The Egg Collection!

[@smartereveryday]

Your face when you said a 50 pound baby.... That's the exact moment when I clicked thumbs up. This is an excellent video thank you very much for making it.

[@DipperDK]

orh Destin, you missed a egg pun. It was an "egg-celent" video :D

[@ldamoff]

If her facial expression at that moment isn't made into a .gif then what was even the point of the internet?!

[@Carcosahead]

Lucas Damoff cat videos.

[@IndriidaeNT]

1:29 I love elephant birds! They once lived in Madagascar alongside koala lemurs, sloth lemurs and present-day lemurs and Madagascar life.

[@Edliim]

The sheer panic in Emily's eyes at 2:40 says it all

[@thebrainscoop]

I am NOT over it.

[@Edliim]

​@@thebrainscoop Incredibly jarring

[@MandrakeFernflower]

@@thebrainscoop I think that would shock anyone who wasn't expecting that - kiwi birds are just so strange

[@JoaoPessoa86]

last time we saw cringe like that from Emily there was a demonstration of how a human head has to pass through the birth canal

[@IntrepidFraidyCat]

Reminds me of a biology professor from college...squirrel testicles increase in size during mating season...up to 30% of total body weight. He looked straight at us and said therefore he'd have 35 pound testicles it that occurred in humans. WOW...that classroom moment was a weird one! LOL!

[@EasterWitch]

Painted some Easter eggs yesterday to resemble actual bird eggs, so much fun :-)

[@marianniezayas1531]

Oh I love that! What a good idea.

[@murockey]

Man, everytime the elephant bird is mentioned somewhere I feel so deeply saddened by the destructive nature of human activity.

[@thebrainscoop]

I heard somewhere that the yolk of an elephant bird egg could feed about 90 people.

[@murockey]

@@thebrainscoop sometimes the impressiveness or magnitude of an organism is its demise. :(

[@thebrainscoop]

Right; and if you have a lot of people to feed, well, cooking up an elephant bird egg is an efficient way of doing so.

[@murockey]

@@thebrainscoop well yes, as long as they persisted that was the case. Elephant birds could have probably fed more people though; if having been handled with sustainability in mind.

[@patrickmccurry1563]

@@murockey They probably took a long time to reach maturity making them very inefficient as a food source. For maximum pounds of animal per unit time, you want small, not large. Insect farming is far more efficient than chicken farming which is far more efficient than cattle farming.

[@ArawnsFire]

When you were imagining a 50lbs. baby @ 2:41 you “eggspression” is absolutely priceless.

[@baikia777]

Eggstremely eggscelent eggspression 😛

[@hkwhsu]

So interesting, as always. The images of the collections and discussion of their value is always so enjoyable. I was particularly struck by the comments on the high frequency of blues in eggs, especially due to blue being such a challenging color to make in nature.

[@franzanth]

Awyiss thanks for also covering their colors! I'm always interested in knowing why things look the way they look. I've read a study (can't find it again now) that egg colors are mostly just variants of blue and brown-lighter means less pigmentation and darker means more. I'm always impressed to see all these different eggs that the birds somehow came up with, despite the limitation.

[@fennecfoxfanatic]

new brainscoop video! How eggcelent! No yolk, Im eggcited! :D aaaaaaa

[@dogsfromthecity]

Brainscoop and Scishow comment section always assemble the best nerdy puns. :0)

[@amandaisnotapanda6558]

Woooaaahhh I never knew how cool and varied eggs were! How is literally everything in natural history so interesting??

[@thebrainscoop]

IDK!!! But it IS and I love it.

[@Thomas-dl3lf]

"Eggs are complicated. They should cost like $100 each" - MST3K
My favorite episode yet!

[@marycolomaio6574]

ITS AN EASTER MIRACLE

[@patrickmccurry1563]

With respect to brood parasites, I've heard some facts that I don't know if they're true or not. Such that sometimes the "victims" notice the extra eggs and will kick them out of the nest. But if too many local birds do that, the parasitic parents will go around and destroy nests. Turning it all into a weird extortion racket.
Nature is almost always even more complicated than it at first appears.

[@thebrainscoop]

Yeah, that behavior was published in a 2007 paper by J.P. Hoover and S.K. Robinson: "Retaliatory mafia behavior by a parasitic cowbird favors host acceptance of parasitic eggs" www.pnas.org/content/104/11/4479

[@matthewsbernier]

@@thebrainscoop The extra reading on this video has been amazing!

[@YasminMouse]

New Brainscoop video! Gonna be a good day! Thanks for the new video, love seeing you Emily! ❤️

[@ptarmigan1356]

I found an interesting article about pigment in eggs not only warming up eggs, but also protecting the interior of the egg from UV. Its about blue eggs, but maybe this is also part of the reasom why the emu eggs are dark (if the pigment also absorbs in the UV range). www.sci-news.com/biology/mystery-blue-green-bird-eggs-03908.html

[@censusgary]

We have groove-billed anis, the smooth-billed ani’s nearest relative, here in south Texas. It’s really something to see a bunch of them tending a communal nest.

[@TragoudistrosMPH]

So cool! I'd never heard of communal nests!

[@TheRoboPeanut]

Very informative as always. Never heard of a parasitic bird before. Great job!

[@AilisonCarvalho]

U can see on this man how much knowledge he has. I bet he could go for weeks non stop talking about birds and eggs in general. Also, the tables he prepared to talk about... that's not like anything else out there, you would never see a paleontology table rich like that. We should be paying more attention to birds. Also, big props to him, such a care and dedication.

[@tediouz85]

I do field research in linguistics in a remote area of Papua New Guinea. A woman from a neighboring village had found a cassowary egg, and was selling it. I bought it (I think it was 5 or 10 kina). It was a beautiful mottled green color. The mother of my hosting family cooked it up for us, and it easily fed all five of us. A good topping for our sago jelly.
Also, I love the videos! Thank you for making them to teach us :)

[@zeninsyt]

I love the face you showed when the equivalent 50 pound baby was considered :)

[@smilemountain6622]

Emu eggs are actually a sort of turquoise when they are laid, there is a texture and the top surface of the texture is a different shade than the grooves of the texture. They darken and loose some color within a few days. Perhaps this rapid color change helps the incubators know when it's time to get started. The females lay one egg every few days and when there are enough, the male emu begins incubating the eggs and doesn't leave the nest for food or water until they hatch.

[@BlackIndigenousPosse]

"Eem-you" is the name of that big flightless bird from Australia.
Splendid video, nonetheless.

[@Socratica]

Love seeing the pathway that deposits colour! Thanks for teaching us!

[@cassandee1303]

Loved this Emily. More collection videos please! They're my favorites!

[@timingisperfect]

"Avian pediatrics"! What a treat to meet Mr Bates and learn about this fascinating (and seemingly obscure) field of study.

[@davidonfim2381]

I've often heard that animals can't really make blue pigments, and the blue color that IS found in animals is purely structural. Is the blue color in eggs structural? If it's from byproducts of pigment production, that would suggest that animals CAN make blue pigments. If it's structural color, that would suggest that it is not a byproduct but a specific adaptation to something...

[@ptarmigan1356]

I am wondering this too!

[@s.haefke5957]

Hey for all German-speaking listeners, there is a recently published book called "Die verlorenen Arten" (The lost species) by Christopher Kemp. It's about all the forgotten or false identified specimens in Museen all over the world. It speaks for example about the olinguito that has already been covered on this channel.

[@ptarmigan1356]

Sounds interesting!

[@aerospacenews]

Great job Emily! I really enjoyed this. Graphics were great too.

[@audpicc]

I had no idea grackle eggs were so cool. I have a huge flock of them nesting in my yard this spring with a few nests in the hedge of arborvitae near our driveway. I'm going to go make sure I have a quick peep before they hatch! Makes me wish I had a gopro...

[@corsetedangel9008]

68 years old? never knew birds could live that long. That is awesome! Thank you. It's good to see new posts! I've missed you!

[@CrankyPantss]

That was very interesting. Emily's casual interview style is always appreciated and John seemed like a guy who would be fascinating to talk to and learn from. All in all, it was a very good episode. Thanks for sharing that with us.

[@domainofscience]

This was fascinating! I'm going to avoid making an egg pun because they are too over easy. Dammit!

[@maddygm4677]

Great episode! Congrats on the 500k!!! 🔬❤️

[@TragoudistrosMPH]

5:00 a cool experiment I learned of in neuroscience showed that birds have a sense of 'eggness' and certain shapes and sizes are preferred over others. They tried artificial eggs of different shapes and sizes and recorded which eggs were preferred:)
Kind of like are sense of adorableness and how certain specific details are adorable and others are not.
Now...it doesn't explain why the birds might enjoy an 'upgrade' (though sometimes they reject new eggs) but it's pretty cool.

[@gruingas]

"eggxpert"!!!!!

[@yellowlemonPenguin]

Sometimes I watch videos like this just to get a glimpse of the passion that people have for learning about the world. It's always enlightening and makes me want to follow suit.

[@maxravenwood3877]

This video is 50% more immersive if you watch it while eating an egg sandwich.

[@stephclarke6850]

I was eating egg salad!

[@shreyasshankar4109]

@brainscoop just came across your channel recently and it's so refreshing to see your content!

[@mothman69]

DDT was often used as a pesticide specifically for dengue mosquitoes and it was actually able to eradicate the pathogen from some countries like it was insanely effective, so its interesting to hear about it from another perspective where it was affecting the falcons ability to hatch eggs

[@masaharumorimoto4761]

Glad I stumbled into your channel!! Fascinating! Thanks for sharing :)

[@mutiethedemon5102]

Theory on the emu eggs.
They're dark so the female isn't around the nest as much. If she were to be constantly incubating then leaving would make it easy for predators to find the nest.
Keeping the eggs dark means they can keep warm without the mother. Letting her eat and keep healthy to protect the eggs when needed. Similar to how fawn's blend in with the environment. It keeps them safe while the mother only comes to feed them till they are stronger to stay with her.

[@gartengeflugel924]

Just got the book of eggs a week ago! It's a wonderful piece of scientific literature to look up all the amazing bird eggs. Tanks for this very informative and educating video!

[@philippj5711]

Another one of those "didn't know I wanted to know about this" videos. Thanks Emily :)

[@madisonplunkert2042]

Wow, what a great video! So many ecology/life history/conservation concepts all connect to egg traits. I wish I had shown this to my ornithology students!

[@CybranM]

Great video, I love these guest videos with lots of items to showcase :D

[@rtongcn]

He is great! What an amazing collection. Please bring him back in a future episode!

[@Lain-404]

I'm really glad cowbirds were mentioned! They're my favorite type of bird!!

[@Tinyvalkyrie410]

For about five years I had a cowbird that came to me every summer, she would even come in my house. The are definitely one of my favorites too. They are the mafia of the bird world, but an excellent friend to me. Although when the males would show up to court her I was less pleased... man they were loud. I named her Lisa. No idea why.

[@darkloverose132]

So does the egg have to be partially destroyed to get the shell thickness? If so how is an egg chosen to sacrafice or do you guys have already broken egg shells to use?

[@seany.9709]

This has to be one of my favorite videos I have seen here!! I just love eggs!! They are so egg-cellent!

[@evilshrimpy]

I read an article recently ( vis.sciencemag.org/eggs/ is not that article, but it seems to be a pretty fancy breakdown of the conclusions ) that described a process of surveying and categorizing a wide sampling of bird eggs and comparing them with the parent birds for a variety of factors to see if anything correlated with egg shape so as to actually explain why egg shape is so varied in birds. It seems like the main thing that effects a given species' egg shape is the shape of the species' body- their aerodynamicness, basically.
That's really cool! Even in 2019 we're still learning new things about the ancient egg.

[@Ten1temsOrLess]

Brilliant video! I love that there is still so many questions about bird eggs that are unanswered and hearing how people figured out DDT was the cause of the falcon egg issue was inspiring :) Thanks for making such an interesting video.

[@coolcutiekitti17]

I’ve never had an interest in birds or eggs, but this video was fascinating! I love this channel!

[@rupakkar4]

Such a beautiful collection n story but still on 252 comments.common guys we should support her in quest for love of nature.mother nature.love from India

[@mariahmartijn6026]

My uncles are egg farmers, very small, but they have different chickens and a few other local birds, so I really found this video sooo interesting waw! Loved it!

[@mrkillerdildo]

I wish you had more viewers your videos are of such high quality. Gave it a share

[@coalhoste5159]

brainscoop, uploading? More likely than you'd think.

[@isabeldambrosio2193]

This has been one of my favorite episodes and I dont know why.

[@DuluthTW]

Eggsellent episode!

[@GreaterBayArea]

I've been waiting my whole life for eggs

[@offtraileddino5989]

Loving the curious content from the channel. It would be fascinating to do some research in dinosaur egg colour if I ever got a PhD position in the future.
Since birds are descendants of dinosaurs, it would be quite a sight if we step back into the mesozoic where there are (hypothetically) flamboyant eggs everywhere during the nesting seasons.

[@LovelyAngel.]

Never heard of an elephant bird before, so when he said that egg belongs to elephant bird at first I understood it's an elephant egg and got a brain error for a second.

[@olgagordina4393]

Thank you for an interesting and educational video! I immediately got intrigued by the subject and bought The Book Of Eggs online. New reading material 🤩

[@anne-droid7739]

4:03 Nope. No, it didn't. Cervantes was not familiar with all the varieties of nesting strategy--he was familiar with how people collect hen eggs. Edit: Yes, I know that Cervantes didn't invent the phrase; but it became an idiom widely enough understood for him to use because people related to dropping a basket of eggs--not because they related to atypical nesting habits in birds they'd never heard of.

[@DeathbyPixels]

Arctic Terns and Kiwis are way bigger than I thought they were. Wattled Jacanas are smaller than I thought... my world is collapsing lol

[@laurawilson8646]

If it helps, that looks like a North Island Brown Kiwi, which is the largest kiwi species.

[@tacobowler]

That pun made me literally grown. Good one

[@lukethomas658]

How long does it take the bird to form the egg inside their body before it is laid? (Probably varies?) I liked the preserved birds with their eggs. Every time you make one of these I want to visit the museum!

[@RadioMist]

I'm so excited about this video! Thank you, Emily!

[@picklewithaz3737]

Female emus don’t incubate the eggs. The males do. It’s a cool quirk, and it realllllly peeved me to see that fact be incorrect.

[@Treeplanter73]

For every egg in the collection=an unborn nonbreeding bird. The Victorian egg collections made some birds extinct and others near extinct.

[@Rainkit]

I just want to comment a theory I have on blue colored eggs. Blue eggs seem to be rare in temperate areas. Or at least, they are in temperate north America. In a way it makes sense that there might be fewer in areas where resources might be more limited since blue is normally very costly to make. The most prominent blue egg layer in north America is the American Robin. Also in north America is the brown headed cowbird. Whereas most bird don't seem to notice cowbird eggs, I've seen videos where robins will reject cowbird eggs because they look too different from their blue eggs. So my theory was that the blue possibly evolved as a counter to brood parasites.
Or perhaps its just a coincidence. Still, its interesting to note.

[@markl4112]

Wow! One of the most info packed vids so far.

[@aurusallos]

Hi Emily!
Does the Field's egg collection only focus on bird eggs? Or do they have reptile eggs as well? Is there a separate collection for reptile eggs?

[@ptarmigan1356]

+

[@mikkosaarinen3225]

Yay more brainscoop!!

[@taleandclawrock2606]

Loved this! Thanks!

[@nedsdark8044]

Many civilisations & cultures see the egg as the embodiment of the soul.

[@elynnehering5749]

Well done video! thank you.

[@0riginal_panda_child249]

Remember that episode of American Dad where Steve tries to take down the Order of the Hand and Nest

[@haleyswanson9695]

is there a collection of reptile eggs? Aren't they more leathery and does that make them harder to preserve?

[@thebrainscoop]

They do have a different consistency. Any reptile eggs we have in the collection are likely stored in alcohol in jars.

[@udaychandan449]

Great video Emily! Did you find out how the eggs are preserved in the collection? Some look like they have a hole in them to drain the contents.

[@TeaRanosaur]

Why are flightless birds from Africa and Australia, which by the late cretaceous were already quite geographically separated, so interrelated?

[@thebrainscoop]

A lot of them fall within the infraclass Palaeognathae, aka Ratites, which includes ostrich, emu, cassowary. It's thought ratites evolved from a common ancestor that lived on Gondwana, which was a supercontinent between 550-180 million years ago. So, they drifted apart after that. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratite

[@TeaRanosaur]

@@thebrainscoop Fascinating! Thanks!

[@oliverwilson11]

@@thebrainscoop
That would be the most obvious explanation but genetic studies since 2000 seem to show that it is wrong and that the real story is much more complicated and confusing and surprising. PBS Eons has a video about it
ruclips.net/video/M3h05ajJw0o/видео.html

[@humanoidmodel4217]

This was really fascinating.

[@PoseidonXIII]

Crazy cool stuff!!

[@Zahri8Alang]

I'm often so peeved at people eating turtle eggs. Like DUDE, you're gonna waste money(they are often pricey) by also contributing for their decline?

[@NewMessage]

Here's a question... Seeing as blue is the rarest color in animals.. why is it so common in bird eggs?

[@ptarmigan1356]

Im also wondering if is it a blue pigment, or structural colour like other blue things in nature? And if it is a pigment, why is that actually so rare in other places?

[@kevinquinonez838]

The title says "the egg collection" I thought there will also be crocodiles, turtles, lizards, and fish eggs in the collection

[@TragoudistrosMPH]

This was perfectly executed! Thank you!

[@yuvabharatchannel9433]

Good information

[@PaulPaulPaulson]

As the famous egg-expert O. Kahn once said: "Eier, wir brauchen Eier!"

[@raraavis7782]

Paul Paulson
Immortal words 😂

[@IntrepidFraidyCat]

Avian pediatrics! Love it!

[@alexandraw909]

Is it similar with lizard/repile eggs?

[@michellehammer1933]

Eggcellent coverage of bird biology via the egg lense!

[@matthewsbernier]

So, in regard to Kiwis' large eggs: Did they start as an elephant bird, with big eggs, and then evolutionary pressure made a population of them smaller, but did not correspondingly make the eggs smaller, thus resulting in the birds' bodies adapting around their large eggs instead?

[@thebrainscoop]

Some researchers think the giant egg means more yolk, therefore more nutrition for the chick; it gets to 'cook' longer so when it finally hatches it's ready to run! Audubon posted a neat article on it: www.audubon.org/news/why-kiwis-egg-so-big

[@matthewsbernier]

@@thebrainscoop I am proud to share a discredited theory with brilliant past scientists, and very happy to have been corrected and surprised! Thanks for this.

[@matthewsbernier]

@@patrickmccurry1563 Check out the paper TheBrainScoop replied with! We both came up with the same discredited theory past scientists did.

[@sinachiniforoosh]

When I saw Emily's reaction to the thought of giving birth to a 50 pound baby I was like "same" but I don't even have a womb

[@boy638]

Goddarnit humans! I wished I could see a living elephant bird!

[@Medineer_Gaming]

Quickly! someone make a One Night at Flumpty's reference

[@therabbithat]

What a cool shirt, i like shirts with birds. They are always really expensive here so i have to buy shirts with flowers, which are a third of the price

[@therabbithat]

polka dot shirts are also affordable but i would prefer shirts with eggs instead but they do not exist :(

[@Pottery4Life]

How are the eggs treated/prepared /preserved for the collection?

[@colstonish]

Yay a new video

[@kassemir]

So like, why, how and at what point do they drain the eggs? Looked like they all had holes drilled in to them, so they only keep the shell of the egg for research?
Kinda feel like that'd be an obvious question to include in a video like this. Certainly peeked my curiosity.

[@zalander6912]

This is awesome! But how do you actually go about preserving eggs?

[@wolpard2033]

They're emptied. If you look closely you can see little holes drilled into them to drain them. Shells won't rot, you just have to be careful not to crush them.

[@fennecfoxfanatic]

How would you preserve reptile eggs? Or squishier eggs like frog or fish eggs?

[@fennecfoxfanatic]

Oh and do the eggs have patterns that can only be seen with uv lights? It be so cool if they have species specific patterns!