Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Creature feature, the show where we
Speaker 1: explore all the weird things in nature that your seventh
Speaker 1: grade biology teacher was too much of a prood to
Speaker 1: teach you. I'm Katie Golden, I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and I'm your host of many parasites. Today we're talking
Speaker 1: about anatomy that just seems well made up, like if
Speaker 1: you gave Salvador Dalis some bad weed and told them
Speaker 1: to invent some animals. We're answering some of the weirdest
Speaker 1: questions about evolution and anatomy, like how do woodpeckers keep
Speaker 1: from scrambling their brains? What animals have not one, not too,
Speaker 1: but three vaginas? Why would a doctor want to sew
Speaker 1: your leg on backwards? Discover this and more as we
Speaker 1: answer the age old question what are some of the
Speaker 1: most bodacious boobs in the animal kingdom? So medical science
Speaker 1: has advanced to the point where we now have a
Speaker 1: pretty good idea of human anatomy, the heart bones connected
Speaker 1: to the leg bone and whatever. But we haven't always
Speaker 1: been so intimately familiar with our inner workings. In fact,
Speaker 1: we used to have some pretty fantastical ideas about how
Speaker 1: the human body worked before doctors decided to dig up
Speaker 1: dead bodies and really settle the matter once and for all.
Speaker 1: For instance, in the late seventeen hundreds, phrenology was the
Speaker 1: quote science of measuring someone's psychology by feeling their head bumps,
Speaker 1: the theory being that the different parts of the brain
Speaker 1: controlled different emotions, so when they worked out more, they
Speaker 1: got more swollen something. Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, had theorized that the heart was where your
Speaker 1: consciousness resided, and the brain and other organs were simply
Speaker 1: cooling mechanisms to keep the heart cool for some reason.
Speaker 1: And in the eighteenth century, the preformationism theory held that
Speaker 1: each sperm contained a tiny, fully developed human that simply
Speaker 1: grew larger in the woman's womb like one of those
Speaker 1: you know, like grow your own dinosaur capsules. This all
Speaker 1: sounds crazy and stupid, and well, yeah it is, but
Speaker 1: we're about to discuss even crazier and stupid or sounding
Speaker 1: anatomy that is actually scientifically accurate. Joining me today are
Speaker 1: the host of the podcast Ridiculous History, Nold Brown and
Speaker 1: Ben Bolan. Welcome you guys, Thanks for having us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see some weird animals, as the slideshow
Speaker 1: in front of me promises. Well, we say that now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't looked ahead, I have not cheated. I'm ready
Speaker 1: to be like you know, I'm ready to give a
Speaker 1: completely realistic reaction and challenge. Yeah, this may challenge some
Speaker 1: of our preformationist or preformist views. Uh did I did
Speaker 1: I get that right? I think? Yeah, it's performationism. Performation
Speaker 1: is m yeah. Yeah, so let's be open minded. We
Speaker 1: think the performationism. Uh, science is pretty solid. Uh, I
Speaker 1: mean willing to be wrong. I mean it is just
Speaker 1: like you know, I mean I don't know how else
Speaker 1: of fetus is supposed to develop? What like, although the
Speaker 1: thing with the performationism that's interesting saying is the ideas
Speaker 1: that it's already this fully formed human that just didn't
Speaker 1: exists inside you. Then like is there does that fully
Speaker 1: formed human also have like a fully formed hum and
Speaker 1: like is it fetuses all the way down? Yes, it's
Speaker 1: basically like Cabbage Patch Kids rules, you know, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know what that means exactly, but you know, I
Speaker 1: have no idea what what cabbage Patch kids? You mean?
Speaker 1: Just like cabbage patch kids just kind of are like
Speaker 1: they just are birthed into existence, like fully formed from
Speaker 1: the cabbage cabbage, right right, So maybe that's the the
Speaker 1: cabbage sub discipline performation is another think about. I went
Speaker 1: to there's a place in Georgia called baby Land General.
Speaker 1: It's like where the cabbage patch babies are born. And
Speaker 1: there's a really creepy tree that they shove the cabbage
Speaker 1: patch babies out of and that's how their birth into
Speaker 1: the world is through this magical tree and their heads
Speaker 1: pop up, their heads. I've been there too. It's a
Speaker 1: really creepy place. What is this? This is like a
Speaker 1: real what are you what the yeah, what are you
Speaker 1: guys talking about. It's called baby Land General Hospital, and
Speaker 1: it's like the home of like where it's like in
Speaker 1: the town I think it's called Cleveland, Georgia, where cabbage
Speaker 1: patch babies were invented by you know, Jonathan cabbage Patch.
Speaker 1: It's the only thing in the town too. It's this
Speaker 1: mansion that used to be their house, and it really
Speaker 1: does look like a creepy kind of like a psych
Speaker 1: ward or something like that. It's a very strange place
Speaker 1: and kids have birthday parties there so it's like actually
Speaker 1: affiliated with the cabbage Patch company. Absolutely, yes, HQ. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna send you a weird YouTube link after this episode.
Speaker 1: They have a really really serious collection with Andy Warhol.
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol paintings of cabbage Patch kids are all over
Speaker 1: the wall pictures of celebrities. But that's neither here nor there,
Speaker 1: really isn't. That is pretty messed up, But we're about
Speaker 1: to get even more messed up. You get um, So
Speaker 1: have you given much thought to woodpeckers? Actually? Yes, I
Speaker 1: grew up with some woodpeckers in our yard, and I
Speaker 1: was always disappointed because they seemed radically different in comparison
Speaker 1: to the other woodpeckers I saw in the media, like
Speaker 1: woody woodpeck These were just these very like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to say, aggro, but very myopically focused birds who
Speaker 1: just kept hitting their heads against trees, and it blew
Speaker 1: my mind. I didn't understand. My parents explained to me
Speaker 1: that they were doing that to eat bugs. Is that correct? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: uh they do. Actually, as their name implies, peck would uh,
Speaker 1: And they'll bang their heads against the tree with their
Speaker 1: their well, they're they're banging their banks against the tree.
Speaker 1: Bark to create these holes so that they can reach inside.
Speaker 1: And it's but for the insects, you know, to eat
Speaker 1: up some ants or larva or whatever is living in
Speaker 1: the tree bark. They also will do it to help
Speaker 1: themselves nests, So sometimes they pull away tree bark to
Speaker 1: access holes in the tree, uh to nest there, to
Speaker 1: to increase the size of a hole and excavate there
Speaker 1: a little nesting area. They also do something called drumming,
Speaker 1: where it's just wrapping against the tree for seemingly the
Speaker 1: only purpose is uh sexual behavior like mating mating call.
Speaker 1: But as people may know, if if there's any metal
Speaker 1: fans out there, like head banging is extremely unpleasant. Even
Speaker 1: when you're just banging your head against air, it it's disorienting,
Speaker 1: it hurts, So you can imagine that if you're banging
Speaker 1: your head against solid wood, that would be pretty unpleasant
Speaker 1: and probably give you a lot of head injuries. So
Speaker 1: it's really incredible when you think about how rapid these
Speaker 1: little jackhammers are going and how that seems like that
Speaker 1: would instantly destroy their tiny little bird brains and smack
Speaker 1: their skulls and just explode their heads. But uh, there
Speaker 1: you have developed a few very interesting evolutionary traits that
Speaker 1: allow them to keep on head banging without actually getting
Speaker 1: brain damage. So first of all, kind of the obvious
Speaker 1: one is that they have thickened skulls uh, and they
Speaker 1: have powerful neck muscles for for that control. Another more
Speaker 1: subtle one is that the beak is actually kind of
Speaker 1: designed for shock absorption. So they've got this over bye
Speaker 1: and the top of the beak is more fleshy than
Speaker 1: the lower beak, which is bonier. So then that directs
Speaker 1: the force of the impact towards the lower beak um,
Speaker 1: and then that directs it away from the brain case area.
Speaker 1: But you guys are here for the real gross weird stuff,
Speaker 1: So one more trick up their sleeves or well, I
Speaker 1: guess up, there's skull UM. I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about woodpecker tongues. They're very interesting and weird. So
Speaker 1: woodpeckers often have pretty long tongues. Uh. They're covered in
Speaker 1: sticky barbs so that they can stick it into those
Speaker 1: tree holes uh to slurp up ants and larva um.
Speaker 1: Someone peckers species have shorter tongues with more bristles, so
Speaker 1: there there's variety amongst the woodpecker species, but for many
Speaker 1: of them, uh, it has to be long so that
Speaker 1: they can get get in there and get those ants
Speaker 1: out of the wood. So, but we don't see woodpeckers
Speaker 1: just with this tongue flopping out, And they're not like
Speaker 1: hummingbirds where they have a really long beak. So where
Speaker 1: where do they keep it? Well, it's in its skull.
Speaker 1: It winds up kind of like a measuring tape. It
Speaker 1: literally will wrap around the back of their head and
Speaker 1: up over their skull and then towards their nasal cavity.
Speaker 1: And the way that it does this is actually even
Speaker 1: weirder than just the fact that it winds its tongue
Speaker 1: around around its school, because I think that that fact
Speaker 1: is maybe out there. Um, but how it does so.
Speaker 1: First of all, the tongue is bifurcated in the back,
Speaker 1: which means split into um. So think like a reverse
Speaker 1: snake tongue, where instead of coming out and then splitting
Speaker 1: at the end, it's like it's split at the sort
Speaker 1: of uh up in the mouth and then it comes
Speaker 1: together into one point um and uh. So the reason
Speaker 1: it has this length is actually that its tongue is
Speaker 1: not just tongue flesh. It's partially made out of bone.
Speaker 1: So there's this bone called the hyroid bone. And so
Speaker 1: if you guys could just put your fingers near your
Speaker 1: throat where your tricky is, you know, gently, don't strangle yourself.
Speaker 1: Don't don't do that. Um yeah, yeah, So up along
Speaker 1: the front of your throat where your tricky is and
Speaker 1: where your jaw meets your your trichya basically, and you
Speaker 1: should feel a couple of bony kind of protrusions. Do
Speaker 1: you feel that that's the that's the hyroid bone. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it's the sub metrical kind of butterfly shaped bone. Um.
Speaker 1: It supports an anchors the tongue and it helps in swallowing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And woodpeckers, these bones wrap all the way around the
Speaker 1: skull and up towards their nasal cavities, and it's all
Speaker 1: covered in tongue tissue. So they basically have bony tongues
Speaker 1: uh that wind around their skull. And I actually sent
Speaker 1: you guys that that picture of it in the slide show.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, I was. I was gonna ask are those
Speaker 1: the same bird? Like the the two images, Like we're
Speaker 1: seeing how the tongue is deployed. Got it? Okay, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And I question to here because in this illustration, which
Speaker 1: is fascinating not yet disturbing all the go with fascinating,
Speaker 1: I see that the tongue has this barbed tip on
Speaker 1: there is that bone as well. No, that's just that's
Speaker 1: just tongue bristles. So the tip of the tongue is
Speaker 1: just tongue kind of like ours. It like it the
Speaker 1: bone it attaches to the tongue way back there where
Speaker 1: you have that that dual structure. But I think those
Speaker 1: barbs are it's sort of like you know how cat
Speaker 1: tongues are spiky. So when the tongue has retracted, the
Speaker 1: bone winds all the way around the skull. And not
Speaker 1: only does this have a nice nifty storage place for
Speaker 1: the tongue to go, it also offers extra structural support
Speaker 1: and shock absorption for when the woodpeckers smashing its face
Speaker 1: against a tree. Um. So it's sort of like you
Speaker 1: it's like having a weird tongue helmet inside your your head.
Speaker 1: I have kind of a dumb question. Maybe it's not
Speaker 1: dumb question. Presumably woodpeckers, outside of their superpower ability to
Speaker 1: you know, smash their heads against trees and not get
Speaker 1: brain damage, have all the same stuff that other birds have. Like,
Speaker 1: why is it advantageous to them to eat in such
Speaker 1: a bizarre and comfortable way. I mean, it's finding a
Speaker 1: niche really, because you have a lot of competition for
Speaker 1: insects that are easily available. If you're able to get
Speaker 1: into the tree bark where other birds can't access it,
Speaker 1: you've just opened up this whole mine of food that
Speaker 1: you don't really have as much competition for. H So
Speaker 1: that's that's finding their niche and their specialized hunting strategy. Uh,
Speaker 1: that is really advantageous. So like if you can't, you know,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of birds who will try to
Speaker 1: get insects that are kind of embarked that are more
Speaker 1: easily accessible. So once you start developing adaptations where you
Speaker 1: can get deeper and deeper into the bark and get
Speaker 1: more and more insects, you're going to do a lot
Speaker 1: better than those that you're competing with. I also have
Speaker 1: a question, and I hope it's not super dumbling, but
Speaker 1: here goes. I'm gonna shoot my shot first. The woodpecker.
Speaker 1: Now I can see that tongue in a high ooid apparatus.
Speaker 1: It reminds me in some ways of an ant eater
Speaker 1: in some kind of like parallel evolution thing. But my
Speaker 1: question is given that this, given that this bird has
Speaker 1: adapted to prevent I guess, concussions and brain damage from
Speaker 1: its very specific life choices. Uh, how effective is it?
Speaker 1: Are there woodpeckers that get concussions or brain damage that
Speaker 1: is a thing that can happen. Yeah, Actually, there was
Speaker 1: a recent study that showed that woodpeckers do still get
Speaker 1: some structural damage that's consistent with CT injury like football
Speaker 1: players get. Um. So it's so it's not effective, but
Speaker 1: certainly you can imagine that without these protective structures, they
Speaker 1: just instantly scramble their eggs or brains, their brain eggs,
Speaker 1: the old brain egg. So there's one other. There's actually
Speaker 1: a couple other weird adaptations that they have to help
Speaker 1: protect them from the blunt force trauma of repeatedly smacking
Speaker 1: them cells against a tree. Uh. Their brains are extra dry,
Speaker 1: so they don't have as many fluids surrounding the brains,
Speaker 1: so they don't just like uh and I guess this,
Speaker 1: I think this is the scientific terminology, So their brains
Speaker 1: don't slash around a lot. Uh. And then they also
Speaker 1: have nictating membrane, which is that weird transparent eyelid that
Speaker 1: you'll see on your cat, and that covers their eye
Speaker 1: as they're pecking. So it's like a set of goggles.
Speaker 1: So because otherwise their eyeballs would probably pop out. Wow,
Speaker 1: because of the constant impact. Yeah, the force of that,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's sort of like if you're riding
Speaker 1: a bike and you the bike is suddenly stopped, you'll
Speaker 1: fly off a bike that but with eyeballs. I had
Speaker 1: a similar experience like that with one of those bird
Speaker 1: scooters recently, So I totally understand this scenario, right, right,
Speaker 1: Is it a coincidence that it's called a bird scooter? No,
Speaker 1: that was my point. No, it's not. It's absolutely not
Speaker 1: a question. It makes me uniquely qualified to have this conversation, right,
Speaker 1: you're basically an ornithologist. Now. No, Actually, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I think I probably told you this last time
Speaker 1: we were on. But I am definitely afraid of birds
Speaker 1: and woodpeckers in particular, just just the more freaky the adaptation,
Speaker 1: the worse. Like I have nightmares where I wake up
Speaker 1: and there's like woodpeckers under my covers and I wake
Speaker 1: up like in a cold sweat, and and yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's a thing that I struggle with. Um, so I'm
Speaker 1: pretty triggered right now actually, but trying to hold I'm
Speaker 1: trying to hold it together. Well you know, I mean
Speaker 1: I did present you with the night's diagram showing its
Speaker 1: tongue wrapping around its skull and how long it is
Speaker 1: and how pointy it is, and I'm sure that will help. Yep, Yeah,
Speaker 1: feeling good. Well, if you're uncomfortable with birds, why don't
Speaker 1: we pivot to something a little less less weird. Uh
Speaker 1: kangaroo vaginas? Oh finally, yeah, great, I'm here for it.
Speaker 1: So kangaroos, wombats, qualas, Tasmanian devils. Uh, these marsupials have
Speaker 1: three vaginas. Uh. So first of all, I want you
Speaker 1: to get your minds out of the gutter. Uh, they
Speaker 1: don't have three volva's. It's not like the Alien and
Speaker 1: total recall where she's got uh you know, victory breasts. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not the Australia version of that, right right, So
Speaker 1: it's not just like three volva's just kind of like
Speaker 1: randomly placed on the kangaroo somewhere. Um. So, the vagina
Speaker 1: this is it's gonna be a little bit of sex
Speaker 1: said here. The vagina is an inside organ. Um. It's
Speaker 1: the canal that you do use sex inside that sperm
Speaker 1: travels up and babies come out of. That's where a
Speaker 1: menstruation and discharge come out. And that's also where Gwyneth
Speaker 1: Paltrow puts her jade eggs in. That's what the vagina is.
Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about. Um. So, you know, we
Speaker 1: we like to use our imaginations on this show. I
Speaker 1: wanted you to imagine a naked female kangaroo. So and so,
Speaker 1: a kangaroo not like wearing a suit or something like
Speaker 1: no boxing gloves, totally naked. So it's gonna it's gonna
Speaker 1: have a normal looking kangaroo vulva as far as kangaroo
Speaker 1: volva's go. But once you look inside the kangaroo, the
Speaker 1: vagina splits off into three canals. Uh that meat back
Speaker 1: up sort of like a weird steering wheel or like
Speaker 1: a no smoking logo or like that that London like
Speaker 1: subway logo, the underground logo. So if you actually you guys,
Speaker 1: proceed in the slide show, you can see the interesting
Speaker 1: complex sort of it looks a little bit like a
Speaker 1: French horn. Honestly, I know what this means. I just
Speaker 1: want to point out that there's a one diagram. It
Speaker 1: says middle of vagina, Joey travels down, and that just
Speaker 1: I just like saying that out loud. Just Joey travels down.
Speaker 1: I mean, Joey likes to take the middle of Vagina's
Speaker 1: classic the path of least resistance. You know that the
Speaker 1: middle of vagina exactly. I mean, Joey could be more adventurous,
Speaker 1: but that refers to you know, the juvenile kangaroo, right, Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: so Joey is a baby kangaroo. I have a question
Speaker 1: looking looking at this, which it also looks like it
Speaker 1: might be a made up musical instrument in a sci
Speaker 1: fi film, like a Doctor SEUs book or yeah, like
Speaker 1: the Fifth Element or Doctor SEUs or something in Huville.
Speaker 1: But apparently it's very real. Um. I have always heard
Speaker 1: that kangaroos, female kangaroos are an animal that can either
Speaker 1: suspend its pregnancy or some somehow control when and how
Speaker 1: it gives birth, or when it gives birth at least.
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Or is that something that my college
Speaker 1: friends made up when we were hanging out too late
Speaker 1: at night. Yeah, so it can kind of time it. Um.
Speaker 1: So what the beauty of the kangaroo reproductive system is
Speaker 1: that it can have three Joey's at once, basically and
Speaker 1: at different stages of developments. So you've got one and
Speaker 1: Joey that is think of it as like a toddler
Speaker 1: where it's like outside of the pouch, walking around, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe still like reaching in the pouch forum milk and stuff,
Speaker 1: but it's a it's a sort of what what you
Speaker 1: would associate Joey to look like. Um. And then you
Speaker 1: have the second one, which is the Joey that is
Speaker 1: inside of the pouch. So that's usually, uh, the really
Speaker 1: young Joey that's either at a very early stage of
Speaker 1: its development when it looks like those weird little pink jellybeans,
Speaker 1: or it's a little older, but it's so it's developing
Speaker 1: inside of the pouch. And then you have a third
Speaker 1: Joey that is still developing inside of the uterus or
Speaker 1: traveling down you know, once the middle Joey leaves the
Speaker 1: pouch and that one uh starts to travel down and
Speaker 1: leave uh and then makes that heroic crawl from the
Speaker 1: vagina to the pouch, which is kind of incredible. So
Speaker 1: I don't think they can conscious control it, like you know,
Speaker 1: oh well, you know, I've got this. This Joey is
Speaker 1: a real pain in the in the the real pain
Speaker 1: in the middle of vagina. So I'm gonna stall off
Speaker 1: that other, that other Joey. But yeah, there is a
Speaker 1: This timing allows them to be perpetually pregnant. It's like
Speaker 1: an assembly line of Joey's. So what's interesting is some
Speaker 1: biologists think that so as you can see from the diagram,
Speaker 1: the middle vagina is a little narrower than the other
Speaker 1: ones um and some biologists think this is why Joey's
Speaker 1: are born so premature, because it's just too narrow for
Speaker 1: a bigger baby. So that's why they have to make
Speaker 1: that crazy crawl from the vagina to the pouch. If
Speaker 1: you if you don't know what I'm talking about, Joey's
Speaker 1: are born very tiny, like they look like little little
Speaker 1: gross pink beans, and then they have to they crawl
Speaker 1: all and there. They look like an embryo. They don't
Speaker 1: look they're fully developed and they're not. And then they
Speaker 1: crawl from after they give birth they crawl from the
Speaker 1: vagina and they go all the way up into the pouch,
Speaker 1: so that having that narrow middle vagina is like, maybe
Speaker 1: that's why this is this happens. Oh. They also it's
Speaker 1: important to note that they have two uteruses to uterie.
Speaker 1: I see that yet, Um, And that's actually not too uncommon. Um,
Speaker 1: they're bifurcated uterie in deer's, cats, dogs, elephants, whales, and
Speaker 1: a lot of other cool animal ladies. Uh. In fact,
Speaker 1: humans only having one uterus were more of the weird ones.
Speaker 1: I guess I've always thought that, Yeah, yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: one more thing to shame women about. You only have
Speaker 1: one uterus? What's wrong with you? Boy? Oh no, I'm
Speaker 1: not associated with that at all. I did notice so,
Speaker 1: um when when I've seen pictures of Joey's and how
Speaker 1: how they're so they're so newly formed and undeveloped. It's
Speaker 1: pretty amazing that they can instinctually climb up the parents
Speaker 1: body towards that that pouch. But the pouch always weirded
Speaker 1: me out, like is the I never thought I'd say
Speaker 1: this on the air. Is this treble vagina adaptation? Is
Speaker 1: it something that occurred around the same time that the
Speaker 1: pouch was developing, or like why, why and how? That's
Speaker 1: my question, Why and how? I just I'm baffled. Just why,
Speaker 1: just why. It's a really good question. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a mystery, at least to me, UM, because
Speaker 1: I was trying to find why exactly they have three vaginas.
Speaker 1: And so there's a few theories. One is that um,
Speaker 1: male marsuvials actually have a two pronged penises, so maybe
Speaker 1: they can do double time fertilizing the vagina um. But
Speaker 1: actually kangaroos do not have the two pronged UH penises,
Speaker 1: which I guess is really unlucky for the lady kangaroos. UM.
Speaker 1: But so that's that's one theory. But it could also
Speaker 1: be helpful for creating like that endless, perpetual Joey production machine. Um.
Speaker 1: You got one in the pouch, one in the oven,
Speaker 1: one fending for himself. Um, and you know uh I
Speaker 1: I would really like to hear if there are any
Speaker 1: marsupial biologists out there if they have any theories about
Speaker 1: why they have three vaginas. But there's one other thing,
Speaker 1: and it's I think, so first we have to kind
Speaker 1: of talk about um you know, uh what a spandrel
Speaker 1: of evolution ists? Have you guys heard of that term?
Speaker 1: I note so, uh spandrel is the term that comes
Speaker 1: from architecture. Actually, so the spandrels this triangular wedge between
Speaker 1: and arc way and like ceiling. So uh it actually
Speaker 1: serves no inherent purpose other than being a structural byproducts.
Speaker 1: So you have the arch and then the ceiling, and
Speaker 1: then where that kind of like meets you you have
Speaker 1: that little wedge where it's like the the where the
Speaker 1: semicircle meets that kind of triangle. Um and uh so
Speaker 1: uh it was coined as a term to mean an
Speaker 1: anatomical feature of evolution that's just kind of a result
Speaker 1: of how the animal got built. It has no inherent purpose.
Speaker 1: It's just you know, it's kind of like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I guess like you could also describe it as like
Speaker 1: the taint like of of evolution because it's like it
Speaker 1: doesn't serve any purpose. It's just there because you gotta
Speaker 1: you gotta have a place between the the front in
Speaker 1: the back. Um so uh So there's a possibility that
Speaker 1: having the three canals is like a spandrel of having
Speaker 1: to uterie um, and that the fact that they have
Speaker 1: it's that for some reason they want a separate birthing canal.
Speaker 1: And then just the fact that we're typically speaking in
Speaker 1: many structures are symmetrical just in terms of how they
Speaker 1: develop in the fetus. But you know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's really it's kind of a mystery. And we'll
Speaker 1: actually see kind of in another animal maybe a proto
Speaker 1: kind of a proto pouch, which is really interesting. Uh,
Speaker 1: later on that will discuss. But first I want to
Speaker 1: take you guys on the imagination train to imagination station.
Speaker 1: So this one's actually really easy. Just imagine an elephant
Speaker 1: in your head, close your eyes, got it there and gentle,
Speaker 1: such kind eyes and all of its elephant e goodness,
Speaker 1: does it have big tusks? Now you're doing you're doing
Speaker 1: it wrong. It's female elephant. Didn't expect that? Um, Now
Speaker 1: imagine that with it is a smaller elephant. Little baby?
Speaker 1: Is it cute? Oh? Boys? That ever? Adorable? Now that
Speaker 1: baby elephant, he's gonna be hungry and it's got to
Speaker 1: drink milk from its mother. How does it do this?
Speaker 1: Where like like trying to imagine where do you think
Speaker 1: it's getting the milk from maybe through the trunk maybe
Speaker 1: how maybe they're like secret elephant utters. Have you ever
Speaker 1: have you ever tried to imagine this like an elephant's utters. No,
Speaker 1: this is this is a first for me, Katie. It's
Speaker 1: never come up. It's never come up in my line
Speaker 1: of thinking, right right, Well, you know because like you
Speaker 1: don't it's not just like cow arders attached to the elephant.
Speaker 1: So it's well, I gotta tell you guys this. Did
Speaker 1: you know that elephants have big old honkers honkers as noses. No, no,
Speaker 1: they got big old, very big old set of very
Speaker 1: human looking boobs. So if you advance in your slide show,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness. So yeah, I'm not doing a pearl
Speaker 1: clutch situation right now. What I'm doing is like they
Speaker 1: literally look like those fake boobs you buy it like
Speaker 1: the joke store, like because the scale is all off
Speaker 1: kind of the elephants so very close together and they're
Speaker 1: very close together, and they look like yeah that there. Wow.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't want to use the word traumatize,
Speaker 1: but when I first when I first looked at this,
Speaker 1: I was pretty uncomfortable and I was thinking, Okay, how
Speaker 1: many things in this slide show or photo shops. I'd
Speaker 1: better be a good sport about this. But if I
Speaker 1: were in the wild, I've only seen elephants in you know,
Speaker 1: zoos or nature preserves. So if I were in the
Speaker 1: wild and I saw a busty elephant running at me,
Speaker 1: I would freak out and trampled. I'd be tramped, I'd
Speaker 1: be I would die trampled by the feet or by
Speaker 1: the boobs. I don't know, that's the problem. Clear. I
Speaker 1: love the I love the caption you on the slide too.
Speaker 1: It just says very non you know, it's just like
Speaker 1: very matter of factly some hot elephant. It's it's it's you.
Speaker 1: Guys are welcome for the slide show. By the way,
Speaker 1: I'm going to see if I can post the slide
Speaker 1: show online actually for the listeners. Um, but this is
Speaker 1: this like something they always have and that I've just
Speaker 1: never noticed noticed. Yeah, well they have it so when
Speaker 1: they're when they're nursing, they definitely swell up. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean they they've This is not new. It's not
Speaker 1: like a twenty nineteen weird new millennial thing like they've
Speaker 1: always had. Elephants have always had breasts um. And also
Speaker 1: I would encourage my listeners to google elephants boobs um
Speaker 1: and do it with the safe search off for sure
Speaker 1: um and and just just roll those die. Uh. So
Speaker 1: what's really interesting about the elephant mammary glands is that
Speaker 1: they are some of the most human looking boobs an
Speaker 1: animal that I've actually ever seen, and that includes primates,
Speaker 1: because if you think of primate boobs, they actually, you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're pretty small, they're kind of flat as kansas, um.
Speaker 1: But the elephants actually have more extensive breast tissue. So
Speaker 1: the reason their breast tissue is so voluptuous is so
Speaker 1: the baby elephant can reach better. Because elephants are big,
Speaker 1: baby elephants are less big, and that's tricky. And it's
Speaker 1: also interesting because those boobs are in the front, like
Speaker 1: on their chest like you would see any human, which
Speaker 1: you may wonder like why aren't they in the back,
Speaker 1: like uh, you know, a cow or something. So there's
Speaker 1: a very simple reason. The back just has no room
Speaker 1: for boobs, and this has to do with how they
Speaker 1: give birth. So in order to give birth and not
Speaker 1: drop a little baby Dumbo on his sweet little head
Speaker 1: and kill them immediately. Uh, the vagina is actually under
Speaker 1: the elephant, like the between her legs, so the calf
Speaker 1: doesn't have as far to go. So in other unulets
Speaker 1: you may know, like like and cow's the vaginal opening
Speaker 1: is it kind of like closer to the butt, like
Speaker 1: near the tail um, and so the calf kind of
Speaker 1: drops a little bit. If that happened with an elephant,
Speaker 1: that would be really bad for the baby. Uh yeah, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: So because they give birth down there and that's where
Speaker 1: the vaginal opening is, there's just no room for the breasts. Uh.
Speaker 1: So that's why they're between on their chest. Okay, sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm catching up the speed. Just I'm a little baffled.
Speaker 1: And this is changing changing some things, for changing how
Speaker 1: you look at elephants. Literally the elephants like Mark trunk
Speaker 1: shop here. Yeah, I guess so, I guess so. I
Speaker 1: mean because elephants are already such amazing and intelligent creatures
Speaker 1: and cognitively, the more we learn about them, the more
Speaker 1: we learn that their thought process are are very, very sophisticated,
Speaker 1: and they feel increasingly, I don't want to say human like,
Speaker 1: but increasingly like a pure species in some ways. So
Speaker 1: now finding out I do I do want to interrupt
Speaker 1: you to say, I do like that you're thinking about
Speaker 1: the elephant's mind and not just her chest. That's really
Speaker 1: woke of you. Thank you, thank you. I try to
Speaker 1: be elephant woke. This is so much information though, like
Speaker 1: how how human are they? I don't well, I don't know,
Speaker 1: so to put your mind at ease. This isn't it's
Speaker 1: a it's another case of parallel evolution, um. But it
Speaker 1: is really interesting because most animals don't actually have large
Speaker 1: breasts or like it's like an utter situation where their
Speaker 1: utters swell during pregnancy nursing, and certainly they don't have
Speaker 1: the kind of like large breasts that elephants have. And
Speaker 1: that's uh. Those are as I mentioned before designed to
Speaker 1: make it easier for the baby elephant to reach. But
Speaker 1: humans human breasts are actually really kind of an evolutionary mystery. UM.
Speaker 1: Scientists are baffled by boobs uh and it's uh. There
Speaker 1: are a few theories, like some are nutrition, like maybe
Speaker 1: it's kind of like camel humps, where you store extra
Speaker 1: fat for nourishment. My humps, my humps, my lovely um.
Speaker 1: One of the more popular theories that I actually think
Speaker 1: is probably more convincing is that it's sexual selection, um
Speaker 1: that they somehow It's just kind of this thing in
Speaker 1: nature where some times certain characteristics are attractive because they
Speaker 1: may signal sexual maturity or uh some kind of sexual fitness,
Speaker 1: and then that trait becomes more and more exaggerated because
Speaker 1: that that signal uh is very powerful. So an example
Speaker 1: of that is, um, there are certain birds that if
Speaker 1: you give them a big egg, like a big fake egg,
Speaker 1: they care about it even more than the smaller eggs
Speaker 1: because that signal is just like really powerful. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of like potentially with breast, like the you know,
Speaker 1: having more voluptuous breasts is like this overpowering signal that
Speaker 1: just uh mesmerizes like our early human ancestor males or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's okay, I see the I see the point you're
Speaker 1: making here. I want to point out something too, like
Speaker 1: I maybe I haven't been to the zoo or on
Speaker 1: safari enough to see elephants, you know, in their natural habitat.
Speaker 1: Typically thinking them, think of them is rearing up on
Speaker 1: their back legs too too much. Because the image that
Speaker 1: you have for us in the slide show is an
Speaker 1: elephant and kind of an awkward squatting position that's allowing
Speaker 1: us to see these uh, these elephant boobs. Um, but
Speaker 1: it typically wouldn't something you would notice, I would think, right, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's uh if when they're standing. I think
Speaker 1: that's also why this is an image that is capturing
Speaker 1: so many people's attention. Um, you really when you see
Speaker 1: an elephant there, uh, it's a little harder to see
Speaker 1: they're rocking tits um because that they're angled, not in
Speaker 1: such a way to show them off. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's sometimes do that. I'm actually trying. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: trying to figure out why she's kneeling in this picture. Um,
Speaker 1: it could be to go the bathroom, could be um,
Speaker 1: that she tripped. That's how I want to think of it,
Speaker 1: as like it's a Marilyn Monroe situation where she just
Speaker 1: kind of stumbled and she's like, oh, sorry, is my
Speaker 1: my is my beautiful chest showing exactly the baby looks
Speaker 1: like it's about to get on her back or something too.
Speaker 1: It's it's a weird situation there, baby kind of coming
Speaker 1: up behind to check on him. He's just like really
Speaker 1: embarrassing moms toar mom. Um, so I teased earlier that
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about animal pouch kind of like
Speaker 1: a potential um sort of proto pouch situation. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it's actually a very interesting animal. Um. So it's called
Speaker 1: the Colugo Flying Lemur and it's actually not a lemur
Speaker 1: and it doesn't fly, So what the heck? Why? You know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: is that like it's just a street name or something.
Speaker 1: It's just that's that's the it's it's a type of drug. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's called Colugo Flying Lemur. It's really gonna make you,
Speaker 1: really gonna make you fly, dude. Um. So then this,
Speaker 1: this creature definitely looks like he's tripping balls. He's got
Speaker 1: these giant like dilated pupils. Yeah, I thought, yeah, I
Speaker 1: thought I could see tripping. Iways thinking more like a
Speaker 1: studio ghibli anime animal in some kind of magical woodland environment. Yeah. Sure,
Speaker 1: it looks like the lead thirteen year old me off
Speaker 1: on an adventure. So to describe this for the audience, like,
Speaker 1: it's it kind of looks like a DreamWorks version of
Speaker 1: a flying squirrel, like remember what was his name script
Speaker 1: the little squirrel from ice Age? Oh yeah, yeah, like that,
Speaker 1: but with like big old skin flaps Um, so they
Speaker 1: live in Southeast Asia. They're not lemurs, but they are
Speaker 1: close relatives of primates. Um. They like I said, they're
Speaker 1: kind of like they look a little bit like flying squirrels,
Speaker 1: but way more fucky. Uh. They have a big flap
Speaker 1: of skin they can use to glide huge distances up
Speaker 1: to five feet without even losing that much altitude. Um.
Speaker 1: They kind of look like they should be close relatives
Speaker 1: of bats, but they're not. That's just another case of
Speaker 1: parallel evolution. Um. And they're really bad at climbing and
Speaker 1: are super clumsy, so it's it's very fortunate that they
Speaker 1: have built in parachute. They kind of climbed by like
Speaker 1: awkwardly hopping up a tree. Um. They eat shoots and leaves. Uh.
Speaker 1: And uh, they actually use their skin flaps sometimes to
Speaker 1: carry their babies. Now they're not, uh, they're not. This
Speaker 1: is not necessarily like, oh, this is how pouches evolved.
Speaker 1: But I think it's an interesting thing where you have this,
Speaker 1: you have some anatomical feature, and then you can kind
Speaker 1: of see how potentially, like a another structure could be
Speaker 1: start to be used for caring for offspring, Like how
Speaker 1: the pouch like was evolved to be a protective area
Speaker 1: for the offspring. You have these arm flaps which are
Speaker 1: not to be used as a pouch, but then they
Speaker 1: do get used as that, and that's really interesting to me.
Speaker 1: It's fascinating. It's it's almost like a an evolutionary crossroads
Speaker 1: or adaptive crossroads, like what what will win the day?
Speaker 1: Will it be more useful to uh glide and have
Speaker 1: a built in parachute because you're crappy at climbing, or
Speaker 1: it would be more useful to have a pouch to
Speaker 1: protect your young I don't know exactly, And I think
Speaker 1: that's that's also what makes uh studying evolution so tricky,
Speaker 1: because you can look at a characteristic and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: clearly this evolved to like allow them to flyer something,
Speaker 1: but it could have started out as something else, like
Speaker 1: a structure. Uh maybe maybe it did start out as
Speaker 1: like a structure that helped with their child rearing, but
Speaker 1: then it as it got bigger, like it actually helped
Speaker 1: them with gliding, and then it turned into that. So
Speaker 1: that so evolution is a twisty turney uh kind of
Speaker 1: kangaroo vagina situation, uh, where it's just like you have
Speaker 1: all these twists and turns and weirdness. So one other
Speaker 1: fun fact about them is that in order to poop,
Speaker 1: they have to lift their skin flap over their body
Speaker 1: and it's really weird looking. If you guys check out
Speaker 1: slide number seven. I've discussed it. I am trump. This
Speaker 1: is you know, I thought I thought I had gotten
Speaker 1: over the tough part with the elephant breast, but this
Speaker 1: is traumatizing. I didn't know what I was looking at
Speaker 1: for a second. I thought it was a weird dragon fruit. Uh,
Speaker 1: I mean, is it turning? Is it turning its pouch
Speaker 1: inside out? We're seeing the inside of the pouch like right,
Speaker 1: So it's well, it's not really a pouch. It's just
Speaker 1: this like well, yeah, no, I got it. The flaps. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it took its cape up right, and all
Speaker 1: in the entire cape turned out to be made of asshole.
Speaker 1: It's like an animal kingdom goat sea kind of it?
Speaker 1: Really is? It looks prolapsed. Oh my god. Well so, uh,
Speaker 1: it's the membrane that makes up its flap. Like on
Speaker 1: the top, it looks kind of cool because it's covered
Speaker 1: in fur, but from the bottom it's nude. It's not
Speaker 1: covered in fur, so it's all veiny and weird and
Speaker 1: pink and translucent. Uh. And it's when it folds itself up,
Speaker 1: it kind of looks like it's turning itself inside out.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, it's uh stuff of nightmares kind of a
Speaker 1: like a you know that that painter runimous Bosh, like
Speaker 1: all his paintings of humans being tortured in hell. That
Speaker 1: looks like, yep, can you imagine there? But for the
Speaker 1: grace of randomized evolution go us. You know, humans aren't perfect.
Speaker 1: But I'm so glad I don't have to go through
Speaker 1: that just to use the restroom. I mean, I don't know,
Speaker 1: because like maybe if we had evolved big skin flaps,
Speaker 1: we'd consider that sexy, Like like maybe colugos have a
Speaker 1: whole category of corn that's just like skin flap. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. It was the worst upscirt videos ever.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I'm just I'm really glad that I don't
Speaker 1: have to pull my asshole over my back to use
Speaker 1: the restroom. It sounds a little sounds a little overrated,
Speaker 1: to be honest to me, what is he using to
Speaker 1: do it? I don't understand what I'm looking at. So
Speaker 1: you see, you see that that kind of line that's
Speaker 1: going down. That's that's yeah, that's like his tail owns
Speaker 1: uh And I got it. Okay, I see. For a
Speaker 1: second I thought he was like using his mouth to
Speaker 1: like pull it up over like that's even more disturbing.
Speaker 1: And you just kind of turns inside out and disappears
Speaker 1: and does the thing is that you don't need this
Speaker 1: to be any more disturbing. It's fine, just the way,
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. Okay, great, want some got some
Speaker 1: new nightmare fuel? Now this is really helpful. Well we
Speaker 1: can take a quick break up. But then I'm gonna
Speaker 1: throw more stuff at you. All right, I'm ready, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll steal myself. So can you look like a regular
Speaker 1: human on the outside but an alien on the inside.
Speaker 1: There was a recent news story about a ninety nine
Speaker 1: year old woman who donated her body to science medical
Speaker 1: students at Organ Health and Science University in Portland. We're
Speaker 1: using her cadaver in a gross anatomy class. When I
Speaker 1: say gross anatomy, it doesn't mean disgusting anatomy. It just
Speaker 1: means anatomy that can be seen with the naked eye.
Speaker 1: In this case, the anatom me was particularly well odd.
Speaker 1: The ninety nine year old woman had lived a long
Speaker 1: and healthy life without ever knowing that her organs were backwards.
Speaker 1: Her liver and other abnominal organs grew on the left
Speaker 1: side of her body. Typically they grow on the right.
Speaker 1: It's a rare condition called sit us and versus with
Speaker 1: levi acardia. She's thought to be the oldest person to
Speaker 1: survive with this condition, and I mean, at ninety nine
Speaker 1: years old, she's probably one of the oldest people to
Speaker 1: live period. This is a one in twenty thousand condition
Speaker 1: with a typically bad outlook, where only one in fifty
Speaker 1: million lived to adulthood. So this nine year old woman
Speaker 1: was truly one and a billion fold. Onto your livers.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back with more wild anatomy. Sometimes animals
Speaker 1: are so strange scientists don't believe they're real. This was
Speaker 1: the case when the platypus was discovered in sevente The
Speaker 1: biologists George Shaw couldn't believe that the platypus specimen he
Speaker 1: was looking at was real. After all, platypus has what
Speaker 1: looks like a duck's bill and a beaver's tail with
Speaker 1: no nipples, and it lays eggs. Surely people thought it
Speaker 1: must be a hoax. But as you know, the platypus
Speaker 1: is very real, as are the freaky fantastical animals were
Speaker 1: about to discuss. These animals may not have heard of alright, guys,
Speaker 1: So I want you to imagine that you're walking in
Speaker 1: the beautiful forests of Southeast Asia. Awesome. You're there among
Speaker 1: trees and plants and various wildlife, and suddenly you smell
Speaker 1: the delicious scent of popcorn. You look around. There's no
Speaker 1: theaters to be found here, it's a forest. Suddenly you
Speaker 1: see what looks like a cross between a lorex, a
Speaker 1: bear cat, and a monkey. It's the bent a wrong
Speaker 1: is it? Is this the source of this popcorn smell? Yes,
Speaker 1: it is, which we will discuss. Uh, do you guys?
Speaker 1: E I sent you that image of the Venturung just
Speaker 1: chilling on a tree. It's a mood for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And uh and the second image I show you you
Speaker 1: can see how shaggy it is and how big its
Speaker 1: tail is. It is it chunky chunky tail? So um,
Speaker 1: it looks like a Doctor Seuss creature to me, like
Speaker 1: like an old gnar or like a Jim Hinson. Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, like in the dark crystal the what what
Speaker 1: are those the sears? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it kind
Speaker 1: of looks like that. So it's um uh Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's found in Southeast Asia. It looks it's like black
Speaker 1: and gray, shaggy, big tufted ears. Yeah, like a big
Speaker 1: honey badger. But its face is like floppity. It looks
Speaker 1: like it also seems like it does give a fuck.
Speaker 1: It's got kind of kind eyes. It looks like it
Speaker 1: would give you wisdom and kind of like take you
Speaker 1: under its wing and nurture you as a traveler, like
Speaker 1: in the jungle. I think that's that's what I'm picturing.
Speaker 1: Maybe the first picture. In the second picture though, the eyes,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's the gradation of the facial hair. But
Speaker 1: in the second picture it looks like a villain. It's
Speaker 1: like the first picture is sort of the Simba or
Speaker 1: Mufasa and the second picture is the scar version. Oh man,
Speaker 1: they should have they should have made the Lion King
Speaker 1: remake with bent t wrongs. That would have been so
Speaker 1: much better. I know that they didn't answer my tweets,
Speaker 1: but there's always next reboot, right is it? Is it
Speaker 1: a prehensile tail? I mean tunkey? Like? Okay, got it?
Speaker 1: It is indeed so prehensile means it can grasp and
Speaker 1: hold things, and it can do that. In fact, when
Speaker 1: they're young, they can actually hang by their tails. But
Speaker 1: when they get older, they're just too fat, too heavy,
Speaker 1: chunk as you said, So that adaptation becomes less helpful
Speaker 1: as they get older, or like does it does it
Speaker 1: still serve a purpose for them, still serves a purpose,
Speaker 1: still allows them to balance as they climb on trees.
Speaker 1: And you know, for for young bin Turrong that's maybe
Speaker 1: less adept at climbing, that being able to actually support
Speaker 1: their whole weight on a tree is very much more
Speaker 1: useful probably than an adult. So it's actually not a
Speaker 1: cat or a bear. It is. Try to guess like
Speaker 1: some of its closest relatives. Okay, not cats, not bears,
Speaker 1: not badgers. Uh your cat? Uh yeah maybe like uh oh,
Speaker 1: what's what's the one? Um whatever? Red panda is well,
Speaker 1: actually your closest with the cat's guests. So they're member
Speaker 1: of the Vivarid family, which includes palm civets and genets,
Speaker 1: which civits and genets look like cats, but they aren't.
Speaker 1: Civets are the ones that make the great but disturbing coffee. Yes,
Speaker 1: the poop coffee. I think you're right about that. So
Speaker 1: they eat these coffee beans and then they poop it out,
Speaker 1: and then you collect the pooped out beans and drink
Speaker 1: that up as your your nice hot poopy bean juice
Speaker 1: in the morning. It's really expensive to Yeah, I love
Speaker 1: my expensive poopy hot bean juice. So they're related to cats,
Speaker 1: but they're also related to hyenas and weasels, so that
Speaker 1: whole sort of group of I know, hyenas seemed like
Speaker 1: a kind of weird, like you would think they would
Speaker 1: be more related to dogs. But there that's actually also
Speaker 1: parallel evolution, which we talk about a lot today. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's what that thing is. This bent a wrong.
Speaker 1: It's omnivorous and uh, it's about four ft long from
Speaker 1: head to tail. The tail is about as long as
Speaker 1: the body, so it's like a two foot long tail
Speaker 1: two foot long body. Uh. They weigh about fifty pounds,
Speaker 1: so you know, like a slight kind of a big dog.
Speaker 1: They're like a big dog. Uh, bunch of shaggy fur
Speaker 1: and eyes that have seen into the heart and soul
Speaker 1: of the universe. Um. Females are actually larger than males,
Speaker 1: which is pretty rare amongst mammals. Usually male mammals are
Speaker 1: larger than females as you know, and um insects, the
Speaker 1: female is often larger. So, like I mentioned earlier, they're
Speaker 1: famous for smelling like popcorn or corn chips, a real
Speaker 1: yummy smell, and that that nice, pleasant popcorny smell is
Speaker 1: coming from their scrotal or volval glands. Oh it's their stink. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's their musk. So they have they have some scent
Speaker 1: glands located near their genitals that they used to mark
Speaker 1: and uh that it smells like fresh buttery popcorn. Wait
Speaker 1: a minute, So I think I heard and didn't believe
Speaker 1: one time, that vanilla extract, something from vanilla extract comes
Speaker 1: from like beaver scent gland ends. Is that true? I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't think so what well, it seems
Speaker 1: to make sense based on what you're saying, I mean,
Speaker 1: vanilla extract. I thought vanilla extract came from the vanilla
Speaker 1: bean plant for sure, But I but I heard. I
Speaker 1: heard there was like a synthetic version of it that
Speaker 1: came from like beaver scent pouches. But you know, people
Speaker 1: say all kinds of stuff, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: like what they can't bottle this uh this gland juice
Speaker 1: and make buttered popcorn. I don't know that's a good question.
Speaker 1: I'm actually I actually looked up beaver butt uh and
Speaker 1: vanilla and I found a National Geographic article that says
Speaker 1: beaver butts emit good use for vanilla flavoring. Yeah, substitute
Speaker 1: vanilla flavor uh and then sometimes raspberry or strawberry. It's
Speaker 1: called castareum um and the US f d A list
Speaker 1: castoreum as generally regarded as safe. I wish that they would,
Speaker 1: like do like, generally regarded as safe but disgusting. Yeah. Also,
Speaker 1: I just sounded when last fact about that. I also
Speaker 1: found castorum was used in Sweden to flavor schnops, and
Speaker 1: they have one called Literally it translates in English to
Speaker 1: beaver shout. It's it's beaver butt juice booze. This. This
Speaker 1: is weird too, because now I'm thinking, like, when I
Speaker 1: go to movie theaters, am I smelling actual popcorn? Or
Speaker 1: am I smelling bent a wrong booty? Probably not bent
Speaker 1: wrongs unless you're in a forest in Southeast Asia. Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean it is interesting. I think these are pretty
Speaker 1: these are threatened or endangered animals. Um. Otherwise it'd be
Speaker 1: great to harvest their butt juices to make artificial popcorn.
Speaker 1: Can people keep these as pets or do they? I
Speaker 1: don't know. They shouldn't and you wouldn't want to. But
Speaker 1: do people keep exotic animals as pests that they definitely shouldn't.
Speaker 1: I mean that does happen. Um. They are at the
Speaker 1: San Diego Zoo. Uh. And I looked up the They
Speaker 1: say that they get fed a diet that includes primate biscuits,
Speaker 1: which is so cute, sounding like we made you a
Speaker 1: little special biscuit. Bent Wrongs aren't primates, but I guess
Speaker 1: that they are have a similar diet because they're omnivorous.
Speaker 1: Are they intelligent, I don't know. I think they're, you know,
Speaker 1: about as intelligent as like a like a weasel or
Speaker 1: a cat, which is to say, possibly like just containing
Speaker 1: the wisdom of the universe. But sometimes they sit there
Speaker 1: and like their own butt hole for hours, so it's
Speaker 1: hard to know. It's because of the popcorn smell. Man,
Speaker 1: if my butthole smell like popcorn. Uh. And then one
Speaker 1: other cool fact is that they can turn their ankles
Speaker 1: and eighty degrees, so in theory, they could open doors
Speaker 1: like no, too far, too far. So if you if
Speaker 1: you're like at home and you suddenly hear a door
Speaker 1: creak open and the scent of popcorn wasps in the air,
Speaker 1: and you hear the footsteps and a black, shaggy figure,
Speaker 1: it's probably me actually, and I've come over and brought
Speaker 1: some some popcorn and I'm covered in dog hair. Classic, right,
Speaker 1: I'm loving the horror movie set up here. So now
Speaker 1: let's go back to imagination Land, imagination station, home of
Speaker 1: the Brain. Uh So, now, imagine you're in the grasslands
Speaker 1: of South America. You smell something distinct and it's not popcorn,
Speaker 1: but yes, it's the unmistakable odor of that dank ass
Speaker 1: or my dude, some four twenties, some of that old
Speaker 1: devil lettuce. You look around, ready to choke it up
Speaker 1: with someone, but instead you see a deer. No wait,
Speaker 1: that's no, dear. It comes closer and closer, with long, long,
Speaker 1: spindly legs, a red body, a black maine, the tail
Speaker 1: of a fox, and the head of a wolf. So
Speaker 1: this is the main wolf, which is not a wolf,
Speaker 1: and they're not a fox but a distinct species of kenid.
Speaker 1: So if you guys, I've sent you a picture of
Speaker 1: this this guy, and it's really incredible looking because its
Speaker 1: legs do not look like they go with the animal.
Speaker 1: It's got a real set of gams. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: also it's all kinds of wrong, You're right, Like the
Speaker 1: proportions seem off, like the head size versus the legs,
Speaker 1: and it's got this dainty little posture with the front
Speaker 1: legs crossed over each other and has come hither. Look
Speaker 1: and these acted to this wolf. Look, I'm working through
Speaker 1: some feelings right now. Um yeah, a k A wolf Maine.
Speaker 1: Because it smells like it smells like weed apparently right,
Speaker 1: it does smell like weed in fact, But how much
Speaker 1: cooler can this wolf? It looks it looks like, again,
Speaker 1: like a character you would see in Spirited Away or
Speaker 1: something from Princess. No, it totally looked like the spirit
Speaker 1: of the forest, like the human face and spirit. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: yeah exactly. And it smells like we this cat is
Speaker 1: this is too cool for school? So yeah, they have urine,
Speaker 1: uh that they used to mark their territory. And it
Speaker 1: smells so strongly of marijuana that at the Rotterdam Zoo
Speaker 1: where they kept main wolves. Cops were looking around, uh,
Speaker 1: scouring the zoo for pot smokers because they're like, we
Speaker 1: keep we keep smelling pot. But it was just wolf
Speaker 1: p weird. Okay, I think it's less cool now that
Speaker 1: I know it's the urine that smells like marijuana. But
Speaker 1: still I visited in the zoo. Wait a minute, are
Speaker 1: you saying it's not okay to smoke weed at the
Speaker 1: Rotterdam Zoo? I guess not. That's my that's my take away,
Speaker 1: you know what. I actually, when I was researching this,
Speaker 1: that was the most surprising thing to me. Not that
Speaker 1: their pie smells like marijuana, because like, I'm so used
Speaker 1: to whatever weird animal things they get up to. But
Speaker 1: the fact that, like in Rotterdam, they're so invested in
Speaker 1: stopping people from smoking pot at the zoo blows my mind.
Speaker 1: It's like a known issue with the Rotterdam Everyone goes
Speaker 1: there to get high. Well, I mean, you can smoke
Speaker 1: weed openly in Rotterdam, right, I guess what I was.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess not at the zoo though
Speaker 1: maybe not. It's for children. You got to stick to
Speaker 1: your your hashbars and your like the proprietor. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of pulp fiction. Now. It's four twenty pm right now,
Speaker 1: just definitely in here in Atlanta, Georgia. It's only one
Speaker 1: twenty here. Um. That is funny though for twenty dude.
Speaker 1: Uh So, like I said, main wolves aren't actually wolves. Uh.
Speaker 1: They are this this species of canad that um uh
Speaker 1: evolved these like weird dear like legs. Uh. And they
Speaker 1: kind of look like a fox, a deer and a
Speaker 1: wolf had an orgy and just like popped out. There's
Speaker 1: a weird animal. Um. So they're about three ft tall
Speaker 1: and they weigh about fifty pounds, so again kind of
Speaker 1: like uh purport like their proportions are all different. But
Speaker 1: they're about the size of a bent a wrong um
Speaker 1: And Uh. They're omnivores and they're solitary hunters, so they're
Speaker 1: not really like wolves in their social structure. Uh. They're
Speaker 1: this is cute. They're actually monogamous. So they lived together
Speaker 1: with their life partner and they'll um stick together. And
Speaker 1: so I think they their partner do hunt together to
Speaker 1: some extent, but I don't think they actually work together
Speaker 1: in the same way that like a wolf pack structure does.
Speaker 1: But they do stick with one partner typically speaking, which
Speaker 1: is really cute, and they also have a roarer bark,
Speaker 1: which is really unique. Wow, that's cool. It does kind
Speaker 1: of sound like like death metal screaming. Imagine hearing that that,
Speaker 1: like like you smell weed and you're smoking weed and
Speaker 1: you hear that. Yeah. Oh, I couldn't deal with that.
Speaker 1: So you're one of your stoner metal brethren are coming
Speaker 1: to join you, you know, because they're they're out there
Speaker 1: vocalizing and that's crazy. So now I want to move
Speaker 1: on to one of the most unfortunate looking monkeys I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. So this is the black and white, young
Speaker 1: and snub nosed monkey. They're Old World monkeys who live
Speaker 1: in China, and they lack nasal bones and they have vibrant,
Speaker 1: huge pink lips. Uh. And honestly, they kind of look
Speaker 1: like those pictures of like when someone gets plastic surgery
Speaker 1: and it goes terribly wrong. So I showed you guys
Speaker 1: that picture. As you can see, they have no nose
Speaker 1: and just these huge, voluptuous lips. I mean, it looks
Speaker 1: like a photoshop fail. I'm not gonna lie. I mean
Speaker 1: it really does. The lips look very Uncanny Valley. The
Speaker 1: tone of them doesn't match anything else on their body.
Speaker 1: It looks like absolutely all mixed up. I was so,
Speaker 1: I was so taken with the nose. I've seen these
Speaker 1: monkeys before, and I remember I was in a conversation
Speaker 1: with someone about what they do when it rains, like
Speaker 1: they can't look up because the water would get into
Speaker 1: their nasal passages. But I never noticed the lips. I
Speaker 1: was so taken by the nose. And now these yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd agree, I'd agree with you, man. These these lips
Speaker 1: look photo shops from real like Kylie genneral lips. Yeah. Why, Well,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm asking that question continually here. Well
Speaker 1: to know why, first, let's talk a bit about their habitat.
Speaker 1: They're one of the um highest altitude of all the primates.
Speaker 1: They live around fifteen thousand feet above sea level UM.
Speaker 1: The freezing cold at these high altitudes mean that if
Speaker 1: they had a nose, it would probably just get frost
Speaker 1: bite all the time. So they just don't have one.
Speaker 1: That's how they solve that problem, is like nose keeps
Speaker 1: falling off, Well, just don't just don't be born with
Speaker 1: enough um And yeah, when it's it rains. They'll also
Speaker 1: sneeze a lot because it gets in their nose and
Speaker 1: they have to sneeze it out. Um. And there's not
Speaker 1: that much food and nourishment up here, so they actually
Speaker 1: have evolved to be able to eat lichen off of trees,
Speaker 1: which normally you can't really digestive, but they've developed special
Speaker 1: digestive techniques for being able to get nutrition from the
Speaker 1: lichen um. And as for those juicy lips, uh, that
Speaker 1: actually could be sexual selection, which is really interesting because
Speaker 1: just like in humans, how big red, plump lips are
Speaker 1: considered attractive. This may be considered attractive among these snub
Speaker 1: nose monkeys, but it's more important for the males to
Speaker 1: have these big, red, juicy lips. Um. It's also it
Speaker 1: tends to happen where the older males have redder and
Speaker 1: thicker lips, so that could be a dominant signal. It
Speaker 1: could be a sexual maturity signal. And it's uh, it's
Speaker 1: just it's so great. It's like they look like they
Speaker 1: have had way too many fillers in their lips. No,
Speaker 1: but it sounds like a terrible idea. It's a bad idea.
Speaker 1: Don't do it. But it looks like that like someone
Speaker 1: like put a vacuum hose against their mouth and then
Speaker 1: pull it away and have these like big lips. But
Speaker 1: they're definitely these are just things they are born with
Speaker 1: that increase, I guess in their extreme nature as the
Speaker 1: animal ages. Yeah, man, how are they doing like in
Speaker 1: terms of like as a species or they prevalent or
Speaker 1: are they They're they're very they're very threatened, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and endangered their um. They have a very small population size,
Speaker 1: so like in the just like severals of thousands um
Speaker 1: so uh. And they also have such a unique habitat
Speaker 1: that uh. And they're so isolated. Uh, there's actually a
Speaker 1: little bit of genetic bottleneck. Uh. So researchers have like
Speaker 1: looked at their genome and found lack of diversity because
Speaker 1: they are such a small population and so insular, which
Speaker 1: is always a little bit of a concern with a
Speaker 1: unique species like this, because, um, when you lack a
Speaker 1: certain amount of genetic diversity, if a change to their
Speaker 1: environment happens or some kind of new disease pops up,
Speaker 1: they are much less likely to be able to cope
Speaker 1: with that. Yeah, maybe you're you know, maybe you were
Speaker 1: onto something with the Kylie genera e kind of earlier,
Speaker 1: because if you could get her on board with this,
Speaker 1: uh and get her to some stuff on Instagram, if
Speaker 1: we if we could make these monkeys Instagram models like
Speaker 1: Instagram stars like that that, and then people would get
Speaker 1: on board with protecting their earth, even them exact monkey influencers.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I can't believe nobody else has The
Speaker 1: time has come. You know, if you went in for
Speaker 1: an amputation and the surgeon sowed your leg on backwards,
Speaker 1: you might think you've got a medical malpractice case. But
Speaker 1: in some cases this is an intentional procedure. Rotation plasty
Speaker 1: is a procedure in which the leg is amputated, usually
Speaker 1: to excise bone cancer. Then the lower part of the leg,
Speaker 1: if healthy, is reattached to the thigh backwards. The purpose
Speaker 1: of this is to create an knee using the foot.
Speaker 1: The ankle has the same hinge motion as the knee,
Speaker 1: just backwards, so rotating it gives the same locomotion as
Speaker 1: the knee. This allows people who have had an amputation
Speaker 1: to have a better range of motion and to adapt
Speaker 1: prosthetics with more ease, being able to operate a below
Speaker 1: the knee procethsis more easily. It may look a bit strange,
Speaker 1: but it's an innovative procedure that can give people a
Speaker 1: better quality of life. It just goes to show you
Speaker 1: so called weird anatomy can be incredibly useful. When we
Speaker 1: get back, we'll look at some of the more intimidating
Speaker 1: examples of animal anatomy. Dinosaurs. They're big, leathery, with bony
Speaker 1: claws and pointy heads. Our conception of what dinosaurs look
Speaker 1: like maybe a misconception due to what's called shrink rapping.
Speaker 1: Shrink Rapping is when paleo artists artists who try to
Speaker 1: reconstruct what an animal looks like based on its fossil record,
Speaker 1: don't include as much muscle, tissue and fat as an
Speaker 1: animal may have in reality had, which makes them look
Speaker 1: only in skeletons sunken, sort of like the dinosaurs in
Speaker 1: Jurassic Park. In the book All Yesterday's Unique and Speculative
Speaker 1: Views of Dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, artists made a
Speaker 1: series of pictures of what did it look like if
Speaker 1: you did the classic shrink wrapping artistic rendering of living
Speaker 1: species based on their skeletons. Suddenly swans are horrible monsters
Speaker 1: with needle like pointy arms. Baboons and squirrels look like
Speaker 1: grotesque demons. In fact, as we now know, dinosaurs may
Speaker 1: have been feathery and brightly colored, maybe even a little chubby.
Speaker 1: Sometimes a t rex may have looked more like a giant,
Speaker 1: threatening chicken. As we'll find out, our concept of what
Speaker 1: animals can look like may need to be expanded, and
Speaker 1: we'll start out with a very large, extinct monster who
Speaker 1: flew the skies. Sorry you guys. Fans of the Jurassic
Speaker 1: Park thing franchise, Yeah, one of the first ones really good,
Speaker 1: and then the most recent one was pretty okay. But
Speaker 1: the ones in between, I wasn't a huge fan. Maybe
Speaker 1: you just maybe you just got older and lost the
Speaker 1: magic of the Jurassic magic. Jurassic Park one totally holds
Speaker 1: up on repeat viewings, Like even though like it was
Speaker 1: like the effects looked really great. I can actually I
Speaker 1: can verify that because when I was a kid, I
Speaker 1: was too scared to watch Jurassic Park. Um, And then
Speaker 1: I watched it as an adult, and it really does
Speaker 1: hold up. It's really good, it's got quotables. Even even
Speaker 1: just the way the story is structured, you'd still very
Speaker 1: watchable despite the fact that, as as you pointed out,
Speaker 1: Katie H, science is showing us that dinosaurs, what we
Speaker 1: call dinosaurs, may have had a ton of feathers, right
Speaker 1: instead of just scaly skin. Yeah, they may have been
Speaker 1: a little fuffy chicken like creatures. Um like imagine t rex,
Speaker 1: but just like a big old chicken with big, old
Speaker 1: fuffy feathers. They could have been areful. They could have
Speaker 1: had like um like gol or pouches and head bobs
Speaker 1: and yeah, exactly. I think artists are now reimagining dinosaurs
Speaker 1: more to be more fancy and I love that. And
Speaker 1: one group of dinosaurs that I think we have a
Speaker 1: certain conception about them, but it is a misconception is
Speaker 1: the pterosaurs. So parasaurs are think like the pterodactyl, that's
Speaker 1: one species of pterosaur, and they're not actually dinosaurs. They're
Speaker 1: winged reptiles that are extinct that are of the Mesozoic era.
Speaker 1: So they are just defined as this group of extinct
Speaker 1: reptile that would have these you know, they have those
Speaker 1: leathery wings that they can use to fly like a pterodactyl.
Speaker 1: But I want to talk about one of the most
Speaker 1: incredible species of pterosaurs, which is the cats acts north raw.
Speaker 1: Does that sound right? Yeah, catsl coldal is Um. It's
Speaker 1: a reference to Mayan culture. Yeah, yes, that feathery serpent.
Speaker 1: God right, the plume serpent and this this thing is
Speaker 1: I have to ask just looking at maybe a recreation
Speaker 1: or a model of this. Uh, my first question is
Speaker 1: could it actually fly? Because that head is ginormous. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it could have flown. The scientists
Speaker 1: actually there were like physicists trying to figure out whether
Speaker 1: this thing could fly. And it's a little bit of
Speaker 1: a controversial debate, but most researchers, I think agree that
Speaker 1: it could indeed fly. Um. Which is insane looking at
Speaker 1: it because so far our listeners it was it looks
Speaker 1: sort of pterodactyl like, but it was as tall as
Speaker 1: a giraffe with a thirty five ft wingspan. It's about
Speaker 1: the size of a Sas No. One seventy two airplane. Um.
Speaker 1: It has a long, sharp pointed beak and a really muscular,
Speaker 1: stiff neck. Uh. And so when they're on the ground, uh,
Speaker 1: they can fold their wings kind of like I mean
Speaker 1: like when you see in uh fantasy movies how dragons
Speaker 1: walk on the ground. Where when they don't have fore
Speaker 1: legs like uh in Game of Thrones, how the dragons
Speaker 1: would walk on their folded up wings. That's exactly how
Speaker 1: these guys would walk on the ground. Paleontologists think, uh,
Speaker 1: so they actually have a um sort of physical structure
Speaker 1: similar to large ungulates like giraffes, so they may have
Speaker 1: been able to walk UM with a similar ease as
Speaker 1: a giraffe. UM, probably not quite as good because of
Speaker 1: those big old flappity wings UM and uh. Some researchers
Speaker 1: actually think that they could have made transcontinental flights because
Speaker 1: they're just so dang big. They may be caught the
Speaker 1: right thermal or something and could cost for a while.
Speaker 1: So looking at this thing, though, like I mean, I
Speaker 1: leave flying out of it. I don't feel like they'd
Speaker 1: be able to stand up right. That head is so huge.
Speaker 1: I feel like they would just like topple over. But
Speaker 1: I guess the only the only explanation there is was
Speaker 1: the beak like really light or something like does it
Speaker 1: just looks so top heavy and unwieldy. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it's just their their vertebrae. If you look at
Speaker 1: um a skeletal uh, the fossil and the skeleton of it.
Speaker 1: Their vertebrae were huge, just these really thick, thick u
Speaker 1: structures um, and then couple that with some really swollen
Speaker 1: neck muscles, and then I think a beak, which is
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of their head is, you know,
Speaker 1: the the beak structure, even though that's quite large, it
Speaker 1: is hollow for the most part. And then you know,
Speaker 1: the head is obviously pretty heavy, but then that the
Speaker 1: little bump on top of the fleshy bump on top
Speaker 1: of their beak is probably pretty light too, So I
Speaker 1: can see how they do it because like if the
Speaker 1: their neck vertebrae are just real chunky, yeah, they definitely
Speaker 1: have feathers, right, They may have had feathers, so there's
Speaker 1: evidence other pterosaurs had primitive feathers to keep them warm.
Speaker 1: So there's a real good chance that they were just big, feathery,
Speaker 1: huge monsters, which is pretty incredible. So in DARFA, you know,
Speaker 1: the defense contracting company that they like to do robots
Speaker 1: and weird technology stuff, they used one of these guys,
Speaker 1: the cats akodalists north Ropy as a model for an
Speaker 1: unmanned ornithopter. Uh So that's a flying vehicle that uses
Speaker 1: flapping wing motions and it was this unmanned flying uh
Speaker 1: like tarosaur. Vehicle was eighteen feet and had a weight
Speaker 1: of forty pounds. And I can't find out what like,
Speaker 1: I think they just have it in a museum because
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like it worked too good. No, but
Speaker 1: that would be funny because like now we have drones,
Speaker 1: which are less funny, but the like if drones just
Speaker 1: like we're big things that were like flapping their wings
Speaker 1: trying to go unnoticed, like don't mind me, normal giant
Speaker 1: pterodactyl soor yeah, that's you know, there's a reason that
Speaker 1: we don't catch a lot of ornithopters at the airport
Speaker 1: now it right, Yeah, it's not when you can have
Speaker 1: a plane like structure where you the energy is not
Speaker 1: in the flapping motion but rather uh fuel situation, that
Speaker 1: is a lot better. But they didn't learn their lesson
Speaker 1: because in two thousand and nine they created a hummingbird
Speaker 1: sized ornithopter um, which it actually worked a lot better.
Speaker 1: It looks like and it's really creepy, and I guess
Speaker 1: now we kind of have to worry that maybe a
Speaker 1: hummingbird is a government robot. Have you guys heard of that?
Speaker 1: Like birds Aren't Real campaign. I support that entirely. I'm
Speaker 1: just putting that out there. Um. I hate to say this,
Speaker 1: but this is another feather in their cap, so to speak,
Speaker 1: because they did create robot hummingbirds. Um. I'm always getting
Speaker 1: harassed about that because I owned the pro bird rights
Speaker 1: Twitter account. Um, so people are always like saying, well,
Speaker 1: did you know birds aren't real? Um, which is offensive
Speaker 1: to me and my people. Actually, yeah, we get a
Speaker 1: lot of that on our other show stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want to know, but it's mainly from flat earthers, So
Speaker 1: we feel your pain on that. Yes, yeah, really like
Speaker 1: just people writing in and saying like that the Earth
Speaker 1: is flat and yeah, basically you guys are that. You
Speaker 1: guys are idiots, and uh, you know, get off your
Speaker 1: high horse. I'll send you. I'll send you some some
Speaker 1: choice words. Typically have been a him of some rebuttal
Speaker 1: videos to regarding the flat Earth, and I found them
Speaker 1: massively endearing. So, you know, if you're fighting a good fight,
Speaker 1: whether bird rights or the shape of the planet, you
Speaker 1: just gotta you gotta take the long game. Look, I'm
Speaker 1: actually a kangaroo vagina earther. I think that's the shape,
Speaker 1: you know. I have been reading the blog of your organization,
Speaker 1: the Kangaroo Vagina Earther's uh dot blog spot dot yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I gotta say I I, uh, I don't entirely agree,
Speaker 1: but I think you raised some valid and fascinating points.
Speaker 1: Would you agree nor? Oh? Absolutely? I just want to
Speaker 1: I just want to start a conversation. I'm just looking
Speaker 1: for a new movement to get behind, you know, and
Speaker 1: this this seems like the one for me. Well, you, guys,
Speaker 1: I want to take you back to imagination station. HM.
Speaker 1: Imagine you're trapesing through the zag Gross mountains of western
Speaker 1: Iran and suddenly you see a spider crawling on a rock.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it's a spider. But maybe you listen to
Speaker 1: this podcast, so you know that most spiders are friends, uh,
Speaker 1: And you reached down to pet the spider, which I'm
Speaker 1: not actually recommending that you do that. Don't pet spiders,
Speaker 1: you know some of them are venomous, but also just
Speaker 1: like they don't want to be pet by you. But
Speaker 1: you do it for some reason, and suddenly the rock
Speaker 1: transforms into a viper and eats your face. So yea,
Speaker 1: that's I want to talk about something called the spider
Speaker 1: tailed horned viper, which is how it sounds like. UM.
Speaker 1: It is found in Iran UH in the in western Iran,
Speaker 1: like in the mountains. UH. It has a unique adaptation
Speaker 1: to lure in birds to prey upon, So it has
Speaker 1: UH it's called a caudle lure, which is science words
Speaker 1: for a bamboozel tail. The tail ends in a bulb
Speaker 1: and along the tail are these elongated spindle le scales
Speaker 1: UH that kind of look like insect legs. So the
Speaker 1: total effect is that it looks like this weird spider.
Speaker 1: And then what the snake does is it kind of
Speaker 1: twirls and slowly moves its tail around, and the effect
Speaker 1: looks extremely convincingly like a crawling spider. When I first
Speaker 1: saw this, I didn't know what I was looking at,
Speaker 1: so I just thought it was like a spider crawling around.
Speaker 1: And then suddenly this viper appears out of nowhere, because yeah,
Speaker 1: the the viper itself has camouflaged, so it blends right
Speaker 1: in with the rocks, except that its tail, which sticks
Speaker 1: out and looks like a spider. So the birds all
Speaker 1: they see is this juicy looking spider moving around, and
Speaker 1: then they go and attack the tail, and there was
Speaker 1: one video I particularly liked because it showed a bird
Speaker 1: attack the tail that it thought was the spider, and
Speaker 1: then the viper kind of like um lunges at it,
Speaker 1: and the bird flies away temporarily, and then it comes
Speaker 1: back and attacks the spider or the fake spider tail again,
Speaker 1: and then the snake like eats. It's just does not
Speaker 1: learn its lesson. Oh may, but I want to say,
Speaker 1: like this, this viper needs to get a job with
Speaker 1: like the Jim Henson Company, because there's some serious finesse
Speaker 1: to this, like puppeteering with this fake spider. I mean
Speaker 1: it's not just I mean it's there's some real subtlety
Speaker 1: to the way the thing moves to make it look
Speaker 1: like a crawling creature. And you're right, like I was
Speaker 1: totally taken viper. I'm like, what am I looking at?
Speaker 1: I thought it was a rock with a spider crawling
Speaker 1: on And then yeah, the plot twist is when you
Speaker 1: realize the viper's there the whole time, right right exactly.
Speaker 1: The Viper's just like eat is me? I am? I
Speaker 1: am kermit? The spider do not worry. So it's it's
Speaker 1: interesting because this looks like, uh, this is an amazing adaptation.
Speaker 1: It reminds me very much of the adaptation that rattlesnakes have.
Speaker 1: It's like the same what did you call the caudal area, yeah,
Speaker 1: which just means tail area. Yeah. Okay, so they went
Speaker 1: into a different direction, and I gotta say, these are
Speaker 1: I don't know. I've always loved the rattlesnake adaptation because
Speaker 1: it's like they have their own Morocca, you know. But
Speaker 1: this is like a level up version though, right, it's crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they sacrifice puppeteer. They've sacrificed percussion for puppeteering, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. If you could get like a rattlesnake
Speaker 1: and one of these vipers together, you got a show.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, it's got a whole presentation. You might get
Speaker 1: bit at the end. Yes. So, speaking of reptiles, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about the Mexican mole lizard. It's a worm,
Speaker 1: it's a snake. Nope, it's some mole lizard. It's found
Speaker 1: in Baja California, and it looks like a pink, squiggly
Speaker 1: little spaghetti guy. It really does look like a warm
Speaker 1: at on first sight, but it is actually a type
Speaker 1: of reptile in the Amphysbania group, which is warm lizards.
Speaker 1: So a lot of worm lizards just don't have legs
Speaker 1: at all. They're legless lizards. They're not snakes. Actually are
Speaker 1: distinct species of lizards. But this one, the Mexican mole lizard,
Speaker 1: does have legs, but they're really tiny and stubby and
Speaker 1: they only have four legs um, which is really it's
Speaker 1: very funny. So if you guys look at that little
Speaker 1: picture of it, you see it looks and they're so
Speaker 1: brightly colored pink. They look like, you know, they don't
Speaker 1: even look like real worms. They look like those gummy
Speaker 1: worms just and then but they have those little two
Speaker 1: little legs out in front that they used to kind
Speaker 1: of burrow into soft sand. Are they dragging themselves completely
Speaker 1: with those legs their muscles constrict and relax like a
Speaker 1: snake's for movement. No, yeah, so it's it's partially the muscles, uh,
Speaker 1: moving them along along the abdomen um and the little
Speaker 1: legs may help a little bit with movement, but it's
Speaker 1: also helping them with burrowing and crawling down holes. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not just like them like putting one leg out
Speaker 1: like drag and then the other one is drag. So
Speaker 1: they're about eight inches long, and it actually has an
Speaker 1: autonomous tail, which is think about like lizards and how
Speaker 1: you can yank their tail off. Don't do that? Actually
Speaker 1: be nice the lizards, but if they are caught by
Speaker 1: a predator, they can remove their tail. Uh, and the
Speaker 1: tail kind of wiggles around. So these guys have that,
Speaker 1: except unlike lizards, their tails don't regenerate, so they got
Speaker 1: like one or two shots, I guess. And uh. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's quite useful when they're burrowing down and like their
Speaker 1: tail detaches because then it also plugs up the burrow
Speaker 1: on keeps the predator from getting to them. But like
Speaker 1: I said, they they can't blow their load too soon
Speaker 1: or else they're out of a tail. Yeah geez, I've
Speaker 1: got to say. Also, these things look kind of like
Speaker 1: a slinky that someone had coated with a pink I
Speaker 1: don't know, like a pink curtain wrapping around them and
Speaker 1: then kind of just messed it up. Get it slammy.
Speaker 1: The little close up is really strange, like on the
Speaker 1: first slide, you guy here, where you've got like a
Speaker 1: long shot where it really does look like a worm
Speaker 1: minus the tiny, tiny little arms and then it almost
Speaker 1: like made me laugh out loud when you zoom in
Speaker 1: and you see it's tiny little lizard face and these
Speaker 1: bizarre little turtle hands. Yeah, that's kind of what they
Speaker 1: look like, is a little miniature turtle hands. Yeah. How
Speaker 1: does this thing live? How does this thing survive? Why
Speaker 1: does this thing exist? I mean existentially? I can't really
Speaker 1: answer that for you. But actually, if you like, go down,
Speaker 1: there's a little video of it moving around, uh, and
Speaker 1: it's you can see that the little legs does help
Speaker 1: it as it's burrowing down into the sand, and you
Speaker 1: can actually see its body undulating to that the that
Speaker 1: abdominal movement of the muscles helping propel it forward. But
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny because it is just walking along
Speaker 1: with the legs to uh. So it uses the legs
Speaker 1: to dig and burrow, um, and then uh the uh.
Speaker 1: It's it's sort of a similar to how you know,
Speaker 1: one imagine snake evolved, where it's like, well I don't
Speaker 1: really need the back legs, but in this case, the
Speaker 1: front legs are pretty still pretty useful and cute. It
Speaker 1: is cute. It kind of looks like a little baby,
Speaker 1: do you remember do or like trimmers like a little
Speaker 1: baby sand worms and beetlejuice. Yeah, um, but pink uh.
Speaker 1: It is actually like the dune sandworms or or tremmors
Speaker 1: because it pulls its prey underground to eat them. So,
Speaker 1: like if you were a little insect sized, these would
Speaker 1: be pretty horrifying. Oh yeah, yeah, I can imagine so,
Speaker 1: but now what you said. They're eight nine inches long, right,
Speaker 1: there's primarily primarily underground, so I don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about accidentally running into one on the street unless you're
Speaker 1: unless you're like in Baja California and you're like rooting
Speaker 1: around in the sand. Are they venomous at all? And
Speaker 1: I'm sorry if I missed it, And if you said that,
Speaker 1: like would they would they give you a bite? Or
Speaker 1: they might they might buy you, But I don't think
Speaker 1: they could hurt you, And I don't think they're venomous.
Speaker 1: Looking at their face, it looks like they could. If not,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it would be so much as
Speaker 1: of a bite as like a really aggressive gumming. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they would gnam at you angrily, sort of like a
Speaker 1: like an unfriendly hickey. Yes, yes, it's a great band name.
Speaker 1: I think the unfriendly hickies and the purple ner bullets.
Speaker 1: Um So, finally our last animal, I wanna give the blobfish.
Speaker 1: Shine some light on this blobfish and kind of clear
Speaker 1: its name a little bit, because I think it's been
Speaker 1: slandered by the media for far too long. Um So,
Speaker 1: you guys might all be familiar with the blobfish. Do
Speaker 1: you guys? Have you guys seen these pictures of the
Speaker 1: blobfish before? I've seen the first one definitely, because it
Speaker 1: comes up whenever you're searching rabbit hole for like weird
Speaker 1: creatures of the abistle planes in the ocean. Uh and
Speaker 1: it looks like it looks like a guy having a
Speaker 1: bad day, right, It's that it's that viral picture of
Speaker 1: like this pink, big nose deflated blobs. It kind of
Speaker 1: looks like a ziggy cartoon head exactly. Um And uh
Speaker 1: So that you know, we're probably when you think about it,
Speaker 1: you think of this little blobfish like looking like that
Speaker 1: in the ocean, just swoorn around looking sad and blobby.
Speaker 1: But this this is media lies and slander and liberal
Speaker 1: and all those bad things. Um So. Blobfish are deep
Speaker 1: water fish that live off of the coast of guess,
Speaker 1: guess guess what coast? Uh, the a Pacific coast. Nope, Australia. Oh,
Speaker 1: that makes so much more sense. So the pressure at
Speaker 1: four thousand feet underwater is over a hundred times that
Speaker 1: of the surface. So for animals living down there, they've
Speaker 1: been and specialized such that they can survive in these
Speaker 1: crushing depths. But just as you'd be crushed diving that deep,
Speaker 1: blobfish and other fish, when brought up to the surface
Speaker 1: will kind of explode. So the blobfish, when alive in
Speaker 1: its natural habitat, looks kind of like an ugly but
Speaker 1: relatively normal fish. So I showed you guys the picture
Speaker 1: of the blob fish when he's alive and healthy. Uh,
Speaker 1: And you can see he's actually his skin has a
Speaker 1: different texture. He's not just uniformly pink and gooey. He's
Speaker 1: got some spines on his skin, he's got some color differentiation,
Speaker 1: and he's got ice sockets and a and a distinctive fins.
Speaker 1: And I mean the mouth is pretty still pretty moby,
Speaker 1: to be fair, Uh, but it does it looks recognizably
Speaker 1: like a fish, just a bit of an ugly fish. Well,
Speaker 1: it's like a r right, Yeah, with a big floppity mouth.
Speaker 1: But once it reaches the surface, it kind of turns
Speaker 1: into that weird pudding and that's why it has that
Speaker 1: distinctive ziggy look. That's that's the desecrated corpse of a blobfish.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: that kind of demonstrates how easily we can misunderstand, uh,
Speaker 1: natural discoveries. Um because while that's not a doctored image,
Speaker 1: the one of the blobfish, there's nothing fake about it.
Speaker 1: It's just that's not how they would look in their
Speaker 1: natural environment. Um. So our conception of these these ziggyheads
Speaker 1: just kind of floating on the ocean floor is not
Speaker 1: quite correct. You Know what I think would be great, Katie,
Speaker 1: is to have a have these two pictures in a
Speaker 1: P s A. Because they're great before and after, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like meth not even once? Or
Speaker 1: what's what's not even once? Yeah, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: what's a hot button issue with the ocean? Plastic straws,
Speaker 1: not even plastic straws, ocean acidification? Uh, you know, worms
Speaker 1: on hooks not even once. Apparently tie pods are back, y'all.
Speaker 1: I've got a ten year old daughter, and she informed
Speaker 1: me that tide pods are back because they now have
Speaker 1: non toxic tide pods, So the kids are really going
Speaker 1: to town like actually, ah children. Yeah, I know this.
Speaker 1: This has been a blast as always, Katie and and
Speaker 1: been looking back through our exploration today and wondering if
Speaker 1: I had to pick one adaptation for myself, what would
Speaker 1: I pick? And right now, all I've got is that
Speaker 1: I feel very fortunate to be human. We're not perfect,
Speaker 1: but but there's a lot of there's a lot of
Speaker 1: weird stuff. We don't have to do this at least
Speaker 1: we don't have to pull a skin flap up over
Speaker 1: our bodies to be able to poop. That's what I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of. Yep. Well, thank you guys so much for
Speaker 1: joining me. Uh why don't you tell people where the
Speaker 1: heck they can find you? Yeah, we are Ridiculous History.
Speaker 1: We have new episodes coming out every Tuesday and Thursday.
Speaker 1: You can find us on our website Ridiculous History Show
Speaker 1: dot com. Yeah I think so. I don't really go
Speaker 1: to the website, but the best way to reach us
Speaker 1: as you can email us at Ridiculous at I heart
Speaker 1: radio dot com, or you can check me out on Instagram.
Speaker 1: I am at how Now Noel Brown. You can find
Speaker 1: me getting kicked into and out of various countries and
Speaker 1: communities at at Ben Bolan on Instagram or at ben
Speaker 1: Bowland h s W on Twitter. And you can find
Speaker 1: our show Ridiculous History wherever you find your favorite podcast.
Speaker 1: It's True All of Its True. You can find us
Speaker 1: on the web at Creature feature pod dot com. You
Speaker 1: can find us on Instagram Creature feature Pod and on
Speaker 1: Twitter Creature feet Pod f e A T. Be sure
Speaker 1: to put that in or else you will get some
Speaker 1: weird images. I've been Katie Golden. You can find me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Katie Golden or also pro bird Writes,
Speaker 1: where I am really fighting against the medializing slander about
Speaker 1: how birds aren't real. In fact they are and sometimes
Speaker 1: their tongues go inside. There's goals And thanks to the
Speaker 1: Space Classics for their awesome song Exo Lumina