MICRO’s Smallest Mollusk Museum explores the last 650 million years of life on earth.
Prepare for a journey into the world of the mollusk: a group of invertebrates that has produced the oldest animal alive, the hardest biological material, and a lot of slime.
Humanity. Mollusks. An epic battle for survival.
Straighten your spine, vertebrate. Things are about to get weird.
Take The Audio Tour
After just sixteen minutes with the Smallest Mollusk Museum, you will:
Be better equipped to meet and greet the mollusks you find around you.
Be able to answer important questions like: who lives longer, us or them? How do their minds work? How many of them, and how long have we shared the planet?
How do snails make more of themselves?
Why does the octopus change its spots?
Voiced by host of Vox Media's Today Explained and ex-RadioLab reporter Sean Rameswaram with music by Allison Leyton-Brown, the Smallest Mollusk Museum's audio tour goes well with showers, driving, diving, and strolls in the park.
Take the audio tour by clicking on the play button to stream it below, or head over to iTunes to use your podcasting app.
smallest mollusk museum: THE Book
The book to MICRO's Smallest Mollusk Museum is open for you to explore right here, right now, if you dare.
Prepare for a journey into the world of the mollusk: a group of invertebrates that has produced the oldest animal alive, the hardest biological material, and a lot of slime.
They look like aliens. Their ranks are legion. Enormous monsters who preyed on our ancestors. Tentacled beasts who spawn millions in minutes. They have spread to thrive in every habitat on earth.
Humanity. Mollusks. An epic battle for survival.
Straighten your spine, vertebrate. Things are about to get weird.
What’s next?
Sometimes it feels like there’s nothing we can do to help the environment. We tell ourselves it’s big, and we’re small. We learn about the mollusks struggling to survive, and we feel powerless to help them.
But just like mollusks, humans have evolved superpowers.
Your smallest decisions have big repercussions, ones that affect your neighborhood, your country and the world.
It doesn’t take long. In just ten minutes, you can start making decisions that add up to a world with less pollution, cleaner water, fresher air, and a bigger family of animals.
Roll The Credits
WRITING: Ruby J. Murray
EDITING: Celeste LeCompte
CONTENT: Amanda Schochet & Charles Philipp
Thank you to all the scientists who generously donated their time and expertise to the Smallest Mollusk Museum:
ORIGINS: Dr. Kenneth Baets, Dr. Phil Donoghue, Dr. Monique Welten, Dr. Martin Rucklin, John Catalani, Dr. Andreas Hejnol, Dr. Jakob Vinther
PERCEPTION: Dr. Daniel Speiser, Dr. Russell Wyeth
BRAINS: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Octopus Research Group, with special thanks to Dr. Ana Turchetti-Maia and Dr. Naama Stern, Dr. Clifton Ragsdale, Dr. Shuichi Shigeno, Dr. Matthew MacDougall, Dr. Todd Anderson
SEX: Dr. Norman Blake, Dr. Ronald Chase, Dr. John Hutchinson, Dr. Heike Reise, Dr. Joris Koene
FAMILY: Dr. Jennifer Mather, Dr. Kaya De Barbaro
DEATH: Dr. Chris Richardson, Dr. Chris Carrico, Dr. James Scourse, Dr. Alan D. Wanamaker Jr., Dr. Paul Butler
EXTINCTION: Dr. Wendell Haag, Dr. Paul Johnson, Abigail Gascho Landis