Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh Clark. There's
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Jerry sitting in for Dave c.
Speaker 1: And this is short stuff about the Have Alina one
Speaker 1: of the most interesting animals of all time. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: one came to me. This was my pick. And I
Speaker 1: was watching for the probably fifteenth time the Royal Tannon
Speaker 1: bombs and I always loved the part where Gene Hackman
Speaker 1: looks up on the wall where his stuff to have
Speaker 1: Helena head is missing, and he goes, where's my Helena?
Speaker 1: And I was always like, what does have Elina? It's like,
Speaker 1: is it something that only exists in Wes Anderson's world
Speaker 1: or is it a real is it a just a
Speaker 1: funny name that he calls a hog or a boar?
Speaker 1: And it turns out, Havelna is I have Alena? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And actually doesn't it? First of all, what a great movie, manah,
Speaker 1: good movie. Um. And and secondly, I Have Elena is
Speaker 1: not a boar or a hog because those are true pigs.
Speaker 1: Turns out to have Lena is only distantly related to
Speaker 1: the pig family. Um, It's a collared peckory. And it's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting because the differences between it and a pig
Speaker 1: are kind of surprising, especially if you just see one
Speaker 1: of these things and you're like, oh, it's a pig,
Speaker 1: or it's a war hog, is probably what you would say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would think I would probably call it a boar
Speaker 1: because we do have boars here in the South. Uh.
Speaker 1: There they I'm not sure when the video came out,
Speaker 1: but they did pop up on the news when a
Speaker 1: viral video was released by Reese real estate agent and
Speaker 1: Tucson who did this great video. I'm sure you watched
Speaker 1: it of this have Alena just trucking like kind of
Speaker 1: beside this apartment complex by itself, Holland Butt and you know,
Speaker 1: you you always hear that like boars and have Elena's
Speaker 1: like can be really fast, and you know they're big,
Speaker 1: they're big animals, and you're like, how can they be
Speaker 1: that fast? But then when you see this thing flying
Speaker 1: down the road fast, it's kind of cool. And then people,
Speaker 1: of course put music to it and it became a
Speaker 1: big thing. But aside from that, if you don't live
Speaker 1: in you know, uh, probably the handful of states where
Speaker 1: you might see wild Havelna's, you might not know that
Speaker 1: they're even a thing at all. Yeah. Um, they're they're
Speaker 1: pretty cute looking, actually, especially if you're if you think
Speaker 1: boars are cute, because they do like a little bit
Speaker 1: like boars, like war hogs, but they're much smaller. There
Speaker 1: may be two ft tall up to fifty pounds, which
Speaker 1: is not not much. You can pick up a havelina
Speaker 1: if it would let you. Sure you don't want to, though,
Speaker 1: for a couple of reasons that we'll get into in
Speaker 1: a minute. Um. But one of the big difference is
Speaker 1: that they don't have a tail um or at least
Speaker 1: not one that you can see um orreas of course
Speaker 1: pigs do. And then another thing that really stands out
Speaker 1: about the hevelinas is that they tend to hang out
Speaker 1: in herds much more than a pig. Pig will hang
Speaker 1: out with you human, whereas the hevelina isn't want anything
Speaker 1: to do with you and would rather hang out with
Speaker 1: its own people. That's right. Uh. And you know this
Speaker 1: is uh. This is a shorty from the house Stuff
Speaker 1: Works website, and they kind of tick off just a
Speaker 1: bunch of interesting facts and myths and things. And another
Speaker 1: identify r is that they have a scent gland near
Speaker 1: the base of their tail, and they use that to
Speaker 1: identify one another. They use it to mark their territory.
Speaker 1: They will use it to mark each other. They will
Speaker 1: like bump scent glands against each other. Uh. Pigs are
Speaker 1: Old World, meaning from Africa, Asia, and Europe, whereas these
Speaker 1: peckeries are all New World from North, Central and South America.
Speaker 1: So you know, they look a lot alike, but they
Speaker 1: really aren't the same and actually chock one way that
Speaker 1: you could distinguish them because they do all look like um,
Speaker 1: or at least they do bear a similarity to pigs
Speaker 1: is that have alina's. Uh, their noses are different. And actually,
Speaker 1: now that I say that out loud, and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if pigs all have different noses, but with havilina,
Speaker 1: you can basically use it as like a fingerprint for
Speaker 1: a human. It's it's that different um, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: And then tangentially related to that, there, they have a
Speaker 1: really great sense of smell because they use musk to
Speaker 1: kind of mark territory or say hi to one another. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're very stinky um. But so they both smell
Speaker 1: and they also can smell really well. Get it, I do. Uh.
Speaker 1: They're called musk cogs are skunk pigs sometimes because of
Speaker 1: that kind of musky nastiness that comes with them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they also sometimes I think, have been confused for rodents.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure how I mean. I guess it
Speaker 1: could be a giant rodent, but giant gerbil a gerbil
Speaker 1: from Hell. So this expert at least says that it's
Speaker 1: a common misconception. So who knows. I guess maybe some
Speaker 1: people do think they're rodents. So chuck, since we're just
Speaker 1: tossing out facts about Heavelina's um. One of the other
Speaker 1: things that I like is that they can't see very well.
Speaker 1: They can see about thirty feet away, almost like they're
Speaker 1: they're you're sighted, not even almost like they are near sighted.
Speaker 1: They rely mostly on smell um. But because of that,
Speaker 1: they it's easy for a human to get close to them.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to leave it for the other side
Speaker 1: of this commercial break to answer whether that's a good
Speaker 1: thing or a bad thing for you. The human just
Speaker 1: like starts the sky, there is so much stop it's
Speaker 1: actually a bad thing. Okay, here we go, got it.
Speaker 1: That's a quick answer. It really was. Let me elaborate
Speaker 1: the reason why it's bad is because Heavelina's have a
Speaker 1: reppie tation at least out west Um for being ferocious,
Speaker 1: and that may or may not be uh deserved, you know,
Speaker 1: because supposedly people who are have Alina experts like cornuler
Speaker 1: Uh and their ilk um say that no, they're they're defensive.
Speaker 1: They're defending their territory. More often than not, they're defending
Speaker 1: their young. And you've just kind of startled them because
Speaker 1: you've gotten you've gotten close to them, and they didn't
Speaker 1: notice you there before because they can't see very well.
Speaker 1: And now they're saying, back off, our kids are here,
Speaker 1: whereas if you're a human, you're just seeing some scary
Speaker 1: hell pigs coming at you as a group. Basically, yeah uh.
Speaker 1: They are even what is known as even towed ungulates,
Speaker 1: which means they are hoofed mammals. But they bear the
Speaker 1: weight and this is this gets a little wonky, but
Speaker 1: I love it. They bear the weight almost equally on
Speaker 1: their third and fourth toes um, rather than like a
Speaker 1: horse or a rhinoceros who are toad unguluts, and they
Speaker 1: bear most of their weight almost entirely on the third
Speaker 1: You know, I saw a really cool documentary on horses
Speaker 1: called Equis e q u Us. It's about like the
Speaker 1: natural history of the horse and they talk about how
Speaker 1: the horse, the feet of the horse is actually just
Speaker 1: one toe, so like the horses are walking on four toes.
Speaker 1: That's what they walk and run on. Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 1: It is? And uh, I love I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: see that documentary. Do they talk about Cumberland Island, Georgia
Speaker 1: at all? Yeah? I think they do at some point. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't remember where, but yeah, I think so. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That is uh if you're listening and you don't know
Speaker 1: anything about it. One of our barrier islands here in Georgia,
Speaker 1: Cumberland Island is as still has wild horses that roam free. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. It is amazing. You can see video of them.
Speaker 1: You don't even have to go down there for it.
Speaker 1: But when when you travel the Gumberland Island, know it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: It is. I've never been, I've just seen it on video,
Speaker 1: but it looks pretty beautiful. It's great. One of the
Speaker 1: things that really struck me, Chuck, was the second part
Speaker 1: of that movie. Um is about the the domestication of
Speaker 1: horses and how it first happened on the steps of
Speaker 1: like Mongolia, that stuff, so I get us. I watched
Speaker 1: that documentary and it seemed vaguely familiar to me. Then
Speaker 1: next day I was queueing an episode on animal domestication
Speaker 1: and we talked about the exact same thing, like six
Speaker 1: eight years before. Yeah, see how that happens in that
Speaker 1: neat that timing though, from one night to the next day,
Speaker 1: bam bam. And then my brain just exploded a little bit.
Speaker 1: That Mandela effect. Is that what that is? I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I think it's more. Oh, maybe it touches
Speaker 1: on bottom mine hoff a little bit. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: I was thinking. The stuff you should know efect. We
Speaker 1: should have our own effect by now. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: so too. And then you're pushing for the star wipe
Speaker 1: all these years but a different effect. Yeah, yeah, totally
Speaker 1: different meaning of the world. Here's another Havelina back to
Speaker 1: Halna is another Havelina factoid. That other thing is kind
Speaker 1: of cool is that they are generally herbivores um. They
Speaker 1: have these you know, they have kind of the big
Speaker 1: canines or like tusks, and you would think, like, boy,
Speaker 1: those things are some meat eaters and they will eat
Speaker 1: meat like if a if a bird happens to come
Speaker 1: a little too close or something. But they're generally trying
Speaker 1: to get down there in the roots and fruits and
Speaker 1: trying to dig down and eat plants their plan eaters.
Speaker 1: I thought you were gonna say something like boots. Oh,
Speaker 1: I wish I had another one. Roots shoots, very nice
Speaker 1: chuck all right, so um yeah, but yeah, the one
Speaker 1: of the experts mentions how they'll sometimes find dove feathers
Speaker 1: in the hevelina pen. Yeah, it is a little sad,
Speaker 1: but I guess it's an dull course of things, and
Speaker 1: they can be a little uh you know, if you
Speaker 1: live out in Arizona, you might have stories of them
Speaker 1: coming after your dogs because they might think it's a
Speaker 1: coyote or something threatening their their pack. Um, and there
Speaker 1: are did see some videos of dogs and a fence
Speaker 1: with hablinas on the outside of the fence kind of
Speaker 1: there they'll get the mohawk like a dog does on
Speaker 1: their back with the upset and the hair pokes up.
Speaker 1: But um, I also saw a video of aveline and
Speaker 1: a dog playing and a field and it was one
Speaker 1: of the cutest dang things I've ever seen. Helena was
Speaker 1: just bopping him with his head and nosing them, and
Speaker 1: the dog was kind of fake biting, and they would
Speaker 1: run around and it's just the best. Do you know
Speaker 1: what I should search to see that? I would just say,
Speaker 1: Hablina dog play, and I bet you that'll take you
Speaker 1: right there in boots. In boots, you got anything else
Speaker 1: about have Alina's no? I think they're the the unsung
Speaker 1: uh heroes of the even todungulate community. Very nice, Well, everybody,
Speaker 1: the short stuff is over. This short stuff is out.
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