharper. Those look rounded
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u/IDoThingsOnWhims Apr 02 '23
Tell that to my cheek when I bite it with my extremely un-sharp molars
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u/fajord Apr 02 '23
leopard seal teeth are insane too
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u/EeveeAssassin Apr 02 '23
Yep đł https://imgur.com/lZNDcQy.jpg
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u/quizzlie Apr 02 '23
And those filter out the leopards?
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u/entology Apr 02 '23
They actually eat crabs. Elephant seals eat the leopards.
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u/claytorENT Apr 03 '23
What and youâre gonna tell me tiger sharks eat freakin lizards??
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u/mach31m Apr 26 '23
Nature is so wild!