Selects: How Coelacanths Work

Summary

Podcast Summary: Stuff You Should Know – "Selects: How Coelacanths Work"

Episode Details

• Title: Selects: How Coelacanths Work
• Hosts: Josh Clark and Charles "Chuck" Bryant
• Release Date: July 5, 2025
• Description: Dive deep into the mysterious world of coelacanths, ancient fish once thought extinct, and explore their unique biology, discovery, and significance in evolutionary history.

---

1. Introduction to Coelacanths

Josh Clark [01:01]:
"We're gonna jump back in time to June 6, 2017 to talk about coelacanths. How coelacanths work. What in the world is a coelacanth? I think I kinda remember. Check it out right now."

Josh and Chuck introduce the topic of coelacanths, setting the stage for an exploration of these enigmatic creatures.

---

2. The Discovery of Coelacanths

Chuck Bryant [05:05]:
"It was quite a big surprise in the 1930s when a trawler... came in and... the world was saved." [05:05]

The hosts recount the astonishing discovery of coelacanths in 1938 by Marjorie Courtney Latimer off the coast of South Africa. Initially believed extinct for over 80 million years, the capture of a live coelacanth reignited scientific interest and provided invaluable insights into ancient marine life.

Josh Clark [07:06]:
"She picked away the layers of slime to reveal the most beautiful fish I had ever seen." [06:42]
Despite their unusual appearance, Latimer recognized the unique beauty and significance of the coelacanth, leading to its classification as a new species, Latimeria chalumnae.

---

3. Biology and Physical Characteristics

Josh Clark [06:56]:
"It was five feet long, a pale mauvey blue with faint flecks of whitish spots... covered in hard scales and it had four limb-like fins and a strange little puppy dog tail." [06:56]

Coelacanths are described as large, aesthetically striking fish with distinctive features:

• Four Limb-like Fins: Resembling legs, these fins are crucial for understanding their evolutionary significance.
• Rostral Organ: Located in the nasal region, filled with a jelly-like substance believed to detect electrical signals from prey.
• Hinge in the Cranium: Allows the head to retract, enabling the mouth to open exceptionally wide, facilitating the consumption of large prey.

Chuck Bryant [22:34]:
"They have a rostral organ... they think it detects low-level electrical signals and frequencies from prey." [21:41]

---

4. Evolutionary Significance

Josh Clark [10:05]:
"If I'd met a dinosaur in the street, I wouldn't have been more astonished." [09:50]

Coelacanths have been pivotal in understanding vertebrate evolution. Once thought to be a "missing link" between fish and tetrapods, genetic studies have refined their position:

• Sarcopterygians: Coelacanths belong to this group, linking them closely to lungfish and, by extension, to terrestrial vertebrates.
• Living Fossils: Although often termed "living fossils," recent genomic studies suggest that coelacanths have evolved, albeit at a slower rate compared to other species.

Chuck Bryant [15:23]:
"They have a slower rate of substitution." [15:58]
Research published in Nature highlights their reduced evolutionary rate, attributed to stable environmental conditions minimizing the need for rapid adaptation.

---

5. Current Status and Conservation

Josh Clark [35:18]:
"They have exclusively a small population... on the endangered species list." [35:18]

Today, coelacanths are critically endangered, with only two known species surviving:

• West Indian Ocean Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae): Primarily found around the Comoros Islands off the east coast of Africa.
• Indonesian Coelacanth (Latimeria menadoensis): Discovered in 1997, this species has a slightly different coloration and smaller size compared to its African counterpart.

Chuck Bryant [35:56]:
"There are possibly about 1,000 in Indonesia and far fewer off the west coast of Africa." [35:56]
Conservation efforts are paramount to prevent their extinction, as their unique lineage would be lost forever.

---

6. Reproduction and Behavior

Chuck Bryant [24:38]:
"They reproduce through ovoviviparity... gestation lasts three years." [24:00]

Coelacanths exhibit unique reproductive traits:

• Ovoviviparity: Females give birth to live young after eggs develop and hatch internally.
• Extended Gestation: A lengthy three-year period from egg to birth, during which the mother may inadvertently consume her offspring.
• Social Structure: Evidence suggests potential monogamous pairings, as indicated by studies of pregnant females bearing single fathers.

Josh Clark [25:09]:
"They have a longer gestation period than most fish." [25:09]
This extended reproductive cycle underscores their vulnerability, given the low population numbers.

---

7. Unique Adaptations and Behaviors

Chuck Bryant [20:00]:
"They live in the Twilight Zone... nocturnal hunters." [20:00]

Coelacanths inhabit deep-sea environments, typically residing between 500 to 800 feet in the ocean's Twilight Zone. Their nocturnal hunting tactics involve passive bycatch, relying on currents to bring prey within reach.

Josh Clark [22:22]:
"They have an electrosensory organ that detects electrical impulses." [22:22]
This adaptation allows them to locate prey in the dark, murky depths where visibility is minimal.

Josh Clark [22:55]:
"They swim nose down for up to two minutes, headstanding in place." [22:55]
Such behavior may be related to their hunting strategy, utilizing their rostral organ to sense prey.

---

8. Anecdotes and Lesser-Known Facts

Chuck Bryant [36:16]:
"A hematologist once wrote a coelacanth operetta titled 'Asila Kamp's Lament, or quintuplets at 50 fathoms can be Fun.'" [36:16]
Highlighting the cultural impact of coelacanths, the hosts share quirky stories, including a musical operetta inspired by these ancient fish.

Josh Clark [33:34]:
"Their brains occupy 1.5% of their skull... the rest is fat." [33:34]
A fascinating anatomical detail that sheds light on their unique physiology.

---

9. The Future of Coelacanths

Chuck Bryant [35:56]:
"Unless we revive them with some of their DNA, this order is gone." [35:56]
The extinction of coelacanths would mean the loss of an entire branch of vertebrate evolution. Efforts in genetic research and conservation are crucial to ensure their survival.

Josh Clark [36:00]:
"All of these coelacanths matter if there are only a few hundred left." [35:56]
Emphasizing the critical state of their populations and the importance of each individual in maintaining the species.

---

10. Conclusion and Listener Engagement

Towards the end of the episode, the hosts pivot to discussing other living fossils and engage with listener mail, sharing personal anecdotes and encouraging audience interaction. They blend scientific insights with humor, making complex topics accessible and entertaining.

Josh Clark [42:41]:
"If you want to know more about living fossils, like coelacanths or us. Right. You can type those words in the search [e-mail]." [42:34]
Encouraging listeners to further explore the topic through their platform.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Chuck Bryant [09:50]:
  "If I'd met a dinosaur in the street, I wouldn't have been more astonished."

• Josh Clark [22:22]:
  "They have an electrosensory organ that detects electrical impulses."

• Chuck Bryant [35:56]:
  "Unless we revive them with some of their DNA, this order is gone."

---

Final Thoughts

"Selects: How Coelacanths Work" offers an in-depth look into one of the ocean's most mysterious survivors. Through engaging dialogue, historical anecdotes, and scientific exploration, Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant illuminate the fascinating world of coelacanths, underscoring their importance in both evolutionary biology and the urgency of their conservation.

For listeners eager to delve deeper, the episode provides a blend of education and entertainment, staying true to the essence of Stuff You Should Know.

Transcript

[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast. This episode of Stuff youf Should Know is brought to you by Human Footprint Season two on pbs. And the PBS app. The Emmy nominated series reveals humanity's impact on the world around us. Every coffee cup and outfit connects to a web that will change how you see the world. Travel with biologist Shane Campbell Staten from the Colorado river to Thailand's markets. Discover Chile's textile graveyards and trace extinction from prehistory to present. Watch Human Footprint Season 2 on PBS.

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[Josh Clark]

Hi everyone. Happy weekend. I hope you're having a lovely, lovely Saturday, wherever you are in the world. We're gonna jump back in time to June 6, 2017 to talk about coelacanths. How coelacanths work. What in the world is a coelacanth? I think I kinda remember. Check it out right now.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of Iheartrad.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry Jerome, Roland, and just the whole. The whole How Stuff Works gang here to present to you stuff you should know.

[Josh Clark]

All three of us. How you doing?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm good.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I'm a little caffeinated, I should warn you. Oh, a little bit. Like my teeth are about to just come right out of my face.

[Josh Clark]

That's not good. You know, we did a video about coelacanths one time.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like, was it this day in history about when they were discovered? Yeah, I ran across it.

[Josh Clark]

Cause smacked is familiar to me. And you know, the constant fear we have of recording an entire podcast over is sort of always there.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, the fear that sometimes comes true.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So I definitely went back and looked and I was like, I knew we did something.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we were trapped in a shipping container. Right.

[Josh Clark]

I didn't watch it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I didn't either. I just saw enough to say, oh yeah, I remember that one. Yeah, that really weird, weird thing we did.

[Josh Clark]

But this is really cool.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I think I do too. Coelacanths were. Well, they're interesting, despite what the House Stuff Works article would lead you to believe.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, it was.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

It was a little thin, wasn't it?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

A little bit.

[Josh Clark]

It was all right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

But luckily the rest of the Internet is there for us.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. Thanks. Especially to Smithsonian and Mental Floss for this one. Right.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. That Mental Floss article was kind of neat, actually.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It was. So you want to go back to the beginning, actually. The second beginning, maybe.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, well, I don't know what you're talking about now, so just.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay, well, follow me. We'll go back to the very beginning. We'll go back to something about 400 million years ago.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

During the Devonian period, which is. AKA the rise of the fish. Yes, the age of the fish. Right. And in this Devonian period, there's a lot. A lot of stuff going on. Things have been swimming around for a while on Earth. There's a nice atmosphere that's developed. The things in the ocean are starting to say, oh, what's out there? I want to see what's on land.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I can just crawl out and see.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I want to taste clover. So they start trying. And during this period, there was the progression from the sea to the land. And one of those things that was starting to develop legs to get onto land was called the coelacanth.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which, A, it means hollow spine, which we'll get to. There's a reason for that. And B, it's spelled C O, E, L, A, C A, N, T, H, which is, you know, not how you would think it might be spelled.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

Or pronounced rather.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. Either one.

[Josh Clark]

But it's coelacanth.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It is coelacanth.

[Josh Clark]

And what it is is a fish that is, like you said, been around for a long, long time. It's kind of funny looking. And we'll get into all the physical characteristics that make it unusual in a sec. But it is notable mainly for the fact that everyone thought it was gone forever until it was suddenly discovered. This thing that swam with the dinosaurs was discovered anew in the 1930s and then again a little bit later on.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because it pops up for the first time around 407 million years ago, I think I said. And then it just drops off 80 million years ago. So they said, well, a lot of stuff went the way of the dinosaur around the time the dinosaurs went away. So that's probably what happened to the coelacanth. So it was quite a big surprise in the 1930s when a trawler that was out fishing A trawler called the Nerine, which is captained by Hendrik Goosen off the coast of South Africa, came in and as was Captain Goosin's wont, he contacted the director of the local museum in East London, a woman named Ms. Marjorie Courtney Latimer. And she used to come over and look at the fish loads this guy would bring in because they were buddies.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And he gave her a call like normal and said, I got a load. You want to come look at it? And she was like, it's two days before Christmas and it's blazing hot out. Don't forget we're in South Africa at the time. And she's like, I don't feel like it. But the world was saved. The world of ichthyology was saved this day because this lady, Marjorie Courtney Latimer, was so nice that she decided to go look at the fish anyway just to wish the captain and his crew a merry Christmas.

[Josh Clark]

So she takes a look at this fish and here is her quote as she recounted. It wasn't her quote at the time. Her quote at the time was probably a South African expletive.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

But she said later, I picked away the layers of slime to reveal the most beautiful fish I had ever seen. And of course, only a fish lover can find this thing. Truly beautiful.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Because it's kind of ugly.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It is.

[Josh Clark]

It was five feet long, a pale mauvey blue with faint flecks of whitish spots. It had an iridescent silver blue green sheen all over. It was covered in hard scales and it had four limb like fins and a strange little puppy dog tail. Not literally, of course, which would be great though, actually.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's the dogfish that has that.

[Josh Clark]

It was such a beautiful fish. More like a big china ornament. But I didn't know what it was. And it was pretty faithful that she was called in to look at this thing because it ended up being one of the most important zoological finds of.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

History, probably of the 20th century, at least.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

For sure. Yeah. This woman's curiosity, something in her said, this is weird, this is unusual. This is something worth looking into. So she took it with her. This thing was like five feet long, just under two meters, about 100. And how many pounds?

[Josh Clark]

127 pounds.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

This is a significant fish. Yeah. And Ms. Courtney Latimer talked her way into a cab with it. She took a cab back to the East London museum with this fish stuffed in the backseat, and she took it to the taxidermist and had it stuffed. Unfortunately, the taxidermist Wasn't completely aware of how to preserve a fish for identification and. And threw out the skeleton and the gills, which are what you need to ID a fish, apparently.

[Josh Clark]

Well, she probably should have said something. Well, she, like, this is no ordinary mount.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, right. She probably should have.

[Josh Clark]

Or maybe she did. And he just ignored her.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He's like, I'm not gonna get bossed around by a woman. This is 1938. So she contacts a guy named JLB Smith, who is an ichthyologist. He's the head of the ichthyology department at a university in Grahamstown and a PhD in chemistry. He's a smart guy and he's the local fish expert, as far as she knows.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And they're pals. And so she said, hey, I've got this weird looking fish. And then Smith, his quote was, I told myself sternly not to be a fool, but there was something about that sketch and apparently it was sketched. She sent him a sketch of the fish to begin with that seized upon my imagination and told me that this was something very far beyond the usual run of fishes in our seas. And luckily, even though the fish was, I guess, mounted in a traditional form, which, like you said, takes away how you can identify it, she was able to preserve some of the scales. And somehow from these scales he was able to say, this is a coelacanth. Coelacanth, right. Well, that's what he said at first. And she went, it's pronounced coelacanth.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

He's like, oh. Apparently he said when he saw that scale and identified it positively as a coelacanth, his quote was, if I'd met a dinosaur in the street, I wouldn't have been more astonished. I like that guy.

[Josh Clark]

Little hyperbole there, but I like it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So he, I mean, this is seriously, this is like the zoological find of the century and would be for the next 60 something years. Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So he very magnanimously says, you know what? I am going to name this thing after you. And he named it as a new species, Latimeria chalumnae, because, well, obviously her name is Courtney Latimer. Yeah, Courtney Hyphen Latimer.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And it was found in the Chilumna river at the mouth of it where it hits the coast off of the eastern coast of South Africa.

[Josh Clark]

So that's a great name.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's perfect.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It really puts it in a place in time.

[Josh Clark]

So they have now discovered this thing. They realize that they have a big find on their hands. They thought this thing had long been extinct. By tens of millions of years. And so they started to research and, you know, try and learn more about this fish.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Which is no ordinary fish.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, but I mean, this was. So this was 1938, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And it was the only one that had been found for another 60 years.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I mean, there's only so much you can find from a stuffed fish. But it did prove, because it had been caught alive, it wasn't like they pulled up a fossil or a dead fish. It had been alive when it was caught.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think it was attached to another fish.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

Like potentially trying to eat it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Clark]

Which is one of the. Well, not unusual, but interesting things about the coelacanth is that it eats meat.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, there's a lot of unusual things about the coelacanth.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So fast forward another 60 years. Exactly. In Indonesia, which is on the other side of the Indian Ocean. The eastern side of the Indian Ocean. It was actually first seen in 1997 by a biologist named Mark Erdman, who was in Indonesia doing his PhD dissertation and he saw a coelacanth in the market.

[Josh Clark]

That's crazy.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's a coelacanth. What's that doing here? So apparently he put a bit of a bounty out on it with the locals and within a year, by 1998, they had brought him a freshly caught one.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Which is quite a task.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It's finding a once thought extinct fish. Yeah, it's a big one.

[Josh Clark]

Well, and we'll get to a little bit. Why it's even tougher than you would think, too.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure. So the one that Erdman found was brown, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it was a little bit different color.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. The one like Courtney Latimer described, those are known to be like steel blue. This is a brown, a little smaller than the one that Courtney Latimer found. And so eventually, when Eerdman got his hands on that one, he described it as a new species.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, it turns out that at one point, you know, hundreds of millions of years ago, there were potentially over 100 different varieties of this fish. And they came in all shapes and sizes. These obviously were pretty big, but there were some that were smaller and faster, basically just kind of a wide variety. And as far as we know, I think. Are these the only two known survivors?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yes, so far. Yeah. The one that Courtney Latimer founder known as the West Indian Ocean coelacanth, those are the blue ones. They're typically found off of the west. No, the east coast of Africa, south of Kenya, I believe.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Down to about the Comoros Islands. I think that's. They're actually also known as the Comoros island coelacanth, because that seems to be where they inhabit the most or the highest density of them is.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And some of the weirdos that have. Well, we assume that they've been extinct, but you never know. One of them was toothless and over 10ft long. That was the Megalocelacanthus. Very appropriately, some of them said, forget you, ocean, I'm going to go to the freshwater. So there were actually freshwater coelacanths at one time. And like I said, some of them were slow and ambushed prey, some were smaller and faster, but they've pretty much universally all been predators from what I've seen.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. And the two species that are alive today that we know of are, aside from that, Megalus coelacanth tend to be a little bigger than the extinct species.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Which I read is a good example of why they shouldn't be called living fossils, which is what they're frequently called.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's Darwin's term for something that basically never changed. And they've actually studied the genome of the coelacanth and found that they very much haven't changed. And kind of the main reason is they haven't had to. They've kind of stayed in the same places. And when you stay in the same places and you eat the same stuff, then maybe you don't change so much.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I read the opposite of that, that they have changed enough that they have been evolving in. A good example of that is that they're bigger than they used to be.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, interesting.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But the two species that are alive today, they have traced their genomes back and decided that they've been separated for several million years at least.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. This one, they finally got the full genome and they said that it does indeed match the fish's appearance of slower evolution in a journal published in Nature because they have a slower rate of substitution.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Gotcha.

[Josh Clark]

Basically, the doctor. Well, yeah, I guess she is a doctor, just sounded weird to say that. The doctor, the researcher who is also a doctor, she said it may reflect the fact that they do not need to evolve quickly because they've lived in relatively unchanging environment where there are a few predators and they basically haven't needed to change over time like other organisms.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, that brings up another thing too. There's a big question. Why would they just drop off of the fossil record if they'd been around this whole time, if they didn't just go extinct 80 or 65 million years ago. The only explanation I've seen is that the places where the fossils turned up were areas conducive to fossilization. Like there was a lot of sediment that could turn bone into rock, and then the areas that the living species live at now are not conducive to that kind of thing, possibly because they're mostly living around volcanic rock that doesn't necessarily produce fossils. Huh. You want to take a break?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, let's take a break and we'll get back and talk a little bit about this funny fish.

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[Josh Clark]

All right, so we've talked a little bit about what makes the coelacanth such a interesting critter. Can a critter be a fish? Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Have you heard of the cuttlefish? That's a critter if there ever was one.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, a cuddly critter. So here are some remarkable things about the coelacanth. They can live as deep. I mean, they're deep water dwellers. They can live as deep as 2,000 or more feet. But generally they think the. I think they generally live about 500 to 800ft in what they call the Twilight Zone.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Which is still pretty deep.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Remember our cave episode?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That had the same thing. Remember there was like, organisms that live in the dark, organisms that live in the Twilight Zone, and organisms that live in the lighted zone.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

These guys live in that threshold between light and dark in the ocean. And they apparently are nocturnal hunters.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, they come out at night, kind of stay hidden. Most of these habitats are caves that they tend to stay in, but there's one off of Tasmania that do not live in caves. And so they have officially been placed on an endangered list because they don't have the protection from bycatch that these other cave dwellers have.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right, that makes sense.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So the average day in the life of a coelacanth, at least the cave dwelling species, they'll, you know, during the daytime, they're hanging out in a cave. They'll hang out in a cave with. I've seen between up to 12 to 16 other coelacanths.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Have a little coffee.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Maybe just talk. Yeah. You know, talk about their night. And then as night falls, they'll leave their caves and they'll go hunting. And like you said, they're carnivorous predators. They do that passive bycatch thing for the most part. Right. Where they let the. The current bring the food to them, but they just basically hang out and wait for a cuttlefish. It's one thing they eat squids, other cephalopods, some fishes, but they seem to not show aggression toward one another, from what I understand.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And while they are passive hunters, they do have an unusual feature which is, like we said, one of many. But they have what's called a rostral organ, which just means it's in the nasal region in their snout and it's filled with a jelly like substance that they think, and they think most of this stuff, I mean, they've done a lot of good studying, but for something so rare, you can't be super sure, but they think that it detects low level electrical signals and frequencies from prey.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Like a shark or a ray.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It's an electrosensory organ where when living tissue contacts water, it can make an electrical impulse that can be picked up.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And this cool mental floss article is, I think, 11, 11 things about the coelacanth. I can't remember how it was put, but just 11 interesting features.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

11 fishy facts.

[Josh Clark]

Was that it? Unfortunately, that's why I forgot it. Title aside, it's an interesting article and one of the things that they don't know why they do, and I have a feeling it has to do with that electrical frequency, is they'll swim nose down for up to two full minutes, which is weird for a fish.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They're just kind of hovering in place. Headstanding, right? Yeah, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And I guess, I mean, if they have that nasal bag of jelly that helps them locate fish, I would imagine that's what they're doing there. Right.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I imagine it like Tonto, like holding a railroad track, you know? Yeah, I think it's the same thing, basically. So when they catch their prey, they eat them and they can eat stuff that's way bigger than them because again, which is. This is unique to coelacanths. Among living things, they have a hinge in their cranium that allows basically their head is convertible. The top of their skull can retract, allowing their mouth to open really wide. So they can eat a large, large cuttlefish.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I think that feature also allows it to their mouth to close with like much greater force.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

With extreme prejudice.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Like when it's unhinged, emotionally and physically, it can really close that mouth super hard.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They hate themselves for eating cuttlefish. They just can't stop.

[Josh Clark]

So those are just a couple of the features. Another is, and we mentioned earlier, that the name literally translates into hollow spine. This is because they have what's called a notochord, which is a hollow pressurized tube filled with oil where a lot of fish start this way and then they'll eventually get a spine. But this doesn't go away.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. And not just fish vertebrates, apparently there's a lot of mammals that go through this, I think possibly even humans in the embryo.

[Josh Clark]

And the coelacanth just says, I'm good with the notochord.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'm gonna stick here. Yeah, I'm gonna stop here.

[Josh Clark]

Which is strange.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It is strange. You wanna hear some more strangeness? I could do this all day.

[Josh Clark]

Well, it's a strange fish, coelacanth.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

We don't quite understand how they reproduce. And the reason why is because males don't seem to have any sex parts. They don't have junk. They think possibly males grow it when they need it, but otherwise it's not around.

[Josh Clark]

They're growers, they're not showers.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right, Exactly. That's exactly right. So we have no idea how they reproduce, but we know that the mode of reproduction is called ovoviviparity, which is, however, the eggs that the female has get fertilized. Once they're fertilized, they gestate, or the eggs develop in the female and then they hatch in the female and then the live fishes continue to gestate. And the whole period lasts three years before they're born. So they go from egg to being hatched to being born within a three year period. And so apparently this does not make the mom coelacanth very happy. And sometimes she will try to eat her newborn pups. So supposedly, coelacanth pups, that's what they're called, can dive really deep very quickly the moment they're born to get away from mom. To get away from their mom, who's like. Three years. Yeah, three years.

[Josh Clark]

Paging Dr. Freud.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think sharks may be the only.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Other.

[Josh Clark]

Fish that give birth to live little ones. Is that right? I mean, most fish lay eggs, right? So it's definitely unusual.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it may not be unique, but.

[Josh Clark]

The other thing about their sexy time is there's also a theory that they are monogamous.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I saw that too.

[Josh Clark]

In 2013, a German team, they had a couple of corpses of two pregnant, I believe the African version. Yeah, the Latimera chalumnae. And. Cause what was he? I don't remember what the other one was. It was Latimera. Something else for the Indonesian version. Yeah, we'll just go with that for now.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I was practicing pronouncing it Latimera menadoensis. Okay. Wow, thanks.

[Josh Clark]

Nice work. So they analyzed these two pregnant ladies, unfortunately, that were no longer with us, and they found out that they had like most definitely had a single father, which they said was unusual.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

Cause one of them had 26. 26 little baby pups inside of her.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. And they thought at first, well, maybe it's because the coelacanth is so rare that the female wouldn't have opportunity to mate with more than one male. And they said, well, wait a minute.

[Josh Clark]

Well, that's true.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Well, no, not necessarily. Once they found out that they stay.

[Josh Clark]

They hang out together.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. In caves all day long. What else are you gonna do once General Hospital's over? Just looking around at everybody like, well, what do you wanna do?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's a good point. All right, well, let's ponder that and take another break and we'll finish up with even more interesting things about the coelacanth.

[Ira Glass]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest. For Albertsons and Safeway, it's Oral Care Month, which means you can earn four times points on all your favorite oral care brands. Now through July 15th. Shop in store or online for items like Colgate Toothpaste, Listerine Mouthwash, Crest Mouthwash or Toothpaste. Sensodyne Toothpaste, hello, toothpaste or gum flossers and earn four times points. Points can be redeemed for future discounts on gas or groceries. Offer ends July 15. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Michelle Williams]

This is Ira Glass, the host of this American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what to try and do that. We've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are Funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere adapting and making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. If you haven't listened in a while, I honestly think these are some of the best stories we've ever done. This is American Life every week, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

All right, so these guys have live babies.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yep.

[Josh Clark]

They might mate with a single mate.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

G'. Day.

[Josh Clark]

They have. They can unhinge their jaw to eat more.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

They have a jelly filled thing in their nastra.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That detects electricity.

[Josh Clark]

Detects electricity.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I know, I'm having trouble saying detects.

[Josh Clark]

What else? This is sort of a recap.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They have an oil filled spine.

[Josh Clark]

Oil filled spine. They're just good with. They're like, I don't need a real spine.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

This one's my favorite. They were long thought to be the missing link between the fishes and the tetrapods, which are land dwelling four limbed animals.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Because a notable thing I don't think we mentioned yet is this thing has. Well, I think I did in A quote from Ms. Latimere. Courtney Latimere. But they have four fins that move sort of like you would think legs would move if a fish could swim out onto the beach.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Legs and arms.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Remember how Shaggy walked in Scooby Doo?

[Josh Clark]

I do.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Just like that. That's basically how a coelacanth swims.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And the fact that their fins are suspiciously arm like in appearance just made people think that even more. What's more, their arms, what are called lobes, are attached by a bone. That is compared to the humerus in humans.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

So a lot of people said, well, that's it. It's a missing link. The coelacanth is the missing link between the fish and the land dwelling four limbed animals. And apparently once the genome came around, they said, no.

[Josh Clark]

Little disappointing.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They said, yes, we're all related. Technically, we are all what are known as sarcopterygians. Okay, man. Which means we are fleshy limb vertebrates. So we're all that gross. So we are related, but it's not like our direct ancestor. In fact, we're more closely related to the lungfish than the coelacanth. But the coelacanth holds its place of honor as probably living on something of its own branch and is a very close cousin, if not bro, of the lungfish. So we're related by marriage to the.

[Josh Clark]

Coelacanthsae, but legally we probably could marry a coelacanth.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

And have it not be super creepy.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Except for the fact that it's a fish.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. Feel its fleshy lobe fin stroking the back of your head as you kiss it.

[Josh Clark]

I got something for you. I'm just walking right past that one. They taste gross, so don't think it's some weird delicacy.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Not that there are that many of them to eat, but apparently if you do eat them, they can make you sick. Because these things are filled with urea, with oil, with wax, ester. And fat.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yep.

[Josh Clark]

Like 98.5% fat.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's just in its skull.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, I thought that was the whole body.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, Its brain occupies 1.5% of the area inside its skull. The other 98.5% is fat.

[Josh Clark]

And that's at the point that they're an adult, right?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Supposedly their brains are bigger proportionately, when they're younger.

[Josh Clark]

And they just stay there.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

They're frozen in perpetual, like, I guess, toddlerhood, pretty much.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They love life.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No responsibilities, no bills.

[Josh Clark]

Mom and dad.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh Clark]

What else? Oh, I got one for you.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Vestigial lungs.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah. Man, I love these things.

[Josh Clark]

So they grow. They had CT scans done, and this is from the Mental Floss article of these embryos. And they start growing little lungs early in the gestation period, and it slows down a bit, and then by the time they're an adult, the organ serves no purpose.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's just there.

[Josh Clark]

Yep. That's a good one.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It is. It's almost like the coelacanth was an attempt, an evolutionary attempt. And it's just like, I'm gonna scrap this design. Let's move on to the long fish.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, maybe so.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You know, one of the things that struck me, though, Chuck, was when they were talking about how a couple of females that had fully formed young in them, ready to be born, were caught. It's like that was a lot of the coelacanth population that got wiped out with those two caught fish.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, if there are only hundreds, then everyone matters.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They think that there's possibly about 1,000 of the ones that live around Indonesia and far fewer of the ones that live off of the west coast of Africa on the western side of the Indian Ocean. And as a result, both of them are on the endangered species list. They're both protected. The problem is, if something happens to these species and these species die out this time, the whole order is gone for good this time around.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Unless we revive them with some of their DNA.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. All right, I got one last one. And this was on Mental Floss's. List as well. Under the title, a prominent hematologist once wrote a coelacanth operetta. So that's an attention grabber.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Apparently in 1975, there was a man named Charles Rand of Long Island University, and he was a hematologist and was doing some work with the coelacanth. And this was when the big revelation was when they learned that it gave birth to live young. And he, I guess, was a music guy and decided to write a little operetta about this discovery titled Asila Kamp's Lament, or quintuplets at 50 fathoms can be Fun, all sung to the tune of various Gilbert and Sullivan songs.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. That's a hematologist for you.

[Josh Clark]

Wow.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

For sure.

[Josh Clark]

I have no comment on that.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I mean, it speaks for itself, other.

[Josh Clark]

Than I wish this was on tape somewhere.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Surely it's on YouTube. Everything's on YouTube.

[Josh Clark]

You think?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, sure.

[Josh Clark]

You want to go over some of these other living fossils? End quote.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So again, there's some fishes out there that may have made the jump kind of to land or almost did or what have you. But there's some interesting fishes that are worth mentioning.

[Josh Clark]

Speaking of making the jump, did you see that shark that jumped into the boat the other day?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

There was a fisherman and I guess the shark just did. You know, one of their famous. There's a great white.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, God.

[Josh Clark]

Did one of its breaches where they just jump out of the water. And this thing did that and landed in a dude's fishing boat.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

And he. He got banged around a little bit, but was not like, you know, bitten or anything, and basically went into his little control room, I think, and called for help. And this shark, like. I mean, it was kind of sad. I think the shark just died. But there are pictures of it. It's huge. It's like eight feet long.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, my God.

[Josh Clark]

It's not a little guy.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Can you imagine?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

My God.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That guy did the right thing. He ran.

[Josh Clark]

He pooped his pants, too.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I may have jumped into the water had that happened.

[Josh Clark]

All right, so living fossils. The bowfin.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. The dogfish, mudfish or grindle. I like dogfish.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. This guy, I looked all these up. He lives in the Mississippi River Basin in the Great Lakes and other places and are pretty mean. Supposedly, like, eats small mammals, snakes, frogs, other fish.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Like, they'll go after you.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

It's sort of normal looking, just sort of a long fish. Nothing remarkable appearance wise, though.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I'll tell you one that's remarkable appearance wise is the garage. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You know, I just saw a long nose. Gar. They are so ugly last weekend and I was like. It was floating dead in a lake. I was like, what in the world? Cause I went by it at first, I was like, was that a swordfish? Well, I know it's not a swordfish, but in the long nosed ones, I mean, this thing had a. He had a 12 inch beak.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh.

[Josh Clark]

I mean it looked prehistoric.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they very much do look prehistoric, which is one of the reasons why they're called a living fossil. And they are just mean. Apparently they're known to kill other fish, even not even to eat them.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Just because they were in their way, basically. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Like you see this nose?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And you can't eat Gar. They're inedible. And as a matter of fact, if you eat their eggs, it will kill you. They're very toxic to humans and they just go around killing other fish. So they're not the best thing to have in your lake, if you like to fish in a lake.

[Josh Clark]

No. And they. Did you ever see Vernon, Florida, the documentary?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

No, I've never seen that one by.

[Josh Clark]

The great Errol Morri. One of the interviews, it's one of my favorites is with a guy talking about. Talking about the garfish.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really? Yeah, I gotta see that one come.

[Josh Clark]

Across one of those.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh boy, I finally saw Thin Blue Line for the first time.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, that's a good one.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It is really good.

[Josh Clark]

You probably saw it after the parody of documentary now.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yep, I definitely did. I saw the documentary now one which.

[Josh Clark]

They nailed like, it's like perfect.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

They really do.

[Josh Clark]

One of the great shows. What's next? Hagfish?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Mud dwellers.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They basically look like eels, but they're fish. But the interesting thing about hagfish, aside from the fact that they don't have any eyes, is that they eat fish from the inside out.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think you underplayed it when you said they basically look like eels. It looks like something out of Dune.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

Like the body looks like an eel. But have you seen the front end of this thing?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

It's frightening.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And to think about that crawling up in you and eating you from the inside out.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right. Because if you're a dead or dying fish and you're like, oh man, I hope I hurry up and die before a hagfish finds me and a hagfish swims down your throat and then eats you from the inside out, that's a bad day. That's not A good death.

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

And then lastly, what about the sturgeon?

[Josh Clark]

Love the sturgeon.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Did you know that they are both freshwater and saltwater here in North America?

[Josh Clark]

I did not know that. But I know one thing is they're huge.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They get up to like 20ft long.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And I didn't see any pictures of them that big, but I've seen pictures of fishermen with like sturgeon that look like they're at least eight or nine feet long.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And they're crazy looking.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Well, the reason I was surprised that they are largely North America is I always associate them with the Baltic area where they're the beluga. Sturgeon is prized for its caviar. That's what I always think of. I think sturgeon.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I didn't realize that that's where beluga came from either.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And they have armor like skin and they're these retractable mouths that. I guess there are different varieties, but some of them look almost like alligators from like the head forward.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They're weird looking fish.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

But they don't want to hurt anybody. They just want you to eat their eggs.

[Josh Clark]

Is that true?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They're like the giving tree of the lake.

[Josh Clark]

All right. Up with sturgeon.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

You got anything else?

[Josh Clark]

I got nothing else.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

If you want to know more about living fossils, like, you know, coelacanths or us. Right. You can type those words in the search [e-mail] and since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail.

[Josh Clark]

I'm going to call this My mom married Bob Dorough.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Oh, I like this one.

[Josh Clark]

You see that one?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Great.

[Josh Clark]

And I thought it was. Cause that was the subject line.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And then the very first line of the email was, sorry about that attention grabbing subject line. And I thought it was a lie because a lot of times people say something remarkable in the subject line that is completely false, which always ticks me off.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Sure.

[Josh Clark]

But this is true. My mom married the wonderful, talented and sweet Bob Durrow 23 years ago. And if you didn't listen to the show, Bob, Dora was part of the genius behind Schoolhouse Rock. You know, the original genius.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

It was wonderful to hear you two speak so highly of him in your recent podcast. My own family listens to you guys a lot. So to hear you speak of our Bob with such reverence, it warmed our hearts. When you mentioned early in your podcast that you wished you could have gotten Bob on the show, I wanted to jump through my phone to see, say, I can make that happen. Bob learned about you guys about two weeks ago when we took a short road trip for Mother's Day and listened to the grave robbing episode. How awesome is that?

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

I know. The guy listened to us right before we released the Schoolhouse Rock episode. Yeah. So he was primed and ready to hear us mention him.

[Josh Clark]

Fortuitous.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

He chuckled often during the ride. And when we got to our destination, he asked something to the effect of, who are those comedy guys? They're good, man. That made me feel good. And then to have the Schoolhouse Rock episode pop up a few weeks later, it was like, whoa. You guys were spot on in your characterization of Bob as a creative genius. A lot of his genius comes from his hard work. The age of 93, he is still traveling the world taking gigs.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's awesome.

[Josh Clark]

My mom often complains that he doesn't know how to say no. Thank you for giving Bob and Schoolhouse Rockets proper due. Next time you come up the coast, the Northeast, that is, we'll be there and I'm sure Bob won't say no. And that is from Pete, I guess his stepson.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And Pete sent in a picture of he and Bob and that's him in the flesh. It's pretty awesome, pretty neat. And you should go to www.bobdorO-O-R-O u g h.com and just check it out. 93 and going strong.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Nice going, Bob. Thanks for listening to us. And thank you, Pete, for writing in to let us know that we were spot on about what a great guy he is.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, we were genuinely thrilled to hear this.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. If you want to genuinely thrill us, you can send us an email to stuff [e-mail].

[Josh Clark]

Stuff youf Should Know is.

[Ryan Seacrest]

A production of iHeartRadio.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

For more podcasts Myhart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app.

[Ira Glass]

Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons N safeway now through July 15th. Stock up on all your favorite personal care brands and earn four times points to use on later purchases. For discounts on groceries or gas, Shop in store or online for items like Pantene Shampoo, Old Spice, Total Body Deodorant, Tampax Pearl Venus Razors, Head and Shoulder Shampoo, Olay Body Wash, and Pantene conditioner and earn 4 times points. Hurry before these deals are gone. Offer ends July 15th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Ira Glass]

I also want to address the Tonys on a recent episode of Checking in with Michelle Williams I open up about feeling snubbed by the Tony Awards, do I? I was never mad. I was disappointed because I had high hopes to hear. And more on disappointment and protecting your peace. Listen to checking in with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ryan Seacrest]

When your car is making a strange noise, no matter what it is, you can't just pretend it's not happening.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

That's an interesting sound. It's like your mental health.

[Ryan Seacrest]

If you're struggling and feeling overwhelmed, it's important to do something about it.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

It can be as simple as talking to someone or just taking a deep.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Calming breath to ground yourself. Because once you start to address the problem, you can go so much further.

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

The Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Ad Council have resources available for [e-mail].

[Charles W. Chuck Bryant]

This is an I Heart podcast.