Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature Feature production of I Heart Radio Today.
Speaker 1: On the show Evolutionary Horror Stories. Who we love horror
Speaker 1: movies and horror stories, but when it comes to pure
Speaker 1: blood curdling terror, there's nothing competing with Mother Nature. We'll
Speaker 1: compare some classic horror tropes to their real life counterparts,
Speaker 1: and let me tell you when it comes to evolution,
Speaker 1: the director's cut holds nothing back. Parasites that contort your
Speaker 1: body and mind to their will, evil flowers and even
Speaker 1: more evil worms. Discover this and more as we answer
Speaker 1: the angel question how much DNA do you have to
Speaker 1: steal to survive radioactive blasts? So guess what I bought you?
Speaker 1: A one way ticket to a little place I like
Speaker 1: to call imagination Station. Imagine that you're happily living your
Speaker 1: slow pay, comfortable life, eating a salad and being a
Speaker 1: generally chill person. One day you notice your salad tastes
Speaker 1: a little funny, but paint no sweat. But that's when
Speaker 1: all the trouble starts. You begin to feel weird inside,
Speaker 1: as if something is happening in your body, as if
Speaker 1: something is growing. Then you start to feel a strange
Speaker 1: pressure in your eyeballs. It feels like something is shifting, moving, multiplying.
Speaker 1: Over the course of a few weeks, your eyes begin
Speaker 1: to swell, bulging out of your skull. As your eyes swell,
Speaker 1: you begin to lose your sight, and you can only
Speaker 1: imagine how horrifying you must look. With two huge, ballooning
Speaker 1: eyes hanging out of your sockets. All you can make
Speaker 1: out is the faint difference between light and dark. You
Speaker 1: feel dizzy and out of it, and only compelled to
Speaker 1: follow the faint light up up, ascending almost blindly up
Speaker 1: a staircase until you feel a gentle breeze on your
Speaker 1: horribly mutated face. Are you on a roof? Is that
Speaker 1: the sun? The next thing you know, a huge bird
Speaker 1: descends upon you and rips your eyes out of your skull.
Speaker 1: Joining me today is writer, retired film critic, elephant apologist,
Speaker 1: and co host of the podcast Night Call, Emily Yoshida. Hello,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me. Did you enjoy our little uh?
Speaker 1: I am a story? They're so intrigued. I'm so glad
Speaker 1: I came for a gross episode. Ready to do this? Um?
Speaker 1: Did you watch the movie bird Box? Yes? You know how? Okay?
Speaker 1: So I watched it? Actually had an advanced screening of
Speaker 1: it because I was doing I have pro bird rights
Speaker 1: is my Twitter and so did a little advertisement on it,
Speaker 1: and so they said it was like, huh, interesting, the
Speaker 1: birds don't fare very well. I feel like in bird box.
Speaker 1: Now they're put in a box. Yeah, outrage, it's an outrage.
Speaker 1: So I called it out on its anti birddhism. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess the premises like you, if you look the thing,
Speaker 1: it infects your eyes and makes you go crazy, right that,
Speaker 1: like there is something in the atmosphere, something we never
Speaker 1: really quite see that is so horrifying that it makes
Speaker 1: you lose your mind in your eyesight right right and
Speaker 1: into a zombie type creature, right, and you like do
Speaker 1: something crazy and you try to get other people to
Speaker 1: open their eyes right right exactly. And then John Malkovich
Speaker 1: is like, Hey, it's me John Milkovich in this movie.
Speaker 1: How's it going? I forgot he was in that. Um
Speaker 1: this this the movie. I watched that movie maybe on
Speaker 1: Christmas Eve, I can't remember. I had to write about it,
Speaker 1: and it was like a really bad way to bring
Speaker 1: out last year. Wise, I did not enjoy that movie.
Speaker 1: I totally forgot that John Malkovitch isn't it. I have
Speaker 1: wiped most of it from my brain. Well that's good
Speaker 1: news for you, because I have a real life version
Speaker 1: of that is much better. Um. So, I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you today about luco Chloridium paradox um. Okay.
Speaker 1: So it is an indo parasitic flat worm, and indo
Speaker 1: parasites live inside the body. And it lives in the
Speaker 1: temperate forests of North America and Europe, so you know,
Speaker 1: close close to here, close to home. Yeah. It likes
Speaker 1: to parasitize snails and birds, and it does this in
Speaker 1: a really weird cronenberg Askay, first, I'll just the cute
Speaker 1: little snail happily munched on leaves and being cute and
Speaker 1: harmless snails much on leaves. Yeah, oh, I didn't realize that.
Speaker 1: That's so cute of them. They're very they're very cute animals.
Speaker 1: Yeah uh. And they accidentally eat the eggs of a
Speaker 1: Lucochloritium paradox um. Then these eggs begin to hatch inside
Speaker 1: the snails bodies. So think back to our little horror
Speaker 1: story where you feel something growing and shifting inside you.
Speaker 1: This is the this is the life of the snail. Now,
Speaker 1: the first stage larva are small, thin, transparent worms with
Speaker 1: no mouths, and they travel through the snail's body and
Speaker 1: up into its eye stalks. Uh So, inside the eye
Speaker 1: stalks the lucochloridium paradox um. I'm going to say that
Speaker 1: word as much as I can go. Chloridium paradox um. Yes,
Speaker 1: they transform into sporro cysts, which is a sack of
Speaker 1: undulating tissue that, after a process of asexual reproduction, contains
Speaker 1: up to hundreds of luco claridium paradoxum larva. I mean,
Speaker 1: same big mood, Yeah, so sack. So these these spores
Speaker 1: cysts cause the snail's eye stalks to become unnaturally engorged.
Speaker 1: So just big throbbing sacks of spor a cysts are they?
Speaker 1: Is this like noticeable? If you saw a snail, you
Speaker 1: would know like is there a picture of a little
Speaker 1: better than a picture. I have a gift for you,
Speaker 1: a video, and it is this video that you get
Speaker 1: to watch with me right now. So here you have
Speaker 1: the snail. What's that? Well is that the worm? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, Oh my god. I'm going to paint a
Speaker 1: visual picture for the listeners, strobing and pulsating. It looks
Speaker 1: like a thing is throbbing and breathing. Inside of the ts,
Speaker 1: it looks like it has a heartbeat, like the eyes
Speaker 1: have a heartbeat. It's crazy. It looks like it looks
Speaker 1: like a terrible organic accordion scrunching, and inside of the
Speaker 1: eye there's bands of green and white and it's it's moist,
Speaker 1: I would say, very moist, moist looking. That's always a good,
Speaker 1: good descriptive moist. So they pulsate in the snail's eyes
Speaker 1: and create a strobe effect of red, green, white, and
Speaker 1: yellow bands and brown spots. It's very hypnotic looking, very psychedelic. Yes,
Speaker 1: it kind of looks like two wriggling caterpillars attached to
Speaker 1: the snail's head. This is accurate, and this is the
Speaker 1: exact effect that the luco Chloridium paradox um is after.
Speaker 1: So birds find this caterpillar mimicry displayed to be very
Speaker 1: enticing and tasty looking. One thing you've got to understand
Speaker 1: about luco Chloridium paradox um is that it has one
Speaker 1: goal in life to make it inside of a bird
Speaker 1: and mature into their adult forms, at which point they
Speaker 1: can reproduce in a decadent hermaphroditic orgy inside the bird.
Speaker 1: I gotta get inside that bird kinda get inside that bird.
Speaker 1: I like. I can imagine this being a musical And
Speaker 1: from the point of view of the worms, like the
Speaker 1: opening number is like the I want I'll be inside
Speaker 1: of a big bird. See that bird up there. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be inside at one that would be inside of
Speaker 1: that bird mating. Oh God. So the luco cloridium has
Speaker 1: one problem, which is that snails don't really want to
Speaker 1: be eaten by birds, so usually they are within the
Speaker 1: dense foliage of the forest where birds are less able
Speaker 1: to access them. And the loucal Cloridium paradox um. Gonna
Speaker 1: keep saying that word as much as I can do.
Speaker 1: Could you know what each parts of the Latin mean
Speaker 1: or can you break it down? Well? Paradox Um I
Speaker 1: think means paradox right, that seems like a good And
Speaker 1: luco chloridium I think means luke you have chloridiums luke? Oh,
Speaker 1: chloridium isn't that didn't like isn't MITOCHLORIUMA cloriums is the
Speaker 1: thing in Star Wars? Yeah, so we're very we're in
Speaker 1: that neighborhood. It sounds like a Star Wars name doesn't
Speaker 1: Luco cloridians paradox um. Yeah, that does. It's like it's
Speaker 1: a very it sounds like, oh it's it's a paradox,
Speaker 1: so it's a paradox um. Star Wars Universe it's he's
Speaker 1: a bad guy, so he's bad drags mean face uh,
Speaker 1: like like a vaguely altered synonym for bad right mean
Speaker 1: bar gross texts. Yes, that's great, that's really good. There
Speaker 1: should be more parasites than um in Star Wars. There
Speaker 1: should be. Maybe maybe the Force is a parasite. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the whole thing with the midichlorines is that it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just a little organism that lives in your blood
Speaker 1: that will tell you that like whispers the force to you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it sounds like a parasite to me. But they, I
Speaker 1: think they go and it causes wars, right, So maybe, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that's how it happens. Oh my god, you should
Speaker 1: do a whole episode on cloris. Nerds would love it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure they would love it and not criticize me
Speaker 1: every tiny inaccuracy. So, uh, the Luca Clordium has the
Speaker 1: problem needs to get inside bird. It has a solution
Speaker 1: mind control so it controls the snail's tiny brain and
Speaker 1: over rides these snails instinct to avoid sunlight. UH. So
Speaker 1: the snails crawl up the plant or tree into the sun,
Speaker 1: where it's easily spotted by hungry birds. The birds eat
Speaker 1: the snails dancing, strobing eye stalks. Uh. And if the
Speaker 1: snail survives, it can actually regret them and start the
Speaker 1: horrible process and new. But when the eye stalks are
Speaker 1: eaten by the bird, is the is the luco clarity
Speaker 1: and then out of its system or out of the
Speaker 1: snail out of the snail. It's a good question. I
Speaker 1: guess it depends on sort of the timing of events,
Speaker 1: like if it ate a bunch of it and like
Speaker 1: there could be more inside of it still um, but
Speaker 1: it could be at that point if it's alive. The
Speaker 1: birds are not discerning, they're not snail eyes exactly. The
Speaker 1: question is how do these terrible luco clarity in paradox
Speaker 1: um control the snail's brains? So, uh, we're not sure.
Speaker 1: The short answer. The long answer is a study by UH.
Speaker 1: I believe it. It's a university in Poland. I think
Speaker 1: it's called row Claw. UH found evidence that the local
Speaker 1: chloridium does indeed mind control its snail victims. But they
Speaker 1: said that quote, both the ecological influence of the parasite
Speaker 1: and the mechanism by which it accomplishes its visibility have
Speaker 1: remained more of a puzzle than one might expect. We
Speaker 1: think that such a situation is quite embarrassing, and thus
Speaker 1: we would like to encourage the readers to undertake studies
Speaker 1: of this host parasite association. Which I think. So, I
Speaker 1: think this is like a translation thing of probably from
Speaker 1: Polish to English, but I just think it's funny, like
Speaker 1: this is embarrassing that we don't this parasite controls a
Speaker 1: brain and we don't know how. It's embarrassing. It's a
Speaker 1: scourge for the scientific community. Well, I mean, is it
Speaker 1: not just something as simple as I mean, I'm sure.
Speaker 1: I'm not a scientist, so they can't figure it out.
Speaker 1: I can't figure it out. But but it's not just
Speaker 1: like it turns off whatever part of the brain of
Speaker 1: the snail wants to seek darkness and be it could be.
Speaker 1: It could be because we know so. Another parasite that
Speaker 1: we've talked about on the show before, and it's quite famous,
Speaker 1: is the toxoplasma gandai or gandhiai uh, and it uh
Speaker 1: infects rats and makes them unafraid of cats, and that
Speaker 1: they've found it, there's an actual they cause an actual
Speaker 1: lesion in the rats brain that kind of fuses two
Speaker 1: parts of the brain that the fear and arousal sort
Speaker 1: of parts of the brain, and it makes it so
Speaker 1: that rather than fearing the cats, they actually feel the
Speaker 1: slight attraction towards them. Yes, it's definitely possible that they
Speaker 1: could be just physically shutting off that part of the brain,
Speaker 1: like with a legion or something, or it could be
Speaker 1: modifying the neurochemical balance of the brain. It's hard to
Speaker 1: say because it's embarrassing, but they don't know yet. Somebody's
Speaker 1: got to get on this. So once the bird eats
Speaker 1: the parasite, it reproduces inside the birds and the bird
Speaker 1: poops out their eggs and it doesn't really hurt the
Speaker 1: birds other than it is still a parasite. It siphons
Speaker 1: off some of the bird's nutrients, so that's always a
Speaker 1: negative thing for the bird, but it doesn't it doesn't
Speaker 1: kill them, um. But then it poops it out and
Speaker 1: the whole cycle begins a new The circle the circle
Speaker 1: of worms Circle worms. So this body wore kind of
Speaker 1: makes me think of the thing, you know how, like
Speaker 1: like the thing and infest the people causes and then
Speaker 1: it's what does it like, Okay, remind me of it.
Speaker 1: It eats them and turns them into a thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't remember the exact mechanics of it, but yeah,
Speaker 1: something like that. I yeah, it's um. Yeah, Like I
Speaker 1: think I any kind of organism or a thing that
Speaker 1: feels like it just as easily exists as sort of
Speaker 1: like a disease, like a possessing force, not just not
Speaker 1: just a worm or an organism that's got like a parasite,
Speaker 1: but something that you know, shifts your mind and everything.
Speaker 1: That's always really creepy to I mean that, like I
Speaker 1: don't know if this is on the docket for today,
Speaker 1: but if you talked about the the barnacles um that
Speaker 1: infect the crabs, we talked about this, We talked about
Speaker 1: this on nightcall. This is a big focus of obsession
Speaker 1: for us. I believe we have an entire up like
Speaker 1: or it's like it's in the title of the episode
Speaker 1: because we were so into these guys um. But they
Speaker 1: do a similar thing where they they kind of Um,
Speaker 1: they actually like effectively switched the gender of the crab
Speaker 1: that they they've infected, and then um kind of also
Speaker 1: infect its brain as well to make it um want
Speaker 1: to reproduce. Like it's pretty wild, like that stuff is.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess we're lucky as humans that so far,
Speaker 1: nothing as far as we know, can really do that
Speaker 1: to us or cannon. Maybe I don't know that that's
Speaker 1: so interesting. Uh it says it's okay, it's called uh
Speaker 1: sacculina carcini. I've actually not heard of this parasite. I'm
Speaker 1: really excited. It is parasitic castrator. Yeah, crub it gets
Speaker 1: into that's a nice combination of words. Parasitic castrator. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's uh, it basically turns, it takes over its
Speaker 1: reproductive system, robe prices that with the barnacles reproductive system.
Speaker 1: It like grafts itself onto it and then turns and
Speaker 1: then tries to get like its eggs fertilized. I believe
Speaker 1: I don't know it spent a second since I looked
Speaker 1: at this, but yeah, so the parasite messes up with
Speaker 1: the development of the crabs genitals and then they atrophy. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then the I see so the parasite makes the
Speaker 1: male crab developed feminine characteristics. The eggs of the parasite
Speaker 1: are secured under the abdomen um. Yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 1: feminist hero. Oh I see. So so if the parasite
Speaker 1: is removed from the host, the female crabs will regenerate
Speaker 1: their ovaries, but males will start developing ovarian tissue and
Speaker 1: basically turn into females. That's so interesting, that's crazy. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: that that one kind of blew my mind a little
Speaker 1: bit when we had a listener send that to us.
Speaker 1: I want to so the thing in the movie it
Speaker 1: like basically steals like human DNA. You know, at least
Speaker 1: there's not like a real animal that steals DNA or
Speaker 1: is there boom uh there is? Yeah. Okay, so welcome
Speaker 1: to our horrible little stage. The deloid rotifer. So I
Speaker 1: bet you're wondering, what's a deloid rhodifer. Well, it's a
Speaker 1: class of rotifer. Well, so what's it's a wheel animal?
Speaker 1: Does that clear things up? A wheel animal? Okay, So
Speaker 1: you want to know what a wheel animal is. It
Speaker 1: is a microscopic or near microscopic invertebrate or type of zooplankton.
Speaker 1: They live in mostly fresh water all over the world,
Speaker 1: and they're called rotifer or wheel animals because their mouths
Speaker 1: look like a teeth wheel. Uh, it isn't like the
Speaker 1: tart degrade. Is it like that? Similar to that he
Speaker 1: has a little he's got a circle mouth to mouth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but his doesn't actually, so he's not a wheel animal
Speaker 1: because his doesn't look like it's rotating. These ones they
Speaker 1: almost look like, you know, the the like electric shaver
Speaker 1: with the rotating blades. It looks like that. They look
Speaker 1: like a tube with a sharp butt and a rotating
Speaker 1: shaver head mouth. Um, and their mouths don't actually rotate,
Speaker 1: but there's fan like movement of the cilia, which are
Speaker 1: the little moving hairs, which makes it look gives the
Speaker 1: illusion that they're spinning. So let me I've actually got
Speaker 1: a video here for you to enjoy. Oh they're so tiny,
Speaker 1: Yes they are. They are almost microscopic, although some of
Speaker 1: them can grow up to about a millimeter. Kind of cute. Cute,
Speaker 1: I say, description is so much more scary than the
Speaker 1: actual I like catching his little beads. This video that
Speaker 1: we're watching, there's this caption that says their favorite mode
Speaker 1: of locomotion is creeping. Uh So they their appearance is
Speaker 1: weird enough, but it's actually their DNA stealing that makes
Speaker 1: them like a movie monster. So the deadlaid Rhodifer are
Speaker 1: an all female class of animals, so they have reproduced
Speaker 1: a sexually for around eighty million years. Despite being a
Speaker 1: sexual reproducers, they managed to increase the diversity of their
Speaker 1: genetics by borrowing DNA from other animals. Uh. They have
Speaker 1: acquired about ten percent of their genes from other creatures,
Speaker 1: including bacteria, fungi, and plants. So these are acquired through
Speaker 1: a process known as horizontal gene transfer, which is the
Speaker 1: transfer of genes from one organism to another uh, rather
Speaker 1: than through reproduction. So reproduction is vertical transfer. Like you
Speaker 1: have babies, They get your genes horizontals, like some random
Speaker 1: stranger just gives you their genes. That happens all the time, Right,
Speaker 1: you bump into somebody on the subway, you got your
Speaker 1: genes on me. Jesus. So pro karyotes, which is like
Speaker 1: bacteria um, are really good at horizontal gene transfer um,
Speaker 1: but you carryoute are They're more complicated. Their cell cellular
Speaker 1: structure is more complicated. Uh. So it's a little more
Speaker 1: difficult for them to do this. UM when they gather
Speaker 1: genes from other organisms. It's thought to maybe be from
Speaker 1: a process called endocytosis, where the eukaryotic cell engulfs another
Speaker 1: cell and it starts to break it apart, and then
Speaker 1: like some of the genes survive that process and then
Speaker 1: get incorporated into its own DNA. So this occurs in
Speaker 1: many different species of animal, but the deloid rotifer is
Speaker 1: unique in the extent to which it uses foreign DNA,
Speaker 1: so it's collected genes from over five species of organisms. Uh.
Speaker 1: These genes allow the deloid rotifer to survive extreme environments,
Speaker 1: so they're aquatic, but they can survive being dried out
Speaker 1: desiccated for at least nine years. So imagine like a fish,
Speaker 1: just like you dry it up, it's basically a mommy,
Speaker 1: and then nine years later you sprit some water on
Speaker 1: it's just like flops back to life. They can survive
Speaker 1: high amounts of radiation UM, and they can break down
Speaker 1: the toxic chemical benzel cyanide, which allows them to live
Speaker 1: in sludge like sewage treatment plants, so they're almost indestructible. Uh,
Speaker 1: and they kind of I know, so you mentioned the
Speaker 1: tartar grade, which is another one of these very tiny
Speaker 1: animals that are really good at surviving. This this one
Speaker 1: gives them a run for their money. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it feels like it feels like a superhero power
Speaker 1: or something to be able to absorb. Yeah, because she
Speaker 1: she absorbs other people's powers like siler from heroes, like
Speaker 1: eat their brains and gets their powers. R Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's exactly like that. I mean, how come It's the
Speaker 1: thing I always wonder about, Like, I mean, not that
Speaker 1: I know of too many species like this, but like
Speaker 1: why do they remain so tiny? Like why wouldn't isn't
Speaker 1: there like some gene that they could absorb that would
Speaker 1: like make the absorb as a bigness gene. But if
Speaker 1: they're so small, how are they going to absorb an elephant? Huh?
Speaker 1: I guess that's true. I have to eat the entire
Speaker 1: organism or just like so, the real reason I think
Speaker 1: that they're that's small is that there there. It's similar
Speaker 1: to the reason why like insects can't get really huge
Speaker 1: and such. So it's like when you have a certain
Speaker 1: cellular structure and metabolic system, it isn't really sustainable at
Speaker 1: larger sizes, so through evolutionary processes, obviously sometimes these very
Speaker 1: tiny organisms do end up becoming larger animals, but a
Speaker 1: lot of them just there's not really any reason for
Speaker 1: them too, And they wouldn't survive being like blown up,
Speaker 1: like say they have some kind of gigantism gene that
Speaker 1: like just blows them up. They wouldn't they wouldn't necessarily survive.
Speaker 1: There is um something and we've talked about it a
Speaker 1: little bit on the show, something called deep sea gigantism,
Speaker 1: where UH animals who are on the ocean floor are
Speaker 1: often bigger than their counterparts that are more towards the
Speaker 1: surface of the ocean. And that's due to uh some
Speaker 1: of the difference in environment like that deep And is
Speaker 1: it like a pressure thing or something or that it's
Speaker 1: actually yeah, it's actually thought that maybe because the uh
Speaker 1: the nutritional density is so low, like you have to
Speaker 1: be bigger. First of all, the bigger you are, the
Speaker 1: slower your metabolism, so the log you can go between feeding,
Speaker 1: and also the more distance you can cover so you
Speaker 1: can pick up food uh over longer distances. UM. I mean,
Speaker 1: I wasn't shaming the rotor for whatever. A little bit
Speaker 1: like you were. I just I want I would love
Speaker 1: my micro schaming. I would love I would love for
Speaker 1: it to be whatever size it wants. Then you can
Speaker 1: cuddle it like I love a giant tartar grade or
Speaker 1: a giant rotor for just like little baby, cuddle like
Speaker 1: giant comparatively like we're we're we're like size and no larger.
Speaker 1: I would be yeah, I would love that, like i'd
Speaker 1: like a pet rootifer. You use it and then you
Speaker 1: use it to mop things with just something like yeah,
Speaker 1: like organic room. But that's an amazing idea. Let's do
Speaker 1: you think horizontal gene transfer is reserved for freaky zooplankton,
Speaker 1: Other animals, including humans, can get on on this freaky
Speaker 1: sideways gene action. It's thought that humans can acquire foreign
Speaker 1: DNA through retroviruses when they infect reproductive cells and inject
Speaker 1: their genetic material. However, studies on how much of the
Speaker 1: human genome is from virus is very, some claiming we
Speaker 1: have up to two D three genes from viruses, while
Speaker 1: other studies call this number into question. While pro karotic
Speaker 1: organisms such as bacteria are experts at horizontal gene transfer,
Speaker 1: karyotes which include plants, animals, spongi, and single cell protozoa
Speaker 1: are usually less adept, except for our friend, the deloid rhodafer. However,
Speaker 1: there's also a wily protozoan that has stolen human DNA
Speaker 1: to engage in some cellular espionage. Plasmodium vivax is a
Speaker 1: protozoan and a parasite one of the causes of malaria.
Speaker 1: There's evidence suggesting and it has adopted some human DNA
Speaker 1: into its own genome, which allows it to stealthily stay
Speaker 1: inside the human body and may help it evade the
Speaker 1: immune system. It's like a protozoan put on a human
Speaker 1: mask and waves to our white blood cells, going hello, Yes,
Speaker 1: nothing to see here, just a normal human cell doing
Speaker 1: norman human things. What's that somebody has been infecting red
Speaker 1: blood cells. Oh no, that's terrible. Hope you catch them anyways,
Speaker 1: see you in just a bit we'll discuss more devious,
Speaker 1: dastardly creatures, including an animal who's obsessed with death. But first,
Speaker 1: I have a quick message to deliver from bombas the
Speaker 1: sponsor of this episode, So I'd like to welcome you
Speaker 1: now to Creature Feet Pod. That's right, we're finally talking
Speaker 1: about feet, specifically the things we put on our feet.
Speaker 1: Here's the problem with human feet. They're naked, no fuzzy
Speaker 1: fur hooves to protect them. That's where socks come in.
Speaker 1: Bombas is reinventing the sock from being a mere cloth
Speaker 1: tube that we used to see their foot parts to
Speaker 1: being one of the most comfortable experiences known defeat. I've
Speaker 1: tried out these socks and it's truly like having your
Speaker 1: feet placed in a chariot made from a thousand soft
Speaker 1: baby koalas. Don't worry, they're not actually made out of
Speaker 1: baby koalas. But these socks are adorable with beautiful patterns
Speaker 1: and colors. Bombas isn't just kind to our feet, They're
Speaker 1: kind to our neighbors. Did you know that socks are
Speaker 1: the number one most requested clothing item in homeless shelters.
Speaker 1: Bombas is on a mission to change that. For every
Speaker 1: pair of socks purchased, Bombas donates a pair to someone
Speaker 1: in need. Again, these socks mean business, and our business
Speaker 1: has given your feet the most comfortable right of their lives.
Speaker 1: My new favorites are their new Marino wool socks, designed
Speaker 1: to be breathable, dry, and never itchy. With just the
Speaker 1: right amount of thickness. I'm a huge sock aficionado, and
Speaker 1: I freaking love the socks I got from Bomba's. They
Speaker 1: come in gorgeous designs and they're so comfortable I never
Speaker 1: want to take them off. Save on your first purchase
Speaker 1: when you shop at bombas dot com slash creature. That's
Speaker 1: Bombas dot com slash creature to save Bombas dot com
Speaker 1: slash creature. Death decay, bodies moldering in the ground, flesh
Speaker 1: dripping off bones. This is not typically the kind of
Speaker 1: imagery we like to dwell on, but there are some
Speaker 1: people who are obsessed with the thought in an unhealthy way.
Speaker 1: Those with Coutard delusion, also known as walking corps syndrome,
Speaker 1: believe they are dead or decaying. In some case studies,
Speaker 1: the sufferer even described smelling themselves rotting from the in
Speaker 1: side out. As this is a rare mental illness, it's
Speaker 1: rather mysterious, though there have been a few documented connections
Speaker 1: to schizophrenia, depression, brain tumors, or migraine, and it's thought
Speaker 1: to have something to do with lesions in the parietal lobe,
Speaker 1: the part of the brain that processes body sensory information.
Speaker 1: And spatial awareness. A dysfunction within the parietal lobe may
Speaker 1: cause a self negating delusion where you think you don't
Speaker 1: exist or are dead and rotting. But there are some
Speaker 1: animals who are obsessed with decay and happily so their
Speaker 1: whole lives revolve around future faction. They live, eat, breathe,
Speaker 1: and mate within the underworld of decay. So, Emily, you
Speaker 1: want to talk about carrion beetles, sure, as if you
Speaker 1: have a choice anyways. Carrion beetles are a family of
Speaker 1: beetles found all over the world who like to eat. Well,
Speaker 1: ye um, I'm afraid to do the Google immage. It's
Speaker 1: not so bad. They just look like beetles and probably
Speaker 1: eating a dead thing. So Carrion beetles have an adorable
Speaker 1: habit of laying their baby larva onto the carcass of
Speaker 1: a decomposing animals so their babies have a corpse to
Speaker 1: feed on. Us they pupate nice good parents, Yeah, nice parenting.
Speaker 1: So the problem that they have is that a lot
Speaker 1: of other insects also love to eat dead, rotting things,
Speaker 1: so they have a lot of competition. Carrion beetles have
Speaker 1: developed a few interesting solutions so the genus ncrophorest or
Speaker 1: bearing beetles are the are the undertaker of the animal kingdom.
Speaker 1: Bearing beetles will engage in wrestling matches. It's just like
Speaker 1: out of nowhere to determine who will be the undertaker.
Speaker 1: So males will fight males, and females will fight females
Speaker 1: until only to emerge victorious. These undertakers, damn it? What
Speaker 1: is that? Alright? Sorry? Last one? I promise. They work
Speaker 1: in pairs to bury the bodies of recently dead animals
Speaker 1: like rodents, even up to the size of a rat,
Speaker 1: So a pair of these undertakers can bury a rat
Speaker 1: in just a few hours. They dig under the carcass,
Speaker 1: which sinks deeper and deeper into the earth. Then the
Speaker 1: bearing beetles complete their undertaker duties by shoving the loose
Speaker 1: soil on top of the carcass so inside of the tomb.
Speaker 1: The bearing beetles stripped the fur or feathers off the
Speaker 1: carcass and use it to line the burrow. So cute
Speaker 1: and sweet, so cuddly and cozy, to have my final
Speaker 1: resting place inside of my own skin and rfe right
Speaker 1: exactly so then it gets better. They rub their butts
Speaker 1: and mouths all over the body, releasing antimicrobial excretion anti
Speaker 1: microbeal excresia. So GoF that was pretty goffe. So these
Speaker 1: excretions helped preserve the body and prevent odors of decay
Speaker 1: from attracting other scavengers. The female bearing beetle will then
Speaker 1: lay her eggs in the nursery tomb, where they have
Speaker 1: a soft, delicious dead body waiting for them to feed on. Nursery. True,
Speaker 1: it's kind of paradox man life death. It's all the
Speaker 1: same new life sprouting out of dead things. D uh.
Speaker 1: So in a lot of insects, parents are kind of
Speaker 1: like they lay their eggs and then they just go
Speaker 1: and then that's it. But the bearing beetles are really nice,
Speaker 1: good parents, so the parents continue to care for their
Speaker 1: larva inside of the crypt. They will feed the larva
Speaker 1: regurgitated rat corpse in response to begging from the larva.
Speaker 1: I know I've talked about in this. In certain species
Speaker 1: of bearing beetles they have that wrestling match, but in
Speaker 1: other species they will bury large cadavers as a group effort,
Speaker 1: and then they raise their larva communally adorable, so sweet,
Speaker 1: just like everybody's sharing a dead body getting along singing
Speaker 1: much more harmony than many humans. Exactly if we could
Speaker 1: all just come together over one, over one corpse et
Speaker 1: corpse's plur bum. Yeah. So some carrion beetles have developed
Speaker 1: a rather different strategy from burial. Here. I want you
Speaker 1: to look at this photo, boy and enjoy it. Oh boy,
Speaker 1: So what could you describe that for viewers? It looks
Speaker 1: like a beetle that has a bunch of maybe little
Speaker 1: beetle larva all over it, A coat of babies basically
Speaker 1: of little mites, is what's going? Yeah, so he's wearing
Speaker 1: a It's from a distance like, oh cool for coat
Speaker 1: you've got there. Oh it's moving. So some carrion beetles
Speaker 1: species and mites have developed a symbiotic relationship. The carrion
Speaker 1: beetle allows mites to completely cover its body like a
Speaker 1: taxi for mites. Um the mic hitch arride to the
Speaker 1: nearest dead mouse or whatever. Once the carrion beetle parked
Speaker 1: itself next to a dead animal, the might disembark, but
Speaker 1: rather than eating the carcass, they like to eat the
Speaker 1: carrion beetles competitors. So the mites will eat fly eggs, maggots,
Speaker 1: and the larva of other scavengers. Exactly, yes, so incredible.
Speaker 1: So the mites will leave the carrion bee beetle alone,
Speaker 1: who enjoy its metal beetle beetle meets uh it's meal
Speaker 1: of rotting mouse while the mites destroy the beetles competition
Speaker 1: and clears the path for the beetle to lay its
Speaker 1: own eggs on the body. It feels like succession or something.
Speaker 1: You're right, succession and might just you know, like in
Speaker 1: that movie Willard where he he makes friends with the rats.
Speaker 1: It's it's got this like Ben, you are a rap,
Speaker 1: but I love you, goes right, um, And it's this
Speaker 1: like loner, reclusive guy who like he's browbeaten by the
Speaker 1: rest of society and his work and his boss and everything.
Speaker 1: And then he makes friends with a bunch of wraps
Speaker 1: and the rats eat eat all of his like competitors
Speaker 1: and stuff. So um, that's basically this, but with a
Speaker 1: beetle and lights on it good to have friends, it is,
Speaker 1: that is like yeah, like might it's good to have
Speaker 1: a lot of friends eat all of my competition. So
Speaker 1: many species of carrion beetles actually have warning coloration because
Speaker 1: surprised to They taste like death, probably after eating all
Speaker 1: those dead things, I would imagine. So they are bright
Speaker 1: red and orange, kind of like biohazard signs, um. And
Speaker 1: they can excrete nasty stuff out of giftswear gifts where yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean where else exactly. So these this nasty go
Speaker 1: that they excrete out of their anuses turns predators off
Speaker 1: and it apparently smells like death but death. So who
Speaker 1: would have thought that a beetle that like eats lives, mates,
Speaker 1: raises their children inside of dead things would have, like
Speaker 1: their perfume smell like death. Yeah. I mean it's like
Speaker 1: your lifestyle at that point. Do more? Yeah? Um? So,
Speaker 1: speaking of smelly dead things, have you seen stranger things? Yes?
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to call stranger things of smelly dead things,
Speaker 1: but I'm going somewhere and you see the demogorgan yes face.
Speaker 1: Um So I want to talk about the Reflegia ARNOLDI,
Speaker 1: which is also known as the corpse Lily. That's pretty golf,
Speaker 1: isn't it. That sounds like a like a goth name.
Speaker 1: High they're on corpse Lily Lily. You can call me
Speaker 1: Lily Corpse. That's actually a really good like goth character. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So here's here's a picture of the reflegia or corpse lily.
Speaker 1: It's such a big boy. It's a big boy, a
Speaker 1: big flappy boy with the big mouth in the center.
Speaker 1: The hole. Is that the alarming thing? It's like that,
Speaker 1: you know, the fear of holes. Yeah, that's really triggering
Speaker 1: for Yeah. The the it's sort of that that gingi
Speaker 1: eto kind of look of like a thing that just
Speaker 1: has a big hole in it. What's in the hole?
Speaker 1: Is it more death? Yea, a mouth filled with death.
Speaker 1: So um. So it uses it's cadaverous odor to entice
Speaker 1: things rather than deter them. So it is the largest
Speaker 1: of the genus roughly Asia. Uh. And it's the largest
Speaker 1: single flower on earth, with a diameter of three and
Speaker 1: a half feet, and it weighs up to twenty four
Speaker 1: pounds and basically the size of a small dog. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is most of that way the corpses of corpse beetles
Speaker 1: that are in its flower stomach. Yes, probably the weight
Speaker 1: of the flesh and there the corpse smelling goo inside
Speaker 1: of it. I've never seen one of these in person.
Speaker 1: I mean I know of them, but like it's because
Speaker 1: they're extremely rarely so they're found almost exclusively in the
Speaker 1: rainforests of sumatra Um. And it is a dark blood
Speaker 1: red with white spots and uh, like I said, it
Speaker 1: looks like that demogorgon face has got these concentric flaps
Speaker 1: and then a big hole in the middle. So uh,
Speaker 1: it is extremely rare and in fact endangered due to
Speaker 1: its convoluted way of reproducing. This plant is actually a parasite.
Speaker 1: It can't grow on its own, and it has to
Speaker 1: infect a host plant in this case, and it infects
Speaker 1: a specific species of grape vine um and the seeds
Speaker 1: embed themselves into the host vine and sucks nutrients out
Speaker 1: of it. Uh, which is a you know, about what
Speaker 1: I would expect from something called a corpse. When it's
Speaker 1: ready to reproduce, it creates a bulbous growth in the vine,
Speaker 1: which develops into a bud. The bud forms over a
Speaker 1: year and it just looks like it's like a normal vine,
Speaker 1: and then you just have this big bulbous like pustural
Speaker 1: coming out of the vine, and then the bud will
Speaker 1: bloom into a huge red flower with a cavernous center.
Speaker 1: And it's one of the worst smelling things on the planet. Uh.
Speaker 1: It has a very powerful smell of rotting flesh designed
Speaker 1: to attract flies and beetles. Uh. In fact, the chemical
Speaker 1: composition of the odor is extremely similar to actual rotting flesh. Um,
Speaker 1: how does it? How does it get that? How mean
Speaker 1: does it come from? But well, it's it just produces
Speaker 1: the the chemical It's sort of like, you know how
Speaker 1: we can create mimic smells like fake banana. Have you
Speaker 1: ever seen Nathan for you? Um, a little bit of it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: just can't watch Comedian And he like pretends to help businesses,
Speaker 1: but really he's just doing terrible stuff. And he convinces
Speaker 1: a frozen yogurt place to try out a poop flavored
Speaker 1: ice cream. So he has to go to this like
Speaker 1: production place where they make um, artificial flavoring, and he
Speaker 1: makes artificial poop flavoring. So something. It's something like that,
Speaker 1: but happening inside the flower. The flower only last a
Speaker 1: few days. It is unisexual, meaning that it is either
Speaker 1: male or female, and so the pollinator, the flies or
Speaker 1: beetles who are hoping to get some of that sweet
Speaker 1: corpse goo, have to cross contaminate the male and female
Speaker 1: flowers in order for them to be successfully pollinated. And
Speaker 1: the of course, because they can't do anything that's not disgusting.
Speaker 1: The pollen of the corpse lily is the consistency of
Speaker 1: thick snot um, and it just kind of coats the
Speaker 1: beetles and the flies that that gets in there, and
Speaker 1: the rare instances that they actually are successfully pollinated. Uh,
Speaker 1: they produce a fruit that's filled with tiny seeds that
Speaker 1: looks like a pile of poop. Basically, um, why is
Speaker 1: it so foul? Why is everything about It's like, it's
Speaker 1: like my name is corpse lily, and my seeds are poop.
Speaker 1: It's like I'm not afraid to offend. It's not precisely
Speaker 1: known exactly how the seeds are dispersed. Um. It's thought
Speaker 1: that they're eaten by tree shrews and perhaps ants. One
Speaker 1: theory is that maybe the tree shrew poops on or
Speaker 1: around the host vine, or another theory is that ants
Speaker 1: pick up the seeds and carry them to the vine
Speaker 1: or to their burrows near the vines, and the horrible
Speaker 1: process begins a new But they're like, I mean, it's unpleasant,
Speaker 1: but it's overall like it's like a it's like a part.
Speaker 1: It's a vital part of an ecosystem, right, Like, don't
Speaker 1: you need to have a corpse flower and a rainforest
Speaker 1: or something? I don't know, or is it like a
Speaker 1: horrible aberration that like, I mean, the only thing it's
Speaker 1: really hurting I think are the vines, right not? I mean,
Speaker 1: here's the thing, the um the flegia is highly endangered,
Speaker 1: whereas I don't think these vines are so uh And
Speaker 1: I guess the only other thing it's hurting is like
Speaker 1: humans who have to live near it and smell something
Speaker 1: that smells like a horrible corpse just di spewing odor everywhere.
Speaker 1: But otherwise I think it's a lovely thing. And I
Speaker 1: hope it doesn't go extinct. Uh. Man, it's you can
Speaker 1: see like it. It is truly humongous. It's it's pretty.
Speaker 1: Just the way it looks is pretty unsettling to me.
Speaker 1: It looks like it will eat you, like you've you've
Speaker 1: gone into a real Mario hell world where the plants
Speaker 1: want to eat you and they fall into it, right,
Speaker 1: like a gritty, realistic Mario where once you die, there's
Speaker 1: no one ups. Yeah, So why are we so freaked
Speaker 1: out about clowns hanging their folks? I swear this is relevant.
Speaker 1: So they're big red ringed mounds, their white faces, and
Speaker 1: blue accented eyes. There's a theory that the grinning faces
Speaker 1: of clowns land us right in the uncanny valley, evoking
Speaker 1: the grim rictus of a decomposing head. Harvard Medical School
Speaker 1: psychiatrist Steven Schlasman told Vulture quote, the uncanny explains a
Speaker 1: lot of horror tropes where you look at something and
Speaker 1: it's not quite right, like a human face that's decomposed sing.
Speaker 1: It's recognizable, but just enough away from normal to scare you.
Speaker 1: A study published in the journal New Ideas in Psychology
Speaker 1: found that surveyed people consider clowning to be the creepiest profession,
Speaker 1: followed by sex shop owners, funeral directors, and taxidermists. They
Speaker 1: perceived those death obsessed for sex obsessed professions to be
Speaker 1: the creepiest. Could clowns be considered death obsessed due to
Speaker 1: their ghoulish faces, or, as another theory suggests, is it
Speaker 1: that their emotions are ambiguous, making it impossible to know
Speaker 1: whether their leering smile is painted on or is a
Speaker 1: genuinely threatening expression. Anyways, I don't know. Why don't you
Speaker 1: ask the clowns standing right behind you. When we return,
Speaker 1: we'll discuss evil worms. Why are they so evil? How
Speaker 1: are they so evil? Have the evil worms been inside
Speaker 1: you the whole time? Hi, it's me again and welcome
Speaker 1: to another edition of Imagination Station. Today. I'd like you
Speaker 1: to imagine that something is growing inside you again. You
Speaker 1: know something is wrong as you feel your body being
Speaker 1: filled up with some kind of massive, wriggling creature. But
Speaker 1: at this point it's too late. You can't speak. There's
Speaker 1: some dark force preventing your voice from working. There's nothing
Speaker 1: you can do about it. It continues to grow, filling
Speaker 1: up your torso like you're being filled with some sort
Speaker 1: of nightmare spaghetti. Finally, you feel your mind start to crumble. Water.
Speaker 1: You think water, I need water. You stumble your wretched
Speaker 1: body towards a lake, numbly, aware that you probably can't swim.
Speaker 1: Oh well, a voice commands you louder water, so you
Speaker 1: jump into the cold, dark depths of the lake. As
Speaker 1: the light of the sun fades away and you feel
Speaker 1: yourself sinking into the dark waters, You're dimly aware of
Speaker 1: something happening, and impossibly long hose like creature wriggling its
Speaker 1: way out of your guts. Squirming to freedom as you drown. Luckily,
Speaker 1: guess what you're not a cricket or a grasshopper? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. No, I as far as I know,
Speaker 1: I certainly hope not. You look you look like a human.
Speaker 1: But you know, look I'm I'm not. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to judge if there's any If there's anything we've learned today,
Speaker 1: it's that, um, you know, not all creatures are what
Speaker 1: they appear to Fankly, we could be filled with crickets. Yeah, so, Uh,
Speaker 1: the cricket is a very unlucky animal, as is the
Speaker 1: grasshopper and any other insect that is the victim of
Speaker 1: the parasitic hairworm a k A. Nematomorpha, which is a
Speaker 1: phylum of nematode Um. So, like many parasites, the parasitic
Speaker 1: hare worm is a sadistic creep. Uh. It infects insects
Speaker 1: and arthropods. There are two species of parasitic careworm that
Speaker 1: parasitized crickets. You want me to try to offer through
Speaker 1: these uh, these Latin names she spinal Cordotes tellini and
Speaker 1: Paragordias tricuspidatus. Good, good, good effort. I think I got
Speaker 1: this perfect um so they parasitize crickets and grasshoppers and
Speaker 1: force them to do their horrible bidding. They grow inside
Speaker 1: of their host cricket or grasshopper, and they occupy the
Speaker 1: poor insects entire body cavity except for the head and legs. First,
Speaker 1: they short circuit the cricket's brain and stops them from chirping,
Speaker 1: making them less likely to be eaten by predators. Uh,
Speaker 1: they release a protein that alters the cricket or grasshopper
Speaker 1: brains chemistry, causing them to deliriously seek out bodies of water.
Speaker 1: Once inside the water, the hair worms wriggle out of
Speaker 1: their hosts like eating spaghetti in reverse out of your butt?
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? So I've got a video for
Speaker 1: you because I know you want it. You've been looking
Speaker 1: forward to this video this whole time. I've been talking
Speaker 1: about it. Here we go. So here's the cricket and
Speaker 1: it's in the water. And what's that coming out of it? Oh? God?
Speaker 1: Is that? It's interesting? Though? Is that Is that a
Speaker 1: huge worm? That's a huge worm. It's so big, it's
Speaker 1: so big. How is that whole worm in that cricket?
Speaker 1: It's jammed in there, it's just it's just coiled up
Speaker 1: in there. And oh it's so gross that there's another
Speaker 1: video of it if you want to keep watching it.
Speaker 1: There's like a bunch of them coming out of that
Speaker 1: one ker. Don't you worry, folks. I'll include a link
Speaker 1: to this video in the show notes so you two
Speaker 1: can experience the demon spaghetti that is the hair worm.
Speaker 1: It's like the way it's like swinging around, just like
Speaker 1: like seeking its way out out of the butt, out
Speaker 1: of the butt. It's actually I think it's actually bursting
Speaker 1: through the abdominal cavity, which is great. Yeah. Um, So
Speaker 1: the crickets and grasshoppers drowned. They don't normally like to
Speaker 1: jump in water because they don't really like to drown.
Speaker 1: They usually just sip things like do drops and stuff
Speaker 1: like adorable. They don't they don't try to, but like
Speaker 1: when they're infected with a hair worm, they'll just like
Speaker 1: jump right in the water is fine, and the worms
Speaker 1: are coming out of me. I mean that is that
Speaker 1: is pretty devious. See that feels more like morally, um yeah,
Speaker 1: like it feels more predatory than hes heinous some of
Speaker 1: these other ones. I don't know. It's like the body
Speaker 1: takeover a thing. I guess right. It's just the the
Speaker 1: how incredibly invasive it is to like take over the
Speaker 1: entire body like be spooled up inside of it like
Speaker 1: a coil of hell. And then uh, just like then
Speaker 1: it drives it to kill itself unintentionally, and then it
Speaker 1: like bursts out the bodies and then it goes and mates,
Speaker 1: and so it's it needs it needs to grow inside
Speaker 1: of the crickets body. It absorbs nutrients. It's absorbing the
Speaker 1: nutrients from the cricket like just directly through its skin
Speaker 1: like a you know again, it's I mean really demonic
Speaker 1: spaghetti is the best way I describe it. It's like
Speaker 1: possessed spaghetti. Getting possessed by spaghetti is what happens to crickets. Well,
Speaker 1: so how long does it so it basically matures to
Speaker 1: like adulthood and then and then finds the water and
Speaker 1: jumps out, and then what does it do for the
Speaker 1: rest of its life? Mates and a little uh yeah,
Speaker 1: that will then get unintentionally eaten by the crickets, and
Speaker 1: I don't yeah, I mean there's so there's like fearfules, right,
Speaker 1: but there's also like there's something about that like a
Speaker 1: curvy I have like my my iPhone headphones right here,
Speaker 1: but it's like that kind of thing, or just like
Speaker 1: noodle phobia. Noodle phobia extremely things, especially when they're moving.
Speaker 1: It's likely. Yeah, well, at least we're humans, so we're safe,
Speaker 1: or are we? I got some bad news? Yeah, oh no,
Speaker 1: because I gotta tell you store about guinea worms. So
Speaker 1: guinea worms infect humans and they manipulate us in a
Speaker 1: similar way. So normally I'll maybe jokingly say, oh, don't
Speaker 1: google this, but then you actually google it. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it's fun. Seriously, if you are eating, if you have
Speaker 1: any kind of sensitivity to things like, do not this. Really,
Speaker 1: I'll describe it. I will describe it and lure details
Speaker 1: so you don't have to google. And I refuse to
Speaker 1: put it in the few show notes because that is
Speaker 1: really Yeah, exactly, So, the guinea worm will infect humans
Speaker 1: when we drink water containing water fleas who they themselves
Speaker 1: are infected. Uh. So the fleas die inside of the
Speaker 1: humans gut and they release the guinea worm larva. The
Speaker 1: larva develop into adults and reproduce inside the the person's
Speaker 1: intestinal wall. Um. And the here's where it gets fun.
Speaker 1: The female adults migrate down the host's leg, which is
Speaker 1: apparently extraordinarily painful. Um. And then it tries to exit
Speaker 1: through the foot, which is again extremely painful, as you
Speaker 1: can imagine. So a painful blister forms on your foot
Speaker 1: as the female burrows her way outside. Uh. And this
Speaker 1: causes people to go seek out some cool water to
Speaker 1: wash their foot because it's an incredible pain. Uh. So
Speaker 1: when you put your foot in the water to soothe
Speaker 1: the blister, the female bursts out and it SPUs its
Speaker 1: offspring into the water because that's exactly where she wanted
Speaker 1: you to go, um, so that it could spit out
Speaker 1: all its babies into the water. And then those those
Speaker 1: babies will infect water fleas, and then we drink the
Speaker 1: water fleas and the cycle begins. Anew wait, wait, what's
Speaker 1: this call? Like? Doesn't have a guinea worms? Isn't there
Speaker 1: another kind of um worm or something that can go
Speaker 1: in through your feet, maybe goes into your feet? Those
Speaker 1: are hookwormsokworms? Yes, Okay, that's what I was saying. Worms
Speaker 1: just going in and out of our feet. Why do
Speaker 1: they want our feet? So it seems like so feet
Speaker 1: is the window into the world. Yeah, I was, I
Speaker 1: was going to say, it's like the like the eyes
Speaker 1: of the window into the soul, but the feet or
Speaker 1: like the gate into the rest of the world, the
Speaker 1: feet or the revolving door into the body. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is extremely gross. Um. I have a pretty
Speaker 1: good constitution, but like seeing an image of like this
Speaker 1: white worm coming out of like a blister in the foot,
Speaker 1: it's not good. It's bad. It's a bad experience. I
Speaker 1: don't recommend. It is the war. It's not so it's okay.
Speaker 1: That part isn't so bad. It is spaghetti. It's like
Speaker 1: a spaghette. It's pretty long. Yeah, it's pretty long. I
Speaker 1: want yeah, I don't want any I do have some
Speaker 1: genuinely good news. This used to be a much bigger problem,
Speaker 1: but policies of water filtration and protecting water sources have
Speaker 1: nearly eradicated these parasites in humans. So get this. In
Speaker 1: six there were over three million cases of guinea worm
Speaker 1: annually UM and this has been reduced to only about
Speaker 1: thirty cases like three zero in So from this is
Speaker 1: a really big success story of you know, humans conquering
Speaker 1: horrible parasite. Um. Where did these tend to show up?
Speaker 1: I think in Asian Africa, although it can be I
Speaker 1: think it wasn't. Um South America to a certain extent
Speaker 1: as well. I think in a lot of regions where
Speaker 1: you can have sort of the tropical and subtropical areas
Speaker 1: is where you get it the most. But yeah, now
Speaker 1: I think it's like there, it's you can count on
Speaker 1: your fingers how many cases there are, so that that's
Speaker 1: a real real success story. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't kill
Speaker 1: you or anything. If you have you probably get infected,
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, so so yes, the complications that arise
Speaker 1: from it are like, um, infection of the of the
Speaker 1: blister and a lot of pain and um, I think
Speaker 1: you could get dangerous side effects from it, but it No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. And the and the way that it, you know,
Speaker 1: compels you to get to the water. That's mostly just
Speaker 1: because of the pain and you because the pain. It's
Speaker 1: not a brain infection as far as we know, no, um,
Speaker 1: we There's the only real, I think documented case of
Speaker 1: a parasite controlling the human brain is again are a
Speaker 1: show favorite, the Toxoplasma mosisum, which is the same one
Speaker 1: that infects the rats and makes them cozy up rats,
Speaker 1: and that that is it's not so much that it
Speaker 1: doesn't control our behavior like it controls the rats, but
Speaker 1: it can potentially cause um sort of trigger certain mental
Speaker 1: illness like schizophrenia, depression, even o c D, which is yeah,
Speaker 1: human mind is so fragile. Yeah yeah, but no, this
Speaker 1: is not See this is not as bad because it's
Speaker 1: just causing horrible blisters on your feet. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: that's all very understandable. That doesn't have quite the kind
Speaker 1: of existence, right exactly. I just wonder because there's so
Speaker 1: many there's so many parasites that their whole thing is
Speaker 1: mind control. It's just like it feels like a matter
Speaker 1: of time before something evolves to hijack the human brain,
Speaker 1: cause a cause a horrible apocalypse. Yeah. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: shocked that hasn't happened, right, I know. Right, Um, well,
Speaker 1: knock on wood unless the parasites are coming out of
Speaker 1: the world just like brain infecting termites crawling up your nose. Yep. Um. So,
Speaker 1: speaking of horrible things, remember the chest burster from aliens
Speaker 1: um or like the brundle fry fly from The Fly
Speaker 1: with Jeff Goldbloom and how it's like this fly like
Speaker 1: he gets he goes in a transporter, and he merges
Speaker 1: his DNA with a fly and then like and he
Speaker 1: starts to transform into a fly. But in the final
Speaker 1: stages he just like this fly creature just bursts out
Speaker 1: of his entire body. Good news. This actually happens in
Speaker 1: a certain species of ribbon worm, who have a very
Speaker 1: unique way of maturing. So, uh, these are called heteronymous Wait,
Speaker 1: well let's try the skin. It's okay, I'm just looking
Speaker 1: at more gifts of parasitic worm. Oh good, that sounds
Speaker 1: like a good plan for you to do. Have you
Speaker 1: had lunch yet, Yeah, so he do. Heateronnumertians are a
Speaker 1: species of ribbon worm um. They start out as tiny
Speaker 1: near microscarpet near microscopic larva who look a bit like
Speaker 1: bobbily jellyfish. Here, let me show you they're not so
Speaker 1: bad looking, honestly, until you understand what's going on. So like,
Speaker 1: they look like they look like a little uh like
Speaker 1: a little like mushroom. They're really baby tiny guys. They
Speaker 1: look yeah, they look like a baby pacifier, but they're not.
Speaker 1: There's nothing pacifying about this. So rather than growing and
Speaker 1: changing in sort of the normal way, they start to
Speaker 1: grow a little worm inside of them. Uh. And as
Speaker 1: the larva goes around eating plankton and nourishing itself, it's
Speaker 1: also nourishing this little worm that's growing inside of it
Speaker 1: and getting But you're rocking yourself back important, I mean,
Speaker 1: so far it sounds like my childhood. Yeah. So there
Speaker 1: are two worm inside of me, a white worm and
Speaker 1: a black worm, and they both try to eat all
Speaker 1: my nutrients and then burst out of me. All right,
Speaker 1: So once the worm reaches a certain size, it starts
Speaker 1: to eat the larva from the inside out. Um, so
Speaker 1: here's the here's stage one. You see, like, here's the
Speaker 1: worm kind of inside of it. And then the ending
Speaker 1: stage is like this huge thing and then it eats
Speaker 1: this like little mushroom shaped larva. And then once it
Speaker 1: starts to eat the larva from the inside out, it
Speaker 1: actually like bursts out of the larva. And it's actually,
Speaker 1: this worm is not a parasite or anything. This worm
Speaker 1: is the juvenile stage, the next stage of life of
Speaker 1: the larva. So it's basically as if you if your
Speaker 1: teenage self chest bursts out of your child it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: I gotta acne, check me out. It's like you just
Speaker 1: look like a weirdly bloated twelve year old and then
Speaker 1: suddenly a sixth year old just like bursts out of you.
Speaker 1: It's like, I hate stuff. Oh my god, that's so incredible.
Speaker 1: And my name is Corpse. Like I've literally burst out
Speaker 1: of my twelve year old salf It's like they look
Speaker 1: like poop. Um. Oh my god, that's so incredible. That
Speaker 1: feels like a gingieto thing. Yeah, it feels like, yeah,
Speaker 1: just like stepping out of the shell of your old,
Speaker 1: old husk of yourself. This is known as catastrophic metamorphosis,
Speaker 1: which it sounds sounds like what any other kind because
Speaker 1: it is very it is a catastrophic thing to happen
Speaker 1: and to hear about. Also, oh my god, wait, so
Speaker 1: how big is it when this happens. It's it's pretty
Speaker 1: pretty small. But you know, like if you scale that
Speaker 1: up and you think about that happening, just like this
Speaker 1: creature just bursting out of this, it's pretty awful. Oh
Speaker 1: my god. Yeah, So do you still want these these
Speaker 1: tiny organisms to get really big? Um? No, I'm fine
Speaker 1: with I'm fine with that size of that. I mean
Speaker 1: that one. It feels like I would like it to
Speaker 1: be bigger, maybe just so I could see the chest
Speaker 1: burst t happen, Like that'd be exciting, Like it'd be
Speaker 1: funny if more like dogs. But that's what I was
Speaker 1: thinking of. If I was like, yeah, like if you
Speaker 1: have a cute little puppy and then like a full
Speaker 1: grown dog just bursts out of it, would that make
Speaker 1: you feel Would that feel like? Um, it would feel
Speaker 1: kind of like a like a thought experiment, a little
Speaker 1: bit of like is it the same, like it's the
Speaker 1: whole like like seconds or like the body duplication thing
Speaker 1: like yeah, still my dog. Well I've had that thought
Speaker 1: a lot, especially about like so if you compare me
Speaker 1: to my well, okay, if you compare me to my
Speaker 1: ten year old self, No, no, you gotta go back
Speaker 1: further because I'm basically still tin Do you compare me
Speaker 1: to like my five year old self? Um? Very different people?
Speaker 1: And so is five year old me dead? And am
Speaker 1: I a new creature? It's crazy to think about, is
Speaker 1: like none of the cells that we're in your five
Speaker 1: year old self are still around? Well actually so some
Speaker 1: of them are. Some of them are which one? So
Speaker 1: a lot of brain cells, um, so the average lifespan
Speaker 1: of cells in your body, I think is a several years. UM.
Speaker 1: Some cells turn over at faster rates than others, So
Speaker 1: you're a lot of your like your skin, your epithelial
Speaker 1: cells lining your stomach and all turn over. A lot
Speaker 1: of cells will turn over in the course of just
Speaker 1: like a week. UM. Some turn over in the course
Speaker 1: of a few years. There's other tissue that you're born
Speaker 1: with and you die with, Like there's certain cells in
Speaker 1: the disc of your eye that you're born with and
Speaker 1: you die with so does never regenerate. And then in
Speaker 1: your brain, your your brain goes through a lot of
Speaker 1: changes as a child, and then after which point there's
Speaker 1: not as much like uh, cellular change and turnover. There's
Speaker 1: still a lot of neural plasticity in your brain, because
Speaker 1: your brain can change at any age basically UM, although
Speaker 1: it slows down and the amount of plasticity is much
Speaker 1: reduced once you're about twenty five years old, but you
Speaker 1: can still develop new synaptic connections and your brain chemistry
Speaker 1: can change. But in terms of new cells, like, there's
Speaker 1: not really that much UM cell change. What you're around
Speaker 1: um or or even younger, I think it the like
Speaker 1: you you're basically it's the same kind of cellular tissue.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but you know, when you think about it,
Speaker 1: like a lot of our body is replaced from like
Speaker 1: our five year old self. Um, although it is, it
Speaker 1: does make sense that our brains are not as frequently replaced.
Speaker 1: We wouldn't forget a lot of things. But yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: It is still freaky. Like if you look at your
Speaker 1: your skin that you're in right now, that's all new skins. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is like new from probably a year ago. It's
Speaker 1: like none of the yea, your bones that your bones
Speaker 1: over It does turn over quite slowly, yes, yes, but
Speaker 1: it does turn over, so even even your bones, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, it is it's that ship of theseus thing
Speaker 1: of like, well if I'm sort of made out of
Speaker 1: new parts, now I might like the same person. Uh.
Speaker 1: And even though the cells, your neurons don't literally change out,
Speaker 1: your neural structures change and so it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: is that still you because you form completely new synaptic
Speaker 1: patterns and all these things. So it's and you're building
Speaker 1: off the stuff and it is. It is kind of
Speaker 1: it is a weird, but your body is like playing
Speaker 1: a game of telephone. Yes, it is a really interesting
Speaker 1: way to put it. I like that a lot. It
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, that's the that is true. And then
Speaker 1: aren't we all just like adults bursting out of children
Speaker 1: and not understanding what's going on. I'm bigger now, but
Speaker 1: nothing else is still essentially a child. Uh but yeah,
Speaker 1: that's um, the human condition is basically the same as
Speaker 1: the ribbon worm. I feel like, oh man, the ribbon worm.
Speaker 1: So I, because this was a particularly disgusting episode, I
Speaker 1: wanted to do a chaser of a kiddy discovering that
Speaker 1: he has ears. Um, so here, this isn't a trick.
Speaker 1: This is actually cute. Don't worry. So here's the kitty
Speaker 1: and she's I'll post a link to this video. But uh,
Speaker 1: what's that? What's that? She's looking in the mirror and
Speaker 1: then she's looking at her ears, and then she stands
Speaker 1: up on her hind legs and then she starts like touch.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, she's like on her hind legs looking
Speaker 1: in the mirror, like touching her ears and staring at herself. Wow. Um.
Speaker 1: So there's this thing in animal behavior called him your test,
Speaker 1: where you try to see if an animal has an
Speaker 1: awareness that it's looking at itself in the mirror. And
Speaker 1: you can do it by They've done it in primates
Speaker 1: where they put like a red dot on them and
Speaker 1: they subedate them so they don't know they're getting marked
Speaker 1: at the dot and then they look in the mirror
Speaker 1: and then they rub the dot off and that shows
Speaker 1: some awareness, that does them. I think primates, elephants, dolphins
Speaker 1: all show some awareness of themselves in the mirror. I
Speaker 1: don't think cats have ever shown this, but this is
Speaker 1: a cat. This is some compelling evidence it really, it
Speaker 1: really does look like it thinks very human right right now.
Speaker 1: Of course it could be something like it thinks it's
Speaker 1: another cat and so it's signaling to the other cat.
Speaker 1: But it really this does look like some kind of
Speaker 1: genius cat just figured it all out. It's a very
Speaker 1: cute cat. It is an extraordinarily cute cat kind of cat,
Speaker 1: that is. But it looks very very I don't want
Speaker 1: to get about five cats. Um, so thank you for
Speaker 1: hanging in there at this cat chaser at the end.
Speaker 1: It's a little cat chaser. Yeah. Uh so you got
Speaker 1: anything you want to plug? Um? Just Nightcall. Nightcall is
Speaker 1: on this very podcast network. Is you put out new
Speaker 1: episodes on Monday's And I co hosted with Molly Lambert
Speaker 1: and Tess Lynch who's also been guests one and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you got caught us all um, we are all three
Speaker 1: put um. Yeah. And you can follow me on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Emily Yoshida And that's kind of it for right now. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, night calls also on Twitter social media. I gotta,
Speaker 1: I gotta come on on your show. Yeah, definitely disgusting things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like, well, we tend to do a lot
Speaker 1: of like creature stuff or whatever is in the news
Speaker 1: that week about some new weird species that was discovered.
Speaker 1: So it would be great to have an expert it
Speaker 1: such as yourself to chat about stuff with. That would
Speaker 1: be great an egg expert and with with an exploding eggs.
Speaker 1: Exploding eggs. You can find us on the internet Creature
Speaker 1: feature Pod dot com, Creature feature Pod on Instagram, Creature
Speaker 1: feet Pod on Twitter. That's f e A T, not
Speaker 1: f E E T. That's something very different. You can
Speaker 1: find me on Twitter. I'm Katie Golden and I'm also
Speaker 1: pro bird rites, where I try to fight for the
Speaker 1: bird's rights to eat parasitic worms. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for listening. If you're enjoying the show, we hit the
Speaker 1: subscribe button, the stars, the things that happened below the
Speaker 1: thing in the app wherever you're listening. Thanks to the
Speaker 1: Space Classics for their super spook tacular song Exo Lumina.
Speaker 1: Creature feature is a production of I Heart Radios How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. You next Wednesday