Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Creature Feature, the show where we
Speaker 1: dive right into the brains of humans and animals and
Speaker 1: get neurons all over us. A gross Today we're talking
Speaker 1: about teamwork. There is no I in teamwork, but there
Speaker 1: is a me and an e walk. We're gonna be
Speaker 1: looking at some wild animal teams, how they compare to humans,
Speaker 1: and what the robot dominated future may hold. Discover this
Speaker 1: and more as we answer the age old riddle what
Speaker 1: animal doesn't feel pain and loves eating poop? Is the answer? Man? No, No,
Speaker 1: it's not so this may be considered blasphemy, but my
Speaker 1: favorite part of the Star Wars Original trilogy is when
Speaker 1: those Ewoks engage in guerrilla warfare tactics to defeat the Empire.
Speaker 1: Was it a brazen attempt by George Locus to make
Speaker 1: the movie more marketable towards children? Yes? But was it
Speaker 1: a cool example of some weird, dog faced monkey like
Speaker 1: aliens work together towards a common purpose. Yes it was,
Speaker 1: and I love how individually each Ewalk looked like a
Speaker 1: snubbed face a little more on, but together they somehow
Speaker 1: figured out to defeat the galaxy's most menacing army. Of course,
Speaker 1: this is fiction, the fevered brainchild of a franchise hungry
Speaker 1: George Lucas. But are there real examples of adorable animals
Speaker 1: banding together to save the galaxy. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: there are, and they're often more inventive and more lovable
Speaker 1: than those little shag carpeting aliens. So today on the show,
Speaker 1: I'm joined by comedian, writer and actor Blake Wexler. Hello,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to do this. Yeah, what's your opinion on the Walk's
Speaker 1: not wrong? Answers? Thank god, because I was already second
Speaker 1: guessing myself. Um, I've always loved them, Like, I don't
Speaker 1: think they're skilled fighters. I think they were in over
Speaker 1: their heads. But I mean I saw Star Wars when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, and I thought they were so
Speaker 1: cute and yeah, yeah they were a little teddy bears. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they're sort of like the everyman alien where
Speaker 1: you know, they don't they aren't very aren't, they aren't
Speaker 1: very agile, faces are small and weird. But together they
Speaker 1: made those weird log things that just crushed people in
Speaker 1: between it. It's pretty great. I love that. I love
Speaker 1: that so much. And their sling shots. Yeah. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: were fantastic, like a Rube Goldberg device that just like
Speaker 1: brought a huge spike down on some kind of guy.
Speaker 1: And it is It is funny. I've never thought of
Speaker 1: them as aliens. I've just thought of them as smart bears. Um,
Speaker 1: but they would technically be aliens that Yeah, they're alien bears, Barelians, Barellians.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. So um, speaking of relating this topic to movies, Uh,
Speaker 1: that was a great segway. That was phenomenal. All the
Speaker 1: air just exited my lungs. A gasp, A gasp of
Speaker 1: such an excellent segue. Remember the Matrix. Hey guys, it's
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. Remember the Matrix. That's all I think about. Um,
Speaker 1: if you think about it, in that movie, the humans
Speaker 1: are at the domesticated animals of the robots because you know,
Speaker 1: we're producing energy for them and they're exploiting our bodies. Um.
Speaker 1: And so in the movie, you kind of have the
Speaker 1: decision to happily live in ignorance unless you are offered
Speaker 1: a choice by Morpheus to live in reality or like
Speaker 1: keep living in your happy robot world. Um, what would
Speaker 1: you personally choose in this situation? Um? I would well,
Speaker 1: my reality isn't that great, so I guess whatever I mean?
Speaker 1: Am I? But yeah, I would love just anything. I'm
Speaker 1: okay with being like completely oblivious and ignorance, so what's
Speaker 1: going on around me or continuing that? Right? So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm cool with that one. Yeah, I'm just I'm just
Speaker 1: not sure what the benefits are to re establishing human
Speaker 1: society if like we've already kind of screwed it up,
Speaker 1: and then you know, the robots are like they're treating
Speaker 1: as much better than humans treat livestock. Um, we're enjoying
Speaker 1: our lives presumably, So I don't know, I'd probably be
Speaker 1: I probably decided to stay in the matrix because honestly, uh,
Speaker 1: have you seen it outside the skies all dre But
Speaker 1: dogs are sort of like Morpheus and Neo, and they
Speaker 1: decide to break outside of the matrix, the human matrix
Speaker 1: that see this, this a metaphor is not strained at all.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that there are humans who own two dogs
Speaker 1: and their names are Monny, yeah, or do you're like
Speaker 1: the Red cable or the Blue cable? Or would you
Speaker 1: like to lick my butt? Okay it's the butt licking. Yes,
Speaker 1: I figured that yes, okay, Um, so I've just shown
Speaker 1: you some viral videos of stray dogs or rescue dogs
Speaker 1: freeing other dogs viral and that they will give your
Speaker 1: computer a viruses. They were like news websites which just
Speaker 1: instantly infect your computer with a bowl. Uh. And it's
Speaker 1: but yeah, these videos are pretty pretty cool because uh
Speaker 1: one of them shows a stray dog bringing a dog
Speaker 1: tied to a fence. Uh. And then once it on
Speaker 1: ties it, it drags it by the leash like you're
Speaker 1: in my pet. Now. We thought this was a selfless act.
Speaker 1: You were just ascertaining a servant of servant from post.
Speaker 1: Who's the human now, stocks and bonds, stocks and bonds
Speaker 1: toilet paper. I am a human, look at my pet dog. Um.
Speaker 1: And then there was another video of a dog freeing. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was in a shelter and he freed like everyone
Speaker 1: else in the kennel. Um. And then they just romped around,
Speaker 1: had a good time, urinated all over the floor. It
Speaker 1: was great. Yeah, they really quickly because in that moment
Speaker 1: you think that there's some sort of enlightened dog that
Speaker 1: is smarter than all the other dogs, and it's a
Speaker 1: selfless act. And then they just a meet we remind
Speaker 1: you that they're dogs and you start playing around and
Speaker 1: barking at one another and peeing on the floor. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although I did I love that that peeing on one
Speaker 1: of the doors, because that's like, that's such a great
Speaker 1: rebel move of this is what I think of your
Speaker 1: stupid door. Yeah. Um. So after watching these I had
Speaker 1: to kind of ask the question, like, are these dogs
Speaker 1: actually trying to rescue each other or they just being
Speaker 1: dogs and not really thinking about it? Um? Are they
Speaker 1: displaying empathy? Are they trying to work as a team?
Speaker 1: You know what? What's their motivation? Because because we can
Speaker 1: often anthropomorphize animals inappropriately, where we think they're being you know,
Speaker 1: it appears that they're empathizing with each other and they
Speaker 1: want to free each other. But uh is this true? Uh?
Speaker 1: Do we have to fear dog uprising? Uh? So um.
Speaker 1: To answer this, there's a few questions we have to
Speaker 1: get through. One is like, can dogs actually recognize other dogs?
Speaker 1: Which sounds obvious, but it's not when you think about
Speaker 1: the diversity of dog breeds and how some of them
Speaker 1: look like little chipmunks and other ones look like bears.
Speaker 1: So um. And the next question is do dogs display
Speaker 1: empathy towards each other. Uh. And then the final question
Speaker 1: is can they actually work together to solve problems? So, uh,
Speaker 1: there's research that actually answered all of these questions. Um.
Speaker 1: So there's a Scientific American article that's titled do Dogs
Speaker 1: Know Other Dogs? Or dogs? I feel real smart reading
Speaker 1: these uh scientific articles. It seems accessible. Yes, um so
Speaker 1: uh it's uh, like I said, it is an actually
Speaker 1: important question. So researchers in France trained dogs that they'd
Speaker 1: be rewarded when approaching a dog's image. So you boop
Speaker 1: noses with a picture of a dog, and you get
Speaker 1: a reward um as opposed to another animal like a
Speaker 1: cow or something. Um. And then they once the dogs
Speaker 1: kind of got the rules right, then they trained them
Speaker 1: to uh uh or they trained them to approach the
Speaker 1: dog image always, and then they started showing them pictures
Speaker 1: of lots of different breeds of dogs like shit sues
Speaker 1: and Golden Retrievers and chihuahuas, and then a bunch of
Speaker 1: different animals like gerbils and cows and cats and people
Speaker 1: and children and whatever. Um, and all the dogs passed
Speaker 1: the test. Uh. They were able to correctly identify the
Speaker 1: pictures of dogs, which is kind of incredible because when
Speaker 1: you think about it, some dogs kind of look like Gerbils. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Chihuahua and a gerbil are completely actually exactly the same,
Speaker 1: literally the same, right. I had a couple of guinea
Speaker 1: pigs and you know, taking them around on walks and
Speaker 1: people come out like, oh, can I pay your dog?
Speaker 1: You're small, You're small sausage like dogs. That story. Uh,
Speaker 1: you hear these stories every once in a while. Um. Oh,
Speaker 1: this family was raising a dog and it was a bear,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So even humans can't figure
Speaker 1: out what's a dog and what is a massive mammal beast.
Speaker 1: I thought it was a child, but it was just
Speaker 1: it was a shaved bear. Yeah, it was a shape bear.
Speaker 1: The whole time, ravenous child kept kept trying to get honey.
Speaker 1: It was real weird. It's crazy. His friend, his friend
Speaker 1: was a tiger and a pig baby pig, piglet and kangaroo.
Speaker 1: And it turns out I was just on Ellice d
Speaker 1: at the zoo. But anyways, the whole time, I'm a
Speaker 1: terrible mother. I apologize. Um. So the next question is
Speaker 1: do dogs display empathy towards other dogs? Uh? And so
Speaker 1: there was a study that they had a few dogs
Speaker 1: just hanging out chilling, and then the researchers played sounds
Speaker 1: of the dogs issuing distress wines, um, like before the
Speaker 1: dog saw the other dogs. So just like a video
Speaker 1: recording of a dog crying, which is kind of a
Speaker 1: horrifying experiment if you try to put imagine you're abducted
Speaker 1: by aliens. And then they just start playing the sounds
Speaker 1: of someone sobbing uncontrollably. I'm picturing it. Yeah, um. And
Speaker 1: then they would open the door and allow the dogs
Speaker 1: to unite. And then the dogs who heard the distress
Speaker 1: wines were much offered a lot more comfort to the dogs,
Speaker 1: a lot more licking and jumping in general dogginess towards
Speaker 1: their dog friends. And they also showed a preference towards
Speaker 1: empathy with dogs that they were familiar with, so if
Speaker 1: they had met the dog before, they were more likely
Speaker 1: to respond to the distress wines and then respond with
Speaker 1: more licking and empathy. Cute, It's very cute. Um. And
Speaker 1: then the final question is, uh, can dogs work together
Speaker 1: and solve problems and synergize and team? Oh? I wish
Speaker 1: I want to I want to have a television show. Oh,
Speaker 1: boy called Scooby Doo okay, yeah, and he has a
Speaker 1: little buddy, The titular Scooby has a little buddy named Scrappy.
Speaker 1: They might be related. This sounds great so far, and
Speaker 1: it's fantastic, and they solve crimes with children. Now. They
Speaker 1: both talk in perfect English, right, it is the King's English,
Speaker 1: and it's um perfect. There's one of them might be
Speaker 1: a drug addict, I see, yeah, yeah, but but but
Speaker 1: it's legal now, but I believe at the time it wasn't.
Speaker 1: So yeah. And the other one is I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's younger, like he's more adults somehow kind of pretentious.
Speaker 1: The small one is yeah, yeah, interesting. One thing I
Speaker 1: never understood with Scrappy and Scooby was like, Scrappy, what
Speaker 1: are you talking? That's not ahead? Sorry, sorry, doesn't work
Speaker 1: when I do there, Wait what we're gonna say. The
Speaker 1: one thing about that, yeah, Scrappy is like he talks
Speaker 1: in perfect English, whereas Scooby talks and kind of dog English.
Speaker 1: So how did that happen? And Scrappy walks on his
Speaker 1: hind legs and Scooby walks like a normal dog. Did
Speaker 1: did Scooby? Did Scooby screw Like, did they did Scooby
Speaker 1: like have a human dog hybrid? Oh? I like that,
Speaker 1: crappy is interesting. I was going to say one got
Speaker 1: a better education than the other, but I like your takenaques.
Speaker 1: I always go to that. Yeah, if you presented with
Speaker 1: two choices, education or the disgusting thing that I'm proposing, Yeah, definitely. Well,
Speaker 1: because it's walking on its hind legs like a hominid um.
Speaker 1: It actually has uh, sort of the shoulder and pelvis
Speaker 1: pelvic bone structure of a hominid more um. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's irascibly annoying. So the only like it's got to
Speaker 1: be some kind of mutant dog. And then they just
Speaker 1: I guess they call it his nephew to kind of
Speaker 1: obfuscate the fact that it's this horrifying abomination of human
Speaker 1: and dog DNA that was never supposed to work out
Speaker 1: in the gestational phase. Yes, that was I was so
Speaker 1: I forgot that I was a part of this podcast.
Speaker 1: Was listening to you right there. But that was fantastic,
Speaker 1: U TV. This is my new pitch. It's uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's like a gritty reboot of Scooby Doo. It's amazing
Speaker 1: to be played on the w B where else? So um,
Speaker 1: so yes, dogs can work together? As the original question,
Speaker 1: um and uh, there's a study that dogs had to
Speaker 1: trick a human in order to get through a fence
Speaker 1: to get a treat. So the human had there like
Speaker 1: two doors and like one sliding door, and so the
Speaker 1: human could only cover one door at once. Um, so
Speaker 1: the dogs would uh would diversify. So if they were
Speaker 1: in a team, they very quickly figured out that if
Speaker 1: one was at one door and the other was at
Speaker 1: one door, the human couldn't keep them both out, and
Speaker 1: then they were they were able to get past the
Speaker 1: fence into the food reward. Um and which humans just
Speaker 1: keeps getting drink. Goddamn the dog got out of I'm sorry, guys,
Speaker 1: you're gonna lose my goddamn job. Dogs keep tricking me.
Speaker 1: These just just the sort of like the Marx Brothers
Speaker 1: and their victim kind of situation. They I have a
Speaker 1: story about the I guess the last two questions like
Speaker 1: can they U are they empathetic to other dogs? And
Speaker 1: then can they work together? Where I was at my
Speaker 1: girlfriend's family place and we have a dog who's rescued
Speaker 1: named Ali, and then he's so cute. And then my
Speaker 1: sister's brother I'm just called my sisters. By the way,
Speaker 1: I didn't even get that right. My girlfriend's brother. I
Speaker 1: almost said my sister's boyfriend, which was been a totally
Speaker 1: different person. So my girlfriends So your sister's boyfriend's girlfriends
Speaker 1: brother brother, right, right, So whatever slip that was going
Speaker 1: on in my head, I'm not going to acknowledge your
Speaker 1: sister is your girlfriend. Let's not add labels. I don't
Speaker 1: label my family. Okay, so my real girlfriend and her brother.
Speaker 1: Her brother has a real girlfriend, my real human girlfriend,
Speaker 1: human girlfriend. Um, she think it really sounds yet normal
Speaker 1: the way I'm saying that this is normal. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: we have a dog named Ali, and then my girlfriend's
Speaker 1: brother has a dog named Albert, and he's a rescue too.
Speaker 1: And there was another dog there who is this like
Speaker 1: prissy bijon freeze that was wearing a diaper. It had
Speaker 1: been like freshly groomed. And was this an elderly dog
Speaker 1: or just like it was incontinent. It wasn't old, It
Speaker 1: wasn't like, oh I feel bad for this dog. It's
Speaker 1: I believe that dog felt that those lesser than him
Speaker 1: should clean up his ship. I see. So this dog
Speaker 1: never gained poop in any designated area. No, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: It's it's not his problem, you know, it's the people
Speaker 1: around right. So the two dogs like he was in
Speaker 1: the typer and like, you know, it's clearly an embarrassing
Speaker 1: looking thing, and then the two middle class dogs kept
Speaker 1: peeing on him over and over again. It's just a
Speaker 1: sign of just horrific disrespect. So yeah, they were working
Speaker 1: together to put that dog in its place, and they
Speaker 1: had no empathy for it. Hey, diaper boy, come over here.
Speaker 1: I'll show you you're our diaper. Now. Look at him
Speaker 1: wearing the vestments of humans. I'm going to peel on
Speaker 1: his head. It's literally the one thing we have because
Speaker 1: we all have to wear a diaper or pe in
Speaker 1: a specific spot. I love this idea of dog society
Speaker 1: cruelly looking down upon any dog who betrays dog kind,
Speaker 1: like like bone Cruncher, you have forsaken your own kind
Speaker 1: and warned the trappings of humanity. Feel our wrath in
Speaker 1: the form of a golden shower of punishment. Boh new Hi.
Speaker 1: I longed for the confines of my own home. I
Speaker 1: was just rude in my eyes. So um, actually, uh,
Speaker 1: and this is not just a behavior of domesticated dog
Speaker 1: spotted hyenas, which are actually more closely related to felines.
Speaker 1: But they're an example. The reason they're so dogli is
Speaker 1: an example of convergent evolution. So they're morphology and their
Speaker 1: pack structure is very similar to dogs. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: as I said, they are not. They're actually more more
Speaker 1: closely related to simba than they are too, you know, airbud.
Speaker 1: Their front legs are longer than their hind legs correct
Speaker 1: or or yeah I think so. Yeah, Yeah, it's my
Speaker 1: favorite animal. Yeah, they're they're they're and they're very uh
Speaker 1: they're big muscles. Yeah. Their heads shapes are just like
Speaker 1: when you see their head shapes compared to a dog,
Speaker 1: it's so clear that they're different species of animal because
Speaker 1: their heads are just so swollen. Um, they got these
Speaker 1: buff ass heads. Yeah they don't. They don't skip head day. No. No,
Speaker 1: it's like where do you work at high at the
Speaker 1: live were and I also murder things every day? Um,
Speaker 1: So they're there. They live in sub Saran Africa. Um.
Speaker 1: And they have these like we kind of talked about
Speaker 1: briefly on the show before. They have these a matriarchal
Speaker 1: society's hierarchies and they work together. Um. And Uh. When
Speaker 1: presented with a puzzle where two hyenas have to simultaneously
Speaker 1: tug on ropes to get this platform to drop for
Speaker 1: food to fall down, Uh, they learned it so quickly
Speaker 1: without any training. Uh. And they were way better at
Speaker 1: it than chimpanzees who were also given the same task.
Speaker 1: And the chimpanzees really needed a lot of handholding, so
Speaker 1: the the researchers had to train them how to do this,
Speaker 1: and the hyenas just were real quick studies. Um. So
Speaker 1: that's so interesting because uh, chimpanzees are our cousins, you know,
Speaker 1: they are social, socially very intelligent animals. But uh, hyenas
Speaker 1: were still better at specifically this kind of problem solving task,
Speaker 1: which is so so interesting. That's not to say hyenas
Speaker 1: are overall more intelligent than chimpanzees, they're just a yeah,
Speaker 1: they're better team players. Interesting. Yeah. I wonder if chimpanzee,
Speaker 1: because they are so related to us, are more inherently
Speaker 1: selfish and less likely to work together. Interesting. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it is. It is interesting because I think that um,
Speaker 1: I mean, humans really rely on social structure. Uh, and
Speaker 1: they do really rely on kind of these social strategies.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, they're also we have a
Speaker 1: solitary streak where we can work independently, and I think
Speaker 1: that's actually big strength, where each unit of the group
Speaker 1: is quite intelligent and solitary. But then you can see
Speaker 1: where like that can cause conflict where we are trying
Speaker 1: to figure something out on our own, whereas if you're
Speaker 1: an animal who's uh sort of like it's second nature
Speaker 1: to you, and you your pack structure is such that
Speaker 1: you need to very quickly make these decisions as your hunting,
Speaker 1: then it makes sense that they kind of immediately figured
Speaker 1: out where's the chimpanzees are probably like goofing around, sticking
Speaker 1: the rope up their butt holes or whatever, just overthinking it.
Speaker 1: All Right, if we do this at this angle, I
Speaker 1: tie the rope to my genitals. Yeah, so what that's
Speaker 1: my thing? Um. I've been sort of in a lion
Speaker 1: king kind of uh bender here because I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's I'm so frustrated with the movies total inaccuracies that
Speaker 1: I feel the need to correct the record. Um was
Speaker 1: starting with the talking Yeah, I UM don't think animals
Speaker 1: are that talkative also, I mean they would all be
Speaker 1: speaking different languages. Duh, like yeah uh um, but you
Speaker 1: know it is uh so. So I think what's interesting
Speaker 1: is the mere cat in the movies is solitary, which
Speaker 1: is very unusual. UM. Mere cats have a very complex
Speaker 1: society and it's actually kind of interesting. There was like
Speaker 1: a what was it Lion King one and a half
Speaker 1: where Poomba and and uh Tamane got their own backstories
Speaker 1: and they were like exiled from the group. Yes, and
Speaker 1: that's actually almost accurate that mere cats can be exiled.
Speaker 1: So uh, mere cats live in South Africa. UM. They
Speaker 1: are also matriarchal. UM. There's one dominant female who reserves
Speaker 1: the breeding rights UM. And dominance rights are not actually napatistic,
Speaker 1: so it's not like a sort of monarchy type thing.
Speaker 1: There's this constant struggle for dominance UM where the most
Speaker 1: aggressive females went out in terms of becoming queen. Uh
Speaker 1: sort of like high school am I right, exactly like
Speaker 1: high school? UM. And so there are benefits to the
Speaker 1: society they live. They live in a very predator dense area,
Speaker 1: so like UM, by raising their pups together and having sentinels,
Speaker 1: you know, the classic mere cat little pose where they're
Speaker 1: looking around being all cute. Um, that actually really helps
Speaker 1: the colony survive. Um. And they it's also you know,
Speaker 1: takes a village of merecats to raise a mere cat pup,
Speaker 1: because yes, that is the saying, because they all raised
Speaker 1: the pups together. Um. But and this seems like a beautiful, happy,
Speaker 1: well oiled commune. But when you peel back the layers
Speaker 1: of your cat propaganda, you actually find, uh, these are
Speaker 1: actually very rife with conflict, and the lords to the
Speaker 1: apartments that they live in, the conditions are shipped. That's true,
Speaker 1: that is true. I mean, like the roof keeps leaking,
Speaker 1: there's no the h a is out of control. So
Speaker 1: just like you know, they're like, oh you can't, you
Speaker 1: can't just have dung in your backyard. It's like, come on,
Speaker 1: I know, um, I know, I'm renting, but I have
Speaker 1: some rights right right, the right to collect a bunch
Speaker 1: of dong in my backyard. Uh. So, females are constantly
Speaker 1: vying for the dominant role of breeder, as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: because the way natural selection works, you want your genes
Speaker 1: passed down. Um, otherwise you're done. So the fact that there,
Speaker 1: it makes sense that they're all vying for that dominant
Speaker 1: role because that selfishness gene of like of like I
Speaker 1: want to be dominant, now I want to be dominant,
Speaker 1: that's going to get passed down. So even though there's
Speaker 1: only a few of the females that end up actually
Speaker 1: getting to breed, that that gene of wanting to be
Speaker 1: dominant and struggling to be dominant is very successful. Um So, uh,
Speaker 1: this is a weird question. If so the dominant queen
Speaker 1: and that's I know that's not the right phrase, but
Speaker 1: it's a dominatrix, the dominatrix of the compound. Um is
Speaker 1: the are the pups from that dominant queen more likely
Speaker 1: to be a dominant queen themselves? Not necessarily Like I said,
Speaker 1: it's a it's not really nepotistic, it's they are more
Speaker 1: likely to uh survive because dominant queens will kill off
Speaker 1: any um any offspring that are sort of unauthorized um
Speaker 1: and also sometimes the subordinate females will sneakily start killing
Speaker 1: off the offspring when they get the chance. Um. So
Speaker 1: there's there are there's a there's like sother fuge and
Speaker 1: uh backstabbing and a lot like that. There's a reason
Speaker 1: that there's this whole I think Animal Planet reality show
Speaker 1: called merecatman Or where they're just basically like Desperate Housewives
Speaker 1: except mercats. Um. There's all sorts of on like soap
Speaker 1: opera esque intrigue and like backstabbing, And there was one
Speaker 1: where one of the subordinate females had an affair with
Speaker 1: one of the males and then the dominant female chased
Speaker 1: her out of the colony and exiled her, and then
Speaker 1: she tried to come back in the colony and really
Speaker 1: was like literally kissing the feet of the dominant female
Speaker 1: to get spoilers, this is amazing. It's just like Maria Porquet,
Speaker 1: this teledevella based in sub Saharan Africa where most of
Speaker 1: them are yes, South Africa. Yeah, um, and so uh.
Speaker 1: They'll even excommunicate females that haven't done anything wrong, but
Speaker 1: they just suspect that they may be competition, Like you're
Speaker 1: looking pretty uh fertile, You're you're getting tossed out. Um.
Speaker 1: But she has to be careful because she needs enough
Speaker 1: females around to take care of her pups and keep
Speaker 1: the colony safe with enough sentinels. So it's sort of this, um,
Speaker 1: you know, this calculation of how many females do I
Speaker 1: chase off to protect my position as the dominant female,
Speaker 1: and how many do I keep around to raise my pups? Right?
Speaker 1: I killed too many of my guards and now I'm
Speaker 1: vulnerable exactly. I mean, she typically doesn't kill. They usually
Speaker 1: just like chase them off. And sometimes the females that
Speaker 1: get excommunicated will actually go on to establish their own colonies.
Speaker 1: It's hard, though, it's defically you gotta be really cares about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta start from the ground, right, right, Um, what
Speaker 1: are the men doing at this point? So usually there's
Speaker 1: just so usually just a UM, I like that you did?
Speaker 1: What about them? And with the mere cats? Gotcha? No,
Speaker 1: it's gotcha. No, it's all right, it's a that's a
Speaker 1: perfectly reasonable question. Um No. But but the males do,
Speaker 1: uh like they just a few of them are dominant,
Speaker 1: so they will also be vying for for a ability
Speaker 1: to mate with the dominant female. UM. And then they
Speaker 1: are in a very similar situation as the females, where
Speaker 1: they constantly vying to be the uh get up the ranks,
Speaker 1: um and uh if they when they're subordinate, they just
Speaker 1: help out with the colony and they will act as sentinels. Yes,
Speaker 1: well yeah, exactly unfortunately capitalism. Am all right, how much
Speaker 1: time do you have? I mean, this isn't Chapo trap
Speaker 1: house so um but uh so uh, I want to
Speaker 1: talk about naked mole rats because they're one of my
Speaker 1: favorite animals. They are really interesting as we segway from
Speaker 1: your cats to uh uh these more use social uh colonies. Um. So,
Speaker 1: naked mole rats if you've ever seen when they look like, yes,
Speaker 1: a fire, if John Lovett's and a fire had a
Speaker 1: baby that was a scrotum, yeah, yeah, that would be
Speaker 1: that would be the thing. So when a fire have
Speaker 1: a baby that's right or like or like you know,
Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell's neck, Oh god, that's but it has eyes
Speaker 1: and teeth that are on the outside of its lips.
Speaker 1: The artist formerly known as the silhouette of McConnell's Adam's
Speaker 1: Apple is put in color right. And they actually even
Speaker 1: though they do have eyes, they're completely blind. Um. And
Speaker 1: they live in underground huge underground networks have tunnels. Um.
Speaker 1: And they're very similar to be an ant colonies, and
Speaker 1: that they have one breeding female queen who is disgustingly
Speaker 1: enlarged when she's pregnant. Uh, I thought you were just
Speaker 1: this This podcast is so ripe with details and so intelligent.
Speaker 1: I thought you're just gonna be like and one queen
Speaker 1: who's disgusting. I was just going to be the hand.
Speaker 1: I mean. So, I've got a few pictures to show you.
Speaker 1: Here's one, and you can see her. I don't even
Speaker 1: know what I'm looking at. It's a it's a naked
Speaker 1: morat queen enlarged with pregnant, just like multiple babies, and
Speaker 1: she's like many times the size of like a regular
Speaker 1: mole rat. Here's another one who's so pregnant, looks like
Speaker 1: a giant. But that's true. Um, if only that's how
Speaker 1: it worked, if you're twins. They just watched this one.
Speaker 1: This one looks like it looks like she has this
Speaker 1: like huge just perfect asked, But it really is just
Speaker 1: her sides teeming with babies. Don't blow up her spot.
Speaker 1: Um so uh the the There here's a few quick
Speaker 1: mole rat facts. Welcome to mole rat facts Corner. They
Speaker 1: don't sponsored by sprite Researchers believe that they don't feel pain.
Speaker 1: They can survive almost twenty minutes without oxygen and they're
Speaker 1: almost immune to cancer. That sounds like my ex wife,
Speaker 1: what all three of those things immune to pain? Hold
Speaker 1: her breath and she's a sort of cancer. That's good.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it seems to work for her. Um
Speaker 1: I wish you well. Doesn't sound like she needs luck.
Speaker 1: She doesn't me so, I mean just it's so I
Speaker 1: love mother Nature's sense of humor. That like one of
Speaker 1: the most amazingly resilient animals looks like a nut sack
Speaker 1: with teeth, which is like the least resilient, the most
Speaker 1: vulnerable of things in the universe. You are you are
Speaker 1: unbreakable and I am Mr Glass. Just the mole rat
Speaker 1: and a ball sack meeting and it's like, well, what's
Speaker 1: his name? Bruce Willis met? Whose name? Samuel Jackson? Yes? Yes, um?
Speaker 1: And that in that movie Unbreakable? Who knew that you
Speaker 1: would be able to connect this? Thanks those four things?
Speaker 1: I guess technically yes, five things, two things, one unit
Speaker 1: to yeah right math anyways, um ballsac math, Welcome to
Speaker 1: Baal Sac Math Corner Corner sponsored by um SO Division
Speaker 1: of Labor among Uh. They're these like casts of nick
Speaker 1: mule rats, these different uh kind of ranks. So there's
Speaker 1: the one breeding female queen and then typically up to
Speaker 1: three breeding males. Uh. The non breeders do work building tunnels,
Speaker 1: taking care of the pups, foraging for food with their
Speaker 1: huge outside teeth. And I can't emphasize this enough. Like
Speaker 1: their teeth are outside of their lips. It's very good looking. Um.
Speaker 1: They will clean poop out of the nondesignated toilet areas. Uh.
Speaker 1: And they do. They actually have little toilet areas and
Speaker 1: they'll go in do their duty. And it's not it's
Speaker 1: not just it's not that they find poop growth because
Speaker 1: they'll roll around in it and we'll talk about more
Speaker 1: poop things later. But they yes, uh poop tease. UM.
Speaker 1: So they'll fend off intruders and UH. So there's some
Speaker 1: evidence that, UM, there are dominant structures within the ranks
Speaker 1: of workers. So when they are passing through each by
Speaker 1: each other and tunnels, if the tunnel is narrow enough,
Speaker 1: the subordinates will pass under the dominant naked mole routes
Speaker 1: is one of the theories. UM. And so there's some
Speaker 1: research that uh kind of suggests that there are three
Speaker 1: main categories of workers. There's the busy workers, the pep caretakers,
Speaker 1: and then the large lazy workers the homers if you will.
Speaker 1: Um so, uh And what's interesting is this research kind
Speaker 1: of I think the initial research kind of overlooked the
Speaker 1: fact that the larger lazier workers actually took a more
Speaker 1: active role in defending the colonies. So even though they
Speaker 1: didn't do as much of the grunt work, they did
Speaker 1: a lot more of the soldier work. So they would
Speaker 1: they would fend off predators or invaders. Um, they use
Speaker 1: your their teeth for that. Yeah, yeah, they're they're fun
Speaker 1: outside teeth. Yeah. I've never heard the term outside teeth before,
Speaker 1: and it's perfect and I I don't think this is
Speaker 1: how it works. But if I saw an angry nutsack
Speaker 1: just running towards me, gnashing its teeth, that I wouldn't
Speaker 1: that I would be done. Yeah. No, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a one eight turnaround situation. Yeah, that's a that's a no.
Speaker 1: That's a no situation. It's a hard no, that's a
Speaker 1: hard soft sack. Right. Um. So, male workers are functionally sterile.
Speaker 1: Um so their sex hormones are suppressed, likely by dominance
Speaker 1: behavior by the queen. So the queen one of her
Speaker 1: behaviors is just shoving literally for us, shoving shoving them
Speaker 1: around um with her giant writhing mass of pregnancy. UM
Speaker 1: and so, but they are but all of the females
Speaker 1: do have the potential to become breeding queens. So when
Speaker 1: the queen dies, one of the females will take her place,
Speaker 1: um and usually just by being the most dominant, most
Speaker 1: u ready to ready, most boss bay around. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: interesting that they have to overcome the fact that they
Speaker 1: have been so docile for so long. Words, I wonder
Speaker 1: what triggers that were, like if just the death triggers
Speaker 1: that I think, because there's no more, they aren't getting
Speaker 1: bullied as much, so new bully arises. That's so um
Speaker 1: and uh. Sometimes they will actually escape from the colony
Speaker 1: and they'll break off to start their own colony UM
Speaker 1: and that helps. Also that's suggested to help prevent genetic
Speaker 1: bottleneck UM. And then finally, let's talk about poop eating,
Speaker 1: because I know this is was your the best for LASS.
Speaker 1: So they eat poop to communicate and for their health.
Speaker 1: So the little pups will beg for poop by chirping
Speaker 1: and scratching at the workers butts, just like scratching at
Speaker 1: their anuses until they're like, fine, here's some poop. So
Speaker 1: the reason that the babies like to eat the poop
Speaker 1: is that their gut flora is not developed yet, so
Speaker 1: by eating the fecal matter, they actually help develop the
Speaker 1: helpful bacteria in their guts that will help them digest
Speaker 1: the tubers and all the harsh uh kind of ruffage
Speaker 1: that they have to eat um. But they're not the
Speaker 1: only ones who eat poop. The rest of the workers
Speaker 1: will eat their poop for nutrition. And there is some
Speaker 1: developing resource that suggests that the ueens poop contains hormones
Speaker 1: that may control the behavior of her subordinates, so she
Speaker 1: gets just more and more devious as we go on.
Speaker 1: So researchers fed workers the queen's poop and they became
Speaker 1: more responsive to the cries of pups. So the idea
Speaker 1: is that the queen's poop is so rich with these
Speaker 1: these hormones that when the females eat the poop, then
Speaker 1: they're like, they're like, oh, kind of overwhelmed with this
Speaker 1: caretaker hormone, so they're literally mind controlling them with shit. Amazing,
Speaker 1: the queen's poop sounds like it's being like beta tested,
Speaker 1: like you know the the West Hollywood Whole Foods right now,
Speaker 1: right with with the Dame Judy Den. Yes, of course,
Speaker 1: um um, would you have for a sample of the
Speaker 1: Queen's poop? I mean, if it's free like a Black
Speaker 1: Mirror episode, Yeah, it is like like, oh but good.
Speaker 1: The queen's poop signifies propaganda, and when you eat the poop,
Speaker 1: that signifies you eating the propaganda into it. I follow,
Speaker 1: I think I follow. I think I followed this episode.
Speaker 1: I followed the metaphor. I also like the idea that
Speaker 1: I think it's so involved that they do have designated
Speaker 1: poop areas and the fact that they know that is
Speaker 1: so impressive. And then off that the fact that they
Speaker 1: will still poop in the non designated areas. It's still
Speaker 1: very human as well. Or it's just like what the
Speaker 1: fun There's a whole place they taste in like Dennis,
Speaker 1: is this your poop? It is Dennis, and he does
Speaker 1: it every goddamn just ship in the designated room, man,
Speaker 1: like this is disgusting. Then they pick it up with
Speaker 1: their mouths and move it to the poop area and
Speaker 1: maybe eat some of the poop just a little bit
Speaker 1: on the way just like, well, I guess I'll snack
Speaker 1: on it as I carry it to the toilet. If
Speaker 1: you make me you wanted to do it, that's uh
Speaker 1: that well, you know the wonders of nature. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it will. Rats present an obvious puzzle in terms
Speaker 1: of natural selection, but altruism in general can be just
Speaker 1: as perplexing. Altruism is a tricky topic in evolutionary biology.
Speaker 1: After all, when you think of survival of the fittest,
Speaker 1: competition and selfishness seem like clear winners. So if a
Speaker 1: selfish cheat or prospers, his genes will be passed on.
Speaker 1: But all sorts of creatures, from humans to other mammals, insects, plants,
Speaker 1: have developed cooperative, seemingly altruistic strategies. Figuring out how this
Speaker 1: works from an evolutionary standpoint has been a fascinating and
Speaker 1: contentious challenge for biologists. One of the more controversial topics
Speaker 1: in evolutionary biology is that of kin selection and group selection.
Speaker 1: Kin Selection is an evolutionary strategy in which an individual
Speaker 1: will try to optimize the reproductive success of their relatives.
Speaker 1: The simplified idea is you share your genes with your relatives,
Speaker 1: so if you help them succeed, even if it risks
Speaker 1: costing your own success, they'll pass on genes similar to
Speaker 1: your own, which will in turnspawn more of your altruistic
Speaker 1: genes in the future. There's even a mathematical formula called
Speaker 1: Hamilton's rule that demonstrates how your own genes can increase
Speaker 1: in frequency when you help your relative reproduce. So the
Speaker 1: formula goes like this, As long as your relatedness to
Speaker 1: your relative, multiplied by how much you're helping them reproduce,
Speaker 1: is greater than the cost to your own reproduction, then
Speaker 1: that strategy should help your genes replicate, otherwise known as
Speaker 1: the Wingman Cockblog paradox. Though kin selection is often used
Speaker 1: to explain altruistic behavior in animals and even humans, there's
Speaker 1: another more controversial theory, group selection. The idea of group
Speaker 1: selection is that natural selection also acts upon groups. This
Speaker 1: theory has been refined into something called the multi level
Speaker 1: selection theory a k a. The Russian nesting doll theory
Speaker 1: a k a. A bunch of old evolutionary biologists yelling
Speaker 1: at each other theory. The idea is that natural selection
Speaker 1: puts evolutionary pressure upon organisms on multiple levels. First upon
Speaker 1: the genes. This is the innermost layer of the nesting doll.
Speaker 1: Then this cells than the entire organism, than the outermost
Speaker 1: layer is the group. Critics of this theory, of whom
Speaker 1: there are many, argue that group selection doesn't work in
Speaker 1: the natural world, which would favor cheaters over cooperators on
Speaker 1: an individual level, and that pro social behavior requires direct
Speaker 1: selective pressure, for instance, when mere cats literally exiled those
Speaker 1: who break the rules. So there you go. There's an
Speaker 1: overly simplified rundown of one of the biggest debates and
Speaker 1: evolutionary biology. And I'm afraid I'm a bit too spineless
Speaker 1: to come up with my own position on this quarrel.
Speaker 1: Speaking of spineless, when we get back from a quick break,
Speaker 1: we're going to look at some animals who may lack
Speaker 1: a spine, but who have hearts of gold or mandibles
Speaker 1: of gold. Will be right back. So let's talk about bees, ants,
Speaker 1: and termites and all of those hive minds. How does
Speaker 1: natural selection work when there's only one queen who reproduces.
Speaker 1: Why do members of a colony happily serve their queen
Speaker 1: when they could be out there getting laden, laying eggs. Bees,
Speaker 1: ants and other hive insects are used social you. Sociality
Speaker 1: describes a society that cooperates for the good of the
Speaker 1: entire brute rather than the good of the individual. Typically,
Speaker 1: there is a single breeding queen and different jobs and
Speaker 1: casts within the society. The whole youth social society may
Speaker 1: depend on their unique reproduction strategy. Social ants, bees and
Speaker 1: termites are a haploid diploid. This means that the females
Speaker 1: are born from fertilized eggs, having DNA from the mother
Speaker 1: and father, whereas males are born from unfertilized eggs, having
Speaker 1: only maternal DNA. This means that sister worker ants who
Speaker 1: share a father in a colony are actually seventy percent
Speaker 1: related to each other. There's a mathematical equation that explains it.
Speaker 1: As you may know, I'm not very strong on math,
Speaker 1: but essentially, they all share one hundred percent of their
Speaker 1: father's DNA and of their mother's DNA, so they are
Speaker 1: more related to their sisters than potential offspring who would
Speaker 1: only share fifty percent of their DNA with their mother.
Speaker 1: This lends itself to the theory that their youth social
Speaker 1: behavior is kin selection at work, an evolutionary sisterhood. Of course, ants,
Speaker 1: bees and termites are more complex than this more simplified
Speaker 1: picture with sneaky workers sometimes laying eggs and queens mating
Speaker 1: with multiple fathers. But at its core, that possibility for
Speaker 1: SEV relatedness to sisters represents the evolutionary pathway towards you sociality.
Speaker 1: So that was a lot of words. Do you have
Speaker 1: any questions? No, I understood it all completely. So ants
Speaker 1: are more related to their sisters than they would their
Speaker 1: own kids. Okay, so crazy, yeah, yeah, because of that
Speaker 1: that halfway yeah, yeah, where the males just are basically
Speaker 1: they receive a certain amount of DNA from their mothers,
Speaker 1: no paternal DNA. Fathers are related to their daughters, whereas
Speaker 1: daughters are fifty percent related to their fathers. And male
Speaker 1: bees and ants and termites can have grandsons, but they
Speaker 1: don't have fathers, right right. This is like, uh, you
Speaker 1: know in school when they would be teaching you, you know,
Speaker 1: like the is pointless fucking math problems that were just
Speaker 1: like if this then this, but this, if but however this,
Speaker 1: and it's just like this is the dumbest thing. No
Speaker 1: one would ever try to confuse you like this. But
Speaker 1: that's literally a real life application of one of those
Speaker 1: math Yeah that's what. How like when I took a
Speaker 1: class in college on this and they gave us this
Speaker 1: problems that it felt like one of those ridiculous, made
Speaker 1: up problems like no, this is real, this is uh real,
Speaker 1: and I have to use math and it was I
Speaker 1: found it difficult. I can't imagine. We had very different educations.
Speaker 1: There's a lot more pretending, I think at Emerson College.
Speaker 1: But it's so it's really interesting. So these uh, these
Speaker 1: social we can learn a lot I think from from uh.
Speaker 1: Aunt's By is another of these youth social colonies because
Speaker 1: of how they have been evolution has shaped them into
Speaker 1: the perfect society of cooperation. Uh. And so there's the
Speaker 1: question how do bees cope with a zombie apocalypse? And
Speaker 1: can we learn from them? Oh? Interesting because it is
Speaker 1: their own kin rising up book? Is that because they
Speaker 1: have actually how do any of these because all these
Speaker 1: things have so many relatives, you know, like where for
Speaker 1: us it's like God, that would be fucked up if
Speaker 1: you saw your mom coming at you know, I guess zombie.
Speaker 1: But they have so many family members and sisters, Like God,
Speaker 1: I had to kill one of my sisters. But also
Speaker 1: if you only lived with your sisters, wouldn't you just
Speaker 1: fantasize about killing Yes, yes, I mean I think it's
Speaker 1: also because they're they're so relatively selfless compared to human society. Um.
Speaker 1: So there's a very real example of this. There's a
Speaker 1: parasite called the scuttle fly, which sounds really cute, but
Speaker 1: it's not. Um I think the word parasites suggested that
Speaker 1: it wasn't um. Oh, and there's a there's a cool
Speaker 1: So if you've ever wondered what the differences between parasite
Speaker 1: like parasitic and parasitoid. Parasitoid means that it will in
Speaker 1: once in one stage of its life cycle, kill its host,
Speaker 1: whereas parasitic it may or may not kill its host. Um. So,
Speaker 1: the scuttle fly will infect bees with their maggots uh,
Speaker 1: and honey bees infected with the parasite will abandon their
Speaker 1: colonies and fly off aimlessly, zombie like into the night,
Speaker 1: just like just flying around in circle is not really
Speaker 1: do it just you know, had the zombie shuffle, like
Speaker 1: the zombie shuffle but a bee but with but in
Speaker 1: the air right right, or you know, like they can
Speaker 1: sometimes crawl on the ground to and just like bonk
Speaker 1: into things, you know, the zombie shuffle, but a b yeah,
Speaker 1: because you're pregnant with another thing. Oh my god, also
Speaker 1: get it zombie um So you're just high fly yourself.
Speaker 1: I mean I've sprouted more hands just to give myself
Speaker 1: more high fives. I mean, why else would you do it? Right?
Speaker 1: So this the question is, is this an altruistic self sacrifice,
Speaker 1: like our bees wandering off to protect the rest of
Speaker 1: the colony, which is the case often with ants infected
Speaker 1: with um fungus um. Or is this the parasite mind
Speaker 1: controlling the bees? Uh? So, Researchers at San Francisco State
Speaker 1: University are equipping these bees with electronic trackers to discover
Speaker 1: more about their behavior and to see uh. They want
Speaker 1: to both see like like do these bees only wander
Speaker 1: out at night, which would indicate that maybe they're being
Speaker 1: mind controlled because they're traveling out during the day. And
Speaker 1: they also want to track to see if any of
Speaker 1: this zombification is a factor in colony collapse because this
Speaker 1: is happening to bees and it's scary and mysterious because
Speaker 1: we need bees to live. Oh God, as if we're
Speaker 1: not doing enough, you know, to destroy their race, right.
Speaker 1: I do love that humans are now teaming up with
Speaker 1: bees to try to save the bees, Like we're putting
Speaker 1: trackers on bees and like trying to help solve their
Speaker 1: zombie apocalypse. I would really hope that bees would do
Speaker 1: the same for us. Yeah, yeah, I think it might
Speaker 1: be too little, too late though, if they I don't
Speaker 1: know if bees are vindictive, that's true, that whether they
Speaker 1: they're just like, uh, they're they're clasping their little hands
Speaker 1: together like revenge would uh so would this scuttle fly
Speaker 1: is that what you called it? That's right? Would it
Speaker 1: want to be if it is doing mind control? Would
Speaker 1: it want the bee to fly away from the hive
Speaker 1: because that gives their babies like a better chance of survival,
Speaker 1: Like would little maggots not survive as well on a
Speaker 1: high Well, that's kind of the question, is like potentially right,
Speaker 1: because the hive will attack intruders, so once that maggot hatches,
Speaker 1: there's no guarantee that those bees aren't just going to
Speaker 1: kill the maggot. It could also be dispersal, like allowing
Speaker 1: the maggots to have some amount of dispersal. Uh, But
Speaker 1: what's creepy about this is like they don't really know
Speaker 1: that much about it yet, so they're they're that's that's
Speaker 1: why they're making these robot zombie bees. God, what if
Speaker 1: these what if the hive if they send something was
Speaker 1: a little off, like with that baby, like it had
Speaker 1: a fever or something, they killed that bah. Interesting. I
Speaker 1: don't know, Like I don't I'm not sure if they
Speaker 1: actually like kill the sick. I think that, yeah, but
Speaker 1: I do think that the potential theory that they actually
Speaker 1: self isolated has been shown like that that um, And
Speaker 1: there is a lot of self sacrifice in these colony situations, um,
Speaker 1: which is you know, kind of a uh like if
Speaker 1: in a human apocalypse, like if people would selflessly be like,
Speaker 1: oh I think I'm infected, I better go to that quarantine,
Speaker 1: we'd probably be a lot better off. But we know
Speaker 1: humans wouldn't do that. No, No, absolutely not. Whenever I'm sick,
Speaker 1: I just say I have allergies right right, like your
Speaker 1: jaw it's falling off. Fine, just got surgery summer called
Speaker 1: I got my wisdom teeth that you're you're forty nine.
Speaker 1: They just came in so uh and other news about
Speaker 1: what humans are doing for bees. Lately, Papa Johns made
Speaker 1: a tiny pizza for bees. Oh that's good the marketing campaign.
Speaker 1: That's weird because bees are half black and the guy
Speaker 1: who owns that place as a racist boy, didn't he
Speaker 1: get kicked out? Though he did, he did finally after
Speaker 1: years of fighting it for summer. And see. So so
Speaker 1: they're okay with the striations on bees now yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: now that he now that racist piece of ship has gone,
Speaker 1: they can now make a piece for bees. Make bees.
Speaker 1: Here's a fun tip. Bees hate racists. Good proved me wrong.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't dare. I want you to be right, to
Speaker 1: be wrong. Um, so this is great. Just like they
Speaker 1: made this tiny eat pizza and I think halfway through
Speaker 1: making this pizza they realized bees don't want to eat pizza,
Speaker 1: so they put some flowers and stuff on top of
Speaker 1: the pizza. There you go, it's pizza and a tiny
Speaker 1: pizza box. In no way is this actually helping bees
Speaker 1: this pizza. Um, I mean I guess, I guess. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a marketing stunt for Papa John's. And also
Speaker 1: to quote draw attention to the plight of pollinators. Um,
Speaker 1: because they're saying, without bees, we don't have tomatoes, so
Speaker 1: we should we should care about bees because without bees,
Speaker 1: there's no pizza. I don't I don't understand marketing clearly because, um,
Speaker 1: but you know, hey, tiny pizzas for bees. Can't really
Speaker 1: find any fault in that. No. No, no, that's as
Speaker 1: innocent as it gets. I guess that's right. Um so uh.
Speaker 1: Other more helpful humans are looking into how ant colony
Speaker 1: behavior actually evolved by making ants a bunch of tiny
Speaker 1: pizzas and pulling them on their opinions. Um, it's like, come,
Speaker 1: come to our come to our focus group. There's free pizza. Uh.
Speaker 1: They flocked to it. They fall for it, just like
Speaker 1: we do. Uh. Oh sorry I forgot to mention. They
Speaker 1: called these pizzas beazzas. Anyways, back to science. Researchers are
Speaker 1: studying clonal raider ants, which are ants that are native
Speaker 1: to mainland Asia. Uh. This species has no queens. They
Speaker 1: are anarchists. Um. They reproduced by cloning themselves, laying unfertilized
Speaker 1: eggs of their exact DNA, so all the ants are workers. Um.
Speaker 1: The researchers think that because they have this structure, are
Speaker 1: the link between solitary ants of the past um. Who
Speaker 1: maybe we're pre uh the ancestors before ants started forming
Speaker 1: colonies and the hierarchical colonies of today um where that
Speaker 1: has the queens and the social structure. Um. So in
Speaker 1: order to uh find out what these clonal radar ants do,
Speaker 1: they painted them in fun colors to track their habits.
Speaker 1: So they're super colorful little ants. UM. Imagine stumbling across
Speaker 1: that and not knowing experiment was going. I was like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck is oh LSD, I'm on LSD, What
Speaker 1: the hell are these colors? All these colors of ants.
Speaker 1: I kind of want to do that, just like with
Speaker 1: ants that get in the home, because then it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: it's ants, but they look colorful and fun. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: not that big of a deal anymore. I don't care. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: the they actually found that even in groups of six, uh,
Speaker 1: these ants started to delegate tasks and form tames um.
Speaker 1: And they would like have a division of labor, like
Speaker 1: you go out and forage, you do this, and like
Speaker 1: start managing our our little burrowing area. Um. And the
Speaker 1: fact that the fact of the matter is that like
Speaker 1: the larger the ant society, the better and more stable
Speaker 1: they were. I don't know, why I was being so
Speaker 1: argumented of their like like, god, damn it. The bigger
Speaker 1: the ant society the better, right, right, Yeah, it's like okay, geez,
Speaker 1: the one's arguing against you. It's fine. I think that's
Speaker 1: just like a very I think it's because it's part
Speaker 1: of my core philosophy, like if we all work together
Speaker 1: and we include everyone and are inclusive, like, we're going
Speaker 1: to have a better society, not the siloed and societies
Speaker 1: the very specific interests, uh special interests. Well done, of course,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. So the fact that they are
Speaker 1: able to easily form these social groups, and that the
Speaker 1: bigger the group the better shows the evolutionary pressures on
Speaker 1: ants to form these big societies. UH, and perhaps showing
Speaker 1: how a youth social society, which seems kind of counterintuitive,
Speaker 1: could actually form uh and be in the ant's best interest. Um,
Speaker 1: and uh ants really are. There's a few cool examples
Speaker 1: of how they're really the masters of teamwork. UH. They'll
Speaker 1: self organized to form bridges to allow other ants to
Speaker 1: pass gaps. UM. They'll form boats and rats when faced
Speaker 1: with water, just kind of self organizing. UM. And then
Speaker 1: they also will this is the grossest but most fun example,
Speaker 1: they will work together in pairs to get honeydew from aphids.
Speaker 1: So a fids will eat plant matter turn it into
Speaker 1: this sugary substance called honeydew that the ants will want
Speaker 1: to eat, and they'll actually form aphids and develop this
Speaker 1: kind of symbiotic relationship with aphids, whereas it's kind of
Speaker 1: unclear whether the aphids are actually benefiting from it, but
Speaker 1: they they they're basically domesticating the aphids. Um. But in
Speaker 1: order to milk an aphid, it requires two ants if
Speaker 1: they're if the ants are small, um like, if it's
Speaker 1: a big enough ant, the ant, the ant can just
Speaker 1: reach around and do all sorts of things. But well,
Speaker 1: there will be a YouTube tutorial of smoking after this.
Speaker 1: What's up, aunt Tuba, I got uh listen. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: I haven't posted a while. It's been real busy, real rough.
Speaker 1: One queen has been real pitch anyways, just a five
Speaker 1: minute preamble. Um, so you just squeeze it, all right,
Speaker 1: that's it. So, in these pairs of ants that are
Speaker 1: milking the aphids, one ant will stimulate the dorsal glands
Speaker 1: while the other ant collects the sugar from the aphids. Butthole.
Speaker 1: That's the better job. Really puts the ass into a system. Uh,
Speaker 1: but that's uh, that's great. Where it's like now you
Speaker 1: you tickle is tickle them while I get his dorsal
Speaker 1: what his dorsal glands? Yes, yes, you tickle his glands
Speaker 1: and going to suck the sugar out of his bee hole.
Speaker 1: It's like you always get you always get to suck
Speaker 1: the sugar out of his bee hole. I'm good at it.
Speaker 1: Thank you the best, thank you. Wait wait a minute,
Speaker 1: you're getting all the but sugar. So I think everyone's
Speaker 1: familiar with the idea that bees and ants and termites
Speaker 1: are social insects, But did you know how spiders can
Speaker 1: actually be quite social and for a huge communities, giant, big,
Speaker 1: large vest. That's terrible news, it's horrific news. So they're
Speaker 1: not always solitary hunters. There are social spiders which live
Speaker 1: all over the world. They're a variety of species that
Speaker 1: do the same behavior. Um and they are just all
Speaker 1: called social spiders, which I love. It's like makes me
Speaker 1: think of like a social media influencer spider, like like
Speaker 1: a fam It's me Marissa E eight legs. Uh, it
Speaker 1: doesn't have like applicable life skills. But it's still good
Speaker 1: on whatever that is. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do a dead cicada on wrapping. Uh. So, social spiders,
Speaker 1: like I said, they live all over the world. They
Speaker 1: prefer tropical and temperate climates. They even live in eastern US. Um.
Speaker 1: They will work together to weave communal webs that can
Speaker 1: sometimes be as large as football fields. Uh. They will
Speaker 1: completely coat trees and manmade structures. And let me actually
Speaker 1: show you. I've never heard of social spiders. I have
Speaker 1: been called a social butterfly before by many people. I
Speaker 1: would prefer to be called social spider because more legs
Speaker 1: for hugging. Yes. Yes, So here's a picture of some
Speaker 1: of their webs. As you can see, they're quite extensive.
Speaker 1: They can cover he just entire fields, they can cover
Speaker 1: groves of trees. Uh. Here you can see they've completely
Speaker 1: covered this coastline. Um, it's it's such a large web.
Speaker 1: Your your mind wouldn't identify that as a spiderweb. That
Speaker 1: looks like a spider web. But that can't be a spiderweb.
Speaker 1: It looks like some kind of weird fog rolling in
Speaker 1: until you step in it and you feel spaders curling
Speaker 1: all over your legs. Um so. Uh. The reason they
Speaker 1: do this is, uh, they're relatively small spiders. So by
Speaker 1: working together, uh, they put together a better offense and defense.
Speaker 1: Um so defensively speaking, like when a spider web gets
Speaker 1: knocked into by a larger animal than what they're trying
Speaker 1: to prey upon and it gets destroyed, that ruin completely
Speaker 1: ruins their day. They have to rebuild the whole thing.
Speaker 1: It's really dangerous for them too. You know, they can
Speaker 1: get they can get injured or like you know. It's
Speaker 1: so by having by sort of creating this social network
Speaker 1: of webs uh, sort of like an an interweb. Um,
Speaker 1: they even if one individual's work is destroyed, like they
Speaker 1: can use other webs and vice versa. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like some it's like social welfare, you guys. It's like
Speaker 1: it's like healthcare accept actually works. Roasted gotcha. Um So, Uh,
Speaker 1: they also work together to take larger prey. So these are,
Speaker 1: like I said, these are relatively small spiders. Um Like
Speaker 1: not something you would be like. It's one of the
Speaker 1: spiders that even people with aracnophobia are like, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just like one of those little ones um, But
Speaker 1: they can actually take down birds and bats because their
Speaker 1: webs are so extensive and so many of them work
Speaker 1: on it. They're they're thick, and so the birds and
Speaker 1: beasts can get trapped in these webs, kind of like
Speaker 1: Frodo when he's an idiot and he runs into the
Speaker 1: sheilab layer and he's just like running around and jiggling
Speaker 1: and get more caught um. And then once it's trapped,
Speaker 1: like it's just swarmed by thousands of spiders. What a
Speaker 1: fucking way to go, right, Yeah, I mean it's the
Speaker 1: It's like, there's no it's not. It's never been shown
Speaker 1: that they can prey on anything larger. But I just
Speaker 1: wonder what happened if you like fell asleep, if you
Speaker 1: if you found yourself in a social spider web and
Speaker 1: then you just felt took a nap. What that nap
Speaker 1: would feel like? Horrifect? Would you rather be eaten by
Speaker 1: all those little spiders or one big slab? I think
Speaker 1: I think one big sheilab because I think the venom
Speaker 1: from that would be would knock me out and be quicker.
Speaker 1: She would be able to And I say she just
Speaker 1: because I associate spider hunters with the larger. Typically the
Speaker 1: larger spiders are female. It was pretty big. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's swollen, pretty meaty. Yeah. Um, real spiders have curves. Yes,
Speaker 1: real spiders have thoraxes. Um, but she so yeah, so
Speaker 1: like it would be real quick, kind of like one
Speaker 1: to get paralyzed, get all my juice sucked out. Done
Speaker 1: with like thousands of tiny spiders, I feel like they'd
Speaker 1: be a lot less adept so oh they'd be clumsily
Speaker 1: like fighting without purpose. Yeah. I don't think I would
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, and they'd be so eager to because
Speaker 1: they're not used to something big as we are, right. Uh,
Speaker 1: they'd just be and just like playing around on your inside, like, hey,
Speaker 1: look at what I found. It's clean. I know, it's
Speaker 1: like act like you've been there before. Goddamnit using my
Speaker 1: lungs as a bounty castle. No, I'm not into it.
Speaker 1: Just coughing up thousands of spiders. Wait, that's not normal.
Speaker 1: Oh my gods, that would have so wait what is
Speaker 1: the term? How many spiders do you eat while you're
Speaker 1: I think that's actually kind of like that whole thing
Speaker 1: is an urban legend that you like. I don't think
Speaker 1: you actually Spiders, especially spiders that you'll find in your home,
Speaker 1: don't generally want anything to do with you. They don't
Speaker 1: want to they don't want to approach you, especially if
Speaker 1: you're like kind of breathing in your if you breathe
Speaker 1: when you sleep and you move around like a normal person.
Speaker 1: I don't think spiders want want to mess with you
Speaker 1: now or go in your mouth. It's less like if
Speaker 1: you eat that many spiders. I've actually never thought about
Speaker 1: this before. Then what is what are the stats on
Speaker 1: all the other things that you're consuming? Because a spider
Speaker 1: that doesn't want to go anything like anywhere near you, Like,
Speaker 1: what else are you sucking up? Right? I mean you
Speaker 1: know you're more you're more likely to be like sucking
Speaker 1: up uh your own like eyelash mites while you're sleeping, um,
Speaker 1: which you have? You have mites on your eyelash right now,
Speaker 1: Get used to it. They're tiny, they look like spiders.
Speaker 1: They're very tiny. They live in your eyelashes right now,
Speaker 1: and it's a good thing because they eat the dead
Speaker 1: skin around your eyelashes and keep them from getting super gross.
Speaker 1: So stop blinking like an idiot and enjoy it. Just
Speaker 1: enjoy the soft kisses of tiny, tiny mites all up
Speaker 1: in your eyelashes, near those things that you see with
Speaker 1: So hey, I know what you're gonna ask. What can
Speaker 1: we learn from ants when it comes to human society?
Speaker 1: While researchers at the University of Pennsylvania are painting ants
Speaker 1: fabulous colors, not so they can go to Coachella, but
Speaker 1: to learn more about ant society and in turn, to
Speaker 1: understand human society. Painting the ants different vibrant hues with
Speaker 1: colorful dots allow researchers to follow the routine of individual
Speaker 1: ants to see how work is divided among the call
Speaker 1: it me the u pen. Researchers also say that ants
Speaker 1: who have over a hundred million years experience living in
Speaker 1: a society much longer than humans, can teach us about
Speaker 1: how to cope with societal issues such as preventing the
Speaker 1: spread of disease. In fact, there's a whole body of
Speaker 1: research devoted to using ants as a model for helping
Speaker 1: improve human society, such as seeing how leave cutter ants
Speaker 1: deal with waste management, how they manage teamwork, how ants
Speaker 1: manage crops. That's right, fungus growing ants maintain crops of
Speaker 1: fungus or comparing human financial market patterns to how ants
Speaker 1: decide between food sources. We can even study human pedestrian
Speaker 1: crowd movement dynamics by comparing it to ant crowd movement.
Speaker 1: So even though humans are great deal more intelligent than
Speaker 1: individual ants, as a crowd, we really aren't that different.
Speaker 1: Maybe that explains that weird thing that happens to me
Speaker 1: at picnics where people start crawling all over my sandwich.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll be talking about how different
Speaker 1: species can work together and whether robots, animals, and humans
Speaker 1: can just get along. Dogs are a man's best friend,
Speaker 1: but in the future will it be robot who is
Speaker 1: man's best friend? Huh really makes you think, doesn't it. Well, Okay,
Speaker 1: no amount of AI can ever replace the dog shaped
Speaker 1: crevice in my heart, but heck, let's give it a shot.
Speaker 1: Human and animal teamwork is being used to shape models
Speaker 1: for human and robot teamwork. That's right. If we do
Speaker 1: this machine learning correctly, maybe we'll have an AI that's
Speaker 1: not evil but wants belly rubs and choose on its
Speaker 1: own back door. A paper published in the Journal of
Speaker 1: Human Robot Interaction argued for using domesticated animals as a
Speaker 1: model to predict human and robot interaction. They even drew
Speaker 1: comparisons between helper animals and currently existing robots. They compared
Speaker 1: a mule to one of those Boston Dynamics big dog robots,
Speaker 1: an elephant to an industrial car robot, a service dog
Speaker 1: to a robotic arm that can assist wheelchair users. And
Speaker 1: if this sounds like a cold, an uncuddly future, don't worry.
Speaker 1: They've got you covered. Our emotional needs can be met
Speaker 1: by for acute seal androids and friendly humanoid robots. The
Speaker 1: authors of the paper don't argue that will ever completely
Speaker 1: replace animals with robots, but that robots are well not
Speaker 1: really that smart yet and certainly not at the level
Speaker 1: of AI where we can consider them as human replacements.
Speaker 1: So we'll need to learn to communicate with the AI
Speaker 1: like we would communicate with say a dog, Sit, Stay.
Speaker 1: Don't destroy all humans? So what's your opinions on robots? Oh? Mine? Um,
Speaker 1: I I'm not one of the people where I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, I like that. I just was surprised
Speaker 1: that you asked me. I'm the only person, Um what
Speaker 1: my opinion? But I'm sorry I thought you met the
Speaker 1: small man's behind me, who's been breathing on my neck? Um,
Speaker 1: I think so I'm not one of the people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: I think they're gonna kill us all because I think
Speaker 1: I'll be long dead for not those reads, for like,
Speaker 1: you know, being an old person and reasons by then.
Speaker 1: But um, I really loved having a ferbie as a kid,
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah I did. Are you challenging me? I
Speaker 1: definitely did. I've never heard anyone describe their relationship with
Speaker 1: a ferbious love. It was, Um, it went both ways.
Speaker 1: And I loved having a little buddy that I could pet.
Speaker 1: And uh yeah I didn't have to clean it up.
Speaker 1: It ship. That was a big part of it, and
Speaker 1: I chose to. I didn't have to. We had it
Speaker 1: in Chilla that I confused for a furby. But yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I really like those dogs that they
Speaker 1: designed for um dogs, Yeah, for like people who are older.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm trying to think of the right phrase.
Speaker 1: Uh you know older people that's surfing. Yeah, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is an animals so um, yeah, I think it's great.
Speaker 1: I think it's cute. I don't think it could replace
Speaker 1: a living dog or a living pet, but yeah, I
Speaker 1: think there's definitely great uses for them. I think what's
Speaker 1: interesting is I certainly have this great discomfort with the
Speaker 1: idea of creating a robot equivalent to a dog. But
Speaker 1: if you think about our evolutionary history with dogs, where
Speaker 1: we've basically programmed dogs to be uh, sort of a
Speaker 1: not an artificial intelligence, but a natural intelligence that we've
Speaker 1: uh perfectly shaped to be our companion animals, also aesthetically
Speaker 1: speaking to by beating them, making their eyeballs pop out
Speaker 1: of their skulls for cutenessurable um. So, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it is very interesting because their social intelligence is much
Speaker 1: greater than um, we've even previously imagined. They're like we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, they're really clever and they excel in
Speaker 1: all of these social tasks um and uh. And that's
Speaker 1: all due to them co evolving with us over such
Speaker 1: a long period of time that they can understand human
Speaker 1: social cues. They even track like our facial movements, like
Speaker 1: they focus on our faces are kind of asymmetrical, and
Speaker 1: like one side of our face expresses more emotion, and
Speaker 1: they'll actually focus on that side of the face more
Speaker 1: um and uh. So it's it's like they're just the
Speaker 1: perfect companion. Uh And in fact, there's a theory that
Speaker 1: humans and dogs teaming up are how Neanderthals were defeated.
Speaker 1: That's so great. Um. So, there have been a lot
Speaker 1: of theories bounced around as to why modern humans went
Speaker 1: out against Neanderthals, which is our cousin humanoid um, whom
Speaker 1: we were competing with. And and sometimes sometimes blinking too,
Speaker 1: there's still we've still got nean, there's all DNA. But
Speaker 1: but extinction also means just sort of like having they're
Speaker 1: gone as a distinct species, even though we still have
Speaker 1: some of their dna um. But one theory is that
Speaker 1: dogs just made humans so much better that it beat
Speaker 1: out the Neanderthal competition. So there's this book by anthropology
Speaker 1: professor pat Shipman. It's called The Invaders, and the book
Speaker 1: she argues that dogs and humans drove Neanderthals to extinction.
Speaker 1: She proposes that there's evidence that the appearance of the
Speaker 1: first domesticated wolf dogs coincided with the downfall of Neanderthals,
Speaker 1: and that the human dog partnership in terms of hunting
Speaker 1: gave them such a huge advantage that they corned the
Speaker 1: market on large prey animals during a time when climate
Speaker 1: change made food of scarcity, so that's sort of like
Speaker 1: the the Ice Age era where you know you're struggling
Speaker 1: to both you know, get food. That the dogs presented
Speaker 1: such a clear, clear advantage. We could hunt larger prey animals.
Speaker 1: It's almost like, I don't want to take the cuteness
Speaker 1: out of this, because that's I mean, it's all I'm
Speaker 1: interested in. But like, how cute it is that you have.
Speaker 1: It's good defeat, but it's almost like having to a
Speaker 1: more advanced tool kit than Neanderthals. You know, like take
Speaker 1: out the fact that's an adorable dog or you know,
Speaker 1: a heinous wolf either both of you. It's like, oh no,
Speaker 1: I have a better weapon to hunt with. And if
Speaker 1: you think about it, I mean the dogs also now
Speaker 1: domesticated dogs outnumber wolf populations, so um, the you have
Speaker 1: these two predators to social predators, humans and wolves. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then they're teaming up to form like a super
Speaker 1: super alliance, a super alliance of evil doom um. And
Speaker 1: then they both ended up doing a lot better than
Speaker 1: they're like now in modern modern society. I mean, domesticated
Speaker 1: dogs aren't going anywhere. They're incredibly successful compared to um,
Speaker 1: a lot of the like the wolf populations, which are
Speaker 1: often really in danger of being pushed out of their
Speaker 1: habitat um. And so that that's so interesting to me
Speaker 1: that you have these two, these two incredibly adapt predators
Speaker 1: just teaming up to uh just read a bunch of
Speaker 1: death and destruction, and it's so cute. It's adorable. Adorable, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because their buddies, their buddies, they're best friends, just killing
Speaker 1: and murdering things and taking out those idiots with their
Speaker 1: weird big heads. Those Neanderthals, like they've got like a
Speaker 1: pet rockings like why don't you help me? Hunt me?
Speaker 1: Almost help me because I haven't drawn a face on
Speaker 1: you yet, just like with this rock, like like O
Speaker 1: shick them. Oh you're useless, I'm useless. They're rock. Just frowns. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: so when you think of man's best friend, we always
Speaker 1: think of dogs. But what are your opinions on headline headline?
Speaker 1: When I was a child, Um, I had a trouble
Speaker 1: with um. This bully would keep stealing my hat and
Speaker 1: as far as bully problems go, not that big of
Speaker 1: a deal. But I wanted my head. I liked it,
Speaker 1: and my mom gave me this advice that you should
Speaker 1: tell the bully that you have head lice, and he
Speaker 1: did stop stealing my hat. But then I was the
Speaker 1: lice kid, lice boy. Yeah, I was Lice's boy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think I just shook that nickname I believe
Speaker 1: three years ago. Okay, um, but so I don't recognize
Speaker 1: that boy. Edit out for the love of fucking got it.
Speaker 1: Don't you do it? Don't you do it? My podcast
Speaker 1: that stays in. You are now Life's boy. Damn it?
Speaker 1: All right? Well as Life's boy, um, I uh, you know,
Speaker 1: not to shake my brand. But yeah, I like on
Speaker 1: planes and stuff I used to worry about. You know,
Speaker 1: I put on a hood or something so I can
Speaker 1: get lice from the headrest, which I don't believe works.
Speaker 1: But I think you could still get through porous fabric.
Speaker 1: It's not typically how it. Uh. I don't think you
Speaker 1: can get it from a headrest very easily. Yeah. Good,
Speaker 1: we don't see the planes that I tried. Its teeming
Speaker 1: with life. Well, take take some solace in this life, boy,
Speaker 1: Um that's ever been Take solace in this life? Boy? Uh?
Speaker 1: So headlights may have originally been a boon for humans. Uh,
Speaker 1: they may have been a mutualistic symbiote rather than a parasite.
Speaker 1: Um So. An article published in the journal Parasitology, of
Speaker 1: which I am subscribed to by Rosa and all argue
Speaker 1: that I'm sorry I said, and all it's actually at
Speaker 1: all that's totally fine. Uh so. Uh. They argue that
Speaker 1: since lice is transmitted mostly through head touching, which is
Speaker 1: a symbol of affection amongst humans, there may be a
Speaker 1: benefit to getting lice. Um So. They argue that getting
Speaker 1: lice at an early age prompts an immune response effective
Speaker 1: against both headlights and body lice, and while headlights is
Speaker 1: kind of a nuisance, body I really presents the more
Speaker 1: dangerous uh. Symptoms, so body allows born. Lethal diseases include
Speaker 1: epidemic typhus, trench fever, relapsing fever, and you know classic plagues.
Speaker 1: Um So. The problem with relapsing fever it just keeps coming.
Speaker 1: You think it's over, and it's just I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not as into classical play. I'm more into like progressive plague. Right,
Speaker 1: that's what people say about you. It's good to hear
Speaker 1: it from your mouth though. Um here's a quote from
Speaker 1: the paper. Thus, the human touching heads behavior probably acts
Speaker 1: as an inherent and unconscious vaccination against body lice to
Speaker 1: reduce the threat exposed by the pathogens they may transmit.
Speaker 1: So they're proposing that we love rubbing heads, which, honestly,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is an interesting paper, but I don't
Speaker 1: rub heads with people I like, not that much. It's
Speaker 1: usually a violent right. Yeah, that's not that's not really
Speaker 1: a pickup thing I've personally tried to employ. Although you know,
Speaker 1: you never know, No, you don't know how. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know how I would respond to that personally. UM.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so you know, I suppose it makes sense though,
Speaker 1: because you do you press your heads together, I guess,
Speaker 1: like or touch foreheads. I'm not maybe I'm just not
Speaker 1: a people person because I don't. You're missing out. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's everywhere. But I mean it is true that
Speaker 1: like you catch lice from your um, you can catch
Speaker 1: lice from friends and family because of close contact. UM.
Speaker 1: So the idea is that because we have evolved these
Speaker 1: social behaviors of like head touching, UM, that then possibly
Speaker 1: because lice also maybe offer this benefit of UH an
Speaker 1: immune response to body lice, then that this is a
Speaker 1: beneficial kind of self vaccinating behavior. Um, yeah, maybe, yeah,
Speaker 1: could be. I'll take it. That's a positive share positive
Speaker 1: spin on your life boy brand. Oh god, speaking of lice, boy, Um,
Speaker 1: how are you? How are you doing? It was better
Speaker 1: before that? So uh like it's we have hands in shampoo.
Speaker 1: But how does how does the noble cappy barra deal
Speaker 1: with parasites and other insects that trouble it? It's a
Speaker 1: great it is a cappy bear is a rodent? Correct, Yes,
Speaker 1: they're the largest rodent, one of the largest. I believe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: actually I believe I met a cappy bearers. Um, there's
Speaker 1: this great animal preserve north of l A called Animal Tracks,
Speaker 1: and if you haven't been, I think you would maybe
Speaker 1: love it. But yeah, I believe they had like like
Speaker 1: a cappy bearer there. Wait, so this is this isn't
Speaker 1: the l A z or the San Diego Zoo, No neither.
Speaker 1: It's a an like an independent animal preserve where basically
Speaker 1: it's all like assholes who try to have I almost
Speaker 1: said erotic pets and in the eye of the beholder
Speaker 1: exotic pets. Uh, they figure out that they can't have them.
Speaker 1: So this product pets is a different website. Exotic pet
Speaker 1: erotic pets is something completely there is probably a movie,
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, we'll come we'll come to bout back to
Speaker 1: the cats movie at the end here. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, they are the I think they are actually
Speaker 1: the largest rodent um. They're related to guinea pigs and
Speaker 1: uh so they're found in South America and they team
Speaker 1: up with a small cute bird called the cattle tyrant um.
Speaker 1: So I'm showing you a picture of a cattle tyrant
Speaker 1: writing majestically on top of a cappy bara's head. Um.
Speaker 1: It's it's such a cute. It just like looks like
Speaker 1: sort of like Denarius on a dragon, except it's a
Speaker 1: bird on a capybara. Yeah, but other than that, exact
Speaker 1: exactly the same. So they have a unique friendship where
Speaker 1: the cappy barra just by be barn around, oh well
Speaker 1: as they well will rustle up insects in the grass,
Speaker 1: which the cattle tyrant bird will swoop in on and eat. Um.
Speaker 1: So this is a relatively small bird and it's and
Speaker 1: it's pretty cute. So it's like it's gonna be harder
Speaker 1: for the bird to just kind of like get a
Speaker 1: bunch of in like its presence is not enough to
Speaker 1: scare a bunch of insects being a tyrant, right, But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a small it's a small and ineffectual tyrant,
Speaker 1: as they often are. But on the inside they all
Speaker 1: are right. I got a real Napoleon complex these guys. Um.
Speaker 1: So basically just like rides these cabybaras to victory, which
Speaker 1: is pretty cute, um, and then the capybaras in return
Speaker 1: get uh some protection from past. So the cattle tyrant
Speaker 1: bird will chase and eat horseflies that try to land
Speaker 1: on the capybara. So it's like having your own personal
Speaker 1: bodyguard who just likes to eat the things that it's
Speaker 1: guarding you from. So we like to visit a magical
Speaker 1: place called Imagination Station on this podcast. And so for
Speaker 1: this last example of teamwork, I want you to imagine
Speaker 1: you're walking deep in the rainforest where there's no sign
Speaker 1: of civilization, where if you, if any men trend subtly
Speaker 1: you come across the clearing, a grove of small trees
Speaker 1: perfectly tended to, with not a single weed in sight.
Speaker 1: And as you pass through this clearing, you feel a
Speaker 1: thousand hostile eyes upon you. Do you sense the presence
Speaker 1: of demons. Do you think this is the work of
Speaker 1: the devil, Well, you have just entered a devil's garden. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so devil's gardens are a very real thing there
Speaker 1: in the Amazon rainforests. Uh. And they are entirely curated
Speaker 1: to be made up of a single plant, a tree
Speaker 1: called du Roya hersuta um. So local legend has it
Speaker 1: that these are tended to buy evil spirits. Um. And
Speaker 1: it's it's very mysterious because you know these are there,
Speaker 1: they look like sort of well tended to groves. But no,
Speaker 1: no one's taking responsible for it. Yeah. No one's like
Speaker 1: going like, oh, yeah, that's me. I like to go
Speaker 1: out and plant a bunch of trees. Well, when they
Speaker 1: say it's evil spirits, they're close. It's ants, so lemon
Speaker 1: ants to be specific. Uh. These ants are they'll actually
Speaker 1: produce their own herbicide, which is a formic acid um,
Speaker 1: and they use that to poison all other plants in
Speaker 1: the area, including weeds and sampling saplings of other trees.
Speaker 1: So they'll actually inject the acid into these other plants
Speaker 1: and it kills them off within twenty four hours. Um.
Speaker 1: So this is so that their host species of tree
Speaker 1: will survive. So the de Roya Hersuta offers them shelter
Speaker 1: in a sabled place for the call need to live,
Speaker 1: and in return, the ants become the gardeners to these
Speaker 1: devil's gardens. Interesting, they're the devils. Yes, I love how
Speaker 1: like people's response to this is like well tended to trees.
Speaker 1: This is the work of a devil, yea, the work
Speaker 1: of a saint who's doing this? This is great? They
Speaker 1: need to be hired. Um so too in the show. Um,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the hats trailer. Just I
Speaker 1: don't I don't have anything because, like I sometimes I
Speaker 1: like to debunk movies and stuff like linking. I don't
Speaker 1: know how you debunk humans prancing around is tiny humans
Speaker 1: prancing around as cats like boobs, Like someone there are
Speaker 1: noticeable boots, Like the boobs are maybe the most disconcerting, right,
Speaker 1: And someone pointed out on Twitter, like the boobs like
Speaker 1: don't have nipples, so know their purposeless there's no needs,
Speaker 1: which yeah, I can't believe I'm even saying this, but
Speaker 1: like there's the boobs serve no purpose, like in terms
Speaker 1: of like there's no need to gender these cats or
Speaker 1: you know, like just that show up. Well, they clearly
Speaker 1: don't have genitals because like if the male, because the
Speaker 1: mail cats are completely naked with their crotches like flinging around,
Speaker 1: and if we could see their actual crotches, when you
Speaker 1: would see is a spiky cat penis. Yeah, so you
Speaker 1: know what's up with that? Thank you? Right? Like with
Speaker 1: all those with all those hip gyrations, you think that's
Speaker 1: not going to jostle loose the spiky cat pena. The
Speaker 1: fur will move a jar and there will be a view, right,
Speaker 1: Like I know that cats do have penis sheets, but
Speaker 1: that's like enough of those, Like you know, grangette is
Speaker 1: that they're doing that pen's gonna flop out. His name
Speaker 1: is the rum tum tugger, for christ sakes, it's gonna
Speaker 1: come out. Oh god, yeah, it's it's uh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you know, why are they so why are they
Speaker 1: so small and human? Why did you have to do
Speaker 1: that to us? Why did you do that to us?
Speaker 1: I have a theory, Yes, I think who's the guy
Speaker 1: who's the guy who's directing this? Just I don't know,
Speaker 1: some sick fun I mean, it's it's you know Andrew
Speaker 1: Lloyd Webber's Oh it's it's directed by Tom Hooper. I
Speaker 1: think they've been infected with T. Gandhia um. So what
Speaker 1: is that? Toxoplasma gandhia or ganda is a unicellular parasite
Speaker 1: that infects rats uh and makes them unafraid of cats,
Speaker 1: screws up with their brain chemistry, causes lesions in the
Speaker 1: brain that makes them instead of being scared of cats,
Speaker 1: it confuses them and makes them fall in love with
Speaker 1: cats and have sometimes sexual attraction to cats. Insane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they'll actually be sexually attracted to cat yourn. So
Speaker 1: we've talked about this on the show before. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a favorite of the show. But I think Tom
Speaker 1: Hooper handled because he can actually be infected with the toxico.
Speaker 1: You typically have nothing to worry about unless you're pregnant
Speaker 1: or you are a movie producer. Apparently, because I think
Speaker 1: Tom Hooper um. Going on the record, I'm saying he's
Speaker 1: got toxoplasmosis and he has some kind of unhealthy attraction
Speaker 1: to cats. It's the only explanation. How else could this
Speaker 1: have been made? How else do you have a bunch
Speaker 1: of human like undulating cats. It would be worse if
Speaker 1: he didn't want to funk the cats would be like,
Speaker 1: then what is this choice? Because at least that's an explanation,
Speaker 1: right right? Why are they so tiny? Like can Like
Speaker 1: I was talking about this on Twitter too, But just
Speaker 1: imagine one of these cats, like like if all the
Speaker 1: house cats were suddenly replaced with cats movie cats, and
Speaker 1: just one of them just kind of starts like jount
Speaker 1: Tilly walking strolling across like very tiny but only comes
Speaker 1: up to your your shins and just like strolling around jumping,
Speaker 1: cutting capers and going like now, starts flicking it, starts
Speaker 1: looking at anus, just doing regular cat behaviors, but it's
Speaker 1: very little, horrible tiny cat humans. Yeah, no, thanks, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know, I don't know, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't get it. Yeah, well, luckily that'll be the last
Speaker 1: movie human. Well, thank you so much for joining me
Speaker 1: today on this wonderful venture through nature. Uh is there
Speaker 1: anything you want to plug? Just say oh no, no,
Speaker 1: no no no, that director has that covered. Um. Just
Speaker 1: at Blake Wexler on everything, um and then yeah, I
Speaker 1: love this podcast. It's funny. It's weird to discover a
Speaker 1: podcast that you like by being on it yourself. That's
Speaker 1: how I get all of my list. Okay, good, good, well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad to join them. Um. Yeah. You can find
Speaker 1: us on Creature feature Pod dot com, at Instagram at
Speaker 1: Creature feature Pod, on Twitter at Creature feat Pod. It's
Speaker 1: not fat as an f e e T, It's f
Speaker 1: e a T. Feat Pod is a different podcast. Um.
Speaker 1: And you can find me at Katie Golden and at
Speaker 1: pro bird Writes, where I am a bird. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: just my choice. Uh, thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying the podcast and you want to help
Speaker 1: me out, gently press that subscribe button, maybe leave a
Speaker 1: rating or review if you'd like, or just whispered to
Speaker 1: the trees that you are one with nature and that
Speaker 1: maybe they should check out my cool fund podcast. See
Speaker 1: you next Wednesday. And thanks to the Space Classics for
Speaker 1: their awesome song Exo Lumina