Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Do you think you could survive without a brain? Ho, believe it or not, there are creatures out there that don't even have a brain. And today we're gonna talk about one of them. And not only that, I'm gonna share a story with you today using this little creature to let you see how you can make a difference. Welcome to Planet CPR Conserve. Protect Restore. A place to learn about our planet near and bar and in our backyard. I am. Your host fledge Fiamingo. And as a safari ranger from South Africa, I love to learn new things about the planet and the creatures that live around us and then share this with others. So grab your thirst for knowledge and learn how we can make a difference today to conserve, protect, and restore what we have left. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about a creature that probably a lot of you actually know and have heard of or even seen when walking along the beach or maybe even in the rock pools, or maybe you even went to visit an aquarium and you got to touch them. And the creature I'm going to talk about today, he's got a really weird name. In fact, it's got a bunch of arms as well, and all these little spines that kind of COVID the body and all these little suckers that go underneath. Any idea what creature I'm talking about? I'm talking about a starfish. Have you seen a starfish? Have you ever touched a starfish? Well, they are quite incredible creatures. And yes, believe it or not, they don't even have a brain. And yet they can function and they can survive. Isn't that just crazy? Now, what's even more funny is that we call them starfish, but they are not fish at all. In fact, they don't even have tails like a fish, they don't swim like a fish, they don't have gills like a fish. So why on earth would anyone want to call them a starfish? And yes, I understand they have multiple arms and they can look like a star, so that part of the name makes sense. But fish? Oh, no, we've got to change the name. In fact, that's what they're going to do. We are trying to move away from the name Starfish to Sea Star. So for the rest of this, I'm going to refer to them as a Sea Star. Practice with me. Instead of saying starfish, can you say Sea Star?
[00:02:17] Okay, let's do it again. It's not a starfish. It is a Sea star. Excellent. So before we learn how we can make a difference to conserve, protect, and restore the planet that we all share, let's learn some fun facts, and maybe we can learn something new. Are you ready? So apart from not having a brain, the Sea Star has no blood either. What's incredible is that they actually suck up all the salt water and then pump it through their body and that kind of works as their blood, that kind of brings nutrients and all these things that help the sea star survive. If I drank a glass of salty water, oh my gosh, that would be just so I couldn't even eat a whole teaspoon of salt. But yet the sea star will pump all the salt water through their body to get the nutrients. Now what's absolutely incredible, just like you and I, we just couldn't enjoy a glass full of salty water. A sea star could not pump fresh water through their body. It has to be salty, otherwise they will die. Another wonderful feature of the sea star is that it has no backbone. In fact, it has no bones at all, unlike you and I, where we can stand up and we have a spine and we have legs and we have arms, we have all these bones inside our body. Sea stars don't have that. In other words, they fall into a group called invertebrates. Can you shout out the word invertebrates?
[00:03:50] So, invertebrates, they don't have a backbone. Like us creatures and us on the planet that have backbones, that have a spine. We are called vertebrates. Can you shout out the word vertebrates?
[00:04:05] Excellent. So how many arms do you have? I have two arms. Can you stretch your arms out as far as you can stretch? How far can you stretch? Stretch your arms out as far as you can. Human beings are blessed with two arms. Sea stars have up to five arms. But believe it or not, there are some sea stars that have up to 40 arms. Can you believe that? Using your two arms, could you use one arm and touch the end of your nose? And can you use the other arm to maybe touch someone else's nose? Some pretty cool things that we can do with two arms. Can you imagine having 40 arms? Oh my gosh. I could think of some great things that I could be doing with 40 arms. Not only could I touch my nose and scratch my ear and pick up my tablet or my phone and scroll, I could reach for that doughnut on the table, I could get the remote control for the TV. Imagine what you could do with over 40 arms. Have you ever wondered how on earth a sea star can move? What's fascinating is underneath those arms are these pincer like suction cups and they use those kind of like legs and they can move around the seabed, they can move around the rock pools and the coral reefs. What is so interesting is that the end of the arms of the sea stars are light receptors or photoreceptors. And what these are, are receptors that actually figure out how dark, how light the environment is around them and that helps them navigate. And if you've ever wondered why they are little prickly spines on the top of a sea star, well, that's the protective armor so that they can protect themselves from things that are going to eat them. And for me, one of the most incredible fun facts about the sea star is that they can live in rock pools, they can live along the beach, they can live on coral reefs. But sea stars have also been found almost 5 miles down and 5 miles deep in the ocean. And that amazes me that this little creature can do that. One of the best ways to make a difference is actually learn about the creatures that live around us. Because most times we actually fear things that we don't understand. So if we take time to learn about the things that we don't understand, then we can learn to make a difference to help conserve, protect and restore them. And this leads me to the story I would like to share with you today. Because you're probably wondering, well, I'm just one person and I'm really young. How on earth could I make a difference? And the story goes like this. There was a man who was walking along the beach and he came across a little boy who was standing on the sand and picking up sea stars and throwing them off into the ocean. And the man was kind of like, what is this little guy doing? So he walked up to the boy and said, hey, what are you doing? And the little boy said, I'm making a difference to these sea stars. And so the man looked down the beach one way and there was probably 10,000 sea stars lying on the sand. He looked down the other way and there was probably 100,000 sea stars just lying on the beach. And he looked at the little boy and he said, do you really think that you could make a difference? And the little boy bent down, picked up a sea star and threw it into the ocean. And as it hit the water and sank to the bottom, the little boy looked at the man and said, I made a difference to that one. And it doesn't have to just be a sea star. It could be pretty much any creature or any plant that lives on our planet. Do you enjoy going to the beach? We love going to the beach with our kids. And all too often we will walk along the beach and our kids will pick up an abundance of shells and other little things that are lying on the beach and then they'll take him home. And unfortunately, months later, those little things just get thrown in the trash. So how do we make a difference? Well, I let our kids know, hey, it's okay to pick things up, but do we really need to take them home? And what happens? Pick up the sea stars that are washed up onto the sand, or they even take them out of the rock pools and put them in a bucket and take them home. How can we make a small difference? Well, we encourage our kids to maybe just leave them on the beach. It's okay to look at them. It's okay to pick them up. It's okay to put them back in the rock pool and put them back in the ocean. But let's not take them home just because we want to take them home and then throw them away later. So next time you are walking along the beach, it's wonderful to pick things up and look at them, but perhaps we could make a small difference and just leave them where they are. And guess what? It's not just for sea stars. It's for any creature that lives around us. It could be for butterflies. It could be for flowers, could be for trees that we want to cut down just because they trees. We can make a huge difference just by looking, observing and learning. So take a little time today to learn about something new. And you, yes, you could make a small difference today that could make a huge impact tomorrow. I hope that you have learned something great today on planet CPR to help us all consider, serve, protect and restore the planet we all share. Until our next adventure together. This is Safari Ranger Fledge Fiamingo signing off.
