Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host
Speaker 1: of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology,
Speaker 1: and today on the show, we're talking about the creatures
Speaker 1: of Fallout, from the rad roaches to the like weird
Speaker 1: naked more rap mutants. Is this accurate?
Speaker 2: What this actually happened?
Speaker 1: What do we know about how animals might survive nuclear radiation?
Speaker 1: Discover this and more as we answer the age old
Speaker 1: question what kind of bogus pr campaign our cockroach is running?
Speaker 1: Joining me today is friend of the show, host of
Speaker 1: George Center the podcast Will Pull, also known as Christy
Speaker 1: Yamagucci Mane.
Speaker 3: Welcome, Thank you, Katie. I appreciate you having me again.
Speaker 3: Glad to be back and talking about this weird video
Speaker 3: game that my kids are obsessed with.
Speaker 2: I'm thrilled to discuss this.
Speaker 3: I've been I've been doing research, mainly through my children
Speaker 3: by asking them questions about the Fallout series in the world,
Speaker 3: and they are They've they've been like kind of side
Speaker 3: eyeing me, like why am I asking about all of
Speaker 3: this all of a sudden. So I'm looking forward to
Speaker 3: being educated so I can go back to them and
Speaker 3: sound like I know what the hell I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Yes, so, I mean using your kids for experiments is
Speaker 1: very foulout. But yeah, I've actually so, I've played Fallout
Speaker 1: New Vegas. I have not played the other games, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of them I do want to play,
Speaker 1: like the really the first ones, the super old one
Speaker 1: with the like sprites and isometrics that looks that looks
Speaker 1: like fun. And I have watched the show. I've got
Speaker 1: like two episodes left, So I'm actually not going to
Speaker 1: do any spoilers for either the show or the games.
Speaker 1: So if you are currently watching the show where you
Speaker 1: want to play the games, do not worry. There's no
Speaker 1: spoilers unless you would count like talking about the flora
Speaker 1: and fauna of the universe as a spoiler. But personally,
Speaker 1: I don't really consider it that we're just going to
Speaker 1: talk about like these animals that we see in the
Speaker 1: show and the games, and whether it actually makes sense
Speaker 1: for them to be that way, and what would have
Speaker 1: to happen for us to actually see these weird mutations
Speaker 1: in these monstrosities the series.
Speaker 2: I love Walton Goggins.
Speaker 3: He's probably my favorite creature from the series so far.
Speaker 3: That I have seen, so I don't know if he
Speaker 3: counts necessarily. I guess he's considered a ghoul, yes, And
Speaker 3: I don't know what the rules are in the universe
Speaker 3: of the video game that makes him a ghoul exactly
Speaker 3: or why he is, how he kind of came to
Speaker 3: be the way he is. Yes, so it does he count.
Speaker 3: Are we going to be talking about goules in this series?
Speaker 1: I mean, I wasn't gonna go to in depth about
Speaker 1: it because that's sort of squarely in this science fiction
Speaker 1: region where it's like when humans are exposed to radiation,
Speaker 1: really we just don't do very well. So the idea that, yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea that, so the the gules are humans in
Speaker 1: the in the games and in the show that are
Speaker 1: exposed to radiation and instead of dying horribly, they kind
Speaker 1: of look like sort of like zombies, but they're still
Speaker 1: cognizant and they can live a really long time. They're
Speaker 1: essentially immortal, but then they can go kind of it's
Speaker 1: like they can go feral. So if they don't get
Speaker 1: enough of I don't know, it's unclear in the games
Speaker 1: why this happens, but in this show, I think it's like,
Speaker 1: if you don't get enough of a certain substance, you
Speaker 1: you can basically lose your mind and turn into a zombies.
Speaker 3: So it's like the it's like the comic book fantasy
Speaker 3: version of what we wish would happen if we were
Speaker 3: exposed to nuclear.
Speaker 1: Radiationally, yes, this is right. Yeah, in truth, there's not
Speaker 1: the levels of radiation one when be exposed to in
Speaker 1: sort of a post nuclear apocalypse situation, I don't think
Speaker 1: would improve your longevity. There's like some research in that
Speaker 1: into whether really really low doses of radiation can actually
Speaker 1: be good for you because it can kind of encourage
Speaker 1: anti oxidants in your body, like the production of these
Speaker 1: anti free radicals, and so in order to actually kind
Speaker 1: of combat the radiation, your body may also combat other
Speaker 1: disease and stuff. But it's it's the research on it
Speaker 1: is not super clear, which is why you should not
Speaker 1: like intentionally expose yourself to low levels of radiation because
Speaker 1: it could also just give you cancer.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's just a little too much of a good thing,
Speaker 2: is is?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it turns on a dime real quick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a it's not something to like, it's
Speaker 1: not something to experiment with. Like a Keto diet or
Speaker 1: you know, like I'm going to try cutting milk out
Speaker 1: of my diet or whatever. It's like I'm going to
Speaker 1: try just a little bit of radiation to make see
Speaker 1: if it makes me immortal. It's probably not gonna work out.
Speaker 3: So that I feel like that's why people that fly
Speaker 3: a lot are probably doing with those body scanners. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: you get but yeah, they're just a little little dost
Speaker 3: morning dust every every time you fly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the first thing we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: is the I guess I don't know, probably people would
Speaker 1: argue this with me, but they seem like the most
Speaker 1: iconic creature of the Fallout franchise, the red roaches, these
Speaker 1: giant cockroaches that have been radiated, of course, falling neatly
Speaker 1: into the stereotype of roaches being the one thing that
Speaker 1: could survive a nuclear war. So I'm sure you've like
Speaker 1: heard that, like roaches would survive anything, they'd survive a
Speaker 1: nuclear war.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have heard that.
Speaker 3: That was like always like a cool factor, like alongside
Speaker 3: the fact that you could cut a roach's head off
Speaker 3: and it would survive, for like it would it would
Speaker 3: keep on living, it would starve to death essentially like
Speaker 3: it it would keep functioning but just wouldn't have the
Speaker 3: capacity to eat. So, yes, that that was that was
Speaker 3: what like twinkies and roaches were the only things that
Speaker 3: would like survive a nuclear holocaust basically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is not necessarily true. I mean that Actually
Speaker 1: the head thing is more true in terms of like
Speaker 1: it depends on how much of the head you cut off, right,
Speaker 1: Like if you cut off so like there's parts of
Speaker 1: the head you can cut off and the roach will
Speaker 1: still somewhat function until obviously it can no longer survive.
Speaker 1: But the same is actually somewhat true of chickens. If
Speaker 1: you accidentally missed their basically the part of the the
Speaker 1: brain stem, they can theoretically, and in one instance in
Speaker 1: real life survive. There was one chicken that got its
Speaker 1: head cut off and it but the chopping missed a
Speaker 1: large section of its brain stem. So it's still like
Speaker 1: chickened around just without and its owner tried to like
Speaker 1: feed it by using a eye dropper to put food
Speaker 1: and water down its neck hole. Yeah it's not great,
Speaker 1: but the point is so with roaches, yeah, they can
Speaker 1: survive a lot. They're very hearty, right, But in terms
Speaker 1: of radiation. While it's true that they can survive more
Speaker 1: radiation than a human, they're a weird like poster bug
Speaker 1: for surviving nuclear falloup because they are by far not
Speaker 1: the most impressive bug. They're not actually that great at
Speaker 1: surviving radiation. They are great at exploiting human resources. They
Speaker 1: can even like karate chop parasitoid wasps that try to
Speaker 1: attack them. So, I mean, I don't love roaches because
Speaker 1: I don't want them in my house, but I really
Speaker 1: admire I admire their spirit. But yeah, in terms of radiation,
Speaker 1: they're not actually that amazing. So there's this great article
Speaker 1: called cockroaches and Radiation by Australian science communicator doctor Carl
Speaker 1: Kuzelnikki in ABC's Science that goes into how various insects
Speaker 1: can survive radiation. If you're interested, i'll have a link
Speaker 1: to it in the show notes. They are heardier than
Speaker 1: humans when it comes to radiation. So humans can survive
Speaker 1: about one hundred to two hundred rads. You will probably
Speaker 1: get radiation sickness from that amount, but it's not fatal.
Speaker 1: Radiation illness gets progressively worse and more fatal as you
Speaker 1: go from two hundred to a thousand rads, and at
Speaker 1: a thousand rads, you're doomed pretty much to die in
Speaker 1: a horrible way. And this is that too, you're very
Speaker 1: likely to die. But it just gets progressively more and
Speaker 1: more bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the like I've never.
Speaker 3: Like calling them rads is like, yeah, like it's it's
Speaker 3: the funnest sounding way to get poisoned by something measuring
Speaker 3: something that's killing you. It's like, it's, uh like, I
Speaker 3: want like exactly, like a want to increase the amount
Speaker 3: of rads on being exposed to.
Speaker 2: No, the heck you do not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just it's it's hard to uh like, I've
Speaker 3: never heard that measurement before. So that's the measurement of radiation, Yes, radiation, Okay,
Speaker 3: units of radiation.
Speaker 2: I did not know that they were called rads.
Speaker 3: That's the first time that I've I've been exposed, well,
Speaker 3: no pun intended exposed to that unit of measurement.
Speaker 1: They're not typically exposed to that, Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so so roaches aren't the best at this. Does
Speaker 3: does the paper talk about what insect they have found
Speaker 3: to be the the most hearty when.
Speaker 2: It comes to being exposed to this stuff?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so just for a comparison humans. The humans survival
Speaker 1: like up to around two hundred rads and we're basically
Speaker 1: okay other than that, like we can't survive higher, but
Speaker 1: it gets more less and les survivable the higher it goes,
Speaker 1: until like at a thousand, it's like you're definitely dead.
Speaker 1: But even at four hundred you may very likely die
Speaker 1: at the very least, it's not going to be good.
Speaker 1: But cockroaches can survive up to six thousand rats, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, like at least three times that of humans,
Speaker 1: although after about a thousand they become infertile, so that's
Speaker 1: not great for continuing your cockroach lineage. So yeah, better
Speaker 1: than humans. But parasitoid wasps so we love to talk
Speaker 1: about these. I mentioned them earlier as getting karate chopped
Speaker 1: by cockroaches. So parasitoid wasps are wasps often quite small
Speaker 1: that will lay their eggs inside or on top of
Speaker 1: their prey, their victims, and when the eggs hatch, the
Speaker 1: larvae either eats the victim from the inside out or
Speaker 1: it like sucks the juices from on top of them.
Speaker 1: They're called parasitoids because they're not only parasites, but they
Speaker 1: actually end up killing their victims so they they suck
Speaker 1: them completely dry.
Speaker 3: And one of the first episodes I was on, we
Speaker 3: talked about, uh, like the zombie snail. Yes, like like
Speaker 3: that that was just like a normal parasite, right Like,
Speaker 3: I feel like we've talked about like almost every episode
Speaker 3: I've been on, there's been some version of a parasitoid wasp.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of these these things, right, like, like
Speaker 3: the wasp.
Speaker 2: I feel like the wasp is like.
Speaker 3: The the like land insect version of a crab, like
Speaker 3: everything like it just like everything ends up being a
Speaker 3: wasp at some point like that, I like, aren't ants
Speaker 3: basically like wingless wasps?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know they're they're uh, they're related
Speaker 1: to wasps distantly, but I wouldn't necessarily describe them as
Speaker 1: wingless wasps.
Speaker 3: No, Okay, okay, I feel like I feel like there's
Speaker 3: a lot more insects that I thought were completely separate
Speaker 3: from wasps that it just turns out there another version.
Speaker 1: I see, Yeah, there's a velvet ant is actually a
Speaker 1: type of wasp.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's okay, okay, maybe that's yeah, maybe That's what
Speaker 2: I'm thinking.
Speaker 1: Of, But a velvet ant is actually not an ant
Speaker 1: at all. It's it's just it is just straight up
Speaker 1: a species of wasps. Yeah, exactly. So the one you're
Speaker 1: talking about that we talked when when I had you
Speaker 1: on the show earlier is called leucochloridium. It's a parasitic
Speaker 1: flatworm that basically infects snails, turns them into a you know,
Speaker 1: a yeah, raving brood sack. But yeah, so for UH,
Speaker 1: in that case, I think the uh snail will accidentally
Speaker 1: ingest the parasite. In the case of these uh parasitoid wasps,
Speaker 1: the wasp will lay the eggs in or on the animals.
Speaker 1: So these parasitoid wasps, one of the examples being the
Speaker 1: habro break On parasitoid wasp, which is a teeny tiny
Speaker 1: wasp actually, which can be like the size of an ant,
Speaker 1: can survive nearly one hundred and sixty thousand rads, although
Speaker 1: they were sterilized around four thousand rads, So one hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty thousand that's like, you know, compared to humans,
Speaker 1: where by around four hundred rads, things are looking pretty grim.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean, obviously being sterilized is not great,
Speaker 1: but still it's four thousand rads at which they are sterilized,
Speaker 1: so that's still quite a big dose of radiation. In fact,
Speaker 1: irradiated wasps often lived longer than non irradiated wasps, which
Speaker 1: is the idea was that maybe the irradiation made them
Speaker 1: a little more act, which may have made them live
Speaker 1: a little longer through some kind of like acquired fitness
Speaker 1: or increased activity like you've given them. Essentially, wasp coffee,
Speaker 1: which is radiation, that doesn't necessarily mean that they are fitter, right,
Speaker 1: Like if they're radiated and they live longer, but their
Speaker 1: reproductive success is worse, that doesn't make it better for them.
Speaker 1: But essentially radiations seem to be like parasitoid wasp coffee.
Speaker 3: I can already envision an Instagram ad for like lightly
Speaker 3: radiated coffee as like a new like grift, you know,
Speaker 3: like like you know how you know how there's these
Speaker 3: like trends in the health and wellness community or like
Speaker 3: suddenly suddenly everybody needs to do.
Speaker 2: Uh, I don't know, I'm trying to think of one.
Speaker 3: Now coffee aenemas or activated charcoal or uh you know
Speaker 3: whatever whatever like their current yeah exactly, uh you know, uh,
Speaker 3: get sun in between your butt cheeks. You know, uh
Speaker 3: that that type of thing I could I could imagine
Speaker 3: there being like a like you were saying, like, light
Speaker 3: doses of radiation have been found to free up antioxidants.
Speaker 3: Will we radiate our coffee slightly? Yeah, and give you
Speaker 3: a healthy dose each morning?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a reason that we do things like our cts,
Speaker 1: randomized controlled trials and health and safety testing because you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, the Fallout series is a great, uh, a
Speaker 1: great way to look at what happens when we experiment
Speaker 1: wildly with things without any concern for users. Age. Sure, so,
Speaker 1: uh but yeah, the the it is for these walls, right, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're a parasitoid wasps parasitoid wasp, things are looking
Speaker 1: pretty good for you in terms of nuclear fallout. So,
Speaker 1: you know, if I just find it strange that cockroaches
Speaker 1: are the famous ones, like these are the ones that
Speaker 1: would survive. Like, actually, parasitoid wasps are much more likely.
Speaker 1: First of all, they're smaller, so they require less nutrition
Speaker 1: than a cockroach. And fruitflies are also extremely can sustain
Speaker 1: a good amount of radiation, So there would be conceivably
Speaker 1: some other insects for the parasitoid wasp to feed on.
Speaker 1: So as long as some vegetation survives, right, some sources
Speaker 1: of food, for like a fruit fly, parasitoid wasps could
Speaker 1: survive and prey on the fruit fly, right, So you
Speaker 1: could have like a little some mini ecosystems of fruitflies
Speaker 1: and other insects parasitoid wasps. So I feel like if
Speaker 1: I was, if I was a game developer or writer
Speaker 1: for the show, you can hire me. By the way,
Speaker 1: I'm I've got room in my skaled to talk about
Speaker 1: parasitoid wasps with you. I would have something like this
Speaker 1: where it's like, sure, make it huge and menacing in
Speaker 1: legs and humans. That would be really fun. It's not,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know that there would be evolutionary
Speaker 1: pressure to make things big and this we'll actually talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3: That's actually one of the question the main questions I
Speaker 3: have is like, is there any real basis for the
Speaker 3: inclination to make these animals big.
Speaker 1: That's a great question.
Speaker 3: From nuclear nuclear fallout. So we wouldn't have to get
Speaker 3: into it right now, but.
Speaker 1: We will, you know, we will very very shortly. I
Speaker 1: just want to say that I would, you know, if
Speaker 1: you wanted to have a scene where a mutated parasitoid
Speaker 1: wasp lays eggs in you and then you they burst
Speaker 1: out of you like your pinata full of baby wasps.
Speaker 2: I think that would both.
Speaker 1: Be somewhat based in science, but also have some of
Speaker 1: the fun you know science fiction. Yeah, body horror exactly, exactly,
Speaker 1: just free ideas you know out there for you for
Speaker 1: all the Hollywood execs listening to this show about evolutionary biology. Yes,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna take a quick break and when we
Speaker 1: get back, we are going to answer that question of
Speaker 1: wha of whether it would really be better for animals
Speaker 1: to get bigger after nuclear war? Right? Is this something
Speaker 1: likely to happen? Are we just going to get giant
Speaker 1: axe Lotel's giant weird bears and stuff? So we will
Speaker 1: be right back. So the TV show, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of the games are set roughly two hundred
Speaker 1: years after the bombs drop. So would this be enough
Speaker 1: time for these huge evolutionary changes to take place? Would
Speaker 1: radiation speed up evolution this much? Now I know that
Speaker 1: there's like in Fallout lore, without getting into spoilers, there's
Speaker 1: stuff other than radiation driving some of the mutations in people.
Speaker 1: And animals, So it's not all just like natural selection
Speaker 1: and radiation. But let's talk about this idea because like,
Speaker 1: I don't think this is too much of a spoiler,
Speaker 1: but in the show, it's like, explain that these cockroaches, right,
Speaker 1: they got really big to feed on, like bigger prey,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, let's talk about whether this would happen
Speaker 1: or whether things could evolve that quickly. I mean, the
Speaker 1: thing that is quasi true is that radiation does increase
Speaker 1: the rate of genetic mutations. Usually that's not a good thing, right, Like,
Speaker 1: usually that's just cancer or an unviable pregnancy. I think
Speaker 1: two hundred years is a little bit short of a
Speaker 1: time span for things to change so dramatically. Sure things
Speaker 1: could get a little bigger or a little smaller in
Speaker 1: that amount of time you could have. I mean there
Speaker 1: are some like we can't observe some evolutionary changes within
Speaker 1: our lifetimes, right, Like you know the famous example of
Speaker 1: like beak shape in Darwin's finches, Right, Like, they will
Speaker 1: change over seasons in terms of which kinds of seeds
Speaker 1: are more available. So you can sometimes get these observable
Speaker 1: changes within shorter periods of time, within say two hundred years, Yes,
Speaker 1: you could get observable evolutionary changes, but would you get
Speaker 1: giant rad roaches like huge bugs? Would this happen? Right?
Speaker 3: And it also it also kind of depends on how
Speaker 3: short the generations are from animal to animal, right, Like
Speaker 3: the gestation period for like large land mammals is a
Speaker 3: lot longer than it is for fruitflies.
Speaker 2: Yes, so the fruit fruitflies.
Speaker 3: You know, they have like a lifespan of three days
Speaker 3: in some of them, some of the species. I think
Speaker 3: so like that you would in those two hundred years,
Speaker 3: you would have thousands and thousands of generations of fruitflies
Speaker 3: that could evolve, you know, cool lasers that shoot out
Speaker 3: of their foreheads versus versus like a giant bear or
Speaker 3: a giant salamander.
Speaker 1: No, that's exactly right. Giant lasers are more likely to
Speaker 1: evolve out of insects than like a bere No, but
Speaker 1: that is correct. Like the smaller and more prolific the well,
Speaker 1: I guess it doesn't have to be small, but generally speaking,
Speaker 1: the more prolific an animal is, the more fagundity, and
Speaker 1: the shorter the lifespan, the quicker the evolution will be.
Speaker 1: If such if evolutionary pressures exist on it. So a
Speaker 1: great example is like viruses in bacteria, they evolve very
Speaker 1: rapidly because the pressure is there on them to evolve.
Speaker 1: They're in a very fast paced arms race with our
Speaker 1: immune systems, and they are they reproduce and replicate at
Speaker 1: incredible speeds, an incredible rate. So we see evolution happen
Speaker 1: in viruses and bacteria in real time, right Like it
Speaker 1: happens within a year. That's why we have like you know,
Speaker 1: yearly flo mutants that give us different versions of the
Speaker 1: flu covid mutates, you know, and so we have to
Speaker 1: like have updates on vaccines. So you know, we do
Speaker 1: see rapid evolution in in things like bacteria and viruses
Speaker 1: and you know, and so like in insects, you you
Speaker 1: can see perhaps more rapid evolution. I would say that
Speaker 1: in order for us to get big bugs, we need
Speaker 1: to consider a few things. So like insects did used
Speaker 1: to be really big, including not only insects, but also
Speaker 1: just arthropods in general during the Carboniferous and Permian periods,
Speaker 1: with the kind of famous examples of the giant dragonfly
Speaker 1: like insect that had an over two foot wing span,
Speaker 1: which is around seventy that serator.
Speaker 3: That yeah, that is I can't I can't picture something
Speaker 3: that big. Yeah, in the insect form flying around my head.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I just eagle sized dragonfly.
Speaker 3: Yeah that that is terrifying and fascinating at the same time.
Speaker 3: Like yeah it uh oh man, the stuff of nightmares.
Speaker 2: Nightmares.
Speaker 3: I would love what Yeah, I would be I would
Speaker 3: be like, I would be so morbidly curious. I would
Speaker 3: get killed by one because I imagine they have like
Speaker 3: giant pincers, like their teeth or something.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, they probably would go after larger prey.
Speaker 1: I don't think human size though, I mean.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, probably, and I would just get maybe
Speaker 3: I would just lose a finger or something.
Speaker 1: You know, potentially. But okay, quick question, big bug, which
Speaker 1: one if you could choose, which one would you have
Speaker 1: as a pet?
Speaker 2: Okay, uh, probably a roly poly.
Speaker 3: It would be like a giant insect armadillo, you know,
Speaker 3: and like all those all this tiny little uh some
Speaker 3: people call him pill. I guess I always knew him
Speaker 3: as roly Polly's. Probably roly Polies. Those are always my
Speaker 3: favorite bugs to play with, like in the yard.
Speaker 1: You know what's fun about that is they are terrestrial isopods,
Speaker 1: and there are actually marine isopods which are very closely related.
Speaker 2: That do get right. Yeah, yeah, it could.
Speaker 1: Technically have a giant roly poly as a pet if
Speaker 1: you're willing to kind of go deep diving in the ocean.
Speaker 2: That is that is very true.
Speaker 3: Uh, and they are the giant isopods that I have
Speaker 3: seen are like they don't look real. They don't look
Speaker 3: real like I've seen. There is a restaurant in in
Speaker 3: I believe Japan that does isopod ramen. Uh and get
Speaker 3: giant isopod ramen if you if you google this, like
Speaker 3: it's real.
Speaker 1: It's real giant isopods that they use.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's like that. It's like those scenes in
Speaker 1: Emperor's New Groove where they're eating the giant isopods.
Speaker 3: Okay, so I was I said Japan, But taype A
Speaker 3: is the the the place that they have it. Uh
Speaker 3: it is uh absolutely, Like yeah, it's like the size,
Speaker 3: it's bigger than the bowl. Yeah, it's bigger than the
Speaker 3: bowl that they serve it in. Well it's yeah, sorry
Speaker 3: not to not to take it to like you.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not like a vegetarian so I would
Speaker 1: be a hypocrite if I were not to condone the eating.
Speaker 2: I just don't think.
Speaker 3: I don't think I could eat like I've never I've
Speaker 3: had like chocolate covered ants before, and they just don't
Speaker 3: they just don't taste like anything. Yeah, exactly, but but
Speaker 3: I don't know that I could do that.
Speaker 1: We're to socialized to not see insects as food. It's
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's I think it's a problem.
Speaker 1: I'm very pro bug eating. Anyways, the let's let's talk
Speaker 1: about these giant bugs. How do they get so big?
Speaker 1: One of the reasons was a high oxygen levels that
Speaker 1: allowed large insects to breed through spiracles, which are tiny
Speaker 1: air channels distributed throughout their bodies. That would help the
Speaker 1: dispersal of oxygen. And so you really want a very
Speaker 1: high concentration of oxygen in order for that to sustain
Speaker 1: a large insect body. But another thing is that birds.
Speaker 1: There weren't really birds dominating at this time, and so
Speaker 1: as birds became more dominant, they became predators and competitors
Speaker 1: with these insects, and they out competed them, and so
Speaker 1: insects got real small, which sounds counterintuitive, right, like, well,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're smaller, doesn't that make you more
Speaker 1: easily grabbed? Not necessarily, right, Like, the smaller you are,
Speaker 1: the faster, more nimble you are, the harder it is
Speaker 1: to catch you, Like what would be easier to catch
Speaker 1: like a pigeon or a hummingbird. Like a pigeon, it's
Speaker 1: much easier to grab.
Speaker 3: And all it ever matters is it's not about the
Speaker 3: size of the species. Is just passing the genetics.
Speaker 2: That's it. That's all that ever matters.
Speaker 3: So whatever whatever traits you can evolve to help you
Speaker 3: avoid predation is the thing that is going to be
Speaker 3: propagated throughout the speci.
Speaker 1: Like, if you live one hundred years and you're built
Speaker 1: like a tank, but you have like one offspring in
Speaker 1: your lifespan and you require a lot of food, you
Speaker 1: may be less likely to survive than like a mayfly
Speaker 1: that lives a day and has one hundred offspring.
Speaker 2: Yep, exactly right.
Speaker 1: Basically, what you want for giant bugs is high oxygen
Speaker 1: levels and no birds, which is like a nightmare for
Speaker 1: me because I love birds and I hate oxygen. I'm
Speaker 1: neutral about oxygen. It's good, I like it. I like
Speaker 1: to breathe it. So what would happen after a nuke
Speaker 1: or a bunch of nukes. I'm not like a doomsday expert.
Speaker 1: One of the things I do know, though, is the
Speaker 1: nuclear winter is one of the most feared outcomes. That is,
Speaker 1: when smoking debris from the bombs and resulting destruction of
Speaker 1: like a bunch of buildings in Earth and everything would
Speaker 1: kind of form these huge clouds kind of like after
Speaker 1: a volcanic eruption, and would cover the Earth, blocking out
Speaker 1: sunlight and causing a huge drop in temperature, and would
Speaker 1: last for like years. Like there's different ap Like I've
Speaker 1: seen estimations from like ten years to fifty years, ten years,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, let's just go with ten years, right,
Speaker 1: to be as you know, optimistic as possible, because I
Speaker 1: love aptimism. Sure, so right, it would this kind of
Speaker 1: like this nuclear winter would potentially kill off a lot
Speaker 1: of vegetation because plants need photosynthesis, and so if you're
Speaker 1: blocking out the sun, you may kill off a large
Speaker 1: portion of plants. This would lower oxygen levels and decrease resources,
Speaker 1: and would be likely to kill off larger animals. So
Speaker 1: really it would be the tiny insects or even microscopic
Speaker 1: animals like tartar grades or non animals like bacteria that
Speaker 1: would be most likely to survive in this circumstance. And
Speaker 1: it seems like evolutionary pressures would actually drive animals and
Speaker 1: organisms to be more small and require less nutrition rather
Speaker 1: than being big.
Speaker 3: And this is how this is also the nuclear version.
Speaker 3: This is how you get Cormac McCarthy's the road, right, like.
Speaker 2: The eaten babies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, like this is how you get that result
Speaker 3: with a nuclear winter. And this is what this is
Speaker 3: essentially what like did in most of the large dinosaurs
Speaker 3: right right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah exactly, there was a there was a meteor
Speaker 1: strike and then all the debris and just a huge
Speaker 1: dip in nutrition and rapid climate change that meant that
Speaker 1: they could not get their nutritional needs met. However, uh
Speaker 1: you know, the sort of ancestors to mammals survived. So
Speaker 1: and also birds survived, and birds are dinosaurs. They are
Speaker 1: just the dinosaurs that are left and they're hilarious and adorable.
Speaker 1: Uh so, yeah, exactly, So a lot of things did
Speaker 1: survive in that case. And so I do think that
Speaker 1: following a nuclear winter, even though I cannot stress enough,
Speaker 1: that would be really bad because like, the thing that
Speaker 1: I care about is I don't want.
Speaker 2: To trying to avoid that people.
Speaker 1: I don't want millions of people, including myself, to suffer
Speaker 1: and die. That's not good.
Speaker 2: How I don't want to eat babies.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: Like jelly babies, you know, the like British.
Speaker 2: Wait wait what we'll hold on. I do not know
Speaker 2: what a jelly.
Speaker 1: It's like a sour pouch kid without the good flavor.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's not candy in the shape of a baby.
Speaker 1: It is candy in the shape of a baby, a jelly.
Speaker 2: Oh why would you make that as a candy? What
Speaker 2: is that? Okay, all right, We're.
Speaker 1: Gonna take this candy and put Look. Look it'll buye billy,
Speaker 1: little bye billy. You can you eat that?
Speaker 2: Will? All right? I don't want something inside of me.
Speaker 2: I don't want to still awaken anything.
Speaker 1: So, uh you know, I do think that there would
Speaker 1: be a good amount of things, maybe even including people,
Speaker 1: that could survive this. It would be awful, uh, no
Speaker 1: mistake about it. But so what would happen after nuclear
Speaker 1: winter dissipates? Right, Because say it takes ten years, A
Speaker 1: lot of things die off, a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: you'd probably awful. But after that ten years, what could
Speaker 1: happen would be with the sun and with a lot
Speaker 1: of megafauna maybe dying off, like being eaten or dying
Speaker 1: of starvation, you may actually have a period of time
Speaker 1: where a lot of plant growth could bounce back. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm not no strodamis in terms of nuclear war, so
Speaker 1: this might not happen, but like you could conceivably have
Speaker 1: like it might take hundreds of not thousands of years,
Speaker 1: or if not hundreds of thousands of years, you may
Speaker 1: actually have a new carboniferous period where you have a
Speaker 1: bunch of plant life and not a lot of large
Speaker 1: animals to be eating the plants, and maybe even not
Speaker 1: a lot of birds to be eating the insects. And
Speaker 1: so I could imagine a situation in which you have
Speaker 1: the planet does recover in a way. Maybe humans don't,
Speaker 1: maybe large mammals don't. Maybe you have a huge die
Speaker 1: off of a bunch of species. But then I would
Speaker 1: expect insects and plants to eventually make a comeback. And
Speaker 1: in that case, yeah, you could have giant bug. I
Speaker 1: just don't know that we'd be around to see it.
Speaker 3: Yeah it uh, it based on what you said about
Speaker 3: the radiation levels and stuff.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know that we would we would
Speaker 2: we would be able to hang with all.
Speaker 3: The other the other creatures are around there and the
Speaker 3: the the oxygen levels that you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's possible, right, like I I it
Speaker 1: is strictly speaking possible that a small amount of humans
Speaker 1: could survive, and especially if you're in a region that's
Speaker 1: like not you know, completely irradiated, right, Like if we
Speaker 1: can survive around two hundred rads and there are if
Speaker 1: there are areas where it like falls below that, right,
Speaker 1: and I think it's possible for humanity to survive, Like,
Speaker 1: would we survive thousands or hundreds of thousands of years
Speaker 1: after that by the time that you have like maybe
Speaker 1: a new carboniferous period. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe, well, I mean that's where the fallout shelters come in, right,
Speaker 3: right exactly, So that's if we can survive underground and
Speaker 3: these these uh these shelters, then then maybe we could stick.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful, not suspicious at all shelters where that
Speaker 1: ever happens. Uh. All right, So we are going to
Speaker 1: take a quick break, and then we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about a critter from the show that I think is
Speaker 1: kind of the most spectacular one, which is the golper,
Speaker 1: which is basically a giant axe a lottle with a
Speaker 1: bunch of fingers for teeth, And we'll talk about it
Speaker 1: when we get back from the break. So yeah, one
Speaker 1: of the I guess the most fun monstrosities in the
Speaker 1: show is the called this golper. It's a giant axe
Speaker 1: a lottle and it's got like hundreds of fingers lining
Speaker 1: its mouth and throat that it uses, I guess kind
Speaker 1: of as as teeth.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Like they did a great job.
Speaker 1: Fantastic Yeah.
Speaker 3: Uh, the like the when when when it opens its
Speaker 3: mouth like like they did. They did a fantastic job
Speaker 3: depicting that thing. Yes, it was horrifying looking.
Speaker 2: Uh. And I love the axe a lottle like that that.
Speaker 3: It's one of the cutest animals in existence and they
Speaker 3: did such a good job making it a nightmare.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now I love acx lottls. They're adorable. They are
Speaker 1: really interesting as well. And I uh, you know, when
Speaker 1: I'm talking about my skepticism about whether this is accurate,
Speaker 1: I want to emphasize I still really love the show.
Speaker 1: I don't think this is a flaw of the show.
Speaker 1: I think it's okay to get weird and creative with
Speaker 1: things and have all out. Is not meant to be
Speaker 1: as scientific realistic. Yeah, it's not meant to be like
Speaker 1: this is exactly what would happen. It's meant to be fun, entertaining,
Speaker 1: and you know, have some interesting philosophical ideas, and I
Speaker 1: guess so I am having fun and being entertained, So
Speaker 1: it's doing its job. But let's talk about this giant
Speaker 1: ax a Lottel so would like we've already talked about
Speaker 1: how the evolutionary pressures following the immense destruction of a
Speaker 1: nuclear apocalypse would probably not favor larger animals in the
Speaker 1: short run, right like in the few hundred years following that, Like,
Speaker 1: being big means having higher nutritional demands, unless your metabolism
Speaker 1: is really really slow, in which case you would not
Speaker 1: be moving around as fast as this thing is depicted
Speaker 1: as moving in the show. So like, you could potentially
Speaker 1: be a large animal but have a really slow metabolism
Speaker 1: so you don't require a lot of food very quickly,
Speaker 1: and that might be a good survival technique. Like the
Speaker 1: Greenland shark is this huge shark, but it's so slow
Speaker 1: and it has a really slow metabolism and it actual yea,
Speaker 1: maybe it could survive, but the at this like very
Speaker 1: like vicious fast predator of the ax Lottle.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm skeptical. The fingers in the mouth, let's talk about
Speaker 1: those human fingers in on the axe Lottle's mouth. Maybe
Speaker 1: not exactly scientifically accurate, but I love this so much
Speaker 1: because it actually reminds me of of penguin mouths. Have
Speaker 1: you ever looked straight down the mouth of a penguin?
Speaker 3: Do they have like all the turned in like kind
Speaker 3: of spikes, those spiky mouths. Yeah, I saw, I saw
Speaker 3: the I saw an image of the inside of a
Speaker 3: leather back turtles yes as well. Yeah, they are absolute nightmares.
Speaker 1: It's like these leatherback turtle you know, see turtles, leather
Speaker 1: back turtles, penguins adorable, you know, you want to They're
Speaker 1: like the stars of a Pixar movie. And then you
Speaker 1: look in their mouths and you're looking into a circle
Speaker 1: of hell. Yes, it's it's actually quite devious because these
Speaker 1: mouths are designed to allow fish to enter in one way,
Speaker 1: but like road spikes not be able to get out
Speaker 1: the other way. You know, like you go into a
Speaker 1: parking lot and they have like the spikes that don't
Speaker 1: allow you to back up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the it's the Hotel California.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: You can check in, but you can.
Speaker 1: Never leave exactly. And it smells like fish.
Speaker 2: Yes, so yeah, no exactly.
Speaker 1: So I actually really appreciate because I feel like these fingers,
Speaker 1: the way that the show portrayed them is that they're
Speaker 1: like keeping stuff from coming back out, so it like
Speaker 1: takes a lot of force to actually pull anything back out. Also,
Speaker 1: using a an ax lodel as this like mutant is
Speaker 1: I think a smart choice. Again, I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: I think that evolution would favor really huge animals in
Speaker 1: this period of time, But salamanders can get really big.
Speaker 1: There is a species of salamanders, the South China giant salamander,
Speaker 1: who can grow to be nearly six feet long. It's like,
Speaker 1: when I learned about this, I thought it was fake.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is no, this is a photoshop,
Speaker 1: This isn't real. If there was a giant salamander, I
Speaker 1: would have already heard about this.
Speaker 2: This is like, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Don't know, like when I was a teenager or in
Speaker 1: college or something, I was like young enough to have
Speaker 1: never seen this, but also old enough to be like
Speaker 1: I would know about this if it existed, right, Like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like fantastical creature.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't anyone have told me? But yeah, it's this.
Speaker 1: It's a huge salamander and they exist and they're amazing looking,
Speaker 1: and so yeah, it's like I think technically an axe
Speaker 1: lottel could get to be huge like this. And also
Speaker 1: axe lottels are an interesting pick for this for the
Speaker 1: reason that they can regenerate their limbs, so so they
Speaker 1: and axi lottels, by the way, are basically the same
Speaker 1: as salamanders, except that axi lottels are neotonous, meaning that
Speaker 1: they retain the juvenile traits of a salamander. A salamander
Speaker 1: goes through a metamorphosis and it has a juvenile form,
Speaker 1: and then it metamorphosizes into an adult form, and that
Speaker 1: adult form can either be aquatic, semi aquatic, or semi terrestrial.
Speaker 1: The axi lottel is permanently retaining those juvenile traits throughout
Speaker 1: its whole life. You can actually inject an axi lottle
Speaker 1: with iodide, and it will force it to transform into
Speaker 1: basically a salamander, but naturally they do not change. And
Speaker 1: it's actually they're kind of like the dog, like a
Speaker 1: dog is to a wolf, as an axi lottel is
Speaker 1: to a salamander. Although axi lottels were not domesticated in
Speaker 1: the same way that dogs were, dog retain a lot
Speaker 1: of like puppy like traits that wolves have, like the
Speaker 1: floppy ears, the friendliness, the playfulness, the barking. Those are
Speaker 1: all traits that wolf puppies have, but wolf adults do not.
Speaker 1: So dogs are kind of like neotonous versions of wolves, uh,
Speaker 1: and they retain that throughout their whole lives. And in
Speaker 1: the same way, axe lottels are the juvenile form of salamanders,
Speaker 1: but in that species, in axe lottles, they retain that
Speaker 1: those characteristic.
Speaker 3: I love salamanders absolutely, they're like they're like gummy lizards.
Speaker 2: I love them, you know.
Speaker 3: It's they're they're like they look almost like translucent. Sometimes
Speaker 3: like they they look like like there should be instead
Speaker 3: of gummy worms and gummy bears, there should be gummy salamanders,
Speaker 3: like as a candy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then I feel bad eating them, I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, i'd feel worse about the salamanders than the jelly babies. Yeah, probably,
Speaker 3: but that I absolutely love, uh love saladmanders. They come
Speaker 3: in all sorts of really rad looking colors, tool designs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, really it is important. Some salamanders will
Speaker 1: have like a skin toxin, so don't cuddle random salamanders.
Speaker 1: They can also lick one. Yeah, don't lick one. Don't
Speaker 1: cuddle them. Also, even if they are harmless, sometimes like
Speaker 1: handling them can be harmful for them.
Speaker 2: But they absorb stuff through their skin a lot of
Speaker 2: their environment, so if you have like chemicals or stuff
Speaker 2: on your hand that you can.
Speaker 1: You can exactly exactly. But I also love them. And
Speaker 1: if you like see one and you want to just
Speaker 1: like hang out with it and be like, hey, bud,
Speaker 1: how's it going? Nothing wrong with that making friends with
Speaker 1: the salamander. So yeah, I do really love I love
Speaker 1: this creature. I don't think it would happen right, like
Speaker 1: I've said, with a lot of this stuff, but man,
Speaker 1: i'd love the use of the ax lottel in this design,
Speaker 1: and I do I agree. I think it's like it's
Speaker 1: something that it's like, yeah, the human fingers, and I
Speaker 1: know I'm not gonna do spoilers, but I know there's
Speaker 1: like an explanation for it kind of that's implied at
Speaker 1: some point in the show, but again not very likely,
Speaker 1: but still really cool. And I love that they kind
Speaker 1: of are like the design of the denticles that you
Speaker 1: see in penguins in sea turtles and yeah turtles.
Speaker 2: Yeah it uh Like at the I think you just
Speaker 2: nailed it.
Speaker 3: Like at the end of like any and all discussion
Speaker 3: you can have about like these animals or any design
Speaker 3: from the show, is it cool, Yes, then then that's
Speaker 3: all that matters. Like that that like I get you
Speaker 3: want to find like follow some kind of logic, is
Speaker 3: like here's the here's the rules to the universe. This
Speaker 3: is what's causing all of these cool designs. But at
Speaker 3: the end of it, like take a cool looking animal
Speaker 3: like the axe Lottel and then just make it menacing
Speaker 3: and even cooler and add some Cronenberg style body horror
Speaker 3: to it and and make it giant, and it's like
Speaker 3: that is awesome.
Speaker 2: That is a really really rad animal.
Speaker 1: And I like and I think like it's like because
Speaker 1: they do combine some even if it's not scientifically feasible
Speaker 1: or scientifically probable. I would say they do have like
Speaker 1: smart design choices for these things, right, like the giant
Speaker 1: the giant salamander design in terms of like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: would make sense that its mouth is like that so
Speaker 1: it can trap prey.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: I love the creativity of that. Another thing I really
Speaker 1: love and appreciate about the Fallout series is the giant
Speaker 1: mole rats. So I love a naked mole rat. I was.
Speaker 1: I've been obsessed with them since the fifth grade, since
Speaker 1: I got a book about them, and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: this is the best animal. It looks like a monster,
Speaker 1: but they're amazing and they're actually kind of cute if
Speaker 1: you squint and change your mental perspective.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm looking okay, I'm looking up images of the
Speaker 3: giant morat from.
Speaker 2: Fallout right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not so cute and fallout, but in.
Speaker 2: Real life, somebody's on the back of one with like
Speaker 2: a gatling gun. That sounds bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. So I don't think i've seen any
Speaker 1: yet in this series. I haven't finished yet though, so
Speaker 1: I don't know, but they are in the games, and
Speaker 1: they're these huge mole rats and I hate killing them
Speaker 1: in the games because I just love them so much.
Speaker 1: But I do actually think naked mole rats have a
Speaker 1: chance at surviving a nuclear apocalypse as long as they
Speaker 1: get enough food, right, as long as they get enough
Speaker 1: tubers root vegetables for them to survive and feed on.
Speaker 1: Because naked molerats are actually incredibly resistant to cancer and
Speaker 1: to they seem to be somewhat more resistant to ionizing
Speaker 1: radiation when compared to mice and other rodents. They can
Speaker 1: live up to thirty years, and they live in tunnels,
Speaker 1: so I feel like it's got a lot going for them.
Speaker 2: Thirty years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that it trips me out every time. I don't
Speaker 3: know why, but every time I learn that some creature
Speaker 3: like that, some animal has a much longer lifespan than
Speaker 3: I expected, it's it's always a trip trying to wrap
Speaker 3: my head around the fact that, like I could see
Speaker 3: a mole rat and it could be legal drinking age
Speaker 3: and and and just I don't know, it doesn't seem
Speaker 3: like animals of that size should should live that long.
Speaker 2: But that's that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, there are some spiders that can actually live quite long,
Speaker 1: Like there's some I think there's like a tarantula that
Speaker 1: can live to be around thirty years. So yeah, oh
Speaker 1: it's crazy, right, Like you could have like you could
Speaker 1: have a tarantla or a naked mole rat and they
Speaker 1: could be there like in the uh in the Manger
Speaker 1: with Jesus and then also be there you know at
Speaker 1: the end of that story.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. They could have witnessed both the Yeah,
Speaker 2: why don't.
Speaker 1: We have like any weird animals and mangers, right, like
Speaker 1: a tarantula and naked mole rat bearing gifts, So you know,
Speaker 1: I I really like so naked mole rats are very tough,
Speaker 1: They're very resistant. I mean, obviously they're not gonna survive
Speaker 1: in the heart of a nuclear blast, but if they
Speaker 1: get enough vegetation, which is a big if, right, given
Speaker 1: a if there's a nuclear winter, but I do think
Speaker 1: they could be a survivor. Would they become huge and
Speaker 1: start eating people? I hope, So I think they should
Speaker 1: do that. I want these guys to have a win.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like we've we're destroying their planet that they were
Speaker 3: just doing fine on, so we deserve it.
Speaker 1: I feel, well, you know, maybe not all of us,
Speaker 1: but like if they could just if they some how
Speaker 1: learned who the oil executives are sure, you know, like
Speaker 1: if we could just be like, hey, buddy, you know
Speaker 1: who tastes the best out of all of us, those
Speaker 1: really well fed oil execs, the or.
Speaker 2: The vault tech executives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I did. I really do appreciate a lot
Speaker 1: of the weird, uh, these weird creatures in the show
Speaker 1: and in the in the series especially, So Yeah, my
Speaker 1: favorite is the the axe Lottel gulper and the giant
Speaker 1: naked morat.
Speaker 3: The naked morat has like a like it like it's
Speaker 3: the size, it's like a large rhinoceros, it looks like
Speaker 3: in some of these images, So the the idea of
Speaker 3: in their their front teeth look incredible, uh, scaled up
Speaker 3: to this size, I mean at the size they are now,
Speaker 3: they're a really fascinating creature. But uh, taking small animals,
Speaker 3: it's it's like talking about that, uh the dragonfly earlier.
Speaker 3: Being able to see like all the tiny features blown
Speaker 3: up to a specific there's like an extra level of
Speaker 3: horror to it. Uh, Like it's like the it's it's
Speaker 3: the fascination of like, honey, I shrunk the kids and
Speaker 3: you see when you see those yeah, when you see
Speaker 3: those things scaled up, Yeah, it's like it is it's you.
Speaker 3: It really puts into focus how much of the world
Speaker 3: around you really is like alien. It's it's like you
Speaker 3: you imagine the most like far out there creature you can,
Speaker 3: like alien life form you could possibly imagine, and then
Speaker 3: more than likely there is some animal on Earth. It
Speaker 3: might be microscopic, it might be tiny, it might be
Speaker 3: you know, a couple of inches long, but they it
Speaker 3: exists somewhere within our our you know, uh food.
Speaker 1: Chain, absolutely. And I mean, like I do think if
Speaker 1: there were the appropriate conditions and evolutionary pressures and naked
Speaker 1: morat could become huge, just as some like you know,
Speaker 1: there are like the biggest animals in the world, the whales.
Speaker 1: Then specifically, the blue whale did originate from a small
Speaker 1: terrestrial like a tiny miniature deer like animal that was terrestrial,
Speaker 1: and it eventually became you know this massive through you know,
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of hundreds of thousands, millions of years
Speaker 1: of evolution, uh, through millions of years of evolution, Yeah,
Speaker 1: became the blue whale. So yeah, I do think if
Speaker 1: you have the right conditions, we could get giant naked.
Speaker 2: Moratsh And yeah, the whales got it right. They they
Speaker 2: came out of the water around and for like, screw this,
Speaker 2: we're going back.
Speaker 1: Us are going to be dolphins and just some.
Speaker 3: Exactly and now we have and now you and I
Speaker 3: have like mortgages and have to pay taxes and like
Speaker 3: you know, uh we we they they got the better
Speaker 3: end of that year for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe blue whales do have to pay taxes, but
Speaker 1: we just can't understand like when they're when they're doing
Speaker 1: they're like, who're talking? All right? So before we go,
Speaker 1: we gotta play a little game called gets Who's Squawk?
Speaker 1: And the Mystery Animal Sound Game. Every week I play
Speaker 1: Mystery Animal sound and you the guest, and you the listener,
Speaker 1: have to guess. Let's make that sound? Can be any animal,
Speaker 1: any animal at all, all right, So let me the
Speaker 1: hint is this. This animal makes this sound with its
Speaker 1: body as it moves beneath your feet. You hear that
Speaker 1: gurgling sound.
Speaker 3: Yeah that's an animal. That's not okay, But like that
Speaker 3: sounds more like plumbing than it does like an an animal,
Speaker 3: like an organic animal noise. So you said beneath my feet.
Speaker 3: I really I don't even I can't. I gotta guess something,
Speaker 3: but I can't even wrap my head around what that
Speaker 3: what that would possibly be? Uh, I'm going to guess.
Speaker 2: Under my feet? Can I have a hint, Katie?
Speaker 3: It does not have a spine, does not have a spine,
Speaker 3: does not have a spine. It's going to be something
Speaker 3: so obvious, and I'm I'm going to uh feel like
Speaker 3: a fool.
Speaker 1: It's not actually that obvious, so you don't worry.
Speaker 3: About it, Okay, okay, beneath my feet doesn't I can't
Speaker 3: think of anything that doesn't have a spine.
Speaker 2: Is it an insect of some sort?
Speaker 1: In not an insect? You're getting close? What am i? Ah? Uh?
Speaker 3: I literally can't think of an ant like an animal
Speaker 3: underground that doesn't have a spine. Like I'm just I
Speaker 3: keep going back to thinking about, uh, like octopi and
Speaker 3: or squid or something like that, and that's not underneath
Speaker 3: my feet.
Speaker 1: Kind of you're kind of getting sort of close, so
Speaker 1: I'll just tell you it's a snail or like you
Speaker 1: are so close. This is the giant Gippsland earthworm. Congratulations
Speaker 1: to Marian d for guessing correctly it is what Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a giant earthworm. So the video is courtesy of
Speaker 1: Giant earthworm dot org dot au. Taken by website Yes,
Speaker 1: taken by the Gippsland earthworm researcher, doctor Beverly van Prague,
Speaker 1: who has been studying these worms for over thirty years.
Speaker 1: So these are huge earthworms found in Australia.
Speaker 2: They've seen before.
Speaker 1: They grow over three feet long, so that's over a
Speaker 1: meter and about an inch in diameter. But their size
Speaker 1: and width kind of change depending on like because they
Speaker 1: can stretch and squash without coming to harm, so they
Speaker 1: like their size can kind of vary, so they can
Speaker 1: like get to nearly like ten feet long or three meters,
Speaker 1: but like that's usually there that they're also thinner because
Speaker 1: they're like stretched out. Sure, so they spin their entire
Speaker 1: lives underground. They would only come to the surface if
Speaker 1: we dig them up or they get flushed out and
Speaker 1: flooded out by rain. But yeah, they they're really really cool.
Speaker 1: Changes in their habitats due to farming threatens their survival
Speaker 1: because they like really kind of loose, loamy soil and
Speaker 1: then farming and sort of artificial stuff like changes the
Speaker 1: texture of the soil. So you know, we got we gotta,
Speaker 1: we gotta really consider, uh what we're doing, because these
Speaker 1: are amazing, and what what kind of world do we
Speaker 1: live in without giant earthworms that you could technically but
Speaker 1: should not use as a jump rope.
Speaker 3: Not not a world that I want to live in, exactly.
Speaker 3: Can I keep one of these things as a pet?
Speaker 1: I don't know that it would survive. They've I think
Speaker 1: they've tried to have them in captivity without success, so
Speaker 1: it would be really hard to keep alive. Can you
Speaker 1: keep certain worms and insects as pets? Yes, there are
Speaker 1: some that are better candidates for pets. There's like a
Speaker 1: you're mentioning, like an I wanting an isopod. There's apparently
Speaker 1: these like domestic well, like these selectively bred isopods whose
Speaker 1: faces are meant to look like little duck faces. It's
Speaker 1: very cute. What it's you know, it's super weird and
Speaker 1: it's very cute.
Speaker 2: So okay, so that sounds like a creature from Fallout?
Speaker 2: What you just decide?
Speaker 1: I know, right, it's it'll it makes sense if you
Speaker 1: look at images. I think they're just called like duck
Speaker 1: roly poids. I'm not sure. Duck isopods. Yeah, they're like
Speaker 1: they're sort of front segment is yellow, and I guess
Speaker 1: is meant to look sort of like a little duck
Speaker 1: bill or a little duck what. Yeah, it's cute, it.
Speaker 2: Does Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: And these things are selling for one hundred and a
Speaker 3: blonde rubber ducky designer isopod ultra rare. This sounds like
Speaker 3: I'm describing a Pokemon is one hundred and forty nine dollars.
Speaker 1: Well, if that's your hobby.
Speaker 2: Yeah, holy cow, I did not realize that there. I
Speaker 2: guess there's a there's a world, in a market, and
Speaker 2: a niche for absolutely everything.
Speaker 1: There really is.
Speaker 2: So okay, I'm going to go buy some isopods now.
Speaker 1: I'm going to as long as they don't escape their
Speaker 1: enclosure and then cause like some kind of ducky isopod
Speaker 1: apocalypse as they take.
Speaker 2: Over the world. Wow, this is wild.
Speaker 3: There's all sorts of designer isopods with all sorts of
Speaker 3: different colorings, and.
Speaker 1: Where's there where's our designer worms at? That's what I
Speaker 1: want to know.
Speaker 2: Good question, great question.
Speaker 1: So onto this week's mystery animals. Sound the hint is
Speaker 1: this a picture is worth a thousand words, but this
Speaker 1: critter paints a clear picture with its call. All right,
Speaker 1: you got any guesses?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna guess it's some kind of sounds like a
Speaker 3: lemur or something, or some kind of like small primates.
Speaker 2: Interesting, probably so far off. I know I am, I know,
Speaker 2: I am. Well, I'm terrible at this game.
Speaker 1: I am terrible. I am just lucky that I don't
Speaker 1: have to be the one playing the game, because I
Speaker 1: do not think I would be very good either. But
Speaker 1: fortunately I don't have to play it because I'm the
Speaker 1: one making it up. Uh. Anyways, if you think you
Speaker 1: know who is making that sound, you can write to
Speaker 1: me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com and
Speaker 1: I will reveal the results next week. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining me.
Speaker 2: Where can the people find you my pleasure?
Speaker 1: Not in a follout shelter?
Speaker 3: Yes, I let's keep our fingers crossed. You can find
Speaker 3: me at the Wapple House on Twitter. You can find
Speaker 3: me hosting the George Center podcast each week, and yeah,
Speaker 3: that's pretty much it.
Speaker 2: Those are the only two places other than that. You
Speaker 2: can catch me at work just being a boring dude
Speaker 2: during the week. Buying. Don't do that though.
Speaker 1: Buying up rubber Ducky isopods at work. Exactly getting into
Speaker 1: bidding wars on rubber Ducky isopods.
Speaker 2: I really am low key considering like building a terrarium.
Speaker 1: Now I have that thought frequently, like do I need
Speaker 1: a terrarium? Well, thank you guys so much for listening.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying the show and you leave a rating
Speaker 1: and review, I read all of them, and all of
Speaker 1: them help me tangibly help the show. And thanks to
Speaker 1: the Space Classics for there's super awesome song. Ex Alumina.
Speaker 1: Creature Feature is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: like the one you just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or Hey guess what? Mayd you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows. I'm not your mother, and I can't
Speaker 1: tell you what you to do. Say I live your
Speaker 1: own life. See you next Wednesday.