Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and I don't know about you guys,
Speaker 1: but my brain is completely melted. After the election week,
Speaker 1: I slept like a giraffe, which means I did not
Speaker 1: sleep much at all, because drafts do not sleep much
Speaker 1: at all either. So there there you go. Cool fact
Speaker 1: for you guys. I'm very sleep deprived, so I thought
Speaker 1: i'd take it easy today and answer some listener questions.
Speaker 1: So I asked you guys on Twitter at Katie Golden
Speaker 1: is my handle if you want to check it out,
Speaker 1: and you guys came up with a bunch of fascinating questions.
Speaker 1: I wish I could get to all of them, but
Speaker 1: like I said, my brain is a puddle, so I
Speaker 1: will answer all the ones that I can. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I hope you guys enjoy this one. Uh, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a little shorter than normal, just a short and
Speaker 1: sweet kinda. Hey, what kind of animal does this? And
Speaker 1: I go, hey, good question, here it is. Here's the animal,
Speaker 1: so let's get into it. And I will answer these
Speaker 1: to the best of my ability. So first question is
Speaker 1: from water Chestnut to on Twitter and water Chestnut too
Speaker 1: asks analogous structures and convergent evolution. Baby, why are bird
Speaker 1: wings like arms but bat wings are like hands? So
Speaker 1: this is a really interesting question as we know birds
Speaker 1: and bats both independently evolved the ability to fly, and
Speaker 1: bird wings and bat wings are very different. So bat
Speaker 1: wings kind of look like when you look at their skeleton,
Speaker 1: you can see their wings are these membranes that are
Speaker 1: stretched over these very elongated finger bones. And you look
Speaker 1: at a bird and there our arms kind of go
Speaker 1: backwards and fold in sort of a V shape, and
Speaker 1: then you have um muscle and feathers over this shape
Speaker 1: that allows them to fly. And so the reason that
Speaker 1: they have this these two different mechanisms for flight, you
Speaker 1: just kind of have to look at their evolutionary history.
Speaker 1: So with birds, they rely on their feathers to fly,
Speaker 1: and you look back as that at their history as
Speaker 1: being dinosaurs, feathers probably didn't start out to help with flight.
Speaker 1: They likely first of all to keep dinosaurs warm or cool,
Speaker 1: maybe as a defense against parasites or maybe some armor
Speaker 1: against predation. You know, you've got a bunch of fluffy
Speaker 1: feathers that might help them from getting bitten too much.
Speaker 1: It may have been to provide dinosaurs with camouflage or
Speaker 1: maybe even attractive coloration for mating. And some dinosaurs found
Speaker 1: that they could use these feathers once they grew them
Speaker 1: out for gliding to be able to glide to like
Speaker 1: feathers started to develop on their arms and tails that
Speaker 1: allowed them to balance and eventually got exaggerated enough that
Speaker 1: they could jump from branch to branch and actually glide
Speaker 1: a distance. And then from there you started to have
Speaker 1: dinosaurs evolved into more bird like shapes until we get
Speaker 1: the modern day dinosaurs of birds. And meanwhile, bats instead
Speaker 1: of using feathers because they never evolved feathers, they always
Speaker 1: had fur and they use flaps of skins, so like birds,
Speaker 1: bats probably started out as gliders. You can look at
Speaker 1: other examples of gliding animals to see how their wings evolved.
Speaker 1: So flying squirrels have a flap of skin that runs
Speaker 1: from their wrists to their ankles. And of course flying
Speaker 1: squirrels are not as good of a flyer as black bats.
Speaker 1: They're more of a just skilled faller, so they can
Speaker 1: jump from branch to branch and lied from branch to branch, uh.
Speaker 1: And bats didn't evolve from flying squirrels, but probably from
Speaker 1: some sort of similar gliding rodent. So as bat wings
Speaker 1: became more developed and the webbing between their hands and
Speaker 1: ankles got kind of more wing like, their finger bones
Speaker 1: grew out, which gave them more surface area for these
Speaker 1: wings to give them more lift and more control in
Speaker 1: their flight. And so that that's kind of you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's mainly comes down to the difference in
Speaker 1: their mechanism of how they evolved. Birds using those wonderful
Speaker 1: feathers to help them glide and the ancestors of bats
Speaker 1: using that flap of skin between their wrists and their
Speaker 1: back legs to help them fly. And that's why they're
Speaker 1: so different and both cute and wonderful. All right, So
Speaker 1: here is another question. This is from Jared Deeli who
Speaker 1: asks Katie, I have a stutter. Do other animals stutter?
Speaker 1: And this is a really good question, and yes, other
Speaker 1: animals do stutter. And one of the fascinating animals to
Speaker 1: look at for this question are birds, because of how
Speaker 1: similar they are in terms of learning language, or at
Speaker 1: least in bird terms, learning bird song. So they develop
Speaker 1: their ability to communicate very similar to humans. Baby birds
Speaker 1: learn to sing during a crystallization period when they're young,
Speaker 1: similar to how human children learn language early on. And
Speaker 1: in fact, with human children, if they're not able to
Speaker 1: learn early on, like say they get accidentally separated from
Speaker 1: human society, they actually really struggled to be able to
Speaker 1: learn language later on. And it's the same thing with birds.
Speaker 1: So you have this early stage of development where it's
Speaker 1: critical to learn language in humans and in birds to
Speaker 1: learn bird song. And there was a study where researchers
Speaker 1: used electrical currents to destroy neurons in young zebra finch brains,
Speaker 1: which you know, kind of naughty thing they're scientists, but uh,
Speaker 1: so they affected this region in the zebra finch bird
Speaker 1: brains that is thought to be responsible for being able
Speaker 1: to imitate sound. And so as the young birds attempted
Speaker 1: to learn bird song from listening to their elders, they
Speaker 1: developed a stutter, so they would erroneously repeat notes in
Speaker 1: the songs that they were learning. And researchers think that
Speaker 1: this may help us understand more how stutters form and
Speaker 1: humans so which is also thought to form as young children.
Speaker 1: So the zebra finch study seems to point towards the
Speaker 1: theory that stuttering isn't a sign of the brain simply
Speaker 1: being stuck in a loop, but the brain is trying
Speaker 1: to correct for miss neural connections by growing new neurons.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like it's doubling up on this neural network,
Speaker 1: causing a repetition in a syllable or in the bird's case,
Speaker 1: a repetition in a note that they are singing. So
Speaker 1: I hope that answers that question. Let's take a quick break,
Speaker 1: and then when we get back, I will answer more
Speaker 1: of your questions and welcome back. I'm going to continue
Speaker 1: to answer your questions. So this is from Twitter user
Speaker 1: at ice cream for Cats. In your opinion, what is
Speaker 1: the cutest baby animal cutest fully grown animal? So this
Speaker 1: is a really hard question to answer. I can't really
Speaker 1: think of just one cutest one, so I'll just pick
Speaker 1: out a couple that I thought of. So probably the
Speaker 1: cutest baby versus like the scariest adult for I would
Speaker 1: say are hippos, because baby hippos look like they just
Speaker 1: want me to cuddle them and carry them around in
Speaker 1: a baby bjorn all day and feed the melons. But
Speaker 1: adult hippos look like they would just crush my head
Speaker 1: like a melon. And yeah, adult hippos are very scary,
Speaker 1: both the visually intimidating and also behaviorally. They are quite aggressive,
Speaker 1: so you don't want to mess with them. But the
Speaker 1: babies look so squishy and cuddle herble um. Extra points
Speaker 1: I think for cute baby hippos are baby pygmy hippos,
Speaker 1: which look like little made up fantasy animals. They are
Speaker 1: just adorable, little roly poly just they look like a
Speaker 1: Star Wars baby. I don't know, I'll include a picture
Speaker 1: in the show notes. They are absolutely cute and adorable.
Speaker 1: As adults. Pygmy hippos are still rather large for something
Speaker 1: called a pigmy animal, but it's only about half as
Speaker 1: tall and a fourth as heavy as regglar hippos. Uh.
Speaker 1: They grow to be about three ft tall, which is
Speaker 1: about a hundred centimeters and five ft long hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy five cimeters and from four hundred to six hundred
Speaker 1: pounds in wait, so a hundred twenty so you know,
Speaker 1: still pretty formidable, and they are still pretty aggressive, but
Speaker 1: they are smaller than regular hippos. But the babies just
Speaker 1: little cute. I just want to hold them and cuddle
Speaker 1: them and never let them go. Uh. Cutest adult animal.
Speaker 1: There are so many to pick from. I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: pick one that I thought of is the Wikita, which
Speaker 1: is the rarest marine mammal, and it is in threat
Speaker 1: of extinction. So there's another reason I kind of wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about it. I just want people to know
Speaker 1: about these little guys. They are little porpoises. They only
Speaker 1: grow to be about four ft in length, which is
Speaker 1: about a hundred fifty centimeters. I think they're the smallest
Speaker 1: patition around. They have this like dark eyeshadow around their
Speaker 1: eyes and these little stubby beaks with uh kind of
Speaker 1: dark lipstick. They they're kind of goff gothy little guys,
Speaker 1: and they are really really cute. Unfortunately, there is potentially
Speaker 1: fewer than nineteen individuals left alive today, which is really
Speaker 1: really scary. They are at a great threat of extinction
Speaker 1: due to phishing. And yeah, you can go to Veakita
Speaker 1: CPR dot com. That's a v A q U I
Speaker 1: t A CPR dot com. Uh if you want to
Speaker 1: find out more about conservation efforts to bring the Wikita
Speaker 1: back from the brink of extinction. And I think their
Speaker 1: name means little cow, and they are. They are just
Speaker 1: so cute. They're adorable. Here is a question from Colen Monty,
Speaker 1: what is the scariest creature or feature of a creature underwater,
Speaker 1: extinct or living. So there are tons of creepy underwater creatures.
Speaker 1: I think just the fact that they evolved in such
Speaker 1: a different environment from humans. We're so unused to seeing
Speaker 1: anything like it, and so many of them look so
Speaker 1: alien and scary. But I do still love these animals,
Speaker 1: even if they look kind of spooky. U there are
Speaker 1: a few that genuinely creep me out and make me
Speaker 1: feel uneasy, and among those are these sea spiders. And
Speaker 1: sea spiders are not actually spiders, They are not arachnids,
Speaker 1: but they are marine arthropods. So I actually really like spiders.
Speaker 1: But marine quote unquote spiders look like a spider on
Speaker 1: nightmare mode. You know, you have your normal looking terrestrial spider.
Speaker 1: I think they're kind of cute compared to marine quote
Speaker 1: unquote spiders. Every terrestrial spider looks absolutely adorable, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna want to hide behind them, because marine spiders just
Speaker 1: a whole, a whole basket of nope. Uh. They have
Speaker 1: really long, long long, spindly legs in comparison to this
Speaker 1: tiny body. They either creep along the ocean floor or
Speaker 1: they pulse their legs like an umbrella to swim. Just so.
Speaker 1: The moving of these marine spiders is not good to
Speaker 1: look at. The shape of them is not good to
Speaker 1: look at. They can be uncomfortably big, so larger than
Speaker 1: a human hand, which is, you know, just sort of uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know, give me, give me a real terrestrial
Speaker 1: spider any day over one of these guys. They are
Speaker 1: not great, not great to look at. I'll probably go
Speaker 1: into detail on them a bit more in a full
Speaker 1: length episode because I think they're really fascinating. But yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea of being like in a dark ocean and
Speaker 1: having one of these things crawl over me, it's there's
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons I don't scuba dive, and this is,
Speaker 1: you know, one of them. Next question is a really
Speaker 1: interesting one. This is from cobalt Quill on Twitter. Thank you,
Speaker 1: who asks does the human race have as much responsibility
Speaker 1: to parasitic life forms as we do to all other
Speaker 1: animals in terms of conservation and ensuring they do not
Speaker 1: go extinct? This is for life forms affecting both animals
Speaker 1: and us, And given how we treat diseases, what is
Speaker 1: our responsibility to any animal that could theoretically be considered
Speaker 1: a predator solely or mainly affecting humans. So this is
Speaker 1: a really interesting question. I think it has both a practical,
Speaker 1: ethical and sort of philosophical element to it. So first
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the practical matter of it.
Speaker 1: So parasites, there are many, many different animals that would
Speaker 1: be considered biological parasites. It means that it lives off
Speaker 1: of another animal and hurts them in some way, like
Speaker 1: either by stealing resources from them or stealing parts of
Speaker 1: their body like sucking blood, or you know, eating eating
Speaker 1: part of the animal without actually necessarily killing the animals.
Speaker 1: So a predator, you know, eats a whole whole animal.
Speaker 1: A parasite maybe just sucks your blood over a long
Speaker 1: period of time, or steals your food, or steals your resources,
Speaker 1: or you know, steals your nests. So there are a
Speaker 1: lot of different types of parasites um and they're not
Speaker 1: always bad when you think about it in the sense
Speaker 1: of the whole environment or for humans. So like fungus
Speaker 1: can be a parasit site, it can live off of
Speaker 1: trees and and basically suck out the tree juice, and
Speaker 1: we love, we love fungus. Mushrooms are great. Parasites can
Speaker 1: also help thin out populations of animals, and even though
Speaker 1: it sucks for the individual animal that is suffering from
Speaker 1: the parasites, for the overall population of the animal, it
Speaker 1: can actually prevent them from suffering mass starvation from over
Speaker 1: eating their resources. So it can actually helps keep uh,
Speaker 1: some animal populations in check and prevent kind of a
Speaker 1: mass starvation event for those animals. Some parasites make it
Speaker 1: easier for predators to hunt and kill prey animals by
Speaker 1: making the prey animal weaker or more visible to predators,
Speaker 1: and that helps out predator populations, which can be really important.
Speaker 1: So from a practical sense of protecting our planet, protecting
Speaker 1: a lot of different types of parasites species is actually
Speaker 1: really important. And so yeah, I would say that it
Speaker 1: is ethical to protect these parasites either because of the
Speaker 1: benefits that they have for many different species or how
Speaker 1: they keep our ecosystems in this very delicate balance, because like,
Speaker 1: whenever you remove anything from an ecosystem, it's like playing
Speaker 1: a game of Jenga. You just don't know which thing
Speaker 1: you're going to remove and have these kind of big
Speaker 1: effects that you would not have expected. Another thing to
Speaker 1: consider when talking about parasites is they aren't always yucky
Speaker 1: in the sense of like some kind of worm that's
Speaker 1: living inside you and feeding off of you. All that
Speaker 1: does definitely happen. Uh. Some parasites are birds. Birds can
Speaker 1: be brood parasites like cuckoos and cowbirds who plant their
Speaker 1: eggs in the nests of other birds. Uh. You can
Speaker 1: have beautiful insects like butterflies be parasites. So there are
Speaker 1: some butterfly caterpillars that are anti mimic parasites, so their
Speaker 1: larva pretends to be baby ants and they'll infiltrate ant
Speaker 1: nests and live off of the ants resources until they
Speaker 1: grow up and turn into beautiful, beautiful little brood parasite butterflies.
Speaker 1: So while these are can be deadly or very annoying
Speaker 1: to host populations, you know they are. When you think
Speaker 1: of a parasite, you may think of something you know,
Speaker 1: like out of alien movie face hugger, horrible thing, but
Speaker 1: they can be beautiful. They can be butterflies and birds.
Speaker 1: In terms of parasites that infect humans, Uh, in terms
Speaker 1: of like should we preserve these species? What do we do?
Speaker 1: I think it really depends on a balance of protecting
Speaker 1: human life and comfort and protecting the environment as a whole.
Speaker 1: So an example I think would be with mosquitoes. So
Speaker 1: mosquitoes aren't they wouldn't be considered a medical parasite because
Speaker 1: they don't live of permanently in or on the human body,
Speaker 1: But in evolutionary biology terms, they are parasitic because they
Speaker 1: take resources from us, namely our blood at our expense.
Speaker 1: A lot of the problems so that mosquitoes cause are
Speaker 1: due to another parasite that actually lives inside of the mosquitoes,
Speaker 1: which is malaria. Malaria is actually a single celled organism
Speaker 1: that lives inside of mosquitoes as a parasite, and then
Speaker 1: the mosquito will inadvertently pass it on to humans. And
Speaker 1: malaria is extremely dangerous for humans, especially uh children, and
Speaker 1: so making sure that we control malaria and control mosquito
Speaker 1: populations saves countless human lives and is extremely important. So
Speaker 1: I think it is definitely an ethical imperative for us
Speaker 1: to control mosquito populations to save so many lives. At
Speaker 1: the same time, you know, we wouldn't necessarily want all
Speaker 1: mosquitoes to go extinct because that could be have a
Speaker 1: huge impact on our ecosystem in terms of animals who
Speaker 1: need to eat mosquitoes to survive. So I mean, which
Speaker 1: is something like when we're talking about mosquitoes, we don't
Speaker 1: really have to worry about them going extinct at least
Speaker 1: in terms of our current methods of controlling their populations. Um,
Speaker 1: mosquitoes are going to be just just fine. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean in but in theory, like if we had
Speaker 1: a way to make all mosquitoes go extinct, uh, it
Speaker 1: probably would not be a great idea because of the
Speaker 1: impact it would have on the environment and at the
Speaker 1: same time, trying to figure out ways to control the
Speaker 1: mosquito population so they don't spread malaria to humans is
Speaker 1: also of critical importance to human life. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it is. It's really and it can get really
Speaker 1: complicated with with other animals, especially once that cause harm
Speaker 1: to humans, but are necessary for our ecosystem where we
Speaker 1: have to have this balance of taking care of our
Speaker 1: environment where we all live, which we all need, and
Speaker 1: making sure that human human life is protected. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a really good question and I would say, yeah,
Speaker 1: parasites are just like any other animal that we kind
Speaker 1: of have to take into consideration, uh in terms of
Speaker 1: their environmental impact and their impact on humans. So here's
Speaker 1: another question from Brian Rose Junior on Twitter. With all
Speaker 1: the crab talk lately, I'm curious, have you ever featured
Speaker 1: the parasite Sacquelina on your podcast? It's fascinating and most
Speaker 1: likely my favorite parasite. I don't remember. I feel like
Speaker 1: I may have mentioned it in passing in one episode,
Speaker 1: I don't remember going into detail on it. I think
Speaker 1: this is fascinating parasite that deserves a full length episode treatment.
Speaker 1: But just to tease people about this amazing parasite, they
Speaker 1: are parasitic castrators who mess around with uh A crabs
Speaker 1: junk in ways that cause some transformations that are really interesting.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know. I feel like, because I
Speaker 1: can't quite remember if we've talked about it, must not
Speaker 1: have been in that much detail, and they definitely deserve
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of detail, all the nitty gritty about
Speaker 1: these parasitic castrators. So yeah, i'll I will talk about
Speaker 1: that in a full length episode probably. Here is a
Speaker 1: another question. This is from This is from Vestigial Virgin
Speaker 1: uh cool cool user name on Twitter. Uh. Any surprise
Speaker 1: pairs of animals that are more closely genetically linked than
Speaker 1: people might think, uh, such as birds and dinosaurs though
Speaker 1: everybody knows that now, or animals that should be close
Speaker 1: but aren't, such as main mained wolves not being closely
Speaker 1: related to either foxes or wolves. Those are really good examples.
Speaker 1: I do want to just say birds are dinosaurs technically,
Speaker 1: I just love to remind people of that that they
Speaker 1: are literally still dinosaurs. So this is a great question.
Speaker 1: I love these kinds of things. There's so much in
Speaker 1: terms of like convergent evolution and surprising twists and tours
Speaker 1: and evolution where you'll have too completely unrelated animals that
Speaker 1: look exactly alike, or animals that don't look related but
Speaker 1: are much more closely related than one would think. So
Speaker 1: here are just a couple that I thought of. Hyenas
Speaker 1: look like they should be related to dogs. They basically
Speaker 1: seem like they are laughing. Um Miss g V is
Speaker 1: carnivorous dogs, but they are not related to dogs closely
Speaker 1: at all. Uh. No more than like a lion is
Speaker 1: related to a dog. Uh. Some of the hyena's closest
Speaker 1: relatives are actually mongoose's mere cats and civets. So in
Speaker 1: the Lion King, those hyenas much more closely related to
Speaker 1: Timon the mere cat than they would be to a
Speaker 1: dog or even to a lion, So I find that
Speaker 1: really interesting. Another example of I think that people are
Speaker 1: sometimes surprised when I mentioned is that whales evolved from
Speaker 1: extinct land mammals that were originally these tiny little deer
Speaker 1: like ungulates. So ungulates are hooved animals, um possibly one
Speaker 1: of their ancestors was called the Elo Marricks, which were
Speaker 1: about the size of a dog. They kind of looked
Speaker 1: like these fuzzy horse, dear hippo animals and just these dainty,
Speaker 1: little little dear creatures that would eventually become these giant,
Speaker 1: giant whales, which is quite incredible. Another thing is that
Speaker 1: hippos and whales likely shared a common ancestor, probably in
Speaker 1: this lineage of these little deer like animals, And so yeah,
Speaker 1: hippos and whales are pretty closely related all things considered,
Speaker 1: which I also find very interesting. And so let's just
Speaker 1: do one last question before my brain goes back into hibernation.
Speaker 1: So this is from ancient romans eleven. I find worms
Speaker 1: existentially terrifying. They have no arms, no legs, no faces,
Speaker 1: no personality, just two holes and attracting between. They play
Speaker 1: an important role in our ecology, but it seems like
Speaker 1: such a bare utilitary existence and absolutely empty, thankless life.
Speaker 1: Is that weird? So this is a this is a
Speaker 1: fun question. Um. I don't think it's weird to think
Speaker 1: that way. But I have a kind of different perspective
Speaker 1: on on worms and other animals that are very simple.
Speaker 1: So one thing is the comfort of being a worm
Speaker 1: is how tiny your brain is. That you probably don't
Speaker 1: think too much about your existence. You don't think too
Speaker 1: much at all, So I don't think you would have
Speaker 1: the capacity to miss, uh, you know, having a bigger brain,
Speaker 1: because you just don't. It never occurs to you. Nothing
Speaker 1: much occurs to you because you're a worm. Your brain
Speaker 1: is probably, depending on what kind of worm you are, uh,
Speaker 1: just a few hundred neurons in total and maybe about
Speaker 1: the width of a human hair. So yeah, not not
Speaker 1: a lot going on. It's interesting some animals don't really
Speaker 1: have like a central nervous system. They have nerves and neurons,
Speaker 1: but they aren't really they don't have a brain, so
Speaker 1: to speak. But worms do, at least some species of
Speaker 1: worms do have an actual brain, like an earthworm does.
Speaker 1: It's just very very small, very shimple. So that said,
Speaker 1: I don't really think of their lives as being empty,
Speaker 1: just in like I don't when I think about a
Speaker 1: tree or a flower, I don't really think of like,
Speaker 1: oh man, that tree leads such an empty life because
Speaker 1: it can't think. Um, because the tree it's still this
Speaker 1: really cool complex organism, and just because it doesn't really
Speaker 1: have a mind, I don't, you know, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't pity it exactly because it just doesn't know what
Speaker 1: it's missing. It's it's just living its tree life, not
Speaker 1: really having any thoughts, which actually doesn't sound so bad
Speaker 1: when you think about it, you know, just being a tree,
Speaker 1: being a worm, no thoughts, empty, empty mind, clear head um.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, because there are other animals too, like um,
Speaker 1: seeing enemies, jellyfish, a lot of these like interesting marine
Speaker 1: animals that look like plants but they are actually animals,
Speaker 1: like like coral and sea sponges. Is like, they really
Speaker 1: don't have much going on in terms of a central
Speaker 1: nervous system. They they have nerves. They have a nervous system,
Speaker 1: but it's not there's not really necessarily centralized brain to
Speaker 1: speak of, And so I would say that they are
Speaker 1: probably they share more in terms of their internal experience
Speaker 1: with like, you know, a plant than they do with
Speaker 1: a with an animal with a more complex brain. I don't,
Speaker 1: I just don't. It's hard for me to imagine a
Speaker 1: jellyfish or a c an enemy or worm really experiences
Speaker 1: life that much. But you know, again, I don't think
Speaker 1: because they don't necessarily experience much at all, they don't
Speaker 1: really know what they're missing. Uh, So I don't find
Speaker 1: it that I don't find it that scary. I think
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, a flower doesn't really maybe experience
Speaker 1: that much, but you know, it's it's still it's still beautiful,
Speaker 1: and uh doesn't necessarily know what it's missing, you know,
Speaker 1: unless there's some kind of like hive mind of flowers
Speaker 1: and or worms that have a collective consciousness and they
Speaker 1: all rise up to form a giant worm slash flower
Speaker 1: beasts that consumes the planet, which I think is unlikely,
Speaker 1: but hey never say never. So um, speaking of small brains,
Speaker 1: I think my brain is has died. I think that
Speaker 1: is all I can do today. But thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much for sending in your questions. If you guys
Speaker 1: liked this one, I might do more listener questions episodes,
Speaker 1: hopefully with a few more of my neurons functioning to
Speaker 1: rub together to give you good answers in the future.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this was really fun. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for sending in your questions. If you want to send
Speaker 1: me some questions, either for me to answer in an
Speaker 1: episode or just like you know, send your response on
Speaker 1: Twitter or an email. You can find me at Katie
Speaker 1: Golden k A T I E G O L D
Speaker 1: I N on Twitter. Um. There's also at Creature feet
Speaker 1: Pod on Twitter. That's f E A T not et
Speaker 1: that is something very different. I'm also on Creature Feature
Speaker 1: Pod on Instagram, and you can also if you prefer
Speaker 1: the old the old email, you can send me an email.
Speaker 1: My address is Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com,
Speaker 1: or just send pictures of your pets. I love that too.
Speaker 1: I hope you guys are all doing well. I know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like everyone in the world has
Speaker 1: been through the ringer of this past week, but especially
Speaker 1: in the U S. So hope you're all doing well
Speaker 1: and hopefully getting some better sleep now. Uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, and um next week I will
Speaker 1: have a normal, normal length episode. I'm pretty sure my
Speaker 1: brain is gonna work. Good bye then, so looking forward
Speaker 1: to that. Uh. Creature features a production of I Heart Radio.
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Speaker 1: have you listen to your favorite shows? Thanks to the
Speaker 1: Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Lumina and
Speaker 1: I will see you next Wednesday.