Butts

This episode, Kate and Matt are joined by Elysa for a super serious scientific conversation about… butts. Specifically, we talk about the role butts play in a very important part of life: waste removal. Interestingly, not all creatures have butts that develop and function the same, nor do they deal with waste removal in the same ways. So, this episode, we go on a tour of anuses across the animal kingdom. We talk about humans, and how our anus develops and works. But(t) we also talk about animals with mouth-butts, creatures that can create jet-pack-style transportation with their butts, animals that breathe through their butts, and animals that weaponize their behinds. We talk about transient anuses, animals with disposable butts, and creatures that just don’t have butts at all! We also discuss the very important question… what kind of waste-disposal system would cat-dog have? We also tackle a listener question about itching… why do we scratch when we feel an itch? If you enjoyed Elysa’s contribution to the episode and want to find more of them, you can follow them on twitter @asciencequeer. And, as always, you can find us @curiosityrat on twitter, instagram, and facebook, and send your listener questions in to curiosityrat@gmail.com We also now have a Patreon! If you love our content and want to support us you can jump on to https://www.patreon.com/curiosityrat and become a patron. There is absolutely ZERO pressure but if you have as little as $1/month you can chuck it our way to help us out and show you appreciate all the time and effort that goes into making this show.

Main References: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ivb.12236 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24694282/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/05/evolution-butts/618915/ https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-3190/aac25a https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330795949_Prey_capturing_and_feeding_apparatus_of_dragonfly_nymph https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0116639 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-the-scorpion-lost-its-tail-and-its-anus https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00227-004-1467-7 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/how-this-fish-survives-in-a-sea-cucumbers-bum https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/fish/pearlfish-sea-cucumber https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18392795/ https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00114-012-0975-4 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jez.1055 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004452311500011X https://www.newscientist.com/article/2195656-animal-with-an-anus-that-comes-and-goes-could-reveal-how-ours-evolved/ https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Porifera/ https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/jellyfish-and-comb-jellies https://www.science.org/news/2016/03/why-watching-comb-jellies-poop-has-stunned-evolutionary-biologists

Listener Q References: https://www.ox.ac.uk/research/what-makes-us-scratch-itch-scientists-finally-have-answer https://www.science.org/lookup/doi/10.1126/science.aac8653 https://www.sciencealert.com/some-disorders-make-you-itch-uncontrollably-so-much-so-that-one-woman-scratched-through-to-her-brain https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/guide/scratching-feels-good https://www.ox.ac.uk/research/what-makes-us-scratch-itch-scientists-finally-have-answer