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To Crab, or Not to Crab?

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Manage episode 512794029 series 1301277
Content provided by BBC and BBC Radio 4. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by BBC and BBC Radio 4 or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

We can all picture a crab, but did you know that nature has reinvented those claw clicking, sideways scuttling crustaceans at least five separate times? In recent years the internet has run wild with the idea that crabs are the ultimate life-form, and that even humans might one day end up with pincers too. But is there any truth behind the memes? Hannah and Dara scale the tangled tree of life and tackle taxonomy to figure out if ‘crab’ really is evolution’s favourite shape. Exploring coconut to spanner, ghost to hermit, soldier to spider they learn how to tell the ‘true’ crabs from the impostors.

You can send your everyday mysteries for the team to investigate to: [email protected]

Contributors Dr Joanna Wolfe – Evolutionary Biologist, Harvard University and UC Santa Barbara Professor Matthew Wills - Professor of Evolutionary Paleobiology, University of Bath Ned Suesat-Williams – Director of the Crab Museum, Margate

Producer: Emily Bird Executive Producer: Sasha Feachem A BBC Studios Production

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178 episodes

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To Crab, or Not to Crab?

Curious Cases

3,680 subscribers

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Manage episode 512794029 series 1301277
Content provided by BBC and BBC Radio 4. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by BBC and BBC Radio 4 or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://podcastplayer.com/legal.

We can all picture a crab, but did you know that nature has reinvented those claw clicking, sideways scuttling crustaceans at least five separate times? In recent years the internet has run wild with the idea that crabs are the ultimate life-form, and that even humans might one day end up with pincers too. But is there any truth behind the memes? Hannah and Dara scale the tangled tree of life and tackle taxonomy to figure out if ‘crab’ really is evolution’s favourite shape. Exploring coconut to spanner, ghost to hermit, soldier to spider they learn how to tell the ‘true’ crabs from the impostors.

You can send your everyday mysteries for the team to investigate to: [email protected]

Contributors Dr Joanna Wolfe – Evolutionary Biologist, Harvard University and UC Santa Barbara Professor Matthew Wills - Professor of Evolutionary Paleobiology, University of Bath Ned Suesat-Williams – Director of the Crab Museum, Margate

Producer: Emily Bird Executive Producer: Sasha Feachem A BBC Studios Production

  continue reading

178 episodes

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