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the animal within s01e03
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00:00Speed, a competitive strategy.
00:03While humans obsess over how to achieve it in even greater quantities,
00:07for the speed demons of the animal kingdom,
00:10evolving to become the fastest has been a matter of life and death.
00:14When we look to these creatures for inspiration,
00:17not only do they wow us with their sheer ability,
00:20they can give us unexpected clues on how to improve our own lives and technologies.
00:47The Cheetah in motion, breathtaking to watch, graceful, almost airborne.
00:54They are the race car of the Savannah.
00:57Cheetahs can reach up to 112 kilometers per hour.
01:01I don't even drive that fast on some highways.
01:03So imagine a cheetah, you know, blowing past you while you're cruising down.
01:06It's mind-blowing.
01:07But it's their incredible acceleration that earns them the title speed demon.
01:12A cheetah can go from zero to about 100 kilometers an hour in three seconds.
01:17So just think about that.
01:18Three seconds to get up to what we would normally think is a highway speed.
01:22You know, for us in a car, it can do that in three seconds, not as a machine, but as
01:28an animal.
01:29That puts them squarely in the ballpark with some of the fastest cars on earth,
01:33which claim zero to 60 in 2.4 seconds.
01:37Even with the technology we have as humans, the most non-performance vehicles struggle to reach the acceleration of a
01:43cheetah.
01:43And they do it, you know, hardly without breaking a sweat.
01:46In land animals, the cheetah is the epitome of speed.
01:49They're the quickest hunters on land, and they are biologically engineered for speed and agility.
01:56Cheetahs evolved to their present from about 200,000 years ago.
02:00But the branch of the family they come from broke away from their common ancestor a little more than eight
02:05million years ago.
02:07In that intervening six or seven million years, evolutionary engineering honed the cheetah into the ultimate speed demon.
02:16There's nothing that really compares to them.
02:18And a lot of that is because there is a biological arms race between the cheetah and its primary prey,
02:25which is the Thompson's gazelle.
02:26The cheetah is the fastest land animal in the world.
02:29The second fastest land animal in the world is the Thompson's gazelle.
02:32They're very much tied together, those two species, in that they're linked as the speed demons of the world.
02:40Just like a race car, an incredible amount of engineering went into creating an animal this specialized.
02:46And to get a better idea of how the cheetah works, we need to take a look under the hood.
02:52When you're an animal that can run 112 kilometers an hour, you're not going to be bulky.
02:58You want to be as aerodynamic as possible and that's the way the cheetah is built.
03:03The most astounding feature to me the first time I saw a cheetah was how small its head was.
03:08That's really interesting to me as an engineer because if I have to accelerate a cheetah and maintain speed
03:16and try to keep a level head so that it's not bouncing all over the place while I'm trying to
03:21catch the prey, it has to be light.
03:23It doesn't have that pure muscle mass like a lot of other cats do.
03:27It's specifically built to run very, very quickly.
03:30And so it has this incredibly flexible form.
03:34At times, at its top speed, a stride could be every 25 feet.
03:39That is insane to think about, but that's how fast they are going.
03:44In their hind legs, they have fast-twitch muscle fibers that allows them to increase those stride lengths and increase
03:50its frequency as well.
03:51They're rare and their front legs overlap when they're galloping, similar to a rotary gallop like a greyhound animal.
03:59They have a very flexible spine, which I think is the ultimate factor when it comes to allowing them to
04:05reach such high rates of speed because it acts like a spring.
04:08The shoulder bones are disconnected from the collar bones to give it more flexibility as it's, you know, putting its
04:14body really through incredible motions to reach these top speeds.
04:18That level of acceleration provided by the cheetah's sleek frame requires a fuel system that's equally aerodynamic.
04:25It has a huge chest cavity.
04:27That chest cavity is built to take in a lot more oxygen as it reaches its top speed.
04:33So normally, the big cat, if it's not moving, would be about 60 breaths a minute, and it moves to
04:38up to 150 breaths a minute.
04:40When we start expending energy, a lot of the time we're really dependent on that oxygen and how fast we
04:47can get oxygen into our system.
04:48So the cheetah has that big chest cavity so it can suck in vast amounts of oxygen.
04:54So big chest, but it's narrow again. It's not a big, wide, bulky chest, but narrow and streamlined.
05:00But that specialization has meant sacrifices.
05:03For one, the large nasal cavity uses up real estate where more teeth could be.
05:09To accommodate for an enlarged nasal cavity actually makes their bite quite poor.
05:16And their jaw sockets where the teeth are located aren't very strong,
05:19which is why when it comes to acquiring their prey, they're found to not be quite effective at defending it.
05:25The cost of being the pinnacle of speed, they can't fight. They're not muscular. They can't defend themselves very well.
05:31And so they're very vulnerable to other animals stealing their kills.
05:34It's estimated they lose up to 10% of their kills to other animals on the sedan.
05:39So hyenas, lions, leopards. Notorious for bullying cheetahs off of a fresh kill that they've made.
05:46Fortunately for the cheetah, it can fall back on its speed when threatened by other predators.
05:51When you run that fast, you know, you don't have to worry as much about being prey to anybody because
05:59nobody can catch you.
06:00But like any good sprinter, it can only run for so long.
06:03There's a consequence reaching that top speed. And so after 12 seconds, the body shuts down.
06:10It has to basically rest for about 30 minutes. It just sits there panting to get to recover from putting
06:16its body through that energy taxing situation.
06:24The amount of energy expended in that period is immense. It's beyond human understanding with respect to our own bodies
06:31and really is getting into that super car, something that we can only do with extreme mechanics.
06:39While race car top speeds are difficult to control, the cheetah has that sorted.
06:44When we're driving, we're in specially designed cars that are driving along specially designed roads and surfaces.
06:49I think it makes it even more incredible when you start to think about they are specially designed for these
06:54uneven savannah surfaces.
06:55Most big cats, almost every cat retracts its claws. Cheetahs don't. Their claws are permanently unretracted.
07:02It's similar to like soccer cleats where they're able to grip the ground better when they're running around.
07:06Having flat pads instead of puffy pads allow them to move faster.
07:12They have their tail, which among big cats is quite unique in being quite muscular and quite long.
07:18And they use this like a rudder, like a counterbalance. When you watch it run, the tail is flopping everywhere.
07:23And at first it looks random, but then you look a little closer and you realize every time it turns
07:27to catch this antelope that's chuking in front of it,
07:30you know, the tail swings out and it uses that to turn almost on a dime at these incredibly high
07:35speeds.
07:36And the cheetahs can de-accelerate even more quickly than they accelerate, varying speeds quickly as they change direction to
07:43stay on the tail of their prey.
07:45Almost as if the cheetah was shifting from low to high gear.
07:50Thompson's gazelle will take off, but it's not going in a straight line.
07:53It's going to try and make a quick turn and have the cheetah overrun it so that it can't get
07:58back to it.
07:58So the cheetah has to be able to cut that corner as fast or faster than the Thompson's gazelle to
08:05catch it.
08:06When it comes to speed demons, no land animal can touch the cheetah.
08:11Fast, sleek and powerful. Able to accelerate, de-accelerate and corner in the blink of an eye.
08:17In every way, the race car of the savannah.
08:22But while the cheetah is the fastest animal on land, we only have to look to the sky to find
08:28the fastest animal on the planet.
08:31And anyone who has seen a peregrine falcon catch its prey knows why this creature has inspired such awe in
08:38engineers.
08:39Their diving speeds can surpass 320 kilometers an hour, and the aerobatics of these dives can boggle the mind.
08:47It's a very dramatic event. What you see is a flash and then a poof of feathers, and then the
08:54peregrine rapidly slows down and flies off.
08:56It may not be as massive or brutally forceful as some of its raptor cousins, but much like the cheetah,
09:02this creature is exclusively designed for speed.
09:06Compared to a lot of the birds of prey that we immediately think of, things like bald eagles, the peregrine
09:11falcon is really small.
09:12This bird of prey hunts by day.
09:15Where many of its fellow carnivorous raptors feast mainly on land and sea animals, the peregrine's diet is different.
09:23Studies of peregrine falcons found that up to 99% of their diet is made up of other birds.
09:29So peregrine falcons have evolved to take advantage of this very particular food source.
09:34Incredibly, the peregrine catches its dinner mid-flight.
09:37And given that its prey is also flying once the peregrine targets it from above, it requires a breakneck speed
09:44to pull off a bullseye.
09:48They dive from pretty high heights, even kilometers up, because of the fact that they use propagational navigation, similar to
09:55how missiles would operate with a target that they aim for.
09:59This allows the maximization of aerodynamic force, meaning that they're able to maneuver at a very high rate.
10:07In order to be able to pull off its spectacular moves, evolution has gifted this falcon with special wings.
10:14The enlarged keel, or their breastbone, allows them to generate that power to flap those wings at incredible rates.
10:21The really enormous muscles that are attached to that keel are capable of really explosive movements.
10:27And that's really necessary just as it begins that stoop to just kind of get its momentum up, it will
10:33do these big flaps.
10:35And, of course, the shape of these wings is beneficial.
10:39Falcon wings of all kinds, and especially peregrine falcons, are instantly recognizable in a silhouette.
10:46And they look a lot like airplane wings. One was based on the other.
10:49And so that really stiff, pointed, bent wing allows them to just get a ton of lift in the air
10:56because of the way that the air will flow over that surface.
10:59Although the peregrine furiously flaps its wings just before a dive, once it stoops, its wings become remarkable in their
11:07lack of flapping.
11:08It's keeping its wings in tight. It's trying to keep itself compact, keeping its legs in tight, and then trying
11:15to stay as streamlined as it possibly can.
11:17The peregrine has extremely good vision and highly evolved eyes. It brings its far away prey into its crosshairs. And
11:25then, as it stoops, it remains on its collision course by tracking changes in its line of sight.
11:31If it visually charts any slight changes, the falcon turns at a rate proportional to the speed of that change.
11:37The prey is actually moving around just like a jet would try and move away from another jet that's trying
11:43to hunt it down.
11:44The ability for the peregrine falcon to calculate those moves and be able to adjust at such speeds provides it
11:51with this advantage that no other bird has.
11:53And it makes it a pretty phenomenal predator.
11:56Being able to track its target on its descent requires some extremely fast visual processing.
12:02Luckily, the peregrine's eyes have some incredible adaptations to help with that.
12:06Their eyes can register changes at 160 frames per second.
12:11So animals really do have sensory systems that run at different speeds for what they need.
12:17Humans, our perception is about 30 frames a second.
12:21Birds operate at much higher speeds because if they don't have that processing speed, they're going to run into other
12:30things.
12:30They're not going to be able to adjust our prey, and the peregrine's at the highest end of that.
12:34In addition, evolution has bestowed it with a third eyelid, which lubricates its eye as it travels at such high
12:41speeds.
12:42They have this naticitating membrane that will close over their eye to protect the eyeballs from drying out, from objects
12:49flying into it.
12:50Beyond giving the peregrine its amazing eyes, nature has designed this speed demon's heart and respiratory system to be the
12:57perfect engine.
12:58The rate of the peregrine falcon's heartbeat is about 600 to 900 times per minute.
13:03And this allows them to increase that aerobic capacity, bringing in more oxygen to their lungs so that they can
13:09afford to use that energy when diving at high speeds.
13:12The peregrine's increased heart rate lets it flap its wings up to four times a second.
13:18In order to maintain its phenomenal breathing speed during flight, even the peregrine's nose has been adapted to maximum effect.
13:26They've developed these little nasal shields around their nostrils that just kind of disrupt the airflow.
13:31In fact, its nasal adaptation is being studied by jet aircraft engineers.
13:37When moving at supersonic speeds, a jet's engine can be choked by airflow.
13:43Could mimicking the design of the peregrine's nostrils be the answer?
13:48Even among human technological advancements, this would be an exceptionally advanced vehicle.
13:55And research on how it flies could contribute to new aircrafts, safety in the air, as well as enhanced aerodynamics
14:02and fuel efficiency.
14:04But well before humans made planes, they looked up to this creature for what was possible.
14:09And since at least Egyptian times, they knew it was the god of the skies.
14:15You know, we can move around the world in ways that we, you know, once only dreamed of.
14:19I think it is really interesting to note that we still can't do it as well as birds like the
14:22peregrine falcon.
14:23That's never to say that we won't be, and I think part of the way that we get there is
14:27just by learning from and observing these animals.
14:30While observing the cheetah and falcon teach us all there is to know about sprinting and diving,
14:35there are other ways in which humans yearn to be faster.
14:39For instance, speed is crucial to boxers.
14:42Most crucially, the speed of a boxer's punch will give the athlete an edge.
14:47If we want to compare ourselves to the fastest boxers in the animal kingdom,
14:51it might surprise us where we have to look.
14:54When we think of an animal that can cause a lot of damage, you rarely think of a shrimp.
15:01And then you come across a shrimp called the mantis shrimp.
15:04And this mantis shrimp is probably the Mike Tyson of shrimp.
15:09Some of them are incredibly beautiful and colorful, but they all pack a punch.
15:14When they are kept in aquariums, they are often in bulletproof tanks to prevent any damages that could happen to
15:22the aquarium in itself.
15:24Despite a typical length of 10 centimeters, this tiny creature packs a one-two punch like no other.
15:31With specialized hammer-like forelimbs, it can strike at speeds of 80 kilometers an hour.
15:37The same acceleration as a .22 caliber handgun, they can shoot their claws out to smash and beat on any
15:46mollusk or a large fish or octopus that comes across its territory or burrow.
15:50To be able to move your limb that fast in water, in salt water at that, which is even, you
15:56know, 750 times denser than air,
15:59moving at that speed provides you that advantage that will essentially make you become a successful predator.
16:05This prize fighter can smash the shell of its prey with about 150 kilograms of force.
16:11Remarkably, it wasn't until the early second century that we began to understand what these blows were made of.
16:17For the longest time, we just had no ability to see the punches that were happening.
16:23We would see these mantis shrimp, you know, punch a shell and we would see the shell break apart.
16:28And, you know, we thought, wow, that must be a powerful punch.
16:31And it was only relatively recently that we had the high-speed cameras that could slow down that motion slow
16:38enough to recognize what's actually going on underneath the hood of these punches.
16:43It turns out it's all done with two small movements of each forelimp that together deliver four explosive blows to
16:51its prey.
16:51Now, the force of those club-like forearms hitting the prey has about 1,500 newtons force.
16:58Applying a force equivalent to lifting a 150 kilogram person, this is no small amount of force that it's able
17:05to generate.
17:05It's actually quite amazing that something so small can generate that kind of an impact.
17:11With a more than 250 million year history, we know little about how the mantis shrimp's mode of attack may
17:18have been adapted to shifts in its habitat and diet.
17:21What we do know is that it survived five extinction events, and its pugilistic advantage was likely part of the
17:28reason.
17:29And so for the mantis shrimp to have survived those five extinction events, including one that wiped out, you know,
17:3597% of marine life at the time,
17:37it's a testament to how perfected an organism the mantis shrimp is.
17:43The claws are not just for show, they're not just for setting records, they're for surviving, and they allow the
17:48mantis shrimp to do that very well.
17:49This little crustacean, who often goes after animals many times its size, strikes its victim with one claw and then
17:57the other in rapid succession.
17:59But what exactly is going on with the claws' one-two punch?
18:03When these animals punch, you can see that there is a latch mechanism that they unlock, and then it punches
18:09their prey.
18:10Unlike boxers, mantis don't use muscles to power their punch. Their claws are spring-loaded.
18:17Even more remarkably, this creature capitalizes on an underwater phenomenon known as cavitation.
18:2350% of the claw force lies inside the tiny bubbles created by a change in pressure brought on by
18:30the initial blow.
18:31Their force can be divided into two parts. 50% of it is from the blow of their appendages, and
18:3650% of it is from the cavitation bubbles imploding.
18:40The cavitation bubbles, they're formed by a decrease of pressure in the water, and when they do burst, they release
18:47a huge amount of energy.
18:49Anything that's in that way would be stunned by that imploding bubble.
18:53Cavitation is something marine mechanics are very familiar with.
18:57When a propeller or a high-speed object moves in water, it can move so fast that the water can't
19:04backfill the space that it's moving out of.
19:07And it's actually creating a vacuum, and what you're seeing behind that when you see bubbles are cavitation bubbles, and
19:12they'll usually disappear very rapidly behind that object.
19:15And the crazy thing about cavitation bubbles is when they collapse, they release an immense amount of energy.
19:21It's actually almost like an explosion.
19:23So if we take ship's propellers, and we don't design them correctly, and they start cavitating,
19:29every one of those little collapsing cavitation bubbles will actually erode the metal off the surface of the propeller.
19:36So we can have hardened steel propellers that actually get destroyed by cavitation.
19:42The fact that the shrimp is using a mechanism that has the ability to destroy some of the hardest materials
19:50we have as mankind on its prey is pretty amazing.
19:53Like, these are pretty devastating attacks.
19:56The mantis shrimp's appendages have been specifically designed by evolution to withstand the crushing force of their blows.
20:03They are made up of three layers of material. The first two are hydroxypeptide, similar to the mineral found in
20:10hair, teeth, and shells.
20:13One is hard, and the other soft. The first layer is the hard, rigid, crystalline one, ensuring the force of
20:19the blow is delivered to the target, and not absorbed by the shrimp's clubs.
20:23The second layer after that is actually a bit of a more spongy, softer layer that's arranged in almost like
20:30a helix and spiral form that are layers that are rotated slightly.
20:34So if it were to break, it would just break in part and not wholly.
20:38The last layer is made of chitness fibers and prevents the first from unwanted expansion on impact.
20:44It has been likened to the tape boxers use to wrap their hands with before putting their gloves on.
20:49It provides support and prevents swelling. Despite all this, these bruises do get damaged, but nature has another backup in
20:57the name molting.
20:58Just like any other crustacean, as the mantis shrimp grows, any damage to the exocelotin on those appendages will regrow
21:07as that exocelotin is shed,
21:09and all of a sudden you have a new pair of appendages that are brand new and ready to strike.
21:14Given that the mantis shrimp spends most of its time hiding in little crevices and reef pockets,
21:19it's not surprising that we're only beginning to get acquainted with this tiny fighting machine.
21:25But as a world champion of fast punches, we can be sure it will continue to surprise us.
21:31If you look at life in the ocean, we actually know more about space than we do about ocean.
21:35We probably know less than 1% of the animals in the ocean.
21:38We know very little about the mantis shrimp, and a lot of times it's because of its elusiveness.
21:43It doesn't really come out to play very often.
21:45We're just starting to really understand this type of species.
21:49While the mantis shrimp took more than 250 million years to evolve into its current state,
21:54there's another tiny creature whose evolution into a speed demon took only a fraction of the time.
22:00That creature is the hummingbird.
22:04Tiny, charming, iridescently colored, and the only invertebrate that can hover continuously in still air.
22:12They seem to do this effortlessly.
22:14Yet we know that hovering is the most energy-consuming of all modes of flight.
22:18I love hummingbirds.
22:20It's one of those creatures that were like, aw, a hummingbird.
22:24But they're living this extreme life continuously on a metabolic edge.
22:31They are always at the risk of complete breakdown and combustion because they expend so much energy.
22:38Their wings beat faster than any other species in the animal kingdom, up to 80 times a second.
22:43And they also hold the title for world's fastest metabolism.
22:48They subsist mostly on nectar, sometimes insects as well.
22:51But they need to feed almost continuously.
22:54It depends on the species, but at least every 30 minutes, sometimes up to five times an hour,
22:59they need to be feeding or else they'll drop out of the sky.
23:02They need an extremely dense energy source to continuously output this energy.
23:06And that's what nectar is.
23:08They're essentially drinking pure sugar almost continuously throughout the day.
23:13It's no wonder that one of the many things scientists look to hummingbirds for
23:17are clues about metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes.
23:22Their blood sugar levels would be lethal to us, yet don't cause them any biological downsides.
23:28They're a sugar-driven battery.
23:29But it's what they do with that energy that's truly astounding.
23:33What hummingbirds are able to do in their maneuverability in flight is unlike any invention that we've created.
23:38They're the only bird that can fly backwards.
23:41Hummingbirds also fly forwards, sideways, and straight up, requiring them to generate thrust and torques,
23:48unlike any other bird.
23:50And they can reach top speeds of 60 miles per hour.
23:54When you watch them approach a flower, they'll actually come up to it, stop in front of it, fly in,
24:00you know, sip the nectar from the flower,
24:02and then back straight out and then fly away.
24:05Really neat maneuverability.
24:07Incredible speed for such a small bird.
24:10The bursts of horizontal flight speed are absolutely amazing.
24:13I mean, they can essentially be in one spot and then disappear almost instantaneously in horizontal flight.
24:20We've created amazing flying machines.
24:23They incorporate a lot of the amazing features that hummingbirds have.
24:26Nothing that we've created can do every single thing that a hummingbird can do.
24:30One of the secrets to this feathered pilot's success is that it has adapted the use of its shoulder joint
24:35for flight.
24:36If you look closely at the hummingbird's wings, their shoulder joint allows them to invert their wings 180 degrees.
24:43So it almost looks like a figure eight motion when they are flying.
24:46We've spent a lot of time as engineers and scientists looking at birds for inspiration on how to build,
24:51especially vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.
24:54I mean, we would really love to get away from 10,000 foot runways and be able to land high
25:01speed aircraft on the beach in Jamaica,
25:03rather than having to go airport to airport.
25:06This would be awesome.
25:07The hummingbird has that technology.
25:09It can take off vertically, fly at extreme speeds horizontally, and then land straight back down without having to have
25:18a runway.
25:19And it's that ability of its muscles and its shoulder to build different patterns for the wing movement that gives
25:28rights to the lift that it needs.
25:30Birds in general have a lot less muscles than mammals or a lot of other organisms because they need to
25:36fly.
25:37So their bones are lighter, they have less muscles because they need to have at least weight as possible.
25:41For most birds, the percent of kind of muscle mass in their body is around, you know, 15%.
25:46And for hummingbirds, it's almost double that.
25:48It's like the mighty mouse of birds.
25:51To be able to have the capacity to beat your wings that fast, to be able to maneuver your wings
25:58in a figure eight motion,
26:01you have to have the muscle capacity to do that.
26:03And their muscle pretty much takes up about 20 to 30% of their body.
26:08A 20-gram hummingbird with a wingspan of 30 centimeters requires about 130 watts per kilogram to hover.
26:15And fortunately, it has a big heart to help with the job.
26:19They have these massive hearts relative to their body size.
26:21Up to 2% of their body weight is their heart.
26:25And it's incredible and absolutely necessary to pump blood through this animal as it's going.
26:30And for the rest of it to sustain and allow this incredible range of motion and speed of motion.
26:38The hummingbird's huge heart is proportionally larger than any other bird's.
26:42And by comparison, it's about four and a half times larger than an adult human's.
26:47The heart rate of the hummingbird usually sits around 500 beats per minute, which is insanely high relative to human
26:54heart beating at 60 or 80 on average.
26:58Even more insane is that this bird's normal heart rate of 500 BPM can increase to 1,260 BPM during
27:06flight.
27:07It has the fastest beating heart of any bird in the animal kingdom.
27:121260 beats per minute.
27:14I mean, it's just such an amazing thing.
27:17I mean, we're getting into the automotive engines of the animal kingdom.
27:22Our cars turn, you know, thousands of RPM.
27:26Essentially, the hummingbird's heart is now into that mechanical system kind of range.
27:31So it's more identifiable to me as an engineer as being something in the realms of mechanics rather than biology.
27:38Elite athletes hit maybe 200 beats per minute.
27:42So, you know, in flight, these are easily six, seven times the maximum rate of the human heartbeat.
27:49And even 200 times in a human is, it's extreme.
27:53It can only be maintained for very short periods of time.
27:57Whereas these hummingbirds are doing it all day long and during flight, so pretty amazing.
28:03Working in tandem with its fast heart rate is a turbo respiratory system.
28:07While our resting breathing rate is about six to ten breaths a minute, theirs is 250.
28:14Imagine trying to take 250 breaths in a minute.
28:16It's just not even possible for us as humans.
28:19It's almost beyond comprehension that something can expand and contract its lungs that quickly.
28:24And during flight, their breath rate can increase to 400 times a minute.
28:28That dramatic increase just shows that they need a lot of oxygen to enter their body,
28:34to move through their muscles, to their organs, to have that energy.
28:38Comparatively, elite athletes can consume four milliliters of oxygen per gram of body weight per hour.
28:44A hummingbird can easily consume ten times that amount, despite only being a fraction of our size.
28:52Hummingbirds are putting out insane amounts of energy, and they're also warm-blooded creatures.
28:59Warm-blooded creatures, like birds and mammals, need to maintain a constant body temperature.
29:06And hummingbirds are on such a metabolic knife edge that often they can't even last overnight without feeding.
29:12So, while the sun is set, and hummingbirds have to take a hiatus from feeding, they will often go into
29:19a torpor.
29:20A torpor is like a mini hibernation.
29:22Your heart rate slows down, their body temperature drops, and they just decrease energy to a lot of their main
29:29systems.
29:30It's like sleep times a hundred.
29:32And they'll allow their heart rate to slow down to, you know, around 50 beats per minute.
29:37They'll allow their body temperature to go from being 35 degrees to drop all the way down to 17,
29:44or whatever the surrounding night air is.
29:48Given its ferocious metabolism and the need to supersleep when it can't refuel several times an hour,
29:54one might think this little flying machine can't do long hauls.
29:59Ruby-throated hummingbirds will fly in a single shot over the Gulf of Mexico regularly,
30:06twice a year, on their spring and fall migrations.
30:09And there's no recourse.
30:10If you're in the middle of a Gulf of Mexico and you get tired, there's nowhere to stop and rest.
30:14They do this in one shot.
30:16Think about a hummingbird flying over the Gulf of Mexico, and it really puts it in perspective.
30:20Again, it counts on its sugar diet and some metabolic gymnastics to pull this off.
30:26They'll almost double their body weight before migration.
30:29So, I mean, we think of this sugar as being something that's, like, easy come, easy go metabolically.
30:35They manage to put on a lot of it and then just empowers one flight.
30:38In a way, this highly advanced sugar battery is just getting started.
30:43The hummingbird is only 22 million years old, which is young in evolutionary terms.
30:48Often we think that when a species speciates, it's because it's found a niche in the environment to exploit.
30:55And it appears, like, for the hummingbirds, that this is a successful strategy to go after this nectar and the
31:01flowers.
31:02They have relatively little competition from other birds for their food.
31:06And many flowers are reserved exclusively for hummingbirds.
31:10Flowers and hummingbirds have evolved together in these really specific ways.
31:15So the ability to hover in midair while you're feeding underneath a drooping columbine or trumpet vine flower is important.
31:24And those flowers also depend on those hummingbirds being able to do that because not a lot of other pollinators
31:29are able to hover in that way.
31:31So it's amazing that, you know, this kind of evolutionary dance between flowers and hummingbirds has evolved to create just
31:38such an incredible creature.
31:39Currently, there are 338 species of this spectacular little bird.
31:45Luckily for us, it looks like we'll have many more in the future.
31:48A few different groups of species often have these rapid diversification events.
31:52And it appears like hummingbirds are in the midst of one of those as well.
31:55Often that indicates that they've struck upon a really great strategy for success.
32:01The hummingbird is undoubtedly a speed demon in its own unique way.
32:06But back in the ocean, it's the dolphin that rules its realm as king of speed.
32:11It just looks like a docile animal that looks like they have this beautiful smile all the time.
32:17And when you watch them going alongside a boat, it's probably one of the most beautiful sights.
32:22But the speed that they can actually go shows how much of a great predator they are.
32:27Most people associate apex predators with animals that are ferocious, very sharp teeth.
32:32But dolphins still have that role in addition to killer whales or orcas, which are technically in the same grouping
32:38as dolphins.
32:39They're really designed as amazing hunters.
32:41They're built to achieve exceptional velocities and be able to chase down relatively large fish.
32:48Dolphins will kill smaller sharks.
32:51There's nothing higher in the food chain in the ocean than the dolphin family.
32:55The dolphin's apex rating is tied to its swimming speed, which can be as high as 40 kilometers an hour.
33:02While this may not sound supercharged, it is when you consider that water is 750 times denser than air.
33:10Using its tail and flippers, the dolphin accelerates on the downstroke and deaccelerates on the upstroke.
33:16As it flaps its tail up and down, it generates forces like an aircraft, but also generates mass forces as
33:23it accelerates the fluid around it.
33:25The trick to achieving its impressive swim speeds lies in how it calibrates its force with the water's resistance.
33:32If you've ever been on a slow moving boat and looked out the back, you'll see that the water behind
33:36the boat's all turned and mixed up.
33:39And if you've been on a racing sailboat and you looked out the back and it's like, there's no wake
33:44behind this boat.
33:45This boat is cutting through this water perfectly smoothly.
33:47And that's because the big heavy boat is not really designed to reduce that wake and it's wasting a lot
33:54of energy.
33:55It's displacing a lot of water.
33:57Whereas the sailboat that has no wake is moving through the water very efficiently.
34:02Like the sailboat, the dolphin is designed for maximum efficiency at cutting through water.
34:08In fact, at the height of the Cold War, both the Americans and the Soviets were studying these creatures' efficiencies
34:14as they designed submarines and missiles.
34:17Surprisingly, what they found most responsible was the dolphin's burst and glide method of swimming, called porpoising.
34:24Despite the name, porpoising is used by dolphins, porpoises and even other air-breathing marine species like penguins.
34:31It's used when these animals are swimming at high speed and refers to the particular way they emerge for air
34:37and then plunge back down.
34:39When dolphins jump out of the water, the air actually has a lower amount of drag in it, which allows
34:45them to gain a higher amount of speed.
34:47And as they jump back into the water, they are then able to coast and then slow down and then
34:52repeat the entire cycle, reducing the amount of energy they need to be able to swim in the water.
34:56When the dolphin is travelling at lower, more leisurely speeds, 16 kilometres an hour or lower, it doesn't need to
35:03porpoise.
35:04It simply cruises below the surface and when it needs air, emerges only enough to briefly expose its blowhole.
35:11So, no more than a third of its body emerges, which minimises splashing and therefore resistance.
35:17But when the dolphin hits faster speeds, higher than 16 kilometres, porpoising becomes more beneficial.
35:24When you're coming out of a medium that's 750 times more viscous than the air, you're going to gain some
35:32speed as you're jumping out.
35:34And as you come back down, you're gaining some speed just through gravity so that you don't lose as much
35:39momentum swimming through the water.
35:41And then you can maintain that speed with a couple of beats with the tail and then go back up
35:46again to get that breath.
35:47Ironically, one can see this special acceleration method as the dolphin overcoming an evolutionary handicap.
35:53One of the things about dolphins that differentiates them from fish species and from sharks is that they have to
36:00come to the surface to breathe.
36:01So, dolphins can't maintain very high velocities for a long time underwater.
36:07They have to stay near the surface where they can breathe.
36:10And one of the problems with that is that travelling in mixed phase, so half in water and half in
36:17air is not easy.
36:19So, that evolutionary process has basically turned that dolphin into the ideal hydrodynamic design.
36:27Before mastering its way of sprint swimming, the dolphin had already evolved the perfect silhouette.
36:32The crescent shape of its flippers, dorsal fin and tail also reduce drag and maximize lift.
36:39And the fusiform shape of its body is also inherently efficient.
36:43Your biggest enemy for speed underwater is drag.
36:47And so, dolphins are built with that tapering at the front end and at the back end so that the
36:52water will move quickly over them as they move through it.
36:55Their outer skin is very aerodynamic. It's very smooth. The front of their body, their face, their head is very
37:02aerodynamic.
37:03Everything's curved. It's built for speed. It's built to move through a tough medium at a very high speed.
37:09One might think its shape could be a hindrance if the dolphin needs to go deep. But evolution has provided
37:15a loophole.
37:16When dolphins dive in deep waters, they've actually found that they're able to fully collapse their lungs, which decreases the
37:23buoyancy and decreases their mass while being able to dive underwater without having to really put a lot of work
37:30into it.
37:30The fact that dolphins are air breathers points to another remarkable feature of their evolution.
37:36Millions of years ago, they were an animal that moved from land to the sea.
37:39And from an evolutionary perspective, dolphins are more related to the hippopotamus than they are to any animal in the
37:47ocean.
37:48It took about five to ten million years for dolphins to adapt from terrestrial creatures to fully aquatic.
37:56Many evolutionary tweaks contributed to them being champion swimmers.
38:01For example, along the way, they lost their hind limbs. And they also lost most of their hair, which again
38:08would have contributed to resistance underwater.
38:11Common knowledge would assume that life started in the ocean and moved on to the land.
38:15However, this case just proves that the dolphin moved from land back into the water and is able to monopolize
38:22that environment to their own suiting and become apex predators and are successful hunters to this day.
38:27More than any other of the dolphin's evolutionary adaptations, the fact that it came from land is probably the one
38:34that most defies our expectations.
38:36It gives us one more reason to justify the deep connection we feel to it.
38:42Another creature that defies our expectations as a speed demon is a tiny woodland bird.
38:48Nicknamed the headbanger of the animal kingdom or nature's construction worker, we often hear the woodpecker banging away well before
38:56we see it.
38:57This little bird can hammer its beak into tree bark at an astonishing rate of 20 times per second.
39:04There is very little a human being can do at the speed that a woodpecker pecks.
39:09And what's amazing is that they do this a lot continuously throughout the day.
39:13They peck a staggering 8,000 to 12,000 times a day.
39:16But they use it for multiple reasons. They'll use it for warding off predators, they'll use it to attract mates,
39:23and they'll also use it to establish territory.
39:25But above all, they peck for food, extracting insects beneath the bark they pulverize with their beaks.
39:31It is a unique adaptation they have evolved to gain advantage with their food of choice.
39:36And it frees them up from having to compete for bugs and worms on the ground.
39:40The woodpecker is another example of monopolizing a specific niche in their environment since there's no competition.
39:46They're the only species that are able to do this, meaning that they are the only competitions within themselves.
39:51Over their 25 million years of evolution, a symbiotic relationship has developed between this bird and its environment.
40:00Many of the bugs it eats, such as beetles, can cause disease to trees.
40:05So they also create this ecological balance between trees and their predators.
40:09So healthy forests really rely on woodpeckers for that reason, because without them, beetle infestations would be transmitted much more
40:16quickly.
40:17And a lot of trees would die. You can consider them keystone species in their own right.
40:21It's just kind of sad that they don't really get the respect that they deserve for keeping everything in balance.
40:27The first line of defense for this chipper is its beak, which evolution has finessed to withstand so much percussion.
40:34It has a number of different layers on its beak. The first layer is a keratin sheath that's in a
40:40zigzag pattern.
40:41And so instead of a straight pattern that an average bird would have, this sheath allows it to take that
40:46absorption of impact.
40:48The zigzags disperse force more than a straight line pattern could.
40:52And underneath this sheath is a more porous, form-like layer, which also helps with shock absorption.
40:59This is crucial, because of course, along with speed, the beak is also using incredible force.
41:05And while the special design of the beak keeps it intact, the woodpecker needs additional design features to protect what's
41:12inside.
41:13I can't even wrap my head around the amount of biological design that goes into protecting that poor little woodpecker's
41:22brain from, you know, a continuous concussion all day long.
41:26There's significant g-forces at play here.
41:28For the woodpecker, each of its turbo-accelerated pecs can generate up to 1,200 g's.
41:34Brains are relatively fragile things, and we really can't take impacts.
41:38When we get an impact to our head, it's going to cause trauma and a concussion and maybe internal bleeding
41:44and hematomas and even death.
41:46And, you know, humans can stand maybe 6 to 100 g's in severe impacts and not sustain injuries.
41:54Another incredible aspect of the woodpecker's skull is the tongue within it.
41:59Once they've chiseled away at a tree, they're not, you know, using the bill to extract the insects that they're
42:05finding.
42:06They lick them out of the holes that they've created with their tongue, and their tongues are incredibly long and
42:11flexible.
42:11And so it is a quirk of the woodpecker physiology, whereby their tongue will kind of, it has this retractive
42:19quality.
42:20Imagine a retractive tape measure.
42:22Amazingly, the structure that tongue retracts around is the hyoid bone, and it is the master stroke of design behind
42:29the woodpecker's toughness.
42:31So first you have the beak, then you have this hyoid bone that actually starts in the nose, and then
42:36it goes up across the head, but it divides around the head and goes down the body.
42:40So that impact, that force, doesn't actually go into the brain encasing, it goes across the head and then down
42:46through the body to be absorbed.
42:47The U-shaped hyoid bone is itself not unusual. It can be found in many birds, fish, and mammals, and
42:54is thought to have been important in human development of speech.
42:57But in the woodpecker, this flexible bone is much more extensive, and acts almost like a helmet and a seat
43:05belt in one.
43:06And it's like a cushion that allows them to sustain the force. In addition, they have spongy muscle that surrounds
43:12their brain as well.
43:13So all of those cushioning together allows this bird to be able to sustain those blows.
43:18The extremely specialized hyoid bone, with a little help from the tongue and the brain muscle, redistributes the pecking shock
43:25throughout the body, thereby absorbing 99% of the beak's force.
43:30It's kind of like an airbag for the brain, if you would. The g-forces that we're talking about here
43:36would basically turn our brain to scrambled eggs.
43:40The woodpecker's got a system that says, I'm not going to let this brain get damaged, I'm going to dissipate
43:46that by moving it back through the body and dissipating it in the larger mass of the bird's body.
43:50So, utilizing what the woodpecker has biologically evolved to better understand how we can protect ourselves, whether it be in
44:01helmets for sport or auto racing or what have you.
44:05Really great inspiration and a really great way to look for biology for ways that we can be innovative with
44:12materials and design.
44:13Human beings have always had an obsession with speed. We have always looked with wonder to the speed demons of
44:20the animal kingdom, from the woodpecker to the dolphin to the cheetah.
44:24If we're lucky, they can even reveal ways in which we can achieve and withstand higher velocities ourselves.
44:31But even when they remain out of reach, they give us images to race towards.
44:36It's really what we want to do as engineers is, we can only go so far, we imagine a lot
44:41of stuff, but nature has had millions of years to evolve systems which are so novel and so elegant that
44:51it makes so much sense for us to look to them for the inspirations to solve technological problems that exist
44:58today.
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