Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature feature production of My Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today we're talking about hybrids. What
Speaker 1: happens when you stick too different animals together and let
Speaker 1: nature take its course, some wacky evolutionary mix ups. We're
Speaker 1: talking scientists who accidentally created a hybrid, how hybridization works
Speaker 1: in the first place, and the mysteries of animals like
Speaker 1: the nar luga and Pisley. Discover this more as we
Speaker 1: answer the angel question, how comes scientists try to make it?
Speaker 1: Jesus Fish. Joining me today to hybridize our thoughts is
Speaker 1: my producer Joel Monique and writer viral hashtag creators such
Speaker 1: as hashtag what black Panther means to Me, pr professional
Speaker 1: writer for a v club, THHR and comics Beat Calea Maria. Welcome, Kayla, Hi,
Speaker 1: thank you for having me. So. I'm really excited about
Speaker 1: this episode because hybrids are It's a real mind bender
Speaker 1: type situation when you think about, oh, right, different animals
Speaker 1: can create offspring. Sometimes it's a mistake of nature. It's
Speaker 1: one of those things where you kind of go back
Speaker 1: to that Dwight saying of where he's you know, I've
Speaker 1: walked in on animals of all types. You know, a
Speaker 1: couple of pigs on a chicken and things like that.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, that's weird, but it's like, we could
Speaker 1: definitely happen. Well, I don't think pigs in a chicken
Speaker 1: could happen, but you know, different types, so I think, yes, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: my first exposure to hybrids was I think Napoleon Dynamite
Speaker 1: the movie and he was drawing a liger and talking
Speaker 1: about how this was a cross between a tiger and
Speaker 1: a lion, and I thought it was just funny movie stuff.
Speaker 1: But I looked it up and it's real. So that
Speaker 1: was that kind of blew my mind. It seems like
Speaker 1: a real oopsie goofer on the part of Mother Nature
Speaker 1: to have that happen, but it does occasionally happen. So
Speaker 1: a hybrid is when two species of animals are able
Speaker 1: to reproduce, creating an offspring that spits in the eye
Speaker 1: of God just kidding. So the species have to be
Speaker 1: similar enough genetically for it to work, such as a
Speaker 1: horse and a donkey. You can't breed a turtle with
Speaker 1: a giraffe, no matter how awesome. That is sounding now
Speaker 1: as I'm visualizing it. Where would all the neck go though,
Speaker 1: like one of those retractable measuring tapes, I guess, into
Speaker 1: the into the turtle shell. I'm picturing a really giant
Speaker 1: turtle shell that like acts as a turtleneck around you know,
Speaker 1: all of it together. That's so much extrovertebrate. Like, there's
Speaker 1: no like, would it be like an authoritian thing? Right?
Speaker 1: I do like that, and then it makes like sounds
Speaker 1: like that. I'm into that. It's really genetically impossible for
Speaker 1: that to happen, but sometimes there are surprising hybrids that
Speaker 1: happen on accidents. So I want to talk first about
Speaker 1: some animal news. Later in the show, I'm going to
Speaker 1: get into the nitty gritty on how hybrids work, and
Speaker 1: we'll have to talk about how generally reproduction works. So
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna give you guys the birds and
Speaker 1: the bees talk. But first I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the inspiration for this week's episode, which is this absolutely
Speaker 1: book wild news story about the sturtle fish. Yes, scientists accidentally,
Speaker 1: which is the best kind of science, created the sturtle fish.
Speaker 1: So I have shared with you guys a picture of
Speaker 1: the sturtle fish. I just want you to take just
Speaker 1: really absorb that. Take that in fish with a nose. Yeah,
Speaker 1: If I'm quite honest, it looks like something that has
Speaker 1: been created on deviant part before questions. Mm hmmmmmmm. It's
Speaker 1: kind of It's like a Pinocchio fish type of situation.
Speaker 1: It's got a pretty doofy looking mouth. It looks a
Speaker 1: little bit like a Mr. Burns fish from The Simpsons.
Speaker 1: This fish is holding its little fence together, going excellent.
Speaker 1: You know, I have so many questions. I'm gonna let
Speaker 1: that happen. I get I'm going to guess that one
Speaker 1: of your questions is how did this happen? And who
Speaker 1: allowed it to happen. So this is a hybrid of
Speaker 1: the American paddlefish and a Russian sturgeon. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a Cold War spy thriller romance situation going
Speaker 1: okay to a sexy Russian sturgeon stealing the heart of
Speaker 1: an American paddlefish. But is the sturgeon really a spy?
Speaker 1: A spurgeon? No, that's not all right. Moving on, So
Speaker 1: an American paddlefish is it's self quite an interesting looking animal.
Speaker 1: I've shown you a picture of a man proudly holding
Speaker 1: a paddlefish. It its body looks sort of like any
Speaker 1: old fish, kind of like a tuna or something. But
Speaker 1: then it's snout is very long like a paddle thus
Speaker 1: its name a paddlefish. Is this cousins with a swordfish?
Speaker 1: It's it's I don't think it's direct cousins with the swordfish,
Speaker 1: but it's probably not. I mean they're both rafe and fish.
Speaker 1: It's probably not like super super far away from the swordfish.
Speaker 1: But no, I don't think they are cousins necessarily. Um
Speaker 1: And the Russian sturgeon looks quite a bit different. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a bit of a I don't know how,
Speaker 1: like a little more catfish looking. It's got sort of
Speaker 1: a flat bottom. It's got a spiky back. It is
Speaker 1: a bottom feeder, and it, yeah, it looks it looks
Speaker 1: like a well, I'm gonna say it looks like a
Speaker 1: placostumus a little bit, knowing full well most people don't
Speaker 1: know what a pocostumus looks. That's not helped I got this, Katie. Okay,
Speaker 1: imagine a catfish with a mohawk. But then what is
Speaker 1: like the If you've ever seen the device, your dad
Speaker 1: uses to trim the hedge. Is it's like long with
Speaker 1: a lot of readers on it that's on the bottom
Speaker 1: of the fish, and it's got like little whiskers up
Speaker 1: front and like kind of like um, a mongoose snow
Speaker 1: on it. It's very strange to look at, and when
Speaker 1: it's like all shiny and black, it's like even weirder.
Speaker 1: So wait, it's d also a sturgeon because that kind
Speaker 1: of looks like, Okay, it's got such a long snow
Speaker 1: so you're looking at yeah, you're looking at a diagram.
Speaker 1: Here on the we have these fish helpfully labeled A, B, C,
Speaker 1: and D, and it kind of looks a bit like
Speaker 1: an animorph's but really what it is is that, uh,
Speaker 1: these are pictures taken by these scientists that accidentally created
Speaker 1: the sturtlefish. Fish. A is just a Russian sturgeon and
Speaker 1: fish D is an American paddlefish. And the fish in
Speaker 1: the middle are the happy little accident that happens when
Speaker 1: you accidentally cross the sturgeon with the paddlefish. Sea is
Speaker 1: Cinderella and B is the ugly stepsister. What is like
Speaker 1: smooth and sleek and kind of like dolphin, like almost
Speaker 1: the other one is like clearly the rebel of the
Speaker 1: family with the sea mohawk previously mentioned and like more
Speaker 1: of a shirk looked to it on the back. Y. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you can see that there are different iterations of
Speaker 1: these hybrids. You have quite a big genetic salad to
Speaker 1: choose from as these hybrids, and there are different flavors
Speaker 1: of these hybrids. So the story of how this happened is,
Speaker 1: I guess a meat cute kind of thing for fish
Speaker 1: or something. So aquatic ecologists at the Research Institute for
Speaker 1: Fisheries and Aquaculture and Hungary we're trying to see if
Speaker 1: they could get the sturgeon to reproduce via ginno genesis.
Speaker 1: So ginda genesis is actually a form of ace actual
Speaker 1: reproduction where an egg is triggered to create a clone
Speaker 1: of itself by the presence of sperm, but without the
Speaker 1: genetic contribution of the sperm. So basically you have the
Speaker 1: female egg and the male sperm, and the male sperm
Speaker 1: comes up and tries to fertilize the egg, and the
Speaker 1: egg is like cool, I'm gonna make a baby now
Speaker 1: see you later, get the hell out of here, and
Speaker 1: this sperm just dissolves into nothingness and doesn't actually contribute
Speaker 1: anything genetically to the offspring. And it may be surprising,
Speaker 1: but fish can reproduce a sexually, as can reptiles and amphibians,
Speaker 1: and gyno genesis is just one form of a sexual
Speaker 1: reproduction that does require the presence of sperm, but again
Speaker 1: it is there's no gene contribution from the sperm. So
Speaker 1: they were trying to get this to hap in in
Speaker 1: sturgeons by introducing what they thought would be incompatible sperm
Speaker 1: of the paddlefish, because they thought very reasonably that these
Speaker 1: extremely different fish would be too different to fall in
Speaker 1: love and create, not would be too different to be
Speaker 1: able to sexually reproduce. So for so you understand the
Speaker 1: relationship between these fish. Sturgeons and paddlefish are in the
Speaker 1: same order of animals, so they're somewhat related. But when
Speaker 1: you think about it, humans are in the order primates.
Speaker 1: So like, be like assuming that we could mate with
Speaker 1: a lemur, which you know now that i'm thinking about it, though,
Speaker 1: you could. Having those stripes, just natural, bold, beautiful stripes
Speaker 1: would be great, and being able to jump around, I'm
Speaker 1: into it. The legs incredible, Like everyone now has supermodel
Speaker 1: lemur length, yes, but you also have arms, which means
Speaker 1: short people were reaching the tops of cabinets. It's really
Speaker 1: a level of as as a as a proud five
Speaker 1: five I would yeah. And you know I when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, I took ballet and I was a
Speaker 1: big animal nerd, so of course obviously most popular kid
Speaker 1: in school. But I found out that Lemur's move by
Speaker 1: doing the sachet from side to side, they do the
Speaker 1: the side jumping and which is also a ballet move.
Speaker 1: Now I'm a bad ballet student, so I don't exactly
Speaker 1: remember what the move was called. But I Kayla, do
Speaker 1: you know, Kayla, did you do ballet too? Did? Wow?
Speaker 1: Most popular girl in school. I was a dance and
Speaker 1: theater so you and me bo, it's so popular. Okay,
Speaker 1: So described the move again, so that the way Lemur's
Speaker 1: move is a it's like a side to side jump,
Speaker 1: sort of like a sachet. Is it just called the sachet? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: it is called the sachet? So they do the sachet move.
Speaker 1: And I was watching Animal Planet, as popular girls do,
Speaker 1: and uh it was talking about how this was an
Speaker 1: energy efficient move for the Lemurs. So guess what I
Speaker 1: started to do all the time sashet like a lemur
Speaker 1: around because hey, if it's good enough for lemurs, it's
Speaker 1: good enough for me, Katie Golden. If you're a kid
Speaker 1: of the nineties, you have Zaboomafoo and you fell in
Speaker 1: love with Yes, Yes, me and Zaboomafoo, we go way back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just you know, I think that he just gave
Speaker 1: us a really great appeal that we definitely gravitated. Yes,
Speaker 1: yeah he was. He was iconic. A heart throb. My
Speaker 1: preteen heart throb was zaboom Buffoo. So anyways, back on topic,
Speaker 1: So sturgeons and paddlefish are in the same order, like
Speaker 1: we're in the same order of primates. So again, it
Speaker 1: would be like assuming a human and zooboom Baffoo could
Speaker 1: create some kind of offspring um, which obviously doesn't happen
Speaker 1: except for on daving arts. So sturgeons and paddlefish diverged
Speaker 1: over a hundred and eighty four million years ago and
Speaker 1: have been living apart ever since. So the fact that
Speaker 1: all it took was some kinky Hungarian scientists to match
Speaker 1: make for them to to successfully reproduce hybrid hybrids is
Speaker 1: really mind blowing. So sturgeons and paddlefish not only look
Speaker 1: very unlike each other, they also have different behaviors. Sturgeons
Speaker 1: are bottom feeders and eat small crustaceans, whereas paddlefish filter
Speaker 1: fleet filter feed plankton. So again, couldn't be more different,
Speaker 1: but just genetically similar enough that somehow this unholy union
Speaker 1: created offspring. So when the researchers introduced the paddlefish sperm
Speaker 1: to the sturgeons, they reproduced sexually not a sexually like
Speaker 1: the scientists had thought would happen, and combined the paddlefish
Speaker 1: and sturgeon formed the sturtle fish, which is a name
Speaker 1: that when you look at a sturtle fish, and I
Speaker 1: hope you do, and I'll include a link so you can,
Speaker 1: it does encapsulate it. Don't you think it's an appropriate name? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: Because it's kind of nerdy, but also like in a
Speaker 1: way where nerdy sort of becomes cool and you're like,
Speaker 1: what is this original looking creature that I see before me?
Speaker 1: It is tubs are but kind of weird. I love him.
Speaker 1: He's you know, it's got a lot of I think
Speaker 1: that's that's one thing you don't really get with a
Speaker 1: lot of fish, especially um, you know, sturgeons. It's personality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: turtlefish definitely has personality. Are you saying that this is
Speaker 1: the miscongeniality of surgeons? Oh yeah, maybe. I think it's
Speaker 1: a confident nose too. I sincerely love a confident nose.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense? It does? Yeah, just a knows
Speaker 1: that to me is I'm I'm so confident. This is
Speaker 1: the centerpiece, the centerfold of my face, and I love it.
Speaker 1: It's a very sirrido. Yes that I always thought sir
Speaker 1: no was the hot one, even the even the Steve
Speaker 1: Martin version. So not only did the hybrid successfully hatch,
Speaker 1: which is quite an accomplishment for a hybridized animal, but
Speaker 1: they also had a fairly good survival rate, with over
Speaker 1: a hundred of them still alive. So often hybrids can
Speaker 1: be fertilized or even born, but then they're either still
Speaker 1: born or they're unable to survive doing due to massive
Speaker 1: genetic issues. And what's interesting is beyond just sort of
Speaker 1: the physical characteristics being a combination where they get the
Speaker 1: paddle fishes nose and they get the sturgeon fishes overall body,
Speaker 1: they also seem to have a combination of behavior. So
Speaker 1: they got a carnivorous bottom feeding behavior from their mothers
Speaker 1: and this long nose from their fathers, and so it's
Speaker 1: it's just really interesting that it's it at Hybrids sometimes
Speaker 1: times act in the way that they would in a
Speaker 1: kid's cartoon, like in dragon Ball or something where two
Speaker 1: characters form a fusion and it's a fusion of their personality,
Speaker 1: and look, since in nature often works somewhat similarly, it's
Speaker 1: really interesting. It's it's very much so even hybrid as
Speaker 1: as humans like the features that we get in the
Speaker 1: traits and the genes that we get to carry on
Speaker 1: from my mothers and fathers, even the things that we
Speaker 1: don't want. So this poor turtle fish probably did not
Speaker 1: want to be partner verse. It probably wanted to be
Speaker 1: a vegan. And how are they survived? What's their like survivalry?
Speaker 1: Are they being released into the wild or they're just
Speaker 1: in this little farm? Yeah, no, they're not being released
Speaker 1: into the wild. That would be not good. You don't
Speaker 1: really want to create a hybrid and then release it
Speaker 1: into the wild, not only because probably they wouldn't survive
Speaker 1: in the wild and it wouldn't be very nice to
Speaker 1: the hybrids themselves, but also if they did were successful,
Speaker 1: then that would be damaging to the animals already living
Speaker 1: in that environment. So actually they are keeping them alive
Speaker 1: because they don't want to just euthanize all of them.
Speaker 1: So they say they're going to take care of them
Speaker 1: right now, like until I guess for the rest of
Speaker 1: their lives. Just keep them and take care of them.
Speaker 1: But they don't plan on making more of these hybrids
Speaker 1: because there's not really a scientific reason to do that
Speaker 1: other than them being adorable, sweet little babies who I
Speaker 1: want to have. And name all of them, and they
Speaker 1: would have names like like Mr Jeffers and Nosey mcnose
Speaker 1: Face and so on. Yeah, he started naming them, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I wonder how they taste. Okay, I questions, Look,
Speaker 1: when Mr Jeffers passes away, if he writes in his
Speaker 1: fish will that he wants me to eat him, I
Speaker 1: will honor it here for it. So interestingly, some of
Speaker 1: the hybrids doubled up on their mother's DNA, so they
Speaker 1: have two sets of their mom's chromosomes and only one
Speaker 1: set of their dad's, and others have half mom and
Speaker 1: half dad, which is typically the case for sexual reproduction.
Speaker 1: It's the case for humans. So yeah, it gets it
Speaker 1: gets pretty interesting. The way that hybrids work and genetics
Speaker 1: is it's something that is very complicated once you really
Speaker 1: start to get into the weeds on it and the
Speaker 1: way that these things interact. It's not exactly like just
Speaker 1: throwing two sets of ingredients in together and stirring them around,
Speaker 1: but it's a little bit like that, which makes it confusing.
Speaker 1: So the fact that they're able to breed means that
Speaker 1: genetically they may not be as different as biolet biologists
Speaker 1: had previously assumed. So either they are closer on the
Speaker 1: evolutionary tree than biologists had thought, or they aren't but
Speaker 1: they just didn't their genes didn't change that much, or
Speaker 1: are just similar enough that they can create these hybrids.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I just love that these scientists were not
Speaker 1: trying to create a hybrid like in so many science
Speaker 1: fiction horror movies and oopseeed ditters. We made one and
Speaker 1: we called it the sturtlefish. It's just fitting, like because
Speaker 1: when you see a cuttlefish in real life, that's not
Speaker 1: something I want to cuddle, but not only speak for yourself.
Speaker 1: It looks spiny and uncomfortably cuttlefish. What they're not. Most
Speaker 1: of them aren't spiny I mean not, am I thinking
Speaker 1: of the wrong fish? Let me cuddle fish are a
Speaker 1: type of seff I'm not it looks like kafulu. I'm
Speaker 1: not cuddling that well. That makes fun of us. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean look if casoolah did, if Casoola
Speaker 1: does rise from the depths, and I've been the one
Speaker 1: cuddling all his children, we know where that's gonna put me.
Speaker 1: Very fair. The sturtle fish is not the only accidental
Speaker 1: hybrid too have flopped into existence. Here are a few
Speaker 1: other hybrids humans have just stumbled their way into creating
Speaker 1: through science, gardening or farming. Purple tomatoes, grapefruit which is
Speaker 1: a cross between an orange and pomelo, killer bees and
Speaker 1: super toothnecked fungus beetles. That's just a few examples, but
Speaker 1: there are all sorts of hybrid mishaps that happen. So
Speaker 1: how do they happen? When we return, we'll get cellular
Speaker 1: to talk about how hybrids happen and how sex works.
Speaker 1: That's right, folks, We're going to see some hot mitosis
Speaker 1: and myosis action. Ah yeah, So we've talked about how
Speaker 1: scientists can accidentally create a fun new hybrid, and I
Speaker 1: think I want to get into detail a little bit
Speaker 1: about how hybrids work, and we'll have to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about generally how reproduction works. So you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna sit down with you, maybe sit backwards in
Speaker 1: a chair, actually cool, like a cool youth counselor, and
Speaker 1: be like, hey, hey, let's talk. Look, there's nothing gross
Speaker 1: about life, kids, There's nothing gross about the creation of
Speaker 1: new life. All right, let's all be let's all be
Speaker 1: adults about this. Okay, can we do that like the kitla?
Speaker 1: And I clearly cannot. Every time I say sperm, someone's
Speaker 1: just gonna giggle a little bit. Okay, alright, settle down.
Speaker 1: So hybrids can potentially result from anything that can sexually reproduce,
Speaker 1: so that includes plants and animals. It typically happens with
Speaker 1: organisms that are pretty close on the evolutionary tree. So
Speaker 1: when we look at taxonomy, so that is kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, species.
Speaker 1: You can remember this with King Philip came over for
Speaker 1: good soup. Of course, the alternative version is naughty and
Speaker 1: I dare not repeat eat it. But hybrids really only
Speaker 1: happen on the more specific branches such as order, family,
Speaker 1: genus species, So to kind of put this in perspective.
Speaker 1: You know, a plant and a human aren't going to hybridize, sorry,
Speaker 1: poison ivy fans. A a cat and a cow aren't
Speaker 1: going to hybridize. You have to be close enough that
Speaker 1: your genes at least somewhat makes sense. The user manual
Speaker 1: for each animal has to be in the same basic language.
Speaker 1: It has to somewhat fit together. So what's interesting, though,
Speaker 1: is it isn't. There can be some degrees of separation
Speaker 1: that are surprising, but most often we have interspecific hybrids.
Speaker 1: So that's when two species such as a horse and
Speaker 1: a zebra within the same genus mate, So this is
Speaker 1: typically how most hybrids happen. So you know, horse and zebra,
Speaker 1: horse and donkey, zebra and donkey. I'm really stuck on
Speaker 1: the donkeys. The donkeys. Yeah, but you know, a horse
Speaker 1: and a donkey create a mule, a horse and a
Speaker 1: zebra create a source. A zebra and a donkey create
Speaker 1: a zonkey. But they're all they're all equines, so somewhat
Speaker 1: makes sense. But intergeneric hybrids happen when animals from two
Speaker 1: different genuses, such as sheep and goats, make creating a
Speaker 1: hybrid so this is much more rare, and often these
Speaker 1: hybrids don't survive. And then even more rare are interfamilial hybrids.
Speaker 1: So interfamilial hybrids happen when animals from two different families
Speaker 1: such as chickens and pheasants, or as we just talked about,
Speaker 1: sturgeons and paddlefish reproduce, and it is very very rare.
Speaker 1: That's why that new story we talked about is such
Speaker 1: a big deal. This hardly ever happens. And finally, what
Speaker 1: is practically unheard of but technically possible is interordinal hybrids.
Speaker 1: And this is usually like only in lab experiments that
Speaker 1: you can even begin to get this to happen. So
Speaker 1: this is I think some mad scientists created a sand
Speaker 1: dollar sea urchin hybrid, and they are from different orders,
Speaker 1: the hybrids not, it's different because they have a weird
Speaker 1: way of reproducing. They have this larval stage that is
Speaker 1: all wonky. So I'm not I'm not going to get
Speaker 1: into too much detail, suffice it to say it was
Speaker 1: an extremely strange experiment and there's not really spiky sand
Speaker 1: dollars walking around the ocean floor. This is a very
Speaker 1: rare event that's usually just just in a lab on
Speaker 1: a on a hill amidst thunderclaps and lightning and mad cackling.
Speaker 1: So the reason it's hard to have genetically dissimilar animals
Speaker 1: create hybrids hybrids, and the reason that these hybrids are
Speaker 1: often sterile has to do with how sexual reproduction works.
Speaker 1: So here we go, everybody, everybody, just be adults about it.
Speaker 1: No giggling. Nothing about this is funny. Sperm isn't funny.
Speaker 1: It's very serious. So some maturity, please remember that. I
Speaker 1: love that when when I when we would have a
Speaker 1: teacher that would say, children, please be mature, mature England accent. Yes. Yes,
Speaker 1: So when a sperm meets an egg and reproduces sexually,
Speaker 1: this is what happens typically. So the game meats, which
Speaker 1: are the sperm and the egg, each have one set
Speaker 1: of chromosomes. So in humans, this may be kind of
Speaker 1: reiterating stuff you guys learned in biology class, but humans
Speaker 1: typically have twenty three chromosomes in the sperm cell and
Speaker 1: twenty three chromosomes in the egg cell. And then when
Speaker 1: they fuse, they create a single cell called a zygoat,
Speaker 1: which has forty six chromosomes. Then this zygoat must divide
Speaker 1: to create a more complex organism, and it does so
Speaker 1: through mitosis. And I feel like a bunch of people
Speaker 1: are getting flashbacks to school and feeling really uncomfortable and
Speaker 1: sweating sweaty. But let me reassure you this is actually
Speaker 1: pretty simple when you take away all the diagrams and
Speaker 1: and so on and models. Remember having to make cell
Speaker 1: models out of styrofoam and jelly beans have so much fun.
Speaker 1: I really like whenever I made a project and involve
Speaker 1: some kind of candy, even though it was like stale
Speaker 1: and covered in glue, I would still eat it once.
Speaker 1: That's like my claim to fame that I've been all
Speaker 1: the time would be like, yes, so I did a
Speaker 1: animal cell and a plant cell using candy air heads
Speaker 1: and the like yes, yes, did you eat them? Um?
Speaker 1: I did not. My mom had this crazy idea that
Speaker 1: instead of glue you could use toothpaste, and I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: that ruins it, Like, no, cleaning my teeth while eating candy.
Speaker 1: What kind of insanity? I know that I had to
Speaker 1: make two two trips to the store because I used
Speaker 1: I want to say I used. I used the sour straws.
Speaker 1: Oh nice, those are great? Um, what is it? The indo, kayla,
Speaker 1: come on the goldchee bodies. So like, I wrapped it
Speaker 1: and I did the whole thing, and but I failed
Speaker 1: because I used strawberry, which is my favorite, and I
Speaker 1: kept eating it while putting the project together. So um,
Speaker 1: you know, oh that sounds great. I would have been
Speaker 1: eating that though after even with the toothpaste. I had
Speaker 1: no shame when it came to candy. So so imagine
Speaker 1: your animal cell that you made out of candy. When
Speaker 1: you have that single cells, I go, it's gotta duplicate
Speaker 1: a bunch of times before it becomes anything more complex
Speaker 1: than a single cell. So in order to do this,
Speaker 1: it duplicates all of its DNA and then the whole
Speaker 1: mitosis charts happen where you see these lines and stuff,
Speaker 1: and really all that's happening is the DNA lines up
Speaker 1: so that when you split the cell down the middle,
Speaker 1: it has two copies of the exact same DNA, so
Speaker 1: it it doubles it's d NA, splits it in half
Speaker 1: so that both cells are now they like two of
Speaker 1: the same cell as it began with. So it'd be
Speaker 1: like it's sort of I guess it'd be like if
Speaker 1: you now that's weird. I was gonna say it'd be
Speaker 1: like if you cloned yourself by growing all of your
Speaker 1: body twice, all of your body parts and then lined
Speaker 1: up so that when you got split down the middle,
Speaker 1: each of the new use would have everything you need.
Speaker 1: But then that horrified me a little bit. I'll leave
Speaker 1: it in though. That is the coolest sci fi movie
Speaker 1: that has yet to be made. Okay, it's like weird
Speaker 1: science meets um oh crud. What's the one from the
Speaker 1: eighties where they cut the top of the guy's head off,
Speaker 1: not whittling it down. Really, that is, you know, entirely fair,
Speaker 1: insentirely fair. It's gonna come to the animator, Yes, thank you. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: it's like a combination of re Animator and Weird Science
Speaker 1: and I'm here for it. Yes, yes, And that's what
Speaker 1: happens every time you have a baby adorable. So for
Speaker 1: a hybrid, this process is a little trickier. For a
Speaker 1: hybrid to be successful, first, the sperm must successfully trigger
Speaker 1: a fertilization event in the egg, creating a zygote, and
Speaker 1: a lot of hybrids don't necessarily even read that reach
Speaker 1: this stage because the sperm and the a are just
Speaker 1: too different, they're speaking different languages. There. Then the zygo
Speaker 1: must be able to successfully duplicate, and the combined DNA
Speaker 1: from its father and mother must be legible to each
Speaker 1: other and match up enough that you create a functioning animal.
Speaker 1: So basically, it's like you have to instruction manuals from
Speaker 1: Ikea that you're cutting in half and combining. So if
Speaker 1: you get it for like, god, I can't think of
Speaker 1: good Ikea names. I'm trying to think of what my
Speaker 1: my couch was. There's a Docta table at TORP. So far, yes,
Speaker 1: I have the act TORP, aren't you? I Like, I'm
Speaker 1: not even lie though the calics shelving units are prime
Speaker 1: good no shadea at Ikea. I have a few Ikea
Speaker 1: things in my apartment. So but yeah, I'd be like
Speaker 1: taking something for the ec TORP couch and a table
Speaker 1: and trying to combine them, and you're going to create
Speaker 1: something that doesn't function. Whereas if you took two sets
Speaker 1: of manuals for maybe a couch and then a slightly
Speaker 1: different couch, but they're still couches. Hey, maybe you'll just
Speaker 1: create some kind of couch hybrid that has arm rests
Speaker 1: and cup holders. Who knows. So that answer is like
Speaker 1: why hybrids aren't just constantly happening. Why you can't get
Speaker 1: a turtle a wrap no matter how much I want
Speaker 1: it to happen. But why are hybrids often sterile? Like
Speaker 1: you can create this animal, then why can't that animal mate?
Speaker 1: And that is because of the difference between mitosis, that
Speaker 1: process we just talked about where an egg is replicating itself,
Speaker 1: and the process of myosis, which is it's great when
Speaker 1: you're just missing like one letter for a very similar process.
Speaker 1: Uh cool, move scientists, But yeah, myosis is when you
Speaker 1: are actually creating gam meets. You're creating sex cells. So
Speaker 1: in myosis, you are creating new sex cells by jumbling
Speaker 1: up your DNA into non exact copies. So mitosis you're
Speaker 1: creating exact copies of the same cell. Myosis you're creating
Speaker 1: something new by shuffling stuff around. It's like shuffling a
Speaker 1: deck of cards and now you've got a new deck
Speaker 1: of cards. So um, in mitosis, if you have two
Speaker 1: sets of chromosomes that are not from the same species
Speaker 1: and don't exactly match up, it's not necessarily death sentence
Speaker 1: like there could be. You know, it's you're you know,
Speaker 1: basically shuffling together these two manuals. There's pretty similar. And
Speaker 1: if it isn't quite right, you could still potentially build
Speaker 1: a couch. But if your whole thing is like taking
Speaker 1: these two manuals and then shuffling them all up at
Speaker 1: random and then putting them together, I don't know what
Speaker 1: you're gonna make, but it's certainly not going to be
Speaker 1: a couch. So that is why mules cannot reproduce. Does
Speaker 1: that make sense you guys? Do you have any questions? No,
Speaker 1: it totally makes sense. I would. It's disappointing because I
Speaker 1: think it would be cool if like we just started
Speaker 1: like quadrupling down on these animals, Like if a liger
Speaker 1: and I don't know what the cross between a panther
Speaker 1: and was a tiger or a panther and a lion,
Speaker 1: one of the truly exists. It looks epic as hell.
Speaker 1: And if it made it with the lighter, I have
Speaker 1: like a black body, but like a white mane or
Speaker 1: something with tiger stripes, and that's just so cool. I
Speaker 1: feel like nature really cheating us on this one. I
Speaker 1: don't want to down Mother Nature, but I love that
Speaker 1: you just described an affliction shirt, thank you. Yet that's
Speaker 1: just like the image I see. It's like always these
Speaker 1: like very like overly depicted animals and like technically to
Speaker 1: end up looking like hybrids on their shirts. Um, it
Speaker 1: was just one of those things and thoughts that even
Speaker 1: more so, I think what you're describing is panthera hybrid,
Speaker 1: which again, isn't that a that's a band Panthera. Isn't
Speaker 1: that a Panthera's like heavy metal? Oh wait, I think
Speaker 1: my boyfriend listens to that. I should know this, But yeah,
Speaker 1: Pantera hybrid is cross breed between either tigers, lions, jaguars,
Speaker 1: or leopards. And we'll actually get into that a little
Speaker 1: more later, but yes, absolutely it is. It's it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where for the sake of the environment
Speaker 1: and in terms of animal welfare, I don't think we
Speaker 1: should be intentionally creating hybrids unless there's some really good
Speaker 1: reason to do so, like a real life Jurassic park,
Speaker 1: Like a real life Jurassic Park. That's exactly Yes, think
Speaker 1: about it. If we because we if you have the power,
Speaker 1: we could make a dragon. Like we just keep breeding
Speaker 1: animals with each other until we're like finally a dragon.
Speaker 1: I don't think it'd be too hard because you think
Speaker 1: about it. You know, birds are dinosaurs. We've talked about
Speaker 1: this before. All we need is some dinosaur DNA of
Speaker 1: them that are the dinosaurs that are somewhat related to birds.
Speaker 1: Cross those up. You got yourself a dragon. Perfect, We
Speaker 1: have the recipe. Oh yeah, I mean I've been attacked
Speaker 1: by enough, you know, geese by walking past the lake
Speaker 1: or a pond. You know, have some sort of fear
Speaker 1: of those types of birds that can run very fast.
Speaker 1: M m. I'm not sure I'm ready yet, but they're like,
Speaker 1: obviously there is a want out there for this. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's people are clamoring for the goose dino hybrids, and
Speaker 1: maybe we'll make it happen. You know, it's anything can happen.
Speaker 1: If if goose I would prefer to be goose dinosaur hybrids,
Speaker 1: that happens, you know. Oh yeah, that's yeah. Let's that's
Speaker 1: technically bringing back raptors. Love it just running after you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: give them things. Okay. Reproduction didn't used to involve sex boring, right, well,
Speaker 1: life on Earth used to reproduce a sexually, so all
Speaker 1: organisms just made copies of themselves. At some point an
Speaker 1: early prokaryotic cell, something like a bacteria probably started exchanging genes,
Speaker 1: and eventually eukaryotic cells perfected the technique by not just
Speaker 1: exchanging genes, but recombining them, shuffling the deck. This new
Speaker 1: form of reproduction. Sexual reproduction allowed organisms to pull together
Speaker 1: their genetic resources and diversify, which gave them adaptive advantages
Speaker 1: where they didn't have to rely on only a mutation
Speaker 1: for offspring to become more genetically diverse from the parent. So, hey, parents,
Speaker 1: your kids may drive you crazy sometimes, but the fact
Speaker 1: that they're different from you means that we're not a
Speaker 1: huge clonal species. When we return, we're going to have
Speaker 1: some fun talking about real life exam boles of some
Speaker 1: unbelievable hybrids. Alright, so now, you guys, we are onto
Speaker 1: the most fun, the funniest part of the show, where
Speaker 1: I talk about some real life hybrids that are I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people know about the ligers and
Speaker 1: the taigons and these big cat mixes, which are really cool,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to talk about a few that I
Speaker 1: think are a little less known. So first of all,
Speaker 1: a little bit of information about hybrid naming conventions. Everybody's
Speaker 1: favorite subject on the show naming conventions, so the father
Speaker 1: species typically comes first and then the mothers because I
Speaker 1: guess feminism has not come to hybrid naming conventions and
Speaker 1: it needs to. But a liger is a lion father
Speaker 1: and a higer mother. I don't think this naming convention
Speaker 1: is always used. I certainly have seen news articles about
Speaker 1: hybrids that don't really use this naming convention, so I
Speaker 1: wouldn't always if someone says this is a tiger on
Speaker 1: it should technically be that the tiger is the father
Speaker 1: and the lion is the Wait, yes, the tiger is
Speaker 1: the father and the lion is the mother, but sometimes
Speaker 1: it's not. I don't know, but yeah, that is that
Speaker 1: has been traditionally the naming convention. And the reason it
Speaker 1: is actually of note which species is the father and
Speaker 1: which is the mother is that the genes attached to
Speaker 1: X or Y chromosomes do matter when you're creating a hybrid.
Speaker 1: So uh, some genes are passed down through females and
Speaker 1: some through males, so you can get some really interesting
Speaker 1: things that happen and with hybrids. So for instance, ligers
Speaker 1: are huge, and there are a really interesting case because
Speaker 1: they get so big because usually lions get genes from
Speaker 1: females that inhibit male offspring growth, but female tigers don't
Speaker 1: do that. So if you have a male lion mate
Speaker 1: with a female tiger, you get a liger, and male
Speaker 1: ligers can grow to be huge, huge animals, much larger
Speaker 1: than a lion or a tiger could get. And they're
Speaker 1: so pretty, they are beautiful. When we were watching Tiger King,
Speaker 1: like the rest of the world um into the liger,
Speaker 1: my husband double taked and I was like, yeah, it's real, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's real. I think that. I think Tiger King is
Speaker 1: a great example of my my annoying moralizing though, where yes,
Speaker 1: these hybrids are really cool, but then when you realize
Speaker 1: that they are these animals that have been created just
Speaker 1: for entertainment and without much care to their health and
Speaker 1: well being, it's yes, it's not. It's not great. So
Speaker 1: I can appreciate how how cool they are and how interesting,
Speaker 1: but when they are intentionally created just for entertainment, I
Speaker 1: think that is, you know, not good. That's back to
Speaker 1: what you said. There's no they have to stay where
Speaker 1: they are, there's no way for them to go out anywhere,
Speaker 1: and so it's not for conservation. Because you can't release
Speaker 1: them to the wild. I don't think it's for any
Speaker 1: kind of scientific research or any yeah, any ecological purpose.
Speaker 1: It's just for entertainment. So that's you know, like I
Speaker 1: don't I think when it's charming when the sturtle fish
Speaker 1: was created because they were not trying to do that.
Speaker 1: It was a happy accident and they were being really
Speaker 1: the reason richers are being really cool about it because
Speaker 1: they're going to take care of these fish for the
Speaker 1: rest of their lives, but they aren't going to create
Speaker 1: more of them or release them into the wild or anything.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's one of those things where you
Speaker 1: know it it's a I am still very fascinated by hybrids,
Speaker 1: but it is definitely we should not be creating like,
Speaker 1: you know, oh, we can cross this animal with this
Speaker 1: and then we get like a pocket giraffe. Not that
Speaker 1: that would actually work, but if it did work, though,
Speaker 1: I wish that ethically and scientifically speaking, it were possible.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and a shrink ray and we're just gonna
Speaker 1: just shrink a draft down and I'm just gonna keep
Speaker 1: it in myront pocket of my shirt, and we're just
Speaker 1: gonna go on adventures together. I'm gonna say. I'm gonna say,
Speaker 1: because I'm tired of being a wet blanket, I'm going
Speaker 1: to say, yes, dream your dreams, dream your giraffe dreams.
Speaker 1: Keep that science is going to continue to try to
Speaker 1: push these types of animal creation hybrids because it does
Speaker 1: there do need to draw a crowd like any when
Speaker 1: snapchatters came out, like it was everybody had to have
Speaker 1: a picture with a tiger. If you get a liger
Speaker 1: or some kind of hybrid like abolish status. I don't
Speaker 1: think that would be coming from scientists really because the
Speaker 1: I think with a lot of scientists who do research
Speaker 1: into animals, and I think it would be most most
Speaker 1: of them, I would assume would be more worried about
Speaker 1: what would happen when they do this, like the the implications.
Speaker 1: Now there is research into creating hybridized DNA without actually
Speaker 1: creating a living animal, So you're sort of mixing DNA
Speaker 1: and you're trying to create you're basically trying to create
Speaker 1: a zygote or uh an embryo without any intention of
Speaker 1: having it reach maturity, and so that I think could
Speaker 1: go on. But in terms of actually creating like living
Speaker 1: animal hybrids, I think there's you know there I think
Speaker 1: in general, scientists who would be dealing with this would
Speaker 1: have ethical concerns. Um, that's not to say that it
Speaker 1: wouldn't ever happen, you know that that there are there
Speaker 1: are obviously times when I think, uh uh, things are
Speaker 1: not you know, or it could be there could be
Speaker 1: like a really good reason to hybridize certain animals, like
Speaker 1: for some kind of say important research on genetics that
Speaker 1: could potentially help with uh medical research or something. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there's not often enough utility I think to really make
Speaker 1: it worthwhile, unless again it's one of these things like
Speaker 1: that's done in a lab and you're not really creating
Speaker 1: living animals that you know, have to live with the consequences.
Speaker 1: So keeping it hypothetical yea, mostly yeah, I mean hypothetical
Speaker 1: or at the sort of like zygote or multicellular stage.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you get again happy little accidents, just like
Speaker 1: Bob Brass making a painting, but the paintings made out
Speaker 1: of genes and DNA. So I want to talk about
Speaker 1: jeeps or geeps. Jeeps jeeps not the car, but a
Speaker 1: goat and a sheep hybrid. So we talked about this
Speaker 1: a little earlier about how goat and sheep hybrids are
Speaker 1: fairly rare because these are intergeneric hybrids. So these are
Speaker 1: animals from two different genuses. So not only are they
Speaker 1: different species, they're from completely different genuses. And they are
Speaker 1: not super super close genetically, but they can't. They're just
Speaker 1: close enough that once in a while they can. So
Speaker 1: most hybrids between a goat and a sheep are still born.
Speaker 1: They don't survive, but those that do are incredibly cute.
Speaker 1: And it's usually these happened by accidents. So like you
Speaker 1: have a farmer who has a bunch of female sheep
Speaker 1: and has a male goat but no male sheep, but
Speaker 1: somehow oopsies immaculate conception. Except no, this is not a
Speaker 1: Jesus sheep. This is a shoot or a jeep being
Speaker 1: born Jesus sheep. Jesus sheep passed. He's a savior lambdable,
Speaker 1: and we are his flock. It all makes sense, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. It's these are very cute. I've sent you
Speaker 1: guys a couple of photos of what are likely to be.
Speaker 1: Now it's hard to exactly verify. To really verify, you'd
Speaker 1: have to run a genetic test on these, but these
Speaker 1: are these do appear to be genuine cases of a
Speaker 1: successful goat cheap hybridization event. And they look like a
Speaker 1: goat and a sheep. There's really not much better way
Speaker 1: to describe it, because it's not even like it has
Speaker 1: a goat body and sheep for like, if they people
Speaker 1: blending of these two animals. They're so stinking cute. Though.
Speaker 1: I really staring at this and I'm like, where is
Speaker 1: the nearest petting farm or I can give it all
Speaker 1: the love in the world. I wasn't down with goat yoga,
Speaker 1: but I might be down with keep yoga show yoga. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's they are extremely rare unfortunately, so probably not coming
Speaker 1: to a petting zoo near you, but yes they are.
Speaker 1: It is. It is one of those things where or
Speaker 1: it just feels like Mother Nature is thirst trapping us
Speaker 1: with these adorable animals. That's like, oh, but you can't
Speaker 1: pet them because they almost never exist. Speaking of rare
Speaker 1: and adorable, is the nar luga is a beluga whale
Speaker 1: and a narwhale. Yes, okay, all right, here's what you
Speaker 1: have to understand. It's a freaking huge narwhale Like narm
Speaker 1: walls are pretty big already with beluga whale size narwhale
Speaker 1: based on this picture and the tiny little fish underneath
Speaker 1: that guy, Holy cow, and no horn. Yeah, that's what
Speaker 1: let's say. There's no horn and all. It's like it's
Speaker 1: got the head. It's got that, you know, the the
Speaker 1: what do they call it? But it's like rounded at
Speaker 1: the top the melon. It's called the melon. So I'm
Speaker 1: just like, I have so many questions because technically beluga
Speaker 1: whale can hear, like they're like they're just their senses
Speaker 1: are like out of this world. But then like our
Speaker 1: roll has a horn and so um, it's actually a
Speaker 1: modified tooth, modified her nerd glasses on um actually, oh man,
Speaker 1: it was. Is this a painting or an actual thing?
Speaker 1: The reason this is a painting is we don't actually
Speaker 1: have any confirmed photos of the nar luga, but we
Speaker 1: do know it exists. And this is because we have
Speaker 1: a skull of an oar luga from the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: that has puzzled scientists for over thirty years. So this
Speaker 1: skull had too many teeth for a nar wall and
Speaker 1: too few for a beluga. And just because there's no
Speaker 1: modified tooth, not all nar walls, especially females, don't typically
Speaker 1: have that modified tooth. So it's really the fact that
Speaker 1: this skull didn't seem like it could possibly be either
Speaker 1: a nar wall or a beluga, even though it seemed
Speaker 1: pretty close to either one of them. So a hunter
Speaker 1: in Greenland donated the skull, saying he had killed three
Speaker 1: strange looking whales which looked like a mix between a
Speaker 1: narwhal and a beluga. Now I'm not generally against hunting
Speaker 1: for sustenance, but and I do think it's good this
Speaker 1: hunter donated the skull to the museum. But if you
Speaker 1: see three potentially new animals, why are you killing all them? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You look interesting, but I'm going to murder right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you look you look like something I've never seen before.
Speaker 1: Better killing this is wild. I'm looking at the skulls uh,
Speaker 1: the narwhal, the nar luga, and a beluga whale, and
Speaker 1: it's weird because like both the narwhale and the bluga
Speaker 1: whales seemed to have a more narrow mouth than the
Speaker 1: hybrid creature that comes out of them, and also can
Speaker 1: have eyes. Yes their skull where in their skull pattern
Speaker 1: they're tiny, like right on the side like a shark,
Speaker 1: you see, where like the jaw, the jaw the jaw
Speaker 1: joint is, yeah, like it would be. The eyes would
Speaker 1: be like behind that, yeah, above and behind that. Yeah
Speaker 1: that creaks me out. You can't see straight ahead of
Speaker 1: you just on either side would brain pattern information looks.
Speaker 1: But they can also echolocate, so they are seeing seeing
Speaker 1: with their brains and sounds. Yeah, Kayla, who is the
Speaker 1: Star Wars character that's like a robot with a skull
Speaker 1: and four arms? General? Is that grievous? General? Grievous? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what skull is giving me A lot of generals.
Speaker 1: Grievous by n Lucascal and I am getting from yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, oh yeah. Theory which is funny because that
Speaker 1: is kind of what whales sound like sometimes under the water,
Speaker 1: like maybe maybe skex. This is is whales cute? Do
Speaker 1: you think we'd be able to recreate the sound that
Speaker 1: it makes? Oh? Maybe sort of like that. Remember when
Speaker 1: they took that mummy and recreated the voice it was
Speaker 1: which mommy? Which mommy was? That? Was that King tut
Speaker 1: or fancies? Was it Ramsey's? But they recreated the vocal
Speaker 1: cords and voice box and larynx and then they so
Speaker 1: they did this whole as they used an m r
Speaker 1: I and they three D printed out its voice box
Speaker 1: and vocal cords, and then they were very ceremoniously pronounced
Speaker 1: that they were able to produce a single sound from
Speaker 1: this recreated voice, and they I guess pumped air through
Speaker 1: this this model and the voice was this He was
Speaker 1: an Egyptian. Yes, yes, and and the way they just
Speaker 1: so it was so officiously announced like a voice from
Speaker 1: from thousands of years ago and now we can hear
Speaker 1: it echoing across the centuries. So to answer your question,
Speaker 1: maybe they could recreate Luga vocal voice box and then
Speaker 1: it just goes or that's like, that's it's just funny
Speaker 1: to me because that's what the That's another thought that
Speaker 1: comes into my mind with these hybrids. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: so which which noise are they going to take on?
Speaker 1: Um and and and where did that fall within the
Speaker 1: traits that they're going to great to get. That's that's
Speaker 1: very interesting to kind of think about, like how would
Speaker 1: it sound? Yeah, and it's I mean, it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where this skull it looks it looks like
Speaker 1: it's some kind of hoax, like this hunter brought it in,
Speaker 1: but he just glued some narwhale parts to a beluga skull.
Speaker 1: But they ran DNA analysis on it thirty years after
Speaker 1: it was donated, and it revealed that it was a
Speaker 1: true hybrid with a narwhale mother and a beluga father.
Speaker 1: So you know again, it's it's I don't know, it's
Speaker 1: just in. This hunter, if he's to be believed, said
Speaker 1: he saw three of them, so it probably they were
Speaker 1: probably all related. It was probably just a narwhal that
Speaker 1: all in love with a beluga and had children. I
Speaker 1: love this love story. I love how cute it is.
Speaker 1: I love that it's sort of Romeo and Juliet were
Speaker 1: from different sides of the ocean. Yeah, maybe we're not
Speaker 1: supposed to hang out. Our baby is freaking cute. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, love is a humbler near you? Uh? And
Speaker 1: here's another one. I bet you can guess just based
Speaker 1: on this photo of what this animal is. So I
Speaker 1: get I sent you guys. This is a big cat hybrid.
Speaker 1: What do you think it is? Wait? Left pi in
Speaker 1: or is it a lyon pard? And what do we
Speaker 1: call this? That's very close it's a Leo pond Leo pond.
Speaker 1: That makes sense. We always very helpful in pronouncing this name.
Speaker 1: So this is a scares me. I love it. I
Speaker 1: think it's awesome. It looks like I'm getting very Oh
Speaker 1: what's the what's what were those super colorful notebooks that
Speaker 1: we have, Frank, Yes, cool, let's girl in school. So, so,
Speaker 1: a leupon is the hybrid of a male leopard and
Speaker 1: female lion. They're very rare. They only happen in captivity
Speaker 1: because leopards and lions do not share the same continent,
Speaker 1: so they are leopards are found in South America and
Speaker 1: lions are found in Africa, and so they would have
Speaker 1: to I guess, get on a plane or a boat
Speaker 1: to make that affair happen. So these have only happened
Speaker 1: in zoos in captivity, and they look absolutely bonkers. So
Speaker 1: they have the males have a main and a spotted
Speaker 1: leopard coat. It's it just looks like something if I
Speaker 1: was if you told me as a child, imagine a
Speaker 1: cross between a lion and a leopard, this is what
Speaker 1: I would imagine and doodle on my Lisa Frank notebook.
Speaker 1: I kind of looked at first like they just put
Speaker 1: a lion's beIN on a leopard, you know, with like
Speaker 1: golden rechievers yes, yes, yes, yes, I was like, that's
Speaker 1: so cute. Owner, that's a real glared beastie. Like cute,
Speaker 1: but terrifying. I think about terrifying thought would be like
Speaker 1: oh if this happened with like a snow leper and
Speaker 1: be like, oh, that would be like the most crazy
Speaker 1: you never see him coming, Yeah, it would be done.
Speaker 1: I'm also thinking about like the vertical leaf leopard tab
Speaker 1: like they frequently take like giant deer into trees and
Speaker 1: eat them up there, and then allions like ability to
Speaker 1: just go forever as far as like running and hunting
Speaker 1: and stocking. It's right like this is if it were
Speaker 1: in the wild. Somehow, I feel like it would be
Speaker 1: a very formidable creature. Yes, I mean that is a
Speaker 1: concern when hybrids are created like that, it would basically
Speaker 1: damage the environment that you release it into by out
Speaker 1: competing the native populations. And if these are sterile, I
Speaker 1: mean it's they're just gonna outcompete but then not reproduce
Speaker 1: or anything. So it's not like you can release them
Speaker 1: to try to repopulate an area with this new animal.
Speaker 1: But what it's interesting you had mentioned like these two
Speaker 1: like the abilities of leopards to climb trees because reportedly
Speaker 1: their behaviors seem to be a combination of lion and leopards,
Speaker 1: so they liked to climb and swim like leopards while
Speaker 1: sporting this fantastic lion Maine. So it's quite interesting, um
Speaker 1: and they uh yeah, I mean again, I think it's like,
Speaker 1: it's really cool. But there's not really an ethical reason
Speaker 1: for this to exist other than to be fuel for
Speaker 1: Lisa Frank and her creative pursuits. And not to knock that,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's probably not just it's not worth the
Speaker 1: risk of creating an animal that has a bunch of
Speaker 1: health problems. And yeah, but uh, but I want to
Speaker 1: now talk about one that it seems to be happening
Speaker 1: in the wild, and it is called the pisley. I
Speaker 1: bet you can guess what a pisley is. Grizzly and
Speaker 1: polar bear. Yes, oh my god, it looks so sad, though,
Speaker 1: where is it this one? I think this one's in
Speaker 1: the wild. It's facial expression I think is kind of inscrutable.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily sad, but I do like, I do
Speaker 1: like the idea that it's just perpetually sad, Like I
Speaker 1: shouldn't exist. So these are a combination of polar bear
Speaker 1: and grizzly bear DNA. When is it sounds like something
Speaker 1: again that a mad scientist tries to create to make
Speaker 1: a monster, like you know and Leelan Stitch, the the
Speaker 1: guy he creates Stitch as basically just this ultimate monster
Speaker 1: just for the fun of it. That's what these guys
Speaker 1: sound like. Uh. And but these do happen in the wild.
Speaker 1: So there have been eight d in a tested confirmed
Speaker 1: wild Pizzley's all descending from the same polar bear mother.
Speaker 1: Which it's crazy because it's like, I guess this polar
Speaker 1: bear mom just had a fetish for grizzly bear males.
Speaker 1: We should not fetishis grizzly polar bear mom together? What
Speaker 1: is going on? He said? I will um, you know,
Speaker 1: never go back. So grizzly bears and polar bears, uh
Speaker 1: live in habitats that don't really always overlapp that much.
Speaker 1: But in the Canadian Arctic, especially now that it seems
Speaker 1: that grizzly bears are expanding their habitat further north and
Speaker 1: polar bears might start to be pushed out of their
Speaker 1: normal habitat due to global warming. These grizzly bear and
Speaker 1: polar bear encounters are more likely, so when they do,
Speaker 1: like so you can picture what these guys look like.
Speaker 1: It looks the one I'm looking at now. Of course
Speaker 1: they're going to be different depending on what salad of
Speaker 1: jeans they get. But this one is white with a
Speaker 1: little bit off white like, uh, sort of a cream
Speaker 1: colored like a creme brulet situation going on a real
Speaker 1: toasted marshmallow of a bear. I'm just hungry, is the thing.
Speaker 1: But it has the it has a it's big. It's
Speaker 1: maybe a little bigger than a grizzly bear, but it
Speaker 1: has a grizzly bear shaped head, but polar bear fur
Speaker 1: and kind of I don't know. It really doesn't look
Speaker 1: like a blend of the two, but it's definitely Its
Speaker 1: head is a little more grizzly bear. Maybe it's snout
Speaker 1: is a little longer because with polar bears they are
Speaker 1: long and big, so their heads are actually kind of long,
Speaker 1: whereas grizzly bears have sort of a more squished in
Speaker 1: head and rounder head. But yeah, this is really cute.
Speaker 1: But if I saw this thing in the wild, I
Speaker 1: would first pee myself and then you know, a wait, deaf.
Speaker 1: I feel like, what else could you possibly do? This
Speaker 1: thing is massive. We know polar both grizzlies and polar bears,
Speaker 1: giant paws with big claws. Although we've been talking a
Speaker 1: lot of which animals we'd want to cuddle and if
Speaker 1: it wasn't a certain death, I'm hell out of this guy.
Speaker 1: He's so cute. Oh my god, I love him. These
Speaker 1: guys are just like up in the Yukon or something
Speaker 1: like where their territories bumped, just chilling. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: so like in the in the Canadian Arctic regions. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like they don't typically share the same environment, but
Speaker 1: sometimes there's a little bit of overlap. And I guess
Speaker 1: that there was that polar bear lady who was just
Speaker 1: super horny for grizzlies. I wonder what grizzlies to have.
Speaker 1: The polar bears don't look they're like polar bears are
Speaker 1: all worried about their environment. And she's like, these guys
Speaker 1: are way stressed out. I'm gonna go down with the
Speaker 1: grizzlies where they're just chilling. They made they made her
Speaker 1: like a verry salad, and she'd never had it before,
Speaker 1: and she was won over good food will do that.
Speaker 1: Like all these dudes are cooking. I'm moving down here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a seasoned, very salad. I'm where I will be forever.
Speaker 1: I'm also just like obsessed with that little streak at
Speaker 1: the top. I just like like, I just it's got
Speaker 1: a little brown crimbrulet streak at the top. It's very cute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like after he runs after me and they tranquility, I
Speaker 1: will pitch him. But after after he like rips my
Speaker 1: face off and is wearing it as a hat, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be like, oh cute. My dad so he is
Speaker 1: a ocean physics researcher and he's actually been to the
Speaker 1: Arctic a few times because they do research on the
Speaker 1: oceans up near the Arctic, and they actually will go
Speaker 1: out on the ice to do research on the water.
Speaker 1: They're underneath the ice and they will sometimes encounter polar bears.
Speaker 1: And I think my dad has seen a polar bear
Speaker 1: in person before, and he says it is about as
Speaker 1: scary as you would expect, because they said it's just hard,
Speaker 1: like photos don't really do them justice. They're just such
Speaker 1: huge animals they are, and they're so you can just
Speaker 1: sense how powerful they are. So I think if I
Speaker 1: saw a polar bear and a grizzly bear in the
Speaker 1: wild and somehow lived to tell the tale, I would
Speaker 1: not be afraid of anything. Ever, Again, she was reasonable.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to picture like when they're little and they're
Speaker 1: super cute, big eyes, and if they're dyet, like I
Speaker 1: know grizzlies eat like fish when the salmon are migrating,
Speaker 1: but they eat like like a deer. Two right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're quite um, are omnivorous and they will eat.
Speaker 1: And these guys are super good swimmers. I think I
Speaker 1: just want to I know we can't. I just want
Speaker 1: to see all these animals in the l being there
Speaker 1: like apex predator selves, living their best lives, like tearing
Speaker 1: out the other animals, like how are they doing this?
Speaker 1: Who's this new kid on the block? My god? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want them to thrive and shine and not
Speaker 1: be just our entertainment and create the ultimate bear, and
Speaker 1: it just takes over the whole world, creates a bare society.
Speaker 1: They're president, their president Pisle get it trending, folks, get
Speaker 1: it trending, Like someone's going to listen to this and
Speaker 1: start writing on a treatment or a movie that is
Speaker 1: all about all of these hybrid animals taking over the world. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah do it? K Poppers stand this bear wanted him
Speaker 1: to be in Black Pink's next videos. Yes, please see
Speaker 1: you love them like in their like predatorial adult stage.
Speaker 1: I just want all of them as babies and then
Speaker 1: I'll just give them to you when they're ready to go. Yes,
Speaker 1: a nursery full of hybrid animal ow boy, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: what have I done? What? What hath I wrot? I do?
Speaker 1: I do love this story though, because it is it
Speaker 1: is just like a love story where it's just these
Speaker 1: bears getting it on in nature and creating these mega bears.
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm charmed by it. I'm sold on
Speaker 1: the Pisley here definitely here for him. I'm sure it
Speaker 1: has there's like negative implications about climate change and habit
Speaker 1: has changing, blah blah blah. Oh I'm Katie. I care
Speaker 1: about the environment and I'm always couldn't be there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: met Pisley cubs. Pisley cubs. Yeah, but they are wonderful animals. Obviously,
Speaker 1: if you ever tried to keep one as a pett
Speaker 1: it would destroy you, uh, in a fashion that's probably
Speaker 1: really well deserved, but you know, uh it's ah, but yes,
Speaker 1: I do love them. Look at pictures of the Pisley.
Speaker 1: Behold the Pisley, Worship the Pisley, stand the Pisley. But
Speaker 1: that is gonna do it for us today. There are
Speaker 1: lots of more. There are many more hybrids. One little
Speaker 1: thing to know. If you google image cool animal hybrids,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a lot of photoshops. So just warning
Speaker 1: you about that that No, there is not a shark
Speaker 1: horse hybrid, just so you don't kill our dreams. Katie. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you guys so much for joining me today. Of
Speaker 1: course I was joined by Kayla and Joel and so Kaylo,
Speaker 1: do you have anything to pluck? Um? No, I'm just
Speaker 1: hearing my biz out on those Twitter streets, you know,
Speaker 1: just trying to navigate and they sink, so you can't
Speaker 1: follow me at Maria double underscore e sella and there
Speaker 1: is psilo I s l a. Don't FORKI do that.
Speaker 1: I don't think you have to. Uh, I don't think
Speaker 1: you have to qualify. Like there's a knee in there,
Speaker 1: please include it because that's how it's um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you can find me there. I'm just there, work as
Speaker 1: a PR and marketing associate for Popagenda and meet you
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff with indie games. So if your
Speaker 1: indie games you've been hitting up, do you want about pislies? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm going to pitch that to one of our developers yet.
Speaker 1: And thanks to our producer Joel Monique joining us on
Speaker 1: the hot mic. Always good to have you on on Actually, wait, Joel,
Speaker 1: do you want to plug your Twitter? If you're so
Speaker 1: inclined to follow me on Twitter, you don't have to. Don't.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about the If you want you do, don't
Speaker 1: listen to it's compulsory. You can find me at Monique
Speaker 1: it's j l E l l E m l N
Speaker 1: I q u E. And you can find us on
Speaker 1: the internet at Creature Feature Pod on Instagram at 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. And of
Speaker 1: course you can find me Katie Golden on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Katie Golden. That's g O L d I N just
Speaker 1: my Katie thoughts. Also, I'm doing some some cartoons, some
Speaker 1: some hot Peanuts parodies of the the of Charles Brown
Speaker 1: and and snoopert his dog. Totally original concept, so check
Speaker 1: that out if you If you so shoots and as always,
Speaker 1: I am at pro bird writes on Twitter, where I
Speaker 1: make the argument that the bird reckoning is inevitable, so
Speaker 1: just accept it. Thank you too, Thanks everybody for listening.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying the show, kurse splash that button which button?
Speaker 1: I don't know? The stars the rating to subscribe, leave
Speaker 1: a review if you so choose. I read every single
Speaker 1: review and appreciate all of them. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: and thank you to the Space Cossacks for their super
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Speaker 1: and somehow you're receiving this podcast, I don't care, however
Speaker 1: you do it. Thanks everybody, See you next Wednesday.